And then it was all over. The people who had just begun to listen were astonished when the President stopped so soon. The man with the camera was still trying to get his unwieldy instrument ready. But the speech was finished, and not one among all those who had heard it realized that he had been present at the birth of an immortal prose poem. The general effect was that of disappointment; the President himself considered his address a failure. Nor did newspaper comment the next day make him feel any better about it. Many of the most important journals did not even mention his speech, and the hostile Democratic papers denounced it as silly and unworthy of the occasion.
Exultation in the North over the midsummer victory at Gettysburg died down even before the men who had fallen there were buried in their final resting place. A Union victory was being won in Tennessee, where battles raged around Chattanooga during the fall until Federal troops finally repulsed the Confederates late in November, leaving the city and the greater part of the state in Union hands. But Western victories never received their due appreciation in the East—to the people of the Atlantic states, where the majority of the population of the North lived, the War was being fought in Virginia, and the importance of the Western campaigns was always seriously underestimated by them.
THE PRESIDENT VS. CONGRESS
As winter came on, military activity slackened, but the political front was as busy as ever. The President had to fight to get his own way in dealing with legislative matters needed to support both accomplished and anticipated military victories. By this time there was no doubt in his mind that the North eventually would win the War. He had to prepare for what would come afterward.
On December 8, he issued a proclamation which offered amnesty to all those who would take a specified oath of allegiance pledging their loyalty to the Union. He made exceptions only of high-ranking officers in the Confederate army or Government and of men who had abandoned Federal office to join the rebel cause. In this same proclamation he also outlined a plan for setting up new state governments in former Confederate territory. This plan provided that as soon as ten percent of any state’s previous voting population would take the oath of allegiance, the government established by that portion of the citizens would be recognized as legitimate.
Despite the fact that the common people of the North appreciated the President’s efforts to rehabilitate the country, his unpopularity with the press and with Congress increased as the War dragged on. He was attacked not only by Democratic papers but even by various Republican editors who were dominated by factional strife and petty hatreds. In the spring of 1864, when Lincoln called Grant to Washington to become the first Lieutenant General since Washington, the successful Western commander was so infinitely more popular than Lincoln with both Republican and Democratic politicians that he was already being closely watched as a Presidential possibility for the election of 1864. Only the fact that he was badly needed as a military commander put a stop to the movement for making him President.
On March 10, Lincoln gave Grant command of all the Union armies. Grant put Sherman in charge of the Western campaign, and a plan of action was drawn up for a concerted drive against the Confederates. On May 4, the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan to march toward Richmond. At the same time, Sherman started his preparations to advance from Chattanooga into Georgia to attempt the capture of the city of Atlanta. Only Johnston’s army stood in his way, and it was so depleted in numbers that it could do no more than keep up a harassing attack as it retreated. Lee, however, was still strong and he rose to meet Grant’s challenge immediately. On May 5, he attacked the Army of the Potomac as it was proceeding through the Wilderness area lying west of Fredericksburg. It was unfavorable ground for the Union army, and its losses were extraordinarily heavy during the two-day battle. Nevertheless, Grant stubbornly pressed forward to Spottsylvania, where thousands more of his men died a few days later. Despite his losses, Grant was doggedly determined to carry on his campaign. It was from Spottsylvania, on May 11, that he sent his famous message to Stanton in which he declared: “I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer.” He shifted his plan of attack, and in a little more than two weeks he was at Cold Harbor, only a few miles from Richmond, and practically on the same ground where McClellan had met bitter defeat two years before. Again a tremendous assault was made on the Confederate lines, and again it was rolled back with fearful slaughter. Fifty-five thousand Northern soldiers had perished in less than a month in the three battles around Richmond, and the city’s defenses were still intact. Grant’s whirlwind offensive tactics had failed. The South, starving behind its ring of steel, rejoiced, while the North, still untouched and prosperous, was in despair at the defeat of the terrific drive launched by its greatest fighting general.
As the casualty lists brought home the War to every Northern city and village, discouragement rose and a cry to end the slaughter went up. If Grant could not take Richmond at this terrible price, the city must really be impregnable.
In the midst of all this defeat and disaster, preparations for the Presidential elections of 1864 had to be made. The Radical Republicans were eager to be rid of Lincoln. They favored Chase as the next President, because they believed that he would push the War more vigorously than Lincoln had, and they were convinced that he would deal more firmly with the South, once the War was over. A movement in Chase’s behalf was started. As soon as it was made public, he offered to resign from the Cabinet. Lincoln, however, felt that Chase’s Presidential ambitions were not incompatible with his duties as Secretary of the Treasury, so he quietly suggested that he remain at his post.
