[64] Arnold, Lincoln, 384, 385. Nicolay and Hay seem to me to go too far in belittling the opposition to Mr. Lincoln within the Republican party.
[65] See Arnold, Lincoln, 385. But the fact is notorious among all who remember those times.
[66] Polit. Recoll. 243 et seq. Mr. Julian here gives a vivid sketch of the opposition to Mr. Lincoln.
[67] In the National Intelligencer, February 22, 1864.
[68] Lovejoy had generally stood faithfully by the President.
[69] N. and H. ix. 40.
[70] I Samuel xxii. 2.
[71] See, more especially, McClure, Lincoln and Men of War-Times, chapter on "Lincoln and Hamlin," 104-118. This writer says (p. 196) that Lincoln's first selection was General Butler.
[72] Further illustration of this unquestionable fact was furnished by the volunteer mission of Colonel Jaquess and Mr. Gilmore to Richmond in July. N. and H. vol. ix. ch. ix.
CHAPTER X
MILITARY SUCCESSES, AND THE REËLECTION OF THE PRESIDENT
It is necessary now to return to military matters, and briefly to set forth the situation. No especial fault was found with General Meade's operations in Virginia; yet it was obvious that a system quite different from that which had hitherto prevailed must be introduced there. To fight a great battle, then await entire recuperation of losses, then fight again and wait again, was a process of lingering exhaustion which might be prolonged indefinitely. In February, 1864, Congress passed, though with some reluctance, and the President much more readily signed, a bill for the appointment of a lieutenant-general, "authorized, under the direction and during the pleasure of the President, to command the armies of the United States."[73] All understood that the place was made for General Grant, and it was at once given to him by Mr. Lincoln. On March 3 the appointment was confirmed by the Senate. By this Halleck was substantially laid aside; his uselessness had long since become so apparent, that though still holding his dignified position, he seemed almost forgotten by every one.
Grant came to Washington,[74] arriving on March 8, and there was induced by what he heard and saw to lay aside his own previous purpose and the strenuous advice of Sherman, and to fall in with Mr. Lincoln's wishes; that is to say, to take personal control of the campaign in Virginia. He did this with his usual promptness, and set Sherman in command in the middle of the country, the only other important theatre of operations. It is said that Grant, before accepting the new rank and taking Virginia as his special province, stipulated that he was to be absolutely free from all interference, especially on the part of Stanton. Whether this agreement was formulated or not, it was put into practical effect. No man hereafter interfered with General Grant. Mr. Lincoln occasionally made suggestions, but strictly and merely as suggestions. He distinctly and pointedly said that he did not know, and did not wish to know, the general's plans of campaign.[75] When the new commander had duly considered the situation, he adopted precisely the same broad scheme which had been previously devised by Mr. Lincoln and General McClellan; that is to say, he arranged a simultaneous vigorous advance all along the line. It was the way to make weight and numbers tell; and Grant had great faith in weight and numbers; like Napoleon, he believed that Providence has a shrewd way of siding with the heaviest battalions.
On April 30, all being ready for the advance, the President sent a note of God-speed to the general. "I wish to express," he said, "my entire satisfaction with what you have done up to this time, so far as I understand it. The particulars of your plan I neither know, nor seek to know.... If there is anything wanting which is within my power to give, do not fail to let me know it." The general replied in a pleasant tone: "I have been astonished at the readiness with which everything asked for has been yielded, without even an explanation being asked. Should my success be less than I desire and expect, the least I can say is, the fault is not with you." When the President read these strange words his astonishment must have far exceeded that expressed by the general. Never before had he been thus addressed by any commander in Virginia! Generally he had been told that a magnificent success was about to be achieved, which he had done nothing to promote and perhaps much to retard, but which would nevertheless be secured by the ability of a general in spite of unfriendly neglect by a president.
