Though the Vindictives kept a stealthy silence during July, they were sharpening their claws and preparing for a tiger spring whenever the psychological moment should arrive. Those two who had had charge of the Reconstruction Bill prepared a paper, in some ways the most singular paper of the war period, which has established itself in our history as the Wade-Davis Manifesto. This was to be the deadly shot that should unmask the Vindictive batteries, bring their war upon the President out of the shadows into the open.
Greeley's fiasco and Greeley's mortification both played into their hands. The fiasco contributed to depress still more the despairing North. By this time, there was general appreciation of the immensity of Grant's failure, not only at Cold Harbor, but in the subsequent slaughter of the futile assault upon Petersburg. We have the word of a member of the Committee that the despair over Grant translated itself into blame of the Administration.(1) The Draft Proclamation; the swiftly traveling report that the government had wilfully brought the peace negotiations to a stand-still; the continued cry that the war was hopeless; all these produced, about the first of August, an emotional crisis—just the sort of occasion for which Lincoln's enemies were waiting.
Then, too, there was Greeley's mortification. The Administration papers made him a target for sarcasm. The Times set the pace with scornful demands for "No more back door diplomacy."(2) Greeley answered in a rage. He permitted himself to imply that the President originated the Niagara negotiation and that Greeley "reluctantly" became a party to it. That "reluctantly" was the truth, in a sense, but how falsely true! Wade and Davis had him where they wanted him. On the fifth of August, The Tribune printed their manifesto. It was an appeal to "the supporters of the Administration . . . to check the encroachment of the Executive on the authority of Congress, and to require it to confine itself to its proper sphere." It insinuated the basest motives for the President's interest in reconstruction, and for rejecting their own bill. "The President by preventing this bill from becoming a law, holds the electoral votes of the Rebel States at the dictation of his personal ambition. . . . If electors for President be allowed to be chosen in either of those States, a sinister light will be cast on the motives which induced the President to 'hold for naught' the will of Congress rather than his government in Louisiana and Arkansas."
After a long discussion of his whole course with regard to reconstruction, having heaped abuse upon him with shocking liberality, the Manifesto concluded:
"Such are the fruits of this rash and fatal act of the President—a blow at the friends of the Administration, at the rights of humanity, and at the principles of Republican government The President has greatly presumed on the forbearance which the supporters of his Administration have so long practised in view of the arduous conflict in which we are engaged, and the reckless ferocity of our political opponents. But he must understand that our support is of a 'cause' and not of a man; that the authority of Congress is paramount and must be respected; that the whole body of the Union men in Congress will not submit to be impeached by him of rash and unconstitutional legislation; and if he wishes our support he must confine him-self to his executive duties—to obey and execute, not make the laws—to suppress by arms, armed rebellion, and leave political reorganization to Congress. If the supporters of the government fail to insist on this they become responsible for the usurpations they fail to rebuke and are justly liable to the indignation of the people whose rights and security, committed to their keeping, they sacrifice. Let them consider the remedy of these usurpations, and, having found it, fearlessly execute it."
To these incredible charges, Lincoln made no reply. He knew, what some statesmen never appear to know, the times when one should risk all upon that French proverb, "who excuses, accuses." However, he made his futile attempt to bring Greeley to reason, to induce him to tell the truth about Niagara without confessing to the country the full measure of the despair that had inspired his course. When Greeley refused to do so, Lincoln turned to other matters, to preparation for the draft, and grimly left the politicians to do their worst. They went about it with zest. Their reliance was chiefly their power to infect the type of party man who is easily swept from his moorings by the cry that the party is in danger, that sacrifices must be made to preserve the party unity, that otherwise the party will go to pieces. By the middle of August, six weeks after Lincoln's defiance of them on the fourth of July, they were in high feather, convinced that most things were coming their way. American politicians have not always shown an ability to read clearly the American people. Whether the politicians were in error on August 14, 1864, and again on August twenty-third, two dates that were turning points, is a matter of debate to this day. As to August fourteenth, they have this, at least, in their defense. The country had no political observer more keen than the Scotch free lance who edited The New York Herald. It was Bennett's editorial view that Lincoln would do well to make a virtue of necessity and withdraw his candidacy because "the dissatisfaction which had long been felt by the great body of American citizens has spread even to his own supporters."(3) Confident that a great reaction against Lincoln was sweeping the country, that the Manifesto had been launched in the very nick of time, a meeting of conspirators was held in New York, at the house of David Dudley Field, August fourteenth. Though Wade was now at his home in Ohio, Davis was present. So was Greeley. It was decided to ask Lincoln to withdraw. Four days afterward, a "call" was drawn up and sent out confidentially near and far to be signed by prominent politicians. The "call" was craftily worded. It summoned a new Union Convention to meet in Cincinnati, September twenty-eighth, for the purpose either of rousing the party to whole-hearted support of Lincoln, or of uniting all factions on some new candidate. Greeley who could not attend the committee which drew up the "call" wrote that "Lincoln is already beaten."(4)
Meanwhile, the infection of dismay had spread fast among the Lincoln managers. Even before the meeting of the conspirators on the fourteenth, Weed told the President that he could not be reelected.(5)
One of his bravest supporters, Washburne, came to the dismal conclusion that "were an election to be held now in Illinois, we should be beaten." Cameron, who had returned from Russia and was working hard for Lincoln in Pennsylvania, was equally discouraging. So was Governor Morton in Indiana. From all his "stanchest friends," wrote his chief manager to Lincoln, "there was but one report. The tide is setting strongly against us."(6)
