Betty Winter received a telegram from John Vaughan announcing his arrival at Alexandria with McClellan on the last day of August. Her heart gave a bound of joy. She could see him to-morrow. It had been five years instead of five months since she had stood on that little pier and watched him float away into the mists of the river! All life before the revelation which love had brought was now a shadowy memory. Only love was real. His letters had been her life. They hadn't come as often as she had wished. She demanded his whole heart. There could be no compromise. It must be all,allor nothing.
She tried to sleep and couldn't. Her brain was on fire.
"I must sleep and look my best!" she laughed softly, buried her face in the pillow and laughed again for joy. How could she sleep with her lover standing there alive and strong with his arms clasping her to his heart!
She rose at daylight and threw open her window. The air was crisp with the breath of fall. She watched the sun rise in solemn glory. A division of cavalry dashed by, the horses' hoofs ringing sharply on the cobble stones, sabres clashing. Behind them came another and another, and in a distant street she heard the rumble of big guns, the crack of their drivers' whips and the sharp cries of the men urging the horses to a run.
Something unusual was on foot. The sun was barely up and the whole city seemed quivering with excitement.
She dressed hurriedly, snatched a bite of toast and drank a cup of coffee. In twenty minutes she entered the White House to get her pass to the front. She wouldn't go to the War Department. Stanton was rude and might refuse. The hour was absurd, but she knew that the President rose at daylight and that he would see her at any hour.
She found him seated at his desk alone pretending to eat an egg and drink his coffee from the tray that had been placed before him. His dishevelled hair, haggard look and the pallor of his sorrowful face showed only too plainly that he had not slept.
"You have bad news, Mr. President?" Betty gasped.
He rose, took her hand and led her to a seat.
"Not yet, dear, but I'm expecting it."
"We lost the battle yesterday?" she eagerly asked.
"Apparently not. You may read that. I trust you implicitly."
He handed her the dispatch he had received from General Pope after the first day's fight at Manassas. Betty read it quickly:
"We fought a terrific battle here yesterday with the combined forces of the enemy, which lasted with continuous fury from daylight until dark, by which time the enemy was driven from the field which we now occupy. The enemy is still in our front, but badly used up. We lost not less than eight thousand men killed and wounded, but from the appearance of the field the enemy lost two to one. The news has just reached me from the front that the enemy is retreating toward the mountains."
Betty looked up surprised:
"Isn't that good news?"
"Nothing to brag about. It's the last sentence that worries me——"
"But that seems the best!"
"It might be but for the fact that Jackson is leading that retreat toward the mountains! I've an idea that he will turn up to-day on Pope's rear with Lee's whole army on his heels. Jackson is in the habit of appearing where he's least expected——"
He paused, paced the floor a moment in silence and threw his long arms suddenly upward in a hopeless gesture:
"If God would only give me such a man to lead our armies!"
"Is General McClellan at Alexandria to-day?" Betty suddenly asked.
"I'm wondering myself. He should be on that field with every soldier under his command."
"I've come to ask you for a pass to Alexandria——"
"Then my worst fears are confirmed!" he broke in excitedly. "Your sweetheart's on McClellan's staff—his men will never reach the field in time!"
He dropped into a chair, hurriedly wrote the pass and handed it to Betty.
"God bless you, child. See me when you get back and tell me all you learn of McClellan and his men to-day. The very worst is suspected——"
"You mean?"
"That this delay and deliberate trifling with the most urgent and positive orders is little short of treason. Unless his men reach Pope to-day and fight, the Capital may be threatened to-morrow."
"Surely!" Betty protested.
"It's just as I tell you, child, but I'll hope for the best. Be eyes and ears for me to-day and you may help me."
The agony of his face and the deep note of tragedy in his voice had taken the joy out of her heart. She threw the feeling off with an effort.
"What has it all to do with my love!" she cried with a toss of her pretty head as she sprang into the saddle for the gallop to Alexandria.
The cool, bracing air of this first day of September, 1862, was like wine. The dew was yet heavy on the tall grass by the roadside and a song was singing in her heart that made all other music dumb.
John had dismounted and was standing beside the road, the horse's bridle hanging on his arm in the very position he had stood and looked into her soul that day.
