assent among the people who were loyal to the Union. There were even
signs of a reaction against the administration in the fall elections of
1862, seemingly justifying the opinion, entertained by many, that the
President had really anticipated the development of popular feeling. The
cry that the war for the Union had been turned into an "abolition war"
was raised again by the opposition, and more loudly than ever. But
the good sense and patriotic instincts of the plain people gradually
marshalled themselves on Lincoln's side, and he lost no opportunity to
help on this process by personal argument and admonition. There never
has been a President in such constant and active contact with the public
opinion of the country, as there never has been a President who, while
at the head of the government, remained so near to the people. Beyond
the circle of those who had long known him the feeling steadily grew
that the man in the White House was "honest Abe Lincoln" still, and
that every citizen might approach him with complaint, expostulation, or
advice, without danger of meeting a rebuff from power-proud authority,
or humiliating condescension; and this privilege was used by so many
and with such unsparing freedom that only superhuman patience could
have endured it all. There are men now living who would to-day read with
amazement, if not regret, what they ventured to say or write to him. But
Lincoln repelled no one whom he believed to speak to him in good faith
and with patriotic purpose. No good advice would go unheeded. No candid
criticism would offend him. No honest opposition, while it might pain
him, would produce a lasting alienation of feeling between him and the
opponent. It may truly be said that few men in power have ever been
exposed to more daring attempts to direct their course, to severer
censure of their acts, and to more cruel misrepresentation of their
motives: And all this he met with that good-natured humor peculiarly his
own, and with untiring effort to see the right and to impress it
upon those who differed from him. The conversations he had and the
correspondence he carried on upon matters of public interest, not only
with men in official position, but with private citizens, were almost
unceasing, and in a large number of public letters, written ostensibly
to meetings, or committees, or persons of importance, he addressed
himself directly to the popular mind. Most of these letters stand among
the finest monuments of our political literature. Thus he presented the
singular spectacle of a President who, in the midst of a great civil
war, with unprecedented duties weighing upon him, was constantly in
person debating the great features of his policy with the people.
While in this manner he exercised an ever-increasing influence upon the
popular understanding, his sympathetic nature endeared him more and
more to the popular heart. In vain did journals and speakers of the
opposition represent him as a lightminded trifler, who amused himself
with frivolous story-telling and coarse jokes, while the blood of the
people was flowing in streams. The people knew that the man at the head
of affairs, on whose haggard face the twinkle of humor so frequently
changed into an expression of profoundest sadness, was more than any
other deeply distressed by the suffering he witnessed; that he felt
the pain of every wound that was inflicted on the battlefield, and the
anguish of every woman or child who had lost husband or father; that
whenever he could he was eager to alleviate sorrow, and that his mercy
was never implored in vain. They looked to him as one who was with them
and of them in all their hopes and fears, their joys and sorrows, who
laughed with them and wept with them; and as his heart was theirs; so
their hearts turned to him. His popularity was far different from
that of Washington, who was revered with awe, or that of Jackson,
the unconquerable hero, for whom party enthusiasm never grew weary
of shouting. To Abraham Lincoln the people became bound by a genuine
sentimental attachment. It was not a matter of respect, or confidence,
or party pride, for this feeling spread far beyond the boundary lines of
his party; it was an affair of the heart, independent of mere reasoning.
When the soldiers in the field or their folks at home spoke of "Father
Abraham," there was no cant in it. They felt that their President was
really caring for them as a father would, and that they could go to him,
every one of them, as they would go to a father, and talk to him of what
troubled them, sure to find a willing ear and tender sympathy. Thus,
their President, and his cause, and his endeavors, and his success
gradually became to them almost matters of family concern. And this
popularity carried him triumphantly through the Presidential election
of 1864, in spite of an opposition within his own party which at first
seemed very formidable.