Lincoln's managers believed that the great host of free voters who are the balance of power in American politics, were going in a drove toward the camp of the Democrats. It was the business of the managers to determine which one, or which ones, among the voices of discontent, represented truly this controlling body of voters. They thought they knew. Two cries, at least, that rang loud out of the Babel of the hour, should be heeded. One of these harked back to Niagara. In the anxious ears of the managers it dinned this charge: "the Administration prevented negotiations for peace by tying together two demands, the Union must be restored and slavery must be abolished; if Lincoln had left out slavery, he could have had peace in a restored Union." It was ridiculous, as every one who had not gone off his head knew. But so many had gone off their heads. And some of Lincoln's friends were meeting this cry in a way that was raising up other enemies of a different sort. Even so faithful a friend as Raymond, editor of The Times and Chairman of the Republican National Executive Committee, labored hard in print to prove that because Lincoln said he "would consider terms that embraced the integrity of the Union and the abandonment of slavery, he did not say that he would not receive them unless they embraced both these conditions."(7) What would Sumner and all the Abolitionists say to that? As party strategy, in the moment when the old Vindictive Coalition seemed on the highroad to complete revival, was that exactly the tune to sing? Then too there was the other cry that also made a fearful ringing in the ears of the much alarmed Executive Committee. There was wild talk in the air of an armistice. The hysteric Greeley had put it into a personal letter to Lincoln. "I know that nine-tenths of the whole American people, North and South, are anxious for peace—peace on any terms—and are utterly sick of human slaughter and devastation. I know that, to the general eye, it now seems that the Rebels are anxious to negotiate and that we repulse their advances. . . . I beg you, I implore you to inaugurate or invite proposals for peace forthwith. And in case peace can not now be made, consent to an armistice for one year, each party to retain all it now holds, but the Rebel ports to be opened. Meantime, let a national convention be held and there will surely be no war at all events."(8)
This armistice movement was industriously advertised in the Democratic papers. It was helped along by the Washington correspondent of The Herald who sowed broadcast the most improbable stories with regard to it. Today, Secretary Fessenden was a convert to the idea; another day, Senator Wilson had taken it up; again, the President, himself, was for an armistice.(9)
A great many things came swiftly to a head within a few days before or after the twentieth of August. Every day or two, rumor took a new turn; or some startling new alignment was glimpsed; and every one reacted to the news after his kind. And always the feverish question, what is the strength of the faction that approves this? Or, how far will this go toward creating a new element in the political kaleidoscope? About the twentieth of August, Jaquess and Gilmore threw a splashing stone into these troubled waters. They published in The Atlantic a full account of their interview with Davis, who, in the clearest, most unfaltering way had told them that the Southerners were fighting for independence and for nothing else; that no compromise over slavery; nothing but the recognition of the Confederacy as a separate nation would induce them to put up their bright swords. As Lincoln subsequently, in his perfect clarity of speech, represented Davis: "He would accept nothing short of severance of the Union—precisely what we will not and can not give.... He does not attempt to deceive us. He affords us no excuse to deceive ourselves. He can not voluntarily reaccept the Union; we can not voluntarily yield it"(10)
Whether without the intrusion of Jaquess and Gilmore, the Executive Committee would have come to the conclusion they now reached, is a mere speculation. They thought they were at the point of desperation. They thought they saw a way out, a way that reminds one of Jaquess and Gilmore. On the twenty-second, Raymond sent that letter to Lincoln about "the tide setting strongly against us." He also proposed the Committee's way of escape: nothing but to offer peace to Davis "on the sole condition of acknowledging the supremacy of the Constitution—all other questions to be settled in a convention of the people of all the States."(11) He assumed the offer would be rejected. Thus the clamor for negotiation would be met and brought to naught. Having sent off his letter, Raymond got his committee together and started for Washington for a council of desperation.
And this brings us to the twenty-third of August. On that day, pondering Raymond's letter, Lincoln took thought with himself what he should say to the Executive Committee. A mere opportunist would have met the situation with some insincere proposal, by the formulation of terms that would have certainly been rejected. We have seen how Lincoln reasoned in such a connection when he drew up the memorandum for Jaquess and Gilmore. His present problem involved nothing of this sort. What he was thinking out was how best to induce the committee to accept his own attitude; to become for the moment believers in destiny; to nail their colors; turn their backs as he was doing on these devices of diplomacy; and as to the rest-permit to heaven.
Whatever his managers might think, the serious matter in Lincoln's mind, that twenty-third of August, was the draft. And back of the draft, a tremendous matter which probably none of them at the time appreciated. Assuming that they were right in their political forecast, assuming that he was not to be reelected, what did it signify? For him, there was but one answer: that he had only five months in which to end the war. And with the tide running strong against him, what could he do? But one thing: use the war powers while they remained in his hands in every conceivable way that might force a conclusion on the field of battle. He recorded his determination. A Cabinet meeting was held on the twenty-third. Lincoln handed his Ministers a folded paper and asked them to write their initials on the back. At the time he gave them no intimation what the paper contained. It was the following memorandum: "This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be reelected. Then it will be my duty to so cooperate with the President elect as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration, as he will have secured his election on such ground that he can not possibly save it afterward."(12)
He took into his confidence "the stronger half of the Cabinet, Seward, Stanton and Fessenden," and together they assaulted the Committee.(13) It was a reception amazingly different from what had been expected. Instead of terrified party diplomats shaking in their shoes, trying to face all points at once, morbid over possible political defeats in every quarter, they found what may have seemed to them a man in a dream; one who was intensely sad, but who gave no suggestion of panic, no solicitude about his own fate, no doubt of his ultimate victory. Their practical astuteness was disarmed by that higher astuteness attained only by peculiar minds which can discern through some sure interior test the rare moment when it is the part of wisdom not to be astute at all.