On May 4 General Grant's army started upon its way, with 122,146 men present for duty. Against them General Lee had 61,953. The odds seemed excessive; but Lee had inside lines, the defensive, and intrenchments, to equalize the disparity of numbers. At once began those bloody and incessant campaigns by which General Grant intended to end, and finally did end, the war. The North could afford to lose three men where the South lost two, and would still have a balance left after the South had spent all. The expenditure in this proportion would be disagreeable; but if this was the inevitable and only price, Grant was willing to pay it, justly regarding it as cheaper than a continuation of the process of purchase by piecemeal. In a few hours the frightful struggle in the Wilderness was in progress. All day on the 5th, all day on the 6th, the terrible slaughter continued in those darksome woods and swamps. "More desperate fighting has not been witnessed on this continent," said Grant. The Union troops could not force their way through those tangled forests. Thereupon, accepting the situation in his imperturbable way, he arranged to move, on May 7, by the left flank southerly towards Spottsylvania. Lee, disappointed and surprised that Grant was advancing instead of falling back, could not do otherwise than move in the same course; for, in fact, the combatants were locked together in a grappling campaign. Then took place more bloody and determined fighting. The Union losses were appalling, since the troops were attacking an army in position. Yet Grant was sanguine; it was in a dispatch of May 11 that he said that he had been getting the better in the struggle, and that he proposed to fight it out on that line if it took all summer. The result of the further slaughter at Spottsylvania was not a victory for either leader, but was more hurtful to Lee because he could less well afford to have his men killed and wounded. Grant, again finding that he could not force Lee out of his position, also again moved by the left flank, steadily approaching Richmond and dragging Lee with him. The Northern loss had already reached the frightful total of 37,335 men; the Confederate loss was less, but enormous. Amid the bloodshed, however, Grant scented success. On May 26 he wrote: "Lee's army is really whipped.... Our men feel that they have gained the morale over the enemy.... I may be mistaken, but I feel that our success over Lee's army is already assured." He even gratified the President by again disregarding all precedent in Virginian campaigns, and saying that the promptness with which reinforcements had been forwarded had contributed largely to the promising situation! But almost immediately after this the North shuddered at the enormous and profitless carnage at Cold Harbor. Concurrently with all this bloodshed, there also took place the famous and ill-starred movement of General Butler upon Richmond, which ended in securely shutting up him and his forces at Bermuda Hundred, "as in a bottle strongly corked."
Such was the Virginian situation early in June. By a series of most bloody battles, no one of which had been a real victory, Grant had come before the defenses of Richmond, nearly where McClellan had already been. And now, like McClellan, he proposed to move around to the southward and invest the city. It must be confessed that in all this there was nothing visible to the inexperienced vision of the citizens at home which made much brighter in their eyes the prestige of Mr. Lincoln's war policy. Nor could they see, as that summer of the presidential campaign came and went, that any really great change or improvement was effected.
On the other hand, there took place in July what is sometimes lightly called General Early's raid against Washington. In fact, it was a genuine and very serious campaign, wherein that general was within a few hours of capturing the city. Issuing out of that Shenandoah Valley whence, as from a cave of horrors rather than one of the loveliest valleys in the world, so much of terror and mischief had so often burst out against the North, Early, with 17,000 veteran troops, moved straight and fast upon the national capital. On the evening of July 10 Mr. Lincoln rode out to his summer quarters at the Soldiers' Home. But the Confederate troops were within a few miles, and Mr. Stanton insisted that he should come back. The next day the Confederates advanced along the Seventh Street road, in full expectation of marching into the city with little opposition. There was brisk artillery firing, and Mr. Lincoln, who had driven out to the scene of action, actually came under fire; an officer was struck down within a few feet of him.
The anticipation of General Early was sanguine, yet by no means ill founded. The veterans in Washington were a mere handful, and though the green troops might have held the strong defenses for a little while, yet the Southern veterans would have been pretty sure to make their way. It was, in fact, a very close question of time. Grant had been at first incredulous of the reports of Early's movements; but when he could no longer doubt, he sent reinforcements with the utmost dispatch. They arrived none too soon. It was while General Early was making his final arrangements for an attack, which he meant should be irresistible, that General Wright, with two divisions from the army of the Potomac, landed at the river wharves and marched through the city to the threatened points. With this the critical hours passed away. It had really been a crisis of hours, and might have been one of minutes. Now Early saw that the prize had slipped through his fingers actually as they closed upon it, and so bitter was his disappointment that—since he was disappointed—even a Northerner can almost afford him sympathy. So, his chance being gone, he must go too, and that speedily; for it was he who was in danger now. Moving rapidly, he saved himself, and returned up the Shenandoah Valley. He had accomplished no real harm; but that the war had been going on for three years, and that Washington was still hardly a safe place for the President to live in, was another point against the war policy.
Sherman had moved out against Johnston, at Dalton, at the same time that Grant had moved out against Lee, and during the summer he made a record very similar to that of his chief. He pressed the enemy without rest, fought constantly, suffered and inflicted terrible losses, won no signal victory, yet constantly got farther to the southward. Fortunately, however, he was nearer to a specific success than Grant was, and at last he was able to administer the sorely needed tonic to the political situation. Jefferson Davis, who hated Johnston, made the steady retreat of that general before Sherman an excuse for removing him and putting General Hood in his place. The army was then at Atlanta. Hood was a fighting man, and immediately he brought on a great battle, which happily proved to be also a great mistake; for the result was a brilliant and decisive victory for Sherman and involved the fall of Atlanta. This was one of the important achievements of the war; and when, on September 3, Sherman telegraphed, "Atlanta is ours, and fairly won," the news came to the President like wine to the weary. He hastened to tender the "national thanks" to the general and his gallant soldiers, with words of gratitude which must have come straight and warm from his heart. There was a chance now for the Union cause in November.
