Mrs. Lincoln's Rival

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  “That last part is not ridiculous,” Kate protested. “You’re not only younger than Mr. Seward but also more vigorous, and you will indeed have many more opportunities to run for president—although I firmly believe that this opportunity remains well within your reach.”

  Her father’s gloom seemed to lift slightly, but he was not yet ready to put the subject aside. “A considerable body of the people, including not a few who would adamantly refuse to vote for any Republican candidate but myself, seem to desire that I should be nominated in May,” he said. “No effort of mine or of any of my closest friends has created this feeling. It seems to be of spontaneous growth, an appeal for me to serve that I did not seek and yet cannot ignore.”

  “Of course it is,” said Kate placidly. She of all people knew how badly her father craved the highest office in the land, and how he had devoted years to building his national reputation and constructing a political machine that would, if all went as they intended, carry him to the White House. He wanted to believe that his driving ambition was instead a dutiful response to the demands of the public, and since she wholeheartedly believed the country needed him, she saw no reason to disabuse him of the notion.

  Father’s knight took her pawn. “Perhaps if I wrote to Bailey and reminded him—”

  A strange, unearthly groan snatched Kate’s attention away. “What was that?”

  “What was what?”

  “That noise. A moan, coming from outside.”

  Her father shook his head, brow furrowing. “I heard nothing.”

  He had barely finished speaking when the sound came again, louder this time, sending chills racing down Kate’s spine. She and her father bolted to their feet, hurried to the front door, and tore it open to discover Aunt Alice crumpled on the front porch with her limbs splayed, eyes tightly shut, a groan of anguish choking out through clenched teeth.

  Swiftly bending over his elder sister, Father shouted for servants to come to their aid. They carried her inside to her bedchamber, where she lay upon the coverlet, insensible. Father sent the coachman racing for the doctor, and while they waited Kate tried to revive her aunt with smelling salts and cool water sprinkled on her face, all to no avail. When Aunt Alice had left for church earlier that evening, she had seemed in perfect health, but when the doctor finally arrived and examined her, he concluded that she had suffered an apoplexy.

  For four days she drifted in and out of consciousness, plagued by terrible headaches and garbled speech, but on the twentieth of February she passed away, released from her suffering. Kate and Nettie were heartbroken, but Father was even more disconsolate. He had buried three wives, four young daughters, and several siblings, and the sudden death of his sister on his doorstep shook him badly. “Death has pursued me incessantly ever since I was twenty-five,” he murmured as Aunt Alice’s casket was lowered into the ground. Speechless from grief, Kate reached for his hand, but he seemed unaware of her touch and did not fold her small, soft hand inside his larger one.

  • • •

  Aunt Alice had been gone less than a year when Father’s second term as governor ended in January 1860; he had not sought a third. Less than a month later, in a joint convention of its two houses, the Ohio legislature had elected him as United States senator for a term beginning on March 4, 1861. Kate was excessively proud of him and thrilled by the thought of moving to Washington City. She had visited him all too infrequently there during her father’s first term in the Senate, for the headmistress had frequently denied her permission to leave school as punishment for one small infraction or another.

  Father was eager to return to Washington too, but not as a senator. Mr. Bailey’s letter had disappointed him, but it could not dissuade him from pursuing the even higher office to which he aspired.

  In his travels and through his correspondence, Father learned that he had strong support among northerners who adamantly objected to allowing slavery to spread to new states and territories, and yet he was not seen as a radical abolitionist, which made him more appealing to conservatives. He also knew that Mr. Bailey’s choice, William Seward, was widely regarded as the man most likely to capture the Republican nomination, but that other intriguing contenders had recently emerged: prominent St. Louis attorney Edward Bates, the venerated judge and elder statesman from an important border state; and Abraham Lincoln, an up-and-coming lawyer and one-term congressman from Illinois.

