Part 22

_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 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.

_Resolved_, That the direct interference of the military authorities of the United States in the recent elections held in Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, and Delaware was a shameful violation of the Constitution; and a repetition of such acts in the approaching election will be held as revolutionary, and resisted with all the means and power under our control.

_Resolved_, That the aim and object of the Democratic party is to preserve the Federal Union and the rights of the States unimpaired; and they hereby declare that they consider that the administrative usurpation of extraordinary and dangerous powers not granted by the Constitution; the subversion of the civil by military law in States not in insurrection; the arbitrary military arrest, imprisonment, trial, and sentence of American citizens in States where civil law exists in full force; the suppression of freedom of speech and of the press; the denial of the right of asylum; the open and avowed disregard of State rights; the employment of unusual test oaths; and the interference with and denial of the right of the people to bear arms in their defence; are calculated to prevent a restoration of the Union and the perpetuation of a Government deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed.

_Resolved_, That the shameful disregard of the administration to its duty in respect to our fellow-citizens who are now, and long have been, prisoners of war and in a suffering condition, deserves the severest reprobation, on the score alike of public policy and common humanity.

_Resolved_, That the sympathy of the Democratic party is heartily and earnestly extended to the soldiery of our army and the sailors of our navy, who are and have been in the field and on the sea, under the flag of our country; and, in the event of its attaining power, they will receive all the care, protection, and regard that the brave soldiers and sailors of the Republic have so nobly earned.

The renomination of Lincoln by the Republican National Convention was so entirely assured early in the year that the Republican opponents of the President made a desperate effort to crystallize an opposition to Lincoln of such formidable character as to compel the national convention to choose another candidate. The call for the Republican convention to meet at Baltimore was issued on the 22d of February, and very active efforts were made by the leaders of the opposition to place a Republican ticket in the field before Lincoln could be renominated. A mass convention was called, to meet at Cleveland on the 31st of May, and some three hundred and fifty responded to the call. John Cochrane, of New York, was made permanent president, and without the formality of a ballot John C. Fremont was nominated for President and John Cochrane for Vice-President by acclamation. Both promptly accepted the nominations, but instead of inspiring Republican revolt against Lincoln, as was anticipated, the nominations gave no exhibition of popular strength, and after considerable conference between the insurgents and the regulars, Fremont and Cochrane announced their retirement from the contest on the 21st of September, and urged the re-election of Lincoln. The following platform was adopted by the Fremont convention:

_First._ That the Federal Union shall be preserved.

_Second._ That the Constitution and laws of the United States must be observed and obeyed.

_Third._ That the Rebellion must be suppressed by force of arms, and without compromise.

_Fourth._ That the rights of free speech, free press, and the habeas corpus be held inviolate, save in districts where martial law has been proclaimed.

_Fifth._ That the Rebellion has destroyed slavery, and the Federal Constitution should be amended to prohibit its re-establishment, and to secure to all men absolute equality before the law.

_Sixth._ That integrity and economy are demanded at all times in the administration of the Government, and that in time of war the want of them is criminal.

_Seventh._ That the right of asylum, except for crime and subject to law, is a recognized principle of American liberty; that any violation of it cannot be overlooked, and must not go unrebuked.

_Eighth._ That the national policy known as the “Monroe Doctrine” has become a recognized principle, and that the establishment of an anti-republican government on this continent by any foreign power cannot be tolerated.

_Ninth._ That the gratitude and support of the nation are due to the faithful soldiers and the earnest leaders of the Union army and navy for their heroic achievements of deathless valor in defence of our imperilled country and civil liberty.

_Tenth._ That the one-term policy for the Presidency adopted by the people is strengthened by the force of the existing crisis, and should be maintained by constitutional amendments.

_Eleventh._ That the Constitution should be so amended that the President and Vice-President shall be elected by a direct vote of the people.

_Twelfth._ That the question of the reconstruction of the rebellious States belongs to the people, through their representatives in Congress, and not to the Executive.

_Thirteenth._ That the confiscation of the lands of the rebels, and their distribution among the soldiers and actual settlers, is a measure of justice.

The country was prepared, at the time the Democratic platform was adopted, to receive its demands relating to the war with some respect, but the aspect of the contest was speedily changed by Sherman’s capture of Atlanta and Sheridan’s brilliant victories in the Shenandoah Valley. General McClellan and his friends appreciated the unfortunate expression of the convention against the war, that was made very generally odious among loyal people by the thrilling victories of the army, and in his letter of acceptance, that he delayed long enough to give the fullest consideration to the subject, he plainly dissented from the war plank of the platform. He said: “I could not look in the face of my gallant comrades of the army and navy who have survived so many bloody battles and tell them that their labors and the sacrifice of so many of our slain and wounded brethren had been in vain, that we had abandoned that Union for which we have so often perilled our lives;” to which he added: “No peace can be permanent without union.”