Backed by those strong Ministers, all entirely under his influence, Lincoln fully persuaded the Committee that at this moment, any overture for peace would be the worst of strategic blunders, "would be worse than losing the presidential contest—it would be ignominiously surrendering it in advance."(14)
Lincoln won a complete spiritual victory over the Committee. These dispirited men, who had come to Washington to beg for a policy of negotiation, went away in such a different temper that Bennett's Washington correspondent jeered in print at the "silly report" of their having assembled to discuss peace.(15) Obviously, they had merely held a meeting of the Executive Committee. The Tribune correspondent telegraphed that they were confident of Lincoln's reelection.(16)
On the day following the conference with Lincoln, The Times announced: "You may rest assured that all reports attributing to the government any movements looking toward negotiations for peace at present are utterly without foundation. . . . The government has not entertained or discussed the project of proposing an armistice with the Rebels nor has it any intention of sending commissioners to Richmond . . . its sole and undivided purpose is to prosecute the war until the rebellion is quelled. . . ." Of equal significance was the announcement by The Times, fairly to be considered the Administration organ: "The President stands firm against every solicitation to postpone the draft."(17)
The question insists upon rising again: were the anti-Lincoln politicians justified in their exultation, the Lincoln politicians justified in their panic? Nobody will ever know; but it is worth considering that the shrewd opportunist who expressed himself through The Herald changed his mind during a fortnight in August. By one of those odd coincidences of which history is full, it was on the twenty-third of the month that he warned the Democrats and jeered at the Republicans in this insolent fashion:
"Many of our leading Republicans are now furious against Lincoln. . . . Bryant of The Evening Post is very angry with Lincoln because Henderson, The Post's publisher, has been arrested for defrauding the government.
"Raymond is a little shaky and has to make frequent journeys to Washington for instructions. . . .
"Now, to what does all this amount? Our experience of politics convinces us that it amounts to nothing. The sorehead Republicans complain that Lincoln gives them either too little shoddy or too little nigger. What candidate can they find who will give them more of either?
"The Chicago (Democratic) delegates must very emphatically comprehend that they must beat the whole Re-publican party if they elect their candidate. It is a strong party even yet and has a heavy army vote to draw upon. The error of relying too greatly upon the weakness of the Republicans as developed in the quarrels of the Republican leaders, may prove fatal . . . the Republican leaders may have their personal quarrels, or their shoddy quarrels, or their nigger quarrels with Old Abe; but he has the whip hand of them and they will soon be bobbing back into the Republican fold, like sheep who have gone astray. The most of the fuss some of them kick up now, is simply to force Lincoln to give them their terms. .
"We have studied all classes of politicians in our day and we warn the Chicago Convention to put no trust in the Republican soreheads. Furiously as some of them denounce Lincoln now, and lukewarm as the rest of them are in his cause, they will all be shouting for him as the only true Union candidate as soon as the nominations have all been made and the chances for bargains have passed.
"Whatever they say now, we venture to predict that Wade and his tail; and Bryant and his tail; and Wendell Phillips and his tail; and Weed, Barney, Chase and their tails; and Winter Davis, Raymond, Opdyke and Forney who have no tails; will all make tracks for Old Abe's plantation, and will soon be found crowing and blowing, and vowing and writing, and swearing and stumping the state on his side, declaring that he and he alone, is the hope of the nation, the bugaboo of Jeff Davis, the first of Conservatives, the best of Abolitionists, the purest of patriots, the most gullible of mankind, the easiest President to manage, and the person especially predestined and foreordained by Providence to carry on the war, free the niggers, and give all the faithful a fair share of the spoils. The spectacle will be ridiculous; but it is inevitable."(1)
The cynic of The Herald had something to go upon besides his general knowledge of politicians and elections. The Manifesto had not met with universal acclaim. In the course of this month of surprises, there were several things that an apprehensive observer might interpret as the shadow of that hand of fate which was soon to appear upon the wall. In the Republican Convention of the Nineteenth Ohio District, which included Ashtabula County, Wade's county, there were fierce words and then with few dissenting votes, a resolution, "That the recent attack upon the President by Wade and Davis is, in our opinion, ill-timed, ill-tempered, and ill-advised . . . and inasmuch as one of the authors of said protest is a citizen of this Congressional District and indebted in no small degree to our friendship for the position, we deem it a duty no less imperative than disagreeable, to pronounce upon that disorganizing Manifesto our unqualified disapproval and condemnation."(2)
To be sure there were plenty of other voices from Ohio and elsewhere applauding "The War on the President." Nevertheless, there were signs of a reluctance to join the movement, and some of these in quarters where they had been least expected. Notably, the Abolitionist leaders were slow to come forward. Sumner was particularly slow. He was ready, indeed, to admit that a better candidate than Lincoln could be found, and there was a whisper that the better candidate was himself. However, he was unconditional that he would not participate in a fight against Lincoln. If the President could be persuaded to withdraw, that was one thing. But otherwise—no Sumner in the conspiracy.(3)
Was it possible that Chandler, Wade, Davis and the rest had jumped too soon? To rebuild the Vindictive Coalition, the group in which Sumner had a place was essential. This group was composed of Abolitionists, chiefly New Englanders, and for present purpose their central figure was Andrew, the Governor of Massachusetts. During the latter half of August, the fate of the Conspiracy hung on the question, Can Andrew and his group be drawn in?
Andrew did not like the President. He was one of those who never got over their first impression of the strange new man of 1861. He insisted that Lincoln lacked the essential qualities of a leader. "To comprehend this objection," says his frank biographer, "which to us seems so astoundingly wide of the mark, we must realize that whenever the New Englander of that generation uttered the word 'leader' his mind's eye was filled with the image of Daniel Webster . . . his commanding presence, his lofty tone about affairs of state, his sonorous profession of an ideal, his whole ex cathedra attitude. All those characteristics supplied the aristocratic connotation of the word 'leader' as required by a community in which a considerable measure of aristocratic sympathy still lingered. Andrew and his friends were like the men of old who having known Saul before time, and beholding him prophesying, asked 'Is Saul also among the prophets?'"(4)
But Andrew stood well outside the party cabals that were hatched at Washington. He and his gave the conspirators a hearing from a reason widely different from any of theirs. They distrusted the Executive Committee. The argument that had swept the Committee for the moment off its feet filled the stern New Englanders with scorn. They were prompt to deny any sympathy with the armistice movement.(5) As Andrew put it, the chief danger of the hour was the influence of the Executive Committee on the President, whom he persisted in considering a weak man; the chief duty of the hour was to "rescue" Lincoln, or in some other way to "check the peace movement of the Republican managers."(6) if it were fairly certain that this could be effected only by putting the conspiracy through, Andrew would come in. But could he be clear in his own mind that this was the thing to do? While he hesitated, Jaquess and Gilmore did their last small part in American history and left the stage. They made a tour of the Northern States explaining to the various governors the purposes of their mission to Richmond, and reporting in full their audience with Davis and the impressions they had formed.(7) This was a point in favor of Lincoln—as Andrew thought. On the other hand, there were the editorials of The Times. As late as the twenty-fourth of August, the day before the Washington conference, The Times asserted that the President would waive all the objects for which the war had been fought, including Abolition, if any proposition of peace should come that embraced the integrity of the Union. To be sure, this was not consistent with the report of Jaquess and Gilmore and their statement of terms actually set down by Lincoln. And yet—it came from the Administration organ edited by the chairman of the Executive Committee. Was "rescue" of the President anything more than a dream?
