RECONSTRUCTION UNDER JOHNSON.
The following considerations induced me to make a pilgrimage to
Washington, where, by accident of fortune, I had a larger acquaintance
with influential politicians than other Southern commanders. When the
Whig party dissolved, most of its Northern members joined the
Republicans, and now belonged to the reigning faction; and I had
consorted with many of them while my father was President and afterward.
Mention has been made of the imprisonment of Governors Clarke and Watts
for adopting my advice, and it was but right for me to make an effort to
have them released. Moreover, Jefferson Davis was a prisoner in irons,
and it was known that his health was feeble. Lee, Johnston, and I, with
our officers and men, were at large, protected by the terms of our
surrenders--terms which General Grant had honorably prevented the civil
authorities from violating. If Mr. Davis had sinned, we all were guilty,
and I could not rest without making an attempt for his relief.
At the time, it was understood that prisoners on parole should not
change their residence without military permission, and leave to go to
New York was asked and obtained of General Canby. By steamer I reached
that place in a week, and found that General Dix had just been relieved
by General Hooker, to whom I at once reported. He uttered a shout of
welcome (we were old acquaintances), declared that he was more pleased
to see me than to see a church (which was doubtless true), made
hospitable suggestions of luncheon, champagne, etc., and gave me a
permit to go to Washington, regretting that he could not keep me with
him. A warm-hearted fellow is "fighting Joe," who carried on war like a
soldier.
In Washington, at Willard's--a huge inn, filled from garret to cellar
with a motley crowd--an acquaintance, whom I chanced to meet, informed
me that a recent disturbance had induced the belief of the existence of
a new plot for assassination, and an order had been published forbidding
rebels to approach the capital without the permission of the War
Secretary. Having been at sea for a week, I knew nothing of this, and
Hooker had not mentioned it when he gave me the permit to come to
Washington. My informant apprehended my arrest, and kindly undertook to
protect me. Through his intervention I received from the President,
Andrew Johnson, permission to stay or go where I chose, with an
invitation to visit him at a stated time.
Presenting myself at the "White House," I was ushered in to the
President--a saturnine man, who made no return to my bow, but, after
looking at me, asked me to take a seat. Upon succeeding to power Mr.
Johnson breathed fire and hemp against the South, proclaimed that he
would make treason odious by hanging traitors, and ordered the arrest of
General Lee and others, when he was estopped by the action of General
Grant. He had now somewhat abated his wolfish desire for vengeance, and
asked many questions about the condition of the South, temper of the
people, etc. I explained the conduct of Governors Clarke and Watts, how
they were imprisoned for following my advice, submitted to and approved
by General Canby, who would hardly have abetted a new rebellion; and he
made memoranda of their cases, as well as of those of many other
prisoners, confined in different forts from Boston to Savannah, all of
whom were released within a short period. Fearing to trespass on his
time, I left with a request that he would permit me to call again, as I
had a matter of much interest to lay before him, and was told the hours
at which I would be received.
Thence to the Secretary of State, Mr. Seward, who in former Whig times,
as Senator from New York, had been a warm supporter of my father's
administration. He greeted me cordially, and asked me to dine. A loin of
veal was the _piece de resistance_ of his dinner, and he called
attention to it as evidence that he had killed the fatted calf to
welcome the returned prodigal. Though not entirely recovered from the
injuries received in a fall from his carriage and the wounds inflicted
by the knife of Payne, he was cheerful, and appeared to sympathize with
the objects of my mission--at least, so far as I could gather his
meaning under the cloud of words with which he was accustomed to cover
the slightest thought. One or two other members of the Cabinet, to whom
Mr. Seward presented me, were also favorably inclined. One, the War
Secretary, I did not meet. A spy under Buchanan, a tyrant under Lincoln,
and a traitor to Johnson, this man was as cruel and crafty as Domitian.
I never saw him. In the end conscience, long dormant, came as Alecto,
and he was not; and the temple of Justice, on whose threshold he stood,
escaped profanation.
In a second interview, President Johnson heard the wish I had so much at
heart, permission to visit Jefferson Davis. He pondered for some time,
then replied that I must wait and call again.
