Chapter 4

Then the President began to contemplate emancipation, but kept his purposes to himself; kept his secret so well that even after he had determined upon emancipation and was being criticised for not taking that step he replied to his critics, "My paramount object is to save the Union and not either to save or destroy slavery." Horace Greeley retorted with abuse, indicating that Greeley was unable to see the wisdom of the President's policy--for those whose support was necessary to win the war were not yet ready for emancipation.

When preachers called to reveal to him, "the will of God" he replied, "If it is probable that God would reveal His will to others on a point so connected with my duty, it might be supposed He would reveal it directly to me."

All these months he had been at work with his slow but accurate thought, framing in secret the most momentous document in American history since the Declaration of Independence. He did this in the cipher-room of the War Department telegraph office, where he was accustomed to spend anxious hours waiting for news from the boys at the front, and also to seek what rest he could in thus hiding away from the never-ending stream of tormentors, office-seekers, politicians and emissaries of sage advice.

Emancipation was in his mind even while, for good reasons, he made no reference to it. He waited for the right time--waited for victory--waited in great patience and great anguish. And when he did first announce his purpose of emancipation it was to apply only to those "persons held as slaves within any state or designated part of a state the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States." Thus sparing the loyal border states holding slaves, and allowing a way of escape for others that should cease their rebellion. It was conservative but wise. On the one hand the radical abolitionists were not satisfied, and on the other hand the masses were not all ready to give him hearty support in it. But he said, "I must do the best I can and bear the responsibility of taking the course which I think I ought to take." It was thus this silent self-reliant man, without intimates, without supporting friends, bore almost alone on his resolute shoulders, the mighty weight of responsibility. Once more he urged upon Congress his old policy of gradual compensated emancipation. He plead:--"We say that we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows that we know how to save it. We--even we here--hold the power and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free,--honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save or meanly LOSE THE LAST BEST HOPE OF EARTH. Other means may succeed, this cannot fail. The way is peaceful; generous; just; a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud and God must forever bless." But they would not, and the lonely man in the White House,--kind eyes more deeply sunken, bronze face more deeply furrowed, sad tones more deeply affected--went about his duties asking sympathy nor counsel of anyone.

On New Year's Day, 1863, after the great reception was over, he signed the final Proclamation of Emancipation. Though at home there was still ridicule and abuse, in England the effect of the Proclamation was significant; for there the laboring men were in dire distress because they could get no cotton for their mills; but these English laborers--hearing of the Emancipation Proclamation--felt that the cause of the Union was the cause of freedom and of labor--and though the wealthy mill-owners of England, who were not suffering would, some of them, gladly have destroyed the Union and perpetuated slavery to get cotton; the laborers--even while starving--brought pressure to bear upon the English government to prevent further aid to the Confederacy, heroically preferring starvation in the cause of freedom. Lincoln referred to these actions on the part of England's laborers as "an instance of Christian heroism which has not been surpassed in any age or any country." And later those English laborers built a monument to Lincoln on which they inscribed, "Lover of Humanity."

Everyone but Lincoln had lost patience with McClellan's overcautiousness and when he failed to follow Lee's retreat from Antietam, Lincoln removed him and placed in command Burnside, whose defeat at Fredericksburg caused him to be replaced by Hooker, whose defeat at Chancellorsville caused him to be replaced by Meade, who disappointed the President in not following up the victory at Gettysburg.

July 4, 1863, Gettysburg and Vicksburg, decisive victories, coming together should have ended the war. The Confederates could not win after that, but still they fought on. On November 19, 1863, the National Cemetery at the battlefield of Gettysburg was dedicated; and after Edward Everett had delivered the formal oration of the occasion, Lincoln delivered the most notable short speech that has ever been delivered in the English language. A copy of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address is given in another volume of this series called "Speeches of Lincoln."

The tide has turned but much costly fighting is still necessary, first in East Tennessee, and later in Virginia, and also Sherman must fight his way into the very heart of the South and break its lines of communication before the resolute Confederates will yield.

In the West, Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, Pittsburgh Landing, and Vicksburg were the victories that made Grant known as the most successful Union general. The President advanced him to the rank of Lieutenant General, brought him East, placed him in command of all the armies, and gave him the task of beating Lee, taking Richmond and ending the war.

In the fall of 1864, notwithstanding some opposition, Lincoln was re-elected President. Again during this campaign, his attitude toward his critics and his opponents attested still further his true greatness, magnanimity and devotion to duty. Though he desired to be re-elected he would make no effort toward that end, but instead gave his entire energies to the work of saving the Union. Chase in the cabinet was an open candidate against his chief. Lincoln proved that he had no resentment by later appointing Chase as Chief Justice in the place of the aged Roger B. Taney who died. When friends told the President that he would surely be defeated for re-election if he approved another draft of soldiers, he replied that the cause did not require his re-election but did require more soldiers--and at once ordered a new draft for 500,000 additional men.

Lincoln breathed a most beautiful spirit of forgiveness in his Second Inaugural Address which is printed in full in the volume of this series, "Speeches of Lincoln."

In March, 1865, Grant sent a message saying that he was about to close in on Lee and end the war, and invited Lincoln to visit Grant's headquarters. And that is how it was that the President, being at Grant's headquarters, could enter Richmond the day after the Confederates retreated. So Lincoln, with his small son Tad and Admiral Porter, escorted by a little group of sailors, simply, on foot, entered the abandoned capital, not as one bringing the vengeance of a conqueror, but the love of a liberator. One of the great moments of all history was when an aged negro, baring his white wool, made reverent obeisance to the President, and Lincoln in recognition took off his high hat.

He remained two days in Richmond discussing the plans for the restoration of federal authority, counseling kindness and forgiveness. "Let them down easy," he said to the military governor; "get them to plowing and gathering in their own little crops." Thus he was preparing to "bind up the nation's wounds," with a spiritual development so far beyond his contemporaries that they could not even understand him.

Then he went back to Washington where he heard of Lee's surrender, and two days later, to a large crowd at the White House, delivered a carefully prepared speech outlining his policy of reconstruction, such as he had already begun in Louisiana. Already he was being criticised for being "too kind to the rebels."

That was the last speech he ever made.

Little Tad said, "Father has never been happy since we came to Washington." His laughter had failed, he had aged rapidly, his shoulders were bent, dreadful dreams had haunted him and on the night of the 13th he had one which oppressed him. But the next day was the fourth anniversary of the evacuation of Fort Sumpter,--Good Friday, April 14. And at last he was happy, sharing with his people the joy that came with the end of the war.

He took a drive with Mrs. Lincoln and they planned for the future--they would save a little money and go back to Springfield and he would practice law again. To his wife this unnatural joy was portentous--she remembered that he had been like this just before little Willie died. In the evening they went to Ford's Theatre. Stanton tried to dissuade them because the secret service had heard rumors of assassination. Because Stanton insisted on a guard Major Rathbone was along. At 9 o'clock the party entered the President's box--the President was very happy--at 10:20 a shot was heard--Major Rathbone sprang to grapple with the assassin and was slashed with a dagger. The assassin fell as he sprang from the box to the stage, where he brandished his bloody dagger, yelled with terrible theatricalism, "_sic semper tyrannis_," and stalking lamely from the platform disappeared in the darkness and rode away. The President was unconscious from the first, and as they bore him from the theatre a lodger from a house across the street said "Take him up to my room," where he lay unconscious until next morning when he ceased to breathe; and Stanton at his bedside said, "Now he belongs to the Ages."

Someone had recognized the assassin as John Wilkes Booth, an actor, a fanatic in the Southern cause. And in killing Lincoln he did his people of the South the greatest possible harm.

The North had been decorated with celebration of victory; now it was bowed and dazed with grief and rage. Those that had abused him and maligned him and opposed him now came to understand him as in a new light they saw him transfigured by his great sacrifices.

They reverently folded the body in the flag and carried it first to the White House and then to the Capitol where it lay in state; and then they began that long journey back to Springfield over the very route he had come on his way to the Capital in 1861. Everywhere in cities and in towns great crowds gathered, heedless of night or rain or storm, and even as the train sped over the open country at night little groups of farmers could be seen by the roadside in the dim light watching for the train and waving their lanterns in a sad farewell.

Whatever anger and resentment the North may have felt, the weeping thousands who looked upon the face of Lincoln as it was borne homeward saw only forgiveness and peace.

But his beautiful dream of amnesty was not to be realized. Mutual forgiveness and reconciliation were ideals too high for many of his contemporaries at that time, and their spirit of revenge bore its inevitable fruit of injustice and bitterness in the days of reconstruction that followed. How different it might all have been had Lincoln continued to live. How his great influence would have helped in the solution of the nation's problems after the war. A besotted wretch snuffed out the most important life on earth that day.

Misguided men of his time ridiculed him because they were unable to comprehend his lofty ideals or see the practical wisdom of his great purposes. They measured him by their own puny standards and in condemning him only condemned themselves. His sad life, his tragic death, his immortal glory are one with all the reformers, prophets and saviors of the world. As war scenes receded, as men's prejudices cooled, as the mighty issues were better understood, men came to see how truly great he was. He finished successfully the most important and most difficult task ever bequeathed to one mortal man in all history.

* * * * *

Other Titles in Pocket Series

Drama

46 Salome. Oscar Wilde. 50 Pillars of Society. Ibsen. 131 Redemption. Tolstoi. 99 Tartuffe. Moliere. 54 Importance of Being Earnest. Oscar Wilde. 81 Pelleas and Melisande. Maeterlinck. 8 Lady Windermere's Fan. Oscar Wilde. 226 Prof. Bernhardi. Schnitzler.

Fiction

6 De Maupassant's Stories. 15 Balzac's Stories. 178 One of Cleopatra's Nights. Gautier. 58 Boccaccio's Stories. 45 Tolstoi's Stories. 12 Poe's Tales. 145 Great Ghost Stories. 21 Carmen. Merimee. 38 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. 27 Last Days of a Condemned Man. Hugo. 151 Man Who Would Be King. Kipling. 47 He Renounced the Faith. Jack London. 41 Christmas Carol. 57 Rip Van Winkle. 100 Red Laugh. Andreyev. 148 Strength of the Strong. London. 105 Seven That Were Hanged. Andreyev. 102 Sherlock Holmes Tales. 161 Country of the Blind. H. G. Wells. 85 Attack on the Mill. Zela. 156 Andersen's Fairy Tales. 158 Alice in Wonderland. 37 Dream of John Bull. 40 House and the Brain. 12 Color of Life. E. Haldeman-Julius. 198 Majesty of Justice. Anatole France. 215 The Miraculous Revenge. Bernard Shaw. 24 The Kiss and Other Stories. Chekhov. 219 The Human Tragedy. Anatole France. 196 The Marquise. Sand. 230 The Fleece of Gold. Theophile Gautier. 232 Three Strangers. Hardy. 239 Twenty-Six Men and a Girl. Maxium Gorki. 29 Dreams. Schreiner.

History, Biography

126 History of Rome. 128 Caesar: Who He Was. 185 History of Printing. 175 Science of History. Froude. 52 Voltaire. Victor Hugo. 125 War Speeches of Woodrow Wilson. 142 Bismarck and the German Empire. 51 Bruno: His Life and Martyrdom. 147 Cromwell and His Day. 236 State and Heart Affairs of Henry VIII. 50 Paine's Common Sense. 88 Vindication of Paine. Ingersoll. 33 Smasher of Shams. 163 Sex Life in Greece and Rome. 214 Speeches of Lincoln. 144 Was Poe Immoral? Whitman. 104 Battle of Waterloo. Victor Hugo. 159 Lincoln and the Working Class. 223 Essay on Swinburne. Quiller-Couch. 229 Diderot. Ellis. 227 Keats. The Man. His Work and His Friends. 201 Satan and the Saints. H. M. Tichenor. 67 Church History. Tichenor. 139 Life of Dante.

Humor

18 Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow. Jerome. 20 Let's Laugh. Nasby. 166 English as She Is Spoke. Mark Twain. 205 Artemus Ward. His Book. 187 Whistler's Humor. 216 Wit of Heinrich Heine. Geo. Eliot. 231 8 Humorous Sketches. Mark Twain.

Literature

97 Love Letters of King Henry VIII. 36 Soul of Man Under Socialism. O. Wilde. 28 Toleration. Voltaire. 89 Love Letters of Men and Women of Genius. 87 Love. Montaigne. 48 Bacon's Essays. 60 Emerson's Essays. 84 Love Letters of a Nun. 26 On Going to Church. Shaw. 61 Tolstoi's Essays. 176 Four Essays. Ellis. 160 Shakespeare. Ingersoll. 186 How I Write "The Raven." Poe. 75 Choice of Books. Carlyle. 76 Prince of Peace. Bryan. 86 On Reading. Brandes. 95 Confessions of An Opium Eater. 188 How Voltaire Fooled Priest and King. 3 18 Essays. Voltaire. 213 Lincoln. Ingersoll. 183 Realism in Art and Literature. Darrow. 177 Subjection of Women. John Stuart Mill. 17 On Walking. Thoreau. 70 Lamb's Essays. 135 Socialism for Millionaires. G. B. Shaw. 235 Essays. G. K. Chesterton. 7 A Liberal Education. Thomas Huxley. 233 Thoughts on Literature and Art. Goethe. 225 Condescension in Foreigners. J. R. Lowell. 221 Women, and Other Essays. Maeterlinck. 218 Essays. Jean Jaures. 10 Shelley. F. Thompson.

Maxims and Epigrams

56 Wisdom of Ingersoll. 106 Aphorisms. Geo. Sand. 168 Epigrams. O. Wilde. 59 Epigrams of Wit. 35 Maxims. Rochefoucauld. 154 Epigrams of Ibsen. 197 Witticisms. De Sevigne. 180 Epigrams. G. B. Shaw. 155 Maxims. Napoleon. 113 Proverbs of England. 114 Proverbs of France. 115 Proverbs of Japan. 116 Proverbs of China. 117 Proverbs of Italy. 118 Proverbs of Russia. 119 Proverbs of Ireland. 120 Proverbs of Spain. 121 Proverbs of Arabia. 181 Epigrams. Thoreau. 228 Aphorisms. Huxley.

Philosophy, Religion

62 Schopenhauer's Essays. 94 Trial and Death of Socrates. 65 Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. 44 Aesop's Fables. 165 Discovery of the Future. H. G. Wells. 96 Dialogues of Plato. 103 Pocket Theology. Voltaire. 132 Foundations of Religion. 138 Studies in Pessimism. Schopenhauer. 211 Idea of God in Nature. John Stuart Mill. 212 Life and Character. Goethe. 200 Ignorant Philosopher. Voltaire. 101 Thoughts of Pascal. 207 Olympian Gods. H. M. Tichenor. 210 The Stoic Philosophy. Prof. Gilbert Murray. 220 Essays on New Testament. Blatchford. 224 God: Known and Unknown. Butler. 19 Nietzsche. Who He Was and What He Stood For. 204 Sun Worship and Later Beliefs. Tichenor. 184 Primitive Beliefs. H. M. Tichenor.

Poetry

1 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. 73 Whitman's Poems. 2 Wilde's Reading Jail. 32 Poe's Poems. 164 Michael Angelo's Sonnets 71 Poems of Evolution. 146 Snow-Bound, Pied Piper. 9 Great English Poems. 79 Enoch Arden. Tennyson. 68 Shakespeare's Sonnets. 173 Vision of Sir Launfal. 222 The Vampire and Other Poems. Kipling. 237 Prose Poems. Baudelaire.

Science

190 Psycho-Analysis--The Key to Human Behavior. Fielding. 49 Three Lectures on Evolution. Haeckel. 42 From Monkey to Man. 288 Reflections on Modern Science. Huxley. 202 Survival of the Fittest. H. M. Tichenor. 191 Evolution vs. Religion. Balmforth. 133 Electricity Explained. 92 Hypnotism Made Plain. 53 Insects and Men: Instinct and Reason Darrow. 189 Eugenics. Ellis. 107 How to Strengthen Mind and Memory. 108 How to Develop a Healthy Mind. 109 How to Develop a Strong Will. 110 How to Develop a Magnetic Personality. 111 How to Attract Friends. 112 How to Be a Leader of Others. 140 Biology and Spiritual Philosophy. Tichenor.

Series of Debates

11 Debate on Religion. John H. Holmes and George Bowne. 39 Did Jesus Ever Live? 130 Controversy on Christianity. Ingersoll and Gladstone. 43 Marriage and Divorce. Horace Greeley and Robert Owen. 208 Debate on Birth Control. Mrs. Sanger and Winter Russell. 121 Rome or Reason. Ingersoll and Manning. 122 Spiritualism. Conan Doyle and McCabe. 171 Has Life Meaning? 206 Capitalism vs. Socialism. Seligman and Nearing. 13 Is Free Will a Fact or a Fallacy? 234 McNeal-Sinclair Debate on Socialism.

Miscellaneous

192 Book of Synonyms. 25 Rhyming Dictionary. 78 How to Be an Orator. 82 Common Faults in Writing English. 127 What Expectant Mothers Should Know. 81 Care of the Baby. 136 Child Training. 137 Home Nursing. 14 What Every Girl Should Know. Mrs. Sanger. 34 Case for Birth Control. 91 Manhood: Facts of Life Presented to Men. 83 Marriage Past, Present and Future. Besant. 74 On Threshold of Sex. 98 How to Love. 172 Evolution of Love. Key. 203 Rights of Women. Ellis. 209 Aspects of Birth Control. Medical, Moral, Sociological. 143 Pope Leo on Socialism. 152 Foundations of Labor Movement. Phillips. 30 What Life Means to Me. Jack London. 93 How to Live 100 Years. 167 Plutarch on Health.

End of Project Gutenberg's Life of Abraham Lincoln, by John Hugh Bowers