The victory of the Union Party in November enabled Lincoln to enjoy for
a brief period of his career as President what may be thought of as a
lull in the storm. He knew now that he had at last built up a firm
and powerful support. With this assured, his policy, both domestic and
foreign--the key to which was still the blockade--might be considered
victorious at all points. There remains to be noticed, however, one
event of the year 1864 which was of vital importance in maintaining the
blockade.
It is a principle of international law that a belligerent must itself
attend to the great task of suppressing contraband trade with its enemy.
Lincoln was careful to observe this principle. Though British merchants
were frankly speculating in contraband trade, he made no demand upon
the British Government to relieve him of the difficulty of stopping it.
England also took the legitimate position under international law
and warned her merchants that, while it was none of the Government's
business to prevent such trade, they practised it at their own risk,
subject to well-understood penalties agreed upon among nations. The
merchants nevertheless continued to take the risk, while both they and
the authorities of the Confederacy thought they saw a way of minimizing
the danger. Instead of shipping supplies direct to the Confederate ports
they shipped them to Matamoros, in Mexico, or to the West Indies. As
these ports were in neutral territory, the merchants thought their goods
would be safe against capture until they left the Mexican or West
Indian port on their brief concluding passage to the territory of the
Confederacy. Nassau, then a petty West India town, was the chief depot
of such trade and soon became a great commercial center. To it came vast
quantities of European goods which were then transferred to swift, small
vessels, or "blockade-runners," which took a gambler's chance and often
succeeded in eluding the Federal patrol ships and in rushing their
cargoes safe into a Confederate port.
Obviously, it was a great disadvantage to the United States to allow
contraband supplies to be accumulated, without interference, close to
the blockaded coast, and the Lincoln Government determined to remove
this disadvantage. With this end in view it evoked the principle of the
continuous voyage, which indeed was not new, but which was destined to
become fixed in international law by the Supreme Court of the United
States. American cruisers were instructed to stop British ships sailing
between the British ports of Liverpool and Nassau; they were to use the
recognized international rights of visit and search; and if there was
evidence that the cargo was not destined for actual consumption at
Nassau, they were to bring the ship into an American port to be dealt
with by an American prize court. When such arrests began, the owners
clamored to the British Government, and both dealers in contraband and
professional blockade-runners worked themselves into a fury because
American cruisers watched British ports and searched British ships on
the high seas. With regard to this matter, the British Government and
the Government at Washington had their last important correspondence
during the war. The United States stood firm for the idea that when
goods were ultimately intended for the Confederacy, no matter how
roundabout the journey, they could be considered as making a single
continuous voyage and were liable to capture from the day they left
Liverpool. Early in 1865, the Supreme Court of the United States fully
developed the principle of continuous voyage in four celebrated cases
that are now among the landmarks of international law.*
* The Great war has once again led to controversy over this
subject, so vital to neutral states.
This was the last step in making the blockade effective. Thereafter, it
slowly strangled the South. The Federal armies enormously overmatched
the Southern, and from November, 1864, their continuance in the field
was made sure. Grim work still lay before Lincoln, but the day of
anxiety was past. In this moment of comparative ease, the aged Chief
Justice Taney died, and Lincoln appointed to that high position his
ungenerous rival, Chase.
Even now Lincoln had not established himself as a leader superior to
party, but he had the satisfaction, early in 1865, of seeing the ranks
of the opposition begin to break. Naturally, the Thirteenth Amendment
to the Constitution, abolishing slavery throughout the United States,
appeared to Lincoln as in a way the consummation of his labors. When
the House voted on the resolution to send this amendment to the States,
several Democrats joined the government forces. Two nights afterward,
speaking to a serenading party at the White House, Lincoln made a brief
speech, part of which is thus reported by his secretaries: "He thought
this measure was a very fitting if not an indispensable adjunct to the
winding up of the great difficulty. He wished the reunion of all the
States perfected, and so effected as to remove all causes of disturbance
in the future; and to attain this end, it was necessary that the
original disturbing cause should, if possible, be rooted out."
An event which in its full detail belongs to Confederate rather than to
Union history took place soon after this. At Hampton Roads, Lincoln and
Seward met Confederate commissioners who had asked for a parley--with
regard to peace. Nothing came of the meeting, but the conference gave
rise to a legend, false in fact and yet true in spirit, according to
which Lincoln wrote on a sheet of paper the word "Union," pushed it
across to Alexander H. Stephens and said, "Write under that anything you
please."
