Lincoln's Personal LifePart 6 out of 8up."[6] Grant set out for the front in Virginia. Lincoln's parting words were this note: "Not expecting to see you again before the spring campaign opens, I wish to express in this way my entire satisfaction with what you have done up to this time, so far as I understand it. The particulars of your plans I neither know nor seek to know. You are vigilant and self-reliant; and, pleased with this, I wish not to obtrude any constraints or restraints upon you. While I am very anxious that any great disaster or capture of our men in great numbers shall be avoided, I know these points are less likely to escape your attention than they would be mine. If there is anything wanting which is within my power to give, do not fail to let me know it. And now,with a brave army and a just cause, may God sustain you."[7] XXIX. CATASTROPHE If the politicians needed a definite warning, in addition to what the ground was saying, it was given by an incident that centered upon Chase. A few bold men whose sense of the crowd was not so acute as it might have been, attempted to work up a Chase boom. At the instance of Senator Pomeroy, a secret paper known to-day as the Pomeroy Circular, was started on its travels. The Circular aimed to make Chase the Vindictive candidate. Like all the other anti-Lincoln moves of the early part of 1864, it was premature. The shrewd old Senators who were silently marshaling the Vindictive forces, let it alone. Chase's ambition was fully understood at the White House. During the previous year, his irritable self-consciousness had led to quarrels with the President, generally over patronage, and more than once he had offered his resignation. On one occasion, Lincoln went to his house and begged him to reconsider. Alone among the Cabinet, Chase had failed to take the measure of Lincoln and still considered him a second-rate person, much his inferior. He rated very high the services to his country of the Secretary of the Treasury whom he considered the logical successor to the Presidency. Lincoln refused to see what Chase was after. "I have determined," he told Hay, "to shut my eyes as far as possible to everything of the sort. Mr. Chase makes a good secretary and I shall keep him where he is."[1] In lighter vein, he said that Chase's presidential ambition was like a "chin fly" pestering a horse; it led to his putting all the energy he had into his work.[2] When a copy of the Circular found its way to the White House, Lincoln refused to read it.[3] Soon afterward it fell into the hands of an unsympathetic or indiscreet editor and was printed. There was a hubbub. Chase offered to resign. Lincoln wrote to him in reply: "My knowledge of Mr. Pomeroy's letter having been made public came to me only the day you wrote but I had, in Spite of myself, known of its existence several days before. I have not yet read it, and I think I shall not. I was not shocked or surprised by the appearance of the letter because I had had knowledge of Mr. Pomeroy's committee, and of secret issues which I supposed came from it, and of secret agents who I supposed were sent out by it, for several weeks. I have known just as little of these things as my friends have allowed me to know. They bring the documents to me, but I do not read them; they tell me what they think fit to tell me, but I do not inquire for more. I fully concur with you that neither of us can be justly held responsible for what our respective friends may do without our instigation or countenance; and I assure you, as you have assured me, that no assault has been made upon you by my instigation or with my countenance. Whether you shall remain at the head of the Treasury Department is a question which I will not allow myself to consider from any standpoint other than my judgment of the public service, and in that view, I do not perceive occasion for a change."[4] But this was not the end of the incident. The country promptly repudiated Chase. His own state led the way. A caucus of Union members of the Ohio Legislature resolved that the people and the soldiers of Ohio demanded the reelection of Lincoln. In a host of similar resolutions, Legislative caucuses, political conventions, dubs, societies, prominent individuals not in the political machine, all ringingly declared for Lincoln, the one proper candidate of the "Union party"-as the movement was labeled in a last and relatively successful attempt to break party lines. As the date of the "Union Convention" approached, Lincoln put aside an opportunity to gratify the Vindictives. Following the Emancipation Proclamation, the recruiting offices had been opened to negroes. Thereupon the Confederate government threatened to treat black soldiers as brigands, and to refuse to their white officers the protection of the laws of war. A cry went up in the North for reprisal. It was not the first time the cry had been raised. In 1862 Lincoln's spokesman in Congress, Browning, had withstood a proposal for the trial of General Buckner by the civil authorities of Kentucky. Browning opposed such a course on the ground that it would lead to a policy of retaliation, and make of the war a gratification of revenge.[5] The Confederate threat gave a new turn to the discussion. Frederick Douglas, the most influential negro of the time, obtained an audience with Lincoln and begged for reprisals. Lincoln would not consent. So effective was his argument that even the ardent negro, convinced that his race was about to suffer persecution, was satisfied. "I shall never forget," Douglas wrote, "the benignant expression of his face, the tearful look of his eye, the quiver in his voice, when he deprecated a resort to retaliatory measures. 'Once begun,' said he, 'I do not know where such a measure would stop.' He said he could not take men out and kill them in cold blood for what was done by others. If he could get hold of the persons who were guilty of killing the colored prisoners in cold blood, the case would be different, but he could not kill the innocent for the guilty."