The thought of killing one man for the crime of another was sickening to Lincoln. It was his reluctant conclusion, "No, Mr. Douglass, I don't see where it would stop; beside, I understand they are beginning to treat our colored soldiers as prisoners of war."35
Lincoln wanted to believe in the "better angels" of the Confederate's nature. Unfortunately, neither man had yet seen the worst barbaric behavior that the war would bring. Douglass was in a hard position because he found himself moved by the spirit of mercy Lincoln was expressing. He did not think the president's logic was right, but knew that Lincoln himself was right. Lincoln was essentially telling him that he did not intend to follow through on the document Douglass had so long wanted him to issue. He argued back that Lincoln would ultimately be saving more lives if he could bear to go through with some executions. Why issue it at all if he did not have the grit to enforce it?36
As to the officer question, Lincoln simply said that he would sign any commissions that Stanton sent him, regardless of the soldier's color. It was a slightly evasive answer, deferring action on the issue. On the other hand, Douglass understood this to mean he would sign off on the commission Stanton had only hours before said he would issue to him. Once Lincoln confirmed Douglass's new position, this would in effect make public the president's new support of black officers.
Then Lincoln revealed he knew more about Douglass than he had initially let on. Douglass was taken aback when Lincoln mentioned a speech he had read of Douglass's given somewhere in New York; Lincoln had stumbled across it in a newspaper he was perusing. Douglass had declared in the speech that it was not the military and political disasters that disheartened him the most. It was, Lincoln quoted Douglass, the "tardy, hesitating and vacillating policy of the President of the United States." This was from Douglass's Cooper Union speech, which had run in the New York Tribune on February 13, 1862. Lincoln did not bring up this critical speech with any hint of acrimony in his voice. His next statement stuck with Douglass more than anything else said that afternoon. Lincoln knew people called him tardy and hesitating concerning these matters, but he wanted Douglass to remember, "No man can say that having once taken the position I have contradicted it or retreated from it."37
This launched them into a discussion on his retaliatory proclamation. Although Douglass may have felt it was late, Lincoln asserted that had he issued it earlier, critics would decry executing white men for the good of black men. He needed the bravery and success of black soldiers to prime public opinion for government action. Lincoln called this the "preparatory work" for the order. If the order came too early, the result would have been more hatred poured upon Douglass's people. It was a difficult answer for Douglass to accept, but he could not deny that it affirmed a point he had pressed for months: Courageous conduct by black soldiers would transform America.38
It had been a stimulating exchange for both of them. Douglass told Lincoln of the commission Stanton had just offered and said he would accept it. Douglass was full of newfound faith in the kindness of the nation's leader, and Lincoln revealed how much he valued Douglass's thoughts. Lincoln then wrote for Douglass a pass that identified Douglass to be a "loyal, free, man, and is, hence, entitled to travel, unmolested,—We trust he will be recognized everywhere, as a free man, and a gentleman." This pass would have protected Douglass in his journey to recruit in the Mississippi Valley.
As Douglass rose to leave, Lincoln remarked in his affable manner, "Douglass, never come to Washington without calling upon me."39
CHAPTER 11
Clenched Teeth and Steady Eye
Lincoln's assurance that he did not retreat from his actions was a sincere commitment, but the president, in private reflection, realized that harsh circumstances surrounding him meant he might not be able to fulfill his promises. Others knew that too; three days before Douglass came to Washington, Charles Sumner sent Lincoln a letter expressing his own fears that the Emancipation Proclamation would be abandoned. The stubborn senator told Lincoln that when justice was done for the black man, the country might then deserve success in the war effort.l
A reflection Lincoln wrote to himself in August considered what he would do if the Confederacy made an offer to return to the Union under the condition that slavery could remain as it had been before the Civil War. Dreading a new lease on life for slavery, he knew it would be a nightmarish political dilemma. How could he justify the continuation of killing for a cause many of his fellow citizens did not support? Support for the war, as it currently existed, was wearing thin despite the July victories. He finally resolved to himself that his government would never return a free person to bondage. Even so, he could imagine the Supreme Court, still under recalcitrant Roger Taney, forcing him to do so.2
Then too, the election was a year away.
Even if the future was in doubt, Douglass felt his meeting with the president had been gratifying. Being a guarded judge of character, especially when it came to white men, Douglass was impressed by Lincoln's sincerity. Douglass predicted that Lincoln would go down in history not as great, wise, or eloquent, but certainly as an honest man. During the visit, he had been received as a gentleman. Never did Douglass feel reminded of their difference in color by either compliment or condescension. He did not take this fact lightly, being unable to remember a similar occurrence during his dealings with powerful men over the past twenty years. During a speech in Philadelphia, he summed up his feelings on the meeting: "I tell you I felt big in there."3
Lincoln had been giving much thought to black soldiers during the week they met. The day before Douglass visited, Lincoln composed a letter to General Ulysses Grant on the importance of recruiting black soldiers in the West. He found it to be "a resource which if vigorously applied now, will soon close the contest... It works doubly, weakening the enemy & strengthening us."