Meantime, an opportunity to look upon the amazing spectacle presented by
the dwellers at the capital was afforded. The things seen by the
Pilgrims in a dream were at this Vanity Fair visible in the flesh: "all
such merchandise sold as houses, lands, trades, places, honors,
preferments, states, lusts, pleasures; and delights of all sorts, as
bawds, wives, husbands, children, masters, servants, lives, blood,
bodies, souls, greenbacks, pearls, precious stones, and what not." The
eye of the inspired tinker had pierced the darkness of two hundred
years, and seen what was to come. The martial tread of hundreds of
volunteer generals, just disbanded, resounded in the streets. Gorged
with loot, they spent it as lavishly as Morgan's buccaneers after the
sack of Panama. Their women sat at meat or walked the highways,
resplendent in jewels, spoil of Southern matrons. The camp-followers of
the army were here in high carnival, and in character and numbers
rivaled the attendants of Xerxes. Courtesans swarmed everywhere, about
the inns, around the Capitol, in the antechambers of the "White House,"
and were brokers for the transaction of all business. Of a tolerant
disposition and with a wide experience of earthly wickedness, I did not
feel called upon to cry aloud against these enormities, remembering the
fate of Faithful; but I had some doubts concerning divine justice; for
why were the "cities of the Plain" overthrown and this place suffered to
exist?
The officers of the army on duty at Washington were very civil to me,
especially General Grant, whom I had known prior to and during the
Mexican war, as a modest, amiable, but by no means promising lieutenant
in a marching regiment. He came frequently to see me, was full of
kindness, and anxious to promote my wishes. His action in preventing
violation of the terms of surrender, and a subsequent report that he
made of the condition of the South--a report not at all pleasing to the
radicals--endeared him to all Southern men. Indeed, he was in a position
to play a role second only to that of Washington, who founded the
republic; for he had the power to restore it. His bearing and conduct at
this time were admirable, modest and generous; and I talked much with
him of the noble and beneficent work before him. While his heart seemed
to respond, he declared his ignorance of and distaste for politics and
politicians, with which and whom he intended to have nothing to do, but
confine himself to his duties of commander-in-chief of the army. Yet he
expressed a desire for the speedy restoration of good feeling between
the sections, and an intention to advance it in all proper ways. We
shall see when and under what influences he adopted other views.
The President put me off from day to day, receiving me to talk about
Southern affairs, but declining to give an answer to my requests. I
found that he always postponed action, and was of an obstinate,
suspicious temper. Like a badger, one had to dig him out of his hole;
and he was ever in one except when on the hustings, addressing the
crowd. Of humble birth, a tailor by trade, nature gave him a strong
intellect, and he had learned to read after his marriage. He had
acquired much knowledge of the principles of government, and made
himself a fluent speaker, but could not rise above the level of the
class in which he was born and to which he always appealed. He well
understood the few subjects laboriously studied, and affected to despise
other knowledge, while suspicious that those possessing such would take
advantage of him. Self-educated men, as they are called, deprived of the
side light thrown on a particular subject by instruction in cognate
matters, are narrow and dogmatic, and, with an uneasy consciousness of
ignorance, soothe their own vanity by underrating the studies of others.
To the vanity of this class he added that of the demagogue (I use the
term in its better sense), and called the wise policy left him by his
predecessor "my policy." Compelled to fight his way up from obscurity,
he had contracted a dislike of those more favored of fortune, whom he
was in the habit of calling "the slave-aristocracy," and became
incapable of giving his confidence to any one, even to those on whose
assistance he relied in a contest, just now beginning, with the
Congress.
President Johnson never made a dollar by public office, abstained from
quartering a horde of connections on the Treasury, refused to uphold
rogues in high places, and had too just a conception of the dignity of a
chief magistrate to accept presents. It may be said that these are
humble qualities for a citizen to boast the possession of by a President
of the United States. As well claim respect for a woman of one's family
on the ground that she has preserved her virtue. Yet all whose eyes were
not blinded by partisanship, whose manhood was not emasculated by
servility, would in these last years have welcomed the least of them as
manna in the desert.
