INCIDENTS AND END OF THE WAR.
Campaigning in Ohio--Attempted repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law--
Organized movement in favor of Chase for the Presidency--Confiscation
of rebel lands--Fort Pillow and the treatment of Union soldiers at
Richmond--Mr. Lincoln's letter to Hodges--Southern Homestead Bill
and controversy with Mr. Mallory--Nomination of Andrew Johnson--
Enforcement of party discipline--Mr. Lincoln's change of opinion
as to confiscation of rebel lands--Opposition to him in Congress--
General Fremont and Montgomery Blair--Visit to City Point--Adoption
of the XIII Constitutional Amendment--Trip to Richmond and incidents
--Assassination of the President--Inauguration of Johnson and
announcement of his policy--Feeling toward Mr. Lincoln--Capitulation
with Gen. Johnston.
In the latter part of July of this year I addressed several meetings
in Ohio, in company with Gov. Brough, beginning at Toledo. His
speeches were too conservative for the times, as he soon discovered
by their effect upon the people; but I found him singularly genial
and companionable, and full of reminiscences of his early intimacy
with Jackson, Van Buren and Silas Wright. Early in September I
returned to Ohio to join Hon. John A. Bingham in canvassing Mr.
Ashley's district under the employment of the State Republican
Committee. Mr. Vallandigham, then temporarily colonized in Canada,
was the Democratic candidate for Governor, and the canvass was "red-
hot." At no time during the war did the _spirit_ of war more
completely sway the loyal masses. It was no time to mince the
truth, or "nullify damnation with a phrase," and I fully entered
into the spirit of General Burnside's advice already referred to,
to breathe into the hearts of the people a feeling of animosity
against the rebels akin to that which inspired their warfare against
us. I remember that at one of the mass-meetings I attended, where
Col. Gibson was one of the speakers, a Cincinnati reporter who had
prepared himself for his work dropped his pencil soon after the
oratorical fireworks began, and listened with open mouth and the
most rapt attention till the close of the speech; and he afterward
wrote to his employer an account of the meeting, in which he said
that reporting was simply impossible, and he could only say the
speaking was "beautifully terrible." As a stump-speaker Col. Gibson
was then without a rival in the West. His oratory was an irresistible
fascination, and no audience could ever grow tired of him. The
speeches of Mr. Bingham were always admirable. His rhetoric was
singularly charming. He was an artist in his work, but seldom
repeated himself, while gathering fresh inspiration, and following
some new line of thought at every meeting. After our work was done
in the Toledo district I accompanied Mr. Ashley to Jefferson, where
he and others were to address a mass-meeting, which we found
assembled in front of the court house. The day was rainy and
dismal, and the meeting had already been in session for hours; but
after additional speeches by Ashley and Hutchins I was so loudly
called for a little while before sunset, that I responded for about
three-quarters of an hour, when I proposed to conclude, the people
having been detained already over four hours while standing in a
cold drizzling rain; but the cry of "go on" was very emphatic, and
seemed to be unanimous. "Go ahead," said a farmer, "we'll hear
you; it's past milking time anyhow!" It seemed to me I had never
met such listeners. I was afterward informed that the test of
effective speaking on the Reserve is the ability to hold an audience
from their milking when the time for it comes, and I thought I
passed this test splendidly. After my return from Ohio I made a
brief canvass in Iowa, along with Senator Harlan and Governor
Stone, and spent the remainder of the fall on the stump in my own
State.
In the 38th Congress, Speaker Colfax made me Chairman of the
Committee on Public Lands, which gratified me much. It opened a
coveted field of labor on which I entered with zeal. On the 14th
of December I introduced a bill for the repeal of the Fugitive
Slave Law, and in order to test the sense of the House on the
question, I offered a resolution instructing the Judiciary Committee
to report such a bill. Greatly to my astonishment it was laid on
the table by a vote of yeas eighty-two, nays seventy-four. Many
Republicans declined to vote, and we were evidently still under
the lingering spell of slavery. Early in January an organized
movement was set on foot in the interest of Mr. Chase for the
Presidency, and I was made a member of a Central Committee which
was appointed for the purpose of aiding the enterprise. I was a
decided friend of Mr. Chase, and as decidedly displeased with the
hesitating military policy of the Administration; but on reflection
I determined to withdraw from the committee and let the presidential
matter drift. I had no time to devote to the business, and I found
the committee inharmonious, and composed, in part, of men utterly
unfit and unworthy to lead in such a movement. It was fearfully
mismanaged. A confidential document known as the "Pomeroy circular,"
assailing Mr. Lincoln and urging the claims of Mr. Chase, was sent
to numerous parties, and of course fell into the hands of Mr.