While the Radical Republicans laid their plots to oust Lincoln, another dissident group, which called itself the Radical Democracy, met in convention in Cleveland on May 31 to nominate the already discredited Frémont. This party adopted two ingenious principles in its platform: to restrict the Presidency to a one-term tenure by Constitutional amendment, and to endorse Congress, rather than the President, as the proper body to deal with reconstruction.
Left in a centrist position, the main body of the Republicans who still supported Lincoln decided to make an appeal to men of all parties to join a united front to keep the administration in office during the War. The name “Republican” was changed to “National Unionist.” A platform was adopted that pledged no compromise with the rebels; it favored the administration measures already taken against slavery, and recommended passage of the proposed Constitutional amendment intended to eradicate it altogether. The National Union convention was held at Baltimore on June 7, only a few days after Grant’s defeat at Cold Harbor. The full import of this battle was not yet realized in the North, so the convention was able to nominate Lincoln without much opposition. Andrew Johnson, War Governor of Tennessee, was chosen as his running-mate for the Vice Presidency.
The Democrats, in order to see which way the wind would blow, postponed their convention until August 29. This seemed like a clever move at the time, but as events actually turned out, a more unpropitious date could hardly have been chosen.
On June 12, Grant, whose efforts to overwhelm Richmond in a smashing drive from the north had come to nothing, suddenly changed his whole plan of campaign and marched his army south of Richmond. This time, instead of flinging his men against the Confederate breastworks, he began a formal siege that was to keep him for nearly ten months before Petersburg, which was an important railroad center and the key to Richmond.
This war of attrition had an adverse effect on Lincoln’s prospects for re-election. The North was keyed up to expect a victory when Grant took charge; it became impatient when Grant seemed to be stalemated in front of the strongly held redoubts of Petersburg. Sherman was advancing steadily toward Atlanta as Johnston gave ground before him, but he was far away and few communications came from him. The eyes of the nation were on Grant.
Grant was given everything that any general could ask to further his campaign. Even the defending force around Washington was depl
eted in order to send men to his armies. As a result, the President again had to experience the humiliation of seeing his capital come within a hair’s breadth of falling into Confederate hands. A raiding party under the command of Jubal Early swept around to the west and descended upon Washington on July 11 and 12. Early’s party was not very large, but it was determined, and it threw a terrible scare into the people in the capital city of the nation. Lincoln visited the fortifications during the height of the firing that was going on in the outskirts. Bullets flew thick around his tall form as he strolled around the little fort. One of the officers who was standing near him was hit, and then the young colonel in charge of the fort insisted that the President retire to a safer place.
The excitement over the attack on the city died down; the long summer days passed without word of success from Grant’s army. Everything seemed to be going against Lincoln that summer. July and August were the unhappiest months in his Presidential career. Chase again offered to withdraw from the Cabinet, this time over a relatively trivial matter. Lincoln accepted his resignation—mutual embarrassment had made it impossible for them to work together. A movement for ending the War gained impetus in the North, where people were discouraged by Grant’s attrition methods and disheartened by the constant call for more and more men—and no victories anywhere.
Peace negotiations with the Confederates were actually begun. Through Horace Greeley, two Southern commissioners in Canada made vague overtures to Washington for a settlement. Greeley was sent by the President to Niagara Falls to meet them, but the negotiations collapsed when it became obvious that the commissioners were without authority, and that the South would consider no terms which prevented her from keeping her status as a separate nation. Another attempt at a rapprochement was made when Lincoln allowed two private citizens to go to Richmond to discuss peace with Jefferson Davis. Their efforts also came to nothing. Davis was quoted by them as saying: “This war must go on until the last of the generation falls in his tracks … unless you acknowledge our right to self-government.” Lincoln was unwilling to concede any such right; too much blood had already been spilled for him to permit the War to be terminated without accomplishing its purpose of re-establishing the Union.
The problems heaped upon Lincoln’s head during this summer were enough to have driven a weaker man mad. And war and politics were not the only sources of the troubles that were piling up for him—a private difficulty was being prepared for him in his own home. Mercifully, he never knew what was going on behind the scenes in the White House, but he must have felt the effects of what was happening. His wife, who had been thwarted in her plans for conquering Washington society, was giving expression to her mania for self-aggrandizement by indulging in an extravagant passion for clothes and personal adornment. She had run up a debt of $27,000, and the stores from which she had purchased her finery were pressing her for payment. She was frightened lest her husband discover how much she owed; she thought that if he were re-elected she would somehow be able to pay her bills. So she began a private campaign to make sure that he would win the election. She pulled wires and consorted with all sorts of strange people in an effort to gain another term for her husband and a four-year respite for herself.
Lincoln’s troubles had no let up all summer. On August 5, Greeley’s Tribune printed a document which marked an open break between the Radicals in Congress and the President. This was the Wade-Davis manifesto, named after its authors, Benjamin F. Wade and Henry Winter Davis. The Radicals were on the warpath; they denounced the President for his reconstruction policies. They were already beginning to reach out jealously for control over a South that was not yet conquered.