Lincoln felt that with the Mississippi valley and delta in their control, the region along the mighty river was ripe for recruiting. One hundred thousand black troops would provide great relief to the white men who were already fighting.4
Grant replied to Lincoln on August 23, concurring with Lincoln's assessments and declaring that, from what he had seen in the field, emancipation was "the heaviest blow yet given the Confederacy." He viewed the black man as a powerful ally and was pleased with what he was seeing in terms of their fighting abilities. The Confederates would do all they could to prevent black men from joining the army, but Grant would send recruiting officers wherever the army extended.5
Lincoln told visitors to the White House on August 19 that black men were now so vital to the effort that the war would be lost in three weeks if they abandoned this new drive. Emancipation had given him two hundred thousand men who could be soldiers, and it would provide more. Senator Zachariah Chandler wrote to a fellow senator, "Every Negro regiment of a thousand men presents just one thousand unanswerable arguments against the revocation of the President's proclamation."6
On September 3, Springfield, Illinois, hosted a rally to show support for the war that their native son was struggling to sustain. Three months earlier, Lincoln's hometown, situated in a county that leaned Democratic, witnessed one of the largest midwestern peace meetings. James Conkling asked Lincoln to come home and stand with those who still believed the war was worth fighting. Returning to the warmth of Springfield to articulate a validation of the war was tempting. Lincoln's secretaries observed how eagerly he cherished the hope of speaking to adoring crowds as he had done so many times before. After two weeks of deliberation, Lincoln forlornly concluded his responsibilities in Washington were too pressing to go. Instead, he sent a carefully crafted letter that he wanted his old friend to read on his behalf. Throughout his presidency, Lincoln spoke very rarely in public and came to rely on written messages, sometimes in letters to political allies, sometimes to newspapers, and in this case, in a speech to be read by someone else.7
After a night to think it over, he sent a second draft and gave Conkling some speaking advice: "Rea
d it very slowly." Three days later, he sent a third draft that included a reference to Grant, a man who had never supported abolitionist causes but was now a successful and rising general and believed that emancipation was strengthening the Union cause.
In the speech, Lincoln uncharacteristically went right to the jugular of his opponents. He asked his critics to choose between peace and union. Compromise was not possible, and if they thought he should let the Confederacy go, then they ought to come out and say it. Springfield was packed with somewhere between forty and seventy thousand people from all over the state, many having slept the night in their wagons. They thronged to hear Conkling read Lincoln's blunt truth as he had come to see it: " . . . to be plain, you are dissatisfied with me about the negro."8
Lincoln conceded that there were different opinions on the issue. He wished all could be free; others felt differently. Some thought the Emancipation Proclamation was unconstitutional; Lincoln considered it otherwise. He continued in a devastating deadpan note, "You say you will not fight to free negros. Some of them seem willing to fight for you; but, no matter."
Keep fighting to save the Union, Lincoln implored, as he had issued the Emancipation Proclamation to aid in just that goal. But they needed to keep in mind one central fact of human nature, that black men were serving under a promise they would be made free, for "Negros, like other people, act upon Motives." If they were risking their lives based on this pledge, how could the nation retreat from it?
When the day of freedom arrives, "there will be some black men who can remember that, with silent tongue, and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well-poised bayonet, they have helped mankind on to this great consummation." On the other hand, there would be white men who would not forget that "with malignant hearts, and deceitful speech, they have strove to hinder it." Lincoln had never before spoken so powerfully about black soldiers. The contrast of white men who would so cowardly compromise and black men in the field so nobly sacrificing makes this speech a true line of demarcation in Lincoln's public conviction that he could never allow slavery to continue after all that these black men had dared. These words were widely republished in every northern newspaper. His assistant William O. Stoddard remembered Lincoln reading a version of the letter before he let it be mailed, with Lincoln putting particular emphasis on the line about the gallantry of black soldiers.
The administration's offer of a commission to Douglass to recruit in the Mississippi Valley was of great comfort to him. The pay issue was not resolved, but his meeting with Lincoln had led him to have faith in the "educating tendency of the conflict." He was convinced that Lincoln was honest, and that allowed him to go back to his recruiting efforts. One of Douglass's other major objections had been that by resisting black officers, the administration was not open to opportunities for these men. Yet by offering Douglass this position, the administration had done exactly what Douglass had advocated. His earlier resignation letter had made very clear that Douglass wanted to continue this work but could not until certain circumstances changed. Stanton may have caught Douglass off guard, but he was offering Douglass something that he had long coveted.