The President, between whom and the Congressional leaders the seeds of
discord were already sown, dallied with me from day to day, and at
length said that it would spare him embarrassment if I could induce
Stevens, Davis, and others of the House, and Sumner of the Senate, to
recommend the permission to visit Jefferson Davis; and I immediately
addressed myself to this unpleasant task.
Thaddeus Stevens received me with as much civility as he was capable of.
Deformed in body and temper like Caliban, this was the Lord Hategood of
the fair; but he was frankness itself. He wanted no restoration of the
Union under the Constitution, which he called a worthless bit of old
parchment. The white people of the South ought never again to be trusted
with power, for they would inevitably unite with the Northern
"Copperheads" and control the Government. The only sound policy was to
confiscate the lands and divide them among the negroes, to whom, sooner
or later, suffrage must be given. Touching the matter in hand, Johnson
was a fool to have captured Davis, whom it would have been wiser to
assist in escaping. Nothing would be done with him, as the executive had
only pluck enough to hang two poor devils such as Wirtz and Mrs.
Surratt. Had the leading traitors been promptly strung up, well; but the
time for that had passed. (Here, I thought, he looked lovingly at my
neck, as Petit Andre was wont to do at those of his merry-go-rounds.) He
concluded by saying that it was silly to refuse me permission to visit
Jefferson Davis, but he would not say so publicly, as he had no desire
to relieve Johnson of responsibility.
There was no excuse for longer sporting with this radical Amaryllis
either in shade or in sunshine; so I sought Henry Winter Davis. Like the
fallen angel, Davis preferred to rule in hell rather than serve in
heaven or on earth. With the head of Medusa and the eye of the Basilisk,
he might have represented Siva in a Hindoo temple, and was even more
inaccessible to sentiment than Thaddeus Stevens. Others, too numerous
and too insignificant to particularize, were seen. These were the
cuttle-fish of the party, whose appointed duty it was to obscure popular
vision by clouds of loyal declamation. As Sicilian banditti prepare for
robberies and murders by pious offerings on shrines of favorite saints,
these brought out the altar of the "nation," and devoted themselves
afresh, whenever "Credits Mobiliers" and kindred enormities were afoot,
and sharpened every question of administration, finance, law, taxation,
on the grindstone of sectional hate. So sputtering tugs tow from her
moorings the stately ship, to send her forth to winds and waves of
ocean, caring naught for the cargo with which she is freighted, but,
grimy in zeal to earn fees, return to seek another.
Hopeless of obtaining assistance from such statesmen, I visited Mr.
Charles Sumner, Senator from Massachusetts, who received me pleasantly.
A rebel, a slave-driver, and, without the culture of Boston, ignorant, I
was an admirable vessel into which he could pour the inexhaustible
stream of his acquired eloquence. I was delighted to listen to beautiful
passages from the classic as well as modern poets, dramatists,
philosophers, and orators, and recalled the anecdote of the man sitting
under a fluent divine, who could not refrain from muttering, "That is
Jeremy Taylor; that, South; that, Barrow," etc. It was difficult to
suppress the thought, while Mr. Sumner was talking, "That is Burke, or
Howard, Wilberforce, Brougham, Macaulay, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Exeter
Hall," etc.; but I failed to get down to the particular subject that
interested me. The nearest approach to the practical was his
disquisition on negro suffrage, which he thought should be accompanied
by education. I ventured to suggest that negro education should precede
suffrage, observing that some held the opinion that the capacity of the
white race for government was limited, although accumulated and
transmitted through many centuries. He replied that "the ignorance of
the negro was due to the tyranny of the whites," which appeared in his
view to dispose of the question of the former's incapacity. He seemed
over-educated--had retained, not digested his learning; and beautiful
flowers of literature were attached to him by filaments of memory, as
lovely orchids to sapless sticks. Hence he failed to understand the
force of language, and became the victim of his own metaphors, mistaking
them for facts. He had the irritable vanity and weak nerves of a woman,
and was bold to rashness in speculation, destitute as he was of the
ordinary masculine sense of responsibility. Yet I hold him to have been
the purest and most sincere man of his party. A lover, nay, a devotee of
liberty, he thoroughly understood that it could only be preserved by
upholding the supremacy of civil law, and would not sanction the
garrison methods of President Grant. Without vindictiveness, he forgave
his enemies as soon as they were overthrown, and one of the last efforts
of his life was to remove from the flag of a common country all records
of victories that perpetuated the memory of civil strife.