She leaped to the ground without waiting for his help and sprang into his arms.
"I like you better with that bronzed look—you're handsomer than ever," she sighed at last.
His answer was another kiss, to which he added:
"No amount of sunburn could make you any prettier, dear—you've been perfect from the first."
"Your General is here?" Betty asked.
"Yes."
"And you can give me the whole day?"
"Every hour—the General is my friend."
The moment was too sweet to allow any shadow to cloud it. The girl yielded to its spell without reserve. They mounted and rode side by side over the hills. And the man poured into her ears the unspoken things he had felt and longed to say in the lonely nights of camp and field. The girl confessed the pain and the longing of her waiting.
They mounted the crest of a hill and the breeze from the southwest brought the sullen boom of a cannon.
Instinctively they drew rein.
"The battle has begun again," John said casually.
"It stirs your blood, doesn't it?" she whispered.
A frown darkened his brow:
"Not to-day."
The girl looked with quick surprise.
"You don't mean it?"
"Certainly. Why get excited when you know the end before it begins."
"You know it?"
"Yes."
"Victory?"
He laughed cynically:
"Victory for a pompous braggart who could write that address to an army reflecting on the men who fought Lee and Jackson before Richmond with such desperate courage?"
"You are sure of defeat then?"
"Absolutely."
Betty looked at him with a flush of angry excitement:
"General McClellan is counting on Pope's defeat to-day?"
"Yes."
"Then it's true that he is not really trying to help him?"
"Why should he wish to sacrifice his brave men under the leadership of a fool?"
"He is, in fact, defying the orders of the President, isn't he?"
"You might say that if you strain a point," John admitted.
Again the long roar of guns boomed on the Western horizon, louder, clearer. The dull echoes became continuous now, and the quickening breeze brought the faint din from the vast field of death whose blazing smoke covered lines stretched over seven miles.
"Boom-boom-boom, boom!—boom! boom!"
Again they drew rein and listened.
John's brow wrinkled and his right ear was thrown slightly forward.
"Those are our big guns," he said with a smile. "The Confederate artillery can't compare with ours—their infantry is a terror—stark, dead game fighters——"
"Boom—Boom!—--Boom! Boom! Boom!"
"How do you know those are our guns?" Betty asked with a shiver.
"The rebels have none so large. They'll have some to-night."
Again an angry flush mounted her cheeks:
"You wish them to be captured?"
"It will be a wholesome lesson."
Betty leaned closer and grasped his hand with trembling eagerness.
"O John—John, dear, this is madness! General McClellan has been accused of treason already—this surely is the basest betrayal of his country——"
The man shook his head stubbornly:
"No—it's the highest patriotism. My Commander is brave enough to dare the authorities at Washington for the good of his country. The sooner this farce under Pope ends the better—no man of second rate ability can win against the great Generals of the South."
The girl's keen brown eyes looked steadily into his and her lips trembled.
"I call it treachery—the betrayal of his country for his selfish ambitions! I'm surprised that you sympathize with him."
John frowned, was silent and then turned to her with a smile:
"Let's not talk about it, dear. The day's too beautiful. We're alone together. This is not your battle—nor mine—it's Pope's—let him fight it out. I love you—that's all I want to think about to-day."
The golden brown curls were slowly shaken:
"Itisyour battle and it's mine—O John dear, I'm heartsick over it! The President's anguish clouded the morning for me, but the thought of you made me forget. Now I'm scared. You've surprised and shocked me."
"Nonsense, dear!" he pleaded.
She looked at him with quick, eager yearning.
"You love me?" she asked.
"Can you doubt it?"
"With every beat of your heart?"
"Yes."
"Will you do something for me?" she begged.
"What is it?"
"Just for me, because I ask it, John, and you love me?"
"If I can."
"I want you to resign immediately from McClellan's staff, report at the War Department and let the President give you new duties——"
The man shot her a look of angry amazement:
"You can't mean this?"
Again the soft, warm hand that had slipped its glove grasped his. He could feel her slim, little fingers tremble. She had turned very pale:
"I'm in dead earnest. I love you, dear, with my whole heart, and it's my love that asks this. I can't think of you betraying a solemn trust. The very thought of it cuts me to the quick. If this is true, General McClellan should be court-martialed."
