286 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 
Presidential  term,  declared  that  to  Congress 
instead  of  the  President  belonged  the  question 
of  reconstruction,  and  advocated  the  confisca- 
tion of  the  property  of  the  rebels  and  its  distri- 
bution among  the  soldiers. 
The  platform  was  adopted  after  brief  debate, 
and  a  letter  from  Mr.  Wendell  Phillips  was 
read  to  the  convention,  full  of  the  vehement 
unreason  which  distinguished  all  the  attempts 
of  this  matchless  orator  to  apply  his  mind  to 
the  practical  affairs  of  life.  He  predicted  the 
direst  results  from  four  more  years  of  Lincoln's 
administration. 
Unless  the  South  is  recognized  [which  he  appar- 
ently thought  not  improbable  under  Lincoln's  nerve- 
less policy],  the  war  will  continue;  the  taxation 
needed  to  sustain  our  immense  debt,  doubled  by 
that  time,  will  grind  the  laboring  man  of  the  North 
down  to  the  level  of  the  pauper  labor  of  Europe  ; 
and  we  shall  have  a  government  accustomed  to  des- 
potic power  for  eight  years — a  fearful  peril  to  demo- 
cratic institutions. 
He  denounced  Mr.  Lincoln's  plan  of  recon- 
struction, and  drew  this  comical  parallel  be- 
tween him  and  Fremont: 
The  Administration,  therefore,  I  regard  as  a  civil 
and  military  failure,  and  its  avowed  policy  ruinous 
to  the  North  in  every  point  of  view.  Mr.  Lincoln 
may  wish  the  end  peace  and  freedom,  but  he  is 
wholly  unwilling  to  use  the  means  which  can  secure 
that  end.  If  Mr.  Lincoln  is  reelected  I  do  not  expect 
to  see  the  Union  reconstructed  in  my  day,  unless 
on  terms  more  disastrous  to  liberty  than  even  dis- 
union would  be.  If  I  turn  to  General  Fremont,  I  see 
a  man  whose  first  act  was  to  use  the  freedom  of  the 
negro  as  his  weapon  ;  I  see  one  whose  thorough 
loyalty  to  democratic  institutions,  without  regard 
to  race,  whose  earnest  and  decisive  character,  whose 
clear-sighted  statesmanship  and  rare  military  ability, 
justify  my  confidence  that  in  his  hands  all  will  be 
done  to  save  the  state  that  foresight,  skill,  decision, 
and  statesmanship  can  do. 
With  characteristic  reliance  on  his  own  free- 
dom from  prejudice,  he  continued: 
This  is  an  hour  of  such  peril  to  the  Republic  that 
I  think  men  should  surrender  all  party  and  personal 
partiality,  and  support  any  man  able  and  willing 
to  save  the  state. 
This  was,  in  fact,  the  attitude  of  mind  of  the 
vast  majority  of  the  people  of  the  country ;  but 
all  it  meant  in  Mr.  Phillips's  case  was  that  he 
was  willing  to  vote  for  either  Fremont  or  But- 
ler to  defeat  Lincoln. 
A  feeble  attempt  was  now  made  by  the  dele- 
gates from  New  York,  who  called  themselves 
"  War  Democrats,"  to  induce  the  convention 
to  nominate  General  Grant.  Mr.  Golvin  read 
a  letter  from  Mr.  Lucius  Robinson  of  New 
York  —  afterwards  governor  of  that  State  —  at- 
tacking the  errors  and  blunders  "  of  the  weak 
Executive  and  Cabinet,"  and  claiming  that  the 
hope  of  the  people  throughout  the  country 
rested  upon  General  Grant  as  a  candidate. 
Although  Mr.  Colvin  supplemented  the  read- 
ing of  this  letter  by  promising  a  majority  of  one 
hundred  thousand  for  Grant  in  the  State  of 
New  York,  the  Missourians  cheered  only 
the  louder  for  Fremont ;  and  when  a  last  effort 
was  made  by  Mr.  Demers  of  Albany  to  nomi- 
nate Grant,  he  was  promptly  denounced  as  a 
Lincoln  hireling.  Colonel  Moss,  in  the  uni- 
form of  a  general  of  the  Missouri  militia, 
arose  and  put  a  stop  to  the  profitless  discussion 
by  moving  in  a  stentorian  voice  the  nomina- 
tion of  General  Fremont  by  acclamation,  which 
was  at  once  done ;  and  the  assembly  completed 
its  work  by  placing  John  Cochrane  on  the 
ticket  as  its  candidate  for  Vice-President.  No 
one  present  seemed  to  have  any  recollection 
of  the  provision  of  the  Constitution  which  for- 
bids both  of  these  officers  being  taken  from  the 
same  State. 
The  convention  met  again  in  the  evening 
and  listened  to  dispirited  and  discouraging 
speeches  of  ratification.  The  committee  ap- 
pointed in  the  afternoon  to  give  a  name  to  the 
new  party  brought  in  that  of  the  "  Radical 
Democracy,"  and  in  this  style  it  was  formally 
christened.  An  executive  committee  was  ap- 
pointed, of  men  destitute  of  executive  capacity, 
and  the  convention  adjourned. 
Its  work  met  with  no  response  from  the 
country.  On  the  day  of  its  meeting  the  Ger- 
man press  of  Cleveland  expressed  its  profound 
disappointment  at  the  smallness  and  insignifi- 
cance of  the  gathering,  and  with  a  few  unim- 
portant exceptions  the  newspapers  of  the  coun- 
try greeted  the  work  of  the  convention  with 
an  unbroken  chorus  of  ridicule.  Its  absurdities 
and  inconsistencies  were  indeed  too  glaring 
for  serious  consideration.  Its  movers  had 
denounced  the  Baltimore  convention  as  being 
held  too  early  for  an  expression  of  the  deliberate 
judgment  of  the  people,  and  now  they  had 
made  their  own  nominations  a  week  earlier; 
they  had  claimed  that  Baltimore  was  not  suffi- 
ciently central  in  situation,  and  they  had  held 
their  convention  on  the  northern  frontier  of 
the  country ;  they  had  claimed  that  the  Balti- 
more delegates  were  not  properly  elected,  and 
they  had  assumed  to  make  nominations  by 
delegates  not  elected  at  all ;  they  had  denounced 
the  Baltimore  convention  as  a  close  corpora- 
tion and  invited  the  people  to  assemble  in  mass, 
and  when  they  came  together  they  were  so  few 
they  never  dared  to  count  themselves ;  they 
had  pretended  to  desire  a  stronger  candidate 
than  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  had  selected  the  most 
conspicuous  failure  of  the  war ;  they  clamored 
loudly  against  corruption  in  office,  and  one  of 
the  leading  personages  in  the  convention  was 
a  member  of  Fremont's  staff  who  had  been
THE    CLEVELAND    CONVENTION. 
dismissed  the  service  for  dishonesty  in  Gov- 
ernment contracts. 
The  whole  proceeding,  though  it  excited 
some  indignation  among  the  friends  of  Mr. 
Lincoln,  was  regarded  by  the  President  him- 
self only  with  amusement.  On  the  morning 
after  the  convention  a  friend,  giving  him  an 
personal  liberty  and  the  liberty  of  the  press,  and,  as  a 
crowning  shame,  by  its  abandonment  of  the  right 
of  asylum. 
The  feebleness  and  want  of  principle  of  the 
Administration,  its  incapacity  and  selfishness, 
were  roundly  denounced  by  Genera]  Fremont, 
but  he  repudiated   the  cry  of  the  Cleveland 
account  of  it,  said  that,  instead  of  the  many    convention  for   confiscating  ,hc       0     rt     of 
thousands  who  had  been  expected,  there  were    rebe]s_    In  conclusion  hc  Jfc 
present  at  no  time  more  than  four  hundred 
men.  The  President,  struck  by  the  number 
mentioned,  reached  for  the  Bible  which  com- 
monly lay  on  his  desk,  and  after  a  moment's 
search,  read  these  words : 
And  every  one  that  was  in  distress,  and  every  one 
that  was  in  debt,  and  every  one  that  was  discon- 
tented, gathered  themselves  unto  him  ;  and  he  be- 
came a  captain  over  them  :  and  there  were  with 
him  about  four  hundred  men.1 
It  was  only  among  the  Democratic  papers 
If  the  convention  at  Baltimore  will  nominate  any 
man  whose  past  life  justifies  a  well-grounded  con- 
fidence in  his  fidelity  to  our  cardinal  principles, 
there  is  no  reason  why  there  should  be  any  division 
among  the  really  patriotic  men  of  the  country.  To 
any  such  I  shall  be  most  happy  to  give  a  cordial 
and  active  support.  .  .  .  But  if  Mr.  Lincoln 
should  be  nominated  —  as  I  believe  it  would  be  fatal 
to  the  country  to  indorse  a  policy  and  renew  a  power 
which  has  cost  us  the  lives  of  thousands  of  men, 
and  needlessly  put  the  country  on  the  road  to  bank- 
ruptcy—  there  will  remain  no  other  alternative  but  to 
that  the  Cleveland  convention  met  with  any    organize  against  him  every  element  of  conscientious 
opposition  with  the  view  to  prevent  the  misfortune 
of  his  reelection. 
He  therefore  accepted  the  nomination,  and 
informed  the  committee  that  he  had  resigned 
his  commission  in  the  army.  General  Cochrane 
accepted  in  briefer  and  more  judicious  lan- 
guage, holding  the  same  views  as  his  chief  on 
the  subject  of  confiscation.  Later  in  the  sum- 
mer some  of  the  partisans  of  Fremont,  seeing 
that  there  was  positively  no  response  in  the 
country  to  his  candidacy,  wrote  to  him  sug- 
gesting that  the  candidates  nominated  at  Cleve- 
land and  Baltimore  should  withdraw,  and  leave 
the  field  entirely  free  for  a  united  effort  for  w  a 
uiauuiao^invo^.  liv.xvv.i. *,, i.xx^  l*y v  ±^ *»  convention  which  should  represent  the 
Yorkers  met  with  a  gust  of  ridicule  which  .    .  e    «  .     „    „,.      r   ,     ,  ,  . 
patriotism    of  all    parties.       I  hey  asked  him 
whether  in  case  Mr.  Lincoln  would  withdraw 
support  or  applause.  They  gave  it  solemn  and 
unmeasured  eulogies  for  its  independence,  its 
patriotism,  its  sagacity,  and  even  its  numbers. 
The  Copperhead  papers  in  New  York  urged 
the  radicals  not  to  give  up  their  attitude  of 
uncompromising  hostility  to  Lincoln,  and  pre- 
dicted a  formidable  schism  in  the  Republican 
party  as  a  consequence  of  their  action.  But  the 
motive  of  this  support  was  so  evident  that  it 
deceived  nobody ;  and  it  was  compared  by  a 
sarcastic  observer  to  the  conduct  of  the  Span- 
ish urchins  accompanying  a  condemned  Jew  to 
an  auto-da-fe,  and  shouting,  in  the  fear  that 
he  might  recant  and  rob  them  of  their  holiday, 
Stand  fast,  Moses."  The  ticket  of  the  two  New 
would  have  destroyed  more  robust  chances  than 
theirs.  "  The  New  York  Major-General  John 
C.  and  the  New  York  Brigadier-General  John 
C."  formed  a  matched  ticket  fated  to  laughter. 
But  if  no  one  else  took  them  seriously,  the 
two  generals  at  least  saw  in  the  circumstances 
no  occasion  for  smiling.  General  Fremont 
promptly  accepted  his  nomination.2    He  said : 
This  is  not  an  ordinary  election.  It  is  a  contest 
for  the  right  even  to  have  candidates,  and  not  merely, 
as  usual,  for  the  choice  among  them.  .  .  .  The 
ordinary  rights  secured  under  the  Constitution  and 
the  laws  of  the  country  have  been  violated,  and  ex- 
traordinary powers  have  been  usurped  by  the  Ex- 
ecutive. It  is  directly  before  the  people  now  to  say 
whether  or  not  the  principles  established  by  the 
Revolution  are  worth  maintaining.  .  .  .  To-day 
we  have  in  the  country  the  abuses  of  a  military 
dictation  without  its  unity  of  action  and  vigor  of 
execution — an  Administration  marked  at  home  by 
disregard  of  constitutional  rights,  by  its  violation  of  partim 
1  This,  it  will  be  remembered,  was  several  years  in         2  June  4,  1864. 
advance  of  the  famous  reference  to  the  Cave  of  Adul-         5  September  21. 
lam  in  the  British  Parliament. 
he  would  do  so.3  Although  the  contingency 
referred  to  was  more  than  sufficiently  remote, 
General  Fremont  with  unbroken  dignity  refused 
to  accede  to  this  proposition. 
Having  now  definitely  accepted  the  Cleveland 
nomination  [he  said],  I  have  not  the  right  to  act  in- 
dependently of  the  truly  patriotic  and  earnest  party 
who  conferred  thathonor  upon  me.  .  .  .  It  might, 
beside,  have  only  the  effect  still  further  to  unsettle  the 
public  mind  and  defeat  the  object  you  have  in  view 
if  we  should  disorganize  before  first  proceeding  to 
organize  something  better.4 
But  a  month  later  5  he  seemed  to  have  re- 
garded the  public  mind  as  beyond  the  risk  of 
unsettling,  and  he  then  wrote  to  his  committee, 
withdrawing  his  name  from  the  list  of  candi- 
dates. He  could  not,  however,  withhold  a 
demonstration  against  the  President. 
3  August  20.        ±  August  25.
288 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 
In  respect  to  Mr.  Lincoln  [he  said]  1  continue  to 
hold  exactly  the  sentiments  contained  in  my  letter 
of  acceptance.  I  consider  that  his  administration 
has  been  politically,  militarily,  and  financially  a 
failure,  and  that  its  necessary  continuance  is  a  cause 
of  regret  for  the  country.  There  never  was  a  greater 
unanimity  in  a  country  than  was  exhibited  here  at 
the  tall  oi  Sumter,  and  the  South  was  powerless  in 
the  face  of  it ;  but  Mr.  Lincoln  completely  paralyzed 
this  generous  feeling.  He  destroyed  the  strength  of 
the  position  and  divided  the  North  when  he  declared 
to  the  South  that  slavery  should  be  protected.  He 
has  built  up  for  the  South  a  strength  which  other- 
wise they  could  have  never  attained,  and  this  has 
given  them  an  advocate  on  the  Chicago  platform. 
With  a  final  denunciation  of  the  leading  men 
whose  reticence  had  "  established  for  Mr.  Lin- 
coln a  character  among  the  people  which  leaves 
now  no  choice,"  General  Fremont  at  last  sub- 
sided into  silence.  General  Cochrane  on  the 
same  day  withdrew  his  name  from  the  Cleve- 
land ticket,  which  had  already  passed  into  swift 
oblivion.  His  letter  had  none  of  the  asperity 
which  characterized  that  of  his  chief.  He 
genially  attacked  the  Chicago  resolutions,  and, 
while  regretting  the  omissions  of  the  Balti- 
more platform,  he  approved  it  in  substance. 
We  stand  within  view  [he  said]  of  a  rebellion 
suppressed,  within  hail  of  a  country  reunited  and 
saved.  War  lifts  the  curtain  and  discloses  the  pros- 
pect. War  has  given  to  us  Atlanta,  and  war  offers 
to  us  Richmond.  .  .  .  Peace  and  division,  or  war 
and  the  Union.    Other  alternative  there  is  none. 
Two  incidents  which  occurred  in  the  spring 
of  1864  caused  unusual  excitement  among 
both  wings  of  the  opposition  to  Mr.  Lincoln. 
The  one  was  the  delivery  of  Arguelles  to  the 
Spanish  authorities ;  the  other  was  the  seiz- 
ure of  two  New  York  newspapers  for  publish- 
ing a  forged  proclamation.  It  was  altogether 
natural  that  the  pro-slavery  Democrats  and 
peace  men  should  have  objected  to  these 
acts,  as  one  of  the  injured  parties  was  a  slave 
trader,  and  the  others  opponents  of  the  war; 
but  it  was  not  the  least  of  the  absurdities  of 
the  Cleveland  protestants  that  they  also,  in 
their  anxiety  to  find  a  weapon  against  the 
President,  at  the  very  moment  that  they  were 
assailing  him  for  not  overriding  all  law  and 
precedent  in  obedience  to  their  demand,  still 
belabored  him  for  these  instances  of  energetic 
action  in  the  very  direction  in  which  they 
demanded  that  he  should  proceed. 
The  case  of  Arguelles  was  a  perfectly  clear 
one ;  and  if  the  surrender  of  a  criminal  is  ever 
justified  as  an  exercise  of  international  comity 
in  the  absence  of  treaty  stipulations,  no  objec- 
tions could  reasonably  be  made  in  this  instance. 
He  was  a  colonel  in  the  Spanish  army  and 
lieutenant-governor  of  the  district  of  Colon 
in  Cuba.  He  had  captured  a  cargo  of  African 
slaves  in  his  official  capacity,  and  had  received 
much  credit  for  his  efficiency  and  a  considera- 
ble sum  of  money  as  his  share  of  the  prize.  He 
went  to  New  York  immediately  afterwards 
and  purchased  a  Spanish  newspaper  which  was 
published  there ;  but  after  his  departure  from 
Cuba  it  was  ascertained  that  in  beginning  so  ex- 
pensive a  business  in  New  York  he  did  not  rely 
exclusively  upon  the  money  he  had  received 
from  the  Government,  but  that  in  concert  with 
a  curate  of  Colon  he  had  sold  one  hundred 
and  forty-one  of  the  recaptured  Africans,  had 
put  the  money  in  his  own  pocket,  and  had 
officially  reported  them  as  having  died  of  small- 
pox. The  Cuban  Government  laid  these  facts 
before  the  State  Department  at  Washington, 
and  represented  that  the  return  of  this  miscreant 
to  Cuba  was  necessary  to  secure  the  liberation 
of  the  unfortunate  victims  of  his  cruelty  and 
greed.  It  was  impossible  to  bring  the  matter 
before  the  courts,  as  no  extradition  treaty  ex- 
isted at  that  period  between  Spain  and  the 
United  States,  and  the  American  authorities 
could  not  by  any  legal  procedure  take  cogni- 
zance of  the  crime.  The  President  and  Mr. 
Seward  at  once  assumed  the  responsibility  of 
acting  in  the  only  way  indicated  by  the  laws 
of  common  humanity  and  international  court- 
esy. Arguelles  was  arrested  in  New  York  by 
the  United  States  marshal,  put  in  charge  of  a 
Spanish  officer  commissioned  for  the  purpose, 
and  by  him  taken  to  Havana.  The  action  of 
the  Government  was  furiously  attacked  by  all 
the  pro-slavery  organs.  A  resolution  was  in- 
troduced by  Mr.  Johnson  in  the  Senate  de- 
manding an  explanation  of  the  circumstances.1 
Mr.  Seward  answered,2  basing  the  action  of 
the  Government  upon  the  stipulations  of  the 
ninth  article  of  the  treaty  of  1842  with  Great 
Britain,  by  which  the  two  countries  agreed  to 
use  all  the  measures  in  their  power  to  close  the 
market  for  slaves  throughout  the  world,  and 
added : 
Although  there  is  a  conflict  of  authorities  concern- 
ing the  expediency  of  exercising  comity  towards  a 
foreign  government  by  surrendering,  at  its  request, 
one  of  its  own  subjects  charged  with  the  commis- 
sion of  crime  within  its  territory,  and  although  it 
may  be  conceded  that  there  is  no  obligation  to  make 
such  a  surrender  upon  a  demand  therefor,  unless  it 
is  acknowledged  by  treaty  or  by  statute  law,  yet  a 
nation  is  never  bound  to  furnish  asylum  to  danger- 
ous criminals  who  are  offenders  against  the  human 
race  ;  and  it  is  believed  that  if  in  any  case  the  comity 
could  with  propriety  be  practiced,  the  one  which  is 
understood  to  have  called  forth  the  resolution  fur- 
nished a  just  occasion  for  its  exercise. 
The  Captain-General  of  Cuba,  on  the  arrival 
of  Arguelles,  sent  his  thanks  to  Mr.  Seward  3 
1  "Congressional  Globe,"  May  26,  1864. 
2  May  30,  1864. 
3  McPherson,  "  History  of  the  Rebellion,"  p.  355.
THE    CLEVELAND    CONVENTION. 
for  the  service  which  he  had  rendered  to  human- 
ity by  furnishing  the  medium  through  which  a 
great  number  of  human  being?  will  obtain  their 
freedom  whom  the  desertion  of  the  person  referred 
to  would  have  reduced  to  slavery.  His  presence 
alone  in  this  island  a  very  few  hours  has  given  liberty 
to  eighty-six. 
The  grand  jury  of  New  York  nevertheless 
indicted  Marshal  Murray  for  the  arrest  of 
Arguelles  on  the  charge  of  kidnapping.  The 
marshal  pleaded  the  orders  of  the  President 
as  the  authority  for  his  action,  and  based  upon 
this  a  petition  that  the  case  be  transferred  to 
the  United  States  court;  and  although  the 
judges  before  whom  he  was  taken,  who  hap- 
pened to  be  Democrats,  denied  this  petition, 
the  indictment  was  finally  quashed,  and  the 
only  result  of  the  President's  action  was  the 
denunciation  which  he  received  in  the  Demo- 
cratic newspapers,  combined  with  the  shrill 
treble  of  the  clamor  from  the  Cleveland  con- 
vention. 
The  momentary  suppression  of  the  two  New 
York  newspapers,  of  which  mention  has  been 
made,  was  a  less  defensible  act,  and  arose  from 
an  error  which  was,  after  all,  sufficiently  natural 
on  the  part  of  the  Secretary  of  War.  On  the  1 9th 
of  May  the  "  Journal  of  Commerce  "  and  the 
"  World,"  two  newspapers  which  had  especially 
distinguished  themselves  by  the  violence  of  their 
opposition  to  the  Administration,  published  a 
forged  proclamation  signed  with  the  President's 
name  calling  in  terms  of  exaggerated  depres- 
sion not  far  from  desperation  for  four  hundred 
thousand  troops.  It  was  a  scheme  devised  by 
two  young  Bohemians  of  the  press,  probably 
with  no  other  purpose  than  that  of  making 
money  by  stock-jobbing.  In  the  tremulous 
state  of  the  public  mind  which  then  prevailed, 
in  the  midst  of  the  terrible  slaughter  of  Grant's 
opening  campaign,  the  country  was  painfully 
sensitive  to  such  news,  and  the  forged  procla- 
mation, telegraphed  far  and  wide,  accomplished 
for  the  moment  the  purpose  for  which  it  was 
doubtless  intended.  It  excited  everywhere  a 
feeling  of  consternation ;  the  price  of  .gold  rose 
rapidly  during  the  morning  hours,  and  the 
Stock  Exchange  was  thrown  into  violent  fever. 
The  details  of  the  mystification  were  managed 
with  some  skill,  the  paper  on  which  the  docu- 
ment was  written  being  that  employed  by  the 
Associated  Press  in  delivering  its  news  to  the 
journals,  and  it  was  left  at  all  the  newspaper 
offices  in  New  York  just  before  the  moment 
of  going  to  press.  If  all  the  newspapers  had 
printed  it  the  guiltlessness  of  each  would  have 
been  equally  evident ;  but  unfortunately  for 
the  victims  of  the  trick,  the  only  two  papers 
which  published  the  forgery  were  those  whose 
previous  conduct  had  rendered  them  liable  to 
the  suspicion  of  bad  faith.  The  fiery  Secretary 
Vol.  XXXVIII.— 38. 
of  War  immediately  issued  order-,  for  the  sup- 
pression   of  the   "  World"  and  "Journal 
Commerce,"  and   the  arrest  of  theil 
The  editors  were  never  incarcerated  ;  ar 
short  detention,  they  were  released.    '1  be  pub- 
lication of  the  papers  was  resumed  after 
days  of  interruption.   These  prompt  1 
and  the  announcement  of  the  imposture 
over  the  country  by   telegraph   soon   qu 
the  excitement,  and  the  quick  detection  of  the 
guilty  persons  reduced  the  incident  to  its  true- 
rank  in  the  annals  of  vulgar  misdemeano    . 
Put  in  the  memories  of  the  Democral 
New  York  the  incident  survived,  and  was  vig- 
orously employed  during  the  summer  mo 
as  a  means  of  attack  upon  the  Administra- 
tion. Governor  Seymour  interested  himself 
in  the  matter  and  wrote  a  long  and  vehement 
letter  to  the  district  attorney  of  New  \ 
denouncing  the  action  of  the  Government. 
"  These  things,"  he  said  in  his  exclamatory 
style,  "  are  more  hurtful  to  the  national  honor 
and  strength  than  the  loss  of  battles.  The 
world  will  confound  such  acts  with  the  prin- 
ciples of  our  Government,  and  the  folly  and 
crimes  of  officials  will  be  looked  upon  as  the 
natural  results  of  the  spirit  of  our  institutions. 
Our  State  and  local  authorities  must  repel  this 
ruinous  inference."  He  predicted  the  most 
dreadful  consequences  to  the  city  of  New 
York  if  this  were  not  done.  The  harbor  would 
be  sealed  up,  the  commerce  of  New  York  par- 
alyzed, the  world  would  withdraw  from  the 
keeping  of  New  York  merchants  its  treasures 
and  its  commerce  if  they  did  not  unite  in  this 
demand  for  the  security  of  persons  and  of 
property.  In  obedience  to  these  frantic  orders 
Mr.  Oakey  Hall,  the  district  attorney,  did 
his  best,  and  was  energetically  seconded  by 
Judge  Russell,  who  charged  the  grand  jury 
that  the  officers  who  took  possession  of  these 
newspaper  establishments  were  "  liable  as  for 
riot " ;  but  the  grand  jury,  who  seem  to  have 
kept  their  heads  more  successfully  than  either 
the  governor  or  the  judge,  resolved  that  it 
was  "  inexpedient  to  examine  into  the  subject." 