Lincoln's friends. They became greatly excited, and by vigorous
counter measures created a strong reaction. A serious estrangement
between the President and his Secretary was the result, which lasted
for several months. The Chase movement collapsed, and when the
Republican members of the Ohio Legislature indorsed the re-nomination
of Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Chase withdrew from the contest. The opposition
to Mr. Lincoln, however, continued, and was secretly cherished by
many of the ablest and most patriotic men in the party. The extent
of their opposition in Congress can never be known, and it was
greatly aggravated by successive military failures; but it lacked
both courage and leadership, and culminated in the nomination of
General Fremont in the latter part of May.
In this Congress a new joint select committee on the "conduct of
the war" was organized, armed with new powers, and authorized to
sit in vacation; and in common with most of the members of the
former committee I was re-appointed. During the latter part of
January I reported from the Committee on Public Lands a proposition
to extend the Homestead Law of 1862 to the forfeited and confiscated
lands of Rebels. It was a very radical proposition, proposing to
deal with these lands as _public_ lands, and parcel them out into
small homesteads among the poor of the South, black and white.
The subject was a large one, involving many important questions,
and I devoted much time and thought to the preparation of a speech
in support of the measure. In the month of April a portion of the
Committee on the Conduct of the War visited Fort Pillow, for the
purpose of taking testimony respecting the rebel atrocities at that
place; and this testimony and that taken at Annapolis, early in
May, respecting the treatment of our soldiers in the prisons at
Richmond was published, as a special instalment of our proceedings,
for popular use, accompanied by photographs of a number of prisoners
in their wasted and disfigured condition. The report produced a
powerful effect on the public mind, and caused unspeakable trouble
and vexation to the enemy. I assisted in the examination of our
prisoners at Annapolis, and never before had been so touched by
any spectacle of human suffering. They were in the last stages of
life, and could only answer our questions in a whisper. They were
living skeletons, and it seemed utterly incredible that life could
be supported in such wasted and attenuated shadows of themselves.
They looked at us, in attempting to tell their story, with an
expression of beseeching tenderness and submission which no words
could describe. Not one of them expressed any regret that he had
entered into the service of the country, and each declared that he
would do so again, if his life should be spared and the opportunity
should be offered. In examining one of these men I was perfectly
unmanned by my tears; and on retiring from the tent to give them
vent I encountered Senator Wade, who had fled from the work, and
was sobbing like a child. It was an altogether unprecedented
experience, and the impression it produced followed me night and
day for weeks.
The conservative policy of the Administration found a new and
careful expression in Mr. Lincoln's letter to A. G. Hodges, of the
4th of April. It showed great progress as compared with previous
utterances, but his declaration that "I claim not to have controlled
events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me," was
displeasing to the more anti-slavery Republicans. They insisted
that the Administration had no right to become the foot-ball of
events. It had no right, they said, at such a time, to make itself
a negative expression or an unknown quantity in the Algebra which
was to work out the great problem. It had no right, they insisted,
to take shelter beneath a debauched and sickly public sentiment,
and plead it in bar of the great duty imposed upon it by the crisis.
It had no right, certainly, to lag behind that sentiment, to magnify
its extent and potency, and then to become its virtual ally, instead
of endeavoring to control it, and to indoctrinate the country with
ideas suited to the emergency. It was the duty of the President,
like John Bright and the English Liberals, to lead, not follow
public opinion. These criticisms found every variety of utterance
through Congressional speeches and the press, and met with a cordial
response from the people; and they undoubtedly played their part
in preparing the country and the Administration for the more vigorous
policy which was to follow.
