THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.
EFFORTS TOWARD PEACE--THE FRÉMONT CONVENTION--THE REPUBLICAN
CONVENTION--NOMINATION OF LINCOLN AND JOHNSON--THE DEMOCRATIC
CONVENTION--ITS DENUNCIATION OF THE WAR--NOMINATION OF McCLELLAN AND
PENDLETON--FRÉMONT WITHDRAWS--CHARACTER OF THE CANVASS--THE HOPE OF
THE CONFEDERATES--THE ISSUE AS POPULARLY UNDERSTOOD--ELECTION OF
LINCOLN--MARYLAND ABOLISHES SLAVERY--THE HIGHEST ACHIEVEMENT OF THE
AMERICAN PEOPLE.
The length of time that the war had continued, the drain upon the
resources of both belligerents, and especially the rapidity and
destructiveness of the battles in the summer of 1864, had naturally
suggested the question whether there were not some possibility of a
satisfactory peace without further fighting. In each section there was
a party, or at least there were people, who believed that such a peace
was possible; and the loud expression of this opinion led to several
efforts at negotiation, as it also shaped the policy of a great
political party. In July Col. James F. Jacques, of the Seventy-third
Illinois Regiment, accompanied by James R. Gillmore (known in
literature by his delineations of Southern life just before the war,
under the pen-name of "Edmund Kirke"), went to Richmond under flag of
truce, where they were admitted to a long interview with the chief
officers of the Confederate Government. They had gone with Mr.
Lincoln's informal sanction, but had no definite terms to offer; and
if they had, Mr. Davis's remarks show that it would have been in vain.
At the close he said: "Say to Mr. Lincoln, from me, that I shall at
any time be pleased to receive proposals for peace on the basis of our
independence. It will be useless to approach me with any other." In
that same month of July, three Southerners of some note created a
great sensation by a conference at Niagara Falls, with Horace Greeley,
on the subject of peace; but the affair came to nothing.
The first Presidential convention of the year met at Cleveland, O., on
the last day of May, in response to a call addressed "to the radical
men of the nation." The platform declared, among other things, "that
the rebellion must be suppressed by force of arms, and without
compromise; that the rebellion has destroyed slavery, and the Federal
Constitution should be amended to prohibit its reëstablishment; that
the question of the reconstruction of the rebellious States belongs to
the people, through their representatives in Congress, and not to the
Executive; and that confiscation of the lands of the rebels, and their
distribution among the soldiers and actual settlers, is a measure of
justice." Gen. John C. Frémont was nominated for the Presidency, and
Gen. John Cochrane for the Vice-Presidency. Though this was the least
of the conventions, yet in all the points here quoted from its
platform, with the exception of the last, it indicated the policy that
was ultimately pursued by the nation; and it is a singular fact that
the exceptional plank (confiscation) was objected to by both
candidates in their letters of acceptance.
The Republican National Convention met in Baltimore on the 7th of
June. It dropped the word "Republican" for the time being, and simply
called itself a Union Convention, to accommodate the war Democrats,
who were now acting with the Republican party. Not only the free
States were represented, but some that had been claimed by the
Confederacy and had been partially or wholly recovered from it,
including Tennessee, Louisiana, and Arkansas. The platform, reported
by Henry J. Raymond, one of the ablest of American journalists, was
probably written largely, if not entirely, by him. Its most
significant passages were these:
"That we approve the determination of the Government of the United
States not to compromise with the rebels, nor to offer them any terms
of peace except such as may be based upon an unconditional surrender
of their hostility and a return to their full allegiance to the
Constitution and the laws of the United States.
"That as slavery was the cause and now constitutes the strength of
this rebellion, and as it must be always and everywhere hostile to the
principles of republican government, justice and the national safety
demand its utter and complete extirpation from the soil of the
Republic.... We are in favor, furthermore, of such an amendment to the
Constitution, to be made by the people in conformity with its
provisions, as shall terminate and forever prohibit the existence of
slavery within the limits of the jurisdiction of the United States.
"That we approve and applaud the practical wisdom, the unselfish
patriotism, and unswerving fidelity to the Constitution and the
principles of American liberty, with which Abraham Lincoln has
discharged, under circumstances of unparalleled difficulty, the great
duties and responsibilities of the presidential office; that we
approve and indorse, as demanded by the emergency and essential to the
preservation of the nation, and as within the Constitution, the
measures and acts which he has adopted to defend the nation against
its open and secret foes; that we approve especially the Proclamation
of Emancipation, and the employment as Union soldiers of men
heretofore held in slavery.
"That the National faith, pledged for the redemption of the public
debt, must be kept inviolate; that it is the duty of every loyal State
to sustain the credit and promote the use of the National currency."
On the first ballot, all the delegations voted for Mr. Lincoln, except
that from Missouri, whose vote was given to General Grant. According
to the official report of the proceedings, the first ballot for a
candidate for Vice-President resulted in two hundred votes for Andrew
Johnson, one hundred and eight for Daniel S. Dickinson (a war
Democrat), one hundred and fifty for Hannibal Hamlin (who then held
the office), and fifty-nine scattering; several delegations changed
their votes to Johnson, and he was almost unanimously nominated. But
according to the testimony of one who was on the floor as a delegate,
the nomination of Mr. Lincoln was immediately followed by an outburst
of cheering, yelling, and the wildest excitement, and in the confusion
and uproar it was declared that Mr. Johnson had somehow been
nominated. He had been a poor white in the South, and a life-long
Democrat, but had done some brave things in withstanding secession,
and some bitter things in thwarting the slave-holders. Mr. Lincoln had
appointed him military governor of Tennessee in March, 1862, and he
was still acting in that capacity. Whatever may have been the wisdom
of nominating a war Democrat when the war was so near its close, the
Republican party found reason in the next four years to repent its
choice of Andrew Johnson as bitterly as its predecessor, the Whig
party, had repented the choice of John Tyler, a life-long Democrat, in
1840. But the nominating conventions that have {413} sufficiently
considered the contingent importance of the Vice-Presidency have been
exceedingly few.
The Democratic National Convention, called to meet in Chicago, did not
convene till nearly three months after the Republican, August 29. In
the meantime, the hard fighting around Richmond, and on Sherman's road
to Atlanta, the fruits of which were not yet evident, the appearance
of Confederate forces at the gates of Washington, and the delay of
Sheridan's movements in the Shenandoah Valley, had produced a more
gloomy feeling than had been experienced before since the war began;
and this feeling, as was to be expected, operated in favor of whatever
opposed the National administration. The suffering and the
discontented are always prone to cry out for a change, without
defining what sort of change they want, or considering what any change
is likely to bring. Seizing upon this advantage, the Democratic
convention made a very clear and bold issue with the Republican. It
was presided over by Horatio Seymour, then governor of New York, while
Clement L. Vallandigham was a member of the committee on resolutions,
and is supposed to have written the most significant of them. The
platform presented these propositions:
"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
military necessity of a 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.
"That the aim and object of the Democratic party is to preserve the
Federal Union and the rights of the States unimpaired."
On the first ballot, Gen. George B. McClellan was nominated for
President, receiving two hundred and two and a half votes, against
twenty-three and a half for Thomas H. Seymour, of Connecticut. George
H. Pendleton, of Ohio, an ultra-peace man, was nominated for
Vice-President. General McClellan, in his letter of acceptance,
virtually set aside a portion of the platform, and said: "The
reëstablishment of the Union, in all its integrity, is and must
continue to be the indispensable condition in any settlement.... No
peace can be permanent without Union."
The declaration that the war had been a failure received a crushing
comment the day after the convention adjourned; for on that day
Sherman's army marched into Atlanta. And this success was followed by
others--notably Sheridan's brilliant movements in the valley--all of
which, when heralded in the Republican journals, were accompanied by
the quotation from the Democratic platform declaring the war a
failure. General Frémont withdrew from the contest in September,
saying in his published letter:
"The policy of the Democratic party signifies either separation or
reëstablishment with slavery. The Chicago platform is simply
separation; General McClellan's letter of acceptance is
reëstablishment with slavery. The Republican candidate is, on the
contrary, pledged to the reëstablishment of the Union without slavery;
and, however hesitating his policy may be, the pressure of his party
will, we may hope, force him to it. Between these issues, I think no
man of the Liberal party can remain in doubt; and I believe I am
consistent with my antecedents and my principles in withdrawing--not
to aid in the triumph of Mr. Lincoln, but to do my part toward
preventing the election of the Democratic candidate."
The canvass was exceedingly bitter, especially in the abuse heaped
upon Mr. Lincoln. The undignified and disgraceful epithets that were
applied to him by journals of high standing were not such as would
make any American proud of his country. This course had its
culmination in the publication of certain ghastly pictures of returned
prisoners, to show what Lincoln--the usurper, despot, and tyrant, as
they freely called him--was doing by not disregarding "nigger
soldiers" and continuing the exchange of whites. They constantly
repeated the assertion with which they had greeted the Emancipation
Proclamation, that the war had been wickedly changed from one for the
preservation of the Union into one for the abolition of slavery. On
the other hand, the Republican press freely accused the Democratic
party of desiring the success of secession--which was not true. Aside
from all patriotic considerations, that party had the strongest
reasons for wishing to perpetuate the Union, because without the
Southern vote it was in a minority. There were many members of that
party, however, who, while they by no means desired the destruction of
the Union, believed it was inevitable, and thought the sooner the
necessity was acknowledged the better.
One of the most effective arguments of the canvass was furnished in a
condensed form by one of Mr. Lincoln's famous little stories, and in
that form was repeated thousands of times. Answering the address of a
delegation of the Union League, a day or two after his nomination, he
said: "I have not permitted myself to conclude that I am the best man
in the country; but I am reminded in this connection of the story of
an old Dutch farmer, who once remarked to a companion that 'it was not
best to swap horses when crossing streams.'" There was singing in the
canvass, too, and some of the songs rendered by glee-clubs every
evening before large political meetings were very effective. One of
the most notable had been written in response to the President's call
for three hundred thousand volunteers, and bore the refrain,
"We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more!"
Much of the popular parlor music of the time consisted of songs
relating to the great struggle, prominent among which were "Tenting on
the Old Camp-Ground" and "When this Cruel War is over." At the South,
as at the North, there had been an outburst of lyric enthusiasm at the
beginning of the war, which found expression in "My Maryland," the
"Bonnie Blue Flag," and "Dixie;" but the spirit that inspires such
poems seems to have died out there after the war had been in progress
two or three years, when its terrible privations were increasing every
day.
{414} [Illustration: BRIGADIER-GENERAL GEORGE D. RAMSAY.]
[Illustration: BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL RUFUS SAXTON.]
[Illustration: BRIGADIER-GENERAL F. T. DENT.]
[Illustration: BRIGADIER-GENERAL C. P. BUCKINGHAM.]
[Illustration: BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL WILLIAM P. RICHARDSON.]
[Illustration: BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL J. K. BARNES.]
[Illustration: BRIGADIER-GENERAL WILLIAM A. HAMMOND.]
[Illustration: BRIGADIER-GENERAL HENRY A. BARNUM.]
[Illustration: BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL AMOS B. EATON.]
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL MORTIMER LEGGETT AND STAFF.]
The Confederates were now looking eagerly for the result of the
Presidential election as a possible solution of the great question in
their favor. John B. Jones, who was a clerk in the Confederate War
Department, recorded in his published diary that Mr. Vallandigham,
when banished to the South, had assured the officers of the Government
at Richmond that "if we [the Confederates] can only hold out this
year, the peace party of the North would sweep the Lincoln dynasty out
of political existence." This was now their strongest hope; and it was
common talk {415} across the lines, between the pickets, that in the
event of McClellan's election the Confederates expected a speedy
cessation of hostilities and ultimately their independence. And such
is the unaccountable elasticity of the human mind, in dealing with
facts and principles, that a large number of the bravest and most
devoted soldiers in the National service, knowing this, were preparing
to cast their ballots in a way to give the utmost assistance and
encouragement to the very enemy into the muzzles of whose guns they
were looking.
