indifference to the political consequences of his determination, Lincoln
beheld arising like a portentous specter, a fury of pacifism. It found
expression in Greeley. Always the swift victim of his own affrighted
hope, Greeley had persuaded himself that both North and South had lost
heart for the war; that there was needed only a moving appeal, and they
would throw down their arms and the millennium would come. Furthermore,
on the flimsiest sort of evidence, he had fallen into a trap designed
to place the Northern government in the attitude of suing for peace. He
wrote to Lincoln demanding that he send an agent to confer with certain
Confederate officials who were reported to be then in Canada; he also
suggested terms of peace.(4) Greeley's terms were entirely acceptable
to Lincoln; but he had no faith in the Canadian mare's nest. However,
he decided to give Greeley the utmost benefit of the doubt, and also
to teach him a lesson. He commissioned Greeley himself to proceed
to Canada, there to discover "if there is or is not anything in the
affair." He wrote to him, "I not only intend a sincere effort for peace,
but I intend that you shall be a personal witness that it is made."(5)
Greeley, who did not want to have any responsibility for anything that
might ensue, whose joy was to storm and to find fault, accepted the duty
he could not well refuse, and set out in a bad humor.
Meanwhile two other men had conceived an undertaking somewhat analogous
but in a temper widely different. These were Colonel Jaquess, a
clergyman turned soldier, a man of high simplicity of character, and J.
R. Gilmore, a writer, known by the pen name of Edmund Kirke. Jaquess
had told Gilmore of information he had received from friends in the
Confederacy; he was convinced that nothing would induce the Confederate
government to consider any terms of peace that embraced reunion, whether
with or without emancipation. "It at once occurred to me," says Gilmore,
"that if this declaration could be got in such a manner that it could
be given to the public, it would, if scattered broadcast over the
North, destroy the peace-party and reelect Mr. Lincoln." Gilmore went
to Washington and obtained an interview with the President. He assured
him--and he was a newspaper correspondent whose experience was worth
considering--that the new pacifism, the incipient "peace party," was
schooling the country in the belief that an offer of liberal terms would
be followed by a Southern surrender. The masses wanted peace on any
terms that would preserve the Union; and the Democrats were going to
tell them in the next election that Lincoln could save the Union by
negotiation, if he would. Unless the popular mind were disabused of
this fictitious hope, the Democrats would prevail and the Union would
collapse. But if an offer to negotiate should be made, and if "Davis
should refuse to negotiate--as he probably would, except on the basis of
Southern independence--that fact alone would reunite the North, reelect
Lincoln, and thus save the Union."(6)
"Then," said Lincoln, "you would fight the devil with fire. You would
get that declaration from Davis and use it against him."
Gilmore defended himself by proposing to offer extremely liberal terms.
There was a pause in the conversation. Lincoln who was seated at his
desk "leaned slightly forward looking directly into (Gilmore's) eyes,
but with an absent, far-away gaze as if unconscious of (his) presence."
Suddenly, relapsing into his usual badinage, he said, "God selects His
own instruments and some times they are queer ones: for instance, He
chose me to see the ship of state through a great crisis."(7) He went on
to say that Gilmore and Jaquess might be the very men to serve a great
purpose at this moment. Gilmore knew the world; and anybody could see
at a glance that Jaquess never told anything that wasn't true. If they
would go to Richmond on their own responsibility, make it plain to
President Davis that they were not official agents, even taking the
chance of arrest and imprisonment, they might go. This condition was
accepted. Lincoln went on to say that no advantage should be taken of
Mr. Davis; that nothing should be proposed which if accepted would
not be made good. After considerable further discussion he drew up a
memorandum of the terms upon which he would consent to peace. There were
seven items:
1. The immediate dissolution of the armies.
2. The abolition of slavery.
3. A general amnesty.
4. The Seceded States to resume their functions as states in the Union
as if no secession had taken place.
5. Four hundred million dollars to be appropriated by Congress as
compensation for loss of slave property; no slaveholder, however, to
receive more than one-half the former value of his slaves.
6. A national convention to be called for readjustment of all other
difficulties.