[6] In April, 1864, the North was swept by a wild rumor of deliberate massacre of prisoners at Fort Pillow. Here was an opportunity for Lincoln to ingratiate himself with the Vindictives. The President was to make a speech at a fair held in Baltimore, for the benefit of the Sanitary Commission. The audience was keen to hear him denounce the reputed massacre, and eager to applaud a promise of reprisal. Instead, he deprecated hasty judgment; insisting that the rumor had not been verified; that nothing should be done on the strength of mere report. "It is a mistake to suppose the government is indifferent in this matter, or is not doing the best it can in regard to it. We do not to-day know that a colored soldier or white officer commanding colored soldiers has been massacred by the Rebels when made a prisoner. We fear it--believe it, I may say-but we do not know it To take the life of one of their prisoners on the assumption that they murder ours, when it is short of certainty that they do murder ours, might be too serious, too cruel a mistake."[7] What a tame, spiritless position in the eyes of the Vindictives! A different opportunity to lay hold of public opinion he made the most of. And yet, here also, he spoke in that carefully guarded way, making sure he was not understood to say more than he meant, which most politicians would have pronounced over-scrupulous. A deputation of working men from New York were received at the White House. "The honorary membership in your association," said he, "as generously tendered, is gratefully accepted. . . . You comprehend, as your address shows, that the existing rebellion means more, and tends to more, than the perpetuation of African slavery-that it is, in fact, a war upon the rights of all working people." After reviewing his own argument on this subject in the second message, he concluded: "The views then expressed now remain unchanged, nor have I much to add. None are so deeply interested to resist the present rebellion as the working people. Let them beware of prejudices, working division and hostility among themselves. The most notable feature of a disturbance in your city last summer was the hanging of some working people by other working people. It should never be so. The strongest bond of human sympathy outside of the family relation, should be one uniting all working people, of all nations, and tongues, and kindreds. Nor should this lead to a war upon property, or the owners of property. Property is the fruit of labor; property is desirable; is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuming that his own shall be safe from violence when built."[8] Lincoln was never more anxious than in this fateful spring when so many issues were hanging in the balance. Nevertheless, in all his relations with the world, his firm serenity was not broken. Though subject to depression so deep that his associates could not penetrate it, he kept it sternly to himself.[9] He showed the world a lighter, more graceful aspect than ever before. 'A precious record of his later mood is the account of him set down by Frank B. Carpenter, the portrait painter, a man of note in his day, who was an inmate of the White House during the first half of 1864. Carpenter was painting a picture of the "Signing of the Emancipation Proclamation." He saw Lincoln informally at all sorts of odd times, under all sorts of conditions. "All familiar with him," says Carpenter, "will remember the weary air which became habitual during his last years. This was more of the mind than of the body, and no rest and recreation which he allowed himself could relieve it. As he sometimes expressed it, 'no remedy seemed ever to reach the tired spot."[10] A great shadow was darkening over him. He was more than ever convinced that he had not long to live. None the less, his poise became more conspicuous, his command over himself and others more distinguished, as the months raced past. In truth he had worked through a slow but profound transformation. The Lincoln of 1864 was so far removed from the Lincoln of Pigeon Creek-but logically, naturally removed, through the absorption of the outer man by the inner--that inevitably one thinks of Shakespeare's change "into something rich and strange." Along with the weakness, the contradictions of his earlier self, there had also fallen away from him the mere grossness that had belonged to him as a peasant. Carpenter is unconditional that in six months of close intimacy, seeing him in company with all sorts of people, he never heard from Lincoln an offensive story. He quotes Seward and Lincoln's family physician to the same effect.[11] The painter, like many others, was impressed by the tragic cast of his expression, despite the surface mirth. "His complexion, at this time, was inclined to sallowness his eyes were bluish gray in color--always in deep shadow, however, from the upper lids which were unusually heavy (reminding me in this respect of Stuart's portrait of Washington) and the expression was remarkably pensive and tender, often inexpressibly sad, as if the reservoir of tears lay very near the surface--a fact proved not only by the response which accounts of suffering and sorrow invariably drew forth, but by circumstances which would ordinarily affect few men in his position."[12] As a result of the great strain to which he was subjected "his demeanor and disposition changed-so gradually that it would be impossible to say when the change began. . . . He continued always the same kindly, genial, and cordial spirit he had been at first; but the boisterous laughter became less frequent, year by year; the eye grew veiled by constant meditation on momentous subjects; the air of reserve and detachment from his surroundings increased. He aged with great rapidity."[13] Every Saturday afternoon the Marine Band gave an open-air concert in the grounds of the White House. One afternoon Lincoln appeared upon the portico. There was instant applause and cries for a speech. "Bowing his thanks and excusing himself, he stepped back into the retirement of the circular parlor, remarking (to Carpenter) with a disappointed air, as he reclined on a sofa, 'I wish they would let me sit there quietly and enjoy the music.'His kindness to others was unfailing. it was this harassed statesman who "came into the studio one day and found (Carpenter's) little boy of two summers playing on the floor. A member of the Cabinet was with him; but laying aside all restraint, he took the little fellow in his arms and they were soon on the best of terms." While his younger son "Tad" was with his mother on a journey, Lincoln telegraphed: "Tell Tad, father and the goats are well, especially the goats."[14] He found time one bright morning in May to review the Sunday-school children of Washington who filed past "cheering as if their very lives depended upon it," while Lincoln stood at a window "enjoying the scene... making pleasant remarks about a face that now and then struck him."