Mr. Lincoln has been tested as few governors have ever
been tested, and though he may not always have risen fully to the level of a great emergency, he has seldom failed to display a noble im- partiality, a great firmness of purpose, and a sagacious, if some- what utilitarian, judgment. His reply to the Missouri delega- tion who memorialized him to remove General Schofield, chiefly because that General had refused to permit the proposed retalia- tory incursion of the Kansas men into Missouri after the hor- rible massacre in Lawrence by the Confederate guerillas, is a model of firm and temperate good sense. " While no punish- ment," he says, "could be too sudden or too severe for these murderers, I am well satisfied that the preventing of the threatened remedial raid into Missouri was the only safe way to avoid an indiscriminate massacre there, including, probably, more innocent than guilty. Instead of condemning, I, therefore, approve what General Schofield did in that respect. With my
present views I must decline to remove General Schofield." The letter is not only good, but dignified. " I hold whoever commands i Missouri, or elsewhere," it concludes, "responsible to me, and net to either Radicals or Conservatives. It is my duty to hear all ; but, at last, I must within my sphere judge what to do and what to forbear." We believe a juster man never held the reins of government.
