MILITARY SUCCESSES, AND THE REËLECTION OF THE PRESIDENT
It is necessary now to return to military matters, and briefly to set
forth the situation. No especial fault was found with General Meade's
operations in Virginia; yet it was obvious that a system quite different
from that which had hitherto prevailed must be introduced there. To
fight a great battle, then await entire recuperation of losses, then
fight again and wait again, was a process of lingering exhaustion which
might be prolonged indefinitely. In February, 1864, Congress passed,
though with some reluctance, and the President much more readily signed,
a bill for the appointment of a lieutenant-general, "authorized, under
the direction and during the pleasure of the President, to command the
armies of the United States."[73] All understood that the place was made
for General Grant, and it was at once given to him by Mr. Lincoln. On
March 3 the appointment was confirmed by the Senate. By this Halleck was
substantially laid aside; his uselessness had long since become so
apparent, that though still holding his dignified position, he seemed
almost forgotten by every one.
Grant came to Washington,[74] arriving on March 8, and there was induced
by what he heard and saw to lay aside his own previous purpose and the
strenuous advice of Sherman, and to fall in with Mr. Lincoln's wishes;
that is to say, to take personal control of the campaign in Virginia. He
did this with his usual promptness, and set Sherman in command in the
middle of the country, the only other important theatre of operations.
It is said that Grant, before accepting the new rank and taking Virginia
as his special province, stipulated that he was to be absolutely free
from all interference, especially on the part of Stanton. Whether this
agreement was formulated or not, it was put into practical effect. No
man hereafter interfered with General Grant. Mr. Lincoln occasionally
made suggestions, but strictly and merely as suggestions. He distinctly
and pointedly said that he did not know, and did not wish to know, the
general's plans of campaign.[75] When the new commander had duly
considered the situation, he adopted precisely the same broad scheme
which had been previously devised by Mr. Lincoln and General McClellan;
that is to say, he arranged a simultaneous vigorous advance all along
the line. It was the way to make weight and numbers tell; and Grant had
great faith in weight and numbers; like Napoleon, he believed that
Providence has a shrewd way of siding with the heaviest battalions.
On April 30, all being ready for the advance, the President sent a note
of God-speed to the general. "I wish to express," he said, "my entire
satisfaction with what you have done up to this time, so far as I
understand it. The particulars of your plan I neither know, nor seek to
know.... If there is anything wanting which is within my power to give,
do not fail to let me know it." The general replied in a pleasant tone:
"I have been astonished at the readiness with which everything asked for
has been yielded, without even an explanation being asked. Should my
success be less than I desire and expect, the least I can say is, the
fault is not with you." When the President read these strange words his
astonishment must have far exceeded that expressed by the general. Never
before had he been thus addressed by any commander in Virginia!
Generally he had been told that a magnificent success was about to be
achieved, which he had done nothing to promote and perhaps much to
retard, but which would nevertheless be secured by the ability of a
general in spite of unfriendly neglect by a president.