About ten days before this event Farragut, in spite of forts and batteries, iron-clads and torpedoes, had possessed himself of Mobile Bay and closed that Gulf port which had been so useful a mouth to the hungry stomach of the Confederacy. No efficient blockade of it had ever been possible. Through it military, industrial, and domestic supplies had been brought in, and invaluable cotton had gone out to pay for them. Now, however, the sealing of the South was all but hermetical. As a naval success the feat was entitled to high admiration, and as a practical injury to the Confederacy it could not be overestimated.
Achievements equally brilliant, if not quite so important, were quickly contributed by Sheridan. In spite of objections on the part of Stanton, Grant had put this enterprising fighter in command of a strong force of cavalry in the Shenandoah Valley, where Lee was keeping Early as a constant menace upon Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Washington. Three hard-fought battles followed, during September and October. In each the Federals were thoroughly victorious. The last of the three was that which was made famous by "Sheridan's ride." He had been to Washington and was returning on horseback, when to his surprise he encountered squads of his own troops hurrying back in disorderly flight from a battle which, during his brief absence, had unexpectedly been delivered by Early. Halting them and carrying them back with him, he was relieved, as he came upon the field, to find a part of his army still standing firm and even pressing the Confederates hard. He communicated his own spirit to his troops, and turned partial defeat into brilliant victory. By this gallant deed was shattered forever the Confederate Army of the Valley; and from that time forth there issued out of that fair concealment no more gray-uniformed troopers to foray Northern fields or to threaten Northern towns. For these achievements Lincoln made Sheridan a major-general, dictating the appointment in words of unusual compliment.
Late as the Democrats were in holding their nominating convention, they would have done well to hold it a little later. They might then have derived wisdom from these military and naval events, and not improbably they would have been less audacious in staking their success upon the issue that the war was a failure, and would have so modified that craven proposition as to make it accord with the more patriotic sentiment of their soldier candidate. But the fortunes alike of the real war and of the political war were decidedly and happily against them. Even while they were in session the details of Farragut's daring and victorious battle in Mobile Bay were coming to hand. Scarcely had they adjourned when the roar of thunderous salvos in every navy yard, fort, and arsenal of the North hailed the triumph of Sherman at Atlanta. Before these echoes had died away the people were electrified by the three battles in Virginia which Sheridan fought and won in style so brilliant as to seem almost theatrical. Thus from the South, from the West, and from the East came simultaneously the fierce contradiction of this insulting Copperhead notion, that the North had failed in the war. The political blunder of the party was now much more patent than was any alleged military failure on the part of its opponents. In fact the Northerners were beholding the sudden turning over of a great page in the book of the national history, and upon the newly exposed side of it, amid the telegrams announcing triumphs of arms, they read in great plain letters the reëlection of Mr. Lincoln. Before long most persons conceded this. He himself had said, a few months earlier, that the probabilities indicated that the presidential campaign would be a struggle between a Union candidate and a Disunion candidate. McClellan had sought to give to it a complexion safer for his party and more honorable for himself, but the platform and events combined to defeat his wise purpose. In addition to these difficulties the South also burdened him with an untimely and compromising friendship. The Charleston "Courier," with reckless frankness, declared that the armies of the Confederacy and the peace-men at the North were working together for the procurement of peace; and said: "Our success in battle insures the success of McClellan. Our failure will inevitably lead to his defeat." No words could have been more imprudent; the loud proclamation of such an alliance was the madness of self-destruction. In the face of such talk the Northerners could not but believe that the issue was truly made up between war and Union on the one side, peace and disunion on the other. If between the two, when distinctly formulated, there could under any circumstances have been doubt, the successes by sea and land turned the scale for the Republicans.
During the spring and summer many prominent Republicans strenuously urged Mr. Lincoln to remove the postmaster-general, Montgomery Blair, from the cabinet. The political purpose was to placate the Radicals, whose unnatural hostility within the party greatly disturbed the President's friends. Many followers of Fremont might be conciliated by the elimination of the bitter and triumphant opponent of their beloved chieftain; and besides this leader, the portentous list of those with whom the postmaster was on ill terms included many magnates,—Chase, Seward, Stanton, Halleck, and abundance of politicians. Henry Wilson wrote to the President: "Blair every one hates. Tens of thousands of men will be lost to you, or will give a reluctant vote, on account of the Blairs." Even the Republican National Convention had covertly assailed him; for a plank in the platform, declaring it "essential to the general welfare that harmony should prevail in the national councils," was known to mean that he should no longer remain in the cabinet. Yet to force him out was most distasteful to the President, who was always slow to turn against any man. Replying to a denunciatory letter from Halleck he said: "I propose continuing to be myself the judge as to when a member of the cabinet shall be dismissed." He made a like statement, curtly and decisively, in a cabinet meeting. Messrs. Nicolay and Hay say that he did not yield to the pressure until he was assured of his reëlection, and that then he yielded only because he felt that he ought not obstinately to retain an adviser in whom the party had lost confidence. On September 23 he wrote to Mr. Blair a kindly note: "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." Mr. Blair immediately relieved the President from the embarrassing situation, and he and his family behaved afterward with honorable spirit, giving loyal support to Mr. Lincoln during the rest of the campaign. Ex-Governor Dennison of Ohio was appointed to the vacant office.
