Chapter 25

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.