These men took the ground that the war was one of
aggression and spoliation. Their views, which were quite prevalent
throughout New England, are effectively presented in Lowell's _Biglow
Papers._ When the army was once in the field, Lincoln was, however,
ready to give his Congressional vote for the fullest and most energetic
support. A year or more later, he worked actively for the election of
General Taylor. He took the ground that the responsibility for the war
rested not with the soldiers who had fought it to a successful
conclusion, but with the politicians who had devised the original
land-grabbing scheme.
In 1849, we find Lincoln's name connected with an invention for lifting
vessels over shoals. His sojourn on the Sangamon River and his memory of
the attempt, successful for the moment but ending in failure, to make
the river available for steamboats, had attracted his attention to the
problem of steering river vessels over shoals.
In 1864, when I was campaigning on the Red River in Louisiana, I noticed
with interest a device that had been put into shape for the purpose of
lifting river steamers over shoals. This device took the form of stilts
which for the smaller vessels (and only the smaller steamers could as a
rule be managed in this way) were fastened on pivots from the upper deck
on the outside of the hull and were worked from the deck with a force of
two or three men at each stilt.
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