On the 12th of May the House passed my Southern Homestead Bill by
the strictly party vote of seventy-five to sixty-four. In my
closing speech on the subject I was frequently interrupted by Wood
of New York, and Mallory of Kentucky, and the debate ran into very
sharp personalities, but the opposition of these members only tended
to strengthen the measure. On the 19th I was drawn into an
exceedingly angry altercation with Mr. Mallory, who charged me with
forging some very personal remarks about himself, and interpolating
them into the "Congressional Globe" as a part of my speech of the
12th. He was exceedingly insolent and overbearing in his manner,
growing more and more so as he proceeded, and strikingly recalling
the old days of slavery. He summoned a number of friends as
witnesses, who testified that they did not _hear_ me use the language
in question, and several of them, like Kernan of New York, declared
that they had occupied positions very near me, had given particular
attention to my words, and would certainly have remembered them if
they had been uttered. I kept cool, but asserted very positively
that I did use the exact words reported, and in proof of my statement
I appealed to a number of my friends, who sustained me by their
distinct and positive recollections. Here was a conflict of
testimony in which every witness recollected the facts according
to his politics; but pending the proceedings I was fortunate enough
to find the notes of the "Globe" reporter, which perfectly vindicated
me from Mr. Mallory's charges, and suddenly put his bluster and
billingsgate to flight. He unconditionally retracted his charges,
while his swift witnesses were sufficiently rebuked and humiliated
by this unexpected catastrophe. I was heartily complimented on my
triumph, and my dialogue with Mr. Mallory was put in pamphlet as
a campaign document by his opponents and liberally scattered over
his district, where it did much service in defeating his re-election
to the House.
The passage of the Southern Homestead Bill, however, could only
prove a very partial measure without an enactment reaching the fee
of rebel land owners, and I confidently anticipated the endorsement
of such a measure by the Republican National Convention, which was
to meet in Baltimore, on the seventh of June. I was much gratified
when the National Union League approved it, in its Convention in
that city the day before; and a resolution embodying it was also
reported favorably by the sub-committee on resolutions of the
National Republican Convention the next day. But the General
Committee, on the motion of McKee Dunn of Indiana, always an
incorrigible conservative, struck it out, much to the disappointment
of the Republican masses. To me it was particularly vexatious, as
the measure was a pet one of mine, having labored for it with much
zeal, and in the confidence that the National Convention would
approve it. Mr. Dunn was a Kentuckian of the Border State School,
and although a friend of mine, and an upright and very gentlemanly
man, he had a genius for being on the wrong side of vital questions
during the war. Speaker Colfax used to say, laughingly, that in
determining his own course he first made it a point to find out
where McKee Dunn stood; and then, having ascertained Julian's
position, he always took a middle ground, feeling perfectly sure
he was right.
But to me the nomination of Andrew Johnson for Vice President was
a still greater disappointment. I knew he did not believe in the
principles embodied in the platform. I had become intimately
acquainted with him while we were fellow-members of the Committee
on the Conduct of the War, and he always scouted the idea that
slavery was the cause of our trouble, or that emancipation could
ever be tolerated without immediate colonization. In my early
acquaintance with him I had formed a different opinion; but he was,
at heart, as decided a hater of the negro and of everything savoring
of abolitionism, as the rebels from whom he had separated. His
nomination, however, like that of Mr. Lincoln, seemed to have been
preordained by the people, while the intelligent, sober men, in
Congress and out of Congress, who lamented the fact, were not
prepared to oppose the popular will. Mr. Lincoln's nomination was
nearly unanimous, only the State of Missouri opposing him; but of
the more earnest and through-going Republicans in both Houses of
Congress, probably not one in ten really favored it. It was not
only very distasteful to a large majority of Congress but to many
of the most prominent men of the party throughout the country.
During the month of June the feeling against Mr. Lincoln became
more and more bitter and intense, but its expression never found
its way to the people.
Notwithstanding the divisions which existed in the Republican ranks,
party discipline was vigorous and absolute. "Civil Service Reform"
was in the distant future, and the attempt to inaugurate it would
have been counted next to treasonable. Loyalty to Republicanism
was not only accepted as the best evidence of loyalty to the country,
but of fitness for civil position. After my nomination for re-
election this year, Mr. Holloway, who was still holding the position
of Commissioner of Patents, and one of the editors of a Republican
newspaper in my district, refused to recognize me as the party
candidate, and kept the name of my defeated competitor standing in
his paper. It threatened discord and mischief, and I went to the
President with these facts, and on the strength of them demanded
his removal from office. He replied, "If I remove Mr. Holloway I
shall have a quarrel with Senator Lane on my hands." I replied
that Senator Lane would certainly not quarrel with him for turning
a man out of office who was fighting the Republican party and the
friends of the Administration. "Your nomination," said he, "is as
binding on Republicans as mine, and you can rest assured that Mr.
