Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 2

by Michael Burlingame

  Threatening to go somewhere was a force bill, which Lincoln helped scuttle. Introduced by Ohio Congressman Benjamin Stanton, that measure authorized the president to call up the militia to suppress an insurrection against the U.S. government and take other military steps. After heated debate, in which Southern Unionists anathematized it, the bill was scheduled to come before the House for a vote on March 1. That day, Representative Alexander R. Boteler of Virginia, fearing that his state would secede immediately upon the passage of such legislation, called on the president-elect, who greeted him warmly: “I’m really glad you have come, and wish that more of you Southern gentlemen would call and see me, as these are times when there should be a full, fair, and frank interchange of sentiment and suggestion among all who have the good of the country at heart.” Boteler asked if Lincoln would help defeat the pending force bill. “Of course,” came the reply, “I am extremely anxious to see these sectional troubles settled peaceably and satisfactorily to all concerned. To accomplish that, I am willing to make almost any sacrifice, and to do anything in reason consistent with my sense of duty. … I’ll see what can be done about the bill you speak of. I think it can be stopped, and that I may promise you it will be.” When Boteler requested permission to inform his colleagues of this pledge, Lincoln told him: “By no means, for that would make trouble. The question would at once be asked, what right I had to interfere with the legislation of this Congress. Whatever is to be done in the matter, must be done quietly.”29

  It is not certain that Lincoln took steps to derail the force bill, but he probably did so; that very night the House adjourned before voting on the measure, thus killing it. (Evidently, it was thought that the Militia Act of 1795 authorized the president to summon troops for suppressing an insurrection.) His good friend and political confidant Elihu B. Washburne led the move to adjourn. Southern Unionists, convinced that Lincoln would not have the power—and lacked the inclination—to use force against the seceded states, were cheered temporarily. Six weeks later they would feel differently. Whatever he may have done about the force bill, Lincoln definitely helped defeat Ohio Congressman John A. Bingham’s bill providing for the offshore collection of import duties.

  Lincoln met congressmen and senators on February 25, when Seward escorted him to the Capitol. The New Yorker’s face glowed with obvious delight as he introduced the president-elect to everyone; Seward was like a child showing off a new plaything. In the House, Representatives immediately swarmed around Lincoln and received warm, cordial handshakes. Among the less enthusiastic congressmen greeting him was Massachusetts Republican Henry L. Dawes, who had pictured the incoming chief executive in his mind’s eye as a kind of deity. “Never did [a] god come tumbling down more suddenly and completely than did mine,” Dawes remembered, “as the unkempt, ill-formed, loose-jointed, and disproportioned figure of Mr. Lincoln appeared at the door. Weary, anxious, struggling to be cheerful under a burden of trouble he must keep to himself, with thoughts far off or deep hidden, he was presented to the representatives of the nation over which he was to be placed as chief magistrate.”30 Lincoln towered over the congressmen, resembling “a lighthouse surrounded by waves.”31 As Seward busily urged Democrats to allow themselves to be introduced to Lincoln, he encountered resistance; ominously, only a few accepted the invitation. Virginia Senator James M. Mason, scowling contemptuously, was among those who rebuffed Seward’s appeal. In the House, about a dozen Southern Representatives ostentatiously remained seated when the president-elect entered the chamber. Roger A. Pryor of Virginia tried to look like a giant but managed only to resemble a “malicious schoolboy.”32

  Some Southerners found Lincoln even more disillusioning than did Dawes. Alexander W. Doniphan of Missouri thought it was “very humiliating for an American to know that the present & future destiny of his country is wholly in the hands of one man, & that such a man as Lincoln—a man of no intelligence—no enlargement of views—as ridicously vain and fantastic as a country boy with his first red Morocco hat—easily flattered into a belief that he is King Canute & can say to the waves of revolution, ‘Thus far shalt thou come and no farther.’ ”33

  Like some bipedal, oversized border collie, Seward shepherded Lincoln around Washington, while simultaneously stepping up his efforts to influence the president-elect’s policy decisions and appointments. The Illinoisan’s speeches en route to Washington caused the senator to remark that the prospect of having to educate Lincoln made him “more depressed than he had been previously during the whole Winter.”34 That education was pursued earnestly in the hectic days of late February and early March, when Lincoln grew ever more conciliatory.

