THE END COMES INTO SIGHT: THE SECOND INAUGURATION
When Congress came together in December, 1864, the doom of the
Confederacy was in plain view of all men, at the North and at the South.
If General Grant had sustained frightful losses without having won any
signal victory, yet the losses could be afforded; and the nature of the
man and his methods in warfare were now understood. It was seen that,
with or without victory, and at whatever cost, he had moved relentlessly
forward. His grim, irresistible persistence oppressed, as with a sense
of destiny, those who tried to confront it; every one felt that he was
going to "end the job." He was now beleaguering Petersburg, and few
Southerners doubted that he was sure of taking it and Richmond. In the
middle country Sherman, after taking Atlanta, had soon thereafter
marched cheerily forth on his imposing, theatrical, holiday excursion to
the sea, leaving General Thomas behind him to do the hard fighting with
General Hood. The grave doubt as to whether too severe a task had not
been placed upon Thomas was dispelled by the middle of the month, when
his brilliant victory at Nashville so shattered the Southern army that
it never again attained important proportions. In June preceding, the
notorious destroyer, the Alabama, had been sunk by the Kearsarge. In
November the Shenandoah, the last of the rebel privateers, came into
Liverpool, and was immediately handed over by the British authorities to
Federal officials; for the Englishmen had at last found out who was
going to win in the struggle. In October, the rebel ram Albemarle was
destroyed by the superb gallantry of Lieutenant Cushing. Thus the rebel
flag ceased to fly above any deck. Along the coast very few penetrable
crevices could still be found even by the most enterprising
blockade-runners; and already the arrangements were making which brought
about, a month later, the capture of Fort Fisher and Wilmington.
Under these circumstances the desire to precipitate the pace and to
reach the end with a rush possessed many persons of the nervous and
eager type. They could not spur General Grant, so they gave their
vexatious attention to the President, and endeavored to compel him to
open with the Confederate government negotiations for a settlement,
which they believed, or pretended to believe, might thus be attained.
But Mr. Lincoln was neither to be urged nor wheedled out of his simple
position. In his message to Congress he referred to the number of votes
cast at the recent election as indicating that, in spite of the drain of
war, the population of the North had actually increased during the
preceding four years. This fact shows, he said, "that we are not
exhausted nor in process of exhaustion; that we are _gaining_ strength,
and may, if need be, maintain the contest indefinitely. This as to men.
Material resources are now more complete and abundant than ever. The
natural resources, then, are unexhausted, and, as we believe,
inexhaustible. The public purpose to reëstablish and maintain the
national authority is unchanged, and, as we believe, unchangeable. The
manner of continuing the effort remains to choose. On careful
consideration of all the evidence accessible, it seems to me that no
attempt at negotiation with the insurgent leader could result in any
good. He would accept nothing short of severance of the
Union,--precisely what we will not and cannot give. His declarations to
this effect are explicit and oft-repeated. He does not attempt to
deceive us. He affords us no excuse to deceive ourselves. He cannot
voluntarily re-accept the Union; we cannot voluntarily yield it. Between
him and us the issue is distinct, simple, and inflexible. It is an issue
which can only be tried by war, and decided by victory. If we yield, we
are beaten; if the Southern people fail him, he is beaten. Either way,
it would be the victory and defeat following war.
"What is true, however, of him who heads the insurgent cause is not
necessarily true of those who follow. Although he cannot re-accept the
Union, they can; some of them, we know, already desire peace and
reunion. The number of such may increase. They can at any moment have
peace simply by laying down their arms and submitting to the national
authority under the Constitution.
"After so much, the government could not, if it would, maintain war
against them. The loyal people would not sustain or allow it. If
questions should remain, we would adjust them by the peaceful means of
legislation, conference, courts, and votes, operating only in
constitutional and lawful channels. Some certain, and other possible,
questions are, and would be, beyond the executive power to adjust,--as,
for instance, the admission of members into Congress, and whatever might
require the appropriation of money.
"The executive power itself would be greatly diminished by the cessation
of actual war. Pardons and remissions of forfeitures, however, would
still be within executive control. In what spirit and temper this
control would be exercised can be fairly judged of by the past."
If rebels wished to receive, or any Northerners wished to extend, a
kindlier invitation homeward than this, then such rebels and such
Northerners were unreasonable. Very soon the correctness of Mr.