Holloway shall support you, openly and unconditionally, or lose
his head." This was entirely satisfactory, but after waiting a
week or two for the announcement of my name I returned to Mr.
Lincoln with the information that Mr. Holloway was still keeping
up his fight, and that I had come to ask of him decisive measures.
I saw in an instant that the President now meant business. He
dispatched a messenger at once, asking Mr. Holloway to report to
him forthwith, in person, and in a few days my name was announced
in his paper as the Republican candidate, and that of my competitor
withdrawn.
Having understood that Mr. Lincoln had changed his position respecting
the power of Congress to confiscate the landed estates of rebels,
I called to see him on the subject on the 2d of July, and asked
him if I might say to the people that what I had learned on this
subject was true, assuring him that I could make a far better fight
for our cause if he would permit me to do so. He replied that when
he prepared his veto of our law on the subject two years before,
he had not examined the matter fully, but that on further reflection,
and on reading Solicitor Whiting's law argument, he had changed
his opinion, and thought he would now sign a bill striking at the
fee, if we would send it to him. I was much gratified by this
statement, which was of service to the cause in the canvass; but,
unfortunately, constitutional scruples respecting such legislation
gained ground, and although both Houses of Congress at different
times endorsed the principle, it never became a law, owing to
unavoidable differences between the President and Congress on the
question of reconstruction. The action of the President in dealing
with the rebel land owners was of the most serious character. It
paralyzed one of the most potent means of putting down the Rebellion,
prolonging the conflict and aggravating its cost, and at the same
time left the owners of large estates in full possession of their
lands at the end of the struggle, who naturally excluded from the
ownership of the soil the freedmen and poor whites who had been
friendly to the Union; while the confiscation of life estates as
a war measure was of no practical advantage to the Government or
disadvantage to the enemy.
The refusal of the President to sign the Reconstruction Act which
passed near the close of the session, and his proclamation and
message giving his reasons therefor, still further exasperated a
formidable body of earnest and impatient Republicans. A scathing
criticism of the President's position by Henry Winter Davis, which
was signed by himself and Senator Wade, fitly echoed their feelings.
Mr. Davis was a man of genius. Among the famous men in the Thirty-
eighth Congress he had no superior as a writer, debater and orator.
He was a brilliant man, whose devotion to his country in this crisis
was a passion, while his hostility to the President's policy was
as sincere as it was intense; but the passage of the somewhat
incongruous bill vetoed by the President, would probably have proved
a stumbling-block in the way of the more radical measures which
afterward prevailed. This could not then be foreseen, and as the
measure was an advanced one, the feeling against Mr. Lincoln waxed
stronger and stronger among his opposers. They had so completely
lost their faith in him that when Congress adjourned they seriously
feared his veto of the bill just enacted, repealing the Fugitive
Slave law; while the independent movement in favor of General
Fremont threatened a serious division in the Republican ranks, and
the triumph of General McClellan. "These," as Mr. Lincoln said on
another occasion, "were dark and dismal days," and they were made
still more so by the course of military events. The capture of
Richmond, which General Grant had promised, had not been accomplished,
although he had been furnished with all the troops he wanted. Our
Grand Army of the Potomac made advances in that direction, but with
great slaughter and no actual results; while the Administration
was blamed for his failures. General Grant finally reached the
position occupied by McClellan in 1862, but with terrific losses,
and Richmond still in possession of the rebels. His delay and
inaction at this point created great popular discontent in the
North; but while Lincoln supplied him with ample reinforcements,
and he now had an army twice as large as that of General Lee, which
was costing the nation over a million dollars per day, he continued
idle during the summer. It was evident that nothing could save us
but military success; and most fortunately for the Republican cause
it came in due season, rallied and reunited its supporters, and
thus secured their triumph at the polls.
Near the close of the canvass, while on a visit to Washington, I
learned how it happened that Montgomery Blair had finally been got
out of the Cabinet, and General Fremont induced to leave the track
as the candidate of the Cleveland Convention. The radical pressure
upon Mr. Lincoln for the removal of Blair was very formidable, and
the emergency seemed so critical that it finally resulted in a
compromise, by which Fremont agreed to retire from the race, if
Blair should be required to leave the Cabinet. This was carried
out, and thus, at last, the President was obliged to make terms
with the "Pathfinder," who achieved a long-coveted victory over an
old foe. The election of Mr. Lincoln was followed by a remarkable
measure of party union and harmony, and the tone of his message in
December was encouraging. The appointment and confirmation of Mr.