On May 4 General Grant's army started upon its way, with 122,146 men
present for duty. Against them General Lee had 61,953. The odds seemed
excessive; but Lee had inside lines, the defensive, and intrenchments,
to equalize the disparity of numbers. At once began those bloody and
incessant campaigns by which General Grant intended to end, and finally
did end, the war. The North could afford to lose three men where the
South lost two, and would still have a balance left after the South had
spent all. The expenditure in this proportion would be disagreeable; but
if this was the inevitable and only price, Grant was willing to pay it,
justly regarding it as cheaper than a continuation of the process of
purchase by piecemeal. In a few hours the frightful struggle in the
Wilderness was in progress. All day on the 5th, all day on the 6th, the
terrible slaughter continued in those darksome woods and swamps. "More
desperate fighting has not been witnessed on this continent," said
Grant. The Union troops could not force their way through those tangled
forests. Thereupon, accepting the situation in his imperturbable way, he
arranged to move, on May 7, by the left flank southerly towards
Spottsylvania. Lee, disappointed and surprised that Grant was advancing
instead of falling back, could not do otherwise than move in the same
course; for, in fact, the combatants were locked together in a grappling
campaign. Then took place more bloody and determined fighting. The Union
losses were appalling, since the troops were attacking an army in
position. Yet Grant was sanguine; it was in a dispatch of May 11 that
he said that he had been getting the better in the struggle, and that he
proposed to fight it out on that line if it took all summer. The result
of the further slaughter at Spottsylvania was not a victory for either
leader, but was more hurtful to Lee because he could less well afford to
have his men killed and wounded. Grant, again finding that he could not
force Lee out of his position, also again moved by the left flank,
steadily approaching Richmond and dragging Lee with him. The Northern
loss had already reached the frightful total of 37,335 men; the
Confederate loss was less, but enormous. Amid the bloodshed, however,
Grant scented success. On May 26 he wrote: "Lee's army is really
whipped.... Our men feel that they have gained the morale over the
enemy.... I may be mistaken, but I feel that our success over Lee's army
is already assured." He even gratified the President by again
disregarding all precedent in Virginian campaigns, and saying that the
promptness with which reinforcements had been forwarded had contributed
largely to the promising situation! But almost immediately after this
the North shuddered at the enormous and profitless carnage at Cold
Harbor. Concurrently with all this bloodshed, there also took place the
famous and ill-starred movement of General Butler upon Richmond, which
ended in securely shutting up him and his forces at Bermuda Hundred, "as
in a bottle strongly corked."
Such was the Virginian situation early in June. By a series of most
bloody battles, no one of which had been a real victory, Grant had come
before the defenses of Richmond, nearly where McClellan had already
been. And now, like McClellan, he proposed to move around to the
southward and invest the city. It must be confessed that in all this
there was nothing visible to the inexperienced vision of the citizens at
home which made much brighter in their eyes the prestige of Mr.
Lincoln's war policy. Nor could they see, as that summer of the
presidential campaign came and went, that any really great change or
improvement was effected.
On the other hand, there took place in July what is sometimes lightly
called General Early's raid against Washington. In fact, it was a
genuine and very serious campaign, wherein that general was within a few
hours of capturing the city. Issuing out of that Shenandoah Valley
whence, as from a cave of horrors rather than one of the loveliest
valleys in the world, so much of terror and mischief had so often burst
out against the North, Early, with 17,000 veteran troops, moved straight
and fast upon the national capital. On the evening of July 10 Mr.
Lincoln rode out to his summer quarters at the Soldiers' Home. But the
Confederate troops were within a few miles, and Mr. Stanton insisted
that he should come back. The next day the Confederates advanced along
the Seventh Street road, in full expectation of marching into the city
with little opposition. There was brisk artillery firing, and Mr.
Lincoln, who had driven out to the scene of action, actually came under
fire; an officer was struck down within a few feet of him.
The anticipation of General Early was sanguine, yet by no means ill
founded. The veterans in Washington were a mere handful, and though the
green troops might have held the strong defenses for a little while, yet
the Southern veterans would have been pretty sure to make their way. It
was, in fact, a very close question of time. Grant had been at first
incredulous of the reports of Early's movements; but when he could no
longer doubt, he sent reinforcements with the utmost dispatch. They
arrived none too soon. It was while General Early was making his final
arrangements for an attack, which he meant should be irresistible, that
General Wright, with two divisions from the army of the Potomac, landed
at the river wharves and marched through the city to the threatened
points. With this the critical hours passed away. It had really been a
crisis of hours, and might have been one of minutes. Now Early saw that
the prize had slipped through his fingers actually as they closed upon
it, and so bitter was his disappointment that--since he was
disappointed--even a Northerner can almost afford him sympathy. So, his
chance being gone, he must go too, and that speedily; for it was he who
was in danger now. Moving rapidly, he saved himself, and returned up
the Shenandoah Valley. He had accomplished no real harm; but that the
war had been going on for three years, and that Washington was still
hardly a safe place for the President to live in, was another point
against the war policy.