While the contest had been fairly doubtful and at times exceedingly gloomy for Lincoln, the victories of Sherman and Sheridan caused a sudden tidal wave, that utterly overwhelmed McClellan and left him the worst defeated candidate of history in any contested election, receiving only 21 electoral votes to 212 for Lincoln. The following table gives the popular and electoral vote, with the soldier vote in a separate table, as cast in the field:

══════════════╤═════════════════════╦═══════════════════ │ POPULAR VOTE. ║ ELECTORAL VOTE. STATES. ├──────────┬──────────╫────────┬────────── │ Lincoln. │McClellan.║Lincoln.│McClellan. ──────────────┼──────────┼──────────╫────────┼────────── Maine │ 72,278 │ 47,736 ║ 7 │ ―― New Hampshire │ 36,595 │ 33,034 ║ 5 │ ―― Vermont │ 42,422 │ 13,325 ║ 5 │ ―― Massachusetts │ 126,742 │ 48,745 ║ 12 │ ―― Rhode Island │ 14,343 │ 8,718 ║ 4 │ ―― Connecticut │ 44,693 │ 42,288 ║ 6 │ ―― New York │ 368,726 │ 361,986 ║ 33 │ ―― New Jersey │ 60,723 │ 68,014 ║ ―― │ 7 Pennsylvania │ 296,389 │ 276,308 ║ 26 │ ―― Delaware │ 8,155 │ 8,767 ║ ―― │ 3 Maryland │ 40,153 │ 32,739 ║ 7 │ ―― Kentucky │ 27,786 │ 64,301 ║ ―― │ 11 West Virginia │ 23,223 │ 10,457 ║ 5 │ ―― Ohio │ 265,154 │ 205,568 ║ 21 │ ―― Indiana │ 150,422 │ 130,233 ║ 13 │ ―― Illinois │ 189,487 │ 158,349 ║ 16 │ ―― Michigan │ 85,352 │ 67,370 ║ 8 │ ―― Iowa │ 87,331 │ 49,260 ║ 8 │ ―― Wisconsin │ 79,564 │ 63,875 ║ 8 │ ―― Minnesota │ 25,060 │ 17,375 ║ 4 │ ―― Kansas │ 14,228 │ 3,871 ║ 3 │ ―― Missouri │ 72,991 │ 31,026 ║ 11 │ ―― Nevada[19] │ 9,826 │ 6,594 ║ 2 │ ―― California │ 62,134 │ 43,841 ║ 5 │ ―― Oregon │ 9,888 │ 8,457 ║ 3 │ ―― ├──────────┼──────────╫────────┼────────── Totals │2,213,665 │1,802,237 ║ 212 │ 21 ══════════════╧══════════╧══════════╩════════╧══════════

[19] Nevada chose three electors, one of whom died before election.

═════════════════════╤══════════════════════ │ SOLDIER VOTE. STATES. ├─────────┬──────────── │ Lincoln.│ McClellan. ─────────────────────┼─────────┼──────────── Maine │ 4,174 │ 741 New Hampshire │ 2,066 │ 690 Vermont │ 243 │ 49 Pennsylvania │ 26,712 │ 12,349 Maryland │ 2,800 │ 321 Kentucky │ 1,194 │ 2,823 Ohio │ 41,146 │ 9,757 Michigan │ 9,402 │ 2,959 Iowa │ 15,178 │ 1,364 Wisconsin │ 11,372 │ 2,458 California │ 2,600 │ 237 ├─────────┼──────────── Totals │ 116,887 │ 33,748 ═════════════════════╧═════════╧════════════

The army vote of Vermont, Kansas, and Minnesota was not received in time to be taken into the official count, and part of the vote of Wisconsin was rejected for informality.

The States of Tennessee and Louisiana also held elections and were carried for Lincoln, but their votes were not necessary to the election of the Republican ticket, and although Lincoln earnestly desired that these States should be recognized and the votes counted, Congress, by joint resolution, that Lincoln signed with great reluctance, declared that they should not be recognized, and they were omitted in the final count by Congress.

Pennsylvania was the only Republican State that faltered in the fall elections of 1864. There was no State ticket to be chosen, and the Republicans in charge of the campaign assumed that Lincoln would carry the State without extraordinary efforts, while the friends of McClellan, a native of the State, with strong individual and social relations, made exhaustive efforts to give him the victory.