The man's square jaws closed with a snap:
"Let them try it if they dare——"
"The President will dare if he believes it his duty."
"Then he'll hear something from the hundred and fifty thousand soldiers who have served under McClellan."
The little hand pressed harder.
"Won't you, for my sake, dear,—just because I'm your sweetheart and you love me?"
The stalwart figure suddenly stiffened:
"And you could respect a man who would do a thing like that?"
"For my sake?—Yes."
"No, you think you could. But you couldn't. No woman can really love a poltroon or a coward."
"I'm not asking you to do a cowardly thing——"
"To desert my leader in a crisis?"
"To wash your hands of treachery and selfish ambitions."
"But it's not true," he retorted. "You mustn't say that. McClellan's a leader of genius—brave, true, manly, patriotic."
"I've a nobler ideal of patriotism——"
"Your blundering backwoodsman in the White House?"
"Yes. He has but one thought—that the Union shall be saved. He has no other ambition. If McClellan succeeds, he rejoices. If he fails, he is heartbroken. I know that he has defended him against the assaults of his enemies. He has refused to listen to men who assailed his loyalty and patriotism. This generous faith your Chief is betraying to-day. That you defend him is horrible—O John, dear, I can't—I won't let you stay! You must break your connection with this conspiracy of vain ambition. The country is calling now for every true, unselfish man—please!"
He lifted his hand in firm protest:
"And for that very reason I stand firmly by the man I believe destined to save my country."
"You won't change Commanders because I ask it?"
He was silent a moment and a smile played about the corners of his lips:
"Would you change because I asked it?"
"Yes."
"Then come over from Lincoln to McClellan," he laughed.
"And join your group of conspirators—never!"
"Not if I ask it, because I love you?"
"Betty glanced at the stolid, set face and firm lips.""Betty glanced at the stolid, set face and firm lips."
Her brown eyes sparkled with anger:
"You'll not find this a joke!"
"That's why I treat it seriously, my dear," was the firm reply. "If I could throw up my position in this war on the sudden impulse of my sweetheart, I'd be ashamed to look a man in the face—and you would despise me!"
"If your Commander succeeds to-day in bringing disaster to our army I'll despise you for aiding him——"
"Let's not discuss it—please, dear!" he begged with a frown.
"As you please," was the cold reply.
They rode on in silence, broken only by the increasing roar of the great guns at Manassas. Betty glanced at the stolid, set face and firm lips. Her anger steadily rose with every throb of Pope's cannon. Each low thunder peal on the horizon now was a cry for help from dying mangled thousands and the man she loved refusing to hear.
Suddenly the picture of his brother flashed before her vision, the high-strung, clean young spirit, chivalrous, daring, fighting for what he knew to be right—right because right is right, and wrong is wrong.
She looked at John Vaughan with a feeling of fierce anger. Between the two men she preferred the enemy who was fighting in the open to win or die. Her soul went out to Ned in a wave of tender admiration. Her wrath against his brother steadily rose.
Suddenly she drew her rein:
"You need come no further. I'll ride back home alone."
He bit his lips without turning and was silent. She touched her horse with her whip and galloped swiftly toward Washington.
The last day of Pope's brief campaign ended in the overwhelming disaster of the second battle of Bull Run. The sound of his cannon reached McClellan's ears, but the organizer of the Army of the Potomac, though ordered to do so, never joined his rival.
Once more the army of the Union was hurled back on Washington in panic, confusion and appalling disaster. Lee and Jackson had crushed Pope's hosts with a rapidity and case that struck terror to the heart of the Nation. General Pope lost fifteen thousand men in a single battle. Lee and Jackson lost less than half as many.
The storm broke over McClellan's head at Washington on his arrival. Stanton and Halleck and Pope accused him of treachery. The hot heads demanded his arrest and trial by court-martial.
The President shook his head, but sadly added:
"He has acted badly toward Pope. He really wanted him to fail."
And then began the search to find the man once more to weld the shattered army into an efficient fighting force.
