by Gore Vidal
In Seward’s study, Sumner stood, immaculate, before the flower-filled fireplace. In the hallway the ubiquitous bodyguard saluted the President as he entered the study, alone. “Well, Mr. Sumner, it is strange to see you here, in enemy country, and not at Mrs. Lincoln’s house.” Lincoln was amiable. Sumner constrained.
“Sir, I have never been so saddened in my life, as to meet you here.”
“Oh, come now! Governor Seward is profane at times, and temperance holds no delights for him, but he is not the devil, you know.”
“Oh, I did not mean that, sir. Far from it.” Sumner straightened his light-blue coat, whose silver buttons shone in the summer light like new-minted coins. Lincoln was, as always, disheveled. “By the way, I have just had a charming note from Mrs. Lincoln, at Saratoga Springs. She is an accomplished letter-writer, an accomplished lady. I must confess to you that I go to her salon voluntarily, and not from mere sullen duty.”
“Well, Mr. Sumner, we hope to see a lot more of you in the next four years when, I expect, foreign affairs, your specialty, will be occupying us more and internal troubles less.” Lincoln was coolly provocative.
“Oh, sir, that is the crux!” Sumner arranged himself in front of Pericles. One lock of blond-gray hair fell across his own marblelike brow. He looked every bit as historic as Pericles; but then he had once declared that even alone, in the privacy of his own house, he would never strike a pose that he would not be willing to strike before the nation in the Senate chamber.
“We shall have to deal, sooner or later, with the French in Mexico. Naturally, I shall follow, as always, the lead of your Committee on Foreign Affairs. Then there is the matter of Spain—”
“Defeat!” Sumner spoke each syllable as if it was itself a word of such awfulness that Heaven might open up and lightning strike them both.
Lincoln had settled into Seward’s own armchair. “You mean yesterday’s election in Kentucky?”
“Sir, I mean for our party and our cause in November.”
“I will admit that things do not go exactly well for us—”
“Or for the cause that we adhere to. Sir, it is not just politics that are involved. If it were …” With one hand, Sumner made a leveling gesture to express his contempt for all human pettiness. “But there is something larger. There is the morality and the rightness of our cause. The freedom and the enfranchisement of the Negro has been the lifework of many of us. Now that work is about to be undone if not forever for at least a generation, because McClellan will make peace at any price and the price we already know. Human freedom for the black man, human dignity for the black man …” The famous orator’s voice had begun to resound in the small study.
Lincoln broke in before it got out of control. “Now, now, Mr. Sumner, let’s not go leaping overboard, as the steamboat captain said to the widow. General McClellan isn’t elected yet—”
“Pennsylvania will go for McClellan by a hundred thousand majority.” Sumner could be as briskly political as anyone else. “I heard that from your own partisan, Cameron.”
“That is as of today. But the election is a hundred days from now. Things can change.”
Sumner put his hands on his knees; and sat very straight. “Yes, that is what we all want, for things to change. I have been delegated by certain Republican leaders to request you, most respectfully, most … affectionately, if I may be personal … to withdraw as the candidate of our party, so that we can then unite behind someone who can win the election in what is, actually, less than a hundred days from now.”
Lincoln’s half smile was in place as he stared, absently, at Sumner, who was finding it difficult to hold his monumental pose as his plump thighs were now resting on the chair’s extreme cutting edge. “Naturally,” said the President at last, “I have heard of the meeting in New York City—”
“Which I did not attend.” Sumner slid back in his chair.
“But Brother Greeley and a number of other influential abolitionists were all there, as well as Mr. Bryant’s son-in-law. I gather that it is your—their?—your, I see, wish to hold a second national convention next month in order to select a new Republican candidate.”
Sumner addressed not Lincoln but Pericles. “Obviously, if you were to step aside, voluntarily, and allow us to unite behind someone else, there is no doubt we could defeat McClellan, whose main support comes from those unthinking elements which are, simply, sick of the war and care nothing for its morality.” Sumner turned to Lincoln.