* * * * *
Sherman had moved out against Johnston, at Dalton, at the same time that
Grant had moved out against Lee, and during the summer he made a record
very similar to that of his chief. He pressed the enemy without rest,
fought constantly, suffered and inflicted terrible losses, won no signal
victory, yet constantly got farther to the southward. Fortunately,
however, he was nearer to a specific success than Grant was, and at last
he was able to administer the sorely needed tonic to the political
situation. Jefferson Davis, who hated Johnston, made the steady retreat
of that general before Sherman an excuse for removing him and putting
General Hood in his place. The army was then at Atlanta. Hood was a
fighting man, and immediately he brought on a great battle, which
happily proved to be also a great mistake; for the result was a
brilliant and decisive victory for Sherman and involved the fall of
Atlanta. This was one of the important achievements of the war; and
when, on September 3, Sherman telegraphed, "Atlanta is ours, and fairly
won," the news came to the President like wine to the weary. He hastened
to tender the "national thanks" to the general and his gallant soldiers,
with words of gratitude which must have come straight and warm from his
heart. There was a chance now for the Union cause in November.
About ten days before this event Farragut, in spite of forts and
batteries, iron-clads and torpedoes, had possessed himself of Mobile Bay
and closed that Gulf port which had been so useful a mouth to the hungry
stomach of the Confederacy. No efficient blockade of it had ever been
possible. Through it military, industrial, and domestic supplies had
been brought in, and invaluable cotton had gone out to pay for them.
Now, however, the sealing of the South was all but hermetical. As a
naval success the feat was entitled to high admiration, and as a
practical injury to the Confederacy it could not be overestimated.
Achievements equally brilliant, if not quite so important, were quickly
contributed by Sheridan. In spite of objections on the part of Stanton,
Grant had put this enterprising fighter in command of a strong force of
cavalry in the Shenandoah Valley, where Lee was keeping Early as a
constant menace upon Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Washington. Three
hard-fought battles followed, during September and October. In each the
Federals were thoroughly victorious. The last of the three was that
which was made famous by "Sheridan's ride." He had been to Washington
and was returning on horseback, when to his surprise he encountered
squads of his own troops hurrying back in disorderly flight from a
battle which, during his brief absence, had unexpectedly been delivered
by Early. Halting them and carrying them back with him, he was relieved,
as he came upon the field, to find a part of his army still standing
firm and even pressing the Confederates hard. He communicated his own
spirit to his troops, and turned partial defeat into brilliant victory.
By this gallant deed was shattered forever the Confederate Army of the
Valley; and from that time forth there issued out of that fair
concealment no more gray-uniformed troopers to foray Northern fields or
to threaten Northern towns. For these achievements Lincoln made Sheridan
a major-general, dictating the appointment in words of unusual
compliment.