7. It to be understood that the purpose of negotiation was a full
restoration of the Union as of old.(8)
Gilmore and Jaquess might say to Davis that they had private but sure
knowledge that the President of the United States would agree to peace
on these terms. Thus provided, they set forth.
Lincoln's thoughts were speedily claimed by an event which had no
Suggestion of peace. At no time since Jackson threw the government into
a panic in the spring of 1862, had Washington been in danger of capture.
Now, briefly, it appeared to be at the mercy of General Early. In the
last act of a daring raid above the Potomac, he came sweeping down
on Washington from the North. As Grant was now the active
commander-in-chief, responsible for all the Northern armies, Lincoln
with a fatalistic calm made no move to take the capital out of his
hands. When Early was known to be headed toward Washington, Lincoln
drove out as usual to spend the night at the Soldiers' Home beyond the
fortifications. Stanton, in whom there was a reminiscence at least of
the hysterical Secretary of 1862, sent after him post haste and insisted
on his returning. The next day, the eleventh of July, 1864, Washington
was invested by the Confederate forces. There was sharp firing in front
of several forts. Lincoln--and for that matter, Mrs. Lincoln also--made
a tour of the defenses. While Fort Stevens was under fire, he stood on
the parapet, "apparently unconscious of danger, watching with that grave
and passive countenance the progress of the fight, amid the whizzing
bullets of the sharp shooters, until an officer fell mortally wounded
within three feet of him, and General Wright peremptorily represented
to him the needless risk he was running." Hay recorded in his diary
"the President in good feather this evening . . . not concerned about
Washington's safety . . . only thought, can we bag or destroy the force
in our front." He was much disappointed when Early eluded the forces
which Grant hurried to the Capitol. Mrs. Lincoln was outspoken to the
same effect. The doughty little lady had also been under fire, her
temper being every whit as bold as her husband's. When Stanton with
a monumental playfulness proposed to have her portrait painted in a
commanding attitude on the parapet of Fort Stevens, she gave him the
freedom of her tongue, because of the inadequacy of his department.(9)
This incident had its aftermath. A country-place belonging to the
Postmaster General had been laid waste. Its owner thought that the
responsibility for permitting Early to come so near to Washington fell
chiefly on General Halleck. He made some sharp criticisms which became
public the General flew into a rage and wrote to the Secretary of War:
"The Postmaster General ought to be dismissed by the President from the
Cabinet." Stanton handed his letter to the President, from whom the next
day the General received this note: "Whether the remarks were made I
do not know, nor do I suppose such knowledge is necessary to a correct
response. If they were made, I do not approve them; and yet, under the
circumstances, I would not dismiss a member of the Cabinet therefor. I
do not consider what may have been hastily said in a moment of vexation
at so severe a loss is sufficient ground for so grave a step. Besides
this, truth is generally the best vindication against slander. I propose
continuing to be myself the judge as to when a member of the Cabinet
shall be dismissed." Lincoln spoke of the affair at his next conference
with his Ministers. "I must, myself, be the judge," said he, "how long
to retain in and when to remove any of you from his position. It would
greatly pain me to discover any of you endeavoring to procure another's
removal, or in any way to prejudice him before the public. Such an
endeavor would be a wrong to me, and much worse, a wrong to the country.
My wish is that on this subject no remark be made nor question asked by
any of you, here or elsewhere, now or hereafter."(10)
Not yet had anything resulted either from the Canadian mission of
Greeley, or from the Richmond adventure of Gilmore and Jaquess. There
was a singular ominous pause in events. Lincoln could not be blind to
the storm signals that had attended the close of Congress. What were the
Vindictives about? As yet they had made no Sign. But it was incredible
that they could pass over his defiance without a return blow. When would
it come? What would it be?