Many and various were the other opportunities which the President was urged to seize for helping both himself and other Republican candidates. But he steadfastly declined to get into the mud of the struggle. It was a jest of the campaign that Senator King was sent by some New York men to ask whether Lincoln meant to support the Republican ticket. He did: he openly admitted that he believed his reëlection to be for the best interest of the country. As an honest man he could not think otherwise. "I am for the regular nominee in all cases," he bluntly said, in reply to a request for his interference concerning a member of Congress; and the general principle covered, of course, his own case. To the postmaster of Philadelphia, however, whose employees displayed suspicious Republican unanimity, he administered a sharp and imperious warning. He even would not extend to his close and valued friend, Mr. Arnold, assistance which that gentleman too sorely needed. More commendable still was his behavior as to the draft. On July 18, as has been said, he issued a call for 500,000 men, though at that time he might well have believed that by so doing he was burying beyond resurrection all chance of reëlection. Later the Republican leaders entreated him, with earnest eloquence and every melancholy presage, to suspend the drafting under this call for a few weeks only. It seemed to him, however, that the army could not wait a few weeks. "What is the presidency worth to me, if I have no country?" he said; and the storm of persuasion could not induce him to issue the postponing order.
Campaign slanders were rife as usual. One of them Mr. Lincoln cared to contradict. Some remarks made by Mr. Seward in a speech at Auburn had been absurdly construed by Democratic orators and editors to indicate that Mr. Lincoln, if defeated at the polls, would use the remainder of his term for doing what he could to ruin the government. This vile charge, silly as it was, yet touched a very sensitive spot. On October 19, in a speech to some serenaders, and evidently having this in mind, he said:—
"I am struggling to maintain the government, not to overthrow it. I am struggling especially to prevent others from overthrowing it.... Whoever shall be constitutionally elected in November shall be duly installed as President on the fourth of March.... In the interval I shall do my utmost that whoever is to hold the helm for the next voyage shall start with the best possible chance to save the ship. This is due to the people both on principle and under the Constitution.... If they should deliberately resolve to have immediate peace, even at the loss of their country and their liberty, I know [have?] not the power or the right to resist them. It is their business, and they must do as they please with their own."
In this connection it is worth while to recall an incident which occurred on August 26, amid the dark days. Anticipating at that time that he might soon be compelled to encounter the sore trial of administering the government during four months in face of its near transmission to a successor all whose views and purposes would be diametrically opposite to his own, and desiring beforehand clearly to mark out his duty in this stress, Mr. Lincoln one day wrote these words:—
"This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this administration will not be reëlected. 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 cannot possibly save it afterwards."
He then closed the paper so that it could not be read, and requested each member of the cabinet to sign his name on the reverse side.
In the end, honesty was vindicated as the best policy, and courage as the soundest judgment. The preliminary elections in Vermont and Maine in September, the important elections in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana in October, showed that a Republican wave was sweeping across the North. It swept on and gathered overwhelming volume in the brief succeeding interval before November 8. On that momentous day, the voting in the States showed 2,213,665 Republican votes, to which were added 116,887 votes of soldiers in the field, electing 212 presidential electors; 1,802,237 Democratic votes, to which were added 33,748 votes of soldiers in the field, electing 21 presidential electors. Mr. Lincoln's plurality was therefore 494,567; and it would have been swelled to over half a million had not the votes of the soldiers of Vermont, Kansas, and Minnesota arrived too late to be counted, and had not those of Wisconsin been rejected for an informality. Thus were the dreary predictions of the midsummer so handsomely confuted that men refused to believe that they had ever been deceived by them.
On the evening of election day Mr. Lincoln went to the War Department, and there stayed until two o'clock at night, noting the returns as they came assuring his triumph and steadily swelling its magnitude. Amid the good news his feelings took on no personal complexion. A crowd of serenaders, meeting him on his return to the White House, demanded a speech. He told them that he believed that the day's work would be the lasting advantage, if not the very salvation, of the country, and that he was grateful for the people's confidence; but, he said, "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." A hypocrite would, probably enough, have said much the same thing; but when Mr. Lincoln spoke in this way, men who were themselves honest never charged him with hypocrisy. On November 10 a serenade by the Republican clubs of the District called forth this:—
"It has long been a grave question whether any government, not too strong for the liberties of its people, can be strong enough to maintain its own existence in great emergencies. On this point the present rebellion brought our republic to a severe test, and a presidential election occurring in regular course during the rebellion added not a little to the strain. If the loyal people united were put to the utmost of their strength by the rebellion, must they not fail when divided and partially paralyzed by a political war among themselves? But the election was a necessity. We cannot have free government without elections; and if the rebellion could force us to forego or postpone a national election, it might fairly claim to have already conquered and ruined us. The strife of the election is but human nature practically applied to the facts of the case. What has occurred in this case must ever recur in similar cases. Human nature will not change. In any future great national trial, compared with the men of this, we shall have as weak and as strong, as silly and as wise, as bad and as good. Let us, therefore, study the incidents of this, as philosophy to learn wisdom from, and none of them as wrongs to be revenged. But the election, along with its incidental and undesirable strife, has done good, too. It has demonstrated that a people's government can sustain a national election in the midst of a great civil war. Until now, it has not been known to the world that this was a possibility. It shows, also, how sound and how strong we still are. It shows that, even among candidates of the same party, he who is most devoted to the Union and most opposed to treason can receive most of the people's votes. It shows, also, to the extent yet known, that we have more men now than we had when the war began. Gold is good in its place; but living, brave, patriotic men are better than gold.