[15] Carpenter told him that no other president except Washington had placed himself so securely in the hearts of the people. "Homely, honest, ungainly Lincoln," said Asa Gray, in a letter to Darwin, "is the representative man of the country." However, two groups of men in his own party were sullenly opposed to him--the relentless Vindictives and certain irresponsible free lances who named themselves the "Radical Democracy." In the latter group, Fremont was the hero; Wendell Phillips, the greatest advocate. They were extremists in all things; many of them Agnostics. Furious against Lincoln, but unwilling to go along with the waiting policy of the Vindictives, these visionaries held a convention at Cleveland; voted down a resolution that recognized God as an ally; and nominated Fremont for the Presidency. A witty comment on the movement--one that greatly amused Lincoln--was the citation of a verse in first Samuel: "And every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him; and he became a captain over them; and there were with him about four hundred men." If anything was needed to keep the dissatisfied Senators in the party ranks, it was this rash "bolt." Though Fremont had been their man in the past, he had thrown the fat in the fire by setting up an independent ticket. Silently, the wise opportunists of the Senate and all their henchmen, stood aside at the "Union convention"--which they called the Republican Convention--June seventh, and took their medicine. There was no doubt of the tempest of enthusiasm among the majority of the delegates. It was a Lincoln ovation. In responding the next day to a committee of congratulation, Lincoln said: "I am not insensible at all to the personal compliment there is in this, and yet I do not allow myself to believe that any but a small portion of it is to be appropriated as a personal compliment. . . . I do not allow myself to suppose that either the Convention or the [National Union] League have concluded to decide that I am the greatest or best man in America, but rather they have concluded that it is best not to swap horses while crossing the river, and have further concluded that I am not so poor a horse that they might not make a botch of it trying to swap."[16] Carpenter records another sort of congratulation a few days later that brought out the graceful side of this man whom most people still supposed to be hopelessly awkward. It happened on a Saturday. Carpenter had invited friends to sit in his painting room and oversee the crowd while listening to the music. "Towards the close of the concert, the door suddenly opened, and the President came in, as he was in the habit of doing, alone. Mr. and Mrs. Cropsey had been presented to him in the course of the morning; and as he came forward, half hesitatingly, Mrs. C., who held a bunch of beautiful flowers in her hand, tripped forward playfully, and said: 'Allow me, Mr. President, to present you with a bouquet!' The situation was momentarily embarrassing; and I was puzzled to know how 'His Excellency' would get out of it. With no appearance of discomposure, he stooped down, took the flowers, and, looking from them into the sparkling eyes and radiant face of the lady, said, with a gallantry I was unprepared for 'Really, madam, if you give them to me, and they are mine, I think I can not possibly make so good use of them as to present them to you, in return!'"[17] In gaining the nomination, Lincoln had not, as yet, attained security for his plans. Grant was still to be reckoned with. By a curious irony, the significance of his struggle with Lee during May, his steady advance by the left flank, had been misapprehended in the North. Looking at the map, the country saw that he was pushing southward, and again southward, on Virginia soil. McClellan, Pope, Burnside, Hooker, with them it had been: "He who fights and runs away May live to fight another day." But Grant kept on. He struck Lee in the furious battle of the Wilderness, and moved to the left, farther south. "Victory!" cried the Northern newspapers, "Lee isn't able to stop him." The same delusion was repeated after Spottsylvania where the soldiers, knowing more of war than did the newspapers, pinned to their coats slips of paper bearing their names; identification of the bodies might be difficult. The popular mistake continued throughout that dreadful campaign. The Convention was still under the delusion of victory. Lincoln also appears to have stood firm until the last minute in the common error. But the report of Grant's losses, more than the whole of Lee's army, filled him with horror. During these days, Carpenter had complete freedom of the President's office and "intently studied every line and shade of expression in that furrowed face. In repose, it was the saddest face I ever knew. There were days when I could scarcely look into it without crying. During the first week of the battles of the Wilderness he scarcely slept at all. Passing through the main hall of the domestic apartment on one of these days, I met him, clad in a long, morning wrapper, pacing back and forth a narrow passage leading to one of the windows, his hands behind him, great black rings under his eyes, his head bent forward upon his breast- altogether such a picture of the effects of sorrow, care, and anxiety as would have melted the hearts of the worst of his adversaries, who so mistakenly applied to him the epithets of tyrant and usurper."[18] Despite these sufferings, Lincoln had not the slightest thought of giving way. Not in him any likeness to the -sentimentalists, Greeley and all his crew, who were exultant martyrs when things were going right, and shrieking pacifists the moment anything went wrong. In one of the darkest moments of the year, he made a brief address at a Sanitary Fair in Philadelphia. "Speaking of the present campaign," said he, "General Grant is reported to have said, 'I am going to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer.' This war has taken three years; it was begun or accepted upon the line of restoring the national authority over the whole national domain, and for the American people, as far as my knowledge enables me to speak, I say we are going through on this line if it takes three years more."