Lincoln also used the journey to stress his dependence on his people’s support during the crisis ahead. This was not simple flattery, nor the routine expression of truisms, but a means of testing the opinion of those of all parties without whom he knew that he—“an accidental instrument” and temporary servant—would fail. “When the people rise in masses in behalf of the Union and the liberties of their country, truly it may be said, ‘The gates of hell shall not prevail against them,’” he told a cheering crowd in Indianapolis. “In all the trying positions in which I shall be placed . . . my reliance will be placed upon you and the people of the United States—and I wish you to remember now and forever, that it is your business, and not mine . . . to rise up and preserve the Union and liberty, for yourselves, and not for me.” At Trenton he asked his audience directly: “If I do my duty, and do right, you will sustain me, will you not?” and elicited gratifying and reassuring cries of “Yes,” “Yes,” “We will.”28
By the end of his journey’s twelfth and final day, on George Washington’s birthday, Lincoln could reflect on a trip during which he had spoken directly to more people outside Illinois than he had ever done before. Once he was president, events would prevent his repeating this sustained face-to-face exercise, but for now the rousing cries of “Lincoln and Union forever” assured him of broad-based support within the free states for a determined policy of maintaining federal authority over the southern separatists. Nighttime events on February 22 momentarily threatened to dent both Lincoln’s confidence and the public’s faith in his firmness: yielding to close advisers and Pinkerton detectives, who were convinced that in Baltimore he faced a real threat of assassination by southern sympathizers, he agreed to travel surreptitiously over the last leg of his journey to Washington. The upshot was ridicule in much of the press, which exercised its fertile imagination at Lincoln’s expense. But the episode in practice changed little and did nothing to alter Lincoln’s judgment that the policy embodied in his inaugural address would enjoy broad public support.
Ten days later, watched by thousands, Lincoln stood in Washington before a capitol building still under construction, preparing to take his oath of office and protected from a distance by companies of riflemen, batteries of flying artillery, and a cavalry guard. These were symbols of a fractured Union in crisis, but the opening passages of Lincoln’s address sought to reassure the country “that the property, peace and security of no section are to be in anywise endangered by the now incoming Administration.” He would ensure the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law and other constitutional provisions designed to protect slaveholders. He would accept a constitutional amendment formally guarding “the domestic institutions of the States” against federal interference. He took the oath “with no mental reservations.” The Union was no threat to the South.29
That Union, however, was perpetual and indivisible. So dictated the principles of universal law: “no government proper, ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination”; “if the United States be . . . but an association of States in the nature of contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade, by less than all the parties who made it?” This, too, was the transparent verdict of the nation’s own history: the Union predated the Constitution and had been formed for perpetuity. State ordinances of secession, then, were legally void; violence against the authority of the United States was an act of revolution or insurrection. Following his “simple duty” as directed by the Constitution, Lincoln would ensure that the laws were “faithfully executed.”
But what would this mean in practice? Secession had been accompanied by the separatists’ widespread seizure of federal forts, arsenals, and other installations, but a few remained under Union control. Lincoln would use his power “to hold, occupy, and possess the property, and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts.” But there would be “no invasion—no using of force against, or among the people anywhere”; no “obnoxious strangers” would be pressed into federal offices unfilled locally; and the mails would not be delivered against the wishes of the community.
Lincoln realized that his promises would effect no change of heart amongst rebels who sought “to destroy the Union at all events.” But, convinced that the wreckers did not comprise a southern, and certainly not a national, majority, he spent most of the remainder of his address offering reasons why his “countrymen, one and all,” both the “dissatisfied” and the contented, should share his faith in popular government, in the rule of a majority constrained by a Constitution which worked to protect the rights of minorities. Only when a majority trampled on those rights was revolutionary dismemberment of the policy morally justified. But the points of current controversy—above all the powers and responsibilities of Congress toward slavery in the territories—were not explicitly covered by the Constitution. In such cases the minority must acquiesce in the government of a majority “held in restraint by constitutional checks, and limitations, and always changing easily, with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments.” A legally guided, virtuous, and vigilant majority was “the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it, does, of necessity, fly to anarchy or to despotism.” Lincoln, as president, was its authorized agent, impotent to negotiate the destruction of the Union. No great harm could be done in the four short years of any one administration, responsible as it was to the “great tribunal” of the American people.
Lincoln appealed for patience to allow for the workings of “intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him, who has never yet forsaken this favored land,” and drew to a close by affirming the nation’s bonds of affection: “The mystic chords of memory, stre[t]ching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, 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.” But the new president’s eloquence would cut little ice with those who were ostensibly its main target: the people of the lower South who could either revoke the secession ordinances or, by challenging federal authority where it continued to function within the separatist states, intensify what Lincoln defined as their aggression against the Union. When he addressed them as “fellow citizens” and spoke of disunion as “formidably attempted”—but by implication not achieved, or achievable—he used language destined, if not intended, to widen still further the chasm between Washington and them.