Abraham Lincoln asked himself this question with a sense of the deepest and most solemn responsibility. He must answer at the bar of his conscience before God and his country. Again he brushed aside every adviser inside and outside his Cabinet and determined on his choice absolutely alone.
Early on the morning of September 2nd John Vaughan looked from the window of General McClellan's house and saw the giant figure of the President approaching, accompanied by Halleck.
When his aide announced this startling fact, the General coolly said:
"It means my arrest, no doubt. I'm ready. Let them come."
The President was not kept waiting this time. His General was there to receive him.
The rugged face was pale and drawn.
"General McClellan," he began without ceremony, "I have come to ask you to take command of all the returning troops for the defense of Washington."
The short, stalwart figure of the General suddenly straightened, his blue eyes flashed with amazement and then softened into a misty expression. He bowed with dignity and quietly said:
"I accept the position, sir."
"I need not repeat," the President went on, "that I disapprove some things you have done. I have made this plain to you. I do this because I believe it's best for our country. I assume its full responsibility and I expect great things of you."
The President bowed and left the astonished General and his still more astonished aide gazing after his long swinging legs returning to the White House.
He had done the most unpopular act of his entire administration. His decision had defied the fiercest popular hostility. He faced a storm of denunciation which would have appalled a less simple and masterful man. The Cabinet meeting which followed the startling news was practically a riot. He listened to all his excited Ministers had to say with patience. When they had spoken their last word of bitter disapproval he quietly rose and ended the tumultuous session with two or three sentences which none could answer:
"There is no one in the army who can man these fortifications and lick these troops of ours into shape half as well as he can. McClellan is a great engineer—of the stationary type, perhaps. But we must use the tools we have! If he cannot fight himself, at least he excels in making others ready to fight."
He waited for an answer and none came. He had not only averted a Cabinet crisis but his remorseless common sense and his unswerving adherence to what he saw was best had strengthened his authority over all his councillors.
When the rest had gone he turned to the young man who knew him best, his Secretary, John Nicolay, and gripped his arm with a big hand which was trembling:
"The most painful duty of my official life, Boy! There has been a design, a purpose in breaking down Pope without regard to the consequences to the country that is atrocious. It's shocking to see and know this, but there is no remedy at present. McClellan has the army with him and I must use him."
"One war at a time," the President said to his Secretary of State when he proposed a foreign fight. He must now strangle Northern public opinion to enforce this principle.
Captain Wilkes had overhauled the British SteamerTrenton the high seas, searched her and taken the Confederate Commissioners Mason and Slidell by force from her decks.
The people of the North were mad with joy over the daring act. Congress, swept off its feet by the wave of popular hysteria, proclaimed Wilkes a hero and voted their thanks. The President did not move with current opinion. He had formed the habit in boyhood of thinking for himself, and had never allowed himself to take his cues for action from second-hand suggestions. From the first he raised the question of Wilkes' right to stop the vessel of a friendly nation on the high seas, search her and take her passengers prisoners by force of arms.
The backwoods lawyer questioned, too, the right of a naval officer to turn his quarter-deck into a court and decide questions of international law offhand. He raised the point at once whether these men thus captured might not be white elephants on the hands of the Government. Moreover he reminded his Cabinet that we had fought England once for daring to do precisely this thing.
Great Britain promptly drew her sword and made ready for war.
Queen Victoria's Government not only demanded that the return of these passengers be made at once with an apology, but did it in a way so offensive that a less balanced man in power would have lost his head and committed the fatal blunder.
The tall, quiet Chief Magistrate was equal to the occasion. Great Britain had ordered her navy on a war footing, dispatched eight thousand troops to Canada to strike by land as well as sea, allowing us but seven days in which to comply with all her demands or hand Lord Lyons his passports.
The President immediately dictated a reply which forced her Prime Minister to accept it and achieved for the Nation the establishment of a principle for which we had fought in vain in 1812.
He ordered the prisoners returned and an apology expressed. His apology was a two-edged sword thrust which Great Britain was compelled to take with a groan.
"In 1812," the President said, "the United States fought because you claimed the right to stop our vessels on the high seas, search them and take by force British subjects found thereon. Our country in making this surrender, adheres to the ancient principle for which we contended and we are glad to find that Her Majesty's Government in demanding this surrender thereby renounces an error and accepts our position."