Whether General Frémont's arraignment of the Administration as
"politically, militarily, and financially a failure" was just or
unjust, whether it was true or not that the triumph of General
McClellan and his party would result in a final disruption of the
country, before the canvass was over the land had settled down to the
belief that the only way to secure the continuance of the war to a
successful termination was to reëlect Mr. Lincoln, while a vote for
General McClellan meant something else--nobody knew exactly what. The
solemnity of the occasion appeared to be universally appreciated, and
though a heavy vote was polled the election was the quietest that had
ever been held. The citizens were dealing with a question that, in
most of its aspects at least, they by this time thoroughly understood.
When they sprang to arms in 1861, they did not know what war was; but
now they had had three years of constant schooling to its burdens and
its horrors. They had seen regiment after regiment march away to the
music of drum and fife, with a thousand men in the ranks, and come
back at the end of two years' service with perhaps two hundred bronzed
veterans to be mustered out. They had read in their newspapers, after
every great battle, the long lists of killed and wounded, which the
telegraph was quick to report. Every city had its fair for the relief
of the widows and orphans, every hamlet its two or three crippled
soldiers hobbling about in their faded blue overcoats, almost every
house its incurable sorrow. They had seen the wheel turning in the
provost-marshal's office, in places where volunteering was not
sufficiently rapid, and knew that their own names might be the next to
be drawn for service at the front. They knew how many graves there
were at Gettysburg, how many at Shiloh, how many at Stone River; they
knew what was to be seen in the hospitals of every Northern city, and
something of the unspeakable horrors of captivity. They saw the price
of gold go beyond two hundred, while the Government was spending
between two and three millions of dollars a day, piling up a national
debt in undreamed-of proportions, for which they were already heavily
taxed, and which must some day be paid in solid coin.
Seeing and understanding all this, and having the privilege of a
secret and unquestioned ballot, they quietly walked up to the polls
and voted for a vigorous prosecution of the war, reëlecting Mr.
Lincoln by a popular majority of more than four hundred thousand, and
giving him the votes of all the States excepting Delaware, New Jersey,
and Kentucky--two hundred and twelve against twenty-one. The vote of
the soldiers in the field, so far as it could be counted separately
(for in some States it was sent home sealed, and mingled with the
other ballots in the boxes), showed about one hundred and nineteen
thousand for Lincoln, and about thirty-four thousand for McClellan.
The soldiers confined in some of the Confederate prisons held an
election at the suggestion of their keepers, who were exceedingly
curious to see how the prisoners would vote. Sergeant Robert H.
Kellogg tells us that in the stockade at Florence, S. C., where he was
confined, two empty bags were hung up, and the prisoners were
furnished with black and white beans and marched past in single file,
each depositing a black bean for Lincoln, or a white one for
McClellan. The result was in the proportion of two and a half for
Lincoln to one for McClellan. In the prison at Millen, Ga., Sergeant
W. Goodyear tells us, the vote was three thousand and fourteen for
Lincoln, and one thousand and fifty for McClellan. In Congress, the
number of Republican members was increased from one hundred and six to
one hundred and forty-three, and the number of Democratic members
reduced from seventy-seven to forty-one.
Meanwhile, in October, Maryland had adopted a new constitution, in
which slavery was prohibited. In answer to serenades after the
election, Mr. Lincoln made some of his best impromptu speeches, saying
in one: "While I am duly sensible to the high compliment of a
reëlection, and duly grateful, as I trust, to Almighty God for having
directed my countrymen to a right conclusion, as I think, for their
good, it adds nothing to my satisfaction that any other man may be
disappointed by the result. May I ask those who have not differed with
me to join with me in this same spirit toward those who have?"
If there is any one act of the American people that above all others,
in the sober pages of history, reflects credit upon them for correct
judgment, determined purpose, courage in present difficulties, and
care for future interests, that act, it seems to me, was the
reëlection of President Lincoln.