Lincoln, though, had in mind a wider audience: the citizens of the loyal states who had not voted for him in November, but whose support he needed if he were successfully to face down the secessionists. Not least he had to scotch the fears of critics who believed that he desired “to add civil war to disunion.”30 His target included the citizens of the eight states of the upper South, where secession had been resisted and successfully voted down in February, and through some of which Lincoln had proposed to travel en route to Washington until concerns for his security supervened.31 It was with these people in mind that he declared that the government would not “assail” the seceded states and that “the momentous issue of civil war” lay not in his hands, but with the separatists, who could, he insisted, “have no conflict, without being . . . [themselves] the aggressors.” And it was with special regard for the sensibilities of southern loyalists that he heeded the advice proffered by Seward and Orville Browning to tone down some of the steelier and more menacing phrases of the speech’s first draft, which had declared an intent to “reclaim” fallen federal forts.
Party triumphalism, too, was conspicuously absent from a speech designed to bind conservative Democrats and Bell-Everett men, along with their recent Republican opponents, into a broad pro-Union alliance. In consequence, the antislavery Republican conscience made but a fleeting appearance. Lincoln’s one reference—brief, though powerful—to a moral confrontation came when he adopted the formula he had used in his recent letters to Gilmer and Stephens: “One section of our
country believes slavery is right, and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong, and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute.” Lincoln’s first draft of the address had quoted directly from the Republican platform of 1856 and its celebration of the principles of freedom in the Declaration. But shortly before March 4 he removed this passage, together with all specific mention of the Republican party and the Chicago platform of 1860. This was Seward’s hand at work. Republicans, he told Lincoln, “will be loyal, whatever is said.” The new president should do what Jefferson had done in the crisis of 1800 and sink “the partisan in the patriot”; “you cannot lose the Republican party by practicing in your advent to office the magnanimity of a victor.”32
Lincoln achieved his aim, garnering support from well beyond his party’s boundaries. It helped that at the inauguration ceremony Stephen Douglas, true to his private pledge of solidarity, stood close at hand, holding Lincoln’s hat and reportedly offering a sotto voce running commentary of approval (“Good”; “That is the right doctrine”; “That is no coercion”).33 The speech won plaudits from much of the opposition press. Lincoln had said “all that he should have said,” one Douglasite editor thought; another found in its “deep spirit of fraternal kindness” an irresistible invitation to join in the “holy work” of rescuing the Union. But critics remained and mixed reflex abuse with substantive concerns. Many newspapers that supported Breckinridge and even some that supported Douglas discerned a declaration of war on the lower South. Brokers anticipated a feverish stock market. The inaugural had “too much fight in it,” Lincoln learned. For all its clarity, ambiguities remained. His conciliatory words sat uneasily with the menacing potential of his policy toward fallen federal forts and revenue collecting.34 Still, in winning over some opponents Lincoln had taken a significant step toward becoming the president of a people, not the leader of a party. “I think the honest portion of the American people are with you,” a New York correspondent told the new president after taking cross-party soundings, “and will hold themselves subject to your direction.”35
Republicans, naturally, provided a chorus of approving voices. Editors praised a “strong, straightforward and manly” address whose “wire-woven sentences” proffered a blend of firm, unhurried purpose and conciliatory calm. This declaration of war “against treason” would surely rally bipartisan support. New York’s Governor Morgan complimented Lincoln on words that were “kind in spirit, firm in purpose, national in the highest degree.” If some detected a whiff of overleniency, few feared any compromise on fundamentals. “Republicans are delighted that there is no abandonment of Republican principle,” exulted one of Lincoln’s Springfield circle. The inaugural promised firm adherence to the Chicago platform, including the confining and choking of slavery. Lincoln’s declaration that “vital questions” should not be “irrevocably fixed” by Supreme Court judges, regardless of the views of the sovereign people, elicited warm applause. There would be no repeat of the Dred Scott dicta.36
The party’s antislavery radicals took additional encouragement from the slate of cabinet nominees which Lincoln sent to the Senate on the day after his inauguration. For the Treasury Department he had chosen the formidable Salmon P. Chase, who for two decades had done more than most to shape and energize the forces of political antislavery. Chase’s name was not a surprise, but neither was it assured until late in the day. His nomination guaranteed that the “ultras” or “straight-outs,” as radicals were known, would have a forceful and intellectually impressive spokesman at the highest level.