[19] He made no attempt to affect Grant's course. He had put him in supreme command and would leave everything to his judgment. And then came the colossal blunder at Cold Harbor. Grant stood again where McClellan had stood two years before. He stood there defeated. He could think of nothing to do but just what McClellan had wanted to do--abandon the immediate enterprise, make a great detour to the Southwest, and start a new campaign on a different plan. Two years with all their terrible disasters, and this was all that had come of it! Practically no gain, and a death-roll that staggered the nation. A wail went over the North. After all, was the war hopeless? Was Lee invincible? Was the best of the Northern manhood perishing to no result? Greeley, perhaps the most hysterical man of genius America has produced, made his paper the organ of the wail. He wrote frantic appeals to the government to cease fighting, do what could be done by negotiation, and if nothing could be done-at least, stop "these rivers of human blood." The Vindictives saw their opportunity. They would capitalize the wail. The President should be dealt with yet. XXX. THE PRESIDENT VERSUS THE VINDICTIVES Now that the Vindictives had made up their minds to fight, an occasion was at their hands. Virtually, they declared war on the President by refusing to recognize a State government which he had set up in Arkansas. Congress would not admit Senators or Representatives from the Reconstructed State. But on this issue, Lincoln was as resolute to fight to a finish as were any of his detractors. He wrote to General Steele, commanding in Arkansas: "I understand that Congress declines to admit to seats the persons sent as Senators and Representatives from Arkansas. These persons apprehend that, in consequence, you may not support the new State government there as you otherwise would. My wish is that you give that government and the people there the same support and protection that you would if the members had been admitted, because in no event, nor in any view of the case, can this do harm, while it will be the best you can do toward suppressing the rebellion."[1] The same day Chase resigned. The reason he assigned was, again, the squabble over patronage. He had insisted on an appointment of which the President disapproved. Exactly what moved him may be questioned. Chase never gave his complete confidence, not even to his diary. Whether he thought that the Vindictives would now take him up as a rival of Lincoln, continues doubtful. Many men were staggered by his action. Crittenden, the Registrar of the Treasury, was thrown into a panic. "Mr. President," said he, "this is worse than another Bull Run. Pray let me go to Secretary Chase and see if I can not induce him to withdraw his resignation. Its acceptance now might cause a financial panic." But Lincoln was in a fighting mood. "Chase thinks he has become indispensable to the country," he told Chittenden. "He also thinks he ought to be President; he has no doubt whatever about that. He is an able financier, a great statesman, and at the bottom a patriot . . he is never perfectly happy unless he is thoroughly miserable and able to make everybody else just as uncomfortable as he is himself. . He is either determined to annoy me or that I shall pat him on the shoulder and coax him to stay. I don't think I ought to do it. I will take him at his word."[2] He accepted the resignation in a note that was almost curt: "Of all I have said in commendation of your ability and fidelity, I have nothing to unsay; and yet you and I have reached a point of mutual embarrassment in our official relations which it seems can not be overcome or longer sustained consistently with the public service."[3] The selection of a successor to Chase was no easy matter. The Vindictives were the leaders of the moment. What if they persuaded the Senate not to confirm Lincoln's choice of Secretary. "I never saw the President," says Carpenter, "under so much excitement as on the day following this event" On the night of July first, Lincoln lay awake debating with himself the merits of various candidates. At length, he selected his man and immediately went to sleep. "The next morning he went to his office and wrote the nomination. John Hay, the assistant private secretary, had taken it from the President on his way to the Capitol, when he encountered Senator Fessenden upon the threshold of the room. As chairman of the Finance Committee, he also had passed an anxious night, and called this early to consult with the President, and offer some suggestions. After a few moments' conversation, Mr. Lincoln turned to him with a smile and said: 'I am obliged to you, Fessenden, but the fact is, I have just sent your own name to the Senate for Secretary of the Treasury. Hay had just received the nomination from my hand as you entered.' Mr. Fessenden was taken completely by surprise, and, very much agitated, protested his inability to accept the position. The state of his health, he said, if no other consideration, made it impossible. Mr. Lincoln would not accept the refusal as final. He very justly felt that with Mr. Fessenden's experience and known ability at the head of the Finance Committee, his acceptance would go far toward reestablishing a feeling of security. He said to him, very earnestly, 'Fessenden, the Lord has not deserted me thus far, and He is not going to now--you must accept!' "They separated, the Senator in great anxiety of mind. Throughout the day, Mr. Lincoln urged almost all who called to go and see Mr. Fessenden, and press upon him the duty of accepting. Among these, was a delegation of New York bankers, who, in the name of the banking community, expressed their satisfaction at the nomination. This was especially gratifying to the President; and in the strongest manner, he entreated them to 'see Mr. Fessenden and assure him of their support.'"[4] In justification of his choice, Lincoln said to Hay:--"Thinking over the matter, two or three points occurred to me: first his thorough acquaintance with the business; as chairman of the Senate Committee of Finance, he knows as much of this special subject as Mr. Chase; he possesses a national reputation and the confidence of the country; he is a Radical without the petulance and fretfulness of many radicals."