Lincoln's Mentors

by Michael J. Gerhardt

  With greater brevity, now President Lincoln declared in a steady voice, “I therefore consider that, in the view of the Constitution and the laws, the Union is unbroken; and, to the extent of my ability, I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States.”54 Drawing on Jackson’s widely accepted view of the president as an agent of the people, Lincoln continued, “Doing this I deem to be only a simple duty on my part; and I shall perform it, so far as practicable, unless my rightful masters, the American people, shall withhold the requisite means, or, in some authoritative manner, direct the contrary.”55

  Jackson had ended his proclamation by declaring that whether conflict would result from the nullification effort was up to South Carolina. “There is yet time,” he pleaded, “to show that the descendants” of the great leaders from South Carolina that had joined the American Revolution, “will not abandon that Union, to support which so many of them fought and bled and died. I adjure you . . . to retrace your steps.”56

  In a similar vein, Lincoln concluded thus: “Fellow-citizens! the momentous case is before you. On your undivided support of your Government depends the decision of the great question it involves, whether your sacred Union will be preserved, and the blessing it secures to us as one people shall be perpetuated.”57 Lincoln again reminded Americans that whether there would be bloodshed was up to those pressing for secession. “In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen,” he told the people of the South, “and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict, without being yourselves the aggressors.”58

  In his final Senate oration Clay had appealed “to all the South” and for the country “to elevate ourselves to the dignity of pure and disinterested patriots.”59 Clay called upon both sides to forget the “bitter words, bitter thoughts [and] unpleasant feelings” in their debate over the great compromise.60 “Let us go,” he admonished them, “to the altar of our country and swear, as the oath was taken of old, that we will stand by her; we will support her; that we will uphold her Constitution; that we will preserve her Union.” Now Lincoln twice invoked past patriots as reminders of the sacrifices made on behalf of the Union by asking, “To those, however, who really love the Union may I not speak?”61

  Having immersed himself in the records of the founding, Lincoln mentioned “precedent” three times in asking all the key players in the national drama to think hard about the consequences of their actions. Lincoln asked a series of questions, urging Clay-like caution: “Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better, or equal hope, in the world? In our present differences, is either party without faith of being in the right?”62

  In his character, acting abruptly was less an option for Lincoln than for either Jackson (who used his mercurial temper to intimidate people) or Clay (whose eagerness to please sank his chances in the 1844 presidential election). Lincoln said, “If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied, hold the right side in the dispute, there still is no good single reason for precipitate action.”63 Instead, he urged, in an appeal reminiscent of Clay: “Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him, who has not yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to adjust, in the best way, all our present difficulty.”64 Unlike Clay, Lincoln did not use the word compromise at the beginning of his great speech, but he held open its prospects by devoting eight of the first nine paragraphs of his address to reiterating his determination not to force the end of the institution of slavery. No one could miss his point—indeed, that was his point. Lincoln would not make Polk’s mistake of lying about who fired the shot that started a war. Instead, Lincoln let the world know that it was entirely up to the Southern states to decide whether or not there would be a conflict.

  Clay famously declared that the compromise he proposed “is the re-union of this Union. I believe it is the dove of peace, which, taking its serial flight from the dome of the Capitol, carries the glad tidings of assured peace and restored harmony to all the remotest extremities of this distracted land.”65 Lincoln’s more famous conclusion dropped Clay’s well-worn use of the dove of peace as well as the word harmony, though harmony was the theme of his address. Browning and Seward had worked on his message, but they could not match Lincoln in the precision and elegance of his language. He concluded:

  We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.66

  III

  * * *

  Of course, an Inaugural Address is just one thing every president has to do. A more fundamental task was to figure out how to act as the president. The only chances Lincoln had to observe a president in action were when he watched Polk for two years and the day of Taylor’s inauguration, when he briefly saw both him and Taylor together. Lincoln had the sophistication and intelligence to find some things he could learn from Polk, particularly his hard work ethic, announcing his goals clearly, sparingly sharing the strategies on how to achieve those goals, and monitoring his subordinates to ensure they were doing what he wanted done. Having condemned Polk for his deceptions and watched from afar as the corruption of Taylor’s Cabinet nearly brought down his administration, Lincoln was determined to keep faith with the American people by being a model of integrity. The country had had to endure the divisive, mean-spirited rhetoric of all the Democratic presidents in Lincoln’s lifetime—Jackson, Polk, Pierce, Buchanan. Lincoln’s job was to bring people together, not turn them against each other. That called for a tone of moderation.