Foiled in this direction, I worried the President, as old Mustard would
a stot, until he wrote the permission so long solicited. By steamer from
Baltimore I went down Chesapeake Bay, and arrived at Fortress Monroe in
the early morning. General Burton, the commander, whose civility was
marked, and who bore himself like a gentleman and soldier, received me
on the dock and took me to his quarters to breakfast, and to await the
time to see Mr. Davis.
It was with some emotion that I reached the casemate in which Mr. Davis
was confined. There were two rooms, in the outer of which, near the
entrance, stood a sentinel, and in the inner was Jefferson Davis. We met
in silence, with grasp of hands. After an interval he said, "This is
kind, but no more than I expected of you." Pallid, worn, gray, bent,
feeble, suffering from inflammation of the eyes, he was a painful sight
to a friend. He uttered no plaint, and made no allusion to the irons
(which had been removed); said the light kept all night in his room hurt
his eyes a little, and, added to the noise made every two hours by
relieving the sentry, prevented much sleep; but matters had changed for
the better since the arrival of General Burton, who was all kindness,
and strained his orders to the utmost in his behalf. I told him of my
reception at Washington by the President, Mr. Seward, and others, of the
attentions of Generals Grant and Humphreys, who promoted my wish to see
him, and that with such aid I was confident of obtaining permission for
his wife to stay with him. I could solicit favors for him, having
declined any for myself. Indeed, the very accident of position, that
enabled me to get access to the governing authorities, made indecent
even the supposition of my acceptance of anything personal while a
single man remained under the ban for serving the Southern cause; and
therefore I had no fear of misconstruction. Hope of meeting his family
cheered him much, and he asked questions about the condition and
prospects of the South, which I answered as favorably as possible,
passing over things that would have grieved him. In some way he had
learned of attacks on his character and conduct, made by some Southern
curs, thinking to ingratiate themselves with the ruling powers. I could
not deny this, but remarked that the curse of unexpected defeat and
suffering was to develop the basest passions of the human heart. Had he
escaped out of the country, it was possible he might have been made a
scapegoat by the Southern people, and, great as were the sufferings that
he had endured, they were as nothing to coward stabs from beloved hands.
The attacks mentioned were few, and too contemptible for notice; for now
his calamities had served to endear him to all. I think that he derived
consolation from this view.
The day passed with much talk of a less disturbing character, and in the
evening I returned to Baltimore and Washington. After some delay Mr.
Davis's family was permitted to join him, and he speedily recovered
strength. Later I made a journey or two to Richmond, Virginia, on
business connected with his trial, then supposed to be impending.
The slight service, if simple discharge of duty can be so called, I was
enabled to render Mr. Davis, was repaid ten thousand fold. In the month
of March, 1875, my devoted wife was released from suffering, long and
patiently endured, originating in grief for the loss of her children and
exposure during the war. Smitten by this calamity, to which all that had
gone before seemed as blessings, I stood by her coffin, ere it was
closed, to look for the last time upon features that death had respected
and restored to their girlish beauty. Mr. Davis came to my side, and
stooped reverently to touch the fair brow, when the tenderness of his
heart overcame him and he burst into tears. His example completely
unnerved me for the time, but was of service in the end. For many
succeeding days he came to me, and was as gentle as a young mother with
her suffering infant. Memory will ever recall Jefferson Davis as he
stood with me by the coffin.
Duty to imprisoned friends and associates discharged, I returned to New
Orleans, and remained for some weeks, when an untoward event occurred,
productive of grave consequences. The saints and martyrs who have
attained worldly success have rarely declined to employ the temporal
means of sinners. While calling on Hercules, they put their own
shoulders to the wheel, and, in the midst of prayer, keep their powder
dry. To prepare for the reelection of President Lincoln in 1864,
pretended State governments had been set up by the Federal military in
several Southern States, where fragments of territory were occupied. In
the event of a close election in the North, the electoral votes in these
manufactured States would be under the control of the executive
authority, and serve to determine the result. For some years the
Southern States were used as thimble-riggers use peas: now they were
under the cup of the Union, and now they were out. During his reign in
New Orleans the Federal General Banks had prepared a Louisiana pea for
the above purpose.