"But the rebellion continues; and, now that the election is over, may not all having a common interest reunite in a common effort to save our common country? For my own part, I have striven and shall strive to avoid placing any obstacle in the way. So long as I have been here, I have not willingly planted a thorn in any man's bosom. While I am deeply sensible to the high compliment of a reëlection, and duly grateful, as I trust, to Almighty God for having directed my countrymen to a right conclusion, as I think, for their own good, it adds nothing to my satisfaction that any other man may be disappointed or pained by the result.
"May I ask those who have not differed with me to join with me in this same spirit towards those who have? And now let me close by asking three hearty cheers for our brave soldiers and seamen, and their gallant and skillful commanders."
The unfortunate disputes about reconstruction threatened to cause trouble at the counting of the votes in Congress. Of the States which had seceded, two, Arkansas and Tennessee, had endeavored to reconstruct themselves as members of the Union; and their renewed statehood had received some recognition from the President. He, however, firmly refused to listen to demands, which were urgently pushed, to obtain his interference in the arrangements made for choosing presidential electors. To certain Tennesseeans, who sent him a protest against the action of Governor Johnson, he replied that, "by the Constitution and the laws, the President is charged with no duty in the conduct of a presidential election in any State; nor do I in this case perceive any military reason for his interference in the matter.... It is scarcely necessary to add that if any election shall be held, and any votes shall be cast, in the State of Tennessee, ... it will belong not to the military agents, nor yet to the executive department, but exclusively to another department of the government, to determine whether they are entitled to be counted, in conformity with the Constitution and laws of the United States." His prudent abstention from stretching his official authority afterward saved him from much embarrassment in the turn which this troublesome business soon took. In both Arkansas and Tennessee Republican presidential electors were chosen, who voted, and sent on to Washington the certificates of their votes to be counted in due course with the rest. But Congress jealously guarded its position on reconstruction against this possible flank movement, and in January, 1865, passed a joint resolution declaring that Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, and Tennessee were in such a condition on November 8 that no valid election of presidential electors was held in any of them, and that therefore no electoral votes should be received or counted from any of them. When this resolution came before Mr. Lincoln for his signature it placed him in an embarrassing position, because his approval might seem to be an implied contradiction of the position which he had taken concerning the present status of Tennessee and Arkansas. It was not until February 8, the very day of the count, that he conquered his reluctance, and when at last he did so and decided to sign the resolution, he at the same time carefully made his position plain by a brief message. He said that he conceived that Congress had lawful power to exclude from the count any votes which it deemed illegal, and that therefore he could not properly veto a joint resolution upon the subject; he disclaimed "all right of the executive to interfere in any way in the matter of canvassing or counting electoral votes;" and he also disclaimed that, by signing the resolution, he had "expressed any opinion on the recitals of the preamble, or any judgment of his own upon the subject of the resolution." That is to say, the especial matter dealt with in this proceeding was ultra vires of the executive, and the formal signature of the President was affixed by him without prejudice to his official authority in any other business which might arise concerning the restored condition of statehood.
When the counting of the votes began, the members of the Senate and House did not know whether Mr. Lincoln had signed the resolution or not; and therefore, in the doubt as to what his action would be, the famous twenty-second joint rule, regulating the counting of electoral votes, was drawn in haste and passed with precipitation.[76] It was an instance of angry partisan legislation, which threatened trouble afterward and was useless at the time. No attempt was made to present or count the votes of Arkansas and Tennessee, and the president of the Senate acted under the joint resolution and not under the joint rule. Yet the vote of West Virginia was counted, and it was not easy to show that her title was not under a legal cloud fully as dark as that which shadowed Arkansas and Tennessee.