Many of the radical antislavery men were never quite satisfied with
Lincoln's ways of meeting the problems of the time. They were very
earnest and mostly very able men, who had positive ideas as to "how this
rebellion should be put down." They would not recognize the necessity
of measuring the steps of the government according to the progress
of opinion among the plain people. They criticised Lincoln's cautious
management as irresolute, halting, lacking in definite purpose and in
energy; he should not have delayed emancipation so long; he should not
have confided important commands to men of doubtful views as to slavery;
he should have authorized military commanders to set the slaves free
as they went on; he dealt too leniently with unsuccessful generals; he
should have put down all factious opposition with a strong hand instead
of trying to pacify it; he should have given the people accomplished
facts instead of arguing with them, and so on. It is true, these
criticisms were not always entirely unfounded. Lincoln's policy had,
with the virtues of democratic government, some of its weaknesses, which
in the presence of pressing exigencies were apt to deprive governmental
action of the necessary vigor; and his kindness of heart, his
disposition always to respect the feelings of others, frequently made
him recoil from anything like severity, even when severity was urgently
called for. But many of his radical critics have since then revised
their judgment sufficiently to admit that Lincoln's policy was, on the
whole, the wisest and safest; that a policy of heroic methods, while it
has sometimes accomplished great results, could in a democracy like
ours be maintained only by constant success; that it would have quickly
broken down under the weight of disaster; that it might have been
successful from the start, had the Union, at the beginning of the
conflict, had its Grants and Shermans and Sheridans, its Farraguts and
Porters, fully matured at the head of its forces; but that, as the great
commanders had to be evolved slowly from the developments of the war,
constant success could not be counted upon, and it was best to follow
a policy which was in friendly contact with the popular force, and
therefore more fit to stand trial of misfortune on the battlefield. But
at that period they thought differently, and their dissatisfaction with
Lincoln's doings was greatly increased by the steps he took toward the
reconstruction of rebel States then partially in possession of the Union
forces.
In December, 1863, Lincoln issued an amnesty proclamation, offering
pardon to all implicated in the rebellion, with certain specified
exceptions, on condition of their taking and maintaining an oath to
support the Constitution and obey the laws of the United States and the
proclamations of the President with regard to slaves; and also promising
that when, in any of the rebel States, a number of citizens equal to one
tenth of the voters in 1860 should re-establish a state government in
conformity with the oath above mentioned, such should be recognized
by the Executive as the true government of the State. The proclamation
seemed at first to be received with general favor. But soon another
scheme of reconstruction, much more stringent in its provisions, was put
forward in the House of Representatives by Henry Winter Davis. Benjamin
Wade championed it in the Senate. It passed in the closing moments of
the session in July, 1864, and Lincoln, instead of making it a law by
his signature, embodied the text of it in a proclamation as a plan of
reconstruction worthy of being earnestly considered. The differences of
opinion concerning this subject had only intensified the feeling against
Lincoln which had long been nursed among the radicals, and some of
them openly declared their purpose of resisting his re-election to
the Presidency. Similar sentiments were manifested by the advanced
antislavery men of Missouri, who, in their hot faction-fight with the
"conservatives" of that State, had not received from Lincoln the active
support they demanded. Still another class of Union men, mainly in the
East, gravely shook their heads when considering the question whether
Lincoln should be re-elected. They were those who cherished in their
minds an ideal of statesmanship and of personal bearing in high office
with which, in their opinion, Lincoln's individuality was much out of
accord. They were shocked when they heard him cap an argument upon grave
affairs of state with a story about "a man out in Sangamon County,"--a
story, to be sure, strikingly clinching his point, but sadly lacking in
dignity. They could not understand the man who was capable, in opening
a cabinet meeting, of reading to his secretaries a funny chapter from a
recent book of Artemus Ward, with which in an unoccupied moment he had
relieved his care-burdened mind, and who then solemnly informed the
executive council that he had vowed in his heart to issue a proclamation
emancipating the slaves as soon as God blessed the Union arms with
another victory. They were alarmed at the weakness of a President who
would indeed resist the urgent remonstrances of statesmen against his
policy, but could not resist the prayer of an old woman for the pardon
of a soldier who was sentenced to be shot for desertion. Such men,
mostly sincere and ardent patriots, not only wished, but earnestly set
to work, to prevent Lincoln's renomination. Not a few of them actually
believed, in 1863, that, if the national convention of the Union party
were held then, Lincoln would not be supported by the delegation of a
single State. But when the convention met at Baltimore, in June, 1864,
the voice of the people was heard. On the first ballot Lincoln received
the votes of the delegations from all the States except Missouri; and
even the Missourians turned over their votes to him before the result of
the ballot was declared.
But even after his renomination the opposition to Lincoln within the
ranks of the Union party did not subside. A convention, called by the
dissatisfied radicals in Missouri, and favored by men of a similar
way of thinking in other States, had been held already in May, and
had nominated as its candidate for the Presidency General Fremont. He,
indeed, did not attract a strong following, but opposition movements
from different quarters appeared more formidable. Henry Winter Davis and
Benjamin Wade assailed Lincoln in a flaming manifesto. Other Union men,
of undoubted patriotism and high standing, persuaded themselves, and
sought to persuade the people, that Lincoln's renomination was ill
advised and dangerous to the Union cause. As the Democrats had put off
their convention until the 29th of August, the Union party had, during
the larger part of the summer, no opposing candidate and platform to
attack, and the political campaign languished. Neither were the tidings
from the theatre of war of a cheering character. The terrible losses
suffered by Grant's army in the battles of the Wilderness spread general
gloom. Sherman seemed for a while to be in a precarious position before
Atlanta. The opposition to Lincoln within the Union party grew louder in
its complaints and discouraging predictions. Earnest demands were heard
that his candidacy should be withdrawn. Lincoln himself, not knowing
how strongly the masses were attached to him, was haunted by dark
forebodings of defeat. Then the scene suddenly changed as if by magic.