This fiction expresses Lincoln's attitude toward the sinking
Confederacy. On his return from Hampton Roads he submitted to his
Cabinet a draft of a message which he proposed to send to Congress. He
recommended the appropriation of $400,000,000 to be distributed among
the slave states on condition that war cease before April 1, 1865. Not a
member of the Cabinet approved. His secretary, Mr. Nicolay, writes: "The
President, in evident surprise and sorrow at the want of statesmanlike
liberality shown by his executive council, folded and laid away the
draft of his message...." With a deep sigh he added, "But you are all
opposed to me, and I will not send the message."
His second inauguration passed without striking incidents. Chase, as
Chief Justice, administered the oath. The second inaugural address
contained words which are now famous: "With malice towards none; with
charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the
right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the
nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and
for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a
just and a lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations."
That gigantic system of fleets and armies, the creation of which was due
to Lincoln, was closing tight around the dying Confederacy. Five weeks
after the inauguration Lee surrendered, and the war was virtually at an
end. What was to come after was inevitably the overshadowing topic of
the hour. Many anecdotes represent Lincoln, in these last few days
of his life, as possessed by a high though melancholy mood of extreme
mercy. Therefore, much has been inferred from the following words, in
his last public address, made on the night of the 11th of April: "In the
present situation, as the phrase goes, it may be my duty to make some
new announcement to the people of the South. I am considering and shall
not fail to act when action shall be proper."
What was to be done for the South, what treatment should be accorded the
Southern leaders, engrossed the President and his Cabinet at the meeting
on the 14th of April, which was destined to be their last. Secretary
Welles has preserved the spirit of the meeting in a striking anecdote.
Lincoln said that no one need expect he would "take any part in hanging
or killing those men, even the worst of them. Frighten them out of the
country, open the gates, let down the bars, scare them off;" said he,
throwing up his hands as if scaring sheep. "Enough lives have been
sacrificed; we must extinguish our resentments if we expect harmony and
union."
While Lincoln was thus arming himself with a valiant mercy, a band of
conspirators at an obscure boardinghouse in Washington were planning his
assassination. Their leader was John Wilkes Booth, an actor, brother of
the much abler Edwin Booth. There seems little doubt that he was insane.
Around him gathered a small group of visionary extremists in whom much
brooding upon Southern wrongs had produced an unbalanced condition. Only
a morbid interest can attach today to the strange cunning with
which Booth laid his plans, thinking of himself all the while as a
reincarnation of the Roman Brutus.
On the night of the 14th of April, the President attended a performance
of "Our American Cousin". While the play was in progress, Booth stole
into the President's box, came close behind him, and shot him through
the head. Lincoln never spoke again and, shortly after seven next
morning, ceased breathing.
At the same time, a futile attempt was made upon the life of Seward.
Booth temporarily escaped. Later he was overtaken and shot. His
accomplices were hanged.
The passage of sixty years has proved fully necessary to the placing of
Lincoln in historic perspective. No President, in his own time, with the
possible exception of Washington, was so bitterly hated and so fiercely
reviled. On the other hand, none has been the object of such intemperate
hero-worship. However, the greatest of the land were, in the main, quick
to see him in perspective and to recognize his historic significance. It
is recorded of Davis that in after days he paid a beautiful tribute to
Lincoln and said, "Next to the destruction of the Confederacy, the death
of Abraham Lincoln was the darkest day the South has known."
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
There are two general histories, of conspicuous ability, that deal with
this period:
J. F. Rhodes, "History of the United States from the Compromise of
1850", 7 vols. (1893-1906), and J. B. McMaster, "History of the People
of the United States", 7 vols. (1883-1912). McMaster has the more
"modern" point of view and is excellent but dry, without any sense of
narrative. Rhodes has a somewhat older point of view. For example, he
makes only a casual reference, in a quotation, to the munitions
problem of 1861, though analyzing with great force and candor such
constitutional issues as the arrests under the suspension of the writ
of habeas corpus. The other strong points in his work are its sense
of narrative, its freedom from hero-worship, its independence of
conventional views of Northern leaders. As to the South, it suffers from
a certain Narrowness of vision due to the comparative scantiness of the
material used. The same may be said of McMaster.
For Lincoln, there is no adequate brief biography. Perhaps the best is
the most recent, "Abraham Lincoln", by Lord Charnwood ("Makers of the
Nineteenth Century", 1917). It has a kind of cool detachment that hardly
any biographer had shown previously, and yet this coolness is joined
with extreme admiration. Short biographies worth considering are John
T. Morse, Jr., "Abraham Lincoln" ("American Statesmen" Series, 2 vols.,
1893), and Ida M. Tarbell, "Life of Abraham Lincoln", 2 vols. (1900).