[5] In other words, though he was not at heart one of them, he stood for the moment so close to the Vindictives that they would not make an issue on his confirmation. Lincoln had scored a point in his game with the Vindictives. But the point was of little value. The game's real concern was that Reconstruction Bill which was now before the Senate with Wade as its particular sponsor. The great twin brethren of the Vindictives were Wade and Chandler. Both were furious for the passage of the bill. "The Executive," said Wade angrily, "ought not to be allowed to handle this great question of his own liking." On the last day of the session, Lincoln was in the President's room at the Capitol Signing bills. The Reconstruction Bill, duly passed by both Houses, was brought to him. Several Senators, friends of the bill and deeply anxious, had come into the President's room hoping to see him affix his signature. To their horror, he merely glanced at the bill and laid it aside. Chandler, who was watching him, bluntly demanded what he meant to do. "This bill," said Lincoln, "has been placed before me a few minutes before Congress adjourns. it is a matter of too much importance to be swallowed in that way." "If it is vetoed," said Chandler, whose anger was mounting, "it will damage us fearfully in the Northwest. The important point is that one prohibiting slavery in the Reconstructed States." "That is the point," replied the President, "on which I doubt the authority of Congress to act." "It is no more than you have done yourself," retorted Chandler. Lincoln turned to him and said quietly but with finality: "I conceive that I may in an emergency do things on military grounds which can not constitutionally be done by Congress." Chandler angrily left the room. To those who remained, Lincoln added: "I do not see how any of us now can deny and contradict what we have always said, that Congress has no constitutional power over slavery in the States."[6] In a way, he was begging the question. The real issue was not how a State should be constitutionally reconstructed, but which, President or Congress, had a right to assume dictatorial power. At last the true Vindictive issue, lured out of their arms by the Democrats, had escaped like a bird from a snare and was fluttering home. Here was the old issue of the war powers in a new form that it was safe for them to press. And the President had squarely defied them. it was civil war inside the Union party. And for both sides, President and Vindictives, there could now be nothing but rule or ruin. In this crisis of factional politics, Lincoln was unmoved, self-contained, lofty, deliberate. "If they (the Vindictives) choose to make a point on this, I do not doubt that they can do harm. They have never been friendly to me. At all events, I must keep some consciousness of being somewhere near right. I must keep some standard of principle fixed within myself." XXXI A MENACING PAUSE Lincoln had now reached his final stature. In contact with the world his note was an inscrutable serenity. The jokes which he continued to tell were but transitory glimmerings. They crossed the surface of his mood like quick flickers of golden light on a stormy March day,-- witnesses that the sun would yet prevail,--in a forest-among mountain shadows. Or, they were lightning glimmers in a night sky; they revealed, they did not dispel, the dark beyond. Over all his close associates his personal ascendency was complete. Now that Chase was gone, the last callous spot in the Cabinet had been amputated. Even Stanton, once so domineering, so difficult to manage, had become as clay in his hands. But Lincoln never used power for its own sake, never abused his ascendency. Always he got his end if he could without evoking the note of command. He would go to surprising lengths to avoid appearing peremptory. A typical remark was his smiling reply to a Congressman whom he had armed with a note to the Secretary, who had returned aghast, the Secretary having refused to comply with the President's request and having decorated his refusal with extraordinary language. "Did Stanton say I was a damned fool?" asked Lincoln. "Then I dare say I must be one, for Stanton is generally right and he always says what he means." Nevertheless, the time had come when Lincoln had only to say the word and Stanton, no matter how fierce his temper might' be, would acknowledge his master. General Fry, the Provost Marshal, witnessed a scene between them which is a curious commentary on the transformation of the Stanton of 1862. Lincoln had issued an order relative to the disposition of certain recruits. Stanton protested that it was unwarranted, that he would not put it into effect. The Provost Marshal was called in and asked to state at length all the facts involved. When he had finished Stanton broke out excitedly-- "'Now, Mr. President, those are the facts and you must see that your order can not be executed.' "Lincoln sat upon a sofa with his legs crossed and did not say a word until the Secretary's last remark. Then he said in a somewhat positive tone, 'Mr. Secretary, I reckon you'll have to execute the order.' "Stanton replied with asperity, 'Mr. President, I can not do it. The order is an improper one, and I can not execute it." Lincoln fixed his eye upon Stanton, and in a firm voice with an accent that clearly showed his determination, he said, 'Mr. Secretary, it will have to be done.'"[1] At this point, General Fry discreetly left the room. A few moments later, he received instructions from Stanton to execute the President's order. In a public matter in the June of 1864 Lincoln gave a demonstration of his original way of doing things. It displayed his final serenity in such unexpected fashion that no routine politician, no dealer in the catchwords of statecraft, -could understand it. Since that grim joke, the deportation of Vallandigham, the Copperhead leader had not had happy time. The Confederacy did not want him. He had made his way to Canada. Thence, in the spring of 1864 he served notice on his country that he would perform a dramatic Part, play the role of a willing martyr-in a word, come home and defy the government to do its worst. He came. But Lincoln did nothing. The American sense of humor did the rest. If Vallandigham had not advertised a theatrical exploit, ignoring him might have been dangerous. But Lincoln knew his people. When the show did not come off, Vallandigham was transformed in an instant from a martyr to an anticlimax. Though he went busily to work, though he lived to attend the Democratic National Convention and to write the resolution that was the heart of its platform, his tale was told. Turning from Vallandigham, partly in amusement, partly in contempt, Lincoln grappled with the problem of reinforcing the army. Since the Spring of 1863 the wastage of the army had been replaced by conscription. But the system had not worked well. it contained a fatal provision. A drafted man might escape service by paying three hundred dollars. Both the Secretary of War and the Provost Marshal had urged the abolition of this detail. Lincoln had communicated their arguments to Congress with his approval and a new law had been drawn up accordingly. Nevertheless, late in June, the House amended it by restoring the privilege of commuting service for money.