Lord Palmerston made a wry face, but was compelled to accept the surrender, and with it seal his own humiliation as a beaten diplomat. War with England at this moment would have meant unparalleled disaster. France had ambitions in Mexico and she was bound in friendship to England. The two great Nations of Europe would have been hurled against our divided country with the immediate recognition of the Confederacy.
The President forced this return of the prisoners and apparent surrender to Great Britain in the face of the blindest and most furious outbursts of popular rage.
Gilbert Winter rose in the Senate and in thunderous oratory voiced the well-nigh unanimous feeling of the millions of the North of all parties and factions:
"I warn the administration against this dastardly and cowardly surrender to a foreign foe! The voice of the people demand that we stand firm on our dignity as a Sovereign Nation. If the President and his Cabinet refuse to listen they will find themselves engulfed in a fire that will consume them like stubble. They will find themselves helpless before a power that will hurl them from their places!"
The President was still under the cloud of public wrath over this affair when the crisis of the problem of emancipation became acute. The gradual growth of the number of his bitter foes in Washington he had seen with deep distress. And yet it was inevitable. No man in his position could administer the great office whose power he was wielding without fear or favor and not make enemies. And now both friend and foe were closing in on him with a well-nigh resistless demand for emancipation.
Hour after hour he sat patiently in his office receiving these impassioned delegations.
Old Edward was standing at the door again smiling and washing his hands:
"A delegation of editors, presenting Mr. Horace Greeley's 'Prayer of Twenty Millions.'"
The patient eyes were lifted front his desk, and the strong mouth firmly pressed:
"Let them in."
The President rose in his easy, careless manner:
"I'm glad to see you, gentlemen. You are the leaders of public opinion. The people rule this country and I am their servant. What is it?"
The Chairman of the Committee stepped forward and gravely handed him an engrossed copy of Greeley's famous editorial, "The Prayer of Twenty Millions," demanding the immediate issue of a proclamation of emancipation.
The Chairman bowed and spoke in earnest tones:
"As the representatives of millions of readers we present this 'Prayer' with our endorsement and the request that you act. In particular we call your attention to these paragraphs:
"'A great portion of those who brought about your election and all those who desire the unqualified suppression of the rebellion, are sorely disappointed, pained and surprised by the policy you seem to be pursuing with regard to the slaves of rebels. I write to set before you succinctly and unmistakably what we require, what we have a right to expect and of what we complain.
"'We think you are unduly influenced by the counsels, the representations and the menaces of certain fossil politicians from the Border Slave States, knowing as you do, that the loyal citizens of these States do not expect that Slavery shall be upheld, to the prejudice of the Union.
"'We complain that the Union cause has suffered and is now suffering immensely from the mistaken course which you are pursuing and persistently cling to, in defense of slavery. We complain that the confiscation act which you approved is being wantonly and wholly disregarded by your Generals, apparently with your knowledge and consent.
"'The seeming subserviency of your policy to the slave holding, slave upholding interest is the perplexity and the despair of statesmen of all parties. Whether you will choose to listen to their admonishment or wait for your verdict through future history, or at the bar of God, I do not know. I can only hope.'"
The President's sombre eyes met his with a penetrating flash and rested on Senator Winter who remained in the background. He took the paper, laid it carefully on his desk, threw his right leg across the corner of the long table in easy, friendly attitude and began his reply persuasively:
"The editor of theTribune, gentleman, if on my side, is equal to an army of a hundred thousand men in the field. I've known this from the first. Against me he throws this army in the rear and fires into my back. My grievance is that his Prayer which you have made yours is being used for ammunition in this rear attack. It should have been presented to me first, if it were a genuine prayer. I have read it carefully. It is full of blunders of fact and reasoning, but it fairly expresses the discontent in the minds of many. Its unfair assumptions will poison millions of readers against me——"
He paused, opened a drawer in his desk, took from it a sheet of paper on which he had written in firm, clear hand a brief message in reply, and turned to his petitioners:
"And therefore, gentlemen, I have written a few words in answer to this attack. I ask you to give it the same wide hearing you have accorded the assault. I'll read it to you:
"'Dear Sir:—I have just read yours of the 19th instant addressed to myself through theNew York Tribune.