Late as the Democrats were in holding their nominating convention, they
would have done well to hold it a little later. They might then have
derived wisdom from these military and naval events, and not improbably
they would have been less audacious in staking their success upon the
issue that the war was a failure, and would have so modified that craven
proposition as to make it accord with the more patriotic sentiment of
their soldier candidate. But the fortunes alike of the real war and of
the political war were decidedly and happily against them. Even while
they were in session the details of Farragut's daring and victorious
battle in Mobile Bay were coming to hand. Scarcely had they adjourned
when the roar of thunderous salvos in every navy yard, fort, and
arsenal of the North hailed the triumph of Sherman at Atlanta. Before
these echoes had died away the people were electrified by the three
battles in Virginia which Sheridan fought and won in style so brilliant
as to seem almost theatrical. Thus from the South, from the West, and
from the East came simultaneously the fierce contradiction of this
insulting Copperhead notion, that the North had failed in the war. The
political blunder of the party was now much more patent than was any
alleged military failure on the part of its opponents. In fact the
Northerners were beholding the sudden turning over of a great page in
the book of the national history, and upon the newly exposed side of it,
amid the telegrams announcing triumphs of arms, they read in great plain
letters the reëlection of Mr. Lincoln. Before long most persons conceded
this. He himself had said, a few months earlier, that the probabilities
indicated that the presidential campaign would be a struggle between a
Union candidate and a Disunion candidate. McClellan had sought to give
to it a complexion safer for his party and more honorable for himself,
but the platform and events combined to defeat his wise purpose. In
addition to these difficulties the South also burdened him with an
untimely and compromising friendship. The Charleston "Courier," with
reckless frankness, declared that the armies of the Confederacy and the
peace-men at the North were working together for the procurement of
peace; and said: "Our success in battle insures the success of
McClellan. Our failure will inevitably lead to his defeat." No words
could have been more imprudent; the loud proclamation of such an
alliance was the madness of self-destruction. In the face of such talk
the Northerners could not but believe that the issue was truly made up
between war and Union on the one side, peace and disunion on the other.
If between the two, when distinctly formulated, there could under any
circumstances have been doubt, the successes by sea and land turned the
scale for the Republicans.
* * * * *
During the spring and summer many prominent Republicans strenuously
urged Mr. Lincoln to remove the postmaster-general, Montgomery Blair,
from the cabinet. The political purpose was to placate the Radicals,
whose unnatural hostility within the party greatly disturbed the
President's friends. Many followers of Fremont might be conciliated by
the elimination of the bitter and triumphant opponent of their beloved
chieftain; and besides this leader, the portentous list of those with
whom the postmaster was on ill terms included many magnates,--Chase,
Seward, Stanton, Halleck, and abundance of politicians. Henry Wilson
wrote to the President: "Blair every one hates. Tens of thousands of men
will be lost to you, or will give a reluctant vote, on account of the
Blairs." Even the Republican National Convention had covertly assailed
him; for a plank in the platform, declaring it "essential to the
general welfare that harmony should prevail in the national councils,"
was known to mean that he should no longer remain in the cabinet. Yet to
force him out was most distasteful to the President, who was always slow
to turn against any man. Replying to a denunciatory letter from Halleck
he said: "I propose continuing to be myself the judge as to when a
member of the cabinet shall be dismissed." He made a like statement,
curtly and decisively, in a cabinet meeting. Messrs. Nicolay and Hay say
that he did not yield to the pressure until he was assured of his
reëlection, and that then he yielded only because he felt that he ought
not obstinately to retain an adviser in whom the party had lost
confidence. On September 23 he wrote to Mr. Blair a kindly note: "You
have generously said to me more than once that whenever your resignation
could be a relief to me, it was at my disposal. The time has come. You
very well know that this proceeds from no dissatisfaction of mine with
you, personally or officially. Your uniform kindness has been
unsurpassed by that of any friend." Mr. Blair immediately relieved the
President from the embarrassing situation, and he and his family behaved
afterward with honorable spirit, giving loyal support to Mr. Lincoln
during the rest of the campaign. Ex-Governor Dennison of Ohio was
appointed to the vacant office.
[Illustration: M. Blair]
Many and various were the other opportunities which the President was
urged to seize for helping both himself and other Republican
candidates. But he steadfastly declined to get into the mud of the
struggle. It was a jest of the campaign that Senator King was sent by
some New York men to ask whether Lincoln meant to support the Republican
ticket. He did: he openly admitted that he believed his reëlection to be
for the best interest of the country. As an honest man he could not
think otherwise. "I am for the regular nominee in all cases," he bluntly
said, in reply to a request for his interference concerning a member of
Congress; and the general principle covered, of course, his own case. To
the postmaster of Philadelphia, however, whose employees displayed
suspicious Republican unanimity, he administered a sharp and imperious
warning. He even would not extend to his close and valued friend, Mr.