  Perhaps most important, Lincoln understood that, as president, he had to be a model for all Americans, not just for the present generation, but also for those who followed. When he was repeatedly being admonished to be like Jackson, he took that to mean that he had to find a way to be himself but limit his propensity for compromise, not relenting on his determination to keep the Union intact, rising to the occasion, defending the Constitution, and being responsible and attentive to all Americans, not just his friends and fellow Republicans. Lincoln had to find a way to be Lincoln but act like Jackson.

  Finding his way took time and effort. For many observers, the election had made Lincoln humbler and more serious. The time was over for his biting wit, ridicule, off-color jokes, saucy stories, and partisan sniping. “Even before his inauguration,” it was reported, “Abe is becoming more grave. He doesn’t construct as many jokes as he did.” His first crucial speeches—his Inaugural Address and mid-March message opening Congress’s special session on the war—“were marked by an earnest appeal to patriotism and a sober explanation of why the rebellion had to be put down; only some quaint expressions and an occasional touch of irony hinted at the author’s underlying sense of humor.”67 Lincoln stuck with the same strategies that had gotten him this far, particularly at the convention—listening carefully and patiently to all who sought his counsel or were giving theirs to him, treating everyone with respect, being honest rather than crafty as Polk and Jackson had often been, gathering as much data as he could before making decisions, taking no single person as a confidant but instead tasking several of them with the same mission to ensure the job got done, and standing firm, when he had to, like Jackson and Clay in defending the Union.

  If Lincoln failed, his mistakes would become lessons to avoid for his successors, assuming there would be any. If he succeeded, his achievements would be sung for the ages. Either way, history was the judge—a theme he repeatedly emphasized throughout his life. His friend Joshua Speed recalled Lincoln’s letter, written in the depths of his despair in 1841, “that he had done nothing to make any human being remembe
r that he had lived—and that to connect his name with the events transpiring in his day & generation and so impress himself upon them as to link his name with something that would redound to the interest of his fellow man what he desired to live for.”68 In 1858, Lincoln had observed,

  In the first place, let us see what influence [Douglas] is exerting on public opinion. In this and like communities, public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed. Consequently, he who molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions. He makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to be executed.69

  In his narrative, he was the man at the center of the storm, the man whose charge was to lead the country out of harm’s way or die trying. Long after he was gone, people would be reading his story, as he had read and reread Washington’s. In his story, Lincoln would be what Clay had helped him to be—the ultimate manifestation of the self-made man, who had risen from “humble” beginnings to the highest office in the land. In this story, Lincoln was the hero, even if it killed him. The most important thing was how he would be remembered, Lincoln often said. Later, in the thick of the war in 1862, he told Congress, “In times like the present men should utter nothing for which they would not willingly be responsible through time and in eternity.”70

  Much of Lincoln’s days were structured, which irritated him when he felt too constrained but pleased him when it gave him something worthwhile to do. With the Inaugural Address done, the next business on his agenda was to meet with his Cabinet. (In those days, the White House was open to the public and, like the presidents preceding him, he had to thread his way through people lobbying for appointments whenever he ventured into public areas.) After many twists and turns, he had settled on the seven men who were on his list all along, reshuffling them until he finally found the combination that suited his desires and their ambitions. Finalizing the Cabinet was Lincoln’s strongest demonstration of, as then New York senator William Marcy memorably put it in 1828, “the Jackson ‘doctrine’ that to the victors belong the spoils[,] universally the creed of all politicians.”

  A long-standing tradition in American politics held that the “most prominent” remaining member of the victorious party should be offered the State Department. In 1824, Adams offered that post to Henry Clay, just as Jefferson had appointed his preferred successor, James Madison, in 1808 and Madison in turn had appointed his onetime rival James Monroe to it in 1816. Everyone, including Lincoln, knew that Seward was the logical choice, and though bitter after the election, Seward grudgingly agreed to exchange letters with Lincoln. Knowing Hannibal Hamlin, his vice president, had been good friends with Seward in the Senate, Lincoln asked him to hand Seward a letter. It read, “With your permission, I shall, at the proper time, nominate you to the Senate, for confirmation, as Secretary of State for the United States.”71 Lincoln later told Weed, men “[like] a compliment.”72 But, Weed told Lincoln he thought while Seward had earned the post, he would decline it, as Seward did in response to the letter given to him by Hamlin. Weed reminded Lincoln that when William Henry Harrison had been elected president in 1840, Harrison had traveled to Clay’s home for advice. Lincoln might have known the truth, which was quite different—Harrison tried mightily to avoid Clay during the transition, because he did not want to be cornered into giving Clay power over his administration. When Harrison traveled to Kentucky to speak with friendly crowds and supporters, Clay was already lying in wait for him. The conversation did not go well. Clay stormed out when Harrison insisted that he, not Clay, was the president. Weed urged Lincoln to do the same, and travel to Seward’s home in Auburn, New York. Gideon Welles said, “Mr. Lincoln declined to imitate Harrison.”73

  Instead, Lincoln kept up his correspondence with Seward, and slowly, letter by letter, coaxed him into a political friendship they both began to enjoy. Seward warmed up when Lincoln sent a personal note asking him for his help in selecting the rest of the Cabinet. Unhelpfully, he replied with an ultimatum for taking the job—denying Chase, Blair, and Welles anything in the Cabinet. Having once been Democrats, Seward distrusted them all. Lincoln ignored the demand, telling Nicolay he could not “afford to let Seward to take the first trick.”74 After the inaugural ceremonies on March 4, 1860, Lincoln again approached Seward, again with a compliment, that he needed him as secretary of state. The personal touch made the difference, and Seward agreed. Seward could not sit on the sidelines with the fate of the country at stake, and Lincoln did not want him there beyond his control.

  Lincoln planned to fill his Cabinet partly with men from states he needed to win again. Welles, from New England, fit the bill. Having once been a close ally of Martin Van Buren, he became a Republican, opposed to slavery and a supporter of Lincoln throughout the presidential election. Welles came with considerable credibility as a reasonable man with good judgment and experience, as a former newspaper reporter, Connecticut comptroller, and Jacksonian Democrat, who left the party to protest the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Lincoln called him Father Neptune because he was big, burly, and had the longest beard Lincoln had ever seen and thus reminded him of the King of the Sea. His experience as chief of the Bureau of Provisions and Clothing for the Navy under Polk made him a logical choice for Navy Secretary. Lincoln loved having Father Neptune nearby; Welles enjoyed Lincoln’s stories more than anyone else in the Cabinet.

  Coming from Ohio with a long record of opposing slavery, he seemed an inevitable choice, but Lincoln did not want him: a large man with an oversize ego, Chase had his followers, but most people found him overbearing. Yet Lincoln found Chase irresistible because Chase no more wanted Seward in the Cabinet than Seward wanted him. This made for a perfect match, in Lincoln’s judgment, as they would either balance or cancel each other out. Chase had just won a seat in the Senate and was reluctant to give it up. Again, it was a matter of coaxing. It became harder because Simon Cameron was telling newspapers Lincoln had offered him the post of secretary of the Treasury. Eventually, Lincoln convinced Chase to take the Treasury by presenting it as a chance to keep an eye on Seward.

  Slight, bespectacled, and with a beard that rivaled Welles’s, Edward Bates appealed to Lincoln for many reasons. He had been urged upon Lincoln by many friends in the Republican Party, especially Browning and Horace Greeley, who served briefly in the House of Representatives and was the powerful publisher of the New York Tribune (the most widely circulated newspaper in the United States at that time). Bates had been a Whig, like Lincoln, and had been offered but turned down Fillmore’s invitation to be his secretary of war. Since Lincoln wanted a Republican leader from the West in his Cabinet, Missouri’s Bates was perfect. Lincoln needed Missouri again in his corner. Bates had been Missouri attorney general and had a distinguished career in the Missouri bar; he seemed a perfect fit as U.S. attorney general.

  There were three posts left to fill. One was the Department of the Interior. With few clamoring for it, Lincoln thought of Caleb Smith. The two men had served together in the House, and Smith came from Indiana, another state he wanted to keep in his column. Lincoln, however, seemed to be one of the few men who thought Smith was up to the job—indeed, he hesitated because he agreed with Villard that Smith was not just dumb, but “worse than mediocrity.”75 He could not, however, ignore the debt he felt to him, because Indiana had come to his aid at the convention when he most needed it and Smith had been the man to make that happen. He needed a Midwesterner in the Cabinet. Smith was the man.

  Nor could Lincoln ignore Simon Cameron’s persistence in demanding a Cabinet post. Cameron felt entitled to the Treasury and insisted on reminding Lincoln at every opportunity that the post should be his, forcing Lincoln to tell him, “Since seeing you things have developed that make it impossible for me to take you into the Cabinet.”76 Ongoing rumors of his corruption made Lincoln less enthusiastic, but the constant pressure he felt from Pennsylvania because Cameron had campaigned around the state showing everyone Lincoln’s D
ecember 31 letter offering him a post (while concealing the January 3 letter rescinding it) shamed him into offering Cameron a Cabinet position. Mindful that he should avoid writing letters that could came back to haunt him, Lincoln grudgingly appointed the Pennsylvanian secretary of war.

  This left the position of postmaster general, perhaps the least prestigious Cabinet office, yet it was essential for ensuring communications with the army if war came. Lincoln chose Montgomery Blair, a member of the influential Blair family of Missouri. There was much to be said for Blair’s inclusion. He had been well respected as a lawyer, including as a counsel for Dred Scott. He had served in multiple offices before, including as a judge of the Court of Common Pleas, U.S. solicitor in the Court of Claims, and U.S. district attorney. Blair knew his way around government. The problem was that no one but Lincoln liked Montgomery Blair. A graduate of West Point, Blair wanted to be war secretary, but he was a notorious malcontent and contrarian, who, as the journalist Noah Brooks once wrote, “was a relentless mischief-maker, . . . and he was apparently never so happy as when he was in hot water or making it hot for others.”77 He quickly alienated nearly everyone he worked with in the new administration.

  It was no accident that more than half of Lincoln’s Cabinet had been Jacksonian Democrats. Though neither he nor the Blairs respected Franklin Pierce (much less agreed with him on anything), his was the only Cabinet yet in American history to have stayed intact for a president’s entire term. Its endurance lent the weak-willed Pierce a semblance of stability. Montgomery Blair’s brother, Francis Preston Blair Jr., recalled that Buchanan had “put in his cabinet his enemies—men who felt his nomination a blow to their ambitions.”78 He remembered that Buchanan also “named former Democratic presidential candidate Lewis Cass secretary of state, and Fillmore’s [Cabinet] had such luminaries as Daniel Webster, Thomas Corwin, and John Crittenden”79—the result hardly harmonious. Lincoln took a page from the experiences of both presidents. He had met Fillmore even before he became president in 1850 and met Buchanan at his own 1861 inauguration, making a total of five presidents he had met before he took the oath of office.80 He assembled a Cabinet of political leaders from throughout the nation and the political spectrum—with the obvious exception of extremist Democrats like Jefferson Davis, who had been sworn into the presidency of the Confederacy two weeks before Lincoln’s inauguration.