What to Do?

George Bancroft, letter to Francis Lieber (October 29, 1862), quoted by Bruce Catton, Never Call Retreat (Garden City: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1965), p. 25 (our President = Abraham Lincoln): How can we reach our President with advice? He is ignorant, self-willed, and is surrounded by men some of whom are almost as ignorant as himself. So we have the dilemma put to us, What to do, when his power must continue two years longer and when the existence of our country may be endangered before he can be replaced by a man of sense. How hard, in order to save the country, to sustain a man who is incompetent.