The October election was practically a stand-off, and Lincoln telegraphed me on the morning after the election to come to Washington. He was much distressed at the attitude of our State, and apprehensive that New York, with Horatio Seymour as Governor, one of the ablest Democrats of the country, might vote for McClellan, as Tammany was then in the very zenith of its power. I had been Chairman of the State Committee when Lincoln was elected in 1860, and General Cameron was my successor in 1864. He was thoroughly competent for the task, but evidently did not appreciate the perils which confronted him. Lincoln asked me to join Cameron and devote the intervening month between the October and November elections to assure a victory. I answered that I could not make the suggestion to Cameron, as our political relations were not especially friendly, to which he replied, asking me whether I would do it if so requested by Cameron. I of course assented, and the following day I received a letter from Cameron at my home in Chambersburg, requesting me to join him, where I found Honorable Wayne MacVeagh, who had been the Republican chairman the year before and who was then not more friendly to Cameron than myself. We all united in an earnest effort to win the State, always acting in entire harmony with Cameron and his committee.

I had private quarters at the Continental, while Cameron’s quarters were at the Girard, and, as requested, advised Lincoln each day of the apparent progress of the battle. My reports were not so assuring as he desired, for the friends of McClellan, inspired by the partial victory of October, renewed their energies for the November fight. Postmaster-General Dennison came to see me on a special mission from Lincoln about two weeks before the election to learn the situation as precisely as possible, and I had to tell him that I saw but little hope of carrying the State on the home vote. The army vote would doubtless be largely for Lincoln and give him the State, but it would be declared a “bayonet election,” and with such a result in Pennsylvania, and New York lost, as was possible, while Lincoln’s election could not be defeated, as the Southern States did not vote, the moral power of the new administration to prosecute the war and attain peace would be greatly impaired. My answer to Lincoln was that I would go to Washington within a few days if it should appear necessary to take extreme measures to save the State on the home vote.

As the political conditions did not improve, I telegraphed to Lincoln that I would meet him at nine o’clock in the evening to discuss the campaign. I found him nervously anxious about Pennsylvania, although not doubting his re-election. He knew that New York was trembling in the balance and might be lost, and his fears were fully warranted, as he had but little over 6000 majority in a million votes. I told him that I had not confidence in the State being carried by the home vote, but that it could be done without interfering with the military operations of the army, as Grant was then besieging Petersburg and Sheridan had whipped the Confederates clear out of the valley. I suggested that he should in some way have Grant furlough five thousand Pennsylvania soldiers home for twenty days, and that Sheridan should do the same, as that vote cast at home would insure a home majority. He hesitated about making the request of Grant for reasons which I could not understand, and I then suggested that General Meade was a soldier and a gentleman, and that he could safely send an order to him as Commander of the Army of the Potomac, and that Meade would obey it and permit the order to be returned.

A messenger from the War Office went the next morning to Meade, bearing the order from Lincoln, brought it back with him, and fully five thousand Pennsylvania soldiers were furloughed to return home. I said: “How about Sheridan?” Lincoln’s face brightened and with great enthusiasm he said:

“Oh, Phil; he’s all right.”

The same order went to Sheridan, of which no record was ever kept, and Sheridan sent five thousand of his veterans home to vote as they shot, and Lincoln’s majority on the home vote was 5712, to which the army vote added 14,363, making a total majority in the State of 20,075.

It is not generally known how earnestly Lincoln labored for compensated emancipation. He made earnest efforts to save the Border States to the Union by the assurance of compensation for slaves, and even after all the slave States south of the Potomac and the Ohio had joined the Confederacy, he adhered to the policy of compensated emancipation until the day of his death. In August, 1864, when the political situation presented a very gloomy aspect, I had a long conference with Lincoln at the White House, and he then introduced the subject of compensated emancipation.

In that conversation he gave me the first intimation of his purpose to try and end the war by paying the South $400,000,000 as compensation for the freedom of the slaves. He had the proposition written out in his own handwriting, but he well knew that if such a purpose on his part were made public, it would make his re-election impossible. He discussed it freely and very earnestly, however, and said that he regarded compensated emancipation as the only way to restore fellowship between the States. He did not doubt the ability of the North to overthrow the military power of the Confederacy, but what he most feared was that the people of the South, driven to desperation by the severe sacrifices they had suffered, and the general desolation of their country, that gave them no hope of regaining prosperity, would make their armies disband into guerrilla squads and would be implacable in their resentments against the Government.