It was just here that Lincoln intervened and revolutionized the whole situation. With what tense interest Andrew must have waited for reports of that conference held at Washington on the twenty-fifth. And with what delight he must have received them! The publication on the twenty-sixth of the sweeping repudiation of the negotiation policy; the reassertion that the Administration's "sole and undivided purpose was to prosecute the war." Simultaneous was another announcement, also in the minds of the New Englanders, of first importance: "So far as there being any probability of President Lincoln withdrawing from the canvass, as some have suggested, the gentlemen comprising the Committee express themselves as confident of his reelection."(8)
Meanwhile the letters asking for signatures to the pro-posed "call" had been circulated and the time had come to take stock of the result From Ohio, Wade had written in a sanguine mood. He was for issuing the call the moment the Democratic Convention had taken action.(9) On the twenty-ninth that convention met. On the thirtieth, the conspirators reassembled—again at the house of David Dudley Field—and Andrew attended. He had not committed himself either way.
And now Lincoln's firmness with the Executive Committee had its reward. The New Englanders had made up their minds. Personally, he was still obnoxious to them; but in light of his recent pronouncement, they would take their chances on "rescuing" him from the Committee; and since he would not withdraw, they would not cooperate in splitting the Union party. But they could not convince the conspirators. A long debate ended in an agreement to disagree. The New Englanders withdrew, confessed partisans of Lincoln.(10) It was the beginning of the end.
Andrew went back to Boston to organize New England for Lincoln. J. M. Forbes remained to organize New York.(11) All this, ignoring the Executive Committee. It was a new Lincoln propaganda, not in opposition to the Committee but in frank rivalry: "Since, or if, we must have Lincoln," said Andrew, "men of motive and ideas must get into the lead, must elect him, get hold of 'the machine' and 'run it' themselves."(12)
The bottom was out of the conspiracy; but the leaders at New York were slow to yield. Despite the New England secession, they thought the Democratic platform, on which McClellan had been invited to stand as candidate for the Presidency, gave them another chance, especially the famous resolution:
"That this Convention does explicitly declare, as the sense of the American people, after four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war, during which, under the pretense of a military necessity, or war power higher than the Constitution, the Constitution itself has been disregarded in every part, and the public liberty and the private right alike trodden down and the material prosperity of the country essentially impaired, justice, humanity, liberty and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities, with a view to an ultimate convention of the States, or other peaceable means to the end that at the earliest practicable moment peace may be restored on the basis of the Federal Union of the States."
Some of the outlying conspirators also suffered a revival of hope. The Cincinnati Gazette came out flat foot for the withdrawal of Lincoln.(13) So did The Cincinnati Times, pressing hard for the new convention.(14) On the second of September, three New York editors, Greeley for The Tribune, Parke Godwin for The Post, and Tilton for The Independent, were busily concocting a circular letter to Governors of the States with a view to saving the conspiracy.(15)
But other men were at work in a different fashion, that same day. Lincoln's cause had been wrecked so frequently by his generals that whenever a general advanced, the event seems boldly dramatic. While the politicians at New York and Chicago thought they were loading the scales of fate, long lines of men in blue were moving through broken woodland and over neglected fields against the gray legions defending Atlanta. Said General Hood, it was "evident that General Sherman was moving with his main body to destroy the Macon road, and that the fate of Atlanta depended on our ability to defeat this movement." During the fateful pow-pow at the house of Dudley Field, Sherman's army like a colossal scythe was swinging round Atlanta, from the west and south, across Flint River, through the vital railway, on toward the city. On the second of September, the news that Atlanta was taken "electrified the people of the North."(16)
The first thought of every political faction, when, on the third, the newspapers were ringing with this great news, was either how to capitalize it for themselves, or how to forestall its capitalization by some one else. Forbes "dashed off" a letter to Andrew urging an immediate demonstration for Lincoln.(17) He was sure the Raymond group would somehow try to use the victory as a basis for recovering their leadership. Davis was eager to issue the "call" at once.(18) But his fellows hesitated. And while they hesitated, Andrew and the people acted. On the sixth, a huge Lincoln rally was held at Faneul Hall. Andrew presided. Sumner spoke.(19) That same day, Vermont held State elections and went Republican by a rousing majority. On the day following occurred the Convention of the Union party of New York. Enthusiastic applause was elicited by a telegram from Vermont. "The first shell that was thrown by Sherman into Atlanta has exploded in the Copperhead Camp in this State, and the Unionists have poured in a salute with shotted guns."(20) The mixed metaphors did not reduce the telegram's effect. The New York Convention formally endorsed Lincoln as the candidate of the Union party for President.