When Mr. Lincoln said concerning his reëlection, that the element of personal triumph gave him no gratification, he spoke far within the truth. He was not boasting of, but only in an unintentional way displaying, his dispassionate and impersonal habit in all political relationships,—a distinguishing trait, of which history is so chary of parallels that perhaps no reader will recall even one. A striking instance of it occurred in this same autumn. On October 12, 1864, the venerable Chief Justice Taney died, and at once the friends of Mr. Chase named him for the succession. There were few men whom Mr. Lincoln had less reason to favor than this gentleman, who had only condescended to mitigate severe condemnation of his capacity by mild praise of his character, who had hoped to displace him from the presidency, and who, in the effort to do so, had engaged in what might have been stigmatized even as a cabal. Plenty of people were ready to tell him stories innumerable of Chase's hostility to him, and contemptuous remarks about him; but to all such communications he quietly refused to give ear. What Mr. Chase thought or felt concerning him was not pertinent to the question whether or no Chase would make a good chief justice. Yet it was true that Montgomery Blair would have liked the place, and the President had many personal reasons for wishing to do a favor to Blair. It was also true that the opposition to Mr. Chase was so bitter and came from so many quarters, and was based on so many alleged reasons, that had the President chosen to prefer another to him, it would have been impossible to attribute the preference to personal prejudice. In his own mind, however, Mr. Lincoln really believed that, in spite of all the objections which could be made, Mr. Chase was the best man for the position; and his only anxiety was that one so restless and ambitious might still scheme for the presidency to the inevitable prejudice of his judicial duties. He had some thought of speaking frankly with Chase on this subject, perhaps seeking something like a pledge from him; but he was deterred from this by fear of misconstruction. Finally having, after his usual fashion, reached his own conclusion, and communicated it to no one, he sent the nomination to the Senate, and it received the honor of immediate confirmation without reference to a committee.
[73] The rank had been held by Washington; also, but by brevet only, by Scott.
[74] For curious account of his interview with Mr. Lincoln, see N. and H. viii. 340-342.
[75] In this connection, see story of General Richard Taylor, and contradiction thereof, concerning choice of route to Richmond, N. and H. viii. 343.
[76] This was the rule which provided that if, at the count, any question should arise as to counting any vote offered, the Senate and House should separate, and each should vote on the question of receiving or not receiving the vote; and it should not be received and counted except by concurrent assent.
CHAPTER XI
THE END COMES INTO SIGHT: THE SECOND INAUGURATION
When Congress came together in December, 1864, the doom of the Confederacy was in plain view of all men, at the North and at the South. If General Grant had sustained frightful losses without having won any signal victory, yet the losses could be afforded; and the nature of the man and his methods in warfare were now understood. It was seen that, with or without victory, and at whatever cost, he had moved relentlessly forward. His grim, irresistible persistence oppressed, as with a sense of destiny, those who tried to confront it; every one felt that he was going to "end the job." He was now beleaguering Petersburg, and few Southerners doubted that he was sure of taking it and Richmond. In the middle country Sherman, after taking Atlanta, had soon thereafter marched cheerily forth on his imposing, theatrical, holiday excursion to the sea, leaving General Thomas behind him to do the hard fighting with General Hood. The grave doubt as to whether too severe a task had not been placed upon Thomas was dispelled by the middle of the month, when his brilliant victory at Nashville so shattered the Southern army that it never again attained important proportions. In June preceding, the notorious destroyer, the Alabama, had been sunk by the Kearsarge. In November the Shenandoah, the last of the rebel privateers, came into Liverpool, and was immediately handed over by the British authorities to Federal officials; for the Englishmen had at last found out who was going to win in the struggle. In October, the rebel ram Albemarle was destroyed by the superb gallantry of Lieutenant Cushing. Thus the rebel flag ceased to fly above any deck. Along the coast very few penetrable crevices could still be found even by the most enterprising blockade-runners; and already the arrangements were making which brought about, a month later, the capture of Fort Fisher and Wilmington.
Under these circumstances the desire to precipitate the pace and to reach the end with a rush possessed many persons of the nervous and eager type. They could not spur General Grant, so they gave their vexatious attention to the President, and endeavored to compel him to open with the Confederate government negotiations for a settlement, which they believed, or pretended to believe, might thus be attained. But Mr. Lincoln was neither to be urged nor wheedled out of his simple position. In his message to Congress he referred to the number of votes cast at the recent election as indicating that, in spite of the drain of war, the population of the North had actually increased during the preceding four years. This fact shows, he said, "that we are not exhausted nor in process of exhaustion; that we are gaining strength, and may, if need be, maintain the contest indefinitely. This as to men. Material resources are now more complete and abundant than ever. The natural resources, then, are unexhausted, and, as we believe, inexhaustible. The public purpose to reëstablish and maintain the national authority is unchanged, and, as we believe, unchangeable. The manner of continuing the effort remains to choose. On careful consideration of all the evidence accessible, it seems to me that no attempt at negotiation with the insurgent leader could result in any good. He would accept nothing short of severance of the Union,—precisely what we will not and cannot give. His declarations to this effect are explicit and oft-repeated. He does not attempt to deceive us. He affords us no excuse to deceive ourselves. He cannot voluntarily re-accept the Union; we cannot voluntarily yield it. Between him and us the issue is distinct, simple, and inflexible. It is an issue which can only be tried by war, and decided by victory. If we yield, we are beaten; if the Southern people fail him, he is beaten. Either way, it would be the victory and defeat following war.
