The Confederates had asked for the meeting in response to a proposal presented to Jefferson Davis during a recent visit from Lincoln’s friend Francis Blair. Based on his discussion with Blair, Davis hoped a cease-fire could be arranged so the North and South could unite to stop the advance of French troops in Mexico.
Had Lincoln known that this was the Confederates’ main goal for the meeting, he would never have agreed to meet. Stephens’s mere mention of the French seemed to annoy him. He had sent word to his Union troops that these Southerners should not be permitted to cross Union lines unless they agreed to discuss only the terms of their surrender. Stephens, however, was unaware that Lincoln had set this precondition.
“Whatever Blair has said was on his own account,” Lincoln replied dismissively. “He had no authority to speak for me in any way whatever.”
Stephens pressed further. “But suppose that a line of policy should lead to a restoration of the Union without further bloodshed?” The meeting was just beginning, and already Lincoln was out of patience. He did not care about the French; all he cared about was ending the war.
“The existing difficulties [between the North and South] are of supreme importance,” Lincoln insisted. Then, something happened that must have immediately revealed to the Southerners the closeness of Lincoln and Seward’s relationship.
Recognizing Lincoln’s frustration with talk about Mexico, Campbell tried to change the topic by asking Lincoln to explain his strategy for reconstruction, but Seward refused to let Campbell interrupt. Instead, Seward insisted that Stephens be given a chance to fully develop his previous argument. Surprisingly, given his evident impatience with the topic, the president did not object. This was the first in a series of interactions between Lincoln and Seward that showed how they played off of each other. Lincoln listened patiently as Stephens repeated, at some length, what he had already said. The president was clearly uninterested in the subject of a short-term armistice, and Seward knew this, but Seward’s insistence that Stephens continue suggests that he saw an opportunity.
Lincoln’s acquiescing to a continuation of the discussion suggests that he suspected Seward was up to something. Nothing came of Stephens’s further elaboration, but if the Southern conferees wanted an example of how in tune Lincoln and Seward were, this was it. The moment was perhaps valuable to them for what it revealed about Seward and Lincoln—that the president was willing to take a back seat to his secretary of state if it might prove useful to the debate. Stephens, Hunter and Campbell got another chance to witness how Lincoln and his secretary of state related to each other when Stephens asked Lincoln about the Emancipation Proclamation: “Who was freed by the Emancipation and how will property holders be compensated for their loss? Could the document be changed?”
Nothing about the proclamation would be changed “in the slightest particular,” Lincoln asserted. He thought the issue of property would have to be settled by the courts. But, Lincoln added, the emancipation was an exercise of his wartime powers. If the war ended, the proclamation would be valid only in the territories that the Union controlled.
Then, Seward interjected in a way that suggests that he and Lincoln must have carefully planned this part of the discussion. Seward reminded their Southern guests that the proclamation, due to its specific language covering certain slave-holding states and not others, freed only two hundred thousand of the three million slaves in the country.27 If the war was ended by agreement, only those slaves will have been freed, said Seward, but if the war continued, all slaves would eventually be freed by force. To add a bit of drama, he then pulled from his pocket a copy of the Thirteenth Amendment.
Hunter, who had been a US senator and Speaker of the US House of Representatives before the war, replied with a provocative comment: “If you could use your war powers to free the slaves, you could use them to end the war and restore states’ rights.”
Looking at Stephens, Lincoln replied that were he the Confederate vice president, he would go back to Georgia, encourage the governor to rejoin the Union, recall the troops back to the state and convene the legislature to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment as quickly as possible. That way, emancipation could be delayed to some future date, so that all Georgians would have time to adjust. Seward quickly added that otherwise the amendment would be issued by force, and the impact on all parties would be abrupt. By following the president’s advice, Seward argued, the South would at least have some control over the process. Then Lincoln added a sweetener.
If the South returned to the Union, he said, Congress might be persuaded to compensate property holders for their losses. As much as $400 million might be appropriated for the purpose. Then, in what was either the first evidence of a disagreement between Seward and the president or a bit of theatrics for the benefit of their guests, the secretary of state rose from his chair and, in an apparent display of frustration, walked across the room while mumbling loud enough for all to hear, “The United States has already paid on that account.” Lincoln responded to Seward’s comments in a way that suggested he might have been sympathetic to the plight of the Southerners: “You may talk so about slavery if you will, but if it was wrong in the South to hold slaves, it was wrong in the North to carry on the slave trade and it would be wrong to hold onto the money that the North procured by selling slaves to the South without compensation if the North took the slaves back again.”
Refusing to take the bait, Hunter changed the subject. He asked Lincoln why it was that the South must surrender unconditionally before substantive discussions about power-sharing could begin: “Could not the North negotiate terms with the South the way that King Charles did during England’s Civil War?”
Lincoln reminded Hunter that at the end of that war, King Charles was beheaded. The Southerners could expect better treatment from Lincoln. “That is less than I can expect from the Southern leadership,” he joked.
Hunter pressed him: “What you are saying, Mr. President, is that we of the South have committed treason that we have forfeited our rights and that we are proper subjects for the hangman. Is that what your words imply?”
Lincoln’s response was short and to the point: “Yes, that’s about the size of it.”
Sensing that nothing more could—or should be said, Stephens called the meeting to a close. Looking at the vice president, Lincoln asked, “Well, there has been nothing we could do for our country. Is there anything I can do for you personally?”
As the men rose to leave, Stephens asked if his nephew could be freed from the prisoner-of-war camp on Lake Erie. Lincoln agreed. In a last-ditch effort before stepping through the doorway, Stephens asked Lincoln one last time to reconsider an armistice so the North and South could unite against France. The president, not wanting to insult his guests, promised he would consider the issue, but he did not expect to change his mind. The old friends then wished each other well.
Seward and Lincoln waved goodbye as the three Confederate leaders boarded their boat for the return trip home. In a few hours, Lincoln and Seward would be back in Washington, no doubt filled with thoughts about what might have been. Their disappointment did not last long, as the South surrendered to the North three months later.
IV
Seward: Partner to Power
With William Seward, this chapter continues the examination of the cabinet officer as right hand to the president, with a special emphasis on the hazards that can accompany its selection in the role. In chapter one, attention was predominantly focused on how Washington and Hamilton worked together, with comparatively less emphasis on relationships between cabinet members. In this chapter, more attention is paid to what can go wrong when a president appears to favor one adviser over another.
The growing tension between Seward and the rest of the cabinet as he grew closer to Lincoln illustrates why a cabinet official in the role of right hand can be so problematic. Just as Washington’s relationship with Hamilton was a cause of friction between Hamilton and Jefferson, Lincoln’s rel
ationship with Seward upset the equanimity of his team. A quarter-century before Lincoln took office, when Andrew Jackson was in the White House, his close relationship with one of his cabinet secretaries, John Eaton, threatened his presidency as well.
Eaton was Jackson’s one friend in a cabinet of strangers. The two men had known each other for years, and Eaton played a significant role in Jackson’s political rise. Jackson was fiercely loyal to his friends, and even after Eaton’s conduct put his reelection at risk, Jackson refused to abandon him. Eaton was officially Jackson’s secretary of war, but if he is still known today it is for his role in two controversies: first, the tragic mass displacement of Native Americans that will forever be remembered as the Trail of Tears, and, second, the “Petticoat Affair.”
The Petticoat Affair centered on Eaton’s wife, who was rumored to be a woman of moral ill repute. Eaton first met Margaret in a boarding house frequented by Washington politicians. She was beautiful, intelligent and married. Eaton was so captivated by her that he paid her secret visits and escorted her to social events when her husband was out of town. Following her husband’s suspected suicide, Eaton quickly married her. When Eaton introduced his new bride to the wives of his fellow cabinet members, they refused to socialize with her. Jackson rejected recommendations to condemn his friend for bringing scandal into the White House and suffered severe criticism from the public and his opponents for not requesting Eaton’s resignation.
Like the conflict in Lincoln’s cabinet, the friction in Jackson’s was about more than Eaton and his wife. The incident masked a power struggle that pitted Jackson and Eaton against the president’s opponents in the cabinet, including Vice President Calhoun. As Jackson’s right-hand man, Eaton performed a number of non-war-related functions, including acting as the president’s gatekeeper, speechwriter and chief political adviser. Marginalizing the influential Eaton would help shore up the influence of Calhoun and his supporters. To take the pressure off of Jackson, Eaton and Secretary of State Martin Van Buren offered to resign, giving the president the opportunity to request the resignation of the rest of his cabinet. He was therefore able to remake the cabinet more to his liking while taking advantage of a face-saving solution to his Eaton problem.
As mentioned in chapter one, in the modern era relatively few presidents have selected cabinet secretaries to serve as their right hands. Infighting is an important reason why. President Kennedy was the last to pursue this path; subsequent presidents seem to have followed more in the footsteps of President Ford, who famously refused to single out any member of his cabinet as his main adviser.
After suffering as he did over the Eaton affair, Jackson may have learned his lesson about whom to select as right hand. He chose Van Buren for the role after Van Buren replaced Calhoun as vice president on the ticket during the 1832 campaign. Vice President Van Buren was obviously experienced and capable, and he and Jackson liked each other; these were important considerations. But perhaps it was no less important that by selecting the vice president—someone above the rest of his cabinet members—as his chief adviser, Jackson could avoid repeating a painful mistake.
Two months after the Hampton Roads Conference, Seward was badly injured in a carriage accident and was bedridden for weeks. He was at home, resting, when Lincoln was assassinated at Ford’s Theater. Conspirators also targeted Seward that night, and he was attacked with a knife by a crazed Confederate soldier who forced his way into Seward’s bedroom. He suffered a deep slash across his face and lost so much blood that he passed out. Days later, when he was well enough to rise from his bed, Seward noticed that the flags in the city were flying at half-mast and understood instantly that Lincoln was dead.
Not since Washington and Hamilton had such a strong and productive partnership existed in the White House. There had been other right-hand men, but, with the exception of Hamilton, none had left such an indelible mark on the presidency. It would be another fifty years before a similarly impactful partnership emerged, in the form of President Woodrow Wilson and Colonel Edward House.
Like Lincoln and Seward, Wilson and House were the closest of friends. Their partnership, however, met a very different end. After forming one of the closest bonds of any presidential partnership and scoring achievements of true historical significance, the two men parted ways forever when it became clear to Wilson that House had ulterior motives.
In the beginning of their partnership, they would sit alone in the president’s bedroom, talking intimately, late into the night. They would take long private walks together and even vacation together. Wilson would visit House at home in New York, where they would roam the city streets at night, deep in conversation, ignored by unsuspecting passersby. When, after seven years of close friendship, Wilson suddenly refused to speak to him, House struggled to understand what he had done wrong.
THE CO-DEPENDENT PRESIDENCY
This photo was taken in 1918, in the days when House, seated here next to Mrs. Wilson, still played the president like a fiddle. In the beginning of their relationship, to fool the president into thinking they were kindred spirits, House would chat with those closest to Wilson to learn the president’s thinking on various issues and then repeat what he had heard back to Wilson as if they were his own thoughts.
Mr. House is my second personality. He is my independent self. His thoughts and mine are one.1
—President Woodrow Wilson
World War I propelled the US into the unfamiliar role of world leader for the first time in its history. Other presidents had helped to establish the US as a respected member of the global community of nations, but it was only during Woodrow Wilson’s presidency that the US began to be regarded on the world stage as indispensable. This is the story of how Wilson and his closest adviser, Colonel Edward House, helped to bring about that transformation and how they reshaped the American presidency in the process. It is also a story about the damage done to noble causes when petty jealousies and other human failings drive policymaking.
House first met Wilson when the latter was pursuing the Democratic Party nomination for the presidency in 1911. He quickly recognized that Wilson was unlike any other politicians he had known. Wilson needed more affirmation than most, and there seemed to be no limit to the amount of flattery he could absorb. House saw in Wilson the elusive combination of qualities in a candidate that he had been seeking his entire political life. Not only did Wilson possess the gifts and skills to win the nation’s highest office, but also his personal insecurities made him particularly amenable to House’s preferred brand of influence. House made it his business to become one of Wilson’s closest friends. During the president’s lowest moments, following the death of his wife, Ellen, House made frequent trips to Washington to console the president. If House stayed overnight, he slept in Ellen’s old room next to Wilson’s so that they could sit up together when the president was unable to sleep. Their late-night talks, which at times became quite intimate, helped Wilson find the strength he needed to cope with his loss.
History has not been kind to Colonel House. He will always be remembered for his work with Wilson, but historians have not forgotten the acts of selfishness that drove him and Wilson apart. House cared deeply for Wilson, but he never let his personal feelings derail his ambition. He loved being able to help the president in his career and in his personal life, but throughout their relationship he never lost sight of the fact that Wilson was a means of achieving his lifelong pursuit of power without accountability.
The Colonel2 survived as Wilson’s friend and adviser because the president refused to see the truth about him until it was too late. Two events helped open his eyes. The first was his marriage to his second wife, Edith Galt, who was considerably less affected by House’s charms than her husband. The second was the Paris Peace Conference, the physical and emotional demands of which drained the patience of both men.
I
Damage
Wilson and House sat down to talk together for the first time on an
autumn evening in 1911 at a luxurious Neo-Italian Renaissance hotel in downtown Manhattan. It was a quickly arranged meeting. They had been told by mutual friends that they would like each other and that the meeting could be beneficial politically. They talked for about an hour and parted with great reluctance, both enthusiastically pledging to reunite as soon as possible. They were surprised by how much they shared in common. In Wilson, House finally found a man he could manipulate. In House, Wilson found someone willing to dispense the fawning admiration he so desperately craved. It was as if they had discovered in the other a kindred spirit. Of course, they could not have known it at the time, but the qualities they resonated to in one other had been shaped by troubling childhood experiences. Perhaps it was the scars they recognized.
Edward Mandell House has been the subject of numerous histories, but he is a difficult man to pin down. He was careful about the impression he left behind, taking great care to ensure that only the image he wanted the world to remember endured. He is survived by an uncommonly thorough journal library and a couple of autobiographies, which cover in great detail his life after he entered politics but which say little about his early years.
The latter years are so well documented because House employed a personal secretary whose main responsibility was to record his role in history. He would sit with her each evening and dictate his version of the day’s events—adding embellishments here and there, always with an eye toward casting himself in the best possible light. If we were to rely solely on House’s account of his life and work with Woodrow Wilson, we should think he was responsible for most of the president’s successes and none of his failures.
House’s notes are too thorough to be ignored by historians, but gathering a full picture of his life and his work with Woodrow Wilson requires some reading between the lines. This is especially the case regarding his youth.
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