The  governor  could  not  rest  quiet  under  this 
contemptuous  refusal  of  the  grand  jury  to  do 
his  bidding.  He  wrote  again  to  the  district 
attorney,  saying,  "  As  the  grand  jury  have 
refused  to  do  their  duty,  the  subject  of  the 
seizure  of  these  journals  should  at  once  be 
brought  before  some  proper  magistrate."'  He 
promised  him  all  the  assistance  he  required  in 
the  prosecution  of  the  investigations.  Thus 
egged  on  by  the  chief  executive  of  the  State. 
Mr.  Hall  proceeded  to  do  the  work  required 
of  him.  Upon  warrants  issued  at  his  instance 
by  City  Judge  Russell,  General  Dix  and  sev- 
eral officers  of  his  staff  were  arrested.1  They 
1  July  1.
:9o 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 
submitted  with  perfect  courtesy  to  the  behest 
of  the  civil  authorities,  and  appeared  before 
fudge  Russell  to  answer  for  their  acts.  The 
judge  held  them  over  on  their  own  recogni- 
zance to  await  the  action  of  another  grand 
jury,  which,  it  was  hoped,  might  be  more  sub- 
servient to  the  wishes  of  the  governor  than 
the  last ;  but  no  further  action  was  ever  taken 
in  the  matter. 
During  the  same  week  which  witnessed  the 
radical  fiasco  at  Cleveland,  an  attempt  was 
made  in  New  York  to  put  General  Grant  be- 
fore the  country  as  a  Presidential  candidate. 
The  committee  having  the  matter  in  charge 
made  no  public  avowal  of  their  intentions; 
they  merely  called  a  meeting  to  express  the 
gratitude  of  the  country  to  the  general  for  his 
signal  services.  Thev  even  invited  the  President 
to  take  part  in  the  proceedings,  an  invitation 
which  he  said  it  was  impossible  for  him  to 
accept. 
I  approve  [he  wrote],  nevertheless,  whatever  may 
tend  to  strengthen  and  sustain  General  Grant  and 
the  noble  armies  now  under  his  direction.  My  pre- 
vious high  estimate  of  General  Grant  has  been 
maintained  and  heightened  by  what  has  occurred 
in  the  remarkable  campaign  he  is  now  conducting, 
while  the  magnitude  and  difficulty  of  the  task  before 
him  do  not  prove  less  than  I  expected.  He  and  his 
brave  soldiers  are  now  in  the  midst  of  their  great 
trial,  and  I  trust  that  at  your  meeting  you  will  so 
shape  your  good  words  that  they  may  turn  to  men 
and  guns,  moving  to  his  and  their  support.1 
With  such  a  gracious  approval  of  the  move- 
ment, the  meeting  naturally  fell  into  the  hands 
of  the  Lincoln  men.  General  Grant,  neither 
at  this  time  nor  at  any  other,  gave  the  least 
countenance  to  the  efforts  which  were  made  to 
array  him  in  political  opposition  to  the  Presi- 
dent. 
THE    RESIGNATION    OF    MR.    CHASE. 
After  Mr.  Chase's  withdrawal  from  his 
hopeless  contest  for  the  Presidency,  his  senti- 
ments toward  Mr.  Lincoln,  as  exhibited  in 
his  letters  and  his  diary,  took  on  a  tinge  of 
bitterness  which  gradually  increased  until  their 
friendly  association  in  the  public  service  be- 
came no  longer  possible.  There  was  something 
almost  comic  in  the  sudden  collapse  of  his 
candidacy;  and  the  American  people,  who  are 
quick  to  detect  the  ludicrous  in  any  event, 
could  not  help  smiling  when  the  States  of 
Rhode  Island  and  Ohio  ranged  themselves 
among  the  first  on  the  side  of  the  President. 
This  was  intolerable  to  Mr.  Chase,  who,  with 
all  his  great  and  noble  qualities,  was  deficient 
in  humor.   His  wounded   self-love  could  find 
1  Lincoln  to  F.  A.  Conkling,  June  3,  1864. 
2  Chase  to  General  Blunt,  May  4,  1864.  Warden, 
"Life  of  S.  P.  Chase,"  p.  583. 
no  balm  in  these  circumstances  except  in  the 
preposterous  fiction  which  he  constructed  for 
himself,  that  through  "  the  systematic  operations 
of  the  Postmaster- General  and  those  holding- 
office  under  him  a  preference  for  the  reelection 
of  Mr.  Lincoln  was  created."  2  Absurd  as  this 
fancy  was,  he  appears  firmly  to  have  believed 
it ;  and  the  Blairs,  whom  he  never  liked,  now 
appeared  to  him  in  the  light  of  powerful  ene- 
mies. An  incident  which  occurred  in  Con- 
gress in  April  increased  this  impression  to  a 
degree  which  was  almost  maddening  to  the 
Secretary.  The  quarrel  between  General  Frank 
Blair  and  the  radicals  in  Missouri  had  been 
transferred  to  Washington;  and  one  of  the  Mis- 
souri members  having  made  charges  against 
him  of  corrupt  operations  in  trade  permits, 
he  demanded  an  investigation,  which  resulted, 
of  course,  in  his  complete  exoneration  from 
such  imputations.  It  was  a  striking  instance 
of  the  bewildering  power  of  factious  hatred 
that  such  charges  should  ever  have  been 
brought.  Any  one  who  knew  Blair,  however 
slightly,  should  have  known  that  personal 
dishonesty  could  never  have  offered  him  the 
least  temptation.  In  defending  himself  on  the 
floor  of  Congress  the  natural  pugnacity  of  his 
disposition  led  him  to  what  soldiers  call  an 
offensive  return, —  in  fact,  Frank  Blair  always 
preferred  to  do  his  fighting  within  the  enemy's 
lines, —  and  believing  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  to  be  in  sympathy,  at  least,  with  the 
assault  which  had  been  made  upon  his  char- 
acter, he  attacked  him  with  equal  vigor  and 
injustice  by  way  of  retaliation.  As  we  have  seen 
in  another  chapter,  before  this  investigation 
was  begun  the  President  had  promised  when 
Blair  should  resign  his  seat  in  the  House  to 
restore  him  to  the  command  in  the  Western 
army  which  he  had  relinquished  on  coming 
to  Washington.  Although  he  greatly  disap- 
proved of  General  Blair's  attack  upon  Mr. 
Chase,  the  President  did  not  think  that  he  was 
justified  on  this  account  in  breaking  his  word ; 
and  doubtless  reasoned  that  sending  Blair 
back  to  the  army  would  not  only  enable  him 
to  do  good  service  in  the  field,  but  would 
quiet  an  element  of  discord  in  Congress.  The 
result,  however,  was  most  unfortunate  in  its 
effect  on  the  feelings  of  Mr.  Chase.  He  was 
stung  to  the  bitterest  resentment  by  the  attack 
of  Blair ;  and  he  held  that  restoring  Blair  to 
his  command  made  the  President  an  accom- 
plice in  his  offense.  From  that  time  he  took  a 
continually  darkened  view  both  of  the  Presi- 
dent's character  and  of  his  chances  for  reelec- 
tion. "  No  good  could  come,"  he  said,  "  of  the 
probable  identification  of  the  next  Administra- 
tion with  the  Blair  family."  His  first  thought 
was  to  resign  his  place  in  the  Cabinet;  but  on 
consulting  his  friends  and  finding  them  unani-
THE   RESIGNATION  OF  MR.   CHASE 
mous  against  such  a  course,  he  gave  it  up.1 
But  his  letters  during  this  month  are  full  of  ill- 
will  to  the  President.  To  his  niece  he  wrote  : 
"  If  Congress  gives  me  the  measures  I  want,  and 
Uncle  Abe  will  stop  spending  so  fast,"  he,  Chase, 
would  bring  about  resumption  within  a  year. 
To  another,  he  blamed  the  President  for  the 
slaughter  at  Fort  Pillow.2  To  Governor  Buck- 
ingham, who  had  written  him  a  sympathetic 
note,  he  said  : ?i  "  My  chief  concern  in  the  at- 
tacks made  on  me  springs  from  the  conviction 
that  the  influence  of  the  men  who  make  them 
must  necessarily  divide  the  friends  of  the  Union 
and  freedom,  unless  the  President  shall  cast  it 
off,  of  which  I  have  little  hope.  I  am  willing 
to  be  myself  its  victim,  but  grieve  to  think  our 
country  may  be  also  "  ;  and  adds  this  compli- 
ment to  his  correspondent  at  the  expense  of 
his  colleagues  in  the  Government :  "  How 
strikingly  the  economy  and  prudence  shown 
by  the  narration  of  your  excellent  message 
contrasts  with  the  extravagance  and  reckless- 
ness which  mark  the  disbursement  of  national 
treasure."  Writing  to  another  friend,  he  in- 
dulges in  this  lumbering  pleasantry  :  "  It  seems 
as  if  there  were  no  limit  to  expense.  .  .  The 
spigot  in  Uncle  Abe's  barrel  is  made  twice  as 
big  as  the  bung-hole.  He  may  have  been  a 
good  flatboatman  and  rail-splitter,  but  he  cer- 
tainly never  learned  the  true  science  of  cooper- 
ing." This  was  a  dark  month  to  him ;  his  only 
fortress  of  refuge  was  his  self-esteem :  secure  in 
this,  he  lavished  on  every  side  his  criticisms  and 
his  animadversions  upon  his  associates.  "  Con- 
gress," he  said,4  "  is  unwilling  to  take  the  de- 
Icisive  steps  which  are  indispensable  to  the 
highest  degree  of  public  credit;  and  the  Ex- 
ecutive does  not,  I  fear,  sufficiently  realize  the 
importance  of  an  energetic  and  comprehen- 
sive policy  in  all  departments  of  administra- 
tion." Smarting  as  he  did  under  the  attack  of 
the  Blairs,  he  pretended  to  treat  them  with 
contempt.  "Do  not  trouble  yourself  about  the 
Blairs,"  he  wrote  to  an  adherent.  "  Dogs  will 
bark  at  the  moon,  but  I  have  never  heard  that 
the  moon  stopped  on  that  account."  By  con- 
stantly dwelling  on  the  imaginary  coalition  of 
Lincoln  with  the  Blairs  against  him,  he  began 
at  last  to  take  heart  again  and  to  think  that 
against  adversaries  so  weak  and  so  wicked 
there  might  still  be  a  chance  of  victory.  Only 
a  fortnight  before  the  gathering  of  the  Re- 
publican convention  at  Baltimore  he  began 
to  look  beyond  the  already  certain  event  of 
that  convention,  and  to  contemplate  the  possi- 
bility of  defeating  Mr.  Lincoln  after  he  should 
be  nominated. 
1  Chase  to  Jay  Cooke,  May  5, 1S64.    Warden,  "  Life 
of  S.  P.  Chase,"  p.  584. 
2  Chase  to  D.   T.   Smith,  May  9,  1864.    Warden, 
"Life  of  S.  P.  Chase,"  p.  587. 
It  has    become    quite    apparent    now    [he    said] 
that  the  importunity  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  special  f: 
for  an  early  convention,  in  or<l<:r  to  make  his  1 
nation  sur<;,  was  a  mistake  both  lor  him  an  1  for  the 
country.    The  convention  will  not  i 
Union  convention,   but   simply  as  a    Blair-Lincoln 
convention,  by  a  ^r*.-at  body  of  dtiz  sup- 
port is  essential   to  success.     Few    except  tflfl 
ready  committed  to  Mr.  Lincoln  will  consider  them- 
selves bound  by  a  predetermined  nomination.     Very 
many  who    may  ultimately   vote  for   Mr.   L:: 
will  wait  the  course  of  events  hoping  that 
popular  movement  for  Grant,   or  some  other  suc- 
cessful general,   will  offer  a  better  hope  of  saving 
the  country.    Others,  and  the  number  seems  I 
increasing,  will  not  support  his  nomina'ion  in  any 
event;   believing  that  our  ill-success  thus  far  in  the 
suppression  of  the  rebellion  is  due  mainly  10  his 
course  of  action  and  inaction,  and  that  no  change 
can  be  for  the  worse.    But  these  are  speculations 
merely  from  my  standpoint.5 
The  Secretary's  relations  with  the  President 
and  his  colleagues  while  he  was  in  this  frame 
of  mind  were  naturally  subject  to  much  friction, 
and  this  frame  of  mind  had  lasted  with  little 
variation  for  more  than  a  year.  It  was  impos- 
sible to  get  on  with  him  except  by  constant 
agreement  to  all  his  demands.  He  chose  in  his 
letters  and  his  diaries  to  represent  himself  as 
the  one  just  and  patriotic  man  in  the  Govern- 
ment, who  was  striving  with  desperate  energy, 
but  with  little  hope,  to  preserve  the  Adminis- 
tration from  coiTupt  influences.  It  cannot  be 
doubted  that  his  motives  were  pure,  his  ability 
and  industry  unusual,  his  integrity,  of  course, 
beyond  question.  He  held,  and  justly  held, 
that,  being  responsible  for  the  proper  conduct 
of  affairs  in  his  department,  he  should  not  be 
compelled  to  make  appointments  contrary  to 
his  convictions  of  duty.  He  was  unquestion- 
ably right  in  insisting  that  appointments  should 
be  made  on  public  grounds,  and  that  only  men 
of  ability  and  character  should  be  chosen  to 
fill  them ;  but  he  had  an  exasperating  habit  of 
assuming  that  nobody  agreed  with  him  in  this 
view,  and  that  all  differences  of  opinion  in 
regard  to  persons  necessarily  sprung  from  cor- 
rupt or  improper  motives  on  the  part  of  those 
who  differed  with  him.  At  the  slightest  word 
of  disagreement  he  immediately  put  on  his  full 
armor  of  noble  sentiments  and  phrases,  appealed 
to  Heaven  for  the  rectitude  of  his  intentions. 
and  threatened  to  resign  his  commission  if 
thwarted  in  his  purpose.  When  he  was  not 
opposed  he  made  his  recommendations,  as  his 
colleagues  did,  on  grounds  of  political  expedi- 
ency as  well  as  of  personal  fitness.  One  day. 
for  instance,  he  recommended  the  appointment 
of  Rheinhold  Solger  as  Assistant  Register  of 
3  May  9,  1S64.   Ibid. 
4  Chase  to  Hamilton,  May  15,  1S64.   Ibid.,  p.  590. 
5  Chase  to  Brough,  May  19,  1S64.  Warden,  '•  Life 
of  S.  P.  Chase,"  p.  593.
JO  J 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 
the  Treasury  on  the  ground  that  "the  German 
supporters  of  the  Administration  have  had  no 
considerable  appointment  in  the  department." 
He  frequently  gave  in  support  ot  his  nominees 
the  recommendation  ot  senators  and  represen- 
tatives ot  the  States  where  the  appointments 
were  to  be  made.  But  he  always  sturdily 
resented  any  suggestions  from  the  President 
that  an  appointment  proposed  by  him  would 
have  a  bad  effect  politically.  He  had  the  faculty 
of  making  himself  believe  that  his  obstinacy  in 
such  matters  arose  purely  from  devotion  to 
principle.  He  would  not  only  weary  the  Presi- 
dent with  unending  oral  discussions,  but,  re- 
turning to  the  department,  would  write  him 
letters  filled  with  high  and  irrelevant  moral- 
it}',  and  at  evening  would  enter  in  his  diary 
meditations  upon  his  own  purity  and  the  per- 
versity of  those  he  chose  to  call  his  enemies. 
It  would  hardly  be  wise  for  the  ablest  man  of 
affairs  to  assume  such  an  attitude.  To  justify  it 
at  all  one  should  be  infallible  in  his  judgment 
of  men.  With  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
this  was  far  from  being  the  case.  He  was  not  a 
good  judge  of  character;  hegave  his  confidence 
freely  to  any  one  who  came  flattering  him  and 
criticizing  the  President,  and  after  having  given 
it,  it  was  almost  impossible  to  make  him  be- 
lieve that  the  man  who  talked  so  judiciously 
could  be  a  knave.  His  chosen  biographer, 
Judge  Warden,  says  :  "He  was  indeed  sought 
less  by  strong  men  and  by  good  men  than  by 
weak  men  and  by  bad  men."1  A  much  better 
authority,  Mr.  Whitelaw  Reid,  while  giving  him 
unmeasured  praise  for  other  qualities  calls  him 
"  profoundly  ignorant  of  men,"  and  says,  "  The 
baldest  charlatan  might  deceive  him  into  trust- 
ing his  personal  worth."  2 
Early  in  the  year  1864  the  Federal  appoint- 
ments in  New  York  City  began  to  be  the  sub- 
ject of  frequent  conversation  between  the 
President  and  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury. 
So  many  complaints  of  irregularity  and  ineffi- 
ciency in  the  conduct  of  affairs  in  the  New 
York  custom  house  had  reached  Mr.  Lincoln 
that  he  began  to  think  a  change  in  the  officers 
there  would  be  of  advantage  to  the  public  ser- 
vice. Every  suggestion  of  this  sort,  however, 
was  met  by  Mr.  Chase  with  passionate  opposi- 
tion. Mr.  Lincoln  had  not  lost  confidence  in  the 
integrity  or  the  high  character  of  Mr.  Barney, 
the  collector  of  customs;  he  was  even  willing  to 
give  him  an  important  appointment  abroad  in 
testimony  of  his  continued  esteem  ;  but  he  was 
not  satisfied  with  what  he  heard  of  the  conduct 
of  his  office.  Several  of  his  subordinates  had 
been  detected  in  improper  and  corrupt  prac- 
tices, and  after  being  defended  by  Mr.  Chase 
until  defense  was  impossible,  they  had  been 
1  Warden,  "  Life  of  S.  P.    Chase,"  p.  530. 
2  Reid,  "  Ohio  in  the  War,"  Vol.  I.,  p.  18. 
dismissed,  and  in  some  cases  punished.  In 
the  month  of  February,  while  the  conduct 
of  the  custom  house  was  under  investigation 
in  Congress,  a  special  agent  of  the  Treasury 
Department  named  Joshua  F.  Bailey  came 
to  Washington,  having  been  summoned  as  a 
witness  to  testify  before  the  committee  of  the 
House  of  Representatives  in  charge  of  the 
matter.  He  called  on  the  chairman  in  advance, 
and  endeavored  to  smother  the  investigation 
by  saying,  among  other  things,  that,  whatever 
might  be  developed,  the  President  would  in 
no  case  take  any  action.  The  chairman  of  the 
committee  reported  this  impudent  statement 
to  the  President,  who  at  once  communicated 
the  fact  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  say- 
ing, "  The  public  interest  cannot  fail  to  suffer  in 
the  hands  of  this  irresponsible  and  unscrupu- 
lous man  " ;  and  he  proposed  at  the  same  time 
to  send  Mr.  Barney  as  minister  to  Portugal.3 
Mr.  Chase  defended  Bailey,  and  resisted  with 
such  energy  the  displacement  of  Mr.  Barney 
that  midsummer  came  with  matters  in  the 
custom  house  unchanged.  Mr.  Chase,  in  his 
diary,  gives  a  full  account  of  a  conversation 
between  himself  and  the  President4  in  re- 
gard to  this  matter,  in  which  the  Secretary 
reiterates  his  assurances  of  confidence  in  the 
conduct  of  the  custom  house,  and  gives 
especially  warm  expression  to  his  regard  for 
Bailey,  meeting  the  positive  assertion  of  the 
chairman  of  the  committee  of  the  House  of 
Representatives  by  saying,  "  I  think  Mr.  Bailey 
is  not  the  fool  to  have  made  such  a  suggestion." 
So  long  as  he  remained  in  office  he  gave  this 
blind  confidence  to  Bailey,  who  finally  showed 
how  ill  he  deserved  it  by  the  embezzlement  of 
a  large  sum  of  public  money,  and  by  his  flight 
in  ruin  and  disgrace  from  the  country. 
In  February,  1863,  the  Senate  rejected  the 
nomination  of  Mr.  Mark  Howard  as  collector 
of  internal  revenue  for  the  district  of  Con- 
necticut. Mr.  Chase,  hearing  that  this  rejec- 
tion was  made  at  the  instance  of  Senator  Dixon, 
immediately  wrote  a  letter  demanding  the  re- 
nomination  of  Howard ;  or,  if  the  President 
should  not  agree  with  him  in  this,  of  some  one 
not  recommended  by  Senator  Dixon.  A  few 
days  later  the  President  wrote  to  Mr.  Chase 
that  after  much  reflection  and  with  a  great  deal 
of  pain  that  it  was  adverse  to  his  wish,  he  had 
concluded  that  it  was  not  best  to  renominate 
Mr.  Howard.  He  recognized  the  constitutional 
right  of  the  Senate  to  reject  his  nominations 
without  being  called  to  account ;  and  to  take 
the  ground  in  advance  that  he  would  nom- 
inate no  one  for  the  vacant  place  who  was 
favored  by  a  senator  so  eminent  in  character 
and  ability  as  Mr.  Dixon  seemed  to  him  pre- 
3  Lincoln  to  Chase,  Feb.  12,  1864. 
4  June  6.
THE   RESIGNATION  OF  MR.   CHASE, 
■-')", 
posterous.  The  only  person  from  Connecticut 
recommended  for  the  vacancy  was  Mr.  Good- 
man, in  favor  of  whom  Senator  Dixon  and  Mr. 
Loomis,  the  Representative  in  the  House,  cor- 
dially united.  The  President  therefore  asked 
Mr.  Chase  to  send  him  a  nomination  for  Good- 
man.1 Immediately  on  the  receipt  of  this  letter 
Mr.  Chase  wrote  out  his  resignation  as  Secre- 
tary of  the  Treasury  in  these  words  : 
Finding  myself  unable  to  approve  the  manner  in 
which  selections  for  appointment  to  important  trusts 
in  this  department  have  been  recently  made,  and 
being  unwilling  to  remain  responsible  for  its  ad- 
ministration, under  existing  circumstances,  I  respect- 
fully resign  the  office  of  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.2 
This  letter,  however,  never  reached  the 
President,  as  Senator  Dixon  came  in  before  it 
was  dispatched  and  discussed  the  matter  in 
a  spirit  so  entirely  different  from  that  of  the 
Secretary  that  no  quarrel  was  possible  with 
him ;  and  after  he  left,  Mr.  Chase  wrote  a  letter 
to  the  President,  in  which  he  said  : 
I  do  not  insist  on  the  renomination  of  Mr.  Howard ; 
and  Mr.  Dixon  and  Mr.  Loomis,  as  I  understand, 
do  not  claim  the  nomination  of  his  successor.  .  .  . 
My  only  object — and  I  think  you  so  understand 
it — is  to  secure  fit  men  for  responsible  places,  with- 
out admitting  the  rights  of  senators  or  representa- 
tives to  control  appointments,  for  which  the  Presi- 
dent, and  the  Secretary,  as  his  presumed  adviser, 
must  be  responsible.  Unless  this  principle  can  be 
practically  established,  I  feel  that  I  cannot  be  useful 
to  you  or  the  country  in  my  present  position.3 
It  is  possible  that  the  Secretary  may  have 
thought  that  this  implied  threat  to  resign 
brought  both  the  President  and  the  senator  to 
reason,  for  the  matter  ended  at  this  time  by 
their  allowing  him  to  have  absolutely  his  own 
way.  Mr.  Dixon  wrote  to  the  President,4  say- 
ing that  he  "  preferred  to  leave  the  whole  mat- 
ter to  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  believing 
his  choice  would  be  such  as  to  advance  the 
interests  of  the  country  and  the  Administra- 
tion"; and  the  President,  who  heartily  detested 
these  squabbles  over  office,  was  glad  of  this 
arrangement.  There  was  not  a  shade  of  differ- 
ence between  him  and  Mr.  Chase  as  to  the 
duty  of  the  Administration  to  appoint  only  fit 
men  to  office,  but  the  President  always  pre- 
ferred to  effect  this  object  without  needlessly 
offer  ding  the  men  upon  whom  the  Govern- 
ment depended  for  its  support  in  the  war. 
1  March  2,  1863.  Warden,  "  Life  of  S.  P.  Chase,"  p. 
524- 
2  Ibid.,  pp.  524,  525. 
3  March  3, 1863.  Warden,  "  Life  of  S.  P.  Chase,"  p. 
525. 
4  Dixon  to  Lincoln,  March  5,  1863.  MS. 
5  Mr.  Schuckers  was  private  secretary  to  Mr.  Chase 
and  author  of  a  biography  of  him,  q.  v.,  p.  423. 
6  Lincoln  to  Chase,  May  8,  1863 ;  MS.  Warden, 
"  Life  of  S.  P.  Chase,"  p.  527. 
A  few  months  later  Mr.  Lincoln  was  sub- 
jected to  great  trouble  and  inconvenient 
the  constant  complaints  which  came  to  him  by 
every  mail  from  Puget  Sound  against  the  col- 
lector for  that  district,  one  Victor  Smith,  from 
Ohio,  a  friend  and  appointee  of  Mr.  Chase. 
This  Smith  is  described  by  Schuckers  *  as 
a  man  not  very  likely  to  become  popubr  on  the 
Pacific  coast  —  or  anywhere  else.  He  believed  in 
spirit  rappings  and  was  an  avowed  abolitionist  ; 
he  whined  a  greatcleal  about  "  progress"  ;  was; 
what  arrogant  in  manner  and  intolerant  insj 
and  speedily  made  himself  thoroughly  unpopular 
in  his  office. 
No  attention  was  paid  by  the  Secretary  to 
these  complaints,  which  were  from  time  to  time 
referred  to  him  by  the  President ;  but  at  last 
the  clamor  by  letter  and  by  deputations  from 
across  the  continent  became  intolerable,  and 
the  President,  during  a  somewhat  protracted 
absence  of  the  Secretary  from  Washington,  or- 
dered a  change  to  be  made  in  the  office.  In  a 
private  note  to  Mr.  Chase,  wishing  to  avoid 
giving  him  personal  offense,  he  said  : 
My  mind  is  made  up  to  remove  Victor  Smith  as 
collector  of  the  customs  at  the  Puget  Sound  district. 
