by Gore Vidal
“At last,” Disraeli was heard to murmur, as he slumped in his chair, “something warm.”
The twenty-eight ladies and gentlemen withdrew to the oval Blue Room, where Hay and Nicolay and Lamon were waiting. The plan was for the Cabinet officers, one by one, to say good-night to Mrs. Lincoln; and then go upstairs to the President’s office and wait for him, as he would be, contrary for once to protocol, the last to leave the guests.
Neither Hay nor Nicolay had the slightest idea what Lamon had reported to the President; nor was Lamon about to tell them other than to say, “They did try to lynch me in the street until an old friend happened along and told them that they’d have to contend with him.” Lamon chuckled. “He took me to a bar and we overcelebrated my escape.”
As the company spread out across the room, Hay bowed to Kate Chase, who bowed back, with a brilliant smile; then she turned to Senator Sumner, who seemed on the verge of losing his reputation for misogyny.
Hay and Nicolay were to go to the Cabinet Room as soon as the last member had made his farewell. Meanwhile, Hay found himself seated in a stiff chair against the rounded wall, while in front of him and, presumably, unaware of his presence, stood the President with old Francis Blair. Hay tried not to listen; but not too hard.
“Strange how the more this room is changed around the more it seems always the same,” observed the Old Gentleman. Due to the absence of certain crucial teeth, he tended to salivate as he spoke, a fact of which, unlike so many old people, he was very much aware; he kept a handkerchief in one hand, ever ready to dry his withered chin. “I still expect to see General Jackson come through that door, after one of his dinners of rice. He had trouble with his teeth like me; and trouble with his appetite, unlike me.”
“Well, I wouldn’t in the least mind if he did come through that door and I could turn this whole damned thing over to him and go back to Springfield.” Although Lincoln’s delivery was droll, Hay had detected in the last week a growing anxiety and, worse, indecision.
“Well, sir, the first thing he’d tell you would be—stick to your guns.” Old Blair mopped his lips; and the smoky eyes gazed up at the President, who looked away, distractedly. “Which guns should I stick to is the problem.”
“You must hold Fort Sumter to the end.”
“How do you see the end?”
“I assume you will try to provision the garrison?”
Lincoln looked at him a moment; then, in answer, he did not answer.
Old Blair nodded. “I take the point, sir. Let me put it another way. Should you try to provision or, better yet in my view, increase the garrison, the rebels will open fire and then you will have the right to restore the Union by force.”
“Who then will have started this war? I who provoked an attack upon Federal property or those who responded to my provocation?”
“Mr. President, the winner need never explain why or how he won, or if he was the aggressor or not.” Hay felt a premonitory chill. As he listened to the thin old southern voice, he felt as if the ghost of Andrew Jackson was indeed in the Blue Room, counselling his successors; an ancestral voice, prophesying war.
“Mr. Blair, I am a minority president. I am not the first, of course, and I am still the only rightful President between the Canadian and the Mexican borders. But I must think now of the minority that chose me. Seward and Chase were rejected because, rightly or wrongly, the public saw them as abolitionists, spoiling for war. So the party—and later the nation—turned to me, a man from slave-holding Kentucky, a man of the border-states, a so-called disciple of Henry Clay of Lexington, Kentucky, where my wife comes from, a man who said that although he would not countenance the extension of slavery, he had not the power to abolish slavery in any state where it now flourishes. Mr. Blair, what do I say to those men who voted for me in the hope that I would do what I said I would do, and keep the peace?”
Old Blair swung slightly away from Lincoln, so that he faced the portrait of the beturbanned Dolley Madison. “You might say to them what you said to them three years ago when you accepted the nomination for Senate. ‘I believe this government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free.’ ”
Lincoln looked suddenly irritated. Hay had noticed that Lincoln truly disliked it when others quoted him, which was odd since he had very much the politician’s habit of self-quotation. “The emphasis, Mr. Blair, was on the adverb ‘permanently.’ Of course it cannot; and in the normal course, it will not.”
“What is the normal course then?”