  Toning Down the Inaugural Address

  Lincoln proved a willing pupil under Seward’s tutelage, submitting his inaugural address to him for comment. Before arriving in Washington, Lincoln had shown it to Carl Schurz, who approved of its hard-line tone, and to Orville H. Browning, who did not. Browning thought the following passage too bellicose: “All the power at my disposal will be used to reclaim the public property and places which have fallen; to hold, occupy and possess these, and all other property and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties on imports; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion of any State.” Browning suggested that it read: “All the power at my disposal will be used to hold, occupy and possess the property and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties on imports &c” and recommended “omitting the declaration of the purpose of reclamation, which will be construed into a threat, or menace, and will be irritating even in the border states.” Browning conceded that in principle the original draft was justified, but argued cogently that in “any conflict which may ensue between the government and the seceding States, it is very important that the traitors shall be the aggressors, and that they be kept constantly and palpably in the wrong. The first attempt that is made to furnish supplies or reinforcements to Sumter will induce aggression by South Carolina, and then the government will stand justified, before the entire country, in repelling that aggression, and retaking the forts. And so it will be everywhere, and all the places now occupied by traitors can be recaptured without affording them additional material with which to inflame the public mind by representing your inaugural as containing an irritating threat.”35 Others echoed Browning’s advice, which Lincoln took, thus making his most important change to that document.

  In Washington, Seward suggested many more alterations. Like Browning, he tried to modify the address’s belligerent tone. Boastfully, he told Lincoln, “I … have devoted myself singly to the study of the case here, with advantages of access and free communication with all parties of all sections. … Only the soothing words which I have spoken have saved us and carried us along thus far. Every loyal man, and indeed I think every disloyal man in the South will tell you this.”36 The modest Lincoln may well have recoiled at this display of raw egotism, but he took the advice of his secretary-of-state-designate to omit any allusion to the Chicago platform, which could be interpreted as too partisan; to call secession ordinances “revolutionary” rather than “treasonable”; and to soften the discussion of reclaiming government property and references to exercising power.

  More striking was Seward’s recommendation about the conclusion of the address, which in its original form posed a bellicose challenge to the secessionists: “In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you, unless you first assail it. You can have no conflict, without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to ‘preserve, protect and defend’ it. With you, and not with me, is the solemn question of ‘Shall it be peace, or a sword?’ ” Lincoln took Seward’s advice to drop the phrase “unless you first assail it” and to replace the ominous final sentence with a lyrical appeal to sectional fraternity. The senator proposed the fo
llowing language, which called to mind James Madison’s 14th Federalist Paper: “I close. We are not we must not be aliens or enemies but fellow countrymen and brethren. Although passion has strained our bonds of affection too hardly they must not, I am sure they will not be broken. The mystic chords which proceeding from so many battle fields and so many patriot graves pass through all the hearts and all the hearths in this broad continent of ours will yet again harmonize in their ancient music when breathed upon by the guardian angel of the nation.” (This was a variation on passages from Seward’s senate speech of February 29, 1860, when he sought to burnish his credentials as a Moderate.)

  Like a rhetorical alchemist, Lincoln transformed those leaden words into a golden prose-poem: “I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” (The term “better Angel” occurs in Dickens’s David Copperfield.)37

  Lincoln did not take all of Seward’s suggestions. Although he softened the passage dealing with seized federal installations by striking out the phrase “to reclaim public property and places which have fallen”—that was Browning’s advice as well as Seward’s—he did say: “The power confided to me, will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property, and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion—no using of force against, or among the people anywhere.” This was tougher than Seward’s proposed language.38

  The revised passage about holding federal property and collecting revenues did not sit well with Stephen T. Logan, to whom Lincoln read the address shortly before inauguration day. “I told him that the southern people would regard that language as a threat and the result would be war,” Logan recalled. Lincoln demurred: “It is not necessary for me to say to you that I have great respect for your opinion, but the statements you think should be modified were carefully considered by me and the probable consequences as far as I can anticipate them.”39

  Among the most conciliatory portions of the address was one that struck the keynote, emphasizing the tentative nature of Lincoln’s policy declarations: “So far as possible, the people everywhere shall have that sense of perfect security which is most favorable to calm thought and reflection. The course here indicated will be followed, unless current events, and experience, shall show a modification, or change, to be proper; and in every case and exigency, my best discretion will be exercised, according to circumstances actually existing, and with a view and a hope of a peaceful solution of the national troubles, and the restoration of fraternal sympathies and affections.” (The second sentence represented a considerable expansion of the original draft, which merely said: “This course will be pursued until current experience shall show a modification or change to be proper.”)

  At the last minute, Lincoln added a paragraph dealing with the Adams-Corwin-Seward amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing slavery in the states where it already existed. On February 27, the House had defeated that measure, but the following day, when seven more Republicans supported it, the amendment obtained the requisite two-thirds majority. At 4 A.M. of Inauguration Day, March 4, this Thirteenth Amendment squeaked through the senate with a bare two-thirds majority (24–12). On the night of March 3, Lincoln may have gone to the Capitol and lobbied in favor of the measure without knowing its precise details. It read: “No amendment shall ever be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.” Henry Adams claimed that it required “some careful manipulation, as well as the direct influence of the new President,” to obtain passage.40 In addition, Lyman Trumbull and Seward had a few days earlier introduced a resolution, probably with Lincoln’s approval, urging states to issue a call for a national constitutional convention.

