What changes might have been wrought if he had lived to make the promised exposition can only be surmised.

It may be well believed however that the confidence reposed in him universally in the North, and the respect he had as universally won in the South, would have given such commanding power to his counsel as would have seriously influenced, if not promptly directed, the mode of reconstruction.

Mr.Lincoln's position when he spoke his closing words was very different from that which he held when Senator Wade and Henry Winter Davis ventured upon a controversy with him the preceding summer--boldly assailing his measures and challenging his judgment.

He was at that time a candidate for re-election, undergoing harsh criticism and held rigidly accountable for the prolongation of the war.

Now he stood triumphant in every public relation--chosen by an almost unprecedented vote to his second term, the rebellion conquered, the Union firmly re-established! Never since Washington's exalted position at the close of the Revolution, or his still more elevated station when he entered upon the Presidency, has there been a man in the United States of so great personal power and influence as Mr.Lincoln then wielded.
It was perhaps not unnatural that from the day of Mr.Lincoln's death, his views as to the proper mode of reconstruction should become a subject of warm dispute between the partisans of different theories; yet no controversy could be less profitable for the single reason that it was absolutely incapable of settlement.