“I have not yet had a vision.” Lincoln half smiled. “I did say ‘I do not expect the house to fall.’ ”
“Sir, you also said, ‘I do not expect the Union to be dissolved.’ But the Union is dissolved.”
“I do not recognize any dissolution.” Lincoln’s voice was cold and deliberate. Hay had never heard him strike this note before. “It is true that certain elements have rebelled against the Federal authority. Since that rebellion must cease, I must bring those elements around to my way of thinking. All we need now is patience.” Lincoln’s voice lightened. “Anyway, those cotton republics will never amount to a hill of beans.”
“They will if Virginia and my Maryland and your Kentucky and the other border-states join them. A confederation of those states will make up quite a sizable mountain of beans.”
“That is why, every day, I talk to the Virginians.”
“Any progress?”
“Why, yes. Fact, they are now developing a new kind of logic. It goes like this: If I let Fort Sumter alone, and if I let South Carolina and the other states remain out of the Union, why, then Virginia will stay in the Union. Isn’t that brilliant?”
“They have a way with them.” The Old Gentleman dried his lips. “There will be war, of course. All through the South, the men are arming. Right here in Washington, they are drilling to beat the band.” Blair turned to face Lincoln head-on. “Sir, when you destroyed the Democratic Party, you took upon yourself the responsibility of the whole political system of the country. You are now all that remains of the original republic. If you don’t assert yourself”—Blair gestured to include the Blue Room, the house, the city, the idea that contained it all—“all this is done for.”
Lincoln stepped back, as if from a stove that had become too hot. Hay wondered what he would reply; what he could reply under the circumstances. The inaugural oath still sounded in Hay’s ears: the high voice that positively shouted the word “defend.”
“What?” asked Lincoln mildly, “do you mean when you say that I destroyed the Democratic Party?”
“You destroyed Judge Douglas in those debates.”
“I was under the impression that he defeated me in the election that followed.”
“Mr. Lincoln, you are the subtlest man I have ever come across in politics. Oh, I’m not saying you aren’t green in many ways, particularly with your appointments …”
“No one ever likes any president’s appointments, including those appointed. But how did I destroy Judge Douglas?”
“You admit that two years ago he was the natural leader of the Democrats, and that he would be their presidential candidate?”
“I said as much at the time.” Lincoln nodded; and frowned, as if he knew and did not like what was coming next.
“You admit that you were already thinking about getting the Republican nomination for yourself?”
“The taste was in my mouth, I suppose.”
“Judge Douglas, who was very popular in the South, would, ordinarily, have kept the Democratic Party united, and gone on to win the South and the election if you hadn’t asked him that question at Freeport during your debates.”
Lincoln raised both his eyebrows. “Are you one of those who think that the question I put to the judge at Freeport was a deliberate trap that he fell into?”
“Yes, sir. I do. When you asked Douglas if the people of a territory could lawfully exclude slavery before the territory became a state, you knew that he would answer, yes,
because that was the popular answer in Illinois that season and it would help him to defeat you. But you also knew that the moment he said, yes, he would lose the South two years later, which he did when the Democratic Party cracked in half, thereby making it possible for you to become President, a minority President.”
“Do you think I plan so far ahead?” Lincoln’s voice was distant. It was his turn now to stare at Dolley Madison.
“Yes, sir, I do.”
“Well, I have no plan now, Mr. Blair.”
Blair laughed, a shrill high sound. “Then that is your plan! And all success to you.”
Lincoln turned to Hay. “Come on, Johnny, with those big ears flapping. You have some work to do upstairs.”
Hay blushed; bowed to the Old Gentleman; and hurried from the room while the President and Mrs. Lincoln said good-night to their guests. Hay found Nicolay already in his office.
“What’s your guess?” asked Hay.
“We give up Fort Sumter,” said Nicolay.
“You should have heard old Blair just now. He’s lit some kind of fire under the Ancient.”
In the Cabinet Room, beneath the globe of a gas lamp, Lincoln’s face was filled with shadows. He looked saturnine, thought Hay; even simian, he thought disloyally: the opposition press had taken to calling the President Honest Ape.
Of the seven Cabinet officers only six men were present. The Secretary of War, Mr. Cameron, was absent, as Hay duly noted in the ledger which would be the President’s own version of the meeting. Nicolay sat across from Hay. He, too, made notes; he was also in charge of the various documents that the President might need.
Lincoln sat at the head of the table with Seward to his right and Chase to his left. Next to Chase was the Secretary of the Interior, Caleb B. Smith of Indiana—another border-state; he had been forced on Lincoln by the party managers. Smith was, as usual, frowning, and out of his depth. Opposite him sat the impressive Gideon Welles, whose vast gray beard was beautifully complemented by the most elaborate wig in all Washington, a masterpiece of curls and unexpected maritimelike waves. Next to him was the bearded Attorney-General, Edward Bates of Missouri; he, too, had been a border-state candidate at the convention; he, too, had been bitter at Lincoln’s elevation; he now wore a beard exactly like Lincoln’s, only much longer and fuller and more presidential; he was the oldest member of the Cabinet. Opposite Bates was Montgomery Blair; although the Blairs were originally from Kentucky, the Old Gentleman had staked out Maryland for his kingdom, while the two sons, Montgomery and Francis, Junior, or Frank as everyone called him, chose to make their way in Missouri. Montgomery had been mayor of St. Louis. Frank was a congressman from the state. “The compound Cabinet” filled Hay with awe—for Lincoln. If the President had known what he had let himself in for when he put all his rivals together, he had, if nothing else, a lion’s courage.
“Gentlemen, Mr. Lamon has just returned from Charleston. I think we should listen to him. Ward!” Lincoln raised his voice and Lamon entered from the President’s office. “Take a seat.” Lamon pulled up a chair beside Lincoln and proceeded to tell them, first, of his interview with the United States postmaster at Charleston, who had gone over to the rebels; second, his interview with Major Anderson at Fort Sumter, which had been arranged by the rebels. “The major waits for his orders. He has enough food for two weeks. After that, he will have to surrender. Or fight.” Lamon looked at Lincoln, who simply ruffled his hair until it stood up in clumps like turkey feathers. Lamon continued. “The governor of South Carolina gave me a message for the President, of which the gist—it was very flowery—the gist—”
“The thorn,” supplied Lincoln, to Chase’s indignation: was the man ever serious?
“—was that if we try to reinforce Fort Sumter, there will be war.”
“Thank you, Ward.”
Lamon left the room. Lincoln put on his spectacles; picked up a sheet of paper. “The reason for this meeting is that General Scott has sent me the following advice: We would do well to give up both Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens in Florida.”
“Good God!” Montgomery Blair’s voice was almost as shrill as his father’s, thought Hay. “Whose side is General Scott on?”
“Well, he’s on our side. But he doesn’t think much of it. He’s given all his reasons, of which the principal one is that we don’t have enough ships to relieve Fort Sumter, or the twenty thousand men he thinks will be needed to subdue Charleston. But we still have the problem of whether or not to provision the garrison that’s already there. I have been in communication with a naval officer—Mr. Welles and I both have.” Lincoln nodded to his Secretary of the Navy. “I have told this officer, a Captain Fox, that I want an expedition ready to sail no later than April 6. He has already submitted to me his plans. I find them plausible. Also, Captain Fox was recently in Charleston, and he spoke with Major Anderson. He is confident that we can provision the fort. But we must move quickly. Now I would like each of you gentlemen, between now and tomorrow’s Cabinet meeting, to write out your views of what ought to be done. But since we are all here and since you now know General Scott’s military advice, I am curious to know how it strikes you. Mr. Seward.”
Seward chewed a moment on his unlit, out of deference to the President, cigar. He had already conferred privately with General Scott. He knew what ought to be done but there, in his path, was this political novice. He liked Lincoln well enough, but he had yet to see in the man’s character the slightest sign of anything but timidity and vacillation. “Well, sir, I take seriously General Scott. If we don’t have the means to make a winning fight at Charleston, then I’m for giving up the fort …”
There was a bark from Blair, which Hay could find no way of translating. So he wrote the words, “Blair: bark.” They could always be erased. Seward ignored the sound.
“This does not mean that I am in favor of allowing the Confederacy to get off scot-free. I believe that we should prepare for war, but with an eye to extending our domain southward into Mexico. So I would concentrate on Florida and Texas. Those states can easily be regained, and that will then put us in a position to keep the French out of Mexico and drive the Spanish from Cuba and other points south.”
“But what,” asked Blair, the family sneer in place, “will those states between here and Texas and Florida be doing while we are fighting France and Spain?”
“I think, sir, that a war, in the name of the Monroe Doctrine, will unite them to us.”
Blair’s response was a strangled sound. Hay wrote, “strangled sound.”
Chase was appalled by Seward. “I voted yes and no last time we met on this issue. I am now in favor of provisioning Fort Sumter, no matter what the risk.”
When the others had spoken, Lincoln took the vote: Seward, Smith and Bates favored the evacuation of the fort, while Chase, Blair and Welles were in favor of provisioning it.
Lincoln’s knees were now under his chin, the shins pressed against the table’s edge. “You see, gentlemen, the division among you is pretty much like the one inside of my own head.”
Seward listened with despair to this presidential Hamlet. There must be some way, he fretted, of removing Lincoln from the active execution—or, in this case, non execution of the office. Perhaps he and Chase could form some sort of regency …
Chase was thinking along the same line. Plainly, the President was inadequate for the task ahead. He lacked entirely that moral foundation without which no great work may be accomplished in the world. He was nothing more than a run-of-the-mill politician of the western sort. He would have made a splendid governor of Illinois; and no more. But here in this room where Jackson and Polk had sat, he seemed—unlikely was the kindest word that Chase could think of. He wondered what Kate and the President had been laughing about at dinner. Mrs. Lincoln had not been pleased; on the other hand, he felt that he himself had made some headway with her. Strange that she should have been in Lexington the day of Eliza’s auction. The South must be destroyed. There was no real al
ternative anymore. What was the President saying?
“Mr. Welles, I have prepared the following order for you.” Lincoln handed a sheet of paper to Welles, who read it and smiled and nodded until the huge false mane of hair resembled a tidal wave ready to overwhelm the Cabinet table.
“What is the order, sir?” asked Seward, suddenly uneasy. Better a president who did not act at all to one who did the wrong thing in a perilous time.
“I have just ordered Captain Fox to prepare to set sail from New York Harbor any time before April 6, with the means to provision Fort Sumter, and perhaps more.”
Seward bit in half his cigar, and threw both halves in the spittoon at his feet. “But, Mr. President, I thought the Cabinet was evenly divided on the matter, and that you wanted our considered opinions written and that Captain Fox’s departure should be delayed and that …”
Chase answered for Lincoln. “Mr. Seward, if preparations are not made now, they can never be made. Isn’t that correct, Mr. President?”
Lincoln nodded, somewhat absently, thought Hay. “Many things can happen between now and the time that Captain Fox’s fleet is at Charleston. But it is better for us to have a range of choice than none at all.”
“I know Captain Fox,” said Blair. “He is a splendid officer. He was at the Naval Academy at Annapolis not so long after I was at West Point.”
To the extent that Seward’s essentially Jesuitical nature allowed him to dislike or like anyone in the practise of his trade, he disliked all the Blairs. But the time was drawing near, Seward knew, when he must drop his mask with Lincoln and speak openly of the dangers of a presidency that was still without direction. He had already fathomed what Blair, plainly, had not: the departure of Captain Fox meant nothing in itself. Fort Sumter would be evacuated, peacefully, long before Captain Fox arrived; or reduced to rubble; or, best of all, forgotten.
“Captain Fox may have some trouble raising money for the ships.” Lincoln turned to Chase. “You may have to go searching in the larder.”
“It is not exactly a full larder that we were left.” Chase understated the case, so pleased was he at the President’s sudden semblance of activity. The Treasury was in a state of total confusion. Should war come, Chase had, as yet, no idea how to finance a military establishment. Through the Cookes, he was becoming acquainted with the magnates of the banking world: he found that their ways were as strange to him as his were to them. One did not even try to sound moral in their presence.