Chase as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court met the most cordial
approval of Republicans everywhere. As a healing measure, following
his retirement from the treasury for valid reasons, it was most
timely.
During the month of December, the Committee on the Conduct of the
War visited City Point, for the purpose of taking testimony respecting
the explosion of the mine at Petersburg. General Grant spent
several hours with the Committee, speaking very freely and familiarly
of the faults and virtues of our various commanders, and impressing
every one by his strong common sense. While at dinner with us on
our steamer, he drank freely, and its effect became quite manifest.
It was a painful surprise to the Committee, and was spoken of with
bated breath; for he was the Lieutenant-General of all our forces,
and the great movements which finally strangled the Rebellion were
then in progress, and, for aught we knew, might possibly be deflected
from their purpose by his condition.
In January, 1865, the Committee on the Conduct of the War investigated
the famous Fort Fisher expedition, in which three hundred tuns of
powder were to be exploded in the vicinity of the Fort as a means
of demolishing it, or paralyzing the enemy. The testimony of
General Butler in explanation and defense of the enterprise was
interesting and spicy, and he was subsequently contradicted by
General Grant on material points. On the last day of this month
one of the grandest events of the century was witnessed in the
House of Representatives in the final passage of the Constitutional
Amendment forever prohibiting slavery. Numerous propositions on
the subject had been submitted, but the honor of drafting the one
adopted belongs to Lyman Trumbull, who had introduced it early in
the first session of this Congress. It passed the Senate on the
8th of April, 1864, only six members voting against it, namely,
Davis, Hendricks, McDougall, Powell, Riddle and Saulsbury, but
failed in the House on the 15th of June following. It now came up
on the motion of Mr. Ashley to reconsider this vote. Congress had
abolished slavery in the District of Columbia, and prohibited it
in all the Territories. It had repealed the Fugitive Slave law,
and declared free all negro soldiers in the Union armies and their
families; and the President had played his grand part in the
Proclamation of Emancipation. But the question now to be decided
completely overshadowed all others. The debate on the subject had
been protracted and very spirited, the opposition being led by
Pendleton, Fernando Wood, Voorhees, Mallory and Eldridge, who all
denied that the power to amend the Constitution conferred the right
to abolish slavery, as Garrett Davis and Saulsbury had done in the
Senate. The time for the momentous vote had now come, and no
language could describe the solemnity and impressiveness of the
spectacle pending the roll-call. The success of the measure had
been considered very doubtful, and depended upon certain negotiations,
the result of which was not fully assured, and the particulars of
which never reached the public. The anxiety and suspense during
the balloting produced a deathly stillness, but when it became
certainly known that the measure had prevailed the cheering in the
densely-packed hall and galleries surpassed all precedent and
beggared all description. Members joined in the general shouting,
which was kept up for several minutes, many embracing each other,
and others completely surrendering themselves to their tears of
joy. It seemed to me I had been born into a new life, and that
the world was overflowing with beauty and joy, while I was
inexpressibly thankful for the privilege of recording my name on
so glorious a page of the nation's history, and in testimony of an
event so long only dreamed of as possible in the distant future.
The champions of negro emancipation had merely hoped to speed their
grand cause a little by their faithful labors, and hand over to
coming generations the glory of crowning it with success; but they
now saw it triumphant, and they had abundant and unbounded cause
to rejoice. It has been aptly said that the greatest advantage of
a long life is the opportunity it gives of seeing moral experiments
worked out, of being present at the fructification of social causes,
and of thus gaining a kind of wisdom which in ordinary cases seems
reserved for a future life; but that an equivalent for this advantage
is possessed by such as live in those critical periods of society
when retribution is hastened, or displayed in clear connection with
the origin of events. It strengthens faith to observe the sure
operation of moral causes in ripening into great and beneficent
results. To be permitted to witness the final success of the
grandest movement of ancient or modern times was a blessed opportunity.
To have labored for it in the goodly fellowship of its confessors
and martyrs was cause for devout thanksgiving and joy. To be
accredited to share in the great historic act of its formal
consummation was a priceless privilege. A few days after the
ratification of this Amendment, on the motion of Mr. Sumner, Dr.
Rock, a colored lawyer of Boston, was admitted to practice in the
Supreme Court of the United States, which had pronounced the Dred
Scott decision only a few years before; and this was followed a
few days later by a sermon in the hall of the House by Rev. Mr.
Garnett, being the first ever preached in the Capitol by a colored
man. Evidently, the negro was coming to the front.
In the latter part of March I visited New York, where I witnessed
the immense throngs of shouting people on Wall Street, called
together by the news of the fall of Richmond. Broadway, robed in
its innumerable banners, was one of the finest sights I had ever
beheld. On the tenth of April the Committee on the Conduct of the
War left Washington for South Carolina, for the purpose of taking
further testimony, and intending to be present at the great
anniversary of the thirteenth at Charleston. We reached Fortress
Monroe the next evening, where we learned that the "Alabama," which
the Navy Department had furnished us, would be detained twenty-four
hours to coal, by reason of which we proceeded directly to Richmond
on the "Baltimore." At City Point, Admiral Porter furnished us
with a pilot, as there was some danger of torpedoes up the James
River. Our steamer reached the city about bedtime, but we remained
on board till morning, lulled into a sweep sleep by the music of
the guitar and the singing of the negroes below. At eight o'clock
in the morning our party went out sight-seeing, some in carriages,
but most of us on horseback, with an orderly for each to show him
the way. The first notable place we visited was General Weitzel's
headquarters, just vacated by Jefferson Davis. The building was
a spacious three-story residence, with a large double parlor, a
ladies' parlor, and a small secluded library attached, in which
all sorts of treason were said to have been hatched. We next
visited the capitol, an ancient-looking edifice, which would bear
no comparison with our modern State Capitols in size or style of
architecture. The library made a respectable appearance, but I
think it contained few modern publications, especially of our own
authors. I noticed, however, a liberal supply of theological works
of the most approved orthodoxy. The view of the city from the top
of the building was admirable. We could see Libby Prison, Castle
Thunder and Belle Isle, the former of which we afterward visited.
After seeing the rebel fortifications we were glad to get back to
our steamer. Before starting the next morning we saw the "Richmond
Whig," containing an order signed by General Weitzel, inviting
Hunter, McMullen and other noted rebel leaders, including members
of the rebel legislature, to meet in Richmond on the twenty-fifth
to confer with our authorities on the restoration of peace,
transportation and safe conduct being ordered for the purpose. We
were all thunderstruck, and fully sympathized with the hot indignation
and wrathful words of the chairman of our committee. We soon
afterwards learned that the order had been directed by the President,
and while we were thoroughly disgusted by this display of misguided
magnanimity we saw rebel officers strutting around the streets in
full uniform, looking as independent as if they had been masters
of the city. We left on the afternoon of the twelfth, and were
interested in seeing Drury's Landing, Dutch-Gap Canal, Malvern
Hill and other points of historic interest. Before reaching
Fortress Monroe the next day, Senators Wade and Chandler changed
their minds respecting our journey to Charleston, which was abandoned,
and after spending a few hours very pleasantly at that place and
Point Lookout, we reached Washington on the evening of the
fourteenth.
Soon after retiring I was roused from a deep sleep by loud raps at
my door. W. L. Woods, clerk of my committee, entered in the greatest
excitement, and told me that Lincoln had just been assassinated,
and Seward and son probably, and that rebel assassins were about
to take the town. Supposing all this to be true I grew suddenly
cold, heart-sick and almost helpless. It was a repetition of my
experience when the exaggerated stories about the Bull Run disaster
first reached me in the summer of 1861. I soon rallied, however,
and joined the throng on the street. The city was at once in a
tempest of excitement, consternation and rage. About seven and a
half o'clock in the morning the church bells tolled the President's
death. The weather was as gloomy as the mood of the people, while
all sorts of rumors filled the air as to the particulars of the
assassination and the fate of Booth. Johnson was inaugurated at
eleven o'clock on the morning of the 15th, and was at once surrounded
by radical and conservative politicians, who were alike anxious
about the situation. I spent most of the afternoon in a political
caucus, held for the purpose of considering the necessity of a new
Cabinet and a line of policy less conciliatory than that of Mr.
Lincoln; and while everybody was shocked at his murder, the feeling
was nearly universal that the accession of Johnson to the Presidency
would prove a god-send to the country. Aside from Mr. Lincoln's
known policy of tenderness to the Rebels, which now so jarred upon
the feelings of the hour, his well-known views on the subject of
reconstruction were as distasteful as possible to radical Republicans.
In his last public utterance, only three days before his death, he
had declared his adherence to the plan of reconstruction announced
by him in December, 1863, which in the following year so stirred
the ire of Wade and Winter Davis as an attempt of the Executive to
usurp the powers of Congress. According to this plan the work of
reconstruction in the rebel States was to be inaugurated and carried
on by those only who were qualified to vote under the Constitution
and laws of these States as they existed prior to the Rebellion.
Of course the negroes of the South could have no voice in framing
the institutions under which they were to live, and the question
of negro suffrage would thus have been settled by the President,
if he had lived and been able to maintain this policy, while no
doubt was felt that this calamity had now been averted and the way
opened for the radical policy which afterward involved the impeachment
of Johnson, but finally prevailed. It was forgotten in the fever
and turbulence of the moment, that Mr. Lincoln, who was never an
obstinate man, and who in the matter of his Proclamation of
Emancipation had surrendered his own judgment under the pressure
of public opinion, would not have been likely to wrestle with
Congress and the country in a mad struggle for his own way.
On the following day, in pursuance of a previous engagement, the
Committee on the Conduct of the War met the President at his quarters
in the Treasury Department. He received us with decided cordiality,
and Mr. Wade said to him: "Johnson, we have faith in you. By the
gods, there will be no trouble now in running the government!"
The President thanked him, and went on to define his well-remembered
policy at that time. "I hold," said he, "that robbery is a crime;
rape is a crime; murder is a crime; _treason_ is a crime, and
_crime_ must be punished. Treason must be made infamous, and
traitors must be impoverished." We were all cheered and encouraged
by this brave talk, and while we were rejoiced that the leading
conservatives of the country were not at Washington, we felt that
the presence and influence of the committee, of which Johnson had
been a member, would aid the Administration in getting on the right
track. We met him again the next day and found the symptoms of a
vigorous policy still favorable, and although I had some misgivings,
the general feeling was one of unbounded confidence in his sincerity
and firmness, and that he would act upon the advice of General
Butler by inaugurating a policy of his own, instead of administering
on the political estate of his predecessor.
In the meantime the prevailing excitement was greatly aggravated
by the news of the capitulation between General Sherman and General
Johnston on the 16th of April. Its practical surrender of all the
fruits of the national triumph so soon after the murder of the
President, produced an effect on the public mind which can not be
described. General Sherman had heard of the assassination when
the capitulation was made, and could not have been ignorant of the
feeling it had aroused. On the face of the proceeding his action
seemed a wanton betrayal of the country to its enemies; but when
this betrayal followed so swiftly the frightful tragedy which was
then believed to have been instigated by the Confederate authorities,
the patience of the people became perfectly exhausted. For the
time being, all the glory of his great achievements in the war
seemed to be forgotten in the anathemas which were showered upon
him from every quarter of the land; but the prompt repudiation of
his stipulations by the Administration soon assuaged the popular
discontent, while it provoked an estrangement between Secretary
Stanton and himself which was never healed.
The outpouring of the people at Mr. Lincoln's funeral was wholly
unprecedented, and every possible arrangement was made by which
they could manifest their grief for their murdered President; but
their solicitude for the state of the country was too profound to
be intermitted. What policy was now to be pursued? Mr. Lincoln's
last utterances had been far from assuring or satisfactory. The
question of reconstruction had found no logical solution, and all
was confusion respecting it. The question of negro suffrage was
slowly coming to the front, and could not be much longer evaded.
The adequate punishment of the rebel leaders was the demand of the
hour. What would the new President do? He had suddenly become
the central figure of American politics, and both radicals and
conservatives were as curious to know what line of policy he would
follow as they were anxious to point his way. His demeanor, at
first, seemed modest and commendable, but his egotism soon began
to assert itself, while his passion for stump-speaking was pampered
by the delegations which began to pour into the city from various
States and flatter him by formal addresses, to which he replied at
length. This business was kept up till the people became weary of
the din and clatter of words, and impatient for action.