Lincoln's opinion was made so distinct, and his view of the situation
was so thoroughly corroborated, that all men saw clearly that no
reluctance or unreasonable demands upon his part contributed to delay
peace. Mr. Francis P. Blair, senior, though in pursuit of a quite
different object, did the service of setting the President in the true
and satisfactory light before the people. This restless politician was
anxious for leave to seek a conference with Jefferson Davis, but could
not induce Mr. Lincoln to hear a word as to his project. On December 8,
however, by personal insistence, he extorted a simple permit "to pass
our lines, go South, and return." He immediately set out on his journey,
and on January 12 he had an interview with Mr. Davis at Richmond and
made to him a most extraordinary proposition, temptingly decorated with
abundant flowers of rhetoric. Without the rhetoric, the proposition was:
that the pending war should be dropped by both parties for the purpose
of an expedition to expel Maximilian from Mexico, of which tropical
crusade Mr. Davis should be in charge and reap the glory! So ardent and
so sanguine was Mr. Blair in his absurd project, that he fancied that he
had impressed Mr. Davis favorably. But in this undoubtedly he deceived
himself, for in point of fact he succeeded in bringing back nothing more
than a short letter, addressed to himself, in which Mr. Davis expressed
willingness to appoint and send, or to receive, agents "with a view to
secure peace to the two countries." The last two words lay in this rebel
communication like the twin venom fangs in the mouth of a serpent, and
made of it a proposition which could not safely be touched. It served
only as distinct proof that the President had correctly stated the
fixedness of Mr. Davis.
Of more consequence, however, than this useless letter was the news
which Mr. Blair brought: that other high officials in Richmond--"those
who follow," as Mr. Lincoln had hopefully said--were in a temper far
more despondent and yielding than was that of their chief. These men
might be reached. So on January 18, 1865, Mr. Lincoln wrote a few lines,
also addressed to Mr. Blair, saying that he was ready to receive any
Southern agent who should be informally sent to him, "with the view of
securing peace to the people of our one common country." The two
letters, by their closing words, locked horns. Yet Mr. Davis nominated
Alexander H. Stephens, R.M.T. Hunter, and John A. Campbell, as informal
commissioners, and directed them, "in conformity with the letter of Mr.
Lincoln," to go to Washington and informally confer "for the purpose of
securing peace to the two countries." This was disingenuous, and so
obviously so that it was also foolish; for no conference about "two
countries" was "in conformity" with the letter of Mr. Lincoln. By reason
of the difficulty created by this silly trick the commissioners were
delayed at General Grant's headquarters until they succeeded in
concocting a note, which eliminated the obstacle by the simple process
of omitting the objectionable words. Then, on January 31, the President
sent Mr. Seward to meet them, stating to him in writing "that three
things are indispensable, to wit: 1. The restoration of the national
authority throughout all the States. 2. No receding by the executive of
the United States on the slavery question from the position assumed
thereon in the late annual message to Congress, and in preceding
documents. 3. No cessation of hostilities short of an end of the war and
the disbanding of all forces hostile to the government. You will inform
them that all propositions of theirs, not inconsistent with the above,
will be considered and passed upon in a spirit of sincere liberality.
You will hear all they may choose to say, and report it to me. You will
not assume to definitely consummate anything."
The following day Mr. Lincoln seemed to become uneasy at being
represented by any other person whomsoever in so important a business;
for he decided to go himself and confer personally with the Southerners.
Then ensued, and continued during four hours, on board a steamer in
Hampton Roads, the famous conference between the President and his
secretary of state on the one side and the three Confederate
commissioners on the other. It came to absolutely nothing; nor was there
at any time pending its continuance any chance that it would come to
anything. Mr. Lincoln could neither be led forward nor cajoled sideways,
directly or indirectly, one step from the primal condition of the
restoration of the Union. On the other hand, this was the one
impossible thing for the Confederates. The occasion was historic, and
yet, in fact, it amounted to nothing more than cumulative evidence of a
familiar fact, and really its most interesting feature is that it gave
rise to one of the best of the "Lincoln stories." The President was
persisting that he could not enter into any agreement with "parties in
arms against the government;" Mr. Hunter tried to persuade him to the
contrary, and by way of doing so, cited precedents "of this character
between Charles I. of England and the people in arms against him." Mr.
Lincoln could not lose such an opportunity! "I do not profess," he said,
"to be posted in history. On all such matters I will turn you over to
Seward. All I distinctly recollect about the case of Charles I. is,
_that he lost his head_!" Then silence fell for a time upon Mr. Hunter.