"'If there be in it any statements or assumptions of fact, which I know to be erroneous, I do not now and here controvert them.
"'If there be any influences which I believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here argue against them.
"'If there be perceptible in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right.
"'As to the policy I seem to be pursuing, as you say, I have not meant to leave anyone in doubt. I would save the Union. I would save it in the shortest way under the Constitution.
"'The sooner the National authority can be restored, the nearer the Union will be,—the Union as it was.
"'If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save Slavery, I do not agree with them.
"'If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time destroy Slavery, I do not agree with them.
"'My paramount object is to save the Union, and not either to save or destroy Slavery.
"'If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it. And if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it. And if I could save it by freeing some, and leaving others alone, I would also do that.
"'What I do about Slavery and the colored race I do because I believe it helps to save the Union, and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.
"'I shall do less whenever I believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more, whenever I believe doing more will help the cause.
"'I shall try to correct errors, when shown to be errors, and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.
"'I have stated my purpose, according to my view of official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft expressed personal wish, that all men everywhere could be free.'"
A moment of death-like stillness followed the reading. The members of the committee had unconsciously pressed nearer. Some of them stood with shining eyes gazing at the rugged, towering figure as if drawn by a magnet. The stark earnestness and simplicity of his defense had found their hearts. The daring of it fairly took their breath.
Senator Winter turned to his nearest neighbor and growled:
"Bah! The trouble is Lincoln's a Southerner—born in the poisoned slave atmosphere of the South. He grew up in Southern Indiana and Illinois. His neighbors there were settlers from the South. He has never breathed anything but Southern air and ideals. It's in his blood. Only a man born in the South could have written that document——"
The listener looked up suddenly:
"I believe you are right. Excuse me—I want to speak to the long-legged Southerner. I've never seen him before."
To the astonishment of the Senator, the editor pushed his way into the group who were shaking hands with the President.
He paused an instant, extended his hand and felt the rugged fingers close on it with a hearty grip. Before he realized it he was saying something astounding—something the farthest possible removed from his thoughts on entering the room.
"I want to thank you, sir, for that document. The heart of an unselfish patriot speaks through every word. I came here to criticise and find fault. I'm going home to stand by you through thick and thin. You've given us a glimpse inside."
Both big hands were now clasping his and a mist was clouding the hazel-grey eyes.
"The Senator accuses you," he went on, "of being a Southerner. He must be right. No Northern man could have seen through the clouds of passion to-day clearly enough to have written that letter. You can see things for all the people, North, South, East and West. God bless you—I'm going home to fight for you and with you——"
In angry amazement Senator Winter saw most of the men he had led to this carefully planned attack walk up and pledge their loyalty to his smiling foe. He turned on his heel and left, his jaw set, his blue eyes dancing with fury.
Old Edward was again rubbing his hands apologetically at the door:
"A body of clergymen from Chicago, sir——"
"Clergymen from Chicago?"
"Yes, sir."
"I didn't know they ever used such things in Chicago!"
He caught his knee in his big hands, leaned back and laughed heartily. The doorman looked straight ahead and managed to keep his solemn countenance under control.
"All right, let them in, Edward."
The reverend gentlemen solemnly filed into the executive office. They looked around in evident amazement at its bare poverty-stricken appearance. They had been shocked at the threadbare appearance of the White House grounds as they entered. This room was a greater shock—this throbbing nerve centre of the Nation. In the middle stood the long, plain table around which the storm-racked Cabinet were wont to gather. There was not a single piece of ornamental or superfluous furniture visible. It appeared almost bare. A second-hand upright desk stood by the middle window. In the northwest corner of the room there were racks with map rollers, and folios of maps on the floor and leaning against the wall.
The well-dressed, prosperous-looking gentlemen gazed about in a critical way.
Their spokesman was a distinguished Bishop who knew that he was distinguished and conveyed the information in every movement of his august body.
"We have come, Mr. President," he solemnly began, "as God's messengers to urge on you the immediate and universal emancipation of every slave in America."