"What is true, however, of him who heads the insurgent cause is not necessarily true of those who follow. Although he cannot re-accept the Union, they can; some of them, we know, already desire peace and reunion. The number of such may increase. They can at any moment have peace simply by laying down their arms and submitting to the national authority under the Constitution.
"After so much, the government could not, if it would, maintain war against them. The loyal people would not sustain or allow it. If questions should remain, we would adjust them by the peaceful means of legislation, conference, courts, and votes, operating only in constitutional and lawful channels. Some certain, and other possible, questions are, and would be, beyond the executive power to adjust,—as, for instance, the admission of members into Congress, and whatever might require the appropriation of money.
"The executive power itself would be greatly diminished by the cessation of actual war. Pardons and remissions of forfeitures, however, would still be within executive control. In what spirit and temper this control would be exercised can be fairly judged of by the past."
If rebels wished to receive, or any Northerners wished to extend, a kindlier invitation homeward than this, then such rebels and such Northerners were unreasonable. Very soon the correctness of Mr. Lincoln's opinion was made so distinct, and his view of the situation was so thoroughly corroborated, that all men saw clearly that no reluctance or unreasonable demands upon his part contributed to delay peace. Mr. Francis P. Blair, senior, though in pursuit of a quite different object, did the service of setting the President in the true and satisfactory light before the people. This restless politician was anxious for leave to seek a conference with Jefferson Davis, but could not induce Mr. Lincoln to hear a word as to his project. On December 8, however, by personal insistence, he extorted a simple permit "to pass our lines, go South, and return." He immediately set out on his journey, and on January 12 he had an interview with Mr. Davis at Richmond and made to him a most extraordinary proposition, temptingly decorated with abundant flowers of rhetoric. Without the rhetoric, the proposition was: that the pending war should be dropped by both parties for the purpose of an expedition to expel Maximilian from Mexico, of which tropical crusade Mr. Davis should be in charge and reap the glory! So ardent and so sanguine was Mr. Blair in his absurd project, that he fancied that he had impressed Mr. Davis favorably. But in this undoubtedly he deceived himself, for in point of fact he succeeded in bringing back nothing more than a short letter, addressed to himself, in which Mr. Davis expressed willingness to appoint and send, or to receive, agents "with a view to secure peace to the two countries." The last two words lay in this rebel communication like the twin venom fangs in the mouth of a serpent, and made of it a proposition which could not safely be touched. It served only as distinct proof that the President had correctly stated the fixedness of Mr. Davis.
Of more consequence, however, than this useless letter was the news which Mr. Blair brought: that other high officials in Richmond—"those who follow," as Mr. Lincoln had hopefully said—were in a temper far more despondent and yielding than was that of their chief. These men might be reached. So on January 18, 1865, Mr. Lincoln wrote a few lines, also addressed to Mr. Blair, saying that he was ready to receive any Southern agent who should be informally sent to him, "with the view of securing peace to the people of our one common country." The two letters, by their closing words, locked horns. Yet Mr. Davis nominated Alexander H. Stephens, R.M.T. Hunter, and John A. Campbell, as informal commissioners, and directed them, "in conformity with the letter of Mr. Lincoln," to go to Washington and informally confer "for the purpose of securing peace to the two countries." This was disingenuous, and so obviously so that it was also foolish; for no conference about "two countries" was "in conformity" with the letter of Mr. Lincoln. By reason of the difficulty created by this silly trick the commissioners were delayed at General Grant's headquarters until they succeeded in concocting a note, which eliminated the obstacle by the simple process of omitting the objectionable words. Then, on January 31, the President sent Mr. Seward to meet them, stating to him in writing "that three things are indispensable, to wit: 1. The restoration of the national authority throughout all the States. 2. No receding by the executive of the United States on the slavery question from the position assumed thereon in the late annual message to Congress, and in preceding documents. 3. No cessation of hostilities short of an end of the war and the disbanding of all forces hostile to the government. You will inform them that all propositions of theirs, not inconsistent with the above, will be considered and passed upon in a spirit of sincere liberality. You will hear all they may choose to say, and report it to me. You will not assume to definitely consummate anything."