  Both gentlemen’s names were familiar to Kate, but she was surprised to find the latter included in such company, although perhaps she should not have been. Two years before, Father had been so impressed by what he had read of Mr. Lincoln and his debates with Stephen Douglas that he had campaigned for Mr. Lincoln in his bid for the Senate, mustering support among prominent Illinois Republicans and urging cheering crowds to turn out at the polls on his behalf. Despite Father’s best efforts Mr. Lincoln had lost the election, but his graciousness in defeat had apparently made a good impression upon party moderates. Kate knew too that he had given nearly two dozen speeches in western states in late 1859, and that he had recently accepted an invitation to speak as part of a lecture series in Brooklyn, an engagement that had first been offered to her father—and which, to her chagrin, he had declined.

  Mr. Lincoln clearly intended to introduce himself to the voters of New England. Kate had no doubt he would meet with great acclaim there, having witnessed his rhetorical powers at work the previous September when he had visited Columbus and had spoken from the capitol steps to a large, admiring crowd who had hung on his every phrase throughout his two-hour address. Mr. Bates too could boast of many admirers, and as a candidate from a slave state, he could expect stronger support from the South than any other Republican in contention. But Mr. Seward remained her father’s strongest rival, despite concerns within the party that he was too radical to win a national election.

  In Kate’s opinion, if her father were to have any chance at wresting the nomination away from Mr. Seward, he first needed to affirm the loyalties of Ohio’s delegates, so that he could be confident of their votes at the upcoming convention. Next, he must win endorsements from influential Republicans across the country in order to shatter the illusion that the party was united behind the senator from New York.

  Father was confident that Ohio’s delegates were securely his. How could they fail to vote for one of their own, a man who had done more for the noble cause of abolition than any of the other candidates, a man who had served their beloved state so well for so long? His faith seemed confirmed when the state Republican convention, meeting in Columbus on March 1 to appoint committees and elect delegates, passed a resolution stating that while Ohio’s delegates would give their united and earnest support to whatever nominee was chosen at the national convention, Salmon P. Chase was their first choice and their recommendation. Although the vote was not unanimous, Father was so confident that Ohio was behind him that he set himself to writing letters to prominent men from elsewhere in the nation, men he hoped to win to his side.

  Included among these men was the Prussian-born Carl Schurz, a staunch advocate of abolition and democracy whose opinions swayed voters in his home state of Wisconsin and throughout the northwest, especially those of German immigrant heritage. When Father learned through a mutual acquaintance that Mr. Schurz would be traveling through Ohio on a speaking tour, he immediately wrote to invite him to stay at the Chase residence when he visited Columbus.

  Mr. Schurz accepted by return mail, and for several days the house fairly hummed with excitement as Kate prepared to welcome their honored guest. On the night before he was due to arrive, Kate went off to bed satisfied that she had everything well in hand, but the next morning, her maid shook her awake early with the startling announcement that Mr. Schurz had arrived, and that her father was entertaining him in the breakfast room.

  “Mr. Schurz is here now?” Kate threw back the coverlet, bounded out of bed, and filled the washbasin from
the pitcher. “We weren’t expecting him until midafternoon!”

  “He knows that, miss,” Vina said, snatching up a towel and holding it at the ready. “He stood on the doorstep apologizing for ages until Mr. Chase convinced him it was all right and that he should come in.”

  When Kate finished washing, Vina quickly helped her dress and arranged her hair, and soon Kate was darting down the stairs, catching her breath at the bottom, and walking sedately into the breakfast room as if nothing were amiss.

  She found her father and Mr. Schurz—a wiry brown-haired man of about thirty years with a scholarly brow and pince-nez spectacles—seated at the table and sharing a pot of coffee, a rasher of bacon, and a basket of hot biscuits with sweet butter and marmalade. “Mr. Schurz, I presume,” she greeted him warmly, and when he rose and bowed, she smiled in return, kissed her father on the cheek, and settled gracefully into the chair at his right hand. “How was your journey to Columbus?”

  “Unexpectedly swift, Miss Chase,” he said, his German accent charmingly formal. “Hence my early arrival. I must apologize for disturbing you at such an unforgivable hour.”