The faintest suggestion of a smile played about the corners of the big, firm mouth as he rose and began a reply which greatly astonished his visitors. They had come to lecture him and before they knew it the lamb had risen to slay the butchers.
"I am approached, gentlemen," he said softly, "with the most opposite opinions and advice, and that by religious men, who are equally certain that they represent the Divine Will. I am sure that either one or the other class is mistaken in that belief, and perhaps in some respects, both. I hope it will not be irreverent for me to say that if it is probable that God would reveal His will to others on a point so connected with my duty, it might be supposed He would reveal it directly to me——"
He paused just an instant and his bushy eyebrows were raised a trifle as if in search of one friendly face in which the sense of humor was not dead. He met with frozen silence and calmly continued:
"Unless I am more deceived in myself than I often am, it is my earnest desire to know the will of Providence in this matter. And if I can learn what it is I will do it! These are not, however, the days of miracles, and I suppose it will be granted that I am not to expect a direct revelation. I must study the plain physical facts of the case, ascertain what is possible, and learn what appears to be wise and right. The subject is difficult and good men do not agree——"
"We are all agreed to-day!" the leader interrupted.
"Even so, Bishop, but we are not all here to-day."
The gentle irony was lost on the great man, and the President went on good-naturedly:
"What good would a proclamation of emancipation do as we are now situated? Shall I issue a document that the whole world will see must be of no more effect that the Pope's bull against the comet? Will my words free the slaves when I cannot even enforce the Constitution in the rebel States? Is there a single court or magistrate, or individual that will be influenced by it there? I approved the law of Congress which offers protection and freedom to the slaves of rebel masters who come within our lines. Yet I can not learn that the law has caused a single slave to come over to us.
"Now then, tell me, if you please, what possible result of good would follow the issuing of such a proclamation as you desire? The greatest evils might follow it—among them the revolt of the Border Slave States which we have held loyal with so much care, and the desertion from the ranks of our armies of thousands of Democratic soldiers who tell us plainly that they are not fighting and they're not going to fight to free negroes!
"Understand me, I raise no objection against it on legal grounds. As Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy in time of war, I suppose I have a right to take any measure which may best subdue the enemy. Nor do I urge objections of a moral nature in view of possible consequences of servile insurrection and massacre in the South. I view this matter now as a practical war measure. Has the moment arrived when I can best strike with this weapon?
"Do not misunderstand me because I have mentioned objections. They indicate some of the difficulties that have thus far prevented my action in some such way as you desire. I have not decided against a proclamation of liberty to the slaves. I hold the matter under advisement. And I can assure you that the subject is on my mind, by day and night more than any other. What shall appear to be God's will I will do——"
He stopped suddenly and a smile illumined his dark face:
"But I cannot see, gentlemen, why God should be sending his message to me by so roundabout route as the sinful city of Chicago. I trust that in the freedom with which I have canvassed your views and expressed my own, I have not in any respect injured your feelings."
The ice was broken at last and the men of God began to smile, press forward and shake his hand. They came his critics, and left his friends.
And yet no hint was given to a single man present that his Emancipation Proclamation had been written two months before and at this moment was lying in the drawer of the old desk before which he sat. Long before the revelation of God's will through these clergymen he had discussed its provisions before his Cabinet and enjoined absolute secrecy. Men from all walks of life came to advise the backwoods lawyer on how to save the country. He listened to all and then did exactly what he believed to be best.
His plan had long been formed on the subject of the destruction of Slavery. His purpose was to accomplish this great task in a way which would give his people a just and lasting peace. He held the firm conviction that the North was equally responsible with the South for the existence of Slavery, and that the Constitution which he had sworn to defend and uphold guaranteed to the slave owner his rights. He was determined to free the slaves if possible, but to do it fairly and honestly and then settle the question for all time by colonizing the negro race and removing them forever from physical contact with the white.
At his request Congress had already passed a bill providing for the colonization of emancipated slaves. He now sent for a number of representative negroes to hear his message and deliver it to their people.
Old Edward ushered them into his office with a look of unmistakable superiority.
It was a strange meeting—this facing for the first time between the supreme representative of the dominant race of the new era and the freed black men whose very existence the President held to be an eternal menace against the Nation's future. It is remarkable that the first words Abraham Lincoln ever addressed as President to an assemblage of negroes should have been the words which fell from his lips.