Arnold, assistance which that gentleman too sorely needed. More
commendable still was his behavior as to the draft. On July 18, as has
been said, he issued a call for 500,000 men, though at that time he
might well have believed that by so doing he was burying beyond
resurrection all chance of reëlection. Later the Republican leaders
entreated him, with earnest eloquence and every melancholy presage, to
suspend the drafting under this call for a few weeks only. It seemed to
him, however, that the army could not wait a few weeks. "What is the
presidency worth to me, if I have no country?" he said; and the storm of
persuasion could not induce him to issue the postponing order.
Campaign slanders were rife as usual. One of them Mr. Lincoln cared to
contradict. Some remarks made by Mr. Seward in a speech at Auburn had
been absurdly construed by Democratic orators and editors to indicate
that Mr. Lincoln, if defeated at the polls, would use the remainder of
his term for doing what he could to ruin the government. This vile
charge, silly as it was, yet touched a very sensitive spot. On October
19, in a speech to some serenaders, and evidently having this in mind,
he said:--
"I am struggling to maintain the government, not to overthrow it. I am
struggling especially to prevent others from overthrowing it.... Whoever
shall be constitutionally elected in November shall be duly installed as
President on the fourth of March.... In the interval I shall do my
utmost that whoever is to hold the helm for the next voyage shall start
with the best possible chance to save the ship. This is due to the
people both on principle and under the Constitution.... If they should
deliberately resolve to have immediate peace, even at the loss of their
country and their liberty, I know [have?] not the power or the right to
resist them. It is their business, and they must do as they please with
their own."
In this connection it is worth while to recall an incident which
occurred on August 26, amid the dark days. Anticipating at that time
that he might soon be compelled to encounter the sore trial of
administering the government during four months in face of its near
transmission to a successor all whose views and purposes would be
diametrically opposite to his own, and desiring beforehand clearly to
mark out his duty in this stress, Mr. Lincoln one day wrote these
words:--
"This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that
this administration will not be reëlected. Then it will be my duty to so
cooperate with the President-elect as to save the Union between the
election and the inauguration, as he will have secured his election on
such ground that he cannot possibly save it afterwards."
He then closed the paper so that it could not be read, and requested
each member of the cabinet to sign his name on the reverse side.
In the end, honesty was vindicated as the best policy, and courage as
the soundest judgment. The preliminary elections in Vermont and Maine in
September, the important elections in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana in
October, showed that a Republican wave was sweeping across the North. It
swept on and gathered overwhelming volume in the brief succeeding
interval before November 8. On that momentous day, the voting in the
States showed 2,213,665 Republican votes, to which were added 116,887
votes of soldiers in the field, electing 212 presidential electors;
1,802,237 Democratic votes, to which were added 33,748 votes of soldiers
in the field, electing 21 presidential electors. Mr. Lincoln's plurality
was therefore 494,567; and it would have been swelled to over half a
million had not the votes of the soldiers of Vermont, Kansas, and
Minnesota arrived too late to be counted, and had not those of Wisconsin
been rejected for an informality. Thus were the dreary predictions of
the midsummer so handsomely confuted that men refused to believe that
they had ever been deceived by them.