Across the wide chasm of the main question the gentlemen discussed the
smaller topics: reconstruction, concerning which Mr. Lincoln expressed
his well-known, most generous sentiments; confiscation acts, as to which
also he desired to be, and believed that Congress would be, liberal; the
Emancipation Proclamation, and the Thirteenth Amendment, concerning
which he said, that the courts of law must construe the proclamation,
and that he personally should be in favor of appropriating even so much
as four hundred millions of dollars to extinguish slavery, and that he
believed such a measure might be carried through. West Virginia, in his
opinion, must continue to be a separate State. Yet there was little
practical use in discussing, and either agreeing or disagreeing, about
all these dependent parts; they were but limbs which it was useless to
set in shape while the body was lacking. Accordingly the party broke up,
not having found, nor having ever had any prospect of finding, any
common standing-ground. The case was simple; the North was fighting for
Union, the South for disunion, and neither side was yet ready to give up
the struggle. Nevertheless, it is not improbable that Mr. Lincoln, so
far as he personally was concerned, brought back from Hampton Roads all
that he had expected and precisely what he had hoped to bring. For in
the talk of those four hours he had recognized the note of despair, and
had seen that Mr. Davis, though posing still in an imperious and
monumental attitude, was, in fact, standing upon a disintegrated and
crumbling pedestal. It seemed not improbable that the disappointed
supporters of the rebel chief would gladly come back to the old Union if
they could be fairly received, although at this conference they had felt
compelled by the exigencies of an official situation and their
representative character to say that they would not. Accordingly Mr.
Lincoln, having no idea that a road to hearty national re-integration
either should or could be overshadowed by Caudine forks, endeavored to
make as easy as possible the return of discouraged rebels, whether
penitent or impenitent. If they were truly penitent, all was as it
should be. If they were impenitent, he was willing to trust to time to
effect a change of heart. Accordingly he worked out a scheme whereby
Congress should empower him to distribute between the slave States
$400,000,000, in proportion to their respective slave populations, on
condition that "all resistance to the national authority [should] be
abandoned and cease on or before the first day of April next;" one half
the sum to be paid when such resistance should so cease; the other half
whenever, on or before July 1 next, the Thirteenth Amendment should
become valid law. So soon as he should be clothed with authority, he
proposed to issue "a proclamation looking to peace and reunion," in
which he would declare that, upon the conditions stated, he would
exercise this power; that thereupon war should cease and armies be
reduced to a peace basis; that all political offenses should be
pardoned; that all property, except slaves, liable to confiscation or
forfeiture, should be released therefrom (except in cases of intervening
interests of third parties); and that liberality should be recommended
to Congress upon all points not lying within executive control. On the
evening of February 5 he submitted to his cabinet a draft covering these
points. His disappointment may be imagined when he found that not one of
his advisers agreed with him; that his proposition was "unanimously
disapproved." "There may be such a thing," remarked Secretary Welles,
"as so overdoing as to cause a distrust or adverse feeling." It was also
said that the measure probably could not pass Congress; that to attempt
to carry it, without success, would do harm; while if the offer should
really be made, it would be misconstrued by the rebels. In fact scarcely
any Republican was ready to meet the rebels with the free and ample
forgiveness which Lincoln desired to offer; and later opinion seems to
be that his schemes were impracticable.
The fourth of March was close at hand, when Mr. Lincoln was a second
time to address the people who had chosen him to be their ruler. That
black and appalling cloud, which four years ago hung oppressively over
the country, had poured forth its fury and was now passing away. His
anxiety then had been lest the South, making itself deaf to reason and
to right, should force upon the North a civil war; his anxiety now was
lest the North, hardening itself in a severe if not vindictive temper,
should deal so harshly with a conquered South as to perpetuate a
sectional antagonism. To those who had lately come, bearing to him the
formal notification of his election, he had remarked: "Having served
four years in the depths of a great and yet unended national peril, I
can view this call to a second term in no wise more flattering to myself
than as an expression of the public judgment that I may better finish a
difficult work, in which I have labored from the first, than could any
one less severely schooled to the task." Now, mere conquest was not, in
his opinion, a finishing of the difficult work of restoring a Union.
The second inaugural was delivered from the eastern portico of the
Capitol, as follows:--
"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."
This speech has taken its place among the most famous of all the written
or spoken compositions in the English language. In parts it has often
been compared with the lofty portions of the Old Testament. Mr.
Lincoln's own contemporaneous criticism is interesting. "I expect it,"
he said, "to wear as well as, perhaps better than, anything I have
produced; but I believe it is not immediately popular. Men are not
flattered by being shown that there has been a difference of purpose
between the Almighty and them. To deny it, however, in this case is to
deny that there is a God governing the world. It is a truth which I
thought needed to be told; and as whatever of humiliation there is in it
falls most directly on myself, I thought others might afford for me to
tell it."