Yet  in  doing  this  I  do  not  decide  that  the  charges 
against  him  are  true.  I  only  decide  that  the  degree 
of  dissatisfaction  with  him  there  is  too  great  for  him 
to  be  retained.  But  I  believe  he  is  your  personal 
acquaintance  and  friend,  and  if  you  desire  it,  I  will 
try  to  find  some  other  place  for  him.6 
Three  days  later  the  Secretary,  having  re- 
turned to  Washington,  answered  in  his  usual 
manner,  protesting  once  more  his  ardent  desire 
to  serve  the  country  faithfully,  and  claiming  that 
he  had  a  right  to  be  consulted  in  matters  of 
appointment.  He  sent  a  blank  commission  for 
the  person  whom  the  President  had  concluded 
to  appoint,  but  protested  against  the  prece- 
dent, and  tendered  his  resignation.  This  time 
again  the  President  gave  way.  He  drove  to 
the  Secretary's  house,  handed  his  petulant  let- 
ter back  to  him,  and  begged  him  to  think  no 
more  of  the  matter.7  Two  days  afterward, 
in  a  letter  assenting  to  other  recommendations 
for  office  which  had  come  to  him  from  the 
Treasury  Department,  he  said,  "  Please  send 
me  over  the  commission  for  Louis  C.  Gunn. 
as  you  recommend,  for  collector  of  customs 
at  Puget  Sound."8 
Any  statesman  possessing  a  sense  of  humor 
7  Mr.  Maunsell  B.  Field,  in  his  M  Memories  of  Mam- 
Men  and  Some  Women,  "  p.  303,  quotes  Mr.  Lincoln  as 
saying :  "  I  went  directly  up  to  him  with  the  resigna- 
tion in  my  hand,  and,  putting  my  arm  around  his  neck, 
said  to  him,  '  Chase,  here  is  a  paper  with  which  I  wish 
to  have  nothing  to  do :  take  it  back  and  be  reasonable.' 
It  was  difficult  to  bring  him  to  terms.  I  had  to  plead 
with  him  a  long  time ;  but  I  finally  succeeded,  and  heard 
nothing  more  of  that  resignation." 
S  Warden,  "Life  of  S/P.  Chase,"  p.  528.
A  BR.  I  HA  M  LINCOLN 
would  have  hesitated  before  repeating  this 
identical  proceeding  :  but,  as  we  have  said,  Mr. 
Chase  was  deficient  in  this  saving  sense,  and 
he  apparently  saw  no  reason  why  it  should  not 
be  repeated  indefinitely. 
Mr.  John  J.  Cisco,  the  assistant  treasurer 
at  Xew  York,  who  had  served  the  Government 
with  remarkable  ability  and  efficiency  through 
three  administrations,  resigned  his  commission 
in  May,  to  take  effect  at  the  close  of  the  fiscal 
.  the  30th  of  June,  1864.  It  was  a  post  of 
great  importance  in  a  financial  point  of  view, 
and  not  insignificant  in  the  way  of  political  in- 
fluence. Up  to  this  time.  Mr.  Chase  had  made 
all  the  important  appointments  in  New  York 
from  his  own  wing  of  the  supporters  of  the 
Union  —  the  men  who  had  formerly  been  con- 
nected with  the  Democratic  party,  and  who 
now  belonged  to  what  was  called  the  radical 
wing  of  the  Republican.  This  matter  was  the 
source  of  constant  complaint  from  those  who 
were  sometimes  called  the  Conservative  Re- 
publicans of  New  York,  or  those  who  had  in 
great  part  formerly  belonged  to  the  Whig 
party,  and  who  in  later  years  acknowledged  the 
leadership  of  Mr.  Seward.  The  President  was 
anxious  that  in  an  appointment  so  important 
as  that  which  was  now  about  to  be  made  both 
sections  of  the  party  in  New  York  should,  if 
possible,  be  satisfied;  and  especially  that  no 
nominations  should  be  made  which  should  be 
positively  objectionable  to  Senator  Morgan, 
who  was  considered  to  represent  more  espe- 
cially the  city  of  New  York  and  its  great  com- 
mercial interests.  To  this  Mr.  Chase  at  first  in- 
terposed no  objection ;  and  it  was  upon  full  and 
friendly  consultation  and  conference  between 
him  and  Senator  Morgan  that  the  appointment 
was  offered  successively  to  Mr.  Denning  Duer 
and  to  Mr.  John  A.  Stewart,  both  of  them  gen- 
tlemen of  the  highest  standing.  But  both  de- 
clined the  office  tendered  them;  upon  which 
Mr.  Chase  suddenly  resolved  to  appoint  Mr. 
Maunsel]  B.  Field,  who  was  at  that  time  an  as- 
sistant secretary  of  the  Treasury.  Mr.  Field  was 
a  gentleman  of  excellent  social  position,  of  fine 
literary  culture,  to  whom  the  Secretary  was  sin- 
cerely attached,  but  who  was  entirely  destitute 
of  such  standing  in  either  the  political  or  the 
financial  circles  of  New  York  as  was  required 
>  important  a  place.  Senator  Morgan  at 
once  protested  vigorously  against  such  an  ap- 
pointment, which  only  served  to  confirm  the 
Secretary  in  his  insistence  upon  it.  Besides  his 
objections  to  Mr.  Field,  whom  he  thought  in 
no  way  competent  to  hold  such  a  place,  Mr. 
Morgan  urged  that  the  political  result  of  his 
appointment  would  be  extremely  unfavorable 
to  the  Union  party  in  New  York.  He  became 
thoroughly  alarmed,  and  begged  the  Secretary 
and  the  President  successively  to  make  their 
choice  among  three  of  the  most  eminent  citi- 
zens of  New  York  whose  names  he  presented ; 
but  the  Secretary's  mind  was  made  up.  With- 
out further  consultation  with  the  President, 
he  sent  him  the  nomination  for  Mr.  Field  on 
the  27th  of  June.  The  next  day  the  President 
replied : 
1  cannot,  without  much  embarrassment,  make  this 
appointment;  principally,  because  of  Senator  Mor- 
gan's very  firm  opposition  to  it.  Senator  Harris 
has  not  yet  spoken  to  me  on  the  subject,  though  I 
understand  he  is  not  averse  to  the  appointment  of 
Mr.  Field,  nor  yet  to  any  one  of  the  three  named 
by  Senator  Morgan.  .  .  .  Governor  Morgan  tells 
me  he  has  mentioned  three  names  to  you,  to  wit: 
R.  M.  Blatchford,  Dudley  S.  Gregory,  and  Thomas 
Hillhouse.  It  will  really  oblige  me  if  you  will 
make  choice  among  those  three,  or  any  other  man 
that  Senators  Morgan  and  Harris  will  be  satisfied 
with,  and  send  me  a  nomination  for  him.1 
There  have  been  few  ministers  who  wrould 
have  refused  so  reasonable  and  considerate  a 
request  as  this,  but  it  did  not  for  a  moment 
shake  Mr.  Chase's  determination  to  have  his 
own  wray  in  the  matter.  He  sent  a  note  to 
the  President  asking  for  an  interview,  and 
telegraphed  to  Mr.  Cisco,2  begging  him  most 
earnestly  to  withdraw  his  resignation  and 
give  the  country  the  benefit  of  his  services  at 
least  one  quarter  longer.  He  was  determined, 
in  one  way  or  another,  that  neither  the  Presi- 
dent nor  the  senators  of  New  York  should 
have  anything  to  say  in  regard  to  this  appoint- 
ment ;  and  conscious  of  his  own  blamelessness 
in  all  the  controversy,  he  went  home  and  wrote 
in  his  diary  :  "  Oh,  for  more  faith  and  clearer 
sight !  How  stable  is  the  city  of  God  !  How 
disordered  is  the  city  of  man  ! "  Later  in  the 
day  the  President  wrote  him  : 
When  I  received  your  note  this  forenoon  sug- 
gesting a  conversation  —  a  verbal  conversation  — 
in  relation  to  the  appointment  of  a  successor  to  Mr. 
Cisco,  I  hesitated,  because  the  difference  does  not,  in 
the  main  part,  lie  within  the  range  of  a  conversation 
between  you  and  me.  As  the  proverb  goes,  no 
man  knows  so  well  where  the  shoe  pinches  as  he 
who  wears  it.  I  do  not  think  Mr.  Field  a  very 
proper  man  for  the  place,  but  1  would  trust  your 
judgment  and  forego  this  were  the  greater  difficulty 
out  of  the  way.  Much  as  I  personally  like  Mr. 
Barney,  it  has  been  a  great  burden  to  me  to  retain 
him  in  his  place  when  nearly  all  our  friends  in 
New  York  were  directly  or  indirectly  urging  his 
removal.  Then  the  appointment  of  Hogeboom  to 
be  general  appraiser  brought  me  to,  and  has  ever 
since  kept  me  at,  the  verge  of  open  revolt.  Now 
the  appointment  of  Mr.  Field  would  precipitate  it, 
unless  Senator  Morgan,  and  those  feeling  as  he  does, 
could    be    brought  to  concur  in  it.    Strained  as   I 
1  Lincoln  to  Chase,  June  28,  1864.  Warden,  "Life 
of  S.  P.  Chase,"  p.  611. 
2  Schuckers,  "  Life  of  S.   P.  Chase,"  p.  506.
THE   RESIGNATION  OF  MR.   CHASE 
already  am  at  this  point,  I  do  not  think  that  I  can 
make  this  appointment  in  the  direction  of  still 
greater  strain.1 
In  the  evening  the  extremely  tense  situation 
was  relieved  by  a  telegram  from  Mr.  Cisco 
complying  with  the  request  of  the  Secretary 
to  remain  another  quarter.  But  it  was  not  in 
the  nature  of  Mr.  Chase  to  accept  this  simple 
denouement.  He  felt  that  the  President  had 
acted  badly,  and  must  be  subjected  to  some 
discipline ;  and  he  naturally  resorted  to  those 
measures  which  had  hitherto  proved  so  effect- 
ive.   He  wrote  to  him : 
The  withdrawal  of  Mr.  Cisco's  resignation,  which 
I  inclose,  relieves  the  present  difficulty ;  but  lean- 
not  help  feeling  that  my  position  here  is  not  alto- 
gether agreeable  to  you,  and  it  is  certainly  too  full 
of  embarrassment  and  difficulty  and  painful  respon- 
sibility to  allow  in  me  the  least  desire  to  retain  it. 
I  think  it  my  duty,  therefore,  to  inclose  to  you  my 
resignation.  I  shall  regard  it  as  a  real  relief  if  you 
think  proper  to  accept  it,  and  will  most  cheerfully 
render  to  my  successor  any  aid  he  may  find  useful 
in  entering  upon  his  duties.2 
In  this  letter  Mr.  Chase  inclosed  his  formal 
resignation.  The  President  received  this  note 
while  very  much  occupied  with  other  affairs. 
The  first  paper  which  met  his  eye  was  the 
telegram  from  Mr.  Cisco  withdrawing  his 
resignation.  Glad  that  the  affair  was  so  happily 
terminated,  he  laid  the  packet  aside  for  some 
hours,  without  looking  at  the  other  papers  con- 
tained in  it.  The  next  morning,  wishing  to 
write  a  congratulatory  note  to  Mr.  Chase  up- 
on this  welcome  termination  of  the  crisis,  he 
found,  to  his  bitter  chagrin  and  disappoint- 
ment, that  the  Secretary  had  once  more  ten- 
dered his  resignation.  He  took  it  to  mean 
precisely  what  the  Secretary  had  intended  — 
that  if  he  were  to  retain  Mr.  Chase  as  Secre- 
tary of  the  Treasury,  it  should  not  be  hereafter 
as  a  subordinate ;  to  refuse  this  resignation,  to 
go  once  more  to  the  Secretary  and  urge  him 
to  remain,  would  amount  to  an  abdication  of 
his  constitutional  powers.  He  therefore,  with- 
out hesitation,  sent  him  this  letter  : 
Your  resignation  of  the  office  of  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  sent  me  yesterday,  is  accepted.  Of  all  I 
havesaid  incommendationoiyourabilityand  fidelity 
I  have  nothing  to  unsay,  and  yet  you  and  I  have 
reached  a  point  of  mutual  embarrassment  in  our 
official  relations  which  it  seems  cannot  be  over- 
come or  longer  sustained  consistently  with  the  public 
service.3 
At  the  same  time  he  sent  to  the  Senate  the 
nomination  of  David  Tod  of  Ohio  as  Secre- 
tary of  the  Treasury.  Most  people  have  chosen 
to    consider   this    a   singular   selection.     Yet 
David  Tod  was  by  no  means  an  unknown 
man.  He  had  gained  an  honorable  position 
at  the  bar;  had  been  the  Democratic  candi- 
date for  governor  in  1843;  had  served  with 
credit  as  minister  to  Brazil;  was  first  vice- 
president  of  the  Charleston  convention  and 
became  its  president  at  Baltimore  on  th< 
cession  of  Caleb  Cushing  ;  was  one  of  the  D 
prominent  men  in  Ohio  in  railroad  and  min- 
ing enterprises;  had  been  the  most  eminent 
and  efficient  of  the  war  Democrats  of  the 
State;  and  as  governor  had  shown  executive 
capacity  of  high  order.4  There  v.  ere  some 
superficial  points  of  resemblance  between  Mr. 
Chase  and  Governor  Tod  that  doubtless  caught 
the  attention  of  the  President  in  choosing  a 
successor  to  the  former  in  such  ha.-te.  Tod 
was  a  citizen  of  the  same  State  with  Chase,  of 
which  both  had  been  governor ;  he  had  come 
into  the  Union  party  from  the  Democrats ;  he 
was  a  man  of  unusually  dignified  and  impress- 
ive presence ;  but  it  is  safe  to  say  that  no  one 
had  ever  thought  of  him  for  the  place  now 
vacant.  The  nomination  was  presented  to  the 
Senate  at  its  opening  and  was  received  with 
amazement.  Not  the  least  surprised  of  the 
statesmen  in  the  Capitol  was  Mr.  Chase  him- 
self, who  was  busy  at  the  moment  in  one  of 
the  committee  rooms  of  the  Senate  arranging 
some  legislation  which  he  needed  for  his  de- 
partment. There  are  many  indications  which 
go  to  show  that  his  resignation  of  the  evening 
before  was  intended,  like  those  which  had 
preceded  it,  as  a  means  of  discipline  for  the 
President.  After  sending  it  he  wrote  to  Mr. 
Cisco  expressing  his  thanks  for  the  withdrawal 
of  his  resignation,  and  saying  : 
It  relieves  me  from  a  very  painful  embarrassment. 
.  .  .  I  could  not  remain  here  and  see  your  office 
made  parcel  of  the  machinery  of  party,  or  even  feel 
serious  apprehension  that  it  might  be. 
Even  on  the  morning  of  the  30th  of  June, 
Mr.  Chase  wrote  to  the  President  recommend- 
ing a  considerable  increase  of  taxation,  saying 
that  there  would  be  a  deficit  by  existing  laws 
of  about  eighty  millions. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  is  nothing  to  show. 
up  to  the  instant  that  he  was  informed  of  the 
nomination  of  Tod,  that  he  expected  his  orfi- 
cial  career  to  end  on  that  day.  The  news  for  that 
moment  created  something  like  consternation 
in  political  circles  at  the  capital.  Mr.  Wash- 
burne  hurried  to  the  White  House,  saying  the 
change  was  disastrous;  that  at  this  time  of 
military  unsuccess,  financial  weakness,  con- 
gressional hesitation  on  questions  of  conscrip- 
tion, and  imminent  famine  in  the  West,  it  was 
1  Lincoln  to  Chase,  June  28,  1864.    Warden, 
of  S.  P.  Chase,"  p.  613. 
2  Chase  to  Lincoln,  June  29,  1864. 
Life 
3  Lincoln  to  Chase,  Tune  30,  1S64.   Warden. 
of  S.   P.  Chase,"   p.  614. 
4  Reid,  "  Ohio  in  the  War." 
Life
296 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 
ruinous.  The  Senate  Committee  on  Finance, 
to  which  the  nomination  oi  Tod  had  been  re- 
ferred,  came  down  in  a  body  to  talk  with  the 
President  about  it.  The  President  gave  this  ac- 
count ot  the  interview  :  "  Fessenden  was  fright- 
ened. Conness  was  angry,  Sherman  thought 
we  could  not  have  gotten  on  together  much 
longer  anyhow,  Cowan  and  Van  Winkle  were 
indifferent  '  l  They  not  only  objected  to  any 
change,  but  specially  protested  against  the 
nomination  oi  Tod  as  too  little  known  and  too 
inexperienced  for  the  place.  The  President  re- 
plied that  he  had  little  personal  acquaintance 
with  Tod,  that  he  had  nominated  him  on  ac- 
count of  the  high  opinion  he  had  formed  of 
him  as  governor  of  Ohio;  but  that  the  Sen- 
ate had  the  duty  and  responsibility  of  passing 
upon  the  question  of  fitness,  in  which  it  must 
be  entirely  untrammeled ;  he  could  not,  in  jus- 
tice to  himself  or  to  Tod,  withdraw  the  nomina- 
tion. The  impression  of  the  undesirability  of 
the  change  rather  deepened  during  the  day. 
Mr.  Hooper  of  Massachusetts,  an  intimate 
friend  of  both  the  President  and  Mr.  Chase,  and 
the  man  upon  whom  both  principally  relied  for 
the  conduct  of  financial  legislation  in  the  House, 
spoke  of  the  crisis  in  deep  depression.  He  said 
he  had  been  for  some  time  of  the  opinion  that 
Mr.  Chase  did  not  see  his  way  entirely  clear  to 
raising  the  funds  which  were  necessary;  that 
his  supplementary  demand  for  money  sent  in 
at  the  close  of  the  session  after  everything  had 
been  granted  which  he  asked,  looked  like  an 
intention  to  throw  an  anchor  co  windward  in 
case  he  was  refused.  Mr.  Hooper  said  he  had 
waked  this  morning  feeling  a  little  vexed  that 
Chase  had  done  this,  that  he  thought  it  was 
an  attempt  to  throw  an  unfair  responsibility 
upon  Congress ;  but  now  this  resignation  came 
to  relieve  him  of  all  responsibility;  his  suc- 
cessor would  have  an  enormous  work  to  do ;  the 
future  was  troubled ;  there  remained  the  great 
practical  problem,  regularly  recurring,  to  raise 
one  hundred  millions  a  month. 
I  do  not  clearly  see  [he  saidj  how  it  is  to  be 
done;  the  talent  of  finance  in  its  national  aspect  is 
something  entirely  different  from  banking.  Most 
bankers  criticize  Mr.  Chase,  but  he  has  a  faculty  of 
using  the  knowledge  and  experience  of  others  to 
tii  -•  !  est  advantage;  that  has  sufficed  him  hitherto; 
a  point  has  been  reached  where  he  does  not  clearly 
see  what  comes  next,  and  at  this  point  the  Presi- 
dent allows  him  to  step  from  under  his  load.l 
This  view  of  the  case  has  a  color  of  confir- 
mation in  a  passage  of  the  diary  of  Mr.  Chase 
of  the  30th  of  June,  which  goes  to  show  at 
least  a  mixed  motive  in  his  resignation.  After 
his  resignation  had  been  accepted,  Mr.  Hooper 
1  J.  H.,  Diary. 
2  Chase,  Diary.  Warden,  "  Life  of  S.  P.  Chase." 
p.  618. 
had  called  upon  him  and,  evidently  hoping 
that  some  reconciliation  was  still  possible,  told 
him  that,  several  days  before,  the  President 
had  spoken  to  him  in  terms  of  high  esteem, 
indicating  his  purpose  of  making  him  Chief- 
Justice  in  the  event  of  a  vacancy,  a  post  which 
Mr.  Chase  had  long  before  told  the  President 
was  the  one  he  most  desired.  Mr.  Chase  an- 
swered that  had  such  expression  of  good-will 
reached  him  in  time  it  might  have  prevented 
the  present  misunderstanding,  but  that  now 
he  could  not  change  his  position.  "  Besides," 
he  adds,  "  I  did  not  see  how  I  could  carry 
on  the  department  without  more  means  than 
Congress  was  likely  to  supply,  and  amid  the 
embarrassment  created  by  factious  hostility 
within,  and  both  factious  and  party  hostility 
without  the  department."  2 
At  night  the  President  received  a  dispatch 
from  Mr.  Tod  declining  the  appointment  on 
the  ground  of  ill-health.  The  President's  sec- 
retary went  immediately  to  the  Capitol  to  com- 
municate this  information  to  the  senators,  so 
that  no  vote  might  be  taken  on  the  nomina- 
tion. Early  the  next  morning  the  President  sent 
to  the  Senate  the  nomination  of  William  Pitt 
Fessenden,  senator  from  Maine.  When  he  gave 
the  nomination  to  his  secretary,  the  latter  in- 
formed him  that  Mr.  Fessenden  was  then  in 
the  ante-room  waiting  to  see  him.  He  answered, 
"  Start  at  once  for  the  Senate,  and  then  let 
Fessenden  come  in."  The  senator,  who  was 
chairman  of  the  Senate  Committee  on  Finance, 
began  immediately  to  discuss  the  question  of 
the  vacant  place  in  the  Treasury,  suggesting 
the  name  of  Mr.  McCulloch.  The  President 
listened  to  him  for  a  moment  with  a  smile  of 
amusement,  and  then  told  him  that  he  had  al- 
ready sent  his  nomination  to  the  Senate.  Fes- 
senden leaped  to  his  feet,  exclaiming,  "  You 
must  withdraw  it.  I  cannot  accept."  "  If  you 
decline,"  said  the  President,  "  you  must  do  it 
in  open  day,  for  I  shall  not  recall  the  nomina- 
tion." "We  talked  about  it  for  some  time," 
said  the  President,  "  and  he  went  away  less 
decided  in  his  refusal." 
The  nomination  was  instantly  confirmed, 
the  executive  session  lasting  no  more  than  a 
minute.  It  gave  immediate  and  widespread 
satisfaction.  There  seemed  to  be  no  difference 
of  opinion  in  regard  to  Mr.  Fessenden ;  the 
only  fear  was  that  he  would  not  accept.  His 
first  impulse  was  to  decline;  but  being  besieged 
all  day  by  the  flattering  solicitations  of  his 
friends,  it  was  impossible  for  him  to  persist  in 
refusing.  The  President  was  equally  surprised 
and  gratified  at  the  enthusiastic  and  general 
approval  the  nomination  had  met  with.  He 
said : 1 
It  is  very  singular,  considering  that  this  appoint- 
ment is  so  popular  when  made,   that  no  one  ever
77/  A    RESIGNATION   OF  MR.   CI /AST,. 
WILLIAM     PITT    FESSENDEN. 
(AFTER    A    PHOTOGRAPH     BY     BRADY.) 
mentioned  his  name  to  me  for  that  place.  Think- 
ing over  the  matter,  two  or  three  points  occurred  to 
me  :  first,  his  thorough  acquaintance  with  the  busi- 
ness; as  chairman  of  the  Senate  Committee  of 
Finance  he  knows  as  much  of  this  special  subject  as 
Mr.  Chase  ;  he  possesses  a  national  reputation  and 
the  confidence  of  the  country  ;  he  is  a  radical  with- 
out the  petulant  and  vicious  fretfulness  of  many 
radicals.  There  are  reasons  why  this  appointment 
ought  to  be  very  agreeable  to  him.  For  some  time 
past  he  has  been  running  in  rather  a  pocket  of  bad 
luck;  the  failure  to  renominate  Mr.  Hamlin  makes 
possible  a  contest  between  him  and  the  Vice-Presi- 
dent, the  most  popular  man  in  Maine,  for  the  elec- 
tion which  is  now  imminent.  A  little  while  ago  in 
the  Senate  you  know  Trumbull  told  him  his  ill- 
temper  had  left  him  no  friends,  but  this  sudden 
and  most  gratifying  manifestation  of  good  feeling 
over  his  appointment,  his  instantaneous  confirma- 
tion, the  earnest  entreaties  of  everybody  that  he 
should  accept,  cannot  but  be  very  grateful  to  his 
feelings. 
Mr.  Chase  left  a  full  record  in  his  diaries 
and  letters  of  the  sense  of  injury  and  wrong- 
done  him  by  the  President.  He  especially  re- 
sented the  President's  reference  to  the  "  em- 
barrassment in  our  official  relations."  "  I  had 
found  a  good  deal  of  embarrassment  from 
him,"  he  said ;  "  but  what  he  had  found  from 
me  I  could  not  imagine,  unless  it  has  been 
caused  by  my  unwillingness  to  have  offices  dis- 
tributed as  spoils  or  benefits.  .  .  .  He  has  never 
given  me  the  active  and  earnest  support  I  was 
entitled  to."  After  Mr.  Fessenden  was  ap- 
pointed, the  ex-Secretary  entered  in  his  diary 
his  approval  of  the  selection  : 
He  has  the  confidence  of  the  country,  and  many 
who  have  become    inimical  to  me  will  give  their 
Vol.  XXXVIII.—  *q. 
confidence  to  him  and  their  % 
will  do  more  than  they  otherwise  woul  I 
him,  in  order  to  show  how  mm  h  bet!  tary 
he  is  than  I  was. 