The Democrats, in their national convention, declared the war a failure,
demanded, substantially, peace at any price, and nominated on such a
platform General McClellan as their candidate. Their convention had
hardly adjourned when the capture of Atlanta gave a new aspect to the
military situation. It was like a sun-ray bursting through a dark
cloud. The rank and file of the Union party rose with rapidly growing
enthusiasm. The song "We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred
thousand strong," resounded all over the land. Long before the decisive
day arrived, the result was beyond doubt, and Lincoln was re-elected
President by overwhelming majorities. The election over even his
severest critics found themselves forced to admit that Lincoln was the
only possible candidate for the Union party in 1864, and that neither
political combinations nor campaign speeches, nor even victories in the
field, were needed to insure his success. The plain people had all the
while been satisfied with Abraham Lincoln: they confided in him; they
loved him; they felt themselves near to him; they saw personified in him
the cause of Union and freedom; and they went to the ballot-box for him
in their strength.
The hour of triumph called out the characteristic impulses of his
nature. The opposition within the Union party had stung him to the
quick. Now he had his opponents before him, baffled and humiliated. Not
a moment did he lose to stretch out the hand of friendship to all. "Now
that the election is over," he said, in response to a serenade, "may not
all, having a common interest, reunite in a common effort to save our
common country? For my own part, I have striven, and will strive, to
place no obstacle in the way. So long as I have been here I have not
willingly planted a thorn in any man's bosom. While I am deeply
sensible to the high compliment of a re-election, it adds nothing to
my satisfaction that any other man may be pained or disappointed by the
result. May I ask those who were with me to join with me in the same
spirit toward those who were against me?" This was Abraham Lincoln's
character as tested in the furnace of prosperity.
The war was virtually decided, but not yet ended. Sherman was
irresistibly carrying the Union flag through the South. Grant had his
iron hand upon the ramparts of Richmond. The days of the Confederacy
were evidently numbered. Only the last blow remained to be struck. Then
Lincoln's second inauguration came, and with it his second inaugural
address. Lincoln's famous "Gettysburg speech" has been much and justly
admired. But far greater, as well as far more characteristic, was that
inaugural in which he poured out the whole devotion and tenderness of
his great soul. It had all the solemnity of a father's last admonition
and blessing to his children before he lay down to die. These were
its closing words: "Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this
mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it
continue until all the wealth piled up by the bondman's two hundred and
fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of
blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword,
as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, `The
judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.' With malice
toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God
gives us to see the right, let us strive 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 lasting peace among ourselves and with all
nations."
This was like a sacred poem. No American President had ever spoken words
like these to the American people. America never had a President who
found such words in the depth of his heart.
Now followed the closing scenes of the war. The Southern armies fought
bravely to the last, but all in vain. Richmond fell. Lincoln himself
entered the city on foot, accompanied only by a few officers and a
squad of sailors who had rowed him ashore from the flotilla in the James
River, a negro picked up on the way serving as a guide. Never had the
world seen a more modest conqueror and a more characteristic triumphal
procession, no army with banners and drums, only a throng of those who
had been slaves, hastily run together, escorting the victorious chief
into the capital of the vanquished foe. We are told that they pressed
around him, kissed his hands and his garments, and shouted and danced
for joy, while tears ran down the President's care-furrowed cheeks.
A few days more brought the surrender of Lee's army, and peace was
assured. The people of the North were wild with joy. Everywhere
festive guns were booming, bells pealing, the churches ringing with
thanksgivings, and jubilant multitudes thronging the thoroughfares, when
suddenly the news flashed over the land that Abraham Lincoln had been
murdered. The people were stunned by the blow. Then a wail of sorrow
went up such as America had never heard before. Thousands of Northern
households grieved as if they had lost their dearest member. Many a
Southern man cried out in his heart that his people had been robbed
of their best friend in their humiliation and distress, when Abraham
Lincoln was struck down. It was as if the tender affection which his
countrymen bore him had inspired all nations with a common sentiment.
All civilized mankind stood mourning around the coffin of the dead
President. Many of those, here and abroad, who not long before had
ridiculed and reviled him were among the first to hasten on with their
flowers of eulogy, and in that universal chorus of lamentation and
praise there was not a voice that did not tremble with genuine emotion.
Never since Washington's death had there been such unanimity of judgment
as to a man's virtues and greatness; and even Washington's death,
although his name was held in greater reverence, did not touch so
sympathetic a chord in the people's hearts.