In all of the many expressions I heard Lincoln make use of, toward the close of the war, he always exhibited an earnest desire to do something that would impressively teach the Southern people that they were not to be held as conquered subjects of a despotic power, but were to come back into the Union and enjoy the blessings of a reunited people.

Lincoln believed that in no way could he so widely and profoundly impress the Southern people with the desire of the Government to deal with them in generous justice as by paying them $400,000,000 as compensation for the loss of their slaves. I can never forget the earnestness with which he spoke of this proposition at a time when he did not dare breathe it to the public. He said the war was costing $4,000,000 a day, and that it would certainly last for more than four months, thus costing the Government more than the whole amount he would have gladly given as compensation for the freedom of the slaves, not to calculate the sacrifice of life and destruction of property. He fretted because he could not convey to the South what he believed should be done to close the war and enable them to re-establish their homes and fruitful fields. He believed in his theory of compensated emancipation until his death, and he abandoned it only a short time before the surrender of Lee. He would have suggested it to Vice-President Stephens, of the Confederacy, at their City Point meeting in the winter of 1865, had not Stephens advised him at the outset that he was instructed by Jefferson Davis to entertain no proposition that did not perpetuate the Confederacy, and after his return he wrote a message to Congress in favor of it, submitted it to his Cabinet, by which it was nearly or quite unanimously disapproved, and he endorsed upon it the disapproval of the Cabinet and laid it away.

Lincoln was the most notable combination of sadness and mirth that I ever met with in any of our public men. His face in repose, under all circumstances, was one of the saddest I ever beheld. It would brighten in conversation, and at times would portray a measure of sorrow that could not be surpassed. He was from his youth much given to melancholy. While he was known as fond of sports and brimful of humor, a very large portion of his life was always given to isolation and solitude, when he gave free latitude to the melancholy tendencies of his mind.

Strange as it may seem, he was always a hopeful man, never pessimistic, and always inclined when discussing any question to take the bright side. He was severely conscientious in his convictions and in his actions. He had faith in the present and greater faith in the future. He had been in early life what is now commonly called an agnostic, with a strong inclination to atheism, but in his mature years he never exhibited a trace of it. I have never known any man who had greater reverence for God than Abraham Lincoln. Throughout his writings, political and otherwise, will be found multiplied expressions of his abiding faith in the Great Ruler of nations and individuals.

In a single sentence to be found in Lincoln’s second inaugural address the country and the world have the most complete portrayal of his character. When he was inaugurated for a second term as President, on the 4th of March, 1865, the military power of the Confederacy was broken, and many in his position would have exhibited the pride of the victor over the vanquished on such an occasion; but after stating in the kindest and most temperate language the duty of himself and of the patriotic people of the country to protect the Union against dismemberment, he does not utter a word of resentment against the South. “With malice toward none; with charity for all,” was the brief and eloquent sentence in which he defined the duty of those who had then substantially destroyed the power of the Rebellion. That beautiful expression came from the heart of Abraham Lincoln, and it profoundly impressed the whole country, then wildly impassioned by the bitterness of fraternal strife. He knew the resentments which must confront him in restoring the shattered fragments of the Union, and his supreme desire was to have the bitterness of the conflict perish when peace came.

No man who has filled the Presidential chair was so vindictively and malignantly defamed as was Lincoln in the South. The opponents of the war in the North were guilty of unpardonable assaults upon his integrity, his ability, and his methods, but the South had no knowledge of him, as he had filled no important part in national affairs before his election to the Presidency; and his humble birth in Kentucky, close by the birthplace of Jefferson Davis, and his exaggerated rudeness of appearance and manner made the people of the South ready to believe anything to his discredit. He was proclaimed throughout the Confederacy as a second Nero; as a bloody and remorseless butcher; as a vulgar clown who met the sorrows of the nation with ribald jest. Not a single virtue was conceded to him.

No one could know Lincoln well without seeing some features of his home life. I have seen him in grave conversation with public men on the most momentous subjects, when “Tad” Lincoln, his favorite boy, would rush into the room, bounce on to his father’s lap, throw his arms around his neck, and play hobby-horse on his foot regardless of all the sacred affairs of State. There never was a frown from the father, and the fretting questions of even a great war seemed to perish until “Tad” had completed his romp. The greatest sorrow of Lincoln’s life shadowed the altar of his own home, and it was one he had to suffer in silence. The calamity that befell Mrs. Lincoln after his death was visible to those who had opportunity to see for themselves at an early period of his administration. Mrs. Lincoln was mentally unbalanced, but not sufficiently so to prevent the performance of her social functions, and her vagaries often led to severe reflections upon the President, at times even to the extent of charging her with sympathy for the South, as her brothers were prominent in the Southern army.