Salmon Portland Chase (1808–73)
William Henry Seward (1801–72)
Edwin McMasters Stanton (1814–69)
Gideon Welles (1802–78)
LINCOLN’S KEY CABINET MEMBERS
Two of Lincoln’s most effective cabinet officers served him for the duration of his tenure as president: William H. Seward as secretary of state, and Gideon Welles as secretary of the navy. Salmon P. Chase proved a superb secretary of the treasury until Lincoln accepted his resignation in June 1864. Edwin M. Stanton took over from Simon Cameron as secretary of war in January 1862, bringing much needed energy and discipline to a vital post.
The framework of his cabinet had begun to take shape in Lincoln’s mind even before his election, and during the sleepless night following his victory he had jotted down the names of seven advisers. His thinking was characteristically hardheaded. He wanted a balanced cabinet that would reflect the breadth and diversity of Republicanism. He also recognized his own inexperience and the political qualities of those he had defeated for the Republican nomination: Seward, Chase, and Bates. It says much for Lincoln’s self-assurance that he was so ready to surround himself with some of the largest and most self-regarding talents in the party. But pursuing this project proved a disjointed, frustrating, and occasionally unhappy affair. Lincoln was cautious, and conducting discussions at a distance did not help. Vice president–elect Hamlin, Bates, Weed (on behalf of Seward), Chase, and Cameron all made separate visits to Illinois. Seward took umbrage at the slowness with which Lincoln invited him to take the State Department. Chase was noncommittal in the face of what amounted merely to a provisional offer. In Cameron’s case, a firm offer was made and accepted, but then retracted. Only two appointments had been agreed upon before Lincoln left for Washington. After his arrival there, at Willard’s Hotel, he faced the determined lobbying of rival factions and felt the hard truth of what the Philadelphia editor John W. Forney had told him: “You cannot select anybody who will not give dissatisfaction in certain quarters.”37
Achieving a balanced cabinet was no easy task, given the many different elements to be counterpoised. The party was an amalgam of ex-Whigs and ex-Democrats; quasi-abolitionist radicals, moderates, and Negrophobic conservatives; free traders and protectionists; nativists and friends of the foreign-born. Lincoln had also to take account of political geography, state interests, understandings (if not outright promises) entered into at the Chicago nominating convention, personal rivalries and antipathies, and the amour propre of some sizable egos. His final list of seven advisers, which varied in only two instances from his draft of November, included four ex-Democrats: Chase at the Treasury, Gideon Welles as secretary of the navy, Montgomery Blair as postmaster general, and Cameron at the War Department. The three original Whigs were Seward as secretary of state, Bates as attorney general, and Caleb Smith as secretary of the interior. To those who worried about the apparent numerical imbalance, Lincoln commonly replied that “he was himself an old-line Whig, and he should be there to make the parties even.”38
Lincoln successfully struck other balances. Welles of Connecticut provided representation for New England, Smith of Indiana and Chase of Ohio for the Northwest, Blair and Bates for the border slave states of Maryland and Missouri, and Seward for New York. Cameron, though hated by many in his state party and tainted with the odor of corruption, was there to reassure the high-tariff men of Pennsylvania, anxious about the influence of the ardent free-trader, Chase. Lincoln’s most delicate task was to bind to his administration the mutually hostile Chase and Seward. Seward had accepted Lincoln’s offer in late December and subsequently did his best to prevent the appointment of his rival. Thinking of himself as the real power of the incoming administration and confidently pursuing a conciliatory, bridge-building policy toward the South, Seward was appalled when Lincoln, who had invited the Republican senators to express their views concerning the Treasury appointment, offered it to Chase, who was taking a hard-line approach to the secessionists. Seward wrote to Lincoln for permission to withdraw his consent to serve—a bluff, intended to result in Chase’s exclusion. But Lincoln was determined to keep both men, telling Nicolay, “I can’t afford to let Seward take the first trick.”39 He followed with his own bluff, letting Seward learn indirectly that he would keep Chase, while Seward would be exiled as minister to England. Seward withdrew his letter.
Despite its messy process of const
ruction and the clear signals that it would lack real harmony, the new cabinet immediately served two useful purposes. Lincoln both reassured his party hard-liners that there would be no backsliding from true Republicanism, and at the same time sought to signal to non-Republicans in the North and the anxious border South that his would be a broad-based administration, attentive to conservative sentiment. It did not satisfy those who thought the crisis demanded an all-inclusive, cross-party cabinet, but—through Blair’s appointment in particular—it reached out a hand to anxious Democratic Unionists and the border South, and notably to teetering Maryland.40
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