So much for the serious side of the swiftly changing political kaleidoscope. There was also a comic side. Only three days sufficed—from Davis's eagerness to proceed on the fourth to letters and articles written or printed on the seventh—only three days, and the leaders of the conspiracy began turning their coats. A typical letter of the seventh at Syracuse describes "an interview with Mr. Opdyke this morning, who told me the result of his efforts to obtain signatures to our call which was by no means encouraging. I have found the same sentiment prevailing here. A belief that it is too late to make any effectual demonstration, and therefore that it is not wise to attempt any. I presume that the new-born enthusiasm created by the Atlanta news will so encourage Lincoln that he can not be persuaded to withdraw."(21) Two days more and the anti-Lincoln newspapers began to draw in their horns. That Independent, whose editor had been one of the three in the last ditch but a week before, handsomely recanted, scuttling across to what now seemed the winning side. "The prospect of victory is brilliant. If a fortnight ago the prospect of Mr. Lincoln's reelection seemed doubtful, the case is now changed. The odious character of the Chicago platform, the sunshiny effect of the late victories, have rekindled the old enthusiasm in loyal hearts."(22) One day more, and Greeley sullenly took his medicine. The Tribune began printing "The Union Ticket—for President, Abraham Lincoln."
There remains the most diverting instance of the haste with which coats were turned. On the sixth of September, only three days after Atlanta!—the very day of the great Lincoln rally, the crown of Andrew's generalship, at Fanuel Hall—a report was sent out from Washington that "Senator Wade is to take the stump for Mr. Lincoln."(23) Less than a week later The Washington Chronicle had learned "with satisfaction, though not with surprise, that Senator Wade, notwithstanding his signature to a celebrated Manifesto, had enrolled himself among the Lincoln forces."(24) Exactly two weeks after Atlanta, Wade made his first speech for Lincoln as President. It was a "terrific assault upon the Copperhead policy."(25)
The ship of the conspiracy was sinking fast, and on every hand was heard a scurrying patter of escaping politicians.
The key-notes of Lincoln's course with the Executive Committee, his refusal to do anything that appeared to him to be futile, his firmness not to cast about and experiment after a policy, his basing of all his plans on the vision in his own mind of their sure fruitage—these continued to be his key-notes throughout the campaign. They ruled his action in a difficult matter with which he was quickly forced to deal.
Montgomery Blair, the Postmaster General, was widely and bitterly disliked. Originally a radical Republican, he had quarreled with that wing of the party. In 1863 the Union League of Philadelphia, which elected all the rest of the Cabinet honorary members of its organization, omitted Blair. A reference to the Cabinet in the Union platform of 1864 was supposed to be a hint that the Postmaster General would serve his country, if he resigned. During the dark days of the summer of 1864, the President's mail was filled with supplications for the dismissal of Blair.(1) He was described as an incubus that might cause the defeat of the Administration.
If the President's secretaries were not prejudiced witnesses, Blair had worn out his welcome in the Cabinet. He had grown suspicious. He tried to make Lincoln believe that Seward was plotting with the Copperheads. Nevertheless, Lincoln turned a deaf ear to the clamor against him. Merely personal considerations were not compelling. If it was true, as for a while he believed it was, that his election was already lost, he did not propose to throw Blair over as a mere experiment. True to his principles he would not become a juggler with futility.
The turn of the tide in his favor put the matter in a new light. All the enemies of Blair renewed their attack on a slightly different line. One of those powerful New Englanders who had come to Lincoln's aid at such an opportune moment led off. On the second day following the news of Atlanta, Henry Wilson wrote to him, "Blair, every one hates. Tens of thousands of men will be lost to you, or will give you a reluctant vote because of the Blairs."(2)
If this was really true, the selfless man would not hesitate to' require of Blair the same sort of sacrifice he would, in other conditions, require of himself. Lincoln debated this in his own mind nearly three weeks.
Meanwhile, various other politicians joined the hue and cry. An old friend of Lincoln's, Ebenezer Peck, came east from Illinois to work upon him against Blair.(3) Chandler, who like Wade was eager to get out of the wrong ship, appeared at Washington as a friend of the Administration and an enemy of Blair.(4) But still Lincoln did not respond. After all, was it certain that one of these votes would change if Blair did not resign? Would anything be accomplished, should Lincoln require his resignation, except the humiliation of a friend, the gratification of a pack of malcontents? And then some one thought of a mode for giving definite political value to Blair's removal. Who did it? The anonymous author of the only biography of Chandler claims this doubtful honor for the great Jacobin. Lincoln's secretaries, including Colonel Stoddard who had charge of his correspondence, are ignorant on the subject.(5) It may well have been Chandler who negotiated a bargain with Fremont, if the story is to be trusted, which concerned Blair. A long-standing, relentless quarrel separated these two. That Fremont as a candidate was nobody had long been apparent; and yet it was worth while to get rid of him. Chandler, or another, extracted a promise from Fremont that if Blair were removed, he would resign. On the strength of this promise, a last appeal was made to Lincoln. Such is the legend. The known fact is that on September twenty-second Fremont withdrew his candidacy. The next day Lincoln sent this note to Blair:
"You have generously said to me more than once that whenever your resignation could be a relief to me, it was at my disposal. The time has come. You very well know that this proceeds from no dissatisfaction of mine, with you personally or officially. Your uniform kindness has been unsurpassed by that of any friend."(6)
No incident displays more clearly the hold which Lincoln had acquired on the confidence and the affection of his immediate associates. Blair at once tendered his resignation: "I can not take leave of you," said he, "without renewing the expression of my gratitude for the uniform kindness which has marked your course with regard to myself."(7) That he was not perfunctory, that his great chief had acquired over him an ascendency which was superior to any strain, was demonstrated a few days later in New York. On the twenty-seventh, Cooper Institute was filled with an enthusiastic Lincoln meeting. Blair was a speaker. He was received with loud cheers and took occasion to touch upon his relations with the President. "I retired," said he, "on the recommendation of my own father. My father has passed that period of life when its honors or its rewards, or its glories have any charm for him. He looks backward only, and forward only, to the grandeur of this nation and the happiness of this great people who have grown up under the prosperous condition of the Union; and he would not permit a son of his to stand in the way of the glorious and patriotic President who leads us on to success and to the final triumph that is in store for us."(8)
It was characteristic of this ultimate Lincoln that he offered no explanations, even in terminating the career of a minister; that he gave no confidences. Gently inexorable, he imposed his will in apparent unconsciousness that it might be questioned. Along with his overmastering kindness, he had something of the objectivity of a natural force. It was the mood attained by a few extraordinary men who have reached a point where, without becoming egoists, they no longer distinguish between themselves and circumstance; the mood of those creative artists who have lost themselves, in the strange way which the dreamers have, who have also found themselves.