  In preliminary drafts of his inaugural address, Lincoln had expressed no enthusiasm for changes to the Constitution. In his final revision, he alluded to the freshly-passed amendment and also endorsed Trumbull and Seward’s suggestion that a national convention be held to consider other alterations to the document: “I can not be ignorant of the fact that many worthy, and patriotic citizens are desirous of having the national constitution amended. While I make no recommendation of amendments, I fully recognize the rightful authority of the people over the whole subject, to be exercised in either of the modes prescribed in the instrument itself; and I should, under existing circumstances, favor, rather than oppose, a fair oppertunity being afforded the people to act upon it. I will venture to add that, to me, the Convention mode seems preferable, in that it allows amendments to originate with the people themselves, instead of only permitting them to take, or reject, propositions, originated by others, not especially chosen for the purpose, and which might not be precisely such, as they would wish to either accept or refuse. I understand a proposed amendment to the constitution which amendment, however, I have not seen, has passed Congress, to the effect that the federal government, shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments, so far as to say that, holding such a provision to now be implied Constitutional law, I have no objection to it’s being made express, and irrevocable.”

  Those two concessions were, as journalist James Shepherd Pike observed, “as much as the Republicans can grant without entering upon the backing-down policy.”41 Ten months later, when Congressman John A. Bingham mentioned this last-minute insertion, Lincoln said: “It is extraordinary that I should have made such statements in my Inaugural. Are you not mistaken about this?” To Bingham it seemed as if the president “felt that the proposed Amendment had not been correctly reported to him, and that some one had blundered. He reproached no one, nor did he intimate how or by whose agency this passage came to be in the Inaugural Address.”42 Seward was probably Lincoln’s (mis)informant.

  Lincoln’s willingness to support such an amendment was yet another indication of his desire to show that he was not inflexible (except with regard to slavery expansion and secession). He probably thought an unamendable amendment was a contradiction in terms as well as unconstitutional, and that the amendment (as he virtually stated in the inaugural) was a tautology, reaffirming what was already guaranteed in the Constitution. In all likelihood, he regarded his support of the amendment as little more than a sop to the Sewardites and to public opinion in the Upper South and Border States. He doubtless thought that the amendment had little chance of being adopted by three-quarters of the states.

  On March 3, Seward offhandedly told dinner guests: “Lincoln that day had shown to him his inaugural address, and had consulted with him in regard to it.” The senator remarked “that while it would satisfy the whole country, it more than covered all his [Seward’s] heresies.” He added that the address showed Lincoln’s “curious vein of sentiment,” which the senator called “his most valuable mental attribute.”43 Two days earlier, Lincoln read a draft of the inaugural to the other men who had accepted cabinet positions. Reportedly, he also submitted that document to the scrutiny of Senators Trumbull, Wade, and Fessenden, as well as to Norman B. Judd. On March 3, William H. Bailhache of the Springfield Illinois State Journal, who came to Washington to help prepare copies of the inaugural, wrote his wife that the “original draft has been modified every day to suit the views of the different members of the Cabinet. The amendments are principally verbal & consist of softening some of the words & elaborating more at length some of the ideas contained in the original draft.”
44

  Though not as conciliatory as Seward and Stephen T. Logan would have liked, Lincoln’s address was tough but not bellicose. He would not try to repossess forts, customhouses, post offices, courthouses, and other federal facilities, nor would he permit the seizure of any more, such as Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor and Fort Pickens off Pensacola. As for collecting revenues, it was possible to do so aboard ships stationed outside Southern ports. Lincoln did not allude to this offshore option in his address, but in the following weeks he explored that solution as an alternative to having customs officials enforce the law onshore.

  Lincoln’s pledge to enforce the laws was softened by his declaration that “Where hostility to the United States, in any interior locality, shall be so great and so universal, as to prevent competent resident citizens from holding the Federal offices, there will be no attempt to force obnoxious strangers among the people for that object. While the strict legal right may exist in the government to enforce the exercise of these offices, the attempt to do so would be so irritating, and so nearly impracticable with all, that I deem it better to forego, for the time, the uses of such offices.” (Why he specified “interior localities” and thus seemed to exempt coastal areas is a mystery.) Lincoln here referred to the ten states where he had received no votes at all. In a similar gesture of forbearance, he said that the “mails, unless repelled, will continue to be furnished in all parts of the Union.”

  The passage about “obnoxious strangers” reminded one observer of the instructions given by Shakespeare’s Dogberry (in Much Ado About Nothing) to a watchman: “You shall comprehend all vagrom men; you are to bid any man stand, in the Prince’s name.”