bluish gray in color--always in deep shadow, however, from the upper
lids which were unusually heavy (reminding me in this respect of
Stuart's portrait of Washington) and the expression was remarkably
pensive and tender, often inexpressibly sad, as if the reservoir of
tears lay very near the surface--a fact proved not only by the response
which accounts of suffering and sorrow invariably drew forth, but
by circumstances which would ordinarily affect few men in his
position."(12) As a result of the great strain to which he was subjected
"his demeanor and disposition changed-so gradually that it would be
impossible to say when the change began. . . . He continued always the
same kindly, genial, and cordial spirit he had been at first; but the
boisterous laughter became less frequent, year by year; the eye grew
veiled by constant meditation on momentous subjects; the air of reserve
and detachment from his surroundings increased. He aged with great
rapidity."(13)
Every Saturday afternoon the Marine Band gave an open-air concert in
the grounds of the White House. One afternoon Lincoln appeared upon the
portico. There was instant applause and cries for a speech. "Bowing his
thanks and excusing himself, he stepped back into the retirement of the
circular parlor, remarking (to Carpenter) with a disappointed air, as
he reclined on a sofa, 'I wish they would let me sit there quietly
and enjoy the music.' His kindness to others was unfailing. It was
this harassed statesman who came into the studio one day and found
(Carpenter's) little boy of two summers playing on the floor. A member
of the Cabinet was with him; but laying aside all restraint, he took
the little fellow in his arms and they were soon on the best of terms."
While his younger son "Tad" was with his mother on a journey, Lincoln
telegraphed: "Tell Tad, father and the goats are well, especially
the goats."(14) He found time one bright morning in May to review the
Sunday-school children of Washington who filed past "cheering as if
their very lives depended upon it," while Lincoln stood at a window
"enjoying the scene... making pleasant remarks about a face that now and
then struck him."(15) Carpenter told him that no other president except
Washington had placed himself so securely in the hearts of the people.
"Homely, honest, ungainly Lincoln," said Asa Gray, in a letter to
Darwin, "is the representative man of the country."
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."