At this time negro suffrage, as yet an unaccomplished purpose, was in
the air, and the objective point of radical effort. To aid the movement,
surviving accomplices of the Banks fraud were instigated to call a
"State Convention" in Louisiana, though with no more authority so to do
than they had to call the British Parliament. The people of New Orleans
regarded the enterprise as those of London did the proposed meeting of
tailors in Tooley street; and just before this debating society was to
assemble, the Federal commander, General Sheridan, selected especially
to restrain the alleged turbulent population of the city, started on an
excursion to Texas, proving that he attached no importance to the matter
and anticipated no disturbance.
Living in close retirement, I had forgotten all about the "Convention."
Happening to go to the center of the town, from my residence in the
upper suburb, the day on which it met, on descending from the carriage
of the tramway I heard pistol shots and saw a crowd of roughs, Arabs,
and negroes running across Canal Street. I walked in the direction of
the noise to inquire the cause of excitement, as there was nothing
visible to justify it. The crowd seemed largely composed of boys of from
twelve to fifteen, and negroes. I met no acquaintance, and could obtain
no information, when a negro came flying past, pursued by a white boy,
certainly not above fifteen years of age, with a pistol in hand. I
stopped the boy without difficulty, and made him tell what he was up to.
He said the niggers were having a meeting at Mechanics' Institute to
take away his vote. When asked how long he had enjoyed that inestimable
right of a freeman, the boy gave it up, pocketed his "Derringer," and
walked off.
By this time the row appeared to be over, so I went on my way without
seeing the building called Mechanics' Institute, as it was around the
corner near which the boy was stopped. Speedily the town was filled with
excitement, and Baird, the Federal commander in the absence of Sheridan,
occupied the streets with troops and arrested the movements of citizens.
Many poor negroes had been killed most wantonly, indignation ran high
among decent people, and the perpetrators of the bloody deeds deserved
and would have received swift, stern punishment had civil law been
permitted to act. But this did not suit the purposes of the radicals,
who rejoiced as Torquemada might have done when the discovery of a score
of heretics furnished him an excuse to torment and destroy a province.
Applying the theory of the detective police, that among the
beneficiaries of crime must be sought the perpetrators, one would
conclude that the radical leaders prompted the assassination of Lincoln
and the murder of negroes; for they alone derived profit from these
acts.
From this time forth the entire white race of the South devoted itself
to the killing of negroes. It appeared to be an inherent tendency in a
slave-driver to murder a negro. It was a law of his being, as of the
monkey's to steal nuts, and could not be resisted. Thousands upon
thousands were slain. Favorite generals kept lists in their pockets,
proving time, place, and numbers, even to the smallest piccaninny. Nay,
such was the ferocity of the slave-drivers, that unborn infants were
ripped from their mothers' wombs. Probably these sable Macduffs were
invented to avenge the wrongs of their race on tyrants protected by
Satanic devices from injury at the hands of Africans of natural birth.
Individual effort could not suffice the rage for slaughter, and the
ancient order of "assassins" was revived, with an "Old Man" of the
swamps at its head. Thus "Ku-Klux" originated, and covered the land with
a network of crime. Earnest, credulous women in New England had their
feelings lacerated by these stories, in which they as fondly believed as
their foremothers in Salem witches.
As crocodiles conceal their prey until it becomes savory and tender and
ripe for eating, so the Radicals kept these dark corpses to serve up to
the public when important elections approached, or some especial
villainy was to be enacted by the Congress. People who had never been
south of the Potomac and Ohio Rivers knew all about this "Ku-Klux"; but
I failed, after many inquiries, to find a single man in the South who
ever heard of it, saving in newspapers. Doubtless there were many acts
of violence. When ignorant negroes, instigated by pestilent emissaries,
went beyond endurance, the whites killed them; and this was to be
expected. The breed to which these whites belong has for eight centuries
been the master of the earth wherever it has planted its foot. A handful
conquered and holds in subjection the crowded millions of India. Another
and smaller bridles the fierce Caffre tribes of South Africa. Place but
a score of them on the middle course of the Congo, and they will rule
unless exterminated; and all the armies and all the humanitarians can
not change this, until the appointed time arrives for Ham to dominate
Japhet.
