In the Inca’s Position
Long after the President reconsidered his hasty surmise that the impending war was “artificial crisis,” Congress continued to waver, and no one put forward a definite and working policy for the head who avowed that he never had one. In his despondency and lonesomeness, he welcomed an old friend from his State, who, however, like the rest, had his frets and rubs to seek solace for.
“You know better than any man living that, from my boyhood up, my ambition was to be President. I am, at least, President of one part of the divided country; but look at me! With a fire in my front and one in my rear to contend with, and not receiving that cordial cooperative support from Congress, reasonably expected, with an active and formidable enemy in the field threatening the very life-blood of the government, my position is anything but on a bed of roses.”