Lincoln now underlined the key words in his concluding sentences, which balanced each other almost musically: “In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free—honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best, hope of earth.”
In this remarkable message to Congress, Lincoln was crafting for his audience an alternative vision of reality. He asked his listeners to move beyond their limited worldviews and embrace a future that could not be fully known.
Lincoln’s new commander of the Army of the Potomac, Ambrose Burnside, after so many of McClellan’s delays, intended to attack. He set his sights on the well-fortified town of Fredericksburg. The boyhood home of George Washington and a center of activity in the Revolutionary War, Fredericksburg was about to become the site of one of the crucial battles of the Civil War.
Lincoln expressed skepticism of Burnside’s operational plans, but on November 14, Halleck wrote Burnside, “The President had just assented to your plan. He thinks it will succeed if you move rapidly; otherwise not.” Still not satisfied, Lincoln traveled down the Potomac to meet Burnside for a long conference. The president told Burnside that he needed to be sure his troops could cross the river “free from risk” and be sure that “the enemy … be prevented from falling back, accumulating strength as he goes, into his intrenchments at Richmond.”
Burnside did not proceed rapidly. A full one month later, at 3 a.m. on the morning of December 11, engineers finally began putting pontoon bridges in place over the frigid waters of the Rappahannock River directly across from the town. Ice glazed the river and fog obscured the view of the historic political and economic center that once numbered five thousand people. Burnside, who knew his army of one hundred fifteen thousand men outnumbered Lee’s eighty thousand, believed he would be victorious by sheer force of numbers. With plenty of advance notice of Burnside’s intentions, Lee ordered General James Longstreet’s forces into place on the heights of the south side of the town.
On December 13, Burnside, turning aside advice from senior officers that he cross the Rappahannock River south and north of Fredericks-burg, instead mounted a direct assault on the town. General George G. Meade made an initial advance against “Stonewall” Jackson’s Corp, but when Union forces attempted to storm Mayre’s Heights on the south side of the town, they were repelled with heavy losses. By December 15, the Union army was in full retreat back across the pontoon bridges, thereby admitting a devastating defeat. The loss of more than thirteen thousand casualties to the less than five thousand casualties of the Confederates told the grim story.
Many blamed Lincoln for compelling Burnside to fight, but “Old Burn” accepted responsibility for the defeat, something George McClellan would not have done. Lincoln, ever conscious of the morale of the troops, issued a proclamation hoping to take the edge off the defeat. “Although you were not successful, the attempt was not in error,” the President stated. “The courage with which you, in an open field, maintained the contest against an entrenched foe … shows that you possess all the qualities of a great army.”
THE MILITARY DEFEAT at Fredericksburg quickly became a flashpoint for smoldering political grievances. Radical Republicans in Congress believed the administration ought to be pursuing a more vigorous military policy or risk conservative Democratic pleas for a peace that would scuttle Lincoln’s plans for emancipation. Unable yet to lay a hand on the president, Radical Republicans took aim at Lincoln’s cabinet.
On Tuesday afternoon, December 16, Republican senators caucused for five hours. Illinois senator Lyman Trumbull, once Lincoln’s ally but increasingly his critic, started the discussion by arguing that “the recent repulse at Fredericksburg” called for Congressional action. Minnesota senator Morton Wilkinson decried that “the country was ruined and the cause was lost.” The agitation of the senators quickly focused on William Henry Seward, secretary of state, who they viewed as “President de facto.” One senator after another blamed Seward for the postponement in discharging General McClellan, the slowness in making the war a campaign against slavery, and the resurgence of conservatives in the 1862 elections. Tough-talking Maine senator William Pitt Fes-senden summarized the sentiment of many when he said he had been informed by a member of the cabinet that “there was a back-stairs influence which often controlled the apparent conclusions of the Cabinet itself.” It was common knowledge that the source of Fessenden’s remark was Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase. Old Ben Wade of Ohio proposed that the Senate “go in a body and demand of the President the dismissal of Mr. Seward.” At this point, Iowa Senator James W. Grimes offered a resolution expressing “a want of confidence in the Secretary of State, and that he ought to be removed from the Cabinet.”
In the midst of rising emotions, New York senator Preston King left the caucus early to proceed to Seward’s home and apprise him of what was afoot. Seward responded to King’s news: “They may do as they please about me, but they shall not put the President in a false position on my account.” The secretary of state wrote a letter of resignation, and King and Seward’s son Frederick walked to the White House to deliver it to the president.
Lincoln read Seward’s resignation “with a face full of pain and surprise” as King recounted the charges in the emotional Republican caucus. After reading Seward’s letter, Lincoln immediately walked to the secretary of state’s home on Lafayette Square. The president exerted all of his persuasion to talk his friend out of resigning. But it was no use. Seward told Lincoln he would be relieved to be freed of the burden and criticism stalking him day and night. Lincoln responded, “Ah, yes, Governor, that will do very well for you, but I am like the [caged] starling in [Laurence] Sterne’s story, ‘I can’t get out.’ ”
What was Lincoln to do? He understood that he was the real object of the radicals’ wrath. He also knew that if Seward’s imperious ways could be off-putting, he valued his enormous abilities and steadfast loyalty. Lincoln knew that even though the caucus involved only senators, behind their recriminations darts were being thrown at Seward and himself by Treasury Secretary Chase. Lincoln decided not to be put on the defensive, but to get out front in this cabinet crisis of leadership.
On December 17, the Republican senators met again, passed a slightly revised resolution, appointed a committee of nine, and re quested a meeting with the president. Not wishing to cause the wound at the heart of his cabinet to fester, Lincoln did not want delay and proposed that they meet with him the next evening at 7 p.m.
Shortly before the meeting on December 18, Senator Orville Browning, not a member of the committee, called on Lincoln at the White House. “I saw in a moment that he was in distress.” When Browning said that things could have been worse, Lincoln replied, “They wish to get rid of me, and I am sometimes half disposed to gratify them.”
Lincoln, keeping his distress under his green shawl, received the committee at 7 p.m. “with his usual urbanity” and listened to their litany of complaints. Ohio senator Ben Wade charged that the reason for the recent defeats of Republicans was because “the President had placed the direction of our military affairs in the hands of bitter and malignant Democrats,” a reference to George McClellan. But the real target was Seward, who the Committee of Nine impugned “was not in accord with the majority of Cabinet and exerted an injurious influence upon the conduct of the war.” Senator Charles Sumner complained about Seward’s handling of foreign affairs, singling out one memo where he seemed to put the mentality of the Congress and the Confederates on a similar plane. Lincoln mostly listened for three hours and told the committee he would respond to the paper they prepared which itemized their complaints. Lincoln’s goal was to calm some of the irritation which he did by his own open spirit to the senators.
Lincoln now moved to act quickly. He sent notices to each cabinet officer, except Seward, for a special meeting the next morning, December 20, at 10:30 a.m. He told the Cabinet the Senate movement to reconfigure his cabinet “had shocked and g
rieved him.” He informed them of Seward’s resignation. He told the cabinet, “While they seemed to believe in my honesty, they also appeared to think that when I had in me any good purpose or intention Seward contrived to suck it out of me unperceived.” Lincoln seemed particularly upset at the charge, obviously fomented by Chase that the cabinet did not work well together. Lincoln expressed his belief was that “the members had gone on harmoniously, whatever had been their previous feelings and associations.” He told them that in the midst of “the overwhelming troubles of the country, which had borne heavily upon him, he had been sustained and consoled by the good feeling and the mutual and unselfish confidence and zeal that pervaded the Cabinet.” Lincoln concluded the meeting by asking the Cabinet to join him for a scheduled meeting with the Committee of Nine that very evening. Everyone assented to his request except Chase, who, telling his colleagues “he had no movement whatever of the movement” against Seward, strongly objected to the joint meeting but reluctantly agreed to attend.
Lincoln’s decision to have the Committee of Nine and the Cabinet meet face to face and “discus their mutual misunderstanding under his own eye” exhibited his political genius. It was no longer possible to play the game of “he said,” no “he said.” Lincoln began this remarkable meeting by reading the resolutions of the Committee. Lincoln acknowledged that perhaps he should have called more cabinet meetings, but parried the charges of the Committee by affirming “the unity of his Cabinet.” He declared that “though they could not be expected to think and act alike on all subjects, they acquiesced in measures when decided.” The subtext of Lincoln’s remarks was that Seward made no decisions without the assent of the president and the Cabinet. The focus of many eyes was on Chase, not long before the haughty accuser of Seward, but now under Lincoln’s watchful eye suddenly cowed into silence and embarrassment. In the end Lincoln asked for a vote. “Do you, gentlemen, still think Seward ought to be excused?” Only four Senators—Grimes, Trumbull, Sumner, and Samuel Pomeroy of Kansas—voted yes. Secretary of the Navy Welles captured Lincoln’s leadership, confiding to his diary that “the President managed his own case, speaking freely, and showed great tact, shrewdness, and ability.” After five hours of discussion lasting until 1 a.m., Lincoln, having confronted the senators with the Cabinet, emerged as the strong conciliator of both groups.
But how was Lincoln to deal with Seward and Chase? The news of Seward’s resignation was spreading throughout Washington. The duplicitous behavior of Chase infuriated even those senators who had been his allies.
The next morning, December 20, Lincoln sent for Chase. When the secretary of the treasury arrived, Welles and Stanton were calling upon Lincoln on their own accord. When Chase entered, Lincoln said, “I sent for you, for this matter is giving me great trouble.” Chase replied that he “had been painfully affected” by the meeting the previous evening and now told the president he had “prepared his resignation.” “Where is it?” Lincoln asked, reaching out his hand to get hold of it. Chase, taken aback by Lincoln’s eagerness, held on momentarily to the sealed envelope. He surrendered the resignation, and Lincoln opened the envelope with a pleased expression on his face while Chase, usually filled with self-confidence, left Lincoln’s office deeply perplexed.
Later that morning Lincoln met with his Cabinet, minus Seward and Chase. After acknowledging Seward’s resignation, he held up Chase’s resignation. He then announced, “Now I have the biggest half of the hog. I shall accept neither resignation.”
That same day Lincoln wrote a letter to both Cabinet secretaries. He told them that for the sake of “the public interest” he had decided not to accept their resignations and “I therefore have to request that you will resume the duty of your Departments respectively.”
Lincoln emerged from this grave crisis in his inner government the conciliatory victor. He had listened with respect to the radicals, he had affirmed his cabinet, and he secured his own presidential prerogative. Welles, whose appreciation of Lincoln was growing, said it well. “Seward comforts him,—Chase he deems a necessity.” In the end he decided to continue with the service of two of his most talented cabinet secretaries.
This chromolithograph from 1863 portrays a homespun Lincoln working in an office cluttered with a bust of President James Buchanan and texts of states’ rights theories by John C. Calhoun and John Randolph. Lincoln rests his left hand on the Bible while heeding the injunction of President Andrew Jackson: “The Union Must & Shall Be Preserved.”
CHAPTER 22
What Will the Country Say? January 1863–May 1863
ALL PERSONS HELD AS SLAVES … SHALL BE THEN, THENCEFORWARD, AND FOREVER FREE.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Emancipation Proclamation, January 1, 1863
BRAHAM LINCOLN DID NOT GO TO BED ON NEW YEAR’S EVE. AS revelers celebrated in streets nearby, he paced back and forth on the White House second floor. For weeks he had been absorbed with finalizing the wording of his Emancipation Proclamation.
In the early hours of January 1, 1863, Lincoln walked from his bedroom in the west end of the White House to his office in the east end. He sat at the long oak table cluttered with rolled-up maps, newspapers, letters, and military orders, and reached for the proclamation that had become the subject of so much debate and controversy in recent months.
More than anyone, Lincoln understood the implications of the signing to take place that afternoon. The war had now convulsed the nation for more than two and a half years; some had started calling it “Mr. Lincoln’s war.” In the spring of 1861, most people in the North had predicted a quick victory, but the question on everyone’s mind now was: How long would this war go on?
As the first rays of sun came through his office’s east window, Lincoln reviewed three long pieces of paper, determined to revise the proclamation one more time before signing it. He studied again the central paragraph.
And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free, and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.
How long he had brooded over the decision about slavery announced in these words.
IN THE LAST WEEKS OF DECEMBER, critics had besieged Lincoln from all sides. He barely mentioned the proclamation in his annual message to Congress on December 1, 1862, and many wondered whether Lincoln still intended to hold fast to it. Abolitionists were acclaiming Lincoln’s initiative but grumbling that it did not go far enough. African-American leader Frederick Douglass wondered aloud, “What if the President fails in this trial hour, what if he now listens to the demon slavery—and rejects the entreaties of the Angel of Liberty?” Old-line Republican supporters were concerned about how the proclamation would affect the morale of troops, who, they repeated, had signed on to save the Union, not to free slaves. Emboldened by Democratic gains in the 1862 elections, Democratic newspapers, such as the Chicago Times, predicted that Lincoln would withdraw the final proclamation.
Republican senators Charles Sumner and Orville Browning offered opposite recommendations to Lincoln. On December 27, 1862, Sumner called on the president at the White House. He brought with him a memorial signed by ministers calling for him to “stand by” his proclamation. The Massachusetts senator talked with Lincoln about how many persons were “impatient” that the act be signed. Lincoln responded, he “could not stop the Proclamation if he would, & would not if he could.”
Browning, who always had personal access to the president, called at the White House to convey his belief that the proclamation “was fraught with evil … and would do much injury.” A conservative Republican, Browning had previously told the president that he believed the announcement of the proclamation in September was the main reason behind the disappointing biennial election results. Resigned to the fact that the president intended to s
ign it, Browning concluded his diary for 1862 with the words, “There is no hope. The proclamation will come—God grant it may not be productive of the mischief I fear.” Lincoln and Browning had enjoyed a close relationship in recent years, but their friendship would begin to cool once Lincoln signed the proclamation.
Early Monday morning, December 29, 1862, Lincoln assembled his notes and wrote a draft of the proclamation. He gave it to John Nicolay and asked his secretary to make printed copies for members of the cabinet. Lincoln convened his regular cabinet meeting at 10 a.m. He read aloud the final draft, asking the cabinet to make suggestions to him in writing. Secretary of State Seward expressed concern that the proclamation, which he supported in principle, would lead to a total collapse of order in the South. He recommended language urging the freed slaves “to abstain from all violence unless in necessary self-defense.” Treasury Secretary Chase presented a new preamble that was lengthier than Lincoln’s whole proclamation. Lincoln’s original manuscript copy has not survived, but the copies handed out to Seward, Chase, Edward Bates, and Montgomery Blair do, along with their comments.
On Wednesday, December 31, 1862, Lincoln, having read the cabinet members’ written responses, convened a special cabinet meeting to consider the proclamation a final time. Chase proposed adding a “felicitous” concluding sentence. He believed it important for Lincoln to offer justifications for this bold act beyond military necessity. He wanted Lincoln to invoke both the Constitution and God. Lincoln thanked them for their suggestions and told the cabinet “he would complete the document.”
After the meeting concluded, Lincoln greeted a committee of New York abolitionist ministers headed by George Cheever, pastor of the Church of the Puritans, who had authored God Against Slavery in 1857, and William Goodell, who had helped organize both the American Anti-Slavery Society and the Liberty Party. The ministers wanted some confirmation that Lincoln was actually going to sign the proclamation. Lincoln would only say, “Tomorrow at noon, you shall know—and the country shall know—my decision.”
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