The President’s left eyebrow had so ascended that now left eye perfectly matched right. When this phenomenon occurred, the habitual dreaminess of the gaze was metamorphosed to the hunter’s glare, which he now turned on Sumner, who sat back in his chair as if, for safety’s sake, to increase the distance between them. “I do not follow your logic, Mr. Sumner. If you select an out-and-out radical Republican like Mr. Chase—or yourself even—you will split this two-headed party that I have done my best for years to hold together. The moderates—of which I am one—will desert you, while the peace-at-any-price folks will vote you down, and McClellan in.”
Sumner removed a white, scented, cambric handkerchief from his sleeve and touched each of his now lightly glistening temples. “I cannot speak as to the likely choice of a convention not yet called. But I am reasonably certain that my friend Mr. Chase would not be selected. After all, we do want to beat McClellan, and that could be done with a greater military man, like Grant or Butler or Sherman, with someone like Admiral Farragut as vice-presidential candidate.”
The now brilliant gray eyes were staring straight at Sumner, who squirmed slightly. “I am no expert in these things.” The voice was even. “But in the past, from George Washington to Andrew Jackson to Zachary Taylor, victorious generals were elected president only after they were victorious and their particular war was won. This war is still going on—and on. McClellan may win against me by default, because the people cannot endure another day of war. That is a possibility. But he cannot prevail as a military hero, because he is not one. He is simply a failed general, whom I was obliged to discard.”
“Sir, General Grant could have had by acclamation the nomination that you won at Baltimore. All he had to do was put himself forward.”
“Well, he was put forward. By Missouri, and he did not get any other votes.”
“The convention, of course, was managed by you—”
“What else would you expect a man whose work is only half done to do? Of course, I controlled the convention. After all, I am our party’s leader.”
“You lead one wing—”
“The larger wing, Mr. Sumner.”
“I know that, sir. That is why I beg you to stand aside, as a patriotic duty for which you will be forever remembered, and let us win the election with, let us say, Grant.”
“So it is Grant.” The half smile was gone; the glare remained. “I do not think that he will make the race. He has not yet finished his appointed task. He certainly will not run against me.”
“Sir, all the more reason that you withdraw, that you … that you nominate Grant, as the better man. Then, your place in history secure, we can finish the greatest task of all.” Sumner stopped abruptly. The only sound in the room was the musical chiming of the clock in the hall. For once, even the flies were still.
Finally, Lincoln spoke. “I was unanimously nominated at Baltimore by our party. Now you want me to withdraw from the contest in order to make room for a better man. I wish I could. I mean that, Sumner. Because I am sure that there are many better men than I for this work. But they are not here, and I am here. Now let us say you find this better man, and I step aside. Can he—endorsed by your hollow if pure true Republicans—unite the party and then the country? I think it most unlikely. The factions opposed to me would fall to fighting among themselves, and those who now want me to make room for a better man would get one whom most of them would not want at all. My withdrawal would probably bring on confusion far worse than anything we now know. God know
s, I have at least tried very hard to do my duty, to do right to everybody and wrong to nobody. There are those who say I prolong the war because I lust for power. Well, that is nonsense, as you know. I may once have wanted—even lusted—for power, but all that has been burned away. There is nothing left of me. But there is still the President. He must be allowed to finish the work that he was chosen to do. So leave me in peace. Once that is done, you and your better man are welcome to my dangerous place. In fact, you and your better man can come to my funeral, for I have known for some time now that when this conflict is over, I end.”
The President got to his feet. Sumner also rose. So did Seward’s dog, Midge, who had been sleeping, unobserved, beneath her master’s desk.
“I am sorry,” said Sumner, gravely shaking the President’s hand.
“So am I, Sumner. But then sorrow is something we have an abundance of.”
Seward had been sitting on a bench in Lafayette Square. As soon as he saw statesman and muscular shadow depart, he hurried home, where he found Lincoln stretched out on a sofa in the study, eyes shut. Midge’s greeting of Seward was so noisy that Lincoln opened his eyes and said, “I have just been asked to withdraw as a candidate.”
“For what reason?”
“Patriotic, I think. The premise was suitably vague.”
“They will put up—who?”
“They will try Grant.”
Seward poured himself brandy. “They are insufferable fools.”
“Insufferable, they are. Foolish …?” Lincoln’s voice trailed off, as from exhaustion.
“I concede that we could lose,” said Seward. “But as long as our army occupies the border-states, and the reconstructed rebel states, we can squeak through—I think. After Kentucky, I’m not so sure.”
“That does not strike me as exactly what I meant when I spoke of government by the people.” Lincoln was suddenly droll; he sat up, and the huge feet crashed onto the floor.
“It may not be by the people but it is certainly for the people, since you insist on using rhetorical triads, though God alone knows what of the people means, since no government can be anything else but of them, unless the lions and the tigers take over.”
“Or the race of eagles …” Lincoln murmured, half to himself, half to no one at all.
As Seward did not understand the reference, he did not ask for an explanation. In any case, he had a constitutional dislike of being told things that he did not know, as opposed to ferretting them out. “The only danger, as I see it, is General Grant deciding to run.”
“I don’t think there’s any chance of that, unless he’s taken Richmond, in which case I’ll be like the fellow who didn’t especially want to die but if he had to, well, that’s the way he’d like to go.” Midge rested her muzzle on Lincoln’s knee. He scratched her ears, as required. “But there’s one curious thing I noticed when Grant was just here. We got onto the subject of the election—I can’t imagine how! Anyway, when I said what a splendid team I thought he and I were, he didn’t say a thing.”
“That is ominous.” Seward knew that in politics nothing speaks more loudly than the unspoken. “You think that he will not endorse you?”
“I know he won’t. Oh, I can understand why. If I’m defeated, he will be obliged to work with the next president. He won’t want an enemy in the White House, though I can’t see him lasting a day with McClellan.” Lincoln was now ready to leave. “But I was still somewhat hurt that he did not respond.”
“There is time.” Seward was soothing.
“No, Governor. There is no time left. Or rather, this is the time. Well, now I must go back to work.”
“And I must let Midge take me for my evening stroll.”
At the Mansion, Thaddeus Stevens was coldly vehement. “We are pleased with Andy Johnson, we are not pleased with any Blair.”
Zach. Chandler went even further. “The only way the true Republicans can be got to vote for you and not Frémont, or whoever they come up with at Cincinnati, will be the elimination of the Blairs from your Administration.”
“But there is only one Blair in the Administration,” said Lincoln, reasonably.
“He must be gone before the election,” said Simon Cameron, “if we are to hold our own in Pennsylvania.”
“Hold our own?” Lincoln repeated.
“As opposed to lose outright,” said Stevens; the stiff wig set off his hard white face like an oaken frame.
“I am not convinced, Mr. Stevens, that my reelection depends on whether or not there is a Blair in the Cabinet.” Lincoln towered over the three men, who were lined up on the sofa opposite the fireplace.
“Then let us say, sir, that the vigor with which the party leaders work for you in Pennsylvania will be affected if Mr. Blair stays.” Stevens was icy.
Lincoln was amused. “There is useful vigor, and there is useless vigor, Mr. Stevens, as you well know.”
This reference to Stevens’s attempt to swing Pennsylvania from Lincoln to Chase was duly noted by all, and appreciated by all save Stevens, who said, “Without us, Mr. Cameron and me, working together, as peculiar as that combination must look to the innocent—if such exists—eye, you will not carry Pennsylvania and without Pennsylvania you will not win the election.”
“That is my view,” said Cameron, staring at Stevens with familial dislike.
“You must get rid of Blair.” Chandler was harsh. “Now!”
“So you mean to dictate to me my Cabinet?” Lincoln appeared more bemused than angry. “Does this mean that I am now your puppet? that once elected, thanks to this peculiar combination, you will govern?”
“Surely, the giving up of one measly Blair does not constitute puppet-hood,” said Stevens.
“It’s more like a bargain,” said Cameron, yawning.
“I take a different view, gentlemen. For four years this or that faction had tried to govern me, and none has succeeded. Naturally, I want to be reelected since I have not done what I set out to do.” Lincoln turned to Cameron. “I am also quite capable of making a bargain, as you know.” Cameron nodded pleasantly; he was quite incapable of embarrassment even at this direct acknowledgment of the way that he himself had come to the Cabinet. “But I am not about to allow any faction to dictate to me who is and who is not in my Administration, or to be told that I must or must not do certain things.”
“We had hoped you would be a little more easy with us,” said Cameron, frowning. “You know it’s not as if we had us a real political party, and everyone knew what he had to do. We are just a hodgepodge, more or less united behind you.”
“Then I hope you will be more united, because if you are less, we all lose. In any case, gentlemen, rather than accept the disgraceful terms you would force on me, I would decline the office.”
“That seems to be that,” said Stevens, getting to his feet.
“Yes,” said Lincoln. “That is that.”
The two Pennsylvanians shook hands—Stevens grimly, Cameron mournfully. Chandler remained behind. “There is something they don’t know that I do.”
“What is that, Mr. Chandler?” The sun was setting now behind the monument, and Lincoln’s eyes kept straying to the billows of rose and saffron clouds as they flowed across the sky.
“I have spoken to General Frémont. He told me to tell you that he will pull out of the race, if you drop Monty Blair.”
Lincoln studied Chandler’s huge, homely brick of a face, where colonies of whiskey-broken veins had left their memorials as red crosshatchings. “I’ll keep that in mind, Mr. Chandler.”
Chandler nodded; and took his leave.
It was dark when Lincoln mounted his horse. Then, at the center of a company of cavalry, he rode out to the Soldiers’ Home, by way of Fifteenth Street, where a huge transparency proclaimed: “The Star of Canterbury Never Sets.” Stanton had so devised the President’s horseback excursions that, due to the physical bulk of the cavalrymen on either side of him, the President was not visible to anyone in the st
reet.
At the turnoff to the low hill on which stood the Soldiers’ Home, Lincoln reined in his horse; and dismissed the escort. For a moment horse and rider were an integral part of the dark stillness of woods and warm, windless, starless night. Once the sound of the retreating cavalry escort had ceased, only crickets and tree toads sounded. For a moment, Lincoln took deep breaths of the scented summer air.
Then, finally, reluctantly, he rode up the driveway to the stone gates of the Soldiers’ Home. When he was halfway to the gates, a rifle was fired; and the horse bolted through the gates at a panicky gallop. In a grove of cedar trees where peacocks now shrieked, a soldier grabbed the horse’s reins and coaxed it to a standstill.
As Lincoln dismounted, he said, casually, “He got the bit in his teeth before I could draw rein. I’m glad you caught him, Nichols. I was getting set for a fall.”
“Something startle him, sir? asked Nichols; he had guarded the President before.
“No, no.” Lincoln ran his hand, absently, through his hair.
“You’ve lost your hat, sir.”
“So I have. Well, good-night; thank you.”
Lincoln went inside the stone cottage, where he was greeted by the orderly assigned to him. Lincoln asked for tea, an unusual request for him. He then sat in the small parlor of the cottage, and began to read by kerosene lamp a copy of Artemus Ward. But before the first smile, much less laugh, had been produced, Nichols appeared, carrying Lincoln’s hat. “We found this, sir, in the road.”
“Oh, good. Put it in the hall.”
“Sir.” Nichols held the hat so that Lincoln could see clearly two small round holes an inch below the crown. “This is where the bullet entered; and here is where it came out,” said Nichols.
“I heard a rifle shot.” Lincoln was neutral. “I thought it was a coon hunter, maybe, in the woods.”