He spent his nights at the Soldiers' Home. As a rule, his family were
with him. Sometimes, however, Mrs. Lincoln and his sons would be absent
and his only companion was one of the ardent young secretaries. Then
he would indulge in reading Shakespeare aloud, it might be with such
forgetfulness of time that only the nodding of the tired young head
recalled him to himself and brought the reading to an end. A visitor has
left this charming picture of Lincoln at the Soldiers' Home in the sad
sweetness of a summer night:
"The Soldiers' Home is a few miles out of Washington on the Maryland
side. It is situated on a beautiful wooded hill, which you ascend by a
winding path, shaded on both sides by wide-spread branches, forming a
green arcade above you. When you reach the top you stand between two
mansions, large, handsome and substantial, but with nothing about
them to indicate the character of either. That on the left is the
Presidential country house; that directly before you, is the 'Rest,' for
soldiers who are too old for further service . . . In the graveyard near
at hand there are numberless graves--some without a spear of grass to
hide their newness--that hold the bodies of volunteers.
"While we stood in the soft evening air, watching the faint trembling of
the long tendrils of waving willow, and feeling the dewy coolness that
was flung out by the old oaks above us, Mr. Lincoln joined us, and stood
silent, too, taking in the scene.
"'How sleep the brave who sink to rest, By all their country's wishes
blest," he said, softly. . .
"Around the 'Home' grows every variety of tree, particularly of the
evergreen class. Their branches brushed into the carriage as we passed
along, and left us with that pleasant woody smell belonging to leaves.
One of the ladies, catching a bit of green from one of these intruding
branches, said it was cedar, and another thought it spruce.
"'Let me discourse on a theme I understand,' said the President. 'I
know all about trees in right of being a backwoodsman. I'll show you
the difference between spruce, pine and cedar, and this shred of green,
which is neither one nor the other, but a kind of illegitimate
cypress. He then proceeded to gather specimens of each, and explain the
distinctive formation of foliage belonging to each."(11)
Those summer nights of July, 1864, had many secrets which the tired
President musing in the shadows of the giant trees or finding solace
with the greatest of earthly minds would have given much to know. How
were Gilmore and Jaquess faring? What was really afoot in Canada? And
that unnatural silence of the Vindictives, what did that mean? And the
two great armies, Grant's in Virginia, Sherman's in Georgia, was there
never to be stirring news of either of these? The hush of the moment,
the atmosphere of suspense that seemed to envelop him, it was just what
had always for his imagination had such strange charm in the stories of
fated men. He turned again to Macbeth, or to Richard II, or to Hamlet.
Shakespeare, too, understood these mysterious pauses--who better!
The sense of the impending was strengthened by the alarms of some of his
best friends. They besought him to abandon his avowed purpose to call
for a draft of half a million under the new Enrollment Act. Many voices
joined the one chorus: the country is on the verge of despair; you will
wreck the cause by demanding another colossal sacrifice. But he would
not listen. When, in desperation, they struck precisely the wrong note,
and hinted at the ruin of his political prospects, he had his calm
reply: "it matters not what becomes of me. We must have men. If I go
down, I intend to go like the Cumberland, with my colors flying."(12)
Thus the days passed until the eighteenth of July. Meanwhile the
irresponsible Greeley had made a sad mess of his Canadian adventure.
Though Lincoln had given him definite instructions, requiring him to
negotiate only with agents who could produce written authority from
Davis, and who would treat on the basis of restoration of the Union
and abandonment of slavery, Greeley ignored both these unconditional
requirements.(13) He had found the Confederate agents at Niagara. They
had no credentials. Nevertheless, he invited them to come to Washington
and open negotiations. Of the President's two conditions, he said not a
word. This was just what the agents wanted. It could easily be twisted
into the semblance of an attempt by Lincoln to sue for peace. They
accepted the invitation. Greeley telegraphed to Lincoln reporting what
he had done. Of course, it was plain that he had misrepresented
Lincoln; that he had far exceeded his authority; and that his perverse
unfaithfulness must be repudiated. On July eighteenth, Hay set out for
Niagara with this paper in Lincoln's handwriting.(14)
"To whom it may concern: Any proposition which embraces the restoration
of peace, the integrity of the whole Union, and the abandonment of
slavery, and which comes by and with an authority that can control
the armies now at war against the United States, will be received and
considered by the executive government of the United States, and will be
met by liberal terms on other substantial and collateral points and the
bearer or bearers thereof shall have, safe conduct both ways. ABRAHAM
LINCOLN."