Even in the new fascination of the probable turn of the tide, Lincoln did not waver in his fixed purpose to give all his best energies, and the country's best energies, to the war. In October, there was a new panic over the draft. Cameron implored him to suspend it in Pennsylvania until after the presidential election. An Ohio committee went to Washington with the same request. Why should not the arguments that had prevailed with him, or were supposed to have prevailed with him, for the removal of a minister, prevail also in the way of a brief flagging of military preparation? But Lincoln would not look upon the two cases in the same spirit. "What is the Presidency worth to me," he asked the Ohio committee, "if I have no country ?"(9)
From the active campaign he held himself aloof. He made no political speeches. He wrote no political letters. The army received his constant detailed attention. In his letters to Grant, he besought him to be unwavering in a relentless persistency.
As Hay records, he was aging rapidly. The immense strain of his labor was beginning to tell both in his features and his expression. He was moving in a shadow. But his old habit of merriment had not left him; though it was now, more often, a surface merriment. On the night of the October elections, Lincoln sat in the telegraph room of the War Office while the reports were coming in. "The President in a lull of despatches, took from his pocket the Naseby Papers and read several chapters of the Saint and Martyr, Petroleum V. They were immensely amusing. Stanton and Dana enjoyed them scarcely less than the President, who read on, con amore, until nine o'clock."(10)
The presidential election was held on the eighth of November. That night, Lincoln with his Secretary was again in the War Office. The early returns showed that the whole North was turning to him in enormous majorities. He showed no exultation. When the Assistant Secretary of the Navy spoke sharply of the complete effacement politically of Henry Winter Davis against whom he had a grudge, Lincoln said, "You have more of that feeling of personal resentment than I. Perhaps I have too little of it; but I never thought it paid. A man has no time to spend half his life in quarrels. If any man ceases to attack me I never remember the past against him."(11)
"Towards midnight," says Hay in his diary, "we had supper. The President went awkwardly and hospitably to work shovelling out the fried oysters. He was most agreeable and genial all the evening. . . . Captain Thomas came up with a band about half-past two and made some music. The President answered from a window with rather unusual dignity and effect, and we came home."(12)
"I am thankful to God," Lincoln said, in response to the serenade, "for this approval of the people; but while grateful for this mark of their confidence in me, if I know my heart, my gratitude is free from any taint of personal triumph. I do not impugn the motives of any one opposed to me. It is no pleasure to me to triumph over any one, but I give thanks to the Almighty for this evidence of the people's resolution to stand by free government and the rights of humanity."(13)
During the next few days a torrent of congratulations came pouring in. What most impressed the secretaries was his complete freedom from elation. "He seemed to deprecate his own triumph and sympathize rather with the beaten than the victorious party." His formal recognition of the event was a prepared reply to a serenade on the night of November tenth. A great crowd filled the space in front of the north portico of the White House. Lincoln appeared at a window. A secretary stood at his side holding a lighted candle while he read from a manuscript. The brief address is justly ranked among his ablest occasional utterances. As to the mode of the deliverance, he said to Hay, "Not very graceful, but I am growing old enough not to care much for the manner of doing things."(14)
One he brought to pass in time for him to behold his own victory. The other he saw only with the eyes of faith. The first was the drawing together of all the elements of nationalism in the American people and consolidating them into a driving force. The second was laying the foundation of a political temper that made impossible a permanent victory for the Vindictives. It was the sad fate of this nation, because Lincoln's hand was struck from the tiller at the very instant of the crisis, to suffer the temporary success of that faction he strove so hard to destroy. The transitoriness of their evil triumph, the eventual rally of the nation against them, was the final victory of the spirit of Lincoln.
The immediate victory he appreciated more fully and measured more exactly, than did any one else. He put it into words in the fifth message. While others were crowing with exaltation over a party triumph, he looked deeper to the psychological triumph. Scarcely another saw that the most significant detail of the hour was in the Democratic attitude. Even the bitterest enemies of nationalism, even those who were believed by all others to desire the breaking of the Union, had not thought it safe to say so. They had veiled their intent in specious words. McClellan in accepting the Democratic nomination had repudiated the idea of disunion. Whether the Democratic politicians had agreed with him or not, they had not dared to contradict him. This was what Lincoln put the emphasis on in his message: "The purpose of the people within the loyal States to maintain the Union was never more firm nor more nearly unanimous than now. . . . No candidate for any office, high or low, has ventured to seek votes on the avowal that he was for giving up the Union. There have been much impugning of motive and much heated controversy as to the proper means and best mode of advancing the Union cause; but on the distinct issue of Union or No Union the politicians have shown their instinctive knowledge that there is no diversity among the people. In affording the people the fair opportunity of showing one to another and to the world, this firmness and unanimity of purpose, the election has been of vast value to the national cause."(1)
This temper of the final Lincoln, his supreme detachment, the kind impersonality of his intellectual approach, has no better illustration in his state papers. He further revealed it in a more intimate way. The day he sent the message to Congress, he also submitted to the Senate a nomination to the great office of Chief Justice. When Taney died in the previous September, there was an eager stir among the friends of Chase. They had hopes but they felt embarrassed. Could they ask this great honor, the highest it is in the power of the American President to be-stow, for a man who had been so lacking in candor as Chase had been? Chase's course during the summer had made things worse. He had played the time-server. No one was more severe upon Lincoln in July; in August, he hesitated, would not quite commit himself to the conspiracy but would not discourage it; almost gave it his blessing; in September, but not until it was quite plain that the conspiracy was failing, he came out for Lincoln. However, his friends in the Senate overcame their embarrassment—how else could it be with Senators?—and pressed his case. And when Senator Wilson, alarmed at the President's silence, tried to apologize for Chase's harsh remarks about the President, Lincoln cut him short. "Oh, as to that, I care nothing," said he. The embarrassment of the Chase propaganda amused him. When Chase himself took a hand and wrote him a letter, Lincoln said to his secretary, "What is it about?" "Simply a kind and friendly letter," replied the secretary. Lincoln smiled. "File it with the other recommendations," said he.(2)
He regarded Chase as a great lawyer, Taney's logical successor. All the slights the Secretary had put upon the President, the intrigues to supplant him, the malicious sayings, were as if they had never occurred. When Congress assembled, it was Chase's name that he sent to the Senate. It was Chase who, as Chief Justice, administered the oath at Lincoln's second inauguration.