The following day Mr. Lincoln seemed to become uneasy at being represented by any other person whomsoever in so important a business; for he decided to go himself and confer personally with the Southerners. Then ensued, and continued during four hours, on board a steamer in Hampton Roads, the famous conference between the President and his secretary of state on the one side and the three Confederate commissioners on the other. It came to absolutely nothing; nor was there at any time pending its continuance any chance that it would come to anything. Mr. Lincoln could neither be led forward nor cajoled sideways, directly or indirectly, one step from the primal condition of the restoration of the Union. On the other hand, this was the one impossible thing for the Confederates. The occasion was historic, and yet, in fact, it amounted to nothing more than cumulative evidence of a familiar fact, and really its most interesting feature is that it gave rise to one of the best of the "Lincoln stories." The President was persisting that he could not enter into any agreement with "parties in arms against the government;" Mr. Hunter tried to persuade him to the contrary, and by way of doing so, cited precedents "of this character between Charles I. of England and the people in arms against him." Mr. Lincoln could not lose such an opportunity! "I do not profess," he said, "to be posted in history. On all such matters I will turn you over to Seward. All I distinctly recollect about the case of Charles I. is, that he lost his head!" Then silence fell for a time upon Mr. Hunter.
Across the wide chasm of the main question the gentlemen discussed the smaller topics: reconstruction, concerning which Mr. Lincoln expressed his well-known, most generous sentiments; confiscation acts, as to which also he desired to be, and believed that Congress would be, liberal; the Emancipation Proclamation, and the Thirteenth Amendment, concerning which he said, that the courts of law must construe the proclamation, and that he personally should be in favor of appropriating even so much as four hundred millions of dollars to extinguish slavery, and that he believed such a measure might be carried through. West Virginia, in his opinion, must continue to be a separate State. Yet there was little practical use in discussing, and either agreeing or disagreeing, about all these dependent parts; they were but limbs which it was useless to set in shape while the body was lacking. Accordingly the party broke up, not having found, nor having ever had any prospect of finding, any common standing-ground. The case was simple; the North was fighting for Union, the South for disunion, and neither side was yet ready to give up the struggle. Nevertheless, it is not improbable that Mr. Lincoln, so far as he personally was concerned, brought back from Hampton Roads all that he had expected and precisely what he had hoped to bring. For in the talk of those four hours he had recognized the note of despair, and had seen that Mr. Davis, though posing still in an imperious and monumental attitude, was, in fact, standing upon a disintegrated and crumbling pedestal. It seemed not improbable that the disappointed supporters of the rebel chief would gladly come back to the old Union if they could be fairly received, although at this conference they had felt compelled by the exigencies of an official situation and their representative character to say that they would not. Accordingly Mr. Lincoln, having no idea that a road to hearty national re-integration either should or could be overshadowed by Caudine forks, endeavored to make as easy as possible the return of discouraged rebels, whether penitent or impenitent. If they were truly penitent, all was as it should be. If they were impenitent, he was willing to trust to time to effect a change of heart. Accordingly he worked out a scheme whereby Congress should empower him to distribute between the slave States $400,000,000, in proportion to their respective slave populations, on condition that "all resistance to the national authority [should] be abandoned and cease on or before the first day of April next;" one half the sum to be paid when such resistance should so cease; the other half whenever, on or before July 1 next, the Thirteenth Amendment should become valid law. So soon as he should be clothed with authority, he proposed to issue "a proclamation looking to peace and reunion," in which he would declare that, upon the conditions stated, he would exercise this power; that thereupon war should cease and armies be reduced to a peace basis; that all political offenses should be pardoned; that all property, except slaves, liable to confiscation or forfeiture, should be released therefrom (except in cases of intervening interests of third parties); and that liberality should be recommended to Congress upon all points not lying within executive control. On the evening of February 5 he submitted to his cabinet a draft covering these points. His disappointment may be imagined when he found that not one of his advisers agreed with him; that his proposition was "unanimously disapproved." "There may be such a thing," remarked Secretary Welles, "as so overdoing as to cause a distrust or adverse feeling." It was also said that the measure probably could not pass Congress; that to attempt to carry it, without success, would do harm; while if the offer should really be made, it would be misconstrued by the rebels. In fact scarcely any Republican was ready to meet the rebels with the free and ample forgiveness which Lincoln desired to offer; and later opinion seems to be that his schemes were impracticable.
The fourth of March was close at hand, when Mr. Lincoln was a second time to address the people who had chosen him to be their ruler. That black and appalling cloud, which four years ago hung oppressively over the country, had poured forth its fury and was now passing away. His anxiety then had been lest the South, making itself deaf to reason and to right, should force upon the North a civil war; his anxiety now was lest the North, hardening itself in a severe if not vindictive temper, should deal so harshly with a conquered South as to perpetuate a sectional antagonism. To those who had lately come, bearing to him the formal notification of his election, he had remarked: "Having served four years in the depths of a great and yet unended national peril, I can view this call to a second term in no wise more flattering to myself than as an expression of the public judgment that I may better finish a difficult work, in which I have labored from the first, than could any one less severely schooled to the task." Now, mere conquest was not, in his opinion, a finishing of the difficult work of restoring a Union.
The second inaugural was delivered from the eastern portico of the Capitol, as follows:—