The official biography is in ten volumes, "Abraham Lincoln, a History",
by his secretaries, John G. Nicolay and John Hay (1890). It is a
priceless document and as such is little likely to be forgotten. But its
events are so numerous that they swamp the figure of Lincoln and yet are
not numerous enough to constitute a definitive history of the times. It
is wholly eulogistic. The same authors edited "The Writings of Abraham
Lincoln" (Biographical Edition, 2 vols., 1894), which has since been
expanded (1905) and now fills twelve volumes. It is the definitive
presentation of Lincoln's mind. A book much sought after by his enemies
is William Henry Herndon and Jesse William Weik, "The History and
Personal Recollections of Abraham Lincoln", 8 vols. (1889; unexpurgated
edition). It contains about all we know of his early life and paints a
picture of sordid ugliness. Its reliability has been disputed. No study
of Lincoln is complete unless one has marched through the "Diary" of
Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy, 3 vols. (1911), which is our most
important document showing Lincoln in his Cabinet. Important sidelights
on his character and development are shown in Ward Hill Lamon,
"Recollections of Lincoln" (1911); David Homer Bates, "Lincoln in the
Telegraph Office" (1907); and Frederick Trevor Hill, "Lincoln as a
Lawyer" (1906). A bibliography of Lincoln is in the twelfth volume of
the latest edition of the "Writings".
The lesser statesmen of the time, both Northern and Southern, still, as
a rule, await proper treatment by detached biographers. Two Northerners
have had such treatment, in Allen Johnson's "Stephen A. Douglas" (1908),
and Frederic Bancroft's "Life of William H. Seward", 2 vols. (1900).
Good, but without the requisite detachment, is Moorfield Storey's
"Charles Sumner", ("American Statesmen Series", 1900). With similar
excellences but with the same defect, though still the best in its
field, is Albert Bushnell Hart's "Salmon P. Chase" ("American Statesmen
Series", 1899). Among the Southern statesmen involved in the events of
this volume, only the President of the Confederacy has received adequate
reconsideration in recent years, in William E. Dodd's "Jefferson Davis"
(1907). The latest life of "Robert Toombs", by Ulrich B. Phillips
(1914), is not definitive, but the best extant. The great need for
adequate lives of Stephens and Yancey is not at all met by the obsolete
works--R. M. Johnston and W. M. Browne, "Life of Alexander H. Stephens"
(1878), and J. W. Du Bose, "The Life and Times of William Lowndes
Yancey" (1892). There is a brief biography of Stephens by Louis
Pendleton, in the "American Crisis Biographies". Most of the remaining
biographies of the period, whether Northern or Southern, are either too
superficial or too partisan to be recommended for general use. Almost
alone in their way are the delightful "Confederate Portraits", by
Gamaliel Bradford (1914), and the same author's "Union Portraits"
(1916).
Upon conditions in the North during the war there is a vast amount of
material; but little is accessible to the general reader. A book of
great value is Emerson Fite's Social and Industrial Conditions in
the North during the Civil War (1910). Out of unnumbered books of
reminiscence, one stands forth for the sincerity of its disinterested,
if sharp, observation--W. H. Russell's "My Diary North and South"
(1868). Two newspapers are invaluable: The "New York Tribune" for a
version of events as seen by the war party, "The New York Herald" for
the opposite point of view; the Chicago papers are also important,
chiefly the "Times" and "Tribune"; the "Republican "of Springfield,
Mass., had begun its distinguished career, while the "Journal" and
"Advertiser" of Boston revealed Eastern New England. For the Southern
point of view, no papers are more important than the Richmond
"Examiner", the Charleston "Mercury", and the New Orleans "Picayune".
Financial and economic problems are well summed up in D. R. Dewey's
"Financial History of the United States" (3d edition, 1907), and in
E. P. Oberholzer's "Jay Cooks", 2 vols. (1907). Foreign affairs
are summarized adequately in C. F. Adams's "Charles Francis Adams"
("American Statesmen Series", 1900), John Bigelow's "France and the
Confederate Navy" (1888), A. P. Martin's "Maximilian in Mexico" (1914),
and John Bassett Moore's "Digest of International Law", 8 vols. (1906).
The documents of the period ranging from newspapers to presidential
messages are not likely to be considered by the general reader, but if
given a fair chance will prove fascinating. Besides the biographical
edition of Lincoln's Writings, should be named, first of all, "The
Congressional Globe" for debates in Congress; the "Statutes at Large";
the "Executive Documents", published by the Government and containing a
great number of reports; and the enormous collection issued by the
War Department under the title "Official Records of the Union and
Confederate Armies", 128 vols. (1880-1901), especially the groups of
volumes known as second and third series.