Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-08-23
THE PLAIN EVERYDAYMAN
Injustice Has Been Done NicOlay in
the Hamlin Controversy.
HIS DUTIES AND THOSE OF HAY.
Difficulties That Surrounded the President
at the Capitol.
GRANT MIGHT HAVE THWARTED BOOTH
WRITTEN FOR THE DISPATCH. J

/ nave Oeeu I68Oln4 WIN Interest Iue uls-
cussion between Colonel Mcclure and Mr..
Nicolay as to the nomination of Andrew
johnson. Colonel Mcclure quotes me as
| witness 1 am afraid I must decline the
honor. The gentleman whose words he
cites bears my name, it is true, but is bet
| ter authority. Moreover, could take no
part in the discussion of statement made
| by Colonel Mcclure. 1t would be decisive.
could never bring it within the range of
| controversy.
The memories of Lincoln recalled in these
interesting narratives belong to history.
They form part of the materials from which
the man as the ages will know him must be
drawn. saw great deal of Lincoln from
time to time during the war. For time
l was the private secretary of John W.
Forney, who as secretary of the Senate and
owner of the Administration newspaper,
The Chronicle, was near the President. l saw
him with the eyes of boy, vividly, how
ever, as our vision generally is in these
plastic observing days; had when requisite
familiar, ready access to him-recall many
incidents of good will and recognition.
There remain to me many memories Of
Lincoln, which with somewhat of sense of
duty, 1 gather up and add to the discussion
of the hour.
HIS RELATIONS TO LINCOLN.
scarcely venture to speak of Lincoln as
a friend. Years and our stations made that
an impossible relation. But as I looked
upon his cold, white brow-and the peace
full, deeply-lined faee-lying in state under
the Capitol dome, felt that friend had
i 6 a11 T
held him.
If there is any logic in the drift of po1iti-
cal action, should say that Mr. Lincoln
could not have desired the denomination Of
Mr.. Hamlin in 1854. To go back to the be-
ginning, Mr.. Hamlin was an afterthought
at the convention of 1860. When Seward
was defeated and the enthusiasm of the
Lincoln people abated, the first question
was: "What shall be done to please the
Seward men? Give them the second place;
give them anything, so that they will go
home and work for the ticket" Horace
Greeley, as a New Yorker and leader in
the Seward overthrow, was deputed to go
to the Seward people and offer them any
olive branch, an olive grove if necessary, if
they would accept Lincoln with good will.
| They had simply to name their Vice Presi-
dent, and he would go with q whirl. Mr..
Greeley, as he told me the story himself,
went to one of the Seward leaders-if I re-
member, to Edward D. Morgan, then Gov
ernor of New York-with the peace offering.
Morgan himself might run. But mol The
Seward men were implacable. The Lincoln
people, with their wigwams and rail-split-
ting and all too lavish outpourings of beer,
had bowled down their divine Seward, and
so they must make or mend matters with
their rail-splitter as best they could. The
Seward army had lost all but honor. That
honor should not be bartered for a Vice
Presidency. Rather let it be carried to the
feet of the sage in his Auburn home, and
they would contemplate the campaign with
the quiet dignity due.to their great leader
and their own lacerated hearts.
HAMLIN WAS AN ACCIDENT.
If not Seward man, was there no con-
venient Democrat, some convert from the
Democracy John Hickman, Of Pennsyl-
vania, was pressed, but Pennsylvania was
torn by the Montagues and Capulets under
the respective banners of Curtin and Cam
eron. Hamlin, as 80 often happens when q
convention lapses into indecision, was the
first to come to mind and so was named. 1t
was nomination without strength, and in
the Vice Presidency Mr.. Hamlin was an
unknown quantity, so far as aiding the ad-
ministration was concerned. When 1864
came other Democrats were in dazzling
prominence. Other States than Maine had
become the battle ground. And moreover,
and this assuSedly could not have escaped
the keen, watchful eyes of Lincoln, around
Hamlin as around Chase there were crys-
tallizing elements of an opposition. Keen,
watchful eyes, that knew when to open and
when to shut, as Chase, and Mcclellan, and
Hooker and others saw when the decisive
moment arrived.
So far, therefore, as the wishes Of Ham
lin for denomination were concerned, Mr.
Lincoln felt undoubtedly that everything
should give way to the Presidency, and
that the Presidency was his ground. He
had no illusions about it, was in no way in
sensible to it's attractive belongings. Simon
Cameron said to me that Lincoln, had he
lived, would have had third term, and
that he had told Lincoln so. "No one,'
said Cameron, could have cleaned up the
war-belongings in four years, and while
Lincoln lived the country would have al
lowed no other hands to make mess of the
job"
This, however, was afaraway speculation,
even when it was made. Inote it as tone
of the political color at the time.
A TRIBUTE TO NIcoLAY.
I should dissent in cold justice from some
of the estimates placed upon Mr.. Nicolay-
the tendency to dismiss him from this con-
troversy as a kind of upper servant, holding
toward Mr.. Lincoln a mechanical wooden
relation. knew Nicolay well in the Lin
coin days, and have always thought that the
President was fortunate in nothing so much
as having in the inner circles of his
executive family John G.. Nicolay and
John Hay.
have not seen Nicolay in years, and he
has passed out of my life. Hay see once
in an era-exchange a signal with him as
ships that meet and part at sea. In the
Lincoln days they were close to the Presi-
dent. Nicolay, a German by birth, had
tie close, methodical, silent German way
about him. Scrupulous, polite, calm,
obliging, with the gift of hearing other
people talk; coming and going about the
Capitol like a shadow; with the soft, sad
smile that seemed to come only from the
eyes; prompt as lightning to take a hint or
an idea; one upon whom a suggestion was
never lost, and if it meant personal serv-
ice, sure of the prompt, spontaneous return.
He had, as l infer, great powers of appliea-
tion, the endurance so often seen with the
thin, frail body, upon which disease seemed
to be doing its work. A man without ex-
citements or emotions, never saying any,
thing worth quoting, and in that regard in
valuable as a private secretary; absorbed in
tive business was well done. Much of that
work, the clerical part at least, came into