Two facts may here be stated. Just in proportion as the whites recovered
control of their local governments, in that proportion negroes ceased to
be killed; and when it was necessary to Radical success to multiply
negro votes, though no census was taken, formal statistics were
published to prove large immigration of negroes into the very districts
of slaughter. Certainty of death could not restrain the colored lambs,
impelled by an uncontrollable ardor to vote the radical ticket, from
traveling to the wolves. Such devotion deserved the tenderest
consideration of Christian men and women, and all means of protection
and loving care were due to this innocent, credulous race. A great
bureau, the Freedmen's, was established, and in connection with it, at
the seat of government, a bank. It was of importance to teach the
freedmen, unused to responsibility, industry and economy; and the bank
was to encourage these virtues by affording a safe place of deposit for
their small savings. To make assurance doubly sure, the "Christian
soldier of the United States army" was especially selected to keep the
money, and he did--so securely, in point of fact, that it is to be
apprehended the unfortunate depositors will never see it more. After so
brilliant an experience in banking, prudence might have suggested to
this officer the wisdom of retiring from public view. Fortune is
sometimes jealous of great reputations and fresh laurels. The success of
his first speech prevented "Single-speech Hamilton" from rising again in
the House of Commons; Frederick failed to repeat Rossbach, and Napoleon,
Austerlitz; but the "Christian soldier" rushed on his fate, and met it
at the hands of the Nez Perces. The profound strategy, the skillful
tactics, the ready valor that had extinguished bank balances, all failed
against this wily foe.
While the excitement growing out of the untoward event mentioned was at
its height, President Johnson summoned me to Washington, where I
explained all the circumstances, as far as I knew them, of the recent
murders, and urged him to send General Hancock to command in New
Orleans. He was sent, and immediately restored order and confidence. A
gentleman, one of the most distinguished and dashing officers of the
United States army, General Hancock recognizes both the great duties of
a soldier of the Republic--to defend its flag and obey its laws,
discharging the last with a fidelity equal to his devotion to the first
in front of battle.
The contest between the Congress and the President now waxed fierce, and
Thaddeus Stevens, from his place in the House, denounced "the man at the
other end of the avenue." The President had gone back to wise, lawful
methods, and desired to restore the Union under the Constitution; and in
this he was but following the policy declared in his last public
utterance by President Lincoln. Mr. Johnson could establish this fact by
members of his predecessor's Cabinet whom he had retained, and thus
strengthen his position; but his vanity forbade him, so he called it "my
policy," as if it were something new.
At his instance, I had many interviews with him, and consulted
influential men from different parts of the country. His Secretary of
War was in close alliance with his enemies in the Congress, and
constantly betraying him. This was susceptible of proof, and I so
informed the President, and pointed out that, so far from assisting the
people of the South, he was injuring them by inaction; for the Congress
persecuted them to worry him. He was President and powerful; they were
weak and helpless. In truth, President Johnson, slave to his own temper
and appetites, was unfit to control others.
General Grant yet appeared to agree with me about "reconstruction," as
it was called; and I was anxious to preserve good feeling on his part
toward the President. In the light of subsequent events, it is curious
to recall the fact that he complained of Stanton's retention in the
Cabinet, because the latter's greed of power prevented the
Commander-in-Chief of the army from controlling the most minute details
without interference. I urged this on the President as an additional
motive for dismissing his War Secretary and replacing him by some one
agreeable to General Grant; but all in vain. This official "old man of
the sea" kept his seat on the Presidential neck, never closing crafty
eye nor traitorous mouth, and holding on with the tenacity of an
octopus.
Many moderate and whilom influential Republicans determined to assemble
in convention at Philadelphia, and invited delegates from all parts,
North and South, to meet them. The object was to promote good feeling
and an early restoration of the Union, and give aid to the President in
his struggle with extremists. Averse to appearing before the public, I
was reluctant to go to this Convention; but the President, who felt a
deep interest in its success, insisted, and I went. It was largely
attended, and by men who had founded and long led the Freesoil party.
