The story as to how President Lincoln won the support of James Gordon
Bennett, Sr., founder of the New York Herald, is a most interesting one.
It was one of Lincoln’s shrewdest political acts, and was brought about
by the tender, in an autograph letter, of the French Mission to Bennett.
The New York Times was the only paper in the metropolis which supported
him heartily, and President Lincoln knew how important it was to have
the support of the Herald. He therefore, according to the way Colonel
McClure tells it, carefully studied how to bring its editor into close
touch with himself.
The outlook for Lincoln’s re-election was not promising. Bennett had
strongly advocated the nomination of General McClellan by the Democrats,
and that was ominous of hostility to Lincoln; and when McClellan was
nominated he was accepted on all sides as a most formidable candidate.
It was in this emergency that Lincoln’s political sagacity served him
sufficiently to win the Herald to his cause, and it was done by the
confidential tender of the French Mission. Bennett did not break over to
Lincoln at once, but he went by gradual approaches.
His first step was to declare in favor of an entirely new candidate,
which was an utter impossibility. He opened a “leader” in the Herald on
the subject in this way: “Lincoln has proved a failure; McClellan
has proved a failure; Fremont has proved a failure; let us have a new
candidate.”
Lincoln, McClellan and Fremont were then all in the field as nominated
candidates, and the Fremont defection was a serious threat to Lincoln.
Of course, neither Lincoln nor McClellan declined, and the Herald,
failing to get the new man it knew to be an impossibility, squarely
advocated Lincoln’s re-election.
Without consulting any one, and without any public announcement:
whatever, Lincoln wrote to Bennett, asking him to accept the mission to
France. The offer was declined. Bennett valued the offer very much more
than the office, and from that day until the day of the President’s
death he was one of Lincoln’s most appreciative friends and hearty
supporters on his own independent line.