The presidential election of 1864 took place on November 8. The diary of
one of the President's secretaries contains a curious record of the way
the day passed at the Executive Mansion. "The house has been still and
almost deserted. Everybody in Washington and not at home voting seems
ashamed of it, and stays away from the President. While I was talking
with him to-day he said: 'It is a little singular that I, who am not a
vindictive man, should always have been before the people for election
in canvasses marked for their bitterness. Always but once. When I came
to Congress it was a quiet time; but always besides that the contests in
which I have been prominent have been marked with great rancor.'"
Early in the evening the President made his way through rain and
darkness to the War Department to receive the returns. The telegrams
came, thick and fast, all pointing joyously to his reelection. He sent
the important ones over to Mrs. Lincoln at the White House, remarking,
"She is more anxious that I am." The satisfaction of one member of the
little group about him was coupled with the wish that the critics of the
administration might feel properly rebuked by this strong expression
of the popular will. Mr. Lincoln looked at him in kindly surprise.
"You have more of that feeling of personal resentment than I," he said.
"Perhaps I have too little of it, but I never thought it paid. A man has
not time to spend half his life in quarrels. If any man ceases to attack
me, I never remember the past against him." This state of mind
might well have been called by a higher name than "lack of personal
resentment."
Lincoln and Johnson received a popular majority of 411,281, and 212 out
of 233 electoral votes--only those of New Jersey, Delaware and Kentucky,
twenty-one in all, being cast for McClellan.
For Mr. Lincoln this was one of the most solemn days of his life.
Assured of his personal success, and made devoutly confident by the
military victories of the last few weeks that the end of the war was at
hand, he felt no sense of triumph over his opponents. The thoughts that
filled his mind found expression in the closing sentences of the little
speech that he made to some serenaders who greeted him in the early
morning hours of November 9, as he left the War Department to return to
the White House:
"I am thankful to God for this approval of the people; but while deeply
grateful for this mark of their confidence in me, if I know my heart,
my gratitude is free from any taint of personal triumph.... It is no
pleasure to me to triumph over anyone, but I give thanks to the Almighty
for this evidence of the people's resolution to stand by free government
and the rights of humanity."
Mr. Lincoln's inauguration for his second term as President took place
at the time appointed, on March 4, 1865. There is little variation
in the simple but impressive pageantry with which the ceremony is
celebrated. The principal novelty commented on by the newspapers was the
share which the people who had up to that time been slaves, had for the
first time in this public and political drama. Associations of negro
citizens joined in the procession, and a battalion of negro soldiers
formed part of the military escort. The central act of the occasion
was President Lincoln's second inaugural address, which enriched the
political literature of the nation with another masterpiece. He said:
"Fellow-countrymen: At this second appearing to take the oath of the
presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address
than there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a
course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration
of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly
called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still
absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little
that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all
else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and
it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With
high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.
"On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were
anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it--all sought
to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this
place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent
agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war--seeking to
dissolve the Union and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties
deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the
nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it
perish. And the war came.
"One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed
generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it.
These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew
that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen,
perpetuate and extend this interest was the object for which the
insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the government
claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement
of it.
"Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which
it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the
conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should
cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental
and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and
each invokes his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men
should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from
the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not, that we be not
judged. The prayers of both could not be answered--that of neither has
been answered fully.
"The Almighty has his own purposes. 'Woe unto the world because of
offenses! For it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man
by whom the offense cometh.' If we shall suppose that American slavery
is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs
come, but which, having continued through his appointed time, he now
wills to remove, and that he gives to both North and South this terrible
war, as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern
therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers
in a living God always ascribe to him? 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 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 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 lasting peace among
ourselves, and with all nations."
The address ended, the Chief Justice arose, and the listeners who, for
the second time, heard Abraham Lincoln repeat the solemn words of his
oath of office, went from the impressive scene to their several homes in
thankfulness and confidence that the destiny of the nation was in safe
keeping.
Nothing would have amazed Mr. Lincoln more than to hear himself called
a man of letters; and yet it would be hard to find in all literature
anything to excel the brevity and beauty of his address at Gettysburg
or the lofty grandeur of this Second Inaugural. In Europe his style has
been called a model for the study and imitation of princes, while in
our own country many of his phrases have already passed into the daily
speech of mankind.
His gift of putting things simply and clearly was partly the habit
of his own clear mind, and partly the result of the training he gave
himself in days of boyish poverty, when paper and ink were luxuries
almost beyond his reach, and the words he wished to set down must be the
best words, and the clearest and shortest to express the ideas he had
in view. This training of thought before expression, of knowing exactly
what he wished to say before saying it, stood him in good stead all his
life; but only the mind of a great man, with a lofty soul and a poet's
vision; one who had suffered deeply and felt keenly; who carried the
burden of a nation on his heart, whose sympathies were as broad and
whose kindness was as great as his moral purpose was strong and firm,
could have written the deep, forceful, convincing words that fell from
his pen in the later years of his life. It was the life he lived, the
noble aim that upheld him, as well as the genius with which he was born,
that made him one of the greatest writers of our time.
At the date of his second inauguration only two members of Mr. Lincoln's
original cabinet remained in office; but the changes had all come about
gradually and naturally, never as the result of quarrels, and with the
single exception of Secretary Chase, not one of them left the cabinet
harboring feelings of resentment or bitterness toward his late chief.
Even when, in one case, it became necessary for the good of the service,
for Mr. Lincoln to ask a cabinet minister to resign, that gentleman not
only unquestioningly obeyed, but entered into the presidential campaign
immediately afterward, working heartily and effectively for his
reelection. As for Secretary Chase, the President was so little
disturbed by his attitude that, on the death of Roger B. Taney, the
Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, he made him his
successor, giving him the highest judicial office in the land, and
paying him the added compliment of writing out his nomination with his
own hand.
The keynote of the President's young life had been persevering industry.
That of his mature years was self-control and generous forgiveness. And
surely his remark on the night of his second election for President,
that he did not think resentment "paid," and that no man had time to
spend half his life in quarrels, was well borne out by the fruit of his
actions. It was this spirit alone which made possible much that he was
able to accomplish. His rule of conduct toward all men is summed up in a
letter of reprimand that it became his duty, while he was President,
to send to one young officer accused of quarreling with another. It
deserves to be written in letters of gold on the walls of every school
and college throughout the land:
"The advice of a father to his son, 'beware of entrance to a quarrel,
but, being in, bear it that the opposed may beware of thee,' is good,
but not the best. Quarrel not at all. No man resolved to make the most
of himself can spare time for personal contention. Still less can he
afford to take all the consequences, including the vitiating of his
temper and the loss of self-control. Yield larger things to which you
can show no more than equal right; and yield lesser ones though clearly
your own. Better give your path to a dog than be bitten by him in
contesting for the right. Even killing the dog would not cure the bite."
It was this willingness of his to give up the "lesser things," and even
the things to which he could claim an equal right, which kept peace in
his cabinet, made up of men of strong wills and conflicting natures.
Their devotion to the Union, great as it was, would not have sufficed
in such a strangely assorted official family; but his unfailing kindness
and good sense led him to overlook many things that another man might
have regarded as deliberate insults; while his great tact and knowledge
of human nature enabled him to bring out the best in people about him,
and at times to turn their very weaknesses into sources of strength. It
made it possible for him to keep the regard of every one of them. Before
he had been in office a month it had transformed Secretary Seward from
his rival into his lasting friend. It made a warm friend out of the
blunt, positive, hot-tempered Edwin M. Stanton, who became Secretary
of War in place of Mr. Cameron. He was a man of strong will and great
endurance, and gave his Department a record for hard and effective
work that it would be difficult to equal. Many stories are told of the
disrespect he showed the President, and the cross-purposes at which they
labored. The truth is, that they understood each other perfectly on all
important matters, and worked together through three busy trying years
with ever-increasing affection and regard. The President's kindly humor
forgave his Secretary many blunt speeches. "Stanton says I am a fool?"
he is reported to have asked a busy-body who came fleet-footed to tell
him of the Secretary's hasty comment on an order of little moment.
"Stanton says I am a fool? Well"--with a whimsical glance at his
informant--"then I suppose I must be. Stanton is nearly always right."
Knowing that Stanton was "nearly always right" it made little difference
to his chief what he might say in the heat of momentary annoyance.
Yet in spite of his forbearance he never gave up the "larger things"
that he felt were of real importance; and when he learned at one time
that an effort was being made to force a member of the cabinet to
resign, he called them together, and read them the following impressive
little lecture:
"I must myself be the judge 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 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."
This is one of the most remarkable speeches ever made by a President.
Washington was never more dignified; Jackson was never more peremptory.
The President's spirit of forgiveness was broad enough to take in the
entire South. The cause of the Confederacy had been doomed from the hour
of his reelection. The cheering of the troops which greeted the news
had been heard within the lines at Richmond, and the besieged town lost
hope, though it continued the struggle bravely if desperately. Although
Horace Greeley's peace mission to Canada had come to nothing, and other
volunteer efforts in the same direction served only to call forth
a declaration from Jefferson Davis that he would fight for the
independence of the South to the bitter end, Mr. Lincoln watched
longingly for the time when the first move could be made toward peace.
Early in January, 1865, as the country was about to enter upon the fifth
year of actual war, he learned from Hon. Francis P. Blair, Sr., who
had been in Richmond, how strong the feeling of discouragement at the
Confederate capital had become. Mr. Blair was the father of Lincoln's
first Postmaster-General, a man of large acquaintance in the South, who
knew perhaps better than anyone in Washington the character and temper
of the southern leaders. He had gone to Richmond hoping to do something
toward bringing the war to a close, but without explaining his plans to
anyone, and with no authority from the government, beyond permission
to pass through the military lines and return. His scheme was utterly
impracticable, and Mr. Lincoln was interested in the report of his visit
only because it showed that the rebellion was nearing its end. This
was so marked that he sent Mr. Blair back again to Richmond with a note
intended for the eye of Jefferson Davis, saying that the government had
constantly been, was then, and would continue to be ready to receive any
agent Mr. Davis might send, "with a view of securing peace to the people
of our one common country."
Hopeless as their cause had by this time become, the Confederates had no
mind to treat for peace on any terms except independence of the southern
States; yet, on the other hand, they were in such straits that they
could not afford to leave Mr. Lincoln's offer untested. Mr. Davis
therefore sent north his Vice-President, Alexander H. Stephens, with
two other high officials of the Confederate government, armed with
instructions which aimed to be liberal enough to gain them admittance
to the Union lines, and yet distinctly announced that they came "for the
purpose of securing peace to the two countries." This difference in the
wording of course doomed their mission in advance, for the government
at Washington had never admitted that there were "two countries," and to
receive the messengers of Jefferson Davis on any such terms would be to
concede practically all that the South asked.
When they reached the Union lines the officer who met them informed
them that they could go no farther unless they accepted the President's
conditions. They finally changed the form of their request, and were
taken to Fortress Monroe. Meantime Mr. Lincoln had sent Secretary Seward
to Fortress Monroe with instructions to hear all they might have to say,
but not to definitely conclude anything. On learning the true nature
of their errand he was about to recall him, when he received a telegram
from General Grant, regretting that Mr. Lincoln himself could not see
the commissioners, because, to Grant's mind, they seemed sincere.
Anxious to do everything he could in the interest of peace, Mr. Lincoln,
instead of recalling Secretary Seward, telegraphed that he would himself
come to Fortress Monroe, and started that same night. The next morning,
February 3, 1865, he and the Secretary of State received the rebel
commissioners on board the President's steamer, the River Queen.
This conference between the two highest officials of the United States
government, and three messengers from the Confederacy, bound, as the
President well knew beforehand, by instructions which made any practical
outcome impossible, brings out, in strongest relief, Mr. Lincoln's
kindly patience, even toward the rebellion. He was determined to leave
no means untried that might, however remotely, lead to peace. For four
hours he patiently answered the many questions they asked him, as to
what would probably be done on various subjects if the South submitted;
pointing out always the difference between the things that he had the
power to decide, and those that must be submitted to Congress; and
bringing the discussion back, time and again, to the three points
absolutely necessary to secure peace--Union, freedom for the slaves,
and complete disbandment of the Confederate armies. He had gone to offer
them, honestly and frankly, the best terms in his power, but not to
give up one atom of official dignity or duty. Their main thought, on the
contrary, had been to postpone or to escape the express conditions on
which they were admitted to the conference.
They returned to Richmond and reported the failure of their efforts to
Jefferson Davis, whose disappointment equalled their own, for all had
caught eagerly at the hope that this interview would somehow prove a
means of escape from the dangers of their situation. President Lincoln,
full of kindly thoughts, on the other hand, went back to Washington,
intent on making yet one more generous offer to hasten the day of peace.
He had told the commissioners that personally he would be in favor of
the government paying a liberal amount for the loss of slave property,
on condition that the southern States agree of their own accord to
the freedom of the slaves. (*) This was indeed going to the extreme of
liberality, but Mr. Lincoln remembered that notwithstanding all their
offenses the rebels were American citizens, members of the same nation
and brothers of the same blood. He remembered, too, that the object of
the war, equally with peace and freedom, was to preserve friendship and
to continue the Union. Filled with such thoughts and purposes he spent
the day after his return in drawing up a new proposal designed as a
peace offering to the States in rebellion. On the evening of February 5
he read this to his cabinet. It offered the southern States $400,000,000
or a sum equal to the cost of war for two hundred days, on condition
that all fighting cease by the first of April, 1865. He proved more
liberal than any of his advisers; and with the words, "You are all
against me," sadly uttered, the President folded up the paper, and ended
the discussion.
* Mr. Lincoln had freed the slaves two years before as a
military necessity, and as such it had been accepted by all.
Yet a question might arise, when the war ended, as to
whether this act of his had been lawful. He was therefore
very anxious to have freedom find a place in the
Constitution of the United States. This could only be done
by an amendment to the Constitution, proposed by Congress,
and adopted by the legislatures of three-fourths of the
States of the Union. Congress voted in favor of such an
amendment on January 31, 1865. Illinois, the President's own
State, adopted it on the very next day, and though Mr.
Lincoln did not live to see it a part of the Constitution,
Secretary Seward, on December 18, 1865, only a few months
after Mr. Lincoln's death, was able to make official
announcement that 29 States, constituting a majority of
three-fourths of the 36 States of the Union, had adopted it,
and that therefore it was the law of the land.
Jefferson Davis had issued a last appeal to "fire the southern heart,"
but the situation at Richmond was becoming desperate Flour cost a
thousand dollars a barrel in Confederate money, and neither the flour
nor the money were sufficient for their needs. Squads of guards were
sent into the streets with directions to arrest every able-bodied man
they met, and force him to work in defense of the town. It is said that
the medical boards were ordered to excuse no one from military service
who was well enough to bear arms for even ten days. Human nature will
not endure a strain like this, and desertion grew too common to punish.
Nevertheless the city kept up its defense until April 3. Even then,
although hopelessly beaten, the Confederacy was not willing to give in,
and much needless and severe fighting took place before the final end
came. The rebel government hurried away toward the South, and Lee
bent all his energies to saving his army and taking it to join General
Johnston, who still held out against Sherman. Grant pursued him with
such energy that he did not even allow himself the pleasure of entering
the captured rebel capital. The chase continued six days. On the evening
of April 8 the Union army succeeded in planting itself squarely across
Lee's line of retreat; and the marching and fighting of his army were
over for ever. On the next morning the two generals met in a house on
the edge of the village of Appomattox, Virginia, Lee resplendent in a
new uniform and handsome sword, Grant in the travel-stained garments in
which he had made the campaign--the blouse of a private soldier, with
the shoulder-straps of a Lieutenant-General. Here the surrender took
place. Grant, as courteous in victory as he was energetic in war,
offered Lee terms that were liberal in the extreme; and on learning that
the Confederate soldiers were actually suffering with hunger, ordered
that rations be issued to them at once.
Fire and destruction attended the flight of the Confederates from
Richmond. Jefferson Davis and his cabinet, carrying with them their more
important state papers, left the doomed city on one of the crowded
and overloaded railroad trains on the night of April 2, beginning a
southward flight that ended only with Mr. Davis's capture about a
month later. The legislature of Virginia and the governor of the State
departed hurriedly on a canal-boat in the direction of Lynchburg, while
every possible carriage or vehicle was pressed into service by the
inhabitants, all frantic to get away before their city was "desecrated"
by the presence of the Yankees. By the time the military left, early on
the morning of April 3, the town was on fire. The Confederate Congress
had ordered all government tobacco and other public property to be
burned. The rebel General Ewell, who was in charge of the city, asserts
that he took the responsibility of disobeying, and that the fires were
not started by his orders. Be that as it may, they broke out in various
places, while a mob, crazed with excitement, and wild with the alcohol
that had run freely in the gutters the night before, rushed from store
to store, breaking in the doors, and indulging in all the wantonness of
pillage and greed. Public spirit seemed paralyzed; no real effort was
made to put out the flames, and as a final horror, the convicts from the
penitentiary, overpowering their guards, appeared upon the streets, a
maddened, shouting, leaping crowd, drunk with liberty.
It is quite possible that the very size and suddenness of the disaster
served in a measure to lessen its evil effects; for the burning of seven
hundred buildings, the entire business portion of Richmond, all in the
brief space of a day, was a visitation so sudden, so stupefying and
unexpected as to overawe and terrorize even evildoers. Before a new
danger could arise help was at hand. Gen. Weitzel, to whom the city
surrendered, took up his headquarters in the house lately occupied by
Jefferson Davis, and promptly set about the work of relief; fighting the
fire, issuing rations to the poor, and restoring order and authority.
That a regiment of black soldiers assisted in this work of mercy must
have seemed to the white inhabitants of Richmond the final drop in their
cup of misery.
Into the rebel capital, thus stricken and laid waste, came President
Lincoln on the morning of April 4. Never in the history of the world
has the head of a mighty nation and the conqueror of a great rebellion
entered the captured chief city of the insurgents in such humbleness and
simplicity. He had gone two weeks before to City Point for a visit to
General Grant, and to his son, Captain Robert Lincoln, who was serving
on Grant's staff. Making his home on the steamer that brought him, and
enjoying what was probably the most restful and satisfactory holiday in
which he had been able to indulge during his whole presidential service,
he had visited the various camps of the great army, in company with the
General, cheered everywhere by the loving greetings of the soldiers. He
had met Sherman when that commander hurried up fresh from his victorious
march from Atlanta; and after Grant had started on his final pursuit
of Lee the President still lingered. It was at City Point that the news
came to him of the fall of Richmond.
Between the receipt of this news and the following forenoon, before any
information of the great fire had reached them, a visit to the rebel
capital was arranged for the President and Rear Admiral Porter. Ample
precautions for their safety were taken at the start. The President went
in his own steamer, the River Queen, with her escort, the Bat, and a tug
used at City Point in landing from the steamer. Admiral Porter went in
his flagship; while a transport carried a small cavalry escort, as
well as ambulances for the party. Barriers in the river soon made it
impossible to proceed in this fashion, and one unforeseen accident after
another rendered it necessary to leave behind the larger and even the
smaller boats; until finally the party went on in the Admiral's barge
rowed by twelve sailors, without escort of any kind. In this manner the
President made his entry into Richmond, landing near Libby Prison. As
the party stepped ashore they found a guide among the contrabands who
quickly crowded the streets, for the possible coming of the President
had already been noised through the city. Ten of the sailors armed with
carbines were formed as a guard, six in front, and four in rear, and
between them the President and Admiral Porter, with the three officers
who accompanied them, walked the long distance, perhaps a mile and a
half, to the centre of the town.
Imagination can easily fill in the picture of a gradually increasing
crowd, principally of negroes, following the little group of marines and
officers with the tall form of the President in its centre; and, when
they learned that it was indeed "Massa Lincum," expressing their joy and
gratitude in fervent blessings and in the deep emotional cries of the
colored race. It is easy also to imagine the sharp anxiety of those who
had the President's safety in their charge during this tiresome and even
foolhardy march through a town still in flames, whose white inhabitants
were sullenly resentful at best, and whose grief and anger might at any
moment break out against the man they looked upon as the chief author of
their misfortunes. No accident befell him. He reached General Weitzel's
headquarters in safety, rested in the house Jefferson Davis had occupied
while President of the Confederacy; and after a day of sightseeing
returned to his steamer and to Washington, there to be stricken down by
an assassin's bullet, literally "in the house of his friends."