[2] Lincoln bestirred himself. The next day he called together the Republican members of the House. "With a sad, mysterious light in his melancholy eyes, as if they were familiar with things hidden from mortals" he urged the Congressmen to reconsider their action. The time of three hundred eighty thousand soldiers would expire in October. He must have half a million to take their places. A Congressman objected that elections were approaching; that the rigorous law he proposed would be intensely unpopular; that it might mean the defeat, at the polls, of many Republican Representatives; it might even mean the President's defeat. He replied that he had thought of all that. "My election is not necessary; I must put down the rebellion; I must have five hundred thousand more men."[3] He raised the timid politicians to his own level, inspired them with new courage. Two days later a struggle began in the House for carrying out Lincoln's purpose. On the last day of the session along with the offensive Reconstruction Bill, he received the new Enrollment Act which provided that "no payment of money shall be accepted or received by the Government as commutation to release any enrolled or drafted man from personal obligation to per-form military service." Against this inflexible determination to fight to a finish, this indifference to the political consequences of his determination, Lincoln beheld arising like a portentous specter, a fury of pacifism. It found expression in Greeley. Always the swift victim of his own affrighted hope, Greeley had persuaded himself that both North and South had lost heart for the war; that there was needed only a moving appeal, and they would throw down their arms and the millennium would come. Furthermore, on the flimsiest sort of evidence, he had fallen into a trap designed to place the Northern government in the attitude of suing for peace. He wrote to Lincoln demanding that he send an agent to confer with certain Confederate officials who were reported to be then in Canada; he also suggested terms of peace.[4] Greeley's terms were entirely acceptable to Lincoln; but he had no faith in the Canadian mare's nest. However, he decided to give Greeley the utmost benefit of the doubt, and also to teach him a lesson. He commissioned Greeley himself to proceed to Canada, there to discover "if there is or is not anything in the affair." He wrote to him, "I not only intend a sincere effort for peace, but I intend that you shall be a personal witness that it is made."[5] Greeley, who did not want to have any responsibility for anything that might ensue, whose joy was to storm and to find fault, accepted the duty he could not well refuse, and set out in a bad humor. Meanwhile two other men had conceived an undertaking somewhat analogous but in a temper widely different. These were Colonel Jaquess, a clergyman turned soldier, a man of high simplicity of character, and J. R. Gilmore, a writer, known by the pen name of Edmund Kirke. Jaquess had told Gilmore of information he had received from friends in the Confederacy; he was convinced that nothing would induce the Confederate government to consider any terms of peace that embraced reunion, whether with or without emancipation. "It at once occurred to me," says Gilmore, "that if this declaration could be got in such a manner that it could be given to the public, it would, if scattered broadcast over the North, destroy the peace-party and reelect Mr. Lincoln." Gilmore went to Washington and obtained an interview with the President. He assured him--and he was a newspaper correspondent whose experience was worth considering--that the new pacifism, the incipient "peace party," was schooling the country in the belief that an offer of liberal terms would be followed by a Southern surrender. The masses wanted peace on any terms that would preserve the Union; and the Democrats were going to tell them in the next election that Lincoln could save the Union by negotiation, if he would. Unless the popular mind were disabused of this fictitious hope, the Democrats would prevail and the Union would collapse. But if an offer to negotiate should be made, and if "Davis should refuse to negotiate--as he probably would, except on the basis of Southern independence--that fact alone would reunite the North, reelect Lincoln, and thus save the Union."[6] "Then," said Lincoln, "you would fight the devil with fire. You would get that declaration from Davis and use it against him." Gilmore defended himself by proposing to offer extremely liberal terms. There was a pause in the conversation. Lincoln who was seated at his desk "leaned slightly forward looking directly into (Gilmore's) eyes, but with an absent, far-away gaze as if unconscious of (his) presence." Suddenly, relapsing into his usual badinage, he said, "God selects His own instruments and some times they are queer ones: for instance, He chose me to see the ship of state through a great crisis."[7] He went on to say that Gilmore and Jaquess might be the very men to serve a great purpose at this moment. Gilmore knew the world; and anybody could see at a glance that Jaquess never told anything that wasn't true. If they would go to Richmond on their own responsibility, make it plain to President Davis that they were not official agents, even taking the chance of arrest and imprisonment, they might go. This condition was accepted. Lincoln went on to say that no advantage should be taken of Mr. Davis; that nothing should be proposed which if accepted would not be made good. After considerable further discussion he drew up a memorandum of the terms upon which he would consent to peace. There were seven items: 1. The immediate dissolution of the armies. 2. The abolition of slavery. 3. A general amnesty. 4. The Seceded States to resume their functions as states in the Union as if no secession had taken place. 5. Four hundred million dollars to be appropriated by Congress as compensation for loss of slave property; no slaveholder, however, to receive more than one-half the former value of his slaves. 6. A national convention to be called for readjustment of all other difficulties. 7. It to be understood that the purpose of negotiation was a full restoration of the Union as of old.[8] Gilmore and Jaquess might say to Davis that they had private but sure knowledge that the President of the United States would agree to peace on these terms. Thus provided, they set forth. Lincoln's thoughts were speedily claimed by an event which had no Suggestion of peace. At no time since Jackson threw the government into a panic in the spring of 1862, had Washington been in danger of capture. Now, briefly, it appeared to be at the mercy of General Early. in the last act of a daring raid above the Potomac, he came sweeping down on Washington from the North. As Grant was now the active commander-in-chief, responsible for all the Northern armies, Lincoln with a fatalistic calm made no move to take the capital out of his hands. When Early was known to be headed toward Washington, Lincoln drove out as usual to spend the night at the Soldiers' Home beyond the fortifications. Stanton, in whom there was a reminiscence at least of the hysterical Secretary of 1862, sent after him post haste and insisted on his returning. The next day, the eleventh of July, 1864, Washington was invested by the Confederate forces. There was sharp firing in front of several forts. Lincoln--and for that matter, Mrs. Lincoln also--made a tour of the defenses. While Fort Stevens was under fire, he stood on the parapet, "apparently unconscious of danger, watching with that grave and passive countenance the progress of the fight, amid the whizzing bullets of the sharp shooters, until an officer fell mortally wounded within three feet of him, and General Wright peremptorily represented to him the needless risk he was running." Hay recorded in his diary "the President in good feather this evening . . . not concerned about Washington's safety . . . only thought, can we bag or destroy the force in our front.'" He was much disappointed when Early eluded the forces which Grant hurried to the Capitol. Mrs. Lincoln was outspoken to the same effect. The doughty little lady had also been under fire, her temper being every whit as bold as her husband's. When Stanton with a monumental playfulness proposed to have her portrait painted in a commanding attitude on the parapet of Fort Stevens, she gave him the freedom of her tongue, because of the inadequacy of his department.[9] This incident had its aftermath. A country-place belonging to the Postmaster General had been laid waste. its owner thought that the responsibility for permitting Early to come so near to Washington fell chiefly on General Halleck. He made some sharp criticisms which became public the General flew into a rage and wrote to the Secretary of War: "The Postmaster General ought to be dismissed by the President from the Cabinet." Stanton handed his letter to the President, from whom the next day the General received this note: "Whether the remarks were made I do not know, nor do I suppose such knowledge is necessary to a correct response. if they were made, I do not approve them; and yet, under the circumstances, I would not dismiss a member of the Cabinet therefor. I do not consider what may have been hastily said in a moment of vexation at so severe a loss is sufficient ground for so grave a step. Besides this, truth is generally the best vindication against slander. I propose continuing to be myself the judge as to when a member of the Cabinet shall be dismissed." Lincoln spoke of the affair at his next conference with his Ministers. "I must, myself, be the judge," said he, "how long to retain in and when to remove any of you from his position. It would greatly pain me to discover any of you endeavoring to procure another's removal, or in any way to prejudice him before the public. Such an endeavor would be a wrong to me, and much worse, a wrong to the country. My wish is that on this subject no remark be made nor question asked by any of you, here or elsewhere, now or hereafter."[10] Not yet had anything resulted either from the Canadian mission of Greeley, or from the Richmond adventure of Gilmore and Jaquess. There was a singular ominous pause in events. Lincoln could not be blind to the storm signals that had attended the close of Congress. What were the Vindictives about? As yet they had made no Sign. But it was incredible that they could pass over his defiance without a return blow. When would it come? What would it be? He spent his nights at the Soldiers' Home. As a rule, his family were with him. Sometimes, however, Mrs. Lincoln and his sons would be absent and his only companion was one of the ardent young secretaries. Then he would indulge in reading Shakespeare aloud, it might be with such forgetfulness of time that only the nodding of the tired young head recalled him to himself and brought the reading to an end. A visitor has left this charming picture of Lincoln at the Soldiers' Home in the sad sweetness of a summer night: "The Soldiers' Home is a few miles out of Washington on the Maryland side. It is situated on a beautiful wooded hill, which you ascend by a winding path, shaded on both sides by wide-spread branches, forming a green arcade above you. When you reach the top you stand between two mansions, large, handsome and substantial, but with nothing about them to indicate the character of either. That on the left is the Presidential country house; that directly before you, is the 'Rest,' for soldiers who are too old for further service . . . in the graveyard near at hand there are numberless graves--some without a spear of grass to hide their newness--that hold the bodies of volunteers. "While we stood in the soft evening air, watching the faint trembling of the long tendrils of waving willow, and feeling the dewy coolness that was flung out by the old oaks above us, Mr. Lincoln joined us, and stood silent, too, taking in the scene. "'How sleep the brave who sink to rest, By all their country's wishes blest," he said, softly. . . "Around the 'Home' grows every variety of tree, particularly of the evergreen class. Their branches brushed into the carriage as we passed along, and left us with that pleasant woody smell belonging to leaves. One of the ladies, catching a bit of green from one of these intruding branches, said it was cedar, and another thought it spruce. "'Let me discourse on a theme I understand,' said the President. 