This was the end of the negotiation. The agents could not accept these
terms. Immediately, they published a version of what had happened: they
had been invited to come to Washington; subsequently, conditions had
been imposed which made it impossible for them to accept Was not
the conclusion plain? The Washington government was trying to open
negotiations but it was also in the fear of its own supporters playing
craftily a double game. These astute diplomats saw that there was a
psychological crisis in the North. By adding to the confusion of the
hour they had well served their cause. Greeley's fiasco was susceptible
of a double interpretation. To the pacifists it meant that the
government, whatever may have been intended at the start, had ended by
setting impossible conditions of peace. To the supporters of the war, it
meant that whatever were the last thoughts of the government, it had
for a time contemplated peace without any conditions at all. Lincoln
was severely condemned, Greeley was ridiculed, by both groups of
interpreters. Why did not Greeley come out bravely and tell the truth?
Why did he not confess that he had suppressed Lincoln's first set of
instructions; that it was he, on his own responsibility, who had led the
Confederate agents astray; that he, not Lincoln was solely to blame for
the false impression that was now being used so adroitly to injure the
President? Lincoln proposed to publish their correspondence, but made a
condition that was characteristic. Greeley's letters rang with cries
of despair. He was by far the most influential Northern editor. Lincoln
asked him to strike out these hopeless passages. Greeley refused.
The correspondence must be published entire or not at all. Lincoln
suppressed it. He let the blame of himself go on; and he said nothing in
extenuation.(15)
He took some consolation in a "card" that appeared in the Boston
Transcript, July 22. It gave a brief account of the adventure of Gilmore
and Jaquess, and stated the answer given to them by the President of the
Confederacy. That answer, as restated by the Confederate Secretary of
State, was: "he had no authority to receive proposals for negotiations
except by virtue of his office as President of an independent
Confederacy and on this basis alone must proposals be made to him."(16)
There was another circumstance that may well have been Lincoln's
consolation in this tangle of cross-purposes. Only boldness could
extricate him from the mesh of his difficulties. The mesh was destined
to grow more and more of a snare; his boldness was to grow with his
danger. He struck the note that was to rule his conduct thereafter,
when, on the day he sent the final instructions to Greeley, in defiance
of his timid advisers, he issued a proclamation calling for a new draft
of half a million men.(17)
XXXII. THE AUGUST CONSPIRACY
Though the Vindictives kept a stealthy silence during July, they were
sharpening their claws and preparing for a tiger spring whenever the
psychological moment should arrive. Those two who had had charge of the
Reconstruction Bill prepared a paper, in some ways the most singular
paper of the war period, which has established itself in our history
as the Wade-Davis Manifesto. This was to be the deadly shot that should
unmask the Vindictive batteries, bring their war upon the President out
of the shadows into the open.
Greeley's fiasco and Greeley's mortification both played into their
hands. The fiasco contributed to depress still more the despairing
North. By this time, there was general appreciation of the immensity
of Grant's failure, not only at Cold Harbor, but in the subsequent
slaughter of the futile assault upon Petersburg. We have the word of a
member of the Committee that the despair over Grant translated itself
into blame of the Administration.(1) The Draft Proclamation; the swiftly
traveling report that the government had wilfully brought the peace
negotiations to a stand-still; the continued cry that the war was
hopeless; all these produced, about the first of August, an emotional
crisis--just the sort of occasion for which Lincoln's enemies were
waiting.
Then, too, there was Greeley's mortification. The Administration papers
made him a target for sarcasm. The Times set the pace with scornful
demands for "No more back door diplomacy."(2) Greeley answered in a
rage. He permitted himself to imply that the President originated the
Niagara negotiation and that Greeley "reluctantly" became a party to it.