Long since, Lincoln had seen that there had ceased to any half-way house in the matter of emancipation. His thoughts were chiefly upon the future. And as mere strategy, he saw that slavery had to be got out of the way. It was no longer a question, who liked this, who did not. To him, the ultimate issue was the restoration of harmony among the States. Those States which had been defeated in the dread arbitrament of battle, would in any event encounter difficulties, even deadly perils, in the narrow way which must come after defeat and which might or might not lead to rehabilitation.
Remembering the Vindictive temper, remembering the force and courage of the Vindictive leaders, it was imperative to clear the field of the slavery issue before the reconstruction issue was fairly launched. It was highly desirable to commit to the support of the governments the whole range of influences that were in earnest about emancipation. Furthermore, the South itself was drifting in the same direction. In his interview with Gilmore and Jaquess, Davis had said: "You have already emancipated nearly two millions of our slaves; and if you will take care of them, you may emancipate the rest. I had a few when the war began. I was of some use to them; they never were of any to me."(3)
The Southern President had "felt" his constituency on the subject of enrolling slaves as soldiers with a promise of emancipation as the reward of military service.
The fifth message urged Congress to submit to the States an amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery. Such action had been considered in the previous session, but nothing had been done. At Lincoln's suggestion, it had been recommended in the platform of the Union party. Now, with the President's powerful influence behind it, with his prestige at full circle, the amendment was rapidly pushed forward. Before January ended, it had been approved by both Houses. Lincoln had used all his personal influence to strengthen its chances in Congress where, until the last minute, the vote was still in doubt.(4)
While the amendment was taking its way through Congress, a shrewd old politician who thought he knew the world better than most men, that Montgomery Blair, Senior, who was father of the Postmaster General, had been trying on his own responsibility to open negotiations between Washington and Richmond. His visionary ideas, which were wholly without the results he intended, have no place here. And yet this fanciful episode had a significance of its own. Had it not occurred, the Confederate government probably would not have appointed commissioners charged with the hopeless task of approaching the Federal government for the purpose of negotiating peace between "the two countries."
Now that Lincoln was entirely in the ascendent at home, and since the Confederate arms had recently suffered terrible reverses, he was no longer afraid that negotiation might appear to be the symptom of weakness. He went so far as to consent to meet the Commissioners himself. On a steamer in Hampton Roads, Lincoln and Seward had a long conference with three members of the Confederate government, particularly the Vice-President, Alexander H. Stephens.
It has become a tradition that Lincoln wrote at the top of a sheet of paper the one word "Union"; that he pushed it across the table and said, "Stephens, write under that anything you want" There appears to be no foundation for the tale in this form. The amendment had committed the North too definitely to emancipation. Lincoln could not have proposed Union without requiring emancipation, also. And yet, with this limitation, the spirit of the tradition is historic. There can be no doubt that he presented to the commissioners about the terms which the year before he had drawn up as a memorandum for Gilmore and Jaquess: Union, the acceptance of emancipation, but also instantaneous restoration of political autonomy to the Southern States, and all the influence of the Administration in behalf of liberal compensation for the loss of slave property. But the commissioners had no authority to consider terms that did not recognize the existence of "two countries." However, this Hampton Roads Conference gave Lincoln a new hope. He divined, if he did not perceive, that the Confederates were on the verge of despair. If he had been a Vindictive, this would have borne fruit in ferocious telegrams to his generals to strike and spare not. What Lincoln did was to lay before the Cabinet this proposal:—that they advise Congress to offer the Confederate government the sum of four hundred million dollars, provided the war end and the States in secession acknowledge the authority of the Federal government previous to April 1, 1865. But the Cabinet, complete as was his domination in some respects, were not ripe for such a move as this. "'You are all against me,' said Lincoln sadly and in evident surprise at the want of statesmanlike liberality on the part of the executive council," to quote his Secretary, "folded and laid away the draft of his message."(5) Nicolay believes that the idea continued vividly in his mind and that it may be linked with his last public utterance—"it may be my duty to make some new announcement to the people of the South. I am considering and shall not fail to act when satisfied that action is proper."
It was now obvious to every one outside the Confederacy that the war would end speedily in a Northern victory. To Lincoln, therefore, the duty of the moment, overshadowing all else, was the preparation for what should come after. Reconstruction. More than ever it was of first importance to decide whether the President or Congress should deal with this great matter. And now occurred an event which bore witness at once to the beginning of Lincoln's final struggle with the Vindictives and to that personal ascendency which was steadily widening. One of those three original Jacobins agreed to become his spokesman in the Senate. As the third person of the Jacobin brotherhood, Lyman Trumbull had always been out of place. He had gone wrong not from perversity of the soul but from a mental failing, from the lack of inherent light, from intellectual conventionality. But he was a good man. One might apply to him Mrs. Browning's line: "Just a good man made a great man." And in his case, as in so many others, sheer goodness had not been sufficient in the midst of a revolution to save his soul. To quote one of the greatest of the observers of human life: "More brains, O Lord, more brains." Though Trumbull had the making of an Intellectual, politics had very nearly ruined him. For all his good intentions it took him a long time to see what Hawthorne saw at first sight-that Lincoln was both a powerful character and an original mind. Still, because Trumbull was really a good man, he found a way to recover his soul. What his insight was not equal to perceiving in 1861, experience slowly made plain to him in the course of the next three years. Before 1865 he had broken with the Vindictives; he had come over to Lincoln. Trumbull still held the powerful office of Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He now undertook to be the President's captain in a battle on the floor of the Senate for the recognition of Louisiana.