Nor can it be said that this was owing to the tragic character of
Lincoln's end. It is true, the death of this gentlest and most merciful
of rulers by the hand of a mad fanatic was well apt to exalt him beyond
his merits in the estimation of those who loved him, and to make his
renown the object of peculiarly tender solicitude. But it is also true
that the verdict pronounced upon him in those days has been affected
little by time, and that historical inquiry has served rather to
increase than to lessen the appreciation of his virtues, his abilities,
his services. Giving the fullest measure of credit to his great
ministers,--to Seward for his conduct of foreign affairs, to Chase for
the management of the finances under terrible difficulties, to Stanton
for the performance of his tremendous task as war secretary,--and
readily acknowledging that without the skill and fortitude of the great
commanders, and the heroism of the soldiers and sailors under them,
success could not have been achieved, the historian still finds that
Lincoln's judgment and will were by no means governed by those around
him; that the most important steps were owing to his initiative; that
his was the deciding and directing mind; and that it was pre-eminently
he whose sagacity and whose character enlisted for the administration
in its struggles the countenance, the sympathy, and the support of the
people. It is found, even, that his judgment on military matters was
astonishingly acute, and that the advice and instructions he gave to the
generals commanding in the field would not seldom have done honor to the
ablest of them. History, therefore, without overlooking, or palliating,
or excusing any of his shortcomings or mistakes, continues to place
him foremost among the saviours of the Union and the liberators of the
slave. More than that, it awards to him the merit of having accomplished
what but few political philosophers would have recognized as
possible,--of leading the republic through four years of furious civil
conflict without any serious detriment to its free institutions.
He was, indeed, while President, violently denounced by the opposition
as a tyrant and a usurper, for having gone beyond his constitutional
powers in authorizing or permitting the temporary suppression of
newspapers, and in wantonly suspending the writ of habeas corpus and
resorting to arbitrary arrests. Nobody should be blamed who, when such
things are done, in good faith and from patriotic motives protests
against them. In a republic, arbitrary stretches of power, even when
demanded by necessity, should never be permitted to pass without a
protest on the one hand, and without an apology on the other. It is well
they did not so pass during our civil war. That arbitrary measures were
resorted to is true. That they were resorted to most sparingly, and only
when the government thought them absolutely required by the safety of
the republic, will now hardly be denied. But certain it is that the
history of the world does not furnish a single example of a government
passing through so tremendous a crisis as our civil war was with so
small a record of arbitrary acts, and so little interference with the
ordinary course of law outside the field of military operations. No
American President ever wielded such power as that which was thrust into
Lincoln's hands. It is to be hoped that no American President ever
will have to be entrusted with such power again. But no man was ever
entrusted with it to whom its seductions were less dangerous than they
proved to be to Abraham Lincoln. With scrupulous care he endeavored,
even under the most trying circumstances, to remain strictly within the
constitutional limitations of his authority; and whenever the boundary
became indistinct, or when the dangers of the situation forced him
to cross it, he was equally careful to mark his acts as exceptional
measures, justifiable only by the imperative necessities of the civil
war, so that they might not pass into history as precedents for similar
acts in time of peace. It is an unquestionable fact that during the
reconstruction period which followed the war, more things were done
capable of serving as dangerous precedents than during the war itself.
Thus it may truly be said of him not only that under his guidance the
republic was saved from disruption and the country was purified of the
blot of slavery, but that, during the stormiest and most perilous crisis
in our history, he so conducted the government and so wielded his almost
dictatorial power as to leave essentially intact our free institutions
in all things that concern the rights and liberties of the citizens.
He understood well the nature of the problem. In his first message to
Congress he defined it in admirably pointed language: "Must a government
be of necessity too strong for the liberties of its own people, or
too weak to maintain its own existence? Is there in all republics this
inherent weakness?" This question he answered in the name of the great
American republic, as no man could have answered it better, with a
triumphant "No...."
It has been said that Abraham Lincoln died at the right moment for his
fame. However that may be, he had, at the time of his death, certainly
not exhausted his usefulness to his country. He was probably the only
man who could have guided the nation through the perplexities of the
reconstruction period in such a manner as to prevent in the work of
peace the revival of the passions of the war. He would indeed not have
escaped serious controversy as to details of policy; but he could have
weathered it far better than any other statesman of his time, for his
prestige with the active politicians had been immensely strengthened by
his triumphant re-election; and, what is more important, he would have
been supported by the confidence of the victorious Northern people that
he would do all to secure the safety of the Union and the rights of
the emancipated negro, and at the same time by the confidence of the
defeated Southern people that nothing would be done by him from motives
of vindictiveness, or of unreasoning fanaticism, or of a selfish party
spirit. "With malice toward none, with charity for all," the foremost
of the victors would have personified in himself the genius of
reconciliation.