  “No apologies are necessary,” Kate assured him. “You certainly didn’t disturb me, and my father is an early riser, so I’m sure you didn’t disturb him either.”

  “Not at all,” her father remarked. “I was reading the papers and drinking coffee, which is always more enjoyable in good company.”

  “You’re very kind,” Mr. Schurz said.

  Concluding that they had exceeded the requisite amount of apologies and reassurances warranted in such circumstances, Kate lightly led them on to other matters—the progress of Mr. Schurz’s speaking tour, the differences in climate between Wisconsin and Ohio, the opinions of the German immigrant community on various issues of the day. Naturally, the subject soon turned to abolition and to politics, and Kate deftly directed the conversation to show her father to his best advantage, and to allow Mr. Schurz to discover for himself how many beliefs they held in common.

  After breakfast, they continued their conversation in Father’s study, where Father showed Mr. Schurz a few of the most prized volumes in his library. Observing them from the corner of her eye as she poured coffee, Kate was pleased to see that her father’s public bearing—which his critics derided as cold, haughty, or distant, when she knew it to be a natural reserve, a dignified shyness—had fallen away as it did usually only among close friends and family, allowing his goodness and warmth to shine through.

  When the men settled down with their cups into comfortable chairs, Kate had barely enough time to smooth her skirts and seat herself when her father somewhat abruptly broached the subject of the upcoming Republican Convention. “I will tell you frankly that I have an ardent desire to be president of the United States,” her father told their guest, who seemed startled by the admission. “You will undoubtedly be sent by the Republicans of Wisconsin as a delegate to the convention in Chicago, and I wish very much to know what you think of my candidacy.”

  Mr. Schurz hesitated, drank deeply of his coffee, and frowned briefly at the carpet. “It would give me sincere happiness could I answer with a note of encouragement,” he eventually said, “but I cannot, and I esteem you too highly to flatter you or dissemble with ambiguous phrases.”

  Though she had expected as much, Kate nevertheless felt her heart sink, and the look of surprised sadness on her father’s face pained her.

  “You’d honor me most by offering the plain truth,” her father said, taken aback. “Please, speak freely, with no fear of embarrassment.”

  With a pensive sigh, Mr. Schurz set his coffee cup on the table and met her father’s gaze squarely. “I’m too inexperienced in American politics to estimate the number of votes you might command at the convention, but I have formed a general judgment of the situation.”

  “And what is that?” inquired Kate pleasantly, as if they were discussing gardening or poetry rather than her father’s political future.

  Mr. Schurz offered her a regretful smile before turning back to her father. “If the Republicans at Chicago have courage enough to nominate a strong antislavery man, they will nominate Seward,” he said in a voice that allowed no doubt. “If they lack that courage, they will not nominate you.”

  He said it as kindly as he could, but her father fell silent for a long moment, stunned. “Thank you for so straightforwardly giving your opinion,” he managed to say, “which, possibly, might be correct.”

  Mr. Schurz inclined his head in polite acknowledgment that it might not.

  “But without impugning Seward’s character and past service to the country,” Father continued in a sudden rush, “I don’t understand why strong antislavery men should place me second in order of leadership instead of first.”

  “I hardly wish to argue the point,” Mr. Schurz replied, his broad brow furrowing slightly. “Senator Seward has mustered strong support for his candidacy—strongest in the East, of course, but widespread.”

  “He has detractors,” Father countered. “Some say he’s too radical, and they worry that if he’s nominated, it’ll hurt Republicans in local elections.”

  Mr. Schurz conceded that some men did indeed hold that opinion, but he did not count himself among them.

  Sensing that the discussion would soon devolve into argument if she did not intervene, Kate quickly brought the conversation back to safer ground. Her father could not conceal his disappointment, but he nonetheless maintained a cordial demeanor, and before long, most of the men’s earlier conviviality had been restored.

