Lincoln was “more distressed” by news of the senatorial caucus “than by any event of my life.” “What do these men want?” he asked a friend. “They wish to get rid of me, and sometimes I am more than half disposed to gratify them. . . . We are now on the brink of destruction. It appears to me that the Almighty is against us.”14 But the president pulled himself together and handled the affair in a manner that ultimately strengthened his leadership.