After his monumental days in Washington, Douglass returned to Rochester to tie up personal and professional matters. Stanton had said it would not take long for the commission to arrive. Douglass now faced a weighty decision: What to do with his monthly paper? Through sixteen long years, harsh financial times, and days when he was exhausted from the speech the night before, through all this he had kept the paper going. No matter how far his public engagements had taken him, he always made it back home to keep publishing. This valuable monthly transatlantic platform was at stake. The fact that he was giving up his paper conveyed how much the commission meant to him.
As he composed a farewell letter to his readers, "emotions are excited for which I shall not attempt to find words to give suitable expression." He felt like a huge chapter of his life was closing, one that had brought him tremendous joy. Moreover, for many of his closest friends who lived an ocean away, the paper was what had kept them connected. In its pages, they could keep track of their friend's activities from month to month.
He wrote that this felt like a painful parting. Part of him must have been relieved not to have the stress of the paper's financial precariousness, but it was gratifying to make clear that money trouble had not ended the paper, as this might reflect on the future viability of black-owned newspapers. Nor was there any intention on his part to stop writing on issues related to an evil that was not yet defeated.
The reason he was writing this farewell letter was simple: "I can better serve my poor bleeding country-men whose great opportunity has now come, by going south and summoning them to assert their just liberty, than I can do by staying here." He proudly reported his placement with General Lorenzo Thomas. Slavery had taken up the sword, so he predicted by the sword it would die.
Despite all the advice he had received from others that he should not join the war, he wrote that it was natural for him to play a part in the physical struggle to end slavery. Conceding that some would disagree with his decision, he could not hide his desire to be closer to where the blood of slaveholders would be shed. With a full heart, he brought a sixteen-year relationship with his readers to a close.9
With that emotional piece of business taken care of, Douglass waited for the commission that would take him south. After Edwin Stanton met with Douglass on August 10, the secretary of war had C. W. Foster of the Adjutant General's Office in the War Department write to a depot quartermaster to arrange public payment for Douglass's journey from Rochester to Vicksburg, Mississippi. Three days later Foster wrote to Douglass in Rochester, relating that Stanton now wanted Douglass to proceed to Vicksburg, Mississippi, where he would report in person to Brigadier General Lorenzo Thomas. Douglass found a copy of the order for his transportation at government expense, but something was missing in the envelope.10
There was no commission.
Waiting a few more days and receiving nothing, Douglass sent an anxious letter to Stanton, saying he was ready to meet Thomas in Vicksburg now that he had obtained the receipt of his transportation. However, before he left home, he wanted to know under what conditions he was entering the service. Straining to be polite, Douglass asked why there was no commission in the package. Stanton had clearly said he would be an officer under General Thomas. Had their agreement changed?11
In the days that followed, Douglass's confusion only increased. He had given up so much for this commission. On August 18, Douglass wrote his friend Thomas Webster, who was coordinating the recruitment of black soldiers in Pennsylvania, hoping to see him before he left for Mississippi. Still assuming the undertaking was happening, Douglass was uneasy. He wrote his friend that he was unsure about the conditions of his service, as well as the rank, pay, and duty. The agitated Douglass wondered if Stanton found it amusing to keep him in the dark about these critical matters. Did the administration think they were a monarchy, where they could command a man without regard to his life? The last thing Douglass needed was more worry, as he acknowledged that he lived in a state of constant fear for the safety of his sons. Perhaps realizing he was already divulging more sentiment than was typical for him, he reassured his friend that he would obey whatever Stanton decided.12
Stanton did not answer Douglass's letter; Foster did so but evasively. As if Douglass had written about money, which he had not, Foster responded that it would still be Steams compensating him for his service. Douglass was utterly mystified. Who was paying his salary was not at all germane to the inquiry he had made. He simply wanted to know whether he was an officer of the United States military or not. They had stymied his query again. Yet Foster had implicitly answered the question. If Douglass were to be an officer, why would George Steams be paying him, instead of the United States government?
Foster's letter concluded sharply, dismissing Douglass's questions and telling him "It is of course expected that you go." The War Departme
nt was not interested in a long discussion with a black man concerning rank. Foster restated the assignment—to aid General Thomas in recruiting black men— and expected him to get to it.13
It was not just the missing commission, but what Douglass perceived as a dismissive disingenuousness that angered him. He was offended by Stanton's refusal to level with him. He curtly wrote to the secretary of war that if he would only talk about who was paying him, that he might as well be conversing with that man on the status of his duty. He clothed the sentiment in courteous language, but the message was now coming clear. Stanton did not want to tell Douglass he was backing out of the understanding they had, so Douglass, in his sense of preserving his self-respect, had no desire to speak further with him.14
Ottilie Assing could not understand why Stanton did not have the courage to act on, or even address, what seemed to be originally his idea. What she saw happening was Stanton employing "petty excuses and intentional misunderstandings, so that Douglass, fully aware of the game that was being played, broke off the discussions completely disgusted and dismayed."15
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