Before  Mr.  Fessenden  accepted  his  appoint- 
ment he  called  on  Mr.  Chase  and  a 
rully  with  him  on  the  subject  Mr.'  nkly 
and  cordially  advised  him  toai  i  ept,  telling  him 
that  all  the  great  work  of  the  Department 
now  fairly  blocked  out  and   in   progress,  that 
the  organization  was  all  planned  and  in  m 
ways  complete,  and  all  in  a  state  which  ad- 
mitted of  completion.    His  moht  diffi<  ult 
would  be  to  provide  money.    "  But  he  would 
have  advantages,"  said  Mr.  Chase,  "which  I 
had  not.    Those  to  whom  I  had  given  ot: 
would  have  no  cause  of  ill-will  against   my 
successor,  and  would  very  probably  come  to  his 
support  with  zeal  increased  by  their  ill-will  to 
me;  so  that  my  damage  would  be  to  his  ad- 
vantage,  especially  with  a    certain    class    of 
capitalists   and  bankers." 
The  entries  in  Mr.  Chase's  diary  continue 
for  several  days  in  the  same  strain.  He  con- 
gratulates himself  on  his  own  integrity  ;  he 
speaks  with  severity  of  the  machinations  of 
imaginary  enemies.  On  the  2d  of  July  he  re- 
marks the  passage  of  the  bill  giving  the  Secre- 
tary of  the  Treasury  control  over  trade  in  the 
rebel  States  and  authority  to  lease  abandoned 
property  and  to  care  for  the  freedmen,  and  adds : 
"  How  much  good  I  expected  to  accomplish 
under  this  bill !  Will  my  successor  do  this 
work  ?  I  fear  not.  He  had  not  the  same  heart 
for  this  measure  that  I  had."  On  the  Fourth 
of  July  the  ringing  of  bells,  the  firing  of  can- 
non, and  the  snapping  of  crackers  awoke  him 
to  the  reflection  that  "  if  the  Government  had 
been  willing  to  do  justice,  and  had  used  its  vast 
powers  with  equal  energy  and  wisdom,  the 
struggle  might  have  been  happily  terminated 
long  ago."  Later  in  the  same  day  Mr.  Fes- 
senden came  to  see  him,  and  informed  him 
that  he  had  been  discussing  with  the  President 
the  subject  of  appointments  in  the  Treasury 
Department,  and  that  Mr.  Lincoln  had  re- 
quested him  not  to  remove  any  friends  of 
Governor  Chase  unless  there  should  be  a  real 
necessity  for  it.  Mr.  Chase  persuaded  him- 
self that  if  the  President  had  spoken  to  him  in 
that  tone  he  would  have  withdrawn  his  resig- 
nation. 
Why  did  he  not?  [he  mused.]  I  can  see  but  one 
reason' — that  I  am  too  earnest,  too  antislaverv.  and 
say  too  radical,  to  make  him  willing  to  have  me 
connected  with  the  Administration  :  just  as  my 
opinion  that  he  is  not  earnest  enough,  not  anti- 
slavery  enough,  not  radical  enough,  but  goes  natu- 
rally with  those  hostile  to  me.  rather  than  with 
me,  makes  me  willing  and  glad  to  be  disconnected 
from  it.
How  far  his  animosity  against  the  President 
had  misled  this  able,  honest,  pure,  and  other- 
wise sagacious  man  may  be  seen  in  one  single 
phrase.  Referring  to  the  President's  refusal  to 
sign  the  reconstruction  bill,  he  put  down  his 
deliberate  opinion  that  neither  the  President 
nor  his  chief  advisers  had  abandoned  the  idea 
of  possible  reconstruction  with  slavery ;  and 
this  in  spite  oi  the  President's  eategorical  state- 
ment. "  While  I  remain  in  my  present  position 
I  shall  not  attempt  to  retraet  or  modify  the 
Emancipation  Proclamation,  nor  shall  I  return 
to  slavery  any  person  who  is  free  by  the  terms  of 
that  proclamation  or  by  any  of  the  acts  of  Con- 
gress,"  and  of  his  declaration  that  such  action 
THE   IRRIGATIXG   DITCH. 
would  be  "  a  cruel  and  an  astounding  breach  of 
faith."  But  after  all  these  expressions  of  that 
petulant  injustice  which  was  only  a  foible  in  a 
noble  character,  the  greatest  financial  Secre- 
tary which  the  country  had  known  since  Ham- 
ilton had  a  perfect  right,  in  laying  down  the 
high  office  he  had  borne  with  such  integrity 
and  such  signal  success,  to  indulge  in  the  medi- 
tation which  we  find  in  his  diary  of  June  30 : 
So  my  official  life  closes.  I  have  laid  broad  foun- 
dations. Nothing  but  wise  legislation  and  especially 
bold  yet  judicious  provision  of  taxes,  with  fair 
economy  in  administration,  and  energetic  yet  pru- 
dent military  action,  .  .  .  seems  necessary  to  in- 
sure complete  success. 
l^/fff 
THE    WATER-SEEKER. 
xl  HO  makes  a  road  through  regions  rough  and  lone, 
w Who  plants  and  rears  a  tree  where  shade  is  none, 
Who  scores  the  furrow  in  a  soil  untamed, 
Is  fit  in  song  heroic  to  be  named. 
Nor  scanter  praise  be  his  whose  patient  force 
Gives  to  an  arid  land  a  water-course, 
Gradual,  but  grateful  as  the  jet  that  broke 
From  forth  the  ledge  that  felt  the  prophet's  stroke. 
Behold  a  toiler  in  far  Idaho, 
'Mid  foothills  where,  in  summer's  steady  glow, 
The  slender-shafted  cottonwood  looks  dim, 
The  swarthy  dust-cloud  veils  the  horizon's  rim. 
As  day  by  day  his  toil  the  stream  extends, 
Sometimes  the  grasses  harsh  a  footfall  bends — 
His  wife  and  child,  the  genii  of  the  stream, 
Before  him  rise  as  in  a  lovely  dream ! 
Edith  M.  Thomas. 
THE    IRRIGATING    DITCH. 
PICTURES    OF    THE    FAR    WEST.— VII. 
1 1  E  word  "  desert"  is  used,  in  the 
West,  to  describe  alike  lands  in 
which  the  principle  of  life,  if  it 
ever  existed,  is  totally  extinct, 
and  those  other  lands  which  are 
merely  "  thirsty." 
of  the  Missouri  there  are  immense, 
sari  provinces  devoted  to  drought.  They  lie 
beneath  skies  that  are  pitilessly  clear.  The 
great  snow-fields,  the  treasury  of  waters,  are 
far  away,  and  the  streams  which  should  con- 
vey the  treasure  are  often  many  days'  jour- 
neys   apart.     These    wild    water-courses    are 
Nature's  commissaries  sent  from  the  moun- 
tains to  the  relief  of  the  plains;  but  they 
scamper  like  pickpockets.  They  make  away 
with  the  stores  they  were  charged  to  distrib- 
ute. They  hurry  along,  making  the  only 
sound  to  be  heard  for  miles  in  those  vacant 
lands  which  they  have  defrauded.  Year  by 
year,  or  century  by  century,  they  plow  out 
their  barren  channels:  gradually  they  sink, 
beyond  any  possibility  of  fulfilling  their  mis- 
sion. Now  and  then  one  will  dig  for  itself 
a  grave  in  the  desert,  bury  its  mouth  in  the 
sand,  and  be  known  as  a  "  lost  "  river.
CASCO    HAY. 
"  pulled  out "  for  Anadarko  on  the  Washita, 
where  the  head  agency  of  the  Comanches, 
Kiowas,  and  Wichitas  is  located.  The  little 
ponies  made  bad  work  of  the  sandy  roads. 
Kiowa  houses  became  more  numerous  along 
the  road,  and  there  is  evidence  that  they  farm 
more  than  the  brother  tribe,  but  they  are  not 
so  attractive  a  people.  Of  course  the  tepee  is 
pitched  in  the  front  yard  and  the  house  is  used 
as  a  kind  of  out-building.  The  medicine-bags 
were  hanging  from  the  tripod  of  poles  near  by, 
and  an  occasional  buck  was  lying  on  his  back 
"  smoking  his  medicine  "  —  a  very  comfortable 
form  of  devotion. 
We  saw  the  grass  houses  of  the  Wichitas, 
which  might  be  taken  for  ordinary  haystacks. 
As  they  stand  out  on  the  prairie  surrounded 
by  wagons,  agricultural  implements,  and  cattle, 
one  is  caught  wondering  where  is  the  remainder 
of  the  farm  which  goes  with  this  farm-yard. 
These  Territory  Apaches  are  very  different 
from  their  brothers  of  the  mountains.    They 
are  good-looking,  but  are  regarded  contemptu- 
ously by  other  Indians  and  also  by  the  tra< 
They  are  treacherous,  violent,  and  most  cun- 
ning liars  and  thieves.    I  spent  an  evenir. 
one  of  their  tepees  watching  a  game  of  mi 
and  the  gambling  passion  was  developed  all 
to  insanity.    They  sat  and  glared  at  the  cards, 
their  dark  faces  gleaming  with  avarice,  cun- 
ning, and  excitement.    I  thought  then  that  the 
good  white  men  who  would  undertake  to  make 
Christian  gentlemen  and  honest  tiller-.  o( 
soil  out  of  this  material  would  contract  for  a 
job  to  subvert  the  process  of  nature. 
Our  little  ponies,  recuperated  by  some  grain 
and  rest,  were  once  more  hooked  up,  and  the 
cowboy  and  I  started  for  Fort  Reno  to  see 
the  Arrapahoes  and  the  Cheyennes,  hoping  to 
meet  them  far  along  on  "  the  white  man's  road."1 
Frederic  Remington. 
CASCO    BAY. 
TF  e'er  you  sail  on  Casco  Bay 
When  fields  are  green  and  skies  are  sweet, 
And  watch  the  foam-capped  waves  at  play 
Where  land  and  sea  touch  hands  and  greet, 
As  friend  with  friend,  in  rude  delight, 
Your  soul,  like  birds  at  break  of  day, 
Will  rise  for  many  a  joyous  flight 
Midst  summer  isles  of  Casco  Bay : 
Of  Casco  Bay  !  Sweet  Casco  Bay  ! 
Where  life  is  joy  and  love  at  play 
Midst  summer  isles  of  Casco  Bay. 
Oh,  wild  and  glad  and  circling  far, 
The  ripples  sparkle  from  your  prow 
As  silvery  laughter  from  a  star 
When  Venus  decks  the  evening's  brow ; 
And  where  the  islands  stand  apart 
The  ocean  waves  roll  in  to  pay 
Some  tribute  from  the  sea's  great  heart 
To  gentle,  queenly  Casco  Bay : 
To  Casco  Bay  f    Dear  Casco  Bay  ! 
Your  soul  imbibes  the  salt-sea  spray 
And  sings  with  lovely  Casco  Bay. 
Down  smiling  channels  shadows  run 
And  shimmer  on  the  green-blue  tides ; 
And,  booming  like  a  far-off  gun, 
Where  Harps  well  sea  from  sea  divides, 
You  hear  the  breakers'  sullen  roar 
And  watch  the  waves  ascend  in  spray 
While  all  around,  behind,  before, 
The  white  sails  swell  on  Casco  Bay : 
On  Casco  Bay !    Fair  Casco  Bay  ! 
The  white  sails  fill  and  bear  away 
The  happy  ships  on  Casco  Bay. 
Benjamin  S.  Parker. 
1  See  "  Open  Letter  "  by  Hamilton  W.  Mabie  in  this  number  of  The  Century  Magazixe.- 
Vol.  XXXVIIL— 53. 
Editor.
ABRAHAM     LINCOLN:    A    HISTORY.1 
LINCOLN    RENOMINATED  — THE    WADE-DAVIS    MANIFESTO- 
HORACE    GREELEY'S   PEACE   MISSION. 
BY   JOHN    G.    NICOLAY    AND   JOHN    HAY,    PRIVATE    SECRETARIES    TO    THE    PRESIDENT. 
LINCOLN    RENOMINATED. 
'N  other  chapters  we  have 
mentioned  the  unavailing 
efforts  made  by  a  few  poli- 
ticians to  defeat  the  will 
of  the  people  which  every- 
where demanded  the  re- 
ywwi^m'^gaaaaM  nomination  of  Mr.  Lin- 
**"  "  -s^'-^0  ^^  coin.  These  efforts  were 
worth  studying  as  manifestations  of  eccentric 
human  nature,  but  they  never  had  the  least  ef- 
fect upon  the  great  currents  of  public  opinion. 
Deatli  alone  could  have  prevented  the  choice 
of  Mr.  Lincoln  by  the  Union  convention.  So 
absolute  and  universal  was  this  tendency  that 
most  of  the  politicians  made  no  effort  to  direct 
or  guide  it;  they  simply  exerted  themselves  to 
keep  in  the  van  and  not  be  overwhelmed.  The 
convention  was  to  meet  on  the  7th  of  June, 
but  the  irregular  nominations  of  the  President 
began  at  the  feast  of  the  Epiphany.  The  first 
convention  of  the  year  was  held  in  New 
Hampshire  on  the  6th  of  January — for  the 
nomination  of  State  officers.  It  had  properly 
no  concern  with  the  National  nominations. 
The  convention  consisted  in  great  part  of  the 
friends  of  Mr.  Chase,  and  those  employees  of 
the  Treasury  Department  whose  homes  were 
in  New  Hampshire  had  come  together  de- 
termined to  smother  any  mistimed  demonstra- 
tion for  the  President;  but  the  first  mention 
of  his  name  set  the  assembly  on  fire,  and  be- 
fore the  chairman  knew  what  he  was  doing  the 
convention  had  declared  in  favor  of  the  re- 
nomination  of  Lincoln.  The  same  day  a  far 
more  important  demonstration  came  to  the 
surface  in  Pennsylvania.  The  State  legislature 
met  on  the  5th  of  January,  and  the  following 
day  a  paper,  prepared  in  advance,  addressed  to 
the  President,  requesting  him  to  accept  a  sec- 
ond term  of  the  Presidency,  began  to  be  circu- 
lated among  the  Union  members.  Not  one 
to  whom  it  was  presented  declined  to  sign  it. 
Within  a  day  or  two  it  received  the  signature 
of  every  Union  member  of  the  Senate  and 
the  House  of  Pennsylvania,  and  Mr.  Simon 
Cameron,  transmitting  it  to  the  President  on  the 
14th  of  January,  could  say: 
You  are   now  fairly   launched   on  your    second 
voyage,  and  of  its  success  1  am  as  confident  as  ever 
1  Copyright  by  J.  C Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  1886 
I  was  of  anything  in  my  life.  Providence  has  de- 
creed your  reelection,  and  no  combination  of  the 
wicked  can  prevent  it.2 
This  remarkable  address  began  by  congratu- 
lating the  President  upon  the  successes  of  the 
recent  election,  which  were  generously  ascribed 
to  the  policy  of  his  Administration.  Referring 
to  the  Republican  victory  in  their  own  State, 
the  members  of  the  legislature  said : 
If  the  voice  of  Pennsylvania  became  thus  poten- 
tial in  indorsing  the  policy  of  your  Administration, 
we  consider  that,  as  the  representatives  of  those  who 
have  so  completely  indorsed  your  official  course, 
we  are  only  responding  to  their  demands  when  we 
thus  publicly  announce  our  unshaken  preference 
for  your  reelection  to  the  Presidency  in  1864. 
This  preference  is  justified  by  them  purely 
on  public  grounds. 
To  make  a  change  in  the  Administration  until  its 
authority  has  been  fully  reestablished  in  the  revolted 
States  would  be  to  give  the  enemies  of  the  Govern- 
ment abroad  a  pretext  for  asserting  that  the  Gov- 
ernment had  failed  at  home.  To  change  the  policy 
in  operation  to  crush  rebellion  and  restore  the  land 
to  peace  would  be  to  afford  the  traitors  in  arms 
time  to  gather  new  strength  —  if  not  for  immediate 
victory,  at  least  for  ultimate  success  in  their  efforts 
permanently  to  dissolve  the  Union.  .  .  .  We. 
do  not  make  this  communication  at  this  time  to 
elicit  from  you  any  expression  of  opinion  on  this 
subject.  Having  confidence  in  your  patriotism,  we 
believe  that  you  will  abide  the  decision  of  the 
friends  of  the  Union,  and  yield  consent  to  any  hon- 
orable use  which  they  may  deem  proper  to  make 
of  your  name  in  order  to  secure  the  greatest  good 
to  the  country  and  the  speediest  success  to  our 
arms.  .  .  .  Expressing  what  we  feel  to  be  the 
language  not  only  of  our  own  constituents,  but  also 
of  the  people  of  all  the  loyal  States,  we  claim  to  in- 
dulge the  expectation  that  you  will  yield  to  the  pref- 
erence which  has  already  made  you  the  people's 
candidate  for  the  Presidency  in  1864. 
In  every  gathering  of  the  supporters  of  the 
Union  the  same  irrepressible  sentiment  broke 
forth.  The  "  New  York  Times"  on  the  15th 
of  January  clearly  expressed  the  general  feel- 
ing: 
The  same  wise  policy  which  would  forbid  a  man 
of  business  in  troublous  times  to  change  his  agent 
of  proved  efficiency,  impels  the  loyal  people  of  our 
v  Cameron  to  Lincoln,  Jan.  14,  1864.    MS. 
All  rights  reserved.
LINCOLN  RENOMINATE /J. 
407 
country  to  continue  President  Lincoln  in  his  re- 
sponsible position  ;  and  against  the  confirmed  will  of 
the  people  politicians  are  powerless. 
The  sentiment  was  so  potent  in  its  pressure 
upon  the  politicians  that  they  everywhere  gave 
way  and  broke  into  premature  indorsement  of 
the  nomination.  The  Union  Central  Committee 
of  New  York  held  a  special  meeting  and  unani- 
mously recommended  the  renomination  of  the 
President.  Senator  Morgan,  sending  this  news 
to  Mr.  Lincoln,  added  : 
It  is  going  to  be  difficult  to  restrain  the  boys,  and 
there  is  not  much  use  in  trying  to  do  so.1 
At  a  local  election  some  of  the  ward  tickets 
were  headed,  with  an  irrelevancy  which  showed 
the  spirit  of  the  hour,  "  For  President  of  the 
United  States  in  1864,  Abraham  Lincoln." 
From  one  end  to  the  other  of  the  country  these 
spontaneous  nominations  joyously  echoed  one 
another.  Towards  the  close  of  January  the  radi- 
cal legislature  of  Kansas,  with  but  one  dissent- 
ing voice,  passed  through  both  its  Houses  a 
resolution  renominating  Lincoln.  All  through 
the  next  month  these  demonstrations  continued. 
The  Union  members  of  the  New  Jersey  legis- 
lature united  in  an  address  to  the  President, 
saying : 
Without  any  disparagement  of  the  true  men  who 
surround  you,  and  whose  counsels  you  have  shared, 
believing  that  you  are  the  choice  of  the  people,  whose 
servants  we  are,  and  firmly  satisfied  that  they  desire 
and  intend  to  give  you  four  years  for  a  policy  of  peace, 
we  present  your  name  as  the  candidate  for  President 
of  the  American  people  in  1 864.2 
Connecticut  instructed  her  delegates  by  reso- 
lutions on  the  17th  of  February;  Maryland, 
Minnesota,  and  Colorado  expressed  in  the  same 
way  the  sentiment  of  their  people.  Wisconsin 
and  Indiana  made  haste  to  range  themselves 
with  the  other  Northern  States ;  and  Ohio  seized 
the  opportunity  to  put  a  stop  to  the  restless 
ambition  of  her  favorite  son  by  a  resolution  of 
the  Republican  members  of  the  legislature  de- 
claring that  "  the  people  of  Ohio,  and  her  sol- 
diers in  the  army,  demand  the  renomination  of 
Abraham  Lincoln  to  the  Presidency"  —  the 
members  rising  to  their  feet  and  cheering  with 
uncontrollable  clamor  when  the  resolution 
passed.  The  State  of  Maine,  on  the  extreme 
eastern  border,  spoke  next :  early  in  March, 
the  President  received  this  dispatch,  signed  by 
a  name  afterwards  illustrious  in  our  political 
annals  : 
Both  branches  of  the  Maine  legislature  have  this 
day  adopted  resolutions  cordially  recommending 
your  renomination.  Every  Union  member  voted 
in  favor  of  them.    Maine  is  a  unit  for  you. 
James  G.  Blaine. 
1  Jan.  4,  1864.   MS. 
2  Feb.  18,  1864. 
Nowhere  except  in  the  State  of  Missouri 
was  the  name  of  Mr.  Lincoln  mentioned  with- 
out overwhelming  adhesion,  and  even  in  the 
Missouri  Assembly  the  resolution  in  favor  of 
his  renomination  was  laid  upon  the  table  by  a 
majority  of  only  eight.  There  had  been  some 
anxiety  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  friends 
lest  the  powerful  secret  organization  called  the 
Union  League,  which  represented  the  0 
ardent  and  vehement  Republican  sentiment  of 
the  country,  should  fall  into  the  hands  of  his 
opponents ;  but  it  was  speedily  seen  that  out  of 
Missouri  these  apprehensions  were  groundless. 
The  Union  Leagues  of  New  York,  Illinois,  and 
even  Vicksburg,  where  the  victory  of  Orant 
had  allowed  the  development  of  a  robust  Union 
sentiment,  were  among  the  first  to  declare  for 
the  President.  The  organization  in  Philadel- 
phia, powerful  in  wealth,  intelligence,  and  per- 
sonal influence,  so  early  as  the  nth  of  January 
had  resolved  that  to  the  "  prudence,  sagacity, 
comprehension,  and  perseverance  of  Mr. 
Lincoln,  under  the  guidance  of  a  benign  Provi- 
dence, the  nation  is  more  indebted  for  the  grand 
results  of  the  war,  which  Southern  rebels  have 
wickedly  waged  against  liberty  and  the  Union, 
than  to  any  other  single  instrumentality,  and 
that  he  is  justly  entitled  to  whatever  reward  it 
is  in  the  power  of  the  nation  to  bestow."  They 
declared  also : 
That  as  Mr.  Lincoln  has  had  to  endure  the  largest 
share  of  the  labor  required  to  suppress  the  rebellion, 
now  rapidly  verging  to  its  close,  he  should  also  en- 
joy the  largest  share  of  the  honors  which  await  those 
who  have  contended  for  the  right.  They  therefore 
recognize  with  pleasure  the  unmistakable  indica- 
tions of  the  popular  will  in  all  the  loyal  States,  and 
heartily  join  with  their  fellow-citizens,  without  any 
distinction  of  party,  here  and  elsewhere,  in  present- 
ing him  as  the  people's  candidate  for  the  Presidency. 
The  current  swept  on  irresistibly  throughout 
the  months  of  spring.  A  few  opponents  of  Mr. 
Lincoln,  seeing  that  he  was  already  nominated 
the  moment  the  convention  should  meet,  made 
one  last  effort  to  postpone  the  meeting  of  the 
convention  until  September,  knowing  that 
their  only  reliance  was  in  some  possible  acci- 
dent of  the  summer.  So  earnest  and  impor- 
tant a  Republican  as  William  Cullen  Bryant 
united  with  a  self-constituted  committee  of 
others  equally  earnest,  but  not  so  important,, 
to  induce  the  National  Committee  to  postpone 
the  convention.  In  their  opinion  "  the  country 
was  not  now  in  a  position  to  enter  into  a 
Presidential  contest:  it  was  clear  to  them  that 
no  nomination  could  be  made  with  any  una- 
nimity so  early  as  June.  They  thought  it  best 
to  see  what  the  result  of  the  summer  campaign 
would  be,  as  the  wish  of  the  people  to  continue 
their  present  leaders  in  power  would  depend 
very  much  upon  this."    The  committee,  of
40S 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 
course,  took  no  notice  of  this  appeal,  though 
it  was  favored  by  so  strong  a  Republican  au- 
thority as  the  "  New  York  Tribune.'' 1  The 
National  Committee  wisely  thought  that  they 
might  with  as  much  reason  take  into  consid- 
eration the  request  of  a  committee  of  promi- 
nent citizens  to  check  an  impending  thunder- 
storm. All  the  movements  in  opposition  to 
Mr.  1  .incoln  were  marked  with  the  same  naivete 
and  futility.  The  secret  circular  of  Senator 
Pomeroy,  the  farcical  Cleveland  convention, 
the  attempt  of  Mr.  Bryant's  committee  to  post- 
pone the  convention,  were  all  equally  feeble 
and  nugatory  in  their  effect. 
Mr.  Lincoln  took  no  measures  whatever  to 
promote  his  candidacy.  It  is  true  he  did  not, 
like  other  candidates,  assume  airs  of  reluctance 
or  bashfulness.  While  he  discouraged  on  the 
part  of  strangers  any  suggestions  as  to  his  re- 
election, among  his  friends  he  made  no  secret 
of  his  readiness  to  continue  the  work  he  was 
engaged  in,  if  such  should  seem  to  be  the 
general  wish.  In  a  private  letter  to  Mr.  E.  B. 
Washburnehe  said  :  "  A  second  term  would  be 
a  great  honor  and  a  great  labor,  which  together 
perhaps  I  would  not  decline  if  tendered."  2  To 
another  congressman  he  is  reported  to  have 
said :  "  I  do  not  desire  a  renomination  except  for 
the  reason  that  such  action  on  the  part  of  the 
Republican  party  would  be  the  most  emphatic 
indorsement  which  could  be  given  to  thejpolicy 
of  my  Administration."  We  have  already  men- 
tioned the  equanimity  with  wmich  he  treated 
the  efforts  of  a  leading  member  of  his  Cabinet 
to  supplant  him,  and  he  received  in  the  same 
manner  the  frequent  suggestions  of  apprehen- 
sive friends  that  he  would  do  well  to  beware 
of  Grant.  His  usual  reply  was,  "  If  he  takes 
Richmond,  let  him  have  it."  In  reality  General 
Grant  was  never  at  any  time  a  competitor  for 
the  nomination.  Of  course,  after  the  battle  of 
Missionary  Ridge  there  was  no  lack  of  such 
suggestions  on  the  part  of  those  who  surrounded 
the  victorious  general ;  but  he  positively  re- 
fused to  put  himself  in  the  lists  or  to  give  any 
sanction  to  the  use  of  his  name.  The  President 
constantly  discouraged  on  the  part  of  office- 
holders of  the  Government,  civil  or  military, 
any  especial  eagerness  in  his  behalf.  General 
Schurz  wrote,  late  in  February,  asking  permis- 
sion to  take  an  active  part  in  the  Presidential 
canvass,  to  which  Mr.  Lincoln  replied : 
1  April  26,  1864. 
2  Oct.  26,  1863.  MS. 
3  Lincoln  to  Schurz,  March  13,  1864.  MS. 
4  Lincoln  to  Schurz,  March  23,  1864.  Autograph 
MS. 
5  General  John  A.  Logan,  in  a  letter 'addressed  to 
General  W.  T.  Sherman  and  published  after  General 
Logan's  death,  said  that  when  he  left  the  army  to  make 
speeches  in  Illinois  he  did  this  at  the  request  of  the 
President.  We  have  been  unable  to  find  any  com- 
munication in  this  sense  among  Mr.  Lincoln's  papers. 
Allow  me  to  suggest  that  if  you  wish  to  remain 
in  the  military  service,  it  is  very  dangerous  for  you 
to  get  temporarily  out  of  it  ;  because,  with  a  major- 
general  once  out,  it  is  next  to  impossible  for  even 
the  President  to  get  him  in  again.  With  my  ap- 
preciation of  your  ability  and  correct  principle,  of 
course  I  would  be  very  glad  to  have  your  service 
for  the  country  in  the  approaching  political  canvass  ; 
but  I  fear  we  cannot  properly  have  it  without 
separating  you  from  the  military. 3 
And  in  a  subsequent  letter  addressed  to  the 
same  general  he  said  :  4 
I  perceive  no  objection  to  your  making  a  political 
speech  when  you  are  where  one  is  to  be  made ;  but 
quite  surely  speaking  in  the  North  and  fighting  in 
the  South  at  the  same  time  are  not  possible  ;  nor 
could  I  be  justified  to  detail  any  officer  to  the  politi- 
cal campaign  during  its  continuance  and  then  re- 
turn him  to  the  army.5 
The  experience  of  a  hundred  years  of  our 
politics  has  shown  what  perils  environ  a  Presi- 
dential candidate  who  makes  speeches.  The 
temptation  to  flatter  the  immediate  audience, 
without  regard  to  the  ultimate  effect  of  the 
words  spoken,  has  often  proved  too  strong  for 
the  wariest  politician  to  resist.  Especially  is 
a  candidate  in  danger  when  confronting  an 
audience  belonging  to  a  special  race  or  class. 
Mr.  Lincoln  made  no  mistake  either  in  i860 
or  in  1864.  Even  when  exposed  to  the  strongest 
possible  temptation,  the  reception  of  an  address 
from  a  deputation  of  a  workingmen's  associ- 
ation, he  preserved  his  mental  balance  undis- 
turbed. To  such  a  committee,  who  approached 
him  on  the  21st  of  March,  1864,  he  replied  by 
repeating  to  them  the  passage  from  his  message 
of  December,  1861,  in  which  the  relations  of 
labor  and  capital  are  set  down  with  mathe- 
matical and  logical  precision,  illuminated  by 
the  light  of  a  broad  humanity ;  and  he  only 
added  to  the  views  thus  expressed  the  follow- 
ing words,  than  which  nothing  wiser  or  more 
humane  has  ever  been  said  by  social  econo- 
mists : 
None  are  so  deeply  interested  to  resist  the  present 
rebellion  as  the  working  people.  Let  them  beware 
of  prejudices  working  division  and  hostility  among 
themselves.  The  most  notable  feature  of  a  disturb- 
ance in  your  city  last  summer  was  the  hanging  of 
some  working  people  by  other  working  people.  It 
should  never  be  so.  The  strongest  bond  of  human 
sympathy,  outside  of  the  family  relation,  should  be 
one  uniting  all  working  people,  of  all  nations  and 
We  applied  to  General  Logan's  family  for  the  evidence 
on  which  the  assertion  was  founded,  but  received  no 
answer.  There  is  no  question  that  General  Logan's 
statement  was  made  in  good  faith,  and  that  he  believed 
that  in  taking  a  leave  and  assisting  in  the  political  can- 
vass he  was  acting  in  accordance  with  the  President's 
wishes.  But  Mr.  Lincoln's  action  in  other  cases  was 
so  consistently  opposed  to  this  hypothesis,  that  we 
can  only  conclude  that  General  Logan  got  his  impres- 
sion of  what  the  President  desired  from  some  other 
person  than  the  President  himself.
LINCOLN  RENOMINATED. 
409 
tongues  and  kindreds.  Nor  should  this  lead  to  a 
war  upon  property  or  the  owners  of  property. 
Property  is  the  fruit  of  labor,  property  is  desirable, 
is  a  positive  good  in  the  world.  That  some  should 
be  rich  shows  that  others  may  become  rich,  and, 
hence,  is  just  encouragement  to  industry  and  enter- 
prise. Let  not  him  who  is  houseless  pull  down  the 
house  of  another,  but  let  him  labor  diligently  and 
build  one  for  himself,  thus  by  example  asserting 
that  his  own  shall  be  safe  from  violence  when  built. 
The  politicians  who  opposed  Mr.  Lincoln, 
whether  from  pure  motives  or  from  motives 
not  so  pure,  met  with  one  common  fate :  they 
were  almost  universally  beaten  in  their  own 
districts  by  men  who,  whatever  their  other  in- 
centives, were  sufficiently  adroit  to  perceive 
the  sign  in  which  they  should  conquer.  It  gave 
a  man  all  this  year  a  quite  unfair  advantage 
in  his  district  to  be  known  as  a  friend  of  the 
President,  when  his  opponent  was  not  equally 
outspoken ;  and  many  of  the  most  radical  poli- 
ticians, seeing  in  which  direction  their  advan- 
tage lay,  suddenly  turned  upon  their  opponents 
and  vanquished  them  in  the  President's  name. 
General  Lane,  for  example,  who  had  been 
engaged  in  a  bitter  controversy  with  Pomeroy 
in  regard  to  local  interests  in  Kansas,  saw  his 
opportunity  in  the  anti-Lincoln  circular  of 
his  colleague;  and  although  before  this  it 
would  have  been  hard  to  say  which  of  the  two 
had  been  most  free  in  his  criticisms  of  the 
President,  General  Lane  instantly  trimmed  his 
sails  to  catch  the  favoring  breeze  and  elected 
himself  and  a  full  list  of  delegates  to  the  Balti- 
more convention,  whom  he  called,  in  his  char- 
acteristic language,  "all  vindictive  friends  of 
the  President."  Other  members  of  Congress, 
equally  radical  and  more  sincere  and  honest, 
made  haste  to  range  themselves  on  the  side  of 
the  President  against  those  with  whom  they 
had  been  more  intimately  associated.  William 
D.  Kelley  of  Philadelphia  publicly  proclaimed 
him  "  the  wisest  radical  of  us  all  " ;  Mr.  Ashley 
of  Ohio,  to  whom  one  of  his  abolitionist  con- 
stituents had  objected  that  he  wanted  no  more 
of  a  President  who  had  not  crushed  a  rebellion 
in  four  years,  replied  that  this  was  unreason- 
»able,  as  the  Lord  had  not  crushed  the  devil 
in  a  much  longer  time. 
As  the  day  for  the  meeting  at  Baltimore 
drew  near,  and  its  unanimous  verdict  became 
more  and  more  evident,  the  President  was  be- 
sieged from  every  quarter  of  the  Union  with 
solicitations  to  make  known  his  wishes  in  re- 
gard to  the  work  of  the  convention.  To  all 
such  inquiries  he  returned  an  energetic  refusal 
to  give  any  word  of  counsel  or  to  express  any 
personal  desire.  During  a  few  days  preced- 
ing the  convention  a  great  many  delegates 
took  the  road  to  Washington,  either  to  get 
some  intimation  of  the  President's  wishes  or 
to  impress  their  own  faces  and  names  on  his 
expectant    mind.    They    were    all    welc, 
with  genial  and  cordial  courtesy,  but  re*  eived 
not  the  slightest  intimation  of  what  would  be 
agreeable  to  him.   The  mo  rful    poli- 
ticians from  New  York  and  Pennsylvania 
listened  to  with  no  more  confidential  consider- 
ation than  the  shy  and  awkward  representa- 
tives of  the  rebellious  States,  who  had  elected 
themselves  in  sutlers'  tents  and  in  the  shadow 
of  department  headquarters.  "  What  is  that 
crowd  of  people  in  the  hall  ?  "  he  said  one  day 
to  his  secretary.  "  It  is  a  delegation  from  South 
Carolina.  They  are  a  swindle."  "  Let  them 
in,"  said  Lincoln;  "  they  will  not  swindle  me." 
When  at  last  the  convention  came  together, 
on  the  7th  of  June,  1864,  it  had  less  to  do  than 
any  other  convention  in  our  political  history. 
The  delegates  were  bound  by  a  peremptory 
mandate.  Mr.  Forney,  in  an  article  printed  the 
day  before  the  meeting,1  put  forth  with  unu.-;ual 
candor  the  attitude  of  the  convention  towards 
its  constituents.  The  permanent  policy  of  the 
Republican  party  of  the  nation  was  already 
absolutely  established  by  the  acts  of  the  Presi- 
dent and  accepted  and  ratified  by  Congress 
and  the  people. 
For  this  reason  [said  Mr.  Forney]  it  is  less  im- 
portant as  a  political  body,  as  it  cannot  originate 
but  will  simply  republish  a  policy.  Yet  for  this 
reason  it  istranscendently  the  more  imposing  in  its 
expression  of  the  national  will.  Nor  has  the  conven- 
tion a  candidate  to  choose.  Choice  is  forbidden  it 
by  the  previous  action  of  the  people.  It  is  a  body 
which  almost  beyond  parallel  is  directly  responsible 
to  the  people,  and  little  more  than  the  instrument 
of  their  will.  Mr.  Lincoln  is  already  renominated, 
and  the  convention  will  but  formally  announce  the 
decision  of  the  people.  If  this  ab>ence  of  inde- 
pendence lessens  the  mere  political  interest  of  the 
convention  in  one  respect,  the  fact  that  it  will  thor- 
oughly and  unquestionably  obey  national  instructions 
gives  it  higher  importance. 
These  words  represented  the  well-nigh  uni- 
versal sentiment  among  Republicans.  There 
were,  of  course,  those  to  whom  such  a  senti- 
ment was  not  agreeable.  Horace  Greeley 
found  it  hard  to  accept  an  opinion  which  ran 
counter  to  his  personal  views.  In  an  article 
of  the  same  date  as  that  last  quoted,  although 
he  admitted  the  predestined  action  of  the  con- 
vention, he  still  protested  vehemently  against 
the  impolicv  of  such  action.  He  quoted  the 
message  sent  by  Mr.  Lincoln  to  Governor 
Seymour  in  the  dark  winter  of  i$62-6$,  "  thai 
if  he  wants  to  be  President  ot  the  United 
States,  he  must  take  care  that  there  shall  be  a 
United  States." 
We  could  wish  [said  Greeley]  the  Presidency  ut- 
terly forgotten  or  ignored  for  the  next  two  months, 
1  Philadelphia  M  Press,"  June  6.
4io 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 
while  every  impulse,  every  effort  of  the  loyal 
millions  should  be  directed  towards  the  overthrow 
of  the  armed  hosts  of  the  rebellion.  That  effected, 
or  its  speedy  accomplishment  proved  impossible,  we 
should  be  ready  to  enter  clear-sightedly  on  the 
Presidential  canvass.  Now  we  are  not.  We  feel 
that  the  expected  nomination,  if  made  at  this  time, 
exposes  the  Union  party  to  a  dangerous  "flank 
movement  " —  possibly  a  successful  one. 
Among  the  Democratic  newspapers  a  still 
more  blind  and  obstinate  disinclination  to  ac- 
cept the  existing  facts  is  seen  up  to  the  hour 
of  the  meeting  of  the  convention.  They  still 
insisted  that  the  nomination  of  Lincoln  was  in 
the  highest  degree  doubtful ;  some  pretended 
that  the  delegates  were  equally  divided  be- 
tween Lincoln  and  Grant ;  others  insisted  that 
the  nomination  of  Fremont  at  Cleveland  had 
electrified  the  country  and  would  probably 
carry  the  convention  by  storm. 
The  convention  was  opened  by  a  brief  speech 
from  Senator  Morgan  of  New  York,  who  was 
chairman  of  the  executive  committee.  It  con- 
tained one  significant  sentence.  He  said  the 
party  of  which  they  were  the  delegates  and 
honored  representatives  would  fall  short  of  ac- 
complishing its  great  mission  unless  among  its 
other  resolves  it  should  declare  for  such  amend- 
ment of  the  Constitution  as  would  positively 
prohibit  African  slavery  in  the  United  States. 
The  sentence  was  greeted  with  prolonged  ap- 
plause, which  burst  at  last  into  three  cheers, 
in  the  midst  of  which  Governor  Morgan  an- 
nounced the  choice  by  the  National  Com- 
mittee of  Robert  J.  Breckinridge  of  Kentucky 
as  temporary  chairman  of  the  convention. 
The  venerable  Kentuckian  on  taking  the  chair 
made  a  speech  which,  though  entirely  ex- 
temporaneous, was  delivered  with  great  ease 
and  dignity,  and  profoundly  impressed  his 
auditors. 
Disregarding  the  etiquette  which  assumes 
that  a  convention  is  a  deliberative  assembly 
and  that  its  choice  cannot  be  foretold  until  it 
is  made,  he  calmly  took  it  for  granted  at  the 
very  beginning  of  his  remarks  that  the  Union 
candidate  for  the  Presidency  was  already  nomi- 
nated, and  as  soon  as  the  tumultuous  cheers 
which  greeted  his  mention  of  the  name  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  had  died  away  he  turned  at  once 
to  the  discussion  of  what  he  considered  the  real 
business  of  the  day  —  the  declaration  of  prin- 
ciples. Coming  from  a  section  of  the  country 
where  the  Constitution  had  been  especially 
reverenced  in  words  and  vehemently  assailed 
in  action,  he  declared  that  with  all  the  outcry 
about  our  violations  of  the  Constitution  this 
present  living, veneration  and  this  present  Union 
party  are  more  thoroughly  devoted  to  that 
Constitution  than  any  generation  that  ever 
lived  under  it;   but  he  contended  also  that 
sacred  as  was  the  Constitution  the  nation  was 
not  its  slave. 
We  ought  to  have  it  distinctly  understood  by 
friends  and  enemies  that  while  we  love  that  instru- 
ment, while  we  will  maintain  it,  and  will  with 
undoubted  certainty  put  to  death  friend  or  foe  who 
undertakes  to  trample  it  under  foot ;  yet,  beyond  a 
doubt,  we  will  reserve  the  right  to  alter  it  to  suit 
ourselves  from  time  to  time  and  from  generation  to 
generation. 
This  speech  was  full  of  brief  and  powerful 
apothegms,  some  of  which  were  startling  as 
coming  from  an  aged  theologian  of  an  aspect 
equally  strong  and  benignant. 
The  only  enduring,  the  only  imperishable  cement 
of  all  free  institutions  [he  said],  has  been  the  blood 
of  traitors.  .  .  .  It  is  a  fearful  truth,  but  we  had 
as  well  avow  it  at  once  ;  and  every  blow  you  strike, 
and  every  rebel  you  kill,  every  battle  you  win, 
dreadful  as  it  is  to  do  it,  you  are  adding,  it  maybe 
a  year,  it  may  be  ten  years,  it  may  be  a  century,  it 
may  be  ten  centuries,  to  the  life  of  the  Government 
and  the  freedom  of  your  children.1 
Though  presiding  over  a  political  conven- 
tion, he  declared  himself  absolutely  detached 
from  politics.  "  As  an  Abolition  party,  as  a 
Republican  party,  as  a  Whig  party,  as  a  Demo- 
cratic party,  as  an  American  party,  I  will  not 
follow  you  one  foot.  As  a  Union  party  I 
will  follow  you  to  the  ends  of  the  earth,  and 
to  the  gates  of  death."  He  echoed  the  brief 
speech  in  which  Governor  Morgan  had  struck 
the  keynote.    He  said : 
I  unite  myself  with  those  who  believe  that  slavery 
is  contrary  to  the  brightest  interests  of  all  men  and  of 
all  governments,  contrary  to  the  spirit  of  the  Chris- 
tian religion,  and  incompatible  with  the  natural 
rights  of  man.  I  join  myself  with  those  who  say, 
Away  with  it  forever ;  and  I  fervently  pray  God  that 
the  day  may  come  when  throughout  the  whole 
land  every  man  may  be  as  free  as  you  are,  and  as 
capable  of  enjoying  regulated  liberty.  ...  I 
know  very  well  that  the  sentiments  which  I  am 
uttering  will  cause  me  great  odium  in  the  State  in 
which  I  was  born,  which  1  love,  where  the  bones 
of  two  generations  of  my  ancestors  and  some  of  my 
children  are,  and  where  very  soon  I  shall  lay  my 
own.  .  .  .  But  we  have  put  our  faces  towards 
the  way  in  which  we  intend  to  go,  and  we  will  go 
in  it  to  the  end. 
In  the  evening  the  permanent  organization 
of  the  convention  was  effected,  William 
Dennison  of  Ohio  being  made  chairman.  He, 
also,  in  a  brief  and  eloquent  speech  took  for 
granted  the  unanimous  nomination  for  the 
Presidency  of  the  United  States  "  of  the  wise 
and  good  man  whose  unselfish  devotion  to 
the  country,  in  the  administration  of  the 
Government,  has  secured  to  him  not  only 
the  admiration  but  the  warmest  affection  of 
every  friend  of  constitutional  liberty " ;  and 
1  McPherson,  "  History  of  the  Rebellion,"  p.  404.
LINCOLN  RENOMINATED. 
411 
also,  in  the  tone  of  both  the  speakers  who  had 
preceded  him,  said  that  the  loyal  people  of 
the  country  expected  the  convention 
to  declare  the  cause  and  the  support  of  the  rebellion 
to  be  slavery,  which,  as  well  for  its  treasonable  of- 
fenses against  the  Government  as  for  its  incompati- 
bility with  the  rights  of  humanity  and  the  permanent 
peace  of  the  country,  must,  with  the  termination 
of  the  war,  and  as  much  speedier  as  possible,  be 
made  to  cease  forever  in  every  State  and  Territory 
of  the  Union. 
There  were  in  fact  but  three  tasks  before  the 
convention.  The  first  was  to  settle  the  status 
of  contesting  delegations  from  the  States  and 
Territories;  the  second,  to  agree  upon  the 
usual  platform ;  and  the  third,  to  nominate  a 
candidate  for  the  Vice-Presidency.  All  of 
these  questions  were  handled  skillfully,  and 
with  a  spirit  of  moderation  which  led  to  the 
most  successful  result  in  the  canvass. 
There  were  no  questions  of  consequence  in 
regard  to  the  delegations  of  any  of  the  North- 
ern States,  nor  did  any  questions  arise  in  regard 
to  those  from  Kentucky  and  West  Virginia, 
Delaware  and  Maryland.  There  were  two 
delegations  from  Missouri,  both  making  special 
claims  of  loyalty  and  of  regularity  of  election. 
The  committee  on  credentials  decided  that 
those  styling  themselves  the  "  Radical  Union  " 
delegates  should  be  awarded  the  seats.  As  this 
was  the  only  delegation  which  had  presented 
itself  opposed  to  the  nomination  of  Lincoln, 
and  as  a  large  majority,  not  only  of  the  con- 
vention, but  of  the  committee  on  credentials, 
were  of  the  contrary  opinion,  their  action  in 
admitting  the  recalcitrant  Missourjans  was 
sagacious.  It  quieted  at  once  the  beginnings 
of  what  might  have  been  a  dangerous  schism. 
The  question  as  to  admitting  the  delegates 
from  Tennessee  also  raised  some  discussion, 
but  was  decided  in  their  favor  by  more  than 
a  two-thirds  vote.  The  delegates  from  Loui- 
siana and  Arkansas  were  also  admitted  by  a 
vote  nearly  as  large.  The  delegates  from 
Nevada,  Colorado,  and  Nebraska  were  ad- 
mitted with  the  right  to  vote ;  those  from  the 
States  of  Virginia  and  Florida,  and  the  re- 
maining Territories,  were  admitted  to  the  priv- 
ileges of  the  floor  without  the  right  to  vote; 
and  those  from  South  Carolina  were  rejected 
altogether. 
The  same  wise  spirit  of  compromise  was 
shown  in  the  platform,  reported  by  Henry 
J.  Raymond  of  New  York.  The  first  resolution 
declared  it  the  highest  duty  of  every  citizen  to 
maintain  the  integrity  of  the  Union  and  to  quell 
the  rebellion  by  force  of  arms ;  the  second  ap- 
proved the  determination  of  the  Government 
to  enter  into  no  compromise  with  the  rebels ; 
the  third,  while  approving  all  the  acts  hitherto 
done  against  slavery,  declared  in  favor  of  an 
amendment  to    the    Constitution   terminating 
and  forever  prohibiting  the  C 
in  the  United  States.   This  resolutioi 
ceived  with  an  outburst  of  spontan 
thunderous  applause.    The  fourth  resolution 
gave  thanks  to  the  soldiers  and  sailors;  the 
fifth  applauded  the  practical  wisdom,  unsel- 
fish patriotism,  and  unswerving  fidelity  with 
which   Abraham    Lincoln    had    dischar 
under  circumstances  of  unparalleled  difficulty, 
the   great   duties  and   responsibilities  of  the 
Presidential  office,  and  it  enumerated  and  ap- 
proved the  acts  of  his  Administration.    The 
sixth  resolution  was  of  sufficient  significance 
to  be  given  entire : 
Resolved,  That  we  deem  it  essential  to  the  gen- 
eral welfare  that  harmony  should  prevail  in  the 
national  councils,  and  we  regard  as  worthy  of  pub- 
lic confidence  and  official  trust  those  only  who  cor- 
dially indorse  the  principles  proclaimed  in  these 
resolutions  and  which  should  characterize  tl. 
ministration  of  the  Government. 
This  resolution,  like  the  admission  of  the 
Missouri  radicals,  was  intended  in  general  to 
win  the  support  and  heal  the  dissatisfaction  of 
the  so-called  radicals  throughout  the  Union. 
Its  specific  meaning,  however,  was  not  entirely 
clear.  There  were  not  many  of  the  delegates 
who  voted  for  it  who  would  have  agreed  upon 
all  the  details  of  a  scheme  for  reorganizing  the 
Cabinet.  If  measures  for  ostracizing  all  the 
objectionable  members  of  the  Government  had 
been  set  on  foot  in  the  hall  of  the  convention, 
it  is  probable  that  the  name  of  every  member 
of  the  Cabinet  would  have  been  found  on  some 
of  the  shells.  It  is  altogether  likely,  however, 
that  the  name  of  the  Postmaster-General  would 
have  occurred  more  frequently  than  that  of 
any  other  minister.  The  controversy  between 
his  brother  and  the  radicals  of  Missouri,  in 
which  he  had,  in  accordance  with  his  habit 
and  temperament,  taken  an  energetic  part,  had 
embittered  against  him  the  feelings  of  the  rad- 
ical Republicans,  not  only  in  the  West  but 
throughout  the  North,  and  his  habit  of  candid 
and  trenchant  criticism  had  raised  for  him 
enemies  in  all  political  circles. 
The  seventh  resolution  claimed  for  the  col- 
ored troops  the  full  protection  of  the  lawsof  war. 
The  eighth  declared  that  foreign  emigration 
should  be  fostered  and  encouraged.  The  ninth 
spoke  in  favor  of  the  speedy  construction 
railroad  to  the  Pacific  coast.  The  tenth  de- 
clared that  the  national  faith  pledged  for  the 
redemption  of  the  public  debt  must  be  kept 
inviolate ;  and  the  eleventh  declared  against 
the  efforts  of  any  European  power  to  establish 
monarchical  governments  sustained  by  foreign 
military  forces  in  near  proximity  to  the  United 
States.'
4i- 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 
This  last  resolution  showed  the  result  of 
an  adroit  and  sagacious  compromise.  The 
radicals  in  the  convention  desired  to  make  it 
a  censure  upon  the  action  of  the  President  and 
the  Secretary  of  State ;  but  the  friends  of  the 
Administration,  while  accepting  to  its  utmost 
results  the  declaration  in  favor  of  the  Monroe 
doctrine,  assumed  that  the  President  and  his 
Cabinet  were  of  the  same  mind,  and  therefore 
headed  the  resolution  with  the  declaration: 
That  we  approve  the  decision  taken  by  the  Gov- 
ernment that  the  people  of  the  United  States  can 
never  regard  with  indifference  the  attempt  of  any 
European  power  to  overthrow  by  force  or  to  supplant 
by  fraud  the  institutions  of  any  republican  govern- 
ment on  the  Western  continent. 
There  was  nothing  more  before  the  conven- 
tion but  the  nominations,  and  one  of  those 
was  in  fact  already  made.  The  only  delay  in 
registering  the  will  of  the  convention  occurred 
as  a  consequence  of  the  impatience  of  members 
to  do  it  by  irregular  and  summary  methods. 
Mr.  Delano  of  Ohio  made  the  customary 
motion  to  proceed  to  the  nomination ;  Simon 
Cameron  moved  as  a  substitute  the  renomina- 
tion  of  Lincoln  and  Hamlin  by  acclamation. 
A  long  wrangle  ensued  on  the  motion  to  lay 
this  substitute  on  the  table,  which  was  brought 
to  a  close  by  a  brief  speech  from  Henry  J. 
Raymond,  representing  the  cooler  heads,  who 
were  determined  that  whatever  opposition  there 
might  be  should  have  the  fullest  opportunity 
of  expression;  and  by  a  motion,  which  was 
adopted,  to  nominate  in  the  usual  way,  by  the 
call  of  States.  The  interminable  nominating 
speeches  of  recent  years  had  not  come  into 
fashion  :  Mr.  Cook,  the  chairman  of  the  Illinois 
delegation,  merely  said,  "  The  State  of  Illinois 
again  presents  to  the  loyal  people  of  this  nation, 
for  President  of  the  United  States,  Abraham 
Lincoln  —  God  bless  him!"  and  those  who 
seconded  the  nomination  were  equally  brief. 
Every  State  gave  its  undivided  voice  for  Lin- 
coln, with  the  exception  of  Missouri,  which 
cast  its  vote,  as  the  chairman  stated,  under 
positive  instructions,  for  Grant.  But  before  the 
result  was  announced  Mr.  Hume  of  Missouri 
moved  that  the  nomination  of  Lincoln  be 
declared  unanimous.  This  could  not  be  done 
until  the  result  of  the  balloting  was  made 
known  —  484  for  Lincoln,  22  for  Grant.  Mis- 
souri then  changed  its  vote,  and  the  secretary 
read  the  grand  total  of  506  for  Lincoln.  This 
announcement  was  greeted  with  a  storm  of 
cheering,  which  during  many  minutes  as  often 
as  it  died  away  burst  out  anew. 
The  principal  names  mentioned  for  the  Vice- 
Presidency  were,  besides  Mr.  Hamlin,  the 
actual  incumbent,  Andrew  Johnson  of  Ten- 
nessee, and  Daniel  S.  Dickinson  of  New  York; 
besides  these   General  Rousseau  had  the  vote 
of  his  own  State,  Kentucky.  The  radicals  of 
Missouri  favored  General  B.  F.  Butler,  who  had 
a  few  scattered  votes  also  from  New  England. 
But  among  the  three  principal  candidates  the 
voters  were  equally  enough  divided  to  make 
the  contest  exceedingly  spirited  and  interest- 
ing. For  several  days  before  the  convention 
the  President  had  been  besieged  by  inquiries 
as  to  his  personal  wishes  in  regard  to  his  asso- 
ciate on  the  ticket.  He  had  persistently  re- 
fused to  give  the  slightest  intimation  of  such 
wish.  His  private  secretary,  Mr.  Nicolay,  was 
at  Baltimore  in  attendance  at  the  convention ; 
and  although  he  was  acquainted  with  this  at- 
titude of  the  President,  at  last,  overborne  by 
the  solicitations  of  the  chairman  of  the  Illinois 
delegation,  who  had  been  perplexed  at  the 
advocacy  of  Joseph  Holt  by  Mr.  Swett,  one 
of  the  President's  most  intimate  friends,  Mr. 
Nicolay  wrote  a  letter  to  Mr.  Hay,  who  had 
been  left  in  charge  of  the  Executive  office  in 
his  absence,  containing  among  other  matters 
this  passage : 
Cook  wants  to  know  confidentially  whether 
Swett  is  all  right ;  whether  in  urging  Holt  for  Vice- 
President  he  reflects  the  President's  wishes  ;  whether 
the  President  has  any  preference,  either  personal  or 
on  the  score  of  policy;  or  whether  he  wishes  not 
even  to  interfere  by  a  confidential  intimation.  .  .  . 
Please  get  this  information  for  me  if  possible. 
The  letter  was  shown  to  the  President,  who 
indorsed  upon  it  this  memorandum : 
Swett  is  unquestionably  all  right.  Mr.  Holt  is  a 
good  man,  but  1  had  not  heard  or  thought  of  him 
for  V.  P.  Wish  not  to  interfere  about  V.  P.  Can- 
not interfere  about  platfoim.  Convention  must 
judge  for  itself. 
This  positive  and  final  instruction  was  sent 
at  once  to  Mr.  Nicolay,  and  by  him  communi- 
cated to  the  President's  most  intimate  friends 
in  the  convention.  It  was  therefore  with 
minds  absolutely  untrammeled  by  even  any 
knowledge  of  the  President's  wishes  that  the 
convention  went  about  its  work  of  selecting  his 
associate  on  the  ticket. 
It  is  altogether  probable  that  the  ticket  of 
1864  would  have  been  nominated  without  a 
contest  had  it  not  been  for  the  general  impres- 
sion, in  and  out  of  the  convention,  that  it 
would  be  advisable  to  select  as  a  candidate 
for  the  Vice- Presidency  a  war  Democrat.  Mr. 
Dickinson,  while  not  putting  himself  forward 
as  a  candidate,  had  sanctioned  the  use  of  his 
name  by  his  friends  on  the  especial  ground 
that  his  candidacy  might  attract  to  the  sup- 
port of  the  Union  party  many  Democrats  who 
would  have  been  unwilling  to  support  a  ticket 
avowedly  Republican ;  but  these  considerations 
weighed  with  still  greater  force  in  favor  of  Mr. 
Johnson,  who  was  not  only  a  Democrat,  but
LINCOLN  RENOMINATED. 
M3 
also  a  citizen  of  a  border  slaveholding  State, 
and  had  rendered  distinguished  services  to  the 
Union  cause.  At  the  first  show  of  hands  it 
was  at  once  evident  that  the  Tennesseean  was 
stronger  than  the  New  Yorker,  receiving  four 
more  votes  than  Mr.  Dickinson  even  in  the 
New  York  delegation.  When  the  votes  on  the 
first  ballot  were  counted  it  was  found  that  Mr. 
Johnson  had  received  200,  Mr.  Hamlin  1 50, 
Mr.  Dickinson  108;  but  before  the  result  was 
announced  almost  the  whole  convention  turned 
their  votes  to  Johnson,  and  on  motion  of  Mr. 
Tremain  of  New  York  his  nomination  was  de- 
clared unanimous.  The  work  was  quickly  done. 
Mr.  Lincoln,  walking  over  to  the  War  Depart- 
ment in  the  afternoon  as  usual  for  military  news, 
received  the  dispatch  announcing  the  nomina- 
tion of  Andrew  Johnson  before  he  was  informed 
of  his  own.  The  telegram  containing  the  news 
of  his  own  nomination  had  gone  to  the  White 
House  a  few  minutes  before. 
In  the  evening  the  National  Grand  Council 
of  the  Union  League  came  together.  A  large 
proportion  of  the  members  had  participated  in 
the  National  Convention,  and  their  action  was 
therefore  a  foregone  conclusion.  They  adopted 
a  platform  similar  to  that  of  the  convention, 
with  the  exception  that  they  declared,  as  the 
Cleveland  people  had  done,  in  favor  of  the 
confiscation  of  the  property  of  rebels.  They 
heartily  approved  and  indorsed  the  nomina- 
tions already  made,  and  passed  a  resolution  to 
the  effect  that  as  Lincoln  and  Johnson  were 
the  only  candidates  who  could  hope  to  be 
elected  as  loyal  men,  they  regarded  it  as  the 
imperative  duty  of  the  Union  League  to  do  all 
that  lay  in  its  power  to  secure  their  election. 
They  also  earnestly  approved  and  indorsed 
the  platform  and  principles  adopted  by  the 
convention,  and  pledged  themselves,  as  indi- 
viduals and  as  members  of  the  League,  to  do 
all  in  their  power  to  elect  the  candidates.  The 
seal  of  secrecy  was  removed  from  this  action 
and  a  copy  of  the  resolution  transmitted  to  the 
President  by  W.  R.  Erwin,  the  Grand  Record- 
ing Secretary.1 
A  committee,  headed  by  Governor  Dennison, 
came  on  the  next  day  2  to  notify  the  President 
of  his  nomination. 
I  need  not  say  to  you,  sir  [said  Mr.  Dennison], 
that  the  convention,  in  thus  unanimously  nominat- 
ing you  for  reelection,  but  gives  utterance  to  the 
almost  universal  voice  of  the  loyal  people  of  the 
country.  To  doubt  of  your  triumphant  election 
would  belittle  short  of  abandoning  the  hope  of  the 
final  suppression  of  the  rebellion  and  the  restoration 
of  the  authority  of  the  Government  over  the  insur- 
gent States. 
The  President  answered : 
I  will  neither  conceal  my  gratification  nor  restrain 
the  expression  of  my  gratitude  that  the  Union  people, 
Vol.  XXXVIII.—  54- 
through  their  convention,  m  the  continued  • 
to  save  and  advance  the  nation,  hav<  I  me 
not  unworthy  to  remain  in  my  n.   I 
know  no  reason   to  doubt  thai    I   shall 
nomination  tendered  ;  andyel  perhaps  I  mo  il  I 
declare  definitely  before    reading  lering 
what  is  called  the  platform.    I  will  say  now 
1  approve  the  declaration  in  favoi  ot     o   amending 
the  Constitution  as  to  prohibit  slavery  throughout 
the  nation.   When  the  people  in  revolt,  with  a  hun- 
dred days  of  explicit  notice  that   they  could  within 
those    clays  resume    their    allegiance    without  the 
overthrow  of  their  institutions  and  that  they 
not  so  resume  it  afterwards,  elected  to  stand  out,  such 
amendment  to  the  Constitution  as  is  now  proposed 
became  a   fitting  and  necessary  conclusion  to  the 
final  success  of  the  Union  cause.    Suchalonecan  1 
and  cover  all  cavils.    Now  the  unconditional  Union 
men,  North  and  South,  perceive  its  importance  and 
embrace  it.   In  the  joint  namesof  Liberty  and  Union, 
let  us  labor  to  give  it  legal  form  and  practical  effect. 
On  the  same  day  a  committee  of  the  Union 
League  presented  themselves  to  inform  him 
of  the  action  taken  the  night  before.  The 
President  answered  them  more  informally, 
saying  that  he  did  not  allow  himself  to  sup- 
pose that  either  the  convention  or  the  League- 
had  concluded  that  he  was  either  the  greatest 
or  the  best  man  in  America,  but  rather  that 
they  had  decided  that  it  was  not  best  i;  to  swap 
horses  while  swimming  the  stream."  All  day 
the  throngs  of  shouting  and  congratulating 
delegates  filled  all  the  approaches  to  the  Ex- 
ecutive Mansion.  In  a  brief  speech  at  night, 
in  answer  to  a  serenade  from  citizens  of  Ohio, 
the  President  said : 
What  we  want,  more  than  Baltimore  conventions 
or  Presidential  elections,  is  success  under  General 
Grant.  I  propose  that  you  constantly  bear  in  mind 
that  the  support  you  owe  to  the  brave  officers  and 
soldiers  in  the  field  is  of  the  very  first  importance. 
and  we  should  therefore  bend  all  our  energies  to 
that  point. 
He  then  proposed  three  cheers  for  Genera] 
Grant  and  the  officers  and  soldiers  with  him. 
and,  swinging  his  own  hat,  led  off  in  the 
cheering. 
The  more  formal  notification  of  the  conven- 
tion was  made  in  a  letter  written  by  George 
William  Curtis  of  New  York,  in  which  he  para- 
phrased the  platform  and  expressed  the  senti- 
ment of  the  convention  and  oi  the  people  of 
the  country  with  his  usual  elegance  and  force. 
They  have  watched  your  official  course,  there- 
fore, with  unflagging  attention;  and  amid  the  bitter 
taunts  of  eager  friends  and  the  tierce  denunciation 
of  enemies,  now  moving  too  fast  for  some,  now 
too  slowly  for  others,  they  have  seen  you  through- 
out this' tremendous  contest  patient,  sagacious, 
faithful,  just;  leaning  upon  the  heart  of  the  great 
mass  of  the  people,  and  satisfied  to  be  moved  by 
l  MS.         -  Thursday.  June  9.
4i4 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 
its  mighty  pulsations.  It  is  for  this  reason  that, 
long  before  the  convention* met,  the  popular  instinct 
had  plainly  indicated  you  as  its  candidate,  and  the 
convention  therefore  merely  recorded  the  popular 
will.  Your  character  and  career  prove  your  un- 
swerving fidelity  to  the  cardinal  principles  of  Ameri- 
can liberty  and  of  the  American  Constitution.  In 
the  name  o\  that  liberty  and  Constitution,  sir,  we 
earnestly  request  your  acceptance  of  this  nomina- 
tion, reverently  commending  our  beloved  country 
and  you.  its  Chief  Magistrate,  with  all  its  brave 
sons  who,  on  sea  and  land,  are  faithfully  defending 
the  good  old  American  cause  of  equal  rights,  to  the 
blessing  o\  Almighty  God. 
In  accepting  the  nomination  the  President 
observed  the  same  wise  rule  of  brevity  which 
lie  had  followed  four  years  before.  He  made 
but  one  specific  reference  to  any  subject  of 
discussion.  "While  he  accepted  the  resolution 
in  regard  to  the  supplanting  of  republican 
government  upon  the  Western  continent,  he 
gave  the  convention  and  the  country  distinctly 
to  understand  that  he  stood  by  the  action 
ahead}'  adopted  by  himself  and  the  Secretary 
of  State. 
There  might  be  misunderstanding  [he  said]  were 
1  not  to  say  that  the  position  of  the  Government 
in  relation  to  the  action  of  France  in  Mexico,  as  as- 
sumed through  the  State  Department  and  indorsed 
by  the  convention  among  the  measures  and  acts  of 
the  Executive,  will  be  faithfully  maintained  so  long 
as  the  state  of  facts  shall  leave  that  position  perti- 
nent and  applicable. 
THE    WADE-DAVIS    MANIFESTO. 
Ix  his  message  to  Congress  of  the  8th  of 
December,  1863,  Mr.  Lincoln  gave  expression 
to  his  ideas  on  the  subject  of  reconstruction 
more  fully  and  clearly  than  ever  before.  He 
appended  to  that  message  a  proclamation  of 
the  same  date  guaranteeing  a  full  pardon  to 
all  who  had  been  implicated  in  the  rebellion, 
with  certain  specified  exceptions,  on  the  con- 
dition of  taking  and  maintaining  an  oath  to 
support,  protect,  and  defend  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States  and  the  Union  of  the 
States  thereunder  ;  to  abide  by  and  support  all 
acts  of  Congress  and  proclamations  of  the 
President  made  during  the  rebellion  with  ref- 
erence to  slaves,  so  long  and  so  far  as  not  re- 
pealed, modified,  or  held  void  by  Congress  or 
by  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court.  The  ex- 
ceptions to  this  general  amnesty  were  of  those 
who,  having  held  places  of  honor  and  trust 
under  the  Government  of  the  United  States, 
had  betrayed  this  trust  and  entered  the  service 
of  the  Confederacy,  and  of  those  who  had  been 
guilty  of  treatment  of  colored  troops  not  justi- 
fied by  the  laws  of  war.  The  proclamation 
further  promised  that  when  in  any  of  the  States 
in  rebellion  a  number  of  citizens  equal  to  one- 
tenth  of  the  voters  in  the  year   i860  should 
HENRY     WINTER     DAVIS. 
(AFTER    A    PHOTOGRAPH    BY    POLLOCK.) 
reestablish  a  State  government  republican  in 
form,  and  not  contravening  the  oath  above 
mentioned,  that  such  should  be  recognized  as 
the  true  government  of  the  State,  and  should 
receive  the  benefits  of  the  constitutional  pro- 
vision that  "  The  United  States  shall  guarantee 
to  every  State  in  this  Union  a  republican  form 
of  government,  and  shall  protect  each  of  them 
against  invasion;  and,  on  application  of  the 
legislature,  or  of  the  executive  (when  the  leg- 
islature cannot  be  convened),  against  domestic 
violence."  The  President  also  engaged  by  this 
proclamation  not  to  object  to  any  provision 
which  might  be  adopted  by  such  State  gov- 
ernments in  relation  to  the  freed  people  of  the 
States  which  should  recognize  and  declare 
their  permanent  freedom  and  provide  for  their 
education,  "  and  which  may  yet  be  consistent, 
as  a  temporary  arrangement,  with  their  present 
condition  as  a  laboring,  landless,  and  homeless 
class."  He  suggested  that  in  reconstructing 
the  loyal  State  governments,  the  names,  the 
boundaries,  the  subdivisions,  the  constitutions, 
and  the  general  codes  of  laws  of  the  States 
should  be  preserved.  He  stated  distinctly  that 
his  proclamation  had  no  reference  to  States 
where  the  loyal  State  governments  had  all  the 
while  been  maintained ;  he  took  care  to  make 
it  clear  that  the  respective  Houses,  and  not  the 
Executive,  had  the  constitutional  power  to 
decide  whether  members  sent  to  Congress  from 
any  State  should  be  admitted  to  seats ;  and  he 
concluded  by  saying : 
This  proclamation  is  intended  to  present  the 
people  of  the  States  wherein  the  national  authority 
has  been  suspended,  and  loyal  State  governments 
have  been  subverted,  a  mode  in  and  by  which  the 
national  authority  and  loyal  State  governments 
may  be  reestablished  within  said  States,  or  in  any 
of   them.    And  while   the   mode    presented  is  the
T//H    WA  DE-DA  V/S   MANIFESTO. 
M 
best  the  Executive  can  suggest,  with  his  present  im- 
pressions, it  must  not  be  understood  that  no  other 
possible  mode  would  be  acceptable.1 
The  message  contained  an  unusually  forcible 
and  luminous  expression  of  the  principles  em- 
braced in  the  proclamation.  The  President 
referred  to  the  dark  and  doubtful  days  which 
followed  the  announcement  of  the  policy  of 
emancipation  and  of  the  employment  of  black 
soldiers;  the  gradual  justification  of  those  acts 
by  the  successes  which  the  national  arms  had 
since  achieved ;  of  the  change  of  the  public 
spirit  of  the  border  States  in  favor  of  emancipa- 
tion; the  enlistment  of  black  soldiers,  and  their 
efficient  and  creditable  behavior  in  arms ;  the 
absence  of  any  tendency  to  servile  insurrection 
or  to  violence  and  cruelty  among  the  negroes; 
the  sensible  improvement  in  the  public  opinion 
of  Europe  and  of  America.  He  then  explained 
the  purpose  and  spirit  of  his  proclamation. 
Nothing  had  been  attempted  beyond  what  was 
amply  justified  by  the  Constitution;  the  form 
of  an  oath  had  been  given,  but  no  man  was 
coerced  to  take  it ;  the  Constitution  authorized 
the  Executive  to  grant  or  withhold  a  pardon 
at  his  own  absolute  discretion,  and  this  includes 
the  power  to  grant  on  terms,  as  is  fully  estab- 
lished by  judicial  authority.  He  therefore 
referred  to  the  provision  of  the  Constitution 
guaranteeing  to  the  States  a  republican  form 
of  government  as  providing  precisely  for  the 
case  now  under  treatment ;  where  the  element 
within  a  State  favorable  to  republican  govern- 
ment in  the  Union  might "  be  too  feeble  for  an 
opposite  and  hostile  element  external  to  or 
even  within  the  State." 
An  attempt  [said  the  President]  to  guaranty  and 
protect  a  revived  State  government,  constructed  in 
whole  or  in  preponderating  part  from  the  very 
element  against  whose  hostility  and  violence  it  is  to 
be  protected,  is  simply  absurd.  There  must  be  a 
test  by  which  to  separate  the  opposing  elements,  so 
as  to  build  only  from  the  sound  ;  and  that  test  is  a 
sufficiently  liberal  one  which  accepts  as  sound  who- 
ever will  make  a  sworn  recantation  of  his  former 
unsoundness. 
In  justification  of  his  requiring  in  the  oath 
of  amnesty  a  submission  to  and  support  of  the 
antislavery  laws  and  proclamations,  he  said  : 
Those  laws  and  proclamations  were  enacted  and 
put  forth  for  the  purpose  of  aiding  in  the  suppres- 
sion of  the  rebellion.  To  give  them  their  fullest 
effects,  there  had  to  be  a  pledge  for  their  mainte- 
1  In  some  instances  this  proclamation  was  misun- 
derstood by  generals  and  commanders  of  departments, 
so  that  prisoners  of  war  were  allowed  on  their  volun- 
tary application  to  take  the  amnesty  oath.  This  was 
not  the  President's  intention,  and  would  have  led  to 
serious  embarrassment  in  the  matter  of  the  exchange 
of  prisoners. 
He  therefore,  on  the  26th  of  March,  1864,  issued 
a  supplementary  proclamation  declaring  that  the  proc- 
nance.     In  my   judgment    they   have  aided  and  will 
further  aid  the  cause  for  which  they  were  inter 
To  now  abandon  Ihem  would  be  not  only  to 
linquish  a  lever  of  power,  hut  would  ruel 
and  an  astounding  breach  o!  faith.  I  may  add,  at 
this  point,  that  while  I  remain  in  my  present  po- 
sition 1  shall  not  attempt  to  retract  or  : 
Emancipation  Proclamation,  nor  shall  I  return  to 
slavery  any  person  who  is  free  by  the  terms  of  that 
proclamation,  or  by  any  ol  the  a<  ts  of  Congress. 
'The  President  called  attention  to  the  : 
that  this  part  of  the  oath  is  subje<  t  to  the 
modifying  and  abrogating  power  of  legislation 
and  supreme  judicial  decision  ;  that  the  whole 
purpose  and  spirit  of  the  proclamation  i^  per- 
missive and  not  mandatory. 
The  proposed  acquiescence  [he  said]  of  the  v- 
tional  Executive  in  any  reasonable  temporary  State 
arrangement  for  the  freed  people  is  made  with  the 
view  of  possibly  modifying  the  confusion  and  des- 
titution which  must  at  best  attend  all  classes  by  a 
total  revolution  of  labor  throughout  whole  State-.  It 
is  hoped  that  the  already  deeply  afflicted  people  in 
those  States  may  be  somewhat  more  ready  to  give 
up  the  cause  of  their  affliction  if,  to  this  extent, 
this  vital  matter  be  left  to  themselves,  while  no 
power  of  the  National  Executive  to  prevent  an  abuse 
is  abridged  by  the  proposition. 
He  had  taken  the  utmost  pains  to  avoid 
the  danger  of  committal  on  points  which  could 
be  more  safely  left  to  further  developments. 
"  Saying  that  on  certain  terms  certain  classes 
will  be  pardoned  with  rights  restored,  it  is  not 
said  that  other  classes  or  other  terms  will  never 
be  included;  saying  that  reconstruction  will 
be  accepted  if  presented  in  a  specified  way.  it 
is  not  said  it  will  never  be  accepted  in  any  other 
way."  The  President  expressed  his  profound 
congratulation  at  the  movement  towards  eman- 
cipation by  the  several  States,  and  urged  once 
more  upon  Congress  the  importance  of  aiding 
these  steps  to  the  great  consummation. 
It  is  rare  that  so  important  a  state  paper 
has  been  received  with  such  unanimous  tokens 
of  enthusiastic  adhesion.  However  the  lead- 
ing Republicans  in  Congress  may  have  been 
led  later  in  the  session  to  differ  with  the  Presi- 
dent, there  was  apparently  no  voice  of  discord 
raised  on  the  day  the  message  was  read  to 
both  Houses.  For  a  moment  all  tactions  in 
Congress  seemed  to  be  of  one  mind.  One 
who  spent  the  morning  on  the  floor  of  Congress 
wrote  on  the  same  day ;  "  Men  acted  as 
though  the  millennium  had  come.    Chandler 
lamation  applied  only  to  those  persons  who.  being 
yet  at  large  and  free  from  any  arrest,  confinement,  or 
duress,  should  voluntarily  come  forward  and  take  the 
said  oath  with  the  purpose  of  restoring  peace  and  es- 
tablishing the  national  authority:  and  that  persons 
excluded  from  the  amnesty  offered  in  the  proclamation 
might  apply  to  the  President  for  clemency,  like  all 
other  offenders,  and  that  their  application  would  receive 
due  consideration.
416 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 
was  delighted.  Sumner  was  joyous,  apparently 
forgetting  for  the  moment  his  doctrine  of  State 
suicide,1  while  at  the  other  political  pole  Dixon 
and  Reverdy  Johnson  said  the  message  was 
highly  satisfactory."  -  Henry  Wilson  said  to 
the  President's  secretary  :  "  He  has  struck  an- 
other great  blow.  Tell  him  for  me,  God  bless 
him."  The  effect  was  similar  in  the  House  of 
Representatives.  Mr.  Boutwell,  who  repre- 
sented the  extreme  antislavery  element  of 
New  England,  said:  "It  is  a  very  able  and 
shrewd  paper.  It  has  great  points  of  popu- 
larity, and  it  is  right."  Lovejoy,  the  leading 
abolitionist  ot  the  West,  seemed  to  see  on  the 
mountain  the  feet  of  one  bringing  good  tidings. 
••  1  shall  live."  he  said,  "  to  see  slavery  ended 
in  America.''  Garfield  gave  his  unreserved 
approval ;  Kellogg  of  Michigan  went  shouting 
about  the  lobby:  "  The  President  is  the  only 
man.  There  is  none  like  him  in  the  world. 
He  sees  more  widely  and  more  clearly  than 
any  of  us."  Mr.  Henry  T.  Blow,  the  radical 
member  from  St.  Louis  (who  six  months  later 
was  denouncing  Mr.  Lincoln  as  a  traitor  to 
freedom),  said  :  "  God  bless  old  Abe !  I  am 
one  of  the  radicals  who  have  always  believed 
in  him."  Mr.  Greeley,  who  was  on  the  floor 
of  the  House,  went  so  far  as  to  say  the  mes- 
sage was  "  devilish  good."  The  Executive 
Mansion  was  filled  all  day  by  a  rush  of  con- 
gressmen, congratulating  the  President  and 
assuring  him  of  their  support  in  his  wise  and 
humane  policy.  The  conservatives  and  rad- 
icals vied  with  each  other  in  claiming  that  the 
message  represented  their  own  viewrs  of  the 
crisis.  Mr.  Judd  of  Illinois  said  to  the  Presi- 
dent: "  The  opinion  of  people  who  read  your 
message  to-day  is,  that  on  that  platform  two 
of  your  ministers  must  walk  the  plank — Blair 
and  Bates."  To  which  the  President  answered : 
"  Both  of  these  men  acquiesced  in  it  without 
objection ;  the  only  member  of  the  Cabinet 
who  objected  was  Mr.  Chase."  For  a  mo- 
ment the  most  prejudiced  Democrats  found 
little  to  say  against  the  message;  they  called 
it  "  very  ingenious  and  cunning,  admirably 
calculated  to  deceive."  This  reception  of  the 
message  was  extremely  pleasing  to  the  Presi- 
dent. A  solution  of  the  most  important  prob- 
lem of  the  time  which  conservatives  like  Dixon 
and  Reverdy  Johnson  thoroughly  approved, 
and  to  which  Mr.  Sumner  made  no  objection, 
was  of  course  a  source  of  profound  gratifi- 
cation. He  took  it  as  a  proof  of  what  he  had 
often  said,  that  there  was  no  essential  contest 
between  loyal  men  on  this  subject  if  they  would 
consider  it  reasonably.  He  said  in  conversa- 
tion on   the    ioth   of  December:  "The  only 
1  See  resolutions  introduced  in  Senate  Feb.  1 1, 1862. 
2  J.  H.,  Diary. 
3  J.  H.,  Diary. 
BENJAMIN     F.      WADE. 
(FROM     A     DAGUERREOTYPE.) 
question  is,  Who  constitute  the  State  ?  When 
that  is  decided,  the  solution  of  subsequent  ques- 
tions is  easy."  3  He  wrote  in  his  original  draft 
of  the  message  that  he  considered  "  the  discus- 
sion as  to  whether  a  State  had  been  at  any  time 
out  of  the  Union  as  vain  and  profitless.  We 
know  they  were,  we  trust  they  shall  be,  in  the 
Union.  It  does  not  greatly  matter  whether  in 
the  meantime  they  shall  be  considered  to  have 
been  in  or  out."  But  afterwards,  considering 
that  the  Constitution  empowered  him  to  grant 
protection  to  States  "  in  the  Union,"  he  saw 
that  it  would  not  answer  to  admit  that  the 
States  had  at  any  time  been  out  of  it;  he 
erased  that  sentence  as  possibly  suggestive  of 
evil.  He  preferred,  he  said,  "  to  stand  firmly 
based  on  the  Constitution  rather  than  to  work 
in  the  air."  He  was  specially  gratified  by 
reports  which  came  to  him  of  the  adhesion  of 
the  Missourians  in  Congress  to  his  view. 
I  know  [he  said]  these  radical  men  have  in  them 
the  stuff  which  must  save  the  state  and  on  which 
we  must  mainlyrely.  They  are  absolutely  incorro- 
sive  by  the  virus  of  secession.  It  cannot  touch  or 
taint  them;  while  the  conservatives,  in  casting 
about  for  votes  to  carry  through  their  plans,  are 
attempting  to  affiliate  with  those  whose  record  is 
not  clear.  If  one  side  must  be  crushed  out  and  the 
other  cherished,  there  cannot  be  any  doubt  which 
side  wemust  chooseas  fuller  of  hopefor  the  future ; 
but  just  there  [he  continued]  is  where  their  wrong 
begins.  They  insist  that  I  shall  hold  and  treat 
GovemorGambleandhis  supporters,  men  appointed 
by  the  loyal  people  of  Missouri  as  representativesof 
Missouri  loyalty,  and  who  have  done  their  whole 
duty  in  the  war  faithfully  and  promptly,  who  when 
they  have  disagreed  with  me  have  been  silent  and
THE    WADE-DAVIS  MANIFESTO. 
4*7 
kept  about  the  good  work —  that  I  shall  treat  these 
men  as  copperheads  and  enemies  of  the  Government. 
This  is  simply  monstrous. 
For  the  first  few  days  there  was  no  hint  of 
any  hostile  feeling  in  Congress.  There  was,  in 
fact,  no  just  reason  why  the  legislative  body 
should  regard  its  prerogative  as  invaded.  The 
President  had  not  only  kept  clearly  within  his 
constitutional  powers,  but  his  action  had  been 
expressly  authorized  by  Congress.  The  act  of 
July  17,  1862,  had  provided  that  the  President 
might  thereafter  at  any  time,  by  proclamation, 
extend  pardon  and  amnesty  to  persons  partici- 
pating in  the  rebellion,  "  with  such  exceptions 
and  on  such  conditions  as  he  might  deem  ex- 
pedient for  the  public  welfare."  Of  course  a 
general  amnesty  required  general  conditions ; 
and  the  most  important  of  these  was  one  which 
should  provide  for  the  protection  of  the  freed- 
men  who  had  been  liberated  by  the  war. 
It  soon  enough  appeared,  however,  that  the 
millennium  had  not  arrived ;  that  in  a  Congress 
composed  of  men  of  such  positive  convictions 
and  vehement  character  there  were  many  who 
would  not  submit  permanently  to  the  leader- 
ship of  any  man,  least  of  all  to  that  of  one  so 
gentle,  so  reasonable,  so  devoid  of  malice  as 
the  President.  Mr.  Henry  Winter  Davis  at  once 
moved  that  that  part  of  the  message  relating  to 
reconstruction  should  be  referred  to  a  special 
committee,  of  which  he  was  made  chairman, 
and  on  the  15th  of  February  he  reported  "a 
bill  to  guarantee  to  certain  States  whose  gov- 
ernments have  been  usurped  or  overthrown  a 
republican  form  of  government."  Mr.  Davis  was 
a  man  of  too  much  integrity  and  elevation  of 
character  to  allow  the  imputation  that  his  action 
on  public  matters  was  dictated  entirely  by  per- 
sonal feeling  or  prejudice ;  but  at  the  same  time  it 
cannot  be  denied  that  he  maintained  towards 
the  President  from  beginning  to  end  of  his  ad- 
ministration an  attitude  of  consistent  hostility. 
This  was  a  source  of  chagrin  and  disappoint- 
ment to  Mr.  Lincoln.  He  came  to  Washington 
with  a  high  opinion  of  the  ability  and  the  char- 
acter of  Mr.  Davis,  and  expected  to  maintain 
with  him  relations  of  intimate  friendship.  He 
was  cousin  to  one  of  the  President's  closest 
friends  in  Illinois,  Judge  David  Davis,  and  his 
attitude  in  the  Congress  which  preceded  the 
rebellion  was  such  as  to  arouse  in  the  mind  of 
Mr.  Lincoln  the  highest  admiration  and  regard. 
But  the  selection  of  Mr.  Blair  of  Maryland 
as  a  member  of  the  Cabinet  estranged  the 
sympathies  of  Mr.  Davis  and  his  friends,  and 
the  breach  thus  made  between  him  and  the 
Administration  was  never  healed,  though  the 
President  did  all  in  his  power  to  heal  it.  In  the 
spring  of  1863  Mr.  Davis,  assuming  that  the 
President  might  be  inclined  to  favor  unduly 
the  conservative  candidate  in  the  election  for 
Vol.  XXXVIIL— 55. 
the  next  Congress,  sought  an  interview  with 
him,  the  result  of  which  the  President  pi 
in  writing  in  a  letter  dated  March  18: 
There    will  be  in  the  H 
tives,  as  there  were  in  the  old,  sonic  membei  I  openly 
opposing  the  war, some  supporting  it  uncondil 
ally,  and  sonic  supporting  it  with  "  but*"  and 
"  ifs  "  and  "amis."  They  will  divide  on  I 
ization  of  the  House  —  on  the  election  of  a  IDC 
As  you  ask  my  opinion,  I  give  it,  that  the  support- 
ers of  the  war  should  send  no  man  to  Congress  who 
will  not  pledge  himself  to  go  into  caucus  with  the 
unconditional  supporters  of  the  war,  and  to  abide 
the  action  of  such  caucus  and  vote  for  the  person 
therein  nominated  for  speaker.  Let  the  friends  of 
the  Government  first  save  the  Government,  and  then 
administer  it  to  their  own  liking. 
Mr.  Davis  answered : 
Your  favor  of  the  1 8th  is  all  that  could  b- 
sired,    and    will   greatly  aid    us    in    bringing  our 
friends  to  a  conclusion  such  as  the  interests  of  the 
country  require. 
In  spite  of  all  the  efforts  which  the  Pi 
dent  made  to  be  on  friendly  terms  with  Mr. 
Davis,  the  difference  between  them  constantly 
widened.  Mr.  Davis  grew  continually  more 
confirmed  in  his  attitude  of  hostility  to  every 
proposition  of  the  President.  He  became 
one  of  the  most  severe  and  least  generous 
critics  of  the  Administration  in  Congress.  He 
came  at  last  to  consider  the  President  as 
unworthy  of  even  respectful  treatment;  and 
Mr.  Seward,  in  the  midst  of  his  energetic 
and  aggressive  campaign  against  European 
unfriendliness,  was  continually  attacked  by  him 
as  a  truckler  to  foreign  powers  and  little  less 
than  a  traitor  to  his  country.  The  President, 
however,  was  a  man  so  persistently  and  incor- 
rigibly just,  that  even  in  the  face  of  this  provo- 
cation he  never  lost  his  high  opinion  of  Mr. 
Davis's  ability  nor  his  confidence  in  his  inher- 
ent good  intentions.  He  refused,  in  spite  of 
the  solicitations  of  most  of  his  personal  friends 
in  Maryland,  to  discriminate  against  the  taction 
headed  by  Mr.  Davis  in  making  appointments  to 
office  in  that  State:  and  when,  during  an  im- 
portant campaign,  a  deputation  of  prominent 
supporters  of  the  Administration  in  Maryland 
came  to  Washington  to  denounce  Mr.  Davis 
for  his  outspoken  hostility  to  the  President.  - 
ing  that  such  a  course,  if  it  continued  un- 
checked, would  lose  Mr.  Lincoln  the  electoral 
vote  of  the  State,  he  replied : 
I  understood  that  Mr.  Davis  is  doing  all  in  his 
power  to  secure  the  success  o\  the  emancipation 
ticket  in  Maryland.  If  he  does  this,  I  care  nothing 
about  the  electoral  vote. 
In  the  preamble  to  his  bill  Mr.  Davis  ex- 
pressed, with  his  habitual  boldness  and  lucidity, 
his  fundamental  thesis  that  the  rebellious  States 
were  out  of  the  Union.
4i8 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 
IVb&reas  [he  said],  the  so-called  Confederate 
States  are  a  public  enemy,  waging-  an  unjust  war, 
whose  injustice  is  so  glaring  that  they  have  no  right 
to  claim  the  mitigation  of  the  extreme  rights  of 
war  which  are  accorded  by  modern  usage  to  an  enemy 
who  has  the  right  to  consider  the  war  a  just  one  ; 
and. 
IVbereas,  none  of  the  States  which,  by  a  regu- 
larly recorded  majority  of  its  citizens,  have  joined 
the  so-called  Southern  Confederacy  can  be  consid- 
ered and  treated  as  entitled  to  be  represented  in 
Congress  or  to  take  any  part  in  the  political  govern- 
ment of  the  Union, 
This  seemed  to  Congress  too  trenchant  a 
solution  of  a  constitutional  knot  which  was 
puzzling  the  best  minds  of  the  commonwealth, 
and  the  preamble  was  rejected;  but  the  spirit 
of  it  breathed  in  every  section  of  the  bill.  Mr. 
Davis's  design  was  to  put  a  stop  to  the  work 
which  the  President  had  already  begun  in 
Tennessee  and  Louisiana,  and  to  prevent  the 
extension  of  that  policy  to  other  Southern 
States.  The  bill  authorized  the  appointment  of 
a  provisional  governor  in  each  of  the  States 
in  rebellion,  and  provided  that,  after  the  mili- 
tary resistance  to  the  United  States  should 
have  been  suppressed  and  the  people  suffi- 
ciently returned  to  their  obedience  to  the 
Constitution  and  laws,  the  white  male  citizens 
of  the  State  should  be  enrolled,  and  when  a 
majority  of  them  should  have  taken  the  oath  of 
allegiance  the  loyal  people  of  the  State  should 
be  entitled  to  elect  delegates  to  a  conven- 
tion to  reestablish  a  State  government.  The 
convention  was  required  to  insert  in  the  con- 
stitution three  provisions :  First,  to  prevent 
prominent  civil  or  military  officers  of  the  Con- 
federates to  vote  for  or  to  be  members  of  the  leg- 
islature  or  governor;  second,  that  involuntary 
servitude  is  forever  prohibited,  and  the  free- 
dom of  all  persons  guaranteed  in  said  States ; 
third,  no  debt,  State  or  Confederate,  created 
by  or  under  the  sanction  of  the  usurping  power 
shall  be  recognized  or  paid  by  the  State.  Upon 
the  adoption  of  the  constitution  by  the  con- 
vention, and  its  ratification  by  the  electors 
of  the  State,  the  provisional  government  shall  so 
certify  to  the  President,  who,  after  obtaining 
the  assent  of  Congress,  shall  by  proclamation 
recognize  the  government  so  established,  and 
none  other,  as  the  constitutional  government 
of  the  State;  and  from  the  date  of  such  recog- 
nition, and  not  before,  congressmen  and  Pres- 
idential electors  may  be  elected  in  such  State. 
Pending  the  reorganization,  the  provisional 
governor  shall  enforce  the  laws  of  the  Union 
and  of  the  State  before  rebellion.  Another  sec- 
tion of  the  bill  emancipated  all  slaves  in  those 
States,  with  their  posterity,  and  made  it  the 
duty  of  the  United  States  courts  to  discharge 
them  on  habeas  corpus  if  restrained  of  their 
liberty  on  pretense  of  any  claim  to  service  or 
labor  as  slaves,  and  to  inflict  a  penalty  of  fine 
or  imprisonment  upon  the  persons  claiming 
them.  Another  section  declared  any  person 
hereafter  holding  any  important  office,  civil 
or  military,  in  the  rebel  service  not  to  be  a  cit- 
izen of  the  United  States. 
This  bill  was  supported  by  Mr.  Davis  in  a 
speech  of  extraordinary  energy.  Without  hesi- 
tation he  declared  it  a  test  and  standard  of 
antislavery  orthodoxy ;  he  asserted  boldly  that 
Congress,  and  Congress  alone,  had  the  power 
to  revive  the  reign  of  law  in  all  that  territory 
which  through  rebellion  had  put  itself  outside 
of  the  law.  "  Until,"  he  said, "  Congress  recog- 
nizes a  State  government  organized  under  its 
auspices,  there  is  no  government  in  the  rebel 
States  except  the  authority  of  Congress."  The 
duty  is  imposed  on  Congress  to  administer 
civil  government  until  the  people  shall,  under 
its  guidance,  submit  to  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  and,  under  the  laws  which  it 
shall  impose  and  on  the  conditions  Congress 
may  require,  reorganize  a  republican  gov- 
ernment for  themselves  and  Congress  shall 
recognize  that  government.  He  declared  there 
was  no  indication  which  came  from  the  South, 
from  the  darkness  of  that  bottomless  pit,  that 
there  wTas  a  willingness  to  accept  any  terms 
that  even  the  Democrats  were  willing  to  offer ; 
he  believed  that  no  beginning  of  legal  and 
orderly  government  could  be  made  till  mili- 
tary opposition  was  absolutely  annihilated ; 
that  there  were  only  three  ways  of  bringing 
about  a  reorganization  of  civil  governments. 
One  was  to  remove  the  cause  of  the  war  by  an 
amendment  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  prohibiting  slavery  everywhere  within 
its  limits :  that,  he  said,  "  goes  to  the  root  of 
the  matter,  and  should  consecrate  the  nation's 
triumph  " ;  but  this  measure  he  thought  involved 
infinite  difficulty  and  delay.  Though  it  met  his 
hearty  approval,  it  was  not  a  remedy  for  the 
evils  to  be  dealt  with.  The  next  plan  he  con- 
sidered was  that  of  the  President's  amnesty 
proclamation.  This  he  denounced  as  utterly 
lacking  in  all  the  guarantees  required : 
If,  in  any  manner  [he  said],  by  the  toleration  of 
martial  law,  lately  proclaimed  the  fundamental  law, 
under  the  dictation  of  any  military  authority,  or 
under  the  prescriptions  of  a  provost-marshal,  some- 
thing in  the  form  of  a  government  shall  be  presented, 
represented  to  rest  on  the  votes  of  one-tenth  of  the 
population,  the  President  will  recognize  that,  pro- 
vided it  does  not  contravene  the  proclamation  of 
freedom  and  the  laws  of  Congress. 
Having  dismissed  both  of  these  plans  with 
brief  censure,  he  then  made  a  powerful  plea  for 
the  bill  he  had  reported.  He  called  upon  Con- 
gress to  take  the  responsibility  of  saying : 
In  the  face  of  those  who  clamor  for  speedy  rec- 
ognition of  governments  tolerating  slavery,  that  the
THE    WADE-DAVIS  MANIFESTO. 
safety  of  the  people  of  the  United  States  is  the  su- 
preme law;  that  their  will  is  the  supreme  rule  of 
law,  and  that  we  are  authorized  to  pronounce  their 
will  on  this  subject  ;  take  the  responsibility  to  say 
that  we  will  revise  the  judgments  of  our  ancestors; 
that  we  have  experience  written  in  blood  which 
they  had  not ;  that  we  find  now,  what  they  darkly 
doubted,  that  slavery  is  really,  radically  inconsistent 
with  the  permanence  of  republican  governments, 
and  that  being  charged  by  the  supreme  law  of  the 
land  on  our  conscience  and  judgment  to  guarantee, 
that  is,  to  continue,  maintain,  and  enforce,  if  it 
exists,  to  institute  and  restore  when  overthrown, 
republican  governments  throughout  the  broad  limits 
of  the  Republic,  we  will  weed  out  every  element  of 
their  policy  which  we  think  incompatible  with  its 
permanence  and  endurance. 
The  bill  was  extensively  debated.  It  was 
not  opposed  to  any  extent  by  the  Republicans 
of  the  House;  the  Democrats  were  left  to  make 
a  purely  partisan  opposition  to  it.  The  Presi- 
dent declined  to  exercise  any  influence  on  the 
debate,  and  the  bill  was  passed  by  a  vote  of 
seventy-four  to  sixty-six.  It  was  called  up  in 
the  Senate  by  Mr.  Wade  of  Ohio,  who,  in  sup- 
porting it,  followed  very  much  the  same  line  of 
argument  as  that  adopted  by  Mr.  Davis  in  the 
House.  Mr.  B.  Gratz  Brown  of  Missouri,  believ- 
ing that  as  the  session  was  drawing  near  its  close 
there  was  no  time  to  discuss  a  measure  of  such 
transcendent  importance,  offered  an  amend- 
ment simply  forbidding  the  States  in  insurrection 
to  cast  any  vote  for  electors  of  President  or  Vice- 
President  of  the  United  States,  or  to  elect  mem- 
bers of  Congress  until  the  insurrection  in  such 
State  was  suppressed  or  abandoned,  and  its 
inhabitants  had  returned  to  their  obedience  to 
the  Government  of  the  United  States ;  such 
returning  to  obedience  being  declared  by  proc- 
lamation of  the  President,  issued  by  virtue  of  an 
act  of  Congress  hereafter  to  be  passed  author- 
izing the  same.  The  amendment  of  Mr.  Brown 
was  adopted  by  a  bare  majority,  seventeen 
voting  in  favor  of  it  and  sixteen  against  it. 
Mr.  Sumner  tried  to  have  the  Proclamation  of 
Emancipation  adopted  and  enacted  as  a  statute 
of  the  United  States,  but  this  proposition  was 
lost  by  a  considerable  majority.  The  House 
declined  to  concur  in  the  amendment  of  the 
Senate  and  asked  for  a  committee  of  conference, 
in  which  the  Senate  receded  from  its  amend- 
ment and  the  bill  went  to  the  President  for  his 
approval  in  the  closing  moments  of  the  session. 
Congress  was  to  adjourn  at  noon  on  the  Fourth 
of  July ;  the  President  was  in  his  room  at  the 
Capitol  signing  bills,  which  were  laid  before  him 
as  they  were  brought  from  the  two  Houses. 
When  this  important  bill  was  placed  before 
him  he  laid  it  aside  and  went  on  with  the  other 
work  of  the  moment.  Several  prominent  mem- 
bers entered  in  a  state  of  intense  anxiety  over 
the  fate  of  the  bill.    Mr.  Sumner  and  Mr.  Bout- 
well,  while  their  nervo 
frained  from  any  comment    M  r.  '  .  who 
was  unabashed  in  any  mortal  presence,  roundly 
asked  the  President  if  he  intended  to  sign  the 
bill.1   The  President  replied  :  ■•  I  hif   bfl 
been  placed  before  mc  a  few  momenta  i. 
Congress  adjourns.    It  is  a  matter  of  too  m 
importance  to  be  swallowed  in  that  way,**  "  If 
it  is  vetoed,"  cried  Mr.  ( lhandler,  "  it  will  d 
age  us  fearfully  in  the  North-w<         i       im- 
portant point  is  that  one  prohibiting  slavery  in 
the  reconstructed  States."    Mr.  Lincoln  said: 
"That  is  the   point  on  which    I    doubt  the 
authority  of  Congress  to  act."    "it  is  no  more 
than  you  have  done  yourself,"  said  the  sena- 
tor. The  President  answered  :  "  1  conceive  that 
I  may  in  an  emergency  do  things  on  military 
grounds  which  cannot  be  done  constitution- 
ally by   Congress."     Mr.    Chandler,   expr 
ing  his  deep  chagrin,  went  out,  and  the  Pi 
dent,  addressing  the  members  of  the  Cabinet 
who  were  seated  with  him,  said  :  "  I  do  not  see 
how  any  of  us  now  can  deny  and  contradict 
what  we  have  always  said,  that  Congress  has 
no  constitutional   power  over  slavery  in  the 
States."    Mr.  Fessenden  expressed  his  entire 
agreement  with  this  view. 
I  have  even  had  my  doubts  [he  said]  as  to  the 
constitutional  efficacy  of  your  own  decree  of  eman- 
cipation, in  such  cases  where  it  has  not  been  car- 
ried into  effect  by  the  actual  advance  of  the  army. 
The  President  said : 
This  bill  and  the  position  of  these  gentlemen 
seem  to  me,  in  asserting  that  the  insurrectionary 
States  are  no  longer  in  the  Union,  to  make  the  fatal 
admission  that  States,  whenever  they  please,  may 
of  their  own  motion  dissolve  their  connection  with 
the  Union.  Now  we  cannot  survive  that  admission, 
I  am  convinced.  If  that  be  true,  I  am  not  President ; 
these  gentlemen  are  not  Congress.  I  have  labori- 
ously endeavored  to  avoid  that  question  ever  since 
it  first  began  to  be  mooted,  and  thus  to  avoid  con- 
fusion and  disturbance  in  our  own  councils.  It  was 
to  obviate  this  question  that  I  earnestly  favored  the 
movement  for  an  amendment  to  the  Constitution 
abolishing  slavery,  which  passed  the  Senate  and 
failed  in  the  House.  I  thought  it  much  better,  if  it 
were  possible,  to  restore  the  Union  without  the 
necessity  of  a  violent  quarrel  among  its  friends  as 
to  whether  certain  States  have  been  in  or  out  of  the 
Union  during  the  war — a  merely  metaphysical  ques- 
tion, and  one  unnecessary  to  be  forced  into  discussion. 
Although  every  member  of  the  Cabinet 
agreed  with  the  President,  when,  a  few  minutes 
later,  he  entered  his  carriage  to  go  home,  he 
foresaw  the  importance  of  the  step  he  had  re- 
solved to  take  and  its  possibly  disastrous  con- 
sequences to  himself.  When  some  one  said 
to  him  that  the  threats  made  by  the  extreme 
radicals  had  no  foundation,  and  that  people 
1  J.  H.,  Diary.
420 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 
would  not  bolt  their  ticket  on  a  question  of 
metaphysics,  he  answered:  -  If  they  choose  to 
make  a  point  upon  this,  I  do  not  doubt  that 
they  can  do  harm.  They  have  never  been 
friendly  to  me.  At  all  events,  I  must  keep  some 
consciousness  oi  being  somewhere  near  right. 
I  must  keep  some  standard  or  principle  fixed 
within  myself." 
After  the  fullest  deliberation  the  President 
remained  by  his  first  impression  that  the  bill 
was  too  rigid  and  too  restrictive  in  its  provisions 
to  accomplish  the  work  desired.  He  had  all 
his  life  hated  formulas  in  government,  and  he 
believed  that  the  will  of  an  intelligent  people, 
acting  freely  under  democratic  institutions, 
could  best  give  shape  to  the  special  machinery 
under  which  it  was  to  be  governed  ;  and,  in  the 
wide  variety  of  circumstances  and  conditions 
prevailing  throughout  the  South,  he  held  it 
unwise  for  either  Congress  or  himself  to  pre- 
scribe any  fixed  and  formal  method  by  which 
the  several  States  should  resume  their  practical 
legal  relations  with  the  Union.  Thinking  in 
this  way,  and  feeling  himself  unable  to  accept 
the  bill  of  Congress  as  the  last  word  of  recon- 
struction, and  yet  unwilling  to  reject  whatever 
of  practical  good  might  be  accomplished  by 
it,  he  resolved,  a  few  days  after  Congress  had 
adjourned,  to  remit  the  matter  to  the  people 
themselves  and  to  allow  them  their  choice  of 
all  the  methods  proposed  of  returning  to  their 
allegiance.  He  issued,  on  the  8th  of  July,  a 
proclamation  giving  a  copy  of  the  bill  of  Con- 
gress, reciting  the  circumstances  under  which 
it  was  passed,  and  going  on  to  say : 
Now,  therefore,  I,  Abraham  Lincoln,  President  of 
the  United  States,  do  proclaim,  declare,  and  make 
known  that  while  I  am  —  as  I  was  in  December 
last,  when  by  proclamation  I  propounded  a  plan  of 
restoration  —  unprepared  by  a  formal  approval  of 
this  bill  to  be  inflexibly  committed  to  any  single 
plan  of  restoration,  and  while  I  am  also  unprepared 
to  declare  that  the  free  State  constitutions  and  gov- 
ernments, alreadyadopted  and  installed  in  Arkansas 
and  Louisiana,  shall  be  set  aside  and  held  for  naught, 
thereby  repelling  and  discouraging  the  loyal  citizens 
who  have  set  up  the  same  as  to  further  effort,  or 
to  declare  a  constitutional  competency  in  Congress 
to  abolish  slavery  in  the  States,  but  am  at  the  same 
time  sincerely  hoping  and  expecting  that  a  consti- 
tutional amendment  abolishing  slavery  throughout 
the  nation  may  be  adopted,  nevertheless,  I  am  fully 
satisfied  wilh  the  system  for  restoration  contained 
in  the  bill  as  one  very  proper  for  the  loyal  people 
of  any  State  choosing  to  adopt  it  ;  and  that  I  am, 
and  at  all  times  shall  be,  prepared  to  give  the  execu- 
tive aid  and  assistance  to  any  such  peoph,  so  soon 
as  military  resistance  to  the  United  States  shall  have 
been  suppressed  in  any  such  State,  and  the  people 
thereof  shall  have  sufficiently  returned  to  their 
obedience  to  the  Constitution  and  the  laws  of  the 
United  States,  in  which  cases  military  governors 
will  be  appointed,  with  directions  to  proceed  ac- 
cording to  the  bill. 
The  refusal  of  the  President  to  sign  the  re- 
construction bill  caused  a  great  effervescence 
at  the  adjournment  of  Congress.  Mr.  Chase, 
who  had  resigned  from  the  Cabinet,  made  this 
entry  in  his  diary  : 
The  President  pocketed  the  great  bill  providing 
for  the  reorganization  of  the  rebel  States  as  loyal 
States.  He  did  not  venture  to  veto,  and  so  put  it  in 
his  pocket.  It  was  a  condemnation  of  his  amnesty 
proclamation  and  of  his  general  policy  of  recon- 
struction, rejecting  the  idea  of  possible  reconstruc- 
tion with  slavery,  which  neither  the  President  nor 
his  chief  advisers  have,  in  my  opinion,  abandoned. 
This  entry,  made  by  Mr.  Chase  in  the  bit- 
terness of  his  anger,  places  the  basest  con- 
struction upon  the  President's  action;  but 
this  sentiment  was  shared  by  not  a  few  of 
those  who  claimed  the  title  of  extreme  radicals 
in  Congress.  Mr.  Sumner  reported  a  feeling 
of  intense  indignation  against  the  President. 
Two  days  later  the  ex-Secretary  gleefully  re- 
ported, on  the  authority  of  Senator  Pomeroy, 
that  there  was  great  dissatisfaction  with  Mr. 
Lincoln,  which  had  been  much  exasperated 
by  the  pocketing  of  the  reconstruction  bill. 
When  Mr.  Lincoln,  disregarding  precedents, 
and  acting  on  his  lifelong  rule  of  taking  the 
people  into  his  confidence,  issued  his  proclama- 
tion of  the  8th  of  July,  it  was  received  by  each 
division  of  the  loyal  people  of  the  country  as 
might  have  been  expected.  The  great  mass 
of  Republican  voters,  who  cared  little  for  the 
metaphysics  of  the  case,  accepted  his  procla- 
mation, as  they  had  accepted  that  issued  six 
months  before,  as  the  wisest  and  most  practi- 
cable method  of  handling  the  question;  but 
among  those  already  hostile  to  the  President, 
and  those  whose  devotion  to  the  cause  of  free- 
dom was  so  ardent  as  to  make  them  look  upon 
him  as  lukewarm,  the  exasperation  which  was 
already  excited  increased.  The  indignation 
of  Mr.  Davis  and  Mr.  Wade  at  seeing  their 
work  of  the  last  session  thus  brought  to  noth- 
ing could  not  be  restrained.  Mr.  Davis  pre- 
pared, and  both  of  them  signed  and  published 
on  the  5th  of  August,  a  manifesto,  the  most 
vigorous  in  attack  that  was  ever  directed 
against  the  President  from  his  own  party  dur- 
ing his  term.  The  grim  beginning  of  this  docu- 
ment, which  is  addressed  "  To  the  Supporters 
of  the  Government,"  is  in  these  terms  : 
We  have  read  without  surprise,  but  not  without 
indignation,  the  proclamation  of  the  President  of  the 
8th  of  J  uly,  1864.  The  supporters  of  the  Administra- 
tion are  responsible  to  the  country  for  its  conduct; 
and  it  is  their  right  and  duty  tocheck  the  encroach- 
ments of  the  Executive  on  the  authority  of  Congress, 
and  to  require  it  to  confine  itself  to  its  proper  sphere. 
The  paper  went  on  to  narrate  the  history  of 
the  reconstruction  bill,  and  to  claim  that  its 
treatment  indicated  a  persistent  though  un-
HORACE    GREELEY'S  PEACE   MISSION. 
421 
avowed  purpose  of  the  President  to  defeat  the 
will  of  the  people  by  the  Executive  perversion 
of  the  Constitution.  They  insinuated  that  only 
the  lowest  personal  motives  could  have  dic- 
tated this  action : 
The  President  [they  said],  by  preventing  this 
bill  from  becoming  a  law,  holds  the  electoral  votes 
of  the  rebel  States  at  the  dictation  of  his  personal 
ambition.  .  .  .  If  electors  for  President  be  allowed 
to  be  chosen  in  either  of  those  States,  a  sinister 
light  will  be  cast  on  the  motives  which  induced  the 
President  to  "  hold  for  naught"  the  will  of  Con- 
gress rather  than  his  governments  in  Louisiana  and 
Arkansas. 
They  ridiculed  the  President's  earnestly  ex- 
pressed hope  that  the  constitutional  amend- 
ment abolishing  slavery  might  be  adopted : 
We  curiously  inquire  on  what  his  expectation 
rests,  after  the  vote  of  the  House  of  Representatives 
at  the  recent  session  and  in  the  face  of  the  political 
complexion  of  more  than  enough  of  the  States  to 
prevent  the  possibility  of  its  adoption  within  any 
reasonable  time;  and  why  he  did  not  indulge  his 
sincere  hopes  with  so  large  an  installment  of  the 
blessing  as  his  approval  of  the  bill  would  have 
secured  ? 
When  we  consider  that  only  a  few  months 
elapsed  before  this  beneficent  amendment  was 
adopted,  we  can  form  some  idea  of  the  com- 
parative political  sagacity  of  Mr.  Lincoln  and 
his  critics.  The  fact  that  the  President  gave 
the  bill  of  Congress  his  approval  as  a  very 
proper  plan  for  the  loyal  people  of  any  States 
choosing  to  adopt  it  seemed  to  infuriate  the 
authors  of  the  bill :  they  say,  "  A  more  studied 
outrage  on  the  legislative  authority  of  the  people 
has  never  been  perpetrated."  At  the  close  of 
a  long  review  of  the  President's  proclamation, 
in  which  every  sentence  came  in  for  its  share 
of  censure  or  of  ridicule,  this  manifesto  con- 
cluded : 
Such  are  the  fruits  of  this  rash  and  fatal  act  of  the 
President — a  blow  at  the  friends  of  his  Administra- 
tion, at  the  rights  of  humanity,  and  at  the  princi- 
ples of  republican  government.  The  President  has 
greatly  presumed  on  the  forbearance  which  the 
supporters  of  his  Administration  have  so  long  prac- 
ticed, in  view  of  the  arduous  conflict  in  which  we 
are  engaged,  and  the  reckless  ferocityof  our  politi- 
cal opponents.  But  he  must  understand  that  our 
support  is  of  a  cause  and  not  of  a  man;  that  the 
authority  of  Congress  is  paramount  and  must  be  re- 
spected ;  that  the  whole  body  of  the  Union  men  of 
Congress  will  not  submit  to  be  impeached  by  him 
of  rash  and  unconstitutional  legislation  ;  and  if  he 
wishes  our  support  he  must  confine  himself  to  his 
executive  duties — toobey  and  to  execute,  not  make 
the  laws — to  suppress  by  arms  armed  rebellion, 
and  leave  political  reorganization  to  Congress.  If 
the  supporters  of  the  Government  fail  to  insist  on 
this  they  become  responsible  for  the  usurpations 
which  they  fail  to  rebuke,  and  are  justly  liable  to 
the   indignation  of  the  people  whose  rights  and 
security,  committe  1  to  theil  k  *ping,  they  H 
Let  them  consider  the  remedy  of  these  usurpations, 
and,  having  found  it,  fearlessly  execute  it. 
HORACE  GREELEY  S  PI 
Not  least  among  the  trouble  and  the  y< 
tions  of  the  summer  of  1864  was  the  constant 
criticism  of  sincere  Republicans  who  were  im- 
patient at  what  they  considered  the  slow  pi 
ressof  the  war,  and  irritated  at  the  deliberation 
with  which  Mr.  Lincoln  weighed  every  impor- 
tant act  before  decision.  Besides  this,  a  feel- 
ing of  discouragement  had  taken  possession  of 
some  of  the  more  excitable  spirits,  which  induced 
them  to  give  ready  hospitality  to  any  su_ 
tions  of  peace.  Foremost  among  these  wsa 
Horace  Greeley,  who  in  personal  interv: 
in  private  letters,  and  in  the  columns  of  the 
"  Tribune  "  repeatedly  placed  before  the  Presi- 
dent, with  that  vigor  of  expression  in  which 
he  was  unrivaled,  the  complaints  and  the  dis- 
contents of  a  considerable  body  of  devoted,  if 
not  altogether  reasonable,  Union  men.  The 
attitude  of  benevolent  criticism  which  he  was 
known  to  sustain  towards  the  Administration 
naturally  drew  around  him  a  certain  number 
of  adventurers  and  busybodies,  who  fluttered 
between  the  two  great  parties,  and  were  glad 
to  occupy  the  attention  of  prominent  men  on 
either  side  with  schemes  whose  only  real  ob- 
ject was  some  slight  gain  or  questionable  no- 
toriety for  themselves.  A  person  who  called 
himself"  William  Cornell  Jewett  of  Colorado" 
had  gained  some  sort  of  intimacy  with  Mr. 
Greeley  by  alleging  relations  with  eminent 
Northern  and  Southern  statesmen.  He  was 
one  of  those  newspaper  laughing-stocks  who 
come  gradually  to  be  known  and  talked  about. 
He  wrote  interminable  letters  of  advice  to  Mr. 
Lincoln  and  to  Jefferson  Davis,  which  were 
never  read  nor  answered,  but  which,  printed 
with  humorous  comment  in  the  "  New  York 
Herald,"  were  taken  seriously  by  the  undis- 
criminating,  and  even  quoted  and  discussed  in 
the  London  papers.  He  wrote  to  Mr.  Greeley 
in  the  early  part  of  July  from  Niagara  Falls, 
and  appears  to  have  convinced  the  latter  that 
he  was  an  authorized  intermediary  from  the 
Confederate  authorities  to  make  propositions 
for  peace.  He  wrote  that  he  had  just  left 
George  N.  Sanders  of  Kentucky  on  the  Canada 
side. 
I  am  authorized  tostate  to  you  [he  continued],  for 
our  use  only,  not  the  public,  that  two  ambassa 
of  Davis  &  Co.  are  now  in  Canada   with    full  and 
complete  powers  for  a  peace,  and  Mr.  Sande:> 
quests  that  you  come  on  immediately  to  me  at  Cata- 
ract House  to  have  a  private  interview  :  or,  if 
will  send  the  President's  protection  for  him  and  two 
friends,  they  will  come  and  meet  you.     He  says  the
4- 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN* 
whole    matter    can  be  consummated  by  me,  you, 
them,  and  President  Lincoln. 
This  letter  was  followed  the  next  day  by  a 
telegram  saying  : 
Will  you  come  here?  Parties  have  full  power. 
Mr.  Greeley  was  greatly  impressed  by  this 
communication.  The  inherent  improbabilities 
o\  it  did  not  seem  to  strike  him,  though  the 
antecedents  of  Sanders  were  scarcely  more 
reputable  than  those  of  Jewett.  He  sent  the 
letter  and  the  telegram  to  the  President,  inclosed 
in  a  letter  of  his  own,  the  perfervid  vehemence  of 
which  shows  the  state  of  excitement  he  was 
laboring  under.  He  refers  to  his  correspond- 
ent as  "  our  irrepressible  friend  Colorado  Jew- 
ett." He  admits  some  doubt  as  to  the  "  full 
powers."  but  insists  upon  the  Confederate  de- 
sire for  peace. 
And  therefore  [he  says]  I  venture  to  remind  you 
that  our  bleeding,  bankrupt,  almost  dying  country 
also  longs  for  peace  ;  shudders  at  the  prospect  of 
fresh  conscriptions,  of  further  wholesale  devastations, 
and  of  new  rivers  of  human  blood.  And  a  wide- 
spread conviction  that  the  Government  and  its  promi- 
nent supporters  are  not  anxious  for  peace,  and  do 
not  improve  proffered  opportunities  to  achieve  it, 
is  doing  great  harm  now,  and  is  morally  certain,  un- 
less removed,  to  do  far  greater  in  the  approaching 
elections. 
He  then  rebukes  Mr.  Lincoln  for  not  having 
received  the  Stephens  embassy,  disapproves 
the  warlike  tone  of  the  Baltimore  platform, 
urges  the  President  to  make  overtures  for  peace 
in  time  to  affect  the  North  Carolina  elections, 
and  suggests  the  following  plan  of  adjustment: 
i.  The  Union  is  restored  and  declared  perpet- 
ual. 2.  Slavery  is  utterly  and  forever  abolished 
throughout  the  same.  3.  A  complete  amnesty 
for  all  political  offenses.  4.  Payment  of  $400,- 
000,000  to  the  slave  States  pro  rata  for  their 
slaves.  5.  The  slave  States  to  be  represented 
in  proportion  to  their  total  population.  6.  A 
National  convention  to  be  called  at  once. 
The  letter  closes  with  this  impassioned 
appeal : 
Mr.  President,  I  fear  you  do  not  realize  how  in- 
tently the  people  desire  any  peace  consistent  with 
the  national  integrity  and  honor,  and  how  joyously 
thy  would  hail  its  achievement  and  bless  its  au- 
thors. With  United  States  stocks  worth  but  forty 
cents  in  gold  per  dollar,  and  drafting  about  to 
commence  on  the  third  million  of  Union  soldiers, 
can  this  be  wondered  at?  I  do  not  say  that  a  just 
peace  is  now  attainable,  though  I  believe  it  to  be  so. 
But  I  do  say  that  a  frank  offer  by  you  to  the  insur- 
gents  of  terms  which  the  impartial  will  say  ought  to 
be  accepted  will,  at  the  worst,  prove  an  immense 
and  sorely  needed  advantage  to  the  national  cause ; 
it  may  save  us  from   a  Northern  insurrection. 
In  a  postscript  Mr.  Greeley  again  urges  the 
President  to  invite  "  those  at  Niagara  to  ex- 
hibit their  credentials  and   submit  their  ulti- 
matum." 
Mr.  Lincoln  determined  at  once  to  take 
action  upon  this  letter.  He  had  no  faith  in 
J  ewett's  story.  He  doubted  whether  the  em- 
bassy had  any  existence  except  in  the  imagi- 
nation of  Sanders  and  Jewett.  But  he  felt 
the  unreasonableness  and  injustice  of  Mr. 
Greeley's  letter,  while  he  did  not  doubt  his 
good  faith ;  and  he  resolved  to  convince  him 
at  least,  and  perhaps  others  of  his  way  of 
thinking,  that  there  was  no  foundation  for  the 
reproaches  they  were  casting  upon  the  Gov- 
ernment for  refusing  to  treat  with  the  rebels. 
That  there  might  be  no  opportunity  for  dis- 
pute in  relation  to  the  facts  of  the  case,  he 
arranged  that  the  witness  of  his  willingness  to 
listen  to  any  overtures  which  might  come 
from  the  South  should  be  Mr.  Greeley  him- 
self. He  answered  his  letter  at  once,  on  the 
9th  of  July,  saying  : 
If  you  can  find  any  person,  anywhere,  professing 
to  have  any  proposition  from  Jefferson  Davis,  in 
writing,  for  peace,  embracing  the  restoration  of  the 
Union,  and  abandonment  of  slavery,  whatever  else 
it  embraces,  say  to  him  he  may  come  to  me  with 
you,  and  that  if  he  really  brings  such  proposition 
he  shall  at  the  least  have  safe  conduct  with  the 
paper  (and  without  publicity,  if  he  chooses)  to  the 
point  where  you  shall  have  met  with  him.  The 
same  if  there  be  two  or  more  persons. 
Mr.  Greeley  answered  this  letter  the  next 
day  in  evident  embarrassment.  The  President 
had  surprised  him  by  his  frank  and  prompt 
acquiescence  in  his  suggestions.  He  had  ac- 
cepted the  first  two  points  of  Mr.  Greeley's 
plan  of  adjustment  —  the  restoration  of  the 
Union,  and  the  abandonment  of  slavery  —  as 
the  only  preliminary  conditions  of  negotiations 
upon  which  he  would  insist,  and  requested 
this  vehement  advocate  of  peace  to  bring  for- 
ward his  ambassadors.  Mr.  Greeley's  reply 
of  the  10th  seems  somewhat  lacking  both  in 
temper  and  in  candor.  He  thought  the  negotia- 
tors would  not  "open  their  budget"  to  him; 
repeated  his  reproaches  at  the  "rude  repulse  " 
of  Stephens ;  referred  again  to  the  importance 
of  doing  something  in  time  for  the  North 
Carolina  elections ;  and  said  at  least  he  would 
try  to  get  a  look  into  the  hand  of  the  men  at 
Niagara,  though  he  had  "  little  heart  for  it." 
But  on  the  13th  he  wrote  in  a  much  more 
positive  manner.    He  said  : 
I  have  now  information,  on  which  I  can  rely, 
that  two  persons,  duly  commissioned  and  empow- 
ered to  negotiate  for  peace,  are  at  this  moment  not 
far  from  Niagara  Falls  in  Canada,  and  are  desirous 
of  conferring  with  yourself,  or  with  such  persons 
as  you  mayappoint  and  empower  to  treat  with  them. 
Their  names  (only  given  in  confidence)  are  Hon. 
Clement  C.  Clay  of  Alabama,  and  Hon.  Jacob 
Thompson  of  Mississippi.
HORACE    GREELEY'S   PEACE    MISSION. 
He  added  that  he  knew  nothing  and  had 
proposed  nothing  as  to  terms ;  that  it  seemed 
to  him  high  time  an  effort  should  be  made  to 
terminate  the  wholesale  slaughter.  He  hoped 
to  hear  that  the  President  had  concluded  to  act 
in  the  premises,  and  to  act  so  promptly  as  to 
do  some  good  in  the  North  Carolina  elections. 
On  the  receipt  of  this  letter,  which  was  writ- 
ten four  days  after  Mr.  Greeley  had  been  fully 
authorized  to  bring  to  Washington  any  one 
he  could  find  empowered  to  treat  for  peace,  and 
which  yet  was  based  on  the  assumption  of  the 
President's  unwillingness  to  do  the  very  thing 
he  had  already  done,  Mr.  Lincoln  resolved  to 
put  an  end  to  a  correspondence  which  prom- 
ised to  be  indefinitely  prolonged,  by  sending 
an  aide-de-camp  to  New  York  to  arrange  in 
a  personal  interview  what  it  seemed  impossible 
to  conclude  by  mail.  On  the  15th  he  sent  Mr. 
Greeley  a  brief  telegram  expressing  his  disap- 
pointment, saying,  "  I  was  not  expecting  you 
to  send  me  a  letter,  but  to  bring  me  a  man  or 
men,"  and  announced  the  departure  of  a  mes- 
senger with  a  letter.  The  letter  was  of  the 
briefest.    It  merely  said  : 
Yours  of  the  13th  is  just  received,  and  I  am  disap- 
pointed that  you  have  not  already  reached  here  with 
those  commissioners,  if  they  would  consent  to  come, 
on  being  shown  my  letter  to  you  of  the  9th  inst. 
Show  that  and  this  to  them,  and  if  they  will  come 
on  the  terms  stated  in  former,  bring  them.  I  not  only 
intend  a  sincere  effort  for  peace,  but  I  intend  that 
you  shall  be  a  personal  witness  that  it  is  made. 
This  curt  and  peremptory  missive  was  deliv- 
ered to  Mr.  Greeley  by  Major  John  Hay  early 
on  the  morning  of  the  16th.  He  was  still  some- 
what reluctant  to  go ;  he  thought  some  one  not 
so  well  known  would  be  less  embarrassed  by 
public  curiosity;  but  said  finally  that  he  would 
start  at  once  if  he  could  be  given  a  safe  con- 
duct for  four  persons,  to  be  named  by  him. 
Major  Hay  communicated  this  to  the  Presi- 
dent and  received  the  required  order  in  reply. 
"  If  there  is  or  is  not  anything  in  the  affair," 
he  said,  "  I  wish  to  know  it  without  unneces- 
sary delay." 
The  safe  conduct  was  immediately  written 
and  given  to  Mr.  Greeley,  who  started  at  once 
for  Niagara.  It  provided  that  Clement  C.  Clay, 
Jacob  Thompson,  James  P.  Holcombe,  and 
Gecrge  N.  Sanders  should  have  safe  conduct 
to  Washington  in  company  with  Horace 
Greeley,  and  should  be  exempt  from  arrest  or 
annoyance  of  any  kind  from  any  officer  of  the 
United  States  during  their  journey.  Nothing 
was  said  by  Mr.  Greeley  or  by  Major  Hay  to 
the  effect  that  this  safe  conduct  modified  in 
any  respect  the  conditions  imposed  by  the 
President's  letter  of  the  9th.  It  merely  carried 
into  effect  the  proposition  made  in  that  letter. 
On  arriving  at  Niagara,  Mr.  Greeley  placed 
himself  a1  once  in  the  bands  of  Jewett,  who 
was  waiting  to  receive  him,  arid  ent  by  him 
a  letter  addressed  to  Clay,  Thompson,  and 
Holcombe,  in  which  he  said: 
I  am   informed  that  you  are  duly  from 
Richmond  as  the  bearers  ot  proposil 
the  establishment  of  peace  ;  tl; 
Washington  in  the  fulfillment  of  yo  :  and 
that  you  further  desire  that  Mr.  Ge  idefS 
shall  accompany  you.    If  my  information  be  thus  far 
substantially  correct,  I  am  authorized  by  the  P 
dent  of  the  United  States  to  tender  you  his  safe 
duct  on   the  journey  proposed,  and  to  accompany 
you  at  the  earliest  time  that  will  be  agreeable  to  you. 
No  clearer  proof  can  be  given  than  is  af- 
forded in  this  letter  that  Mr.  Greeley  was  ab- 
solutely ignorant  of  all  the  essential  facts 
appertaining  to  the  negotiation  in  which  he 
was  engaged.  As  it  turned  out,  he  had  been 
misinformed  even  as  to  the  personnel  of  the 
embassy,  Jacob  Thompson  not  being,  and  not 
having  been,  in  company  with  the  others ;  none 
of  them  had  any  authority  to  act  in  the  ca- 
pacity attributed  to  them;  and,  worse  than  all 
this,  Mr.  Greeley  kept  out  of  view,  in  his  mis- 
sive thus  shot  at  a  venture,  the  very  conditions 
which  Mr.  Lincoln  had  imposed  in  his  letter 
of  the  9th  and  repeated  in  that  of  the  15th. 
Yet,  with  all  the  advantages  thus  afforded  them. 
Clay  and  Holcombe  felt  themselves  too  bare 
and  naked  of  credentials  to  accept  Mr.  Greeley's 
offer,  and  were  therefore  compelled  to  answer 
that  they  had  not  been  accredited  from  Rich- 
mond, as  assumed  in  his  note.  They  made 
haste  to  say,  however,  that  they  were  acquainted 
with  the  views  of  their  Government,  and  could 
easily  get  credentials,  or  other  agents  could  be 
accredited  in  their  place,  if  they  could  be  sent 
to  Richmond  armed  with  "  the  circumstances 
disclosed  in  this  correspondence."  It  is  incom- 
prehensible that  a  man  of  Mr.  Greeley's  ex- 
perience should  not  have  recognized  at  once 
the  purport  of  this  proposal.  It  simply  meant 
that  Mr.  Lincoln  should  take  the  initiative  in 
suing  the  Richmond  authorities  for  peace,  on 
terms  to  be  proposed  by  them.  The  essential 
impossibility  of  these  terms  was  not  apparent 
to  Mr.  Greeley;  he  merely  saw  that  the  situ- 
ation was  somewhat  different  from  what  he  had 
expected,  and  therefore  acknowledged  the  re- 
ceipt of  the  letter,  promised  to  report  to  Wash- 
ington and  solicit  fresh  instructions,  and  then 
telegraphed  to  Mr.  Lincoln  the  substance  of 
what  Clay  and  Holcombe  had  written.  The 
President,  with  unwearied  patience,  drew  up  a 
final  paper,  which  he  sent  by  Major  Hay  to 
Niagara,  informing  Mr.  Greeley  by  telegraph 
that  it  was  on  the  way.  This  information  Mr. 
Greeley  at  once  sent  over  the  border,  with  mam- 
apologies  for  the  delay. 
Major  Hay  arrived  at  Niagara  on  the  :