The ebony faces, their cream-colored teeth showing with smiles and their wide rolling eyes roaming the room made a striking and dramatic contrast to the rugged face and frame of the man who addressed them.
"Your race is suffering," he began with distinct, clean cut emphasis, "in my judgment the greatest wrong inflicted on any people. But even when you cease to be slaves, you are yet far removed from being placed on an equality with the white race. On this broad continent not a single man of your race is made the equal of a single man of ours. Go where you are treated best and the ban is still upon you. I cannot alter it if I would.
"It is better for us both, therefore, to be separated. One of the principal difficulties in the way of colonization is that the free colored man cannot see that his comfort would be advanced by it. For the sake of your race you should sacrifice something of your present comfort. In the American Revolution sacrifices were made by the men engaged in it. They were cheered by the future.
"The Colony of Liberia is an old one, is in a sense a success and it is open to you. I am arranging to open another in Central America. It is nearer than Liberia—within seven days by steamer. You are intelligent and know that success does not so much depend on external help as on self-reliance. Much depends on yourself. If you will engage in the enterprise, I will spend some of the money intrusted to me. This is the practical part of my wish to see you. I ask you then to consider it seriously, not for yourselves merely,nor for your race and ours for the present time, but for the good of mankind."
He dismissed his negro hearers and sent again for the representatives of the Border Slave States. Here his plan must be set in motion. He proposed to pay for the slaves set free and arrange for their colonization.
He spoke with deep emotion. His soul throbbed with passionate tenderness in every word.
"You are patriots and statesmen," he solemnly declared, "and as such I pray you to consider this proposition, and at the least commend it to the consideration of your States and people. Our common country is in grave peril demanding the loftiest views and boldest action to bring it speedy relief. You can make it possible to accomplish the just destruction of this curse of our life. It will bring emancipation as a voluntary process, leaving the least resentment in the minds of our slave-holders. It will not be a violent war measure, to be remembered with fierce rebellious anger. It will pave the way for good feeling at last between all sections when reunited. It is reasonable. It is just. It will leave no cause for sectional enmity. This plan of gradual emancipation with pay for each slave to his owner will secure peace more speedily and maintain it more permanently than can be done by force alone. Its cost could be easier paid than the additional cost of war and would sacrifice no blood at all.
"In giving freedom to theslave, weassurefreedom to thefree—honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed. This could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just—a way which if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless."
His tender, eloquent appeal fell on deaf ears. The men who represented the Border Slave States refused to permit the question of tampering with Slavery to be submitted to their people—no matter by what process, with or without pay.
They demanded with sullen persistence that the President defy all shades of Northern opinion and stand squarely by his Inaugural address. In vain he pointed out to them that the fact of a desperate and terrible war, costing two million dollars a day and threatening the existence of the Government itself, had changed the conditions under which he made that pledge.
When the President at last introduced into Congress through his spokesman the bill appropriating fifteen million dollars with which to pay for their slaves, the men from the Border States united with the Democrats and defeated it!
With a sorrowful heart and deep forebodings of the future he turned to his desk and drew forth the document he had written declaring as an act of war against the States in rebellion that their slaves should be free.
He read its provisions again with the utmost care. He made no attack on Slavery, or the slave-holder. He was striking the blow against the wealth and power of the South for the sole purpose of crippling her resources and weakening her power to continue the struggle to divide the Union. There was in it not one word concerning the rights of man or the equal rights of black and white men. His mind was absolutely clear on that point. The negro when freed would be an alien race so low in the scale of being, so utterly different in temperament and character from the white man that their remaining in physical contact with each other in our Republic was unthinkable. In the Emancipation Proclamation itself, therefore, he had written the principles of the colonization of the negro race. The two things were inseparable. He could conceive of no greater calamity befalling the Nation than to leave the freed black man within its borders as an eternal menace to its future happiness and progress.
He called his Secretary and ordered a Cabinet meeting to fix the date on which to issue this momentous document to the world—a challenge to mortal combat to his foes in all sections.
Betty Winter held John Vaughan's note in her hand staring at its message with increasing amazement: