Lincoln
Page 89
“I cannot believe,” said the princess, with entirely Parisian suspiciousness, “that it was just one mad actor—and some fools. Surely, the Southerners were behind the plot?”
“They deny it, and I believe them. They had nothing to gain by the President’s death, and everything to lose. After all, only Lincoln could have controlled the radicals in Congress. Mr. Johnson has—” Hay remembered that he was a diplomat. “Mr. Johnson has his problems with the radicals.”
“What has happened to Mrs. Lincoln?” asked the princess, changing the subject in order to show Hay that she was not taken in by his highly diplomatic response.
“She lives in Chicago. The President left an estate of nearly a hundred thousand dollars. Of course, she spends a good deal of money.”
To Hay’s surprise it was the father not the daughter who returned to the subject of the plot. “I hear so many intriguing rumors from old friends,” he said. “For instance, I have heard it suggested that there was indeed a plot in which the actor, Booth, was simply used by certain radical elements in Congress.”
Hay smiled. “If that could be proved, don’t you think that Mr. Stanton would be the first to want to hang Senator Wade or Senator Chandler or General Butler, the three likeliest conspirators?”
“But I had heard,” said Mr. Schuyler, almost apologetically, “that Mr. Stanton was involved, too. Hence, the speed—and secrecy—with which Booth’s allies were tried in Mr. Stanton’s own military court; and then hanged.”
Hay thought that he had heard every possible Lincoln rumor; but this was new. Certainly, Stanton was the most compulsively devious man that Hay had ever dealt with. He was, also, very close to the radicals in Congress. As a result, there was great tension, currently, between him and President Johnson, who was pursuing Lincoln’s moderate policy toward the South, with his Secretary of War undercutting him at every turn. Politically, Stanton and Lincoln would have fallen out, if the President had lived. But since all that Stanton was in the world he owed to Lincoln, Hay thought it most unlikely that he would conspire to kill the President.
Certainly Hay could never forget the scene in the East Room, when the President lay in state. All day mourners filed past the casket on its black catafalque. Hay was standing near the door, Tad’s hand in his, when Stanton entered; and Tad said—very clearly for him—“Mr. Stanton, who killed my father?” Stanton had given a sort of cry; and hurried from the room. In fact, Stanton was so enraged and demoralized by the murder that he had ordered Ford’s Theater to be forever shut, an eccentric gesture in the eyes of many but typical of the bereaved odd man who was now being mentioned as party to the murder of, perhaps, the only man that he ever liked.
Hay tried to explain Stanton to Mr. Schuyler; but it was never easy to explain Stanton to anyone.
Fortunately, Hay was able to fuel somewhat the European love of intrigue. “One interesting thing, which might relate to what you have heard. We do know now that there was a second plot afoot. We also know that Booth got wind of it, and he was afraid that others might strike before he did.”
“Now that,” said Mr. Schuyler, “might be the solution. Do you think that the radical element in Congress would be capable of such a plot?”
“Oh, yes!” Hay was delighted at the prospect of a future trial of Wade and Chandler and Butler—and Sumner, too. Why not? Hang every last one of them. “After all, the daughter of one of the radical senators was a close friend of Booth’s; and actually got him a ticket to attend the Second Inaugural.”
“Oh, you must write about all this, Mr. Hay!” The princess was now properly stimulated.
“I think I probably shall, with Mr. Nicolay, the President’s other secretary.”
“Where,” asked Mr. Schuyler, “would you place Mr. Lincoln amongst the presidents of our country?”
“Oh, I would place him first.”
“Above Washington?” Mr. Schuyler looked startled.
“Yes,” said Hay, who had thought a good deal about the Tycoon’s place in history. “Mr. Lincoln had a far greater and more difficult task than Washington’s. You see, the Southern states had every Constitutional right to go out of the Union. But Lincoln said, no. Lincoln said, this Union can never be broken. Now that was a terrible responsibility for one man to take. But he took it, knowing he would be obliged to fight the greatest war in human history, which he did, and which he won. So he not only put the Union back together again, but he made an entirely new country, and all of it in his own image.”
“You astonish me,” said Mr. Schuyler.
“Mr. Lincoln astonished us all.”
“I rather think,” said Charles Schermerhorn Schuyler to his daughter, “that we should take a look at this new country, which plainly bears no resemblance to the one I left, in the quiet days of Martin Van Buren.”
“Well, come soon,” said Hay. “Because who knows what may happen next?”
“I have been writing, lately, about the German first minister.” Mr. Schuyler was thoughtful. “In fact, I met him at Biarritz last summer when he came to see the emperor. Curiously enough, he has now done the same thing to Germany that you tell us Mr. Lincoln did to our country. Bismarck has made a single, centralized nation out of all the other German states.”
Hay nodded; he, too, had noted the resemblance. “Bismarck would also give the vote to people who have never had it before.”
“I think,” said Mr. Schuyler to the princess, “we have here a subject—Lincoln and Bismarck, and new countries for old.”
“It will be interesting to see how Herr Bismarck ends his career,” said Hay, who was now more than ever convinced that Lincoln, in some mysterious fashion, had willed his own murder as a form of atonement for the great and terrible thing that he had done by giving so bloody and absolute a rebirth to his nation.
AFTERWORD
HOW MUCH of Lincoln is generally thought to be true? How much made up? This is an urgent question for any reader; and deserves as straight an answer as the writer can give. I have introduced fewer invented figures in Lincoln than I did in Burr and 1876. All of the principal characters really existed, and they said and did pretty much what I have them saying and doing, with the exception of the Surratts and David Herold (who really lived and worked at Thompson’s, which was actually closer to New York Avenue than to Pennsylvania Avenue.) As David’s life is largely unknown until Booth’s conspiracy, I have invented a low-life for him.
Readers of the other novels in this chronicle will recognize Charlie Schuyler (Burr and 1876), Emma (1876) and the vile ubiquitous William de la Touche Clancey—they are fictional. As for Lincoln and the other historical figures, I have reconstructed them from letters, journals, newspapers, diaries, etc. Occasionally, I have done some moving around. At the time of Kate Chase’s Boxing Day reception, McClellan had been sick in bed for almost a week; but I needed him at the Chases’. I have not done this sort of thing often. I have not done it at all with the Presidents.
For those who may be alarmed at my version of the Gettysburg Address, I used not Lincoln’s final tinkered-with draft but what someone who was there (Charles Hale of the Boston Daily Advertiser) wrote down. Finally, I must thank Professor David Herbert Donald of Harvard’s History Department not only for his books on Lincoln and Herndon and on Charles Sumner, but for his patient reading—and correction—of the manuscript. Any further errors, if they exist, are mine, not his.
G. V.
January 25, 1984
BOOKS BY GORE VIDAL
BURR
Alternating the narrative of journalist Charles Schermerhorn Schuyler with the Revolutionary War diaries of Aaron Burr, this novel begins Vidal’s history of the United States on a note of intrigue and scandal.
“A dazzling entertainment … a devastating analysis of America’s first principles.” —The New York Times Book Review
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LINCOLN
This novelistic portrait of Lincoln and his era—which nearly created its own civi
l war among historians when it was first published—is perhaps the pivotal work of the series, illuminating Vidal’s theory of the transformation of America from a republic to an imperial state.
“An astonishing achievement.” —Harold Bloom
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1876
The centennial of the nation’s founding is the occasion for Vidal to bring back the narrator of Burr, Charlie Schuyler, and reintroduce his family line as a force in the history of the nation.
“Superb.… Simply splendid.… A thoroughly grand book, must, must reading for anyone.” —Business Week
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EMPIRE
The end of the Spanish-American War, the beginning of the “American Century,” and the burgeoning power of the American press—represented by William Randolph Hearst and the fictional Caroline Sanford (Charlie Schuyler’s granddaughter)—continue the transformation of the empire.
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HOLLYWOOD
The future movie capital of the world and the nation’s capital begin their long and checkered relationship (and Vidal’s own grandfather, Senator Thomas P. Gore, makes an appearance) as Vidal continues his saga into the first decade of the new century.
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WASHINGTON, D.C.
Although the most recent historically, this is the first novel Vidal published in what he later conceived as the Narratives of Empire series. Set in the period surrounding World War II and FDR’s presidency, Washington, D.C. also concerns the ambitions of a young John Kennedy-like politician.
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