In February, the Radicals had drawn up a bill which ran counter to the President’s Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction in that it required a majority of voters instead of only ten percent; it furthermore provided that the new state constitutions must prohibit slavery. This bill passed the House and the Senate and was presented to the President less than an hour before Congress adjourned on July 4. Lincoln pocketed the bill, refusing either to sign or to veto it, saying that it was of too great importance to be rushed through at the last moment, and also that he doubted the authority of Congress to act on the status of slavery within the states. He, as President, could extend his emergency powers to cover the matter, but Congress had no such authorization under the Constitution.
Four days later, on July 8, Lincoln issued a proclamation in which he explained his position on the Congressional bill. Its adoption, he said, would endanger reconstruction plans already under way in two states; he was also unwilling to make a formal commitment to any one plan of reconstruction at this time. However, he did not rule out all consideration of the bill, for he said that if the people of any state preferred it to his, he was perfectly willing to let them use it.
This concession did not mollify the Radicals. They took counsel, and led by Davis and Wade, issued the manifesto that represented a public attack on the President. The ancient rivalry between Congress and the Chief Executive as to which should have the power to originate legislation had come to a head. Congress was naturally resentful of the unlimited extent of the President’s wartime power, and the Radicals seized upon this dissatisfaction as a vantage point from which they could direct a campaign against the President’s policies. That they should have done so when the candidate of their own party was standing for re-election was, to say the least, decidedly inopportune.
The reaction against Lincoln within his party now gained ground. Day after day in August was passing without word of anything being accomplished in the War except Farragut’s capture of Mobile, the importance of which was not fully realized at the time. Backstage politicians became worried about Lincoln’s chances of winning the election. They had blindly shut themselves off from public opinion and were judging the country by the bitterness of discussion taking place in the corridors of the Capitol and in smoke-filled hotel rooms in the big cities. They held a secret meeting at which they discussed ways and means of dealing with the situation. A proposal was made that Lincoln be asked to withdraw, or at least that another convention be held late in September at which it could be decided whether or not another candidate should be put forward. News of this reached Lincoln. The unsteadiness of his political support was further emphasized when some of his closest advisers and personal friends told him frankly that they did not believe he could be re-elected. The Democratic convention was due to be held in Chicago on August 29, and it was already obvious that its nominee for the Presidency would be General McClellan. Republican politicians were convinced that McClellan could beat Lincoln.
On August 23, the President entered a Cabinet meeting with a folded and sealed piece of paper in his hand. He asked each member present to sign his name on the back of it; he then dated the paper and put it away without saying anything further about it. On this day, the nadir of his career as President, Lincoln renounced all thought of himself in an attempt to preserve the Union no matter how the election went. The memorandum which the Cabinet had been asked to endorse blindly read:
This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be my duty to so co-operate with the President-elect as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration; as he will have secured his election on such ground that he cannot possibly save it afterward.
On November 11, a few days after his election, Lincoln opened the paper and read it to his Cabinet. He then explained the motives that had led him to write it when his own prospects had seemed so dark, and when the Democratic convention had been only six days away:
You will remember that this was written at a time when as yet we had no adversary, and seemed to have no friends. I then solemnly resolved on the course of action indicated above. I resolved, in case of the election of General McClellan (being certain that he would be the candidate), that I would see him and talk matters over with him. I would say, “
General, the election has demonstrated that you are stronger, have more influence with the American people than I. Now let us together—you with your influence and I with all the executive power of the Government—try to save the country. You raise as many troops as you possibly can for this final trial, and I will devote all my energies to assisting and finishing the war.”
The Cabinet members listened to the President’s explanation with surprise. Seward commented ironically: “And the General would answer you ‘Yes, yes’; and the next day when you saw him again and pressed these views upon him, he would say, ‘Yes, yes’; and so on forever, and would have done nothing at all.”
“At least,” Lincoln replied, “I should have done my duty and have stood clear before my own conscience.”
But before this happened, before the election was held, the President, whose chief worry during that incredibly disastrous month of August was not for his own but for his country’s welfare, had still to endure the final ordeal—the ordeal of personal danger and imminent death. One night while he was riding alone to his summer quarters outside the city, a shot was fired at him in the darkness. The bullet came so close that it went through his hat and knocked it off. He spurred his horse and rode on to his destination where he made light of what happened to him, so that no word of it would reach the public. But he had felt death reach out for him in the darkness, and he knew that the plots against his life were real. During the next few months they were to multiply. Men were gathering in secret places to whisper and plan; soon they were to try to put their plans into effect.
The Life and Writings of Abraham Lincoln Page 19