'I know all about trees in right of being a backwoodsman. I'll show you the difference between spruce, pine and cedar, and this shred of green, which is neither one nor the other, but a kind of illegitimate cypress. He then proceeded to gather specimens of each, and explain the distinctive formation of foliage belonging to each."[11] Those summer nights of July, 1864, had many secrets which the tired President musing in the shadows of the giant trees or finding solace with the greatest of earthly minds would have given much to know. How were Gilmore and Jaquess faring? What was really afoot in Canada? And that unnatural silence of the Vindictives, what did that mean? And the two great armies, Grant's in Virginia, Sherman's in Georgia, was there never to be stirring news of either of these? The hush of the moment, the atmosphere of suspense that seemed to envelop him, it was just what had always for his imagination had such strange charm in the stories of fated men. He turned again to Macbeth, or to Richard II, or to Hamlet. Shakespeare, too, understood these mysterious pauses--who better! The sense of the impending was strengthened by the alarms of some of his best friends. They besought him to abandon his avowed purpose to call for a draft of half a million under the new Enrollment Act. Many voices joined the one chorus: the country is on the verge of despair; you will wreck the cause by demanding another colossal sacrifice. But he would not listen. When, in desperation, they struck precisely the wrong note, and hinted at the ruin of his political prospects, he had his calm reply: "it matters not what becomes of me. We must have men. if I go down, I intend to go like the Cumberland, with my colors flying."[12] Thus the days passed until the eighteenth of July. Meanwhile the irresponsible Greeley had made a sad mess of his Canadian adventure. Though Lincoln had given him definite instructions, requiring him to negotiate only with agents who could produce written authority from Davis, and who would treat on the basis of restoration of the Union and abandonment of slavery, Greeley ignored both these unconditional requirements.[13] He had found the Confederate agents at Niagara. They had no credentials. Nevertheless, he invited them to come to Washington and open negotiations. Of the President's two conditions, he said not a word. This was just what the agents wanted. It could easily be twisted into the semblance of an attempt by Lincoln to sue for peace. They accepted the invitation. Greeley telegraphed to Lincoln reporting what he had done. Of course, it was plain that he had misrepresented Lincoln; that he had far exceeded his authority; and that his perverse unfaithfulness must be repudiated. On July eighteenth, Hay set out for Niagara with this paper in Lincoln's handwriting.[14] "To whom it may concern: Any proposition which embraces the restoration of peace, the integrity of the whole Union, and the abandonment of slavery, and which comes by and with an authority that can control the armies now at war against the United States, will be received and considered by the executive government of the United States, and will be met by liberal terms on other substantial and collateral points and the bearer or bearers thereof shall have, safe conduct both ways. ABRAHAM LINCOLN." This was the end of the negotiation. The agents could not accept these terms. Immediately, they published a version of what had happened: they had been invited to come to Washington; subsequently, conditions had been imposed which made it impossible for them to accept Was not the conclusion plain? The Washington government was trying to open negotiations but it was also in the fear of its own supporters playing craftily a double game. These astute diplomats saw that there was a psychological crisis in the North. By adding to the confusion of the hour they had well served their cause. Greeley's fiasco was susceptible of a double interpretation. To the pacifists it meant that the government, whatever may have been intended at the start, had ended by setting impossible conditions of peace. To the supporters of the war, it meant that whatever were the last thoughts of the government, it had for a time contemplated peace without any conditions at all. Lincoln was severely condemned, Greeley was ridiculed, by both groups of interpreters. Why did not Greeley come out bravely and tell the truth? Why did he not confess that he had suppressed Lincoln's first set of instructions; that it was he, on his own responsibility, who had led the Confederate agents astray; that he, not Lincoln was solely to blame for the false impression that was now being used so adroitly to injure the President? Lincoln proposed to publish their correspondence, but made a condition that was characteristic. Greeley's letters rang with cries of despair. He was by far the most influential Northern editor. Lincoln asked him to strike out these hopeless passages. Greeley refused. The correspondence must be published entire or not at all. Lincoln suppressed it. He let the blame of himself go on; and he said nothing in extenuation.[15] He took some consolation in a "card" that appeared in the Boston Transcript, July 22. it gave a brief account of the adventure of Gilmore and Jaquess, and stated the answer given to them by the President of the Confederacy. That answer, as restated by the Confederate Secretary of State, was: "he had no authority to receive proposals for negotiations except by virtue of his office as President of an independent Confederacy and on this basis alone must proposals be made to him."[16] There was another circumstance that may well have been Lincoln's consolation in this tangle of cross-purposes. Only boldness could extricate him from the mesh of his difficulties. The mesh was destined to grow more and more of a snare; his boldness was to grow with his danger. He struck the note that was to rule his conduct thereafter, when, on the day he sent the final instructions to Greeley, in defiance of his timid advisers, he issued a proclamation calling for a new draft of half a million men.[17] XXXII. THE AUGUST CONSPIRACY 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.[l6] 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] XXXIII. THE RALLY TO THE PRESIDENT 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. XXXIV. "FATHER ABRAHAM" 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] XXXV. THE MASTER OF THE MOMENT In Lincoln's life there are two great achievements. 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
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