Ex-members of Lincoln's first Cabinet, Senators and members of the
Congress, editors of Republican newspapers (among whom was Henry J.
Raymond, the ablest political editor of the day and an eminent member of
Congress as well), Southern men who had fought for the Confederacy, were
there. Northern Republicans and Democrats, long estranged, buried the
political hatchet and met for a common purpose, to restore the Union.
Negro-worshipers from Massachusetts and slave-drivers from South
Carolina entered the vast hall arm in arm. The great meeting rose to its
feet, and walls and roof shook with applause. General John A. Dix of New
York called the Convention to order, and, in an eloquent and felicitous
speech, stated the objects of the assembly--to renew fraternal feeling
between the sections, heal the wounds of war, obliterate bitter
memories, and restore the Union of the fathers. Senator Doolittle of
Wisconsin was chosen permanent president, and patriotic resolutions were
adopted by acclamation. All this was of as little avail as the waving of
a lady's fan against a typhoon. Radical wrath uprose and swept these
Northern men out of political existence, and they were again taught the
lesson that is ever forgotten, namely, that it is an easy task to
inflame the passions of the multitude, an impossible one to arrest them.
From selfish ambition, from thoughtless zeal, from reckless
partisanship, from the low motives governing demagogues in a country of
universal suffrage, men are ever sowing the wind, thinking they can
control the whirlwind; and the story of the Gironde and the Mountain has
been related in vain.
The President was charmed with the Convention. Believing the people--his
god--to be with him, his crest rose, and he felt every inch a President.
Again I urged him to dismiss his War Secretary and replace Mr. Seward,
Secretary of State, now in disfavor with his own creation, the Radical
party, by General Dix, who was rewarded for his services at Philadelphia
by the appointment of Naval Officer at New York. He was an exception to
the rule above mentioned. A more cautious pilot than Palinurus, this
respectable person is the "Vicar of Bray" of American politics; and like
that eminent divine, his creeds sit so lightly as to permit him to take
office under all circumstances. Secretary of the Treasury in the closing
weeks of President Buchanan, he aroused the North by sending his
immortal dispatch to the commander of a revenue cutter: "If any man
attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot." This
bespoke the heart of the patriot, loving his country's banner, and the
arm of the hero, ready to defend it; and, clad in this armor of proof,
he has since been invulnerable. The President took kindly to the
proposition concerning General Dix, and I flattered myself that it would
come off, when suddenly the General was appointed Minister
Plenipotentiary to France. I imagine that Mr. Seward had got wind of the
project and hurried Dix out of the way. Thus, in a few days General Dix
had the offer of the Netherlands, Naval Office, and France. "Glamis, and
thane of Cawdor"; and his old age is yet so green, mayhap "the greatest
is behind."
To air his eloquence and enlighten the minds of his dear people, the
President made a tour through the North and West, in which his conduct
and declarations were so extraordinary as to defeat any hopes of success
for "my policy."
A circumstance connected with the Philadelphia Convention made an
impression on me at the time. Mr. Raymond was editor of the "New York
Times," the most powerful Republican journal in the North. Among many
who had gained large wealth by speculations during the war was Mr.
Leonard Jerome, a Republican in politics. This gentleman spent his
fortune so lavishly that his acquaintances and the public shared its
enjoyment. With other property, Mr. Jerome owned the controlling
interest in the "Times," then very valuable. Dining in New York with him
and Mr. Raymond, the latter told me it was useless to support the
President, who was daily becoming more unpopular, and that the
circulation and influence of his paper were rapidly diminishing in
consequence of his adherence to "my policy." Whereupon Mr. Jerome
replied: "I know but little about politics; but if you think it right to
stand by the President, I will pay all losses that the 'Times' may
suffer to the other proprietors." This was unselfish and patriotic; and
I record it with the more pleasure, because Mr. Jerome has lost much of
his wealth, and I fear, like many another Timon, some friends with it.
After this period I saw little of President Johnson, who fought his
fight in his own way, had his hands completely tied, and barely escaped
impeachment; the Congress, meanwhile, making a whipping-post of the
South, and inflicting upon it every humiliation that malignity could
devise.