  Soon thereafter, Mr. Schurz retired to the room they had prepared for him to rest after his long, wearying journey. When he emerged from his chamber hours later, they enjoyed a pleasant luncheon, after which Father, Kate, and Nettie took him on a carriage tour of the capital city, showing him the sights and introducing him to many of their most notable citizens. At eight o’clock that evening, Father and Kate escorted Mr. Schurz to the Congregational Church, where an eager audience had gathered to hear his lecture titled “France Since 1848.” Mr. Schurz proved to be an energetic, knowledgeable speaker, and while he was at the podium, Kate was able to forget her father’s disappointment for a little while.

  The following morning after breakfast, Kate accompanied Mr. Schurz in the carriage to the station, where he would board the train for Cincinnati, the next city on his tour. As she bade him farewell, he lingered to apologize for offending her and her father with his blunt assessment of Father’s prospects at the upcoming convention.

  “There was no offense taken,” Kate assured him. “It is never a disservice to speak the truth. You would have done my father no favors if you had falsely raised his expectations instead of telling him plainly what obstacles lie in his path.”

  “It is a path I see he is determined to follow,” Mr. Schurz replied, with obvious regret. “I have studied this country enough to know that ‘presidential fever’ is a troublesome ailment, and sometimes fatal to the peace of mind and moral equilibrium of men afflicted with it. Your father seems to me to be one of the noblest men suffering from that disease.”

  Kate managed a laugh. “Suffering has never looked so hale and hearty.”

  “I feel obliged to warn you, Miss Chase, that I have never before met anyone so strongly possessed by the desire to be president, to the extent that he believes he owes it to the country and that the country owes it to him that he should assume that high office.”

  “Perhaps he is correct in his beliefs,” Kate said lightly, keeping her smile in place. “Many others share them.”

  “Perhaps not as many as you think,” said Mr. Schurz carefully. “I have no doubt that your good father will never allow his ambition to corrupt his principles, but I am concerned that repeated disappointments will pierce him like poisoned arrows, and that in the years to come he will be incessantly tortured by feelings that his country did not do justi
ce to him.”

  “My father has overcome disappointment before,” Kate reminded him. “Let’s not forget too that it’s entirely possible he won’t find his great ambition thwarted.”

  “Of course, you’re right.” Mr. Schurz offered her a small, apologetic smile. “You’re a true and loyal daughter. Your father is richly blessed.”

  “Thank you. I’ll be sure to remind him.”

  Mr. Schurz laughed aloud, and so despite his foreboding words, they parted as friends.

  • • •

  Father quickly rebounded from his disappointment, and before the week was out, he told Kate that he still hoped to win the influential German to his side. “I believe Mr. Schurz has settled firmly in Mr. Seward’s camp,” Kate cautioned him, but her father’s optimism did not waver. His hopes were buoyed by laudatory articles in the Ohio State Journal, Columbus’s Republican newspaper, which praised him almost daily and suggested that his nomination in May was all but certain. “No man in the country is more worthy, no one is more competent,” the editor declared, praising Father’s “steady devotion to the principles of popular freedom, through a long political career,” which had won him “the confidence and attachment of the people in regions far beyond the State.”

  Kate believed her father deserved every word of the Journal’s praise, but the steady stream of encouragement filled her with misgivings. Her father seemed too determined to believe that everyone shared the Journal’s opinion, ignoring the more derisive reports that appeared in the Daily Statesman and elsewhere.

  As the national convention approached, her worries grew. Her father had no strong advocate organizing his campaign, as Mr. Seward had in the political impresario Thurlow Weed. Father had not mended fences with rivals in Ohio, but preferred instead to exchange letters with his most ardent supporters, men who no longer needed convincing. When Kate mentioned troubling signs—reports of Mr. Seward’s firm grasp on the delegates from numerous states other than his own, Mr. Lincoln’s rising reputation in the East in the wake of his wildly successful speech at the Cooper Union, an engagement her father never should have declined—her father dismissed them. “If the cherished wishes of the people prevail,” he assured her, with an irritating note of condescension to which she tried not to take offense, “I will be the nominee in Chicago in May.”