That "reluctantly" was the truth, in a sense, but how falsely true! Wade
and Davis had him where they wanted him. On the fifth of August, The
Tribune printed their manifesto. It was an appeal to "the supporters of
the Administration . . . to check the encroachment of the Executive on
the authority of Congress, and to require it to confine itself to its
proper sphere." It insinuated the basest motives for the President's
interest in reconstruction, and for rejecting their own bill. "The
President by preventing this bill from becoming a law, holds the
electoral votes of the Rebel States at the dictation of his personal
ambition. . . . If electors for President be allowed to be chosen in
either of those States, a sinister light will be cast on the motives
which induced the President to 'hold for naught' the will of Congress
rather than his government in Louisiana and Arkansas."
After a long discussion of his whole course with regard to
reconstruction, having heaped abuse upon him with shocking liberality,
the Manifesto concluded:
"Such are the fruits of this rash and fatal act of the President--a blow
at the friends of the Administration, at the rights of humanity, and
at the principles of Republican government The President has greatly
presumed on the forbearance which the supporters of his Administration
have so long practised in view of the arduous conflict in which we are
engaged, and the reckless ferocity of our political opponents. But he
must understand that our support is of a 'cause' and not of a man; that
the authority of Congress is paramount and must be respected; that the
whole body of the Union men in Congress will not submit to be impeached
by him of rash and unconstitutional legislation; and if he wishes our
support he must confine him-self to his executive duties--to obey and
execute, not make the laws--to suppress by arms, armed rebellion, and
leave political reorganization to Congress. If the supporters of the
government fail to insist on this they become responsible for the
usurpations they fail to rebuke and are justly liable to the indignation
of the people whose rights and security, committed to their keeping,
they sacrifice. Let them consider the remedy of these usurpations, and,
having found it, fearlessly execute it."
To these incredible charges, Lincoln made no reply. He knew, what some
statesmen never appear to know, the times when one should risk all upon
that French proverb, "who excuses, accuses." However, he made his futile
attempt to bring Greeley to reason, to induce him to tell the truth
about Niagara without confessing to the country the full measure of the
despair that had inspired his course. When Greeley refused to do so,
Lincoln turned to other matters, to preparation for the draft, and
grimly left the politicians to do their worst. They went about it with
zest. Their reliance was chiefly their power to infect the type of party
man who is easily swept from his moorings by the cry that the party is
in danger, that sacrifices must be made to preserve the party unity,
that otherwise the party will go to pieces. By the middle of August, six
weeks after Lincoln's defiance of them on the fourth of July, they
were in high feather, convinced that most things were coming their way.
American politicians have not always shown an ability to read clearly
the American people. Whether the politicians were in error on August
14, 1864, and again on August twenty-third, two dates that were turning
points, is a matter of debate to this day. As to August fourteenth,
they have this, at least, in their defense. The country had no political
observer more keen than the Scotch free lance who edited The New York
Herald. It was Bennett's editorial view that Lincoln would do well
to make a virtue of necessity and withdraw his candidacy because "the
dissatisfaction which had long been felt by the great body of American
citizens has spread even to his own supporters."(3) Confident that
a great reaction against Lincoln was sweeping the country, that the
Manifesto had been launched in the very nick of time, a meeting of
conspirators was held in New York, at the house of David Dudley Field,
August fourteenth. Though Wade was now at his home in Ohio, Davis was
present. So was Greeley. It was decided to ask Lincoln to withdraw. Four
days afterward, a "call" was drawn up and sent out confidentially near
and far to be signed by prominent politicians. The "call" was craftily
worded. It summoned a new Union Convention to meet in Cincinnati,
September twenty-eighth, for the purpose either of rousing the party to
whole-hearted support of Lincoln, or of uniting all factions on some new
candidate. Greeley who could not attend the committee which drew up the
"call" wrote that "Lincoln is already beaten."(4)
Meanwhile, the infection of dismay had spread fast among the Lincoln
managers. Even before the meeting of the conspirators on the fourteenth,
Weed told the President that he could not be reelected.(5)
One of his bravest supporters, Washburne, came to the dismal conclusion
that "were an election to be held now in Illinois, we should be beaten."
Cameron, who had returned from Russia and was working hard for Lincoln
in Pennsylvania, was equally discouraging. So was Governor Morton in
Indiana. From all his "stanchest friends," wrote his chief manager to
Lincoln, "there was but one report. The tide is setting strongly against
us."(6)