On the evening of election day Mr. Lincoln went to the War Department,
and there stayed until two o'clock at night, noting the returns as they
came assuring his triumph and steadily swelling its magnitude. Amid the
good news his feelings took on no personal complexion. A crowd of
serenaders, meeting him on his return to the White House, demanded a
speech. He told them that he believed that the day's work would be the
lasting advantage, if not the very salvation, of the country, and that
he was grateful for the people's confidence; but, he said, "if I know my
heart, my gratitude is free from any taint of personal triumph. I do not
impugn the motives of any one opposed to me. It is no pleasure to me to
triumph over any one; 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." A hypocrite would, probably enough, have said much
the same thing; but when Mr. Lincoln spoke in this way, men who were
themselves honest never charged him with hypocrisy. On November 10 a
serenade by the Republican clubs of the District called forth this:--
"It has long been a grave question whether any government, not too
strong for the liberties of its people, can be strong enough to maintain
its own existence in great emergencies. On this point the present
rebellion brought our republic to a severe test, and a presidential
election occurring in regular course during the rebellion added not a
little to the strain. If the loyal people united were put to the utmost
of their strength by the rebellion, must they not fail when divided and
partially paralyzed by a political war among themselves? But the
election was a necessity. We cannot have free government without
elections; and if the rebellion could force us to forego or postpone a
national election, it might fairly claim to have already conquered and
ruined us. The strife of the election is but human nature practically
applied to the facts of the case. What has occurred in this case must
ever recur in similar cases. Human nature will not change. In any future
great national trial, compared with the men of this, we shall have as
weak and as strong, as silly and as wise, as bad and as good. Let us,
therefore, study the incidents of this, as philosophy to learn wisdom
from, and none of them as wrongs to be revenged. But the election, along
with its incidental and undesirable strife, has done good, too. It has
demonstrated that a people's government can sustain a national election
in the midst of a great civil war. Until now, it has not been known to
the world that this was a possibility. It shows, also, how sound and
how strong we still are. It shows that, even among candidates of the
same party, he who is most devoted to the Union and most opposed to
treason can receive most of the people's votes. It shows, also, to the
extent yet known, that we have more men now than we had when the war
began. Gold is good in its place; but living, brave, patriotic men are
better than gold.
"But the rebellion continues; and, now that the election is over, 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 shall strive to
avoid placing any 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 reëlection, and duly grateful, as I
trust, to Almighty God for having directed my countrymen to a right
conclusion, as I think, for their own good, it adds nothing to my
satisfaction that any other man may be disappointed or pained by the
result.
"May I ask those who have not differed with me to join with me in this
same spirit towards those who have? And now let me close by asking three
hearty cheers for our brave soldiers and seamen, and their gallant and
skillful commanders."
* * * * *
The unfortunate disputes about reconstruction threatened to cause
trouble at the counting of the votes in Congress. Of the States which
had seceded, two, Arkansas and Tennessee, had endeavored to reconstruct
themselves as members of the Union; and their renewed statehood had
received some recognition from the President. He, however, firmly
refused to listen to demands, which were urgently pushed, to obtain his
interference in the arrangements made for choosing presidential
electors. To certain Tennesseeans, who sent him a protest against the
action of Governor Johnson, he replied that, "by the Constitution and
the laws, the President is charged with no duty in the conduct of a
presidential election in any State; nor do I in this case perceive any
military reason for his interference in the matter.... It is scarcely
necessary to add that if any election shall be held, and any votes shall
be cast, in the State of Tennessee, ... it will belong not to the
military agents, nor yet to the executive department, but exclusively to
another department of the government, to determine whether they are
entitled to be counted, in conformity with the Constitution and laws of
the United States." His prudent abstention from stretching his official
authority afterward saved him from much embarrassment in the turn which
this troublesome business soon took. In both Arkansas and Tennessee
Republican presidential electors were chosen, who voted, and sent on to
Washington the certificates of their votes to be counted in due course
with the rest. But Congress jealously guarded its position on
reconstruction against this possible flank movement, and in January,
1865, passed a joint resolution declaring that Virginia, North and South
Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas,
Arkansas, and Tennessee were in such a condition on November 8 that no
valid election of presidential electors was held in any of them, and
that therefore no electoral votes should be received or counted from any
of them. When this resolution came before Mr. Lincoln for his signature
it placed him in an embarrassing position, because his approval might
seem to be an implied contradiction of the position which he had taken
concerning the present status of Tennessee and Arkansas. It was not
until February 8, the very day of the count, that he conquered his
reluctance, and when at last he did so and decided to sign the
resolution, he at the same time carefully made his position plain by a
brief message. He said that he conceived that Congress had lawful power
to exclude from the count any votes which it deemed illegal, and that
therefore he could not properly veto a joint resolution upon the
subject; he disclaimed "all right of the executive to interfere in any
way in the matter of canvassing or counting electoral votes;" and he
also disclaimed that, by signing the resolution, he had "expressed any
opinion on the recitals of the preamble, or any judgment of his own upon
the subject of the resolution." That is to say, the especial matter
dealt with in this proceeding was _ultra vires_ of the executive, and
the formal signature of the President was affixed by him without
prejudice to his official authority in any other business which might
arise concerning the restored condition of statehood.