The new government in Louisiana had been in actual operation for nearly a year. Though Congress had denounced it; though the Manifesto had held it up to scorn as a monarchial outrage; Lincoln had quietly, steadily, protected and supported it. It was discharging the function of a regular State government. A governor had been elected and inaugurated-that Governor Hahn whom Lincoln had congratulated as Louisiana's first Free State Governor. He could say this because the new electorate which his mandate had created had assembled a constitutional convention and had abolished slavery. And it had also carried out the President's views with regard to the political status of freedmen. Lincoln was not a believer in general negro suffrage. He was as far as ever from the theorizing of the Abolitionists. The most he would approve was the bestowal of suffrage on a few Superior negroes, leaving the rest to be gradually educated into citizenship. The Louisiana Convention had authorized the State Legislature to make, when it felt prepared to do so, such a limited extension of suffrage.(6)
In setting up this new government, Lincoln had created a political vessel in which practically all the old electorate of Louisiana could find their places the moment they gave up the war and accepted the two requisites, union and emancipation. That electorate could proceed at once to rebuild the social-political order of the State without any interval of "expiation." All the power of the Administration would be with them in their labors. That this was the wise as well as the generous way to proceed, the best minds of the North had come to see. Witness the conversion of Trumbull. But there were four groups of fanatics who were dangerous: extreme Abolitionists who clamored for negro equality; men like Wade and Chandler, still mad with the lust of conquest, raging at the President who had stood so resolutely between them and their desire; the machine politicians who could never understand the President's methods, who regarded him as an officious amateur; and the Little Men who would have tried to make political capital of the blowing of the last trump. All these, each for a separate motive, attacked the President because of Louisiana.
The new government had chosen Senators. Here was a specific issue over which the Administration and its multiform opposition might engage in a trial of strength. The Senate had it in its power to refuse to seat the Louisiana Senators. Could the Vindictive leaders induce it to go to that length? The question took its natural course of reference to the Judiciary Committee. On the eighteenth of February, Trumbull opened what was destined to be a terrible chapter in American history, the struggle between light and darkness over reconstruction. Trumbull had ranged behind Lincoln the majority of his committee. With its authority he moved a joint resolution recognizing the new government of Louisiana.
And then began a battle royal. Trumbull's old associates were promptly joined by Sumner. These three rallied against the resolution all the malignancy, all the time-serving, all the stupidity, which the Senate possessed. Bitter language was exchanged by men who had formerly been as thick as thieves.
"You and I," thundered Wade, "did not differ formerly on this subject We considered it a mockery, a miserable mockery, to recognize this Louisiana organization as a State in the Union." He sneered fiercely, "Whence comes this new-born zeal of the Senator from Illinois? . . . Sir, it is the most miraculous conversion that has taken place since Saint Paul's time."(7)
Wade did not spare the President. Metaphorically speaking, he shook a fist in his face, the fist of a merciless old giant "When the foundation of this government is sought to be swept away by executive usurpation, it will not do to turn around to me and say this comes from a President I helped to elect. . . . If the President of the United States operating through his major generals can initiate a State government, and can bring it here and force us, compel us, to receive on this floor these mere mockeries, these men of straw who represent nobody, your Republic is at an end . . . talk not to me of your ten per cent. principle. A more absurd, monarchial and anti-American principle was never announced on God's earth."(8)
Amidst a rain of furious personalities, Lincoln's spokesman kept his poise. It was sorely tried by two things: by Sumner's frank use of every device of parliamentary obstruction with a view to wearing out the patience of the Senate, and by the cynical alliance, in order to balk Lincoln, of the Vindictives with the Democrats. What they would not risk in 1862 when their principles had to wait upon party needs, they now considered safe strategy. And if ever the Little Men deserved their label it was when they played into the hands of the terrible Vindictives, thus becoming responsible for the rejection of Lincoln's plan of reconstruction. Trumbull upbraided Sumner for "associating himself with those whom he so often denounced, for the purpose of calling the yeas and nays and making dilatory motions" to postpone action until the press of other business should compel the Senate to set the resolution aside. Sumner's answer was that he would employ against the measure every instrument he could find "in the arsenal of parliamentary warfare."
With the aid of the Democrats, the Vindictives carried the day. The resolution was "dispensed with."(9)
As events turned out it was a catastrophe. But this was not apparent at the time. Though Lincoln had been beaten for the moment, the opposition was made up of so many and such irreconcilable elements that as long as he could hold together his own following, there was no reason to suppose he would not in the long run prevail. He was never in a firmer, more self-contained mood than on the last night of the session.(10) Again, as on that memorable fourth of July, eight months before, he was in his room at the Capitol signing the last-minute bills. Stanton was with him. On receiving a telegram from Grant, the Secretary handed it to the President Grant reported that Lee had proposed a conference for the purpose of "a satisfactory adjustment of the present unhappy difficulties by means of a military convention." Without asking for the Secretary's opinion, Lincoln wrote out a reply which he directed him to sign and despatch immediately. "The President directs me to say that he wishes you to have no conference with General Lee, unless it be for the capitulation of General Lee's army, or on some minor or purely military matter. He instructs me to say that you are not to decide, discuss, or confer upon any political questions, such questions the President holds in his own hands and will submit them to no military conferences or conventions. Meanwhile, you are to press to the utmost your military advantages."(11)
In the second inaugural (12) delivered the next day, there is not the faintest shadow of anxiety. It breathes a lofty confidence as if his soul was gazing meditatively downward upon life, and upon his own work, from a secure height. The world has shown a sound instinct in fixing upon one expression, "with malice toward none, with charity for all," as the key-note of the final Lincoln. These words form the opening line of that paragraph of unsurpassable prose in which the second inaugural culminates:
"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations."