CHAPTER XXI.

PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN OF 1864.

Proclamation for a Fast--Speech to Soldiers--Another Speech-- “To Whom It may Concern”--Chicago Convention--Opposition Embarrassed--Resolution No. 2--McClellan’s Acceptance--Capture of the Mobile Forts and Atlanta--Proclamation for Thanksgiving Remarks on Employment of Negro Soldiers--Address to Loyal Marylanders.

On the 7th of July the following proclamation for a National Fast appeared:

“WHEREAS, The Senate and House of Representatives, at their last session, adopted a concurrent resolution which was approved on the third day of July instant, and which was in the words following:

“‘That the President of the United States is requested to appoint a day of humiliation and prayer by the people of the United States; that he request his constitutional advisers at the head of the Executive Departments to unite with him, as Chief Magistrate of the Nation, at the city of Washington, and the members of Congress, and all magistrates, all civil, military and naval officers, all soldiers, sailors, and marines, with all loyal and law-abiding people, to convene at their usual places of worship, or wherever they may be, to confess and to repent of their manifold sins; to implore the compassion and forgiveness of the Almighty, that, if consistent with His will, the existing rebellion may be speedily suppressed, and the supremacy of the Constitution and laws of the United States may be established throughout all the States; to implore Him, as the Supreme Ruler of all the world, not to destroy us as a people, nor suffer us to be destroyed by the hostility or connivance of other nations, or by obstinate adhesion to our own counsels, which may be in conflict with His eternal purposes, and to implore him to enlighten the mind of the Nation to know and to do his will, humbly believing that it is not in accord ever with his will that our place should be maintained as a wicked people among the family of nations; to implore him to grant to our armed defenders and the masses of the people that courage, power of resistance, and endurance necessary to secure that result; to implore him in his infinite goodness to soften the hearts, enlighten the minds, and quicken the consciences of those in rebellion, that they may lay down their arms and speedily return to their allegiance to the United States, that they may not be utterly destroyed, that the effusion of blood may be stayed, and that unity and fraternity may be restored, and peace established throughout all our borders.’

“Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, cordially concurring with the Congress of the United States in the penitential and pious sentiments expressed in the aforesaid resolution, and heartily approving of the devotional design and purpose thereof, do hereby appoint the first Thursday of August next, to be observed by the people of the United States as a day of National humiliation and prayer.

“I do hereby further invite and request the heads of the Executive Department of this Government, together with all legislators, all Judges and magistrates, and all other persons exercising authority in the land, whether civil, military, or naval, and all soldiers, seamen and marines in the National service, and all other loyal and law-abiding people of the United States, to assemble in their professed places of public worship on that day, and there to render to the Almighty and merciful Ruler of the universe such homage and such confessions, and to offer him such supplications, as the Congress of the United States have in their aforesaid resolution so solemnly, so earnestly, and so reverently recommended.

“In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

“Done at the City of Washington, this, the seventh day of July, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-four, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-ninth.

“By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN

“WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.”

To some Ohio volunteers, about to return home at the expiration of their term of service, who had called upon the President to pay him their respects, he spoke, on the 18th of August, thus:

“SOLDIERS: You are about to return to your homes and your friends, after having, as I learn, performed in camp a comparatively short term of duty in this great contest. I am greatly obliged to you and to all who have come forward at the call of their country.

“I wish it might be more generally and universally understood what the country is now engaged in. We have, as all will agree, a free Government, where every man has a right to be equal with every other man. In this great struggle, this form of government and every form of human rights is endangered if our enemies succeed. There is more involved in this contest than is realized by every one. There is involved in this struggle the question whether your children and my children shall enjoy the privileges we have enjoyed. I say this, in order to impress upon you, if you are not already so impressed, that no small matter should divert us from our great purpose.

“There may be some inequalities in the practical working of our system. It is fair that each man shall pay taxes in exact proportion for the value of his property; but if we should wait, before collecting a tax, to adjust the taxes upon each man in exact proportion to every other man, we should never collect any tax at all. There may be mistakes made somewhere; things may be done wrong, which the officers of Government do all they can to prevent mistakes.

“But I beg of you, as citizens of this great Republic, not to let your minds be carried off from the great work we have before us. This struggle is too large for you to be diverted from it by any small matter. When you return to your homes, rise up to the height of a generation of men, worthy of a free government, and we will carry out the great work we have commenced. I return you my sincere thanks, soldiers, for the honor you have done me this afternoon.”

And again, on the 22d of August, under similar circumstances:

“SOLDIERS:--I suppose you are going home to see your families and friends. For the services you have done in this great struggle in which we are engaged, I present you sincere thanks for myself and the country.

“I almost always feel inclined, when I say any thing to soldiers, to impress upon them, in a few brief remarks, the importance of success in this contest. It is not merely for to-day, but for all time to come, that we should perpetuate for our children’s children that great and free Government which we have enjoyed all our lives. I beg you to remember this, not merely for my sake, but for yours. I happen temporarily to occupy this big White House. I am a living witness that any one of your children may look to come here as my father’s child has.

“It is in order that each one of you may have, through this free Government which we have enjoyed, an open field and a fair chance for your industry, enterprise, and intelligence; that you may all have equal privileges in the race of life, with all its desirable human aspirations; it is for this that the struggle should be maintained, that we may not lose our birthrights--not only for one, but for two or three years. The nation is worth fighting for, to secure such an unquestionable jewel.”

During the excitement accompanying the rebel attempts upon the National Capitol, during the month of July, heretofore noticed, representations were made to the President that certain individuals, professing to represent the rebel leaders, were in Canada, anxious to enter into negotiations, with a view to the restoration of peace.

In response to this suggestion, Mr. Lincoln issued the following paper, which was very unsatisfactory to those who affected to believe that peace could be secured upon any basis short of the recognition of the Southern Confederacy unless the rebels in arms were thoroughly defeated, dated, Executive Mansion, Washington, July 18, 1864.

“TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN.--Any proposition which embraces the restoration of peace, the integrity of the Union, and the abandonment of slavery, and which comes by and with 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 bearers thereof shall have safe conduct both ways.

“ABRAHAM LINCOLN.”

This ended that attempt to divide the supporters of the Administration.

On the 29th of August, 1864, assembled at Chicago the National Convention of the Democratic party. This had been preceded by a “Mass Peace Convention,” at Syracuse, on the 18th of August, at which it had been resolved, among other things, that it was the duty of the Chicago Convention to give expression to a beneficent sentiment of peace and to declare as the purpose of the Democratic party, if it should recover power, to cause the desolating war to cease by the calling of a National Convention, in which all the States should be represented in their sovereign capacity; and that, to that end, an immediate armistice should be declared of sufficient duration to give the States and the people ample time and opportunity to deliberate upon and finally conclude a form of Union.

There were two factions represented at Chicago: one, unqualifiedly in favor of peace at any price, upon any terms, with any concessions; the other, disposed to take every possible advantage of the mistakes of the Administration, but not possessed of effrontery sufficient to pronounce boldly for a cessation of hostilities in any and every event.

Thus embarrassed, what was left of the still great Democratic party--that party which had swayed the country for so many years, and whose disruption in 1860 was the immediate occasion of the war that ensued--determined to do what it never before, in all its history, had ventured upon. It essayed to ride, at one and the same time, two horses going in diametrically opposite directions.

To conciliate whatever feeling in favor of a prosecution of the war there might be in their ranks, without at the same time going too far in that direction, and to secure as many soldiers’ votes as possible, they put in nomination for the Presidency, Gen. McClellan. To neutralize this apparent tendency toward war, they associated the General with George H. Pendleton, of Ohio, as a candidate for the Vice-Presidency--a man, who, during his entire Congressional career as member of the National House of Representatives, had avowed himself and voted as a Peace-at-any-price individual, from the very outset.

The bane and antidote having thus been blended, as only political chemists would have attempted, the candidates were placed upon a platform, the second resolution of which was as follows:

“_Resolved_, That this Convention does explicitly declare, as the sense of the American people, that, after four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war, during which under the pretence of a military necessity or war power higher than the Constitution, the Constitution itself has been disregarded in every part, and public liberty and 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 all 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.”

This accomplished, the Convention adjourned, having provided for its indefinite existence by empowering its chairman to reconvene it, whenever, in his judgment, it should be thought necessary.

McClellan accepted the nomination, happy to know that when it was made, the record of his public life was kept in view. In his letter of acceptance, he talked all around the peace proposition, ignored the idea of a cessation of hostilities, and went for the whole Union. The document, though sufficiently general and indefinite to answer the purpose, failed to satisfy the ultra-peace men of his party.

Thus, in the midst of a civil war, unparalleled in the world’s history, the extraordinary spectacle was presented of a great people entering with earnestness upon a political campaign, one of whose issues--indeed, the main one--was as to the continuance of that war, with all its hardships and burdens.

Just after the adjournment of the Chicago Convention Sherman’s occupation of Atlanta and the capture of the forts in the harbor of Mobile, were announced, seeming to intimate that the war had not been, up to that time, wholly a failure. The thanks of the Nation were tendered by the President to the officers and men connected with these operations, national salutes ordered, and the following proclamation issued, dated September 3d, 1864.

“The signal success that Divine Providence has recently vouchsafed to the operations of the United States fleet and army in the harbor of Mobile, and the reduction of Fort Powell, Fort Gaines, and Fort Morgan, and the glorious achievements of the army under Major-General Sherman, in the State of Georgia, resulting in the capture of the city of Atlanta, call for devout acknowledgment of the Supreme Being in whose hands are the destinies of nations.

“It is therefore requested that on next Sunday, in all places of worship in the United States, thanksgiving be offered to Him for His mercy in preserving our national existence against the insurgent rebels who have been waging a cruel war against the Government of the United States for its overthrow, and also that prayer be made for Divine protection to our brave soldiers and their leaders in the field, who have so often and so gallantly perilled their lives in battling with the enemy, and for blessing and comfort from the Father of Mercies to the sick, wounded, and prisoners, and to the orphans and widows of those who have fallen in the service of their country, and that He will continue to uphold the Government of the United States against all the efforts of public enemies and secret foes.

“ABRAHAM LINCOLN.”

Mr. Lincoln’s views relative to the employment of negroes as soldiers were again and fully expressed about this time in a conversation with leading gentlemen from the West. On that occasion he said:

“The slightest knowledge of arithmetic will prove to any man that the rebel armies cannot be destroyed by Democratic strategy. It would sacrifice all the white men of the North to do it. There are now in the service of the United States nearly two hundred thousand able-bodied colored men, most of them under arms, defending and acquiring Union territory. The Democratic strategy demands that these forces be disbanded, and that the masters be conciliated by restoring them to slavery. The black men, who now assist Union prisoners to escape, are to be converted into our enemies, in the vain hope of gaining the good-will of their masters. We shall have to fight two nations instead of one.

“You can not conciliate the South, if you guarantee to them ultimate success; and the experience of the present war proves their success is inevitable, if you fling the compulsory labor of millions of black men into their side of the scale. Will you give our enemies such military advantages as insure success, and then depend upon coaxing, flattery, and concession to get them back into the Union? Abandon all the forts now garrisoned by black men, take two hundred thousand men from our side and put them in the battle-field or corn-field against us, and we would be compelled to abandon the war in three weeks.

“We have to hold territory in inclement and sickly places; where are the Democrats to do this? It was a free fight; and the field was open to the War Democrats to put down this rebellion by fighting against both master and slave, long before the present policy was inaugurated.

“There have been men base enough to propose to me to return to slavery our black warriors of Port Hudson and Olustee, and thus win the respect of the masters they fought. Should I do so, I should deserve to be damned in time and eternity. Come what will, I will keep my faith with friend and foe. My enemies pretend I am now carrying on this war for the sole purpose of abolition. So long as I am President, it shall be carried on for the sole purpose of restoring the Union. But no human power can subdue this rebellion without the use of the Emancipation policy, and every other policy calculated to weaken the moral and physical forces of the rebellion.

“Freedom has given us two hundred thousand men raised on Southern soil. It will give us more yet. Just so much it has subtracted from the enemy; and, instead of checking the South, there are now evidences of a fraternal feeling growing up between our men and the rank and file of the rebel soldiers. Let my enemies prove to the country that the destruction of slavery is not necessary to the restoration of the Union. I will abide the issue.”

On the 19th of October, the President having been serenaded by the loyal Marylanders of the District of Columbia, said:

“I am notified that this is a compliment paid me by the loyal Marylanders resident in this district. I infer that the adoption of the new Constitution for the State furnishes the occasion, and that in your view the extirpation of slavery constitutes the chief merit of the new Constitution.

“Most heartily do I congratulate you, and Maryland, and the Nation, and the world upon the event. I regret that it did not occur two years sooner, which, I am sure, would have saved to the nation more money than would have met all the private loss incident to the measure; but it has come at last, and I sincerely hope its friends may fully realize all their anticipations of good from it, and that its opponents may, by its effects, be agreeably and profitably disappointed.

“A word upon another subject: Something said by the Secretary of State in his recent speech at Auburn, has been construed by some into a threat that, if I shall be beaten at the election, I will between then and the end of my constitutional term do what I may be able to ruin the Government. Others regard the fact that the Chicago Convention adjourned, not _sine die_, but to meet again, if called to do so by a particular individual, as the ultimatum of a purpose that, if the nominee shall be elected, he will at once seize control of the Government.

“I hope the good people will permit themselves to suffer no uneasiness on either point. I am struggling to maintain the Government, not to overthrow it. I therefore say that, if I shall live, I shall remain President until the fourth of March. And whoever shall be constitutionally elected, therefore, in November, shall be duly installed as President on the fourth of March; and that, 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 our people, both on principle and under the Constitution. Their will, constitutionally expressed, is the ultimate law for all. If they should deliberately resolve to have immediate peace, even at the loss of their country and their liberties, I know not the power or the right to resist them. It is their own business, and they must do as they please with their own.

“I believe, however, that they are all resolved to preserve their country and their liberty; and in this, in office or out of it, I am resolved to stand by them. I may add, that in this purpose--to save the country and its liberties--no class of people seem so nearly unanimous as the soldiers in the field and the seamen afloat. Do they not have the hardest of it? Who shall quail, when they do not? God bless the soldiers and seamen and all their brave commanders!”