When the counting of the votes began, the members of the Senate and
House did not know whether Mr. Lincoln had signed the resolution or not;
and therefore, in the doubt as to what his action would be, the famous
twenty-second joint rule, regulating the counting of electoral votes,
was drawn in haste and passed with precipitation.[76] It was an instance
of angry partisan legislation, which threatened trouble afterward and
was useless at the time. No attempt was made to present or count the
votes of Arkansas and Tennessee, and the president of the Senate acted
under the joint resolution and not under the joint rule. Yet the vote of
West Virginia was counted, and it was not easy to show that her title
was not under a legal cloud fully as dark as that which shadowed
Arkansas and Tennessee.
* * * * *
When Mr. Lincoln said concerning his reëlection, that the element of
personal triumph gave him no gratification, he spoke far within the
truth. He was not boasting of, but only in an unintentional way
displaying, his dispassionate and impersonal habit in all political
relationships,--a distinguishing trait, of which history is so chary of
parallels that perhaps no reader will recall even one. A striking
instance of it occurred in this same autumn. On October 12, 1864, the
venerable Chief Justice Taney died, and at once the friends of Mr. Chase
named him for the succession. There were few men whom Mr. Lincoln had
less reason to favor than this gentleman, who had only condescended to
mitigate severe condemnation of his capacity by mild praise of his
character, who had hoped to displace him from the presidency, and who,
in the effort to do so, had engaged in what might have been stigmatized
even as a cabal. Plenty of people were ready to tell him stories
innumerable of Chase's hostility to him, and contemptuous remarks about
him; but to all such communications he quietly refused to give ear. What
Mr. Chase thought or felt concerning him was not pertinent to the
question whether or no Chase would make a good chief justice. Yet it was
true that Montgomery Blair would have liked the place, and the President
had many personal reasons for wishing to do a favor to Blair. It was
also true that the opposition to Mr. Chase was so bitter and came from
so many quarters, and was based on so many alleged reasons, that had the
President chosen to prefer another to him, it would have been impossible
to attribute the preference to personal prejudice. In his own mind,
however, Mr. Lincoln really believed that, in spite of all the
objections which could be made, Mr. Chase was the best man for the
position; and his only anxiety was that one so restless and ambitious
might still scheme for the presidency to the inevitable prejudice of his
judicial duties. He had some thought of speaking frankly with Chase on
this subject, perhaps seeking something like a pledge from him; but he
was deterred from this by fear of misconstruction. Finally having, after
his usual fashion, reached his own conclusion, and communicated it to no
one, he sent the nomination to the Senate, and it received the honor of
immediate confirmation without reference to a committee.
FOOTNOTES:
[73] The rank had been held by Washington; also, but by brevet only, by
Scott.
[74] For curious account of his interview with Mr. Lincoln, see N. and
H. viii. 340-342.
[75] In this connection, see story of General Richard Taylor, and
contradiction thereof, concerning choice of route to Richmond, N. and H.
viii. 343.
[76] This was the rule which provided that if, at the count, any
question should arise as to counting any vote offered, the Senate and
House should separate, and each should vote on the question of receiving
or not receiving the vote; and it should not be received and counted
except by concurrent assent.