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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/18379-8.txt b/18379-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c3ff3b6 --- /dev/null +++ b/18379-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,17245 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Abraham Lincoln, by Lord Charnwood + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Abraham Lincoln + +Author: Lord Charnwood + +Release Date: May 11, 2006 [EBook #18379] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ABRAHAM LINCOLN *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + +ABRAHAM LINCOLN + + +BY LORD CHARNWOOD + + + + + +GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK + +GARDEN CITY PUBLISHING CO., INC. + + + + +COPYRIGHT, 1917 + +BY + +HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY + + + + +GENERAL EDITOR'S PREFACE + +Statesmen--even the greatest--have rarely won the same unquestioning +recognition that falls to the great warriors or those supreme in +science, art or literature. Not in their own lifetime and hardly to +this day have the claims to supremacy of our own Oliver Cromwell, +William III. and Lord Chatham rested on so sure a foundation as those +of a Marlborough or a Nelson, a Newton, a Milton or a Hogarth. This is +only natural. A warrior, a man of science, an artist or a poet are +judged in the main by definite achievements, by the victories they have +won over foreign enemies or over ignorance and prejudice, by the joy +and enlightenment they have brought to the consciousness of their own +and succeeding generations. For the statesman there is no such exact +measure of greatness. The greater he is, the less likely is his work +to be marked by decisive achievement which can be recalled by +anniversaries or signalised by some outstanding event: the chief work +of a great statesman rests in a gradual change of direction given to +the policy of his people, still more in a change of the spirit within +them. Again, the statesman must work with a rough and ready +instrument. The soldier finds or makes his army ready to yield +unhesitating obedience to his commands, the sailor animates his fleet +with his own personal touch, and the great man in art, literature or +science is master of his material, if he can master himself. The +statesman cannot mould a heterogeneous people, as the men of a +well-disciplined army or navy can be moulded, to respond to his call +and his alone. He has to do all his work in a society of which a large +part cannot see his object and another large part, as far as they do +see it, oppose it. Hence his work at the best is often incomplete and +he has to be satisfied with a rough average rather than with his ideal. + +Lincoln, one of the few supreme statesmen of the last three centuries, +was no exception to this rule. He was misunderstood and underrated in +his lifetime, and even yet has hardly come to his own. For his place +is among the great men of the earth. To them he belongs by right of +his immense power of hard work, his unfaltering pursuit of what seemed +to him right, and above all by that childlike directness and simplicity +of vision which none but the greatest carry beyond their earliest +years. It is fit that the first considered attempt by an Englishman to +give a picture of Lincoln, the great hero of America's struggle for the +noblest cause, should come at a time when we in England are passing +through as fiery a trial for a cause we feel to be as noble. It is a +time when we may learn much from Lincoln's failures and success, from +his patience, his modesty, his serene optimism and his eloquence, so +simple and so magnificent. + +BASIL WILLIAMS. + +BISCOT CAMP, + +LUTON, + +March, 1916. + + + + + CONTENTS + + GENERAL EDITOR'S PREFACE + + + CHAP. + + I. BOYHOOD OF LINCOLN + + II. THE GROWTH OF THE AMERICAN NATION + 1. The Formation of a National Government + 2. Territorial Expansion + 3. The Growth of the Practice and Traditions of the Union Government + 4. The Missouri Compromise + 5. Leaders, Parties, and Tendencies in Lincoln's Youth + 6. Slavery and Southern Society + 7. Intellectual Development + + III. LINCOLN'S EARLY CAREER + 1. Life at New Salem + 2. In the Illinois Legislature + 3. Marriage + + IV. LINCOLN IN CONGRESS AND IN RETIREMENT + 1. The Mexican War and Lincoln's Work in Congress + 2. California and the Compromise of 1850 + 3. Lincoln in Retirement + 4. The Repeal of the Missouri Compromise + + V. THE RISE OF LINCOLN + 1. Lincoln's Return to Public Life + 2. The Principles and the Oratory of Lincoln + 3. Lincoln against Douglas + 4. John Brown + 5. The Election of Lincoln as President + + + VI. SECESSION + 1. The Case of the South against the Union + 2. The Progress of Secession + 3. The Inauguration of Lincoln + 4. The Outbreak of War + + VII. THE CONDITIONS OF THE WAR + + VIII. THE OPENING OF THE WAR AND LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION + 1. Preliminary Stages of the War + 2. Bull Run + 3. Lincoln's Administration Generally + 4. Foreign Policy and England + 5. The Great Questions of Domestic Policy + + IX. THE DISASTERS OF THE NORTH + 1. Military Policy of the North + 2. The War in the West up to May, 1862 + 3. The War in the East up to May, 1863 + + X. EMANCIPATION + + XI. THE APPROACH OF VICTORY + 1. The War to the End of 1863 + 2. Conscription and the Politics of 1863 + 3. The War in 1864 + 4. The Second Election of Lincoln: 1864 + + XII. THE END + + BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE + + CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE + + INDEX + + + + +ABRAHAM LINCOLN + + +CHAPTER I + +BOYHOOD OF LINCOLN + +The subject of this memoir is revered by multitudes of his countrymen +as the preserver of their commonwealth. This reverence has grown with +the lapse of time and the accumulation of evidence. It is blended with +a peculiar affection, seldom bestowed upon the memory of statesmen. It +is shared to-day by many who remember with no less affection how their +own fathers fought against him. He died with every circumstance of +tragedy, yet it is not the accident of his death but the purpose of his +life that is remembered. + +Readers of history in another country cannot doubt that the praise so +given is rightly given; yet any bare record of the American Civil War +may leave them wondering why it has been so unquestioningly accorded. +The position and task of the American President in that crisis cannot +be understood from those of other historic rulers or historic leaders +of a people; and it may seem as if, after that tremendous conflict in +which there was no lack of heroes, some perverse whim had made men +single out for glory the puzzled civil magistrate who sat by. Thus +when an English writer tells again this tale, which has been well told +already and in which there can remain no important new facts to +disclose, he must endeavour to make clear to Englishmen circumstances +and conditions which are familiar to Americans. He will incur the +certainty that here and there his own perspective of American affairs +and persons will be false, or his own touch unsympathetic. He had +better do this than chronicle sayings and doings which to him and to +those for whom he writes have no significance. Nor should the writer +shrink too timidly from the display of a partisanship which, on one +side or the other, it would be insensate not to feel. The true +obligation of impartiality is that he should conceal no fact which, in +his own mind, tells against his views. + +Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth President of the United States of America, +was born on February 12, 1809, in a log cabin on a barren farm in the +backwoods of Kentucky, about three miles west of a place called +Hodgensville in what is now La Rue County. + +Fifty years later when he had been nominated for the Presidency he was +asked for material for an account of his early life. "Why," he said, +"it is a great folly to attempt to make anything out of me or my early +life. It can all be condensed into a single sentence; and that +sentence you will find in Gray's 'Elegy':-- + + "'The short and simple annals of the poor.' + +That's my life, and that's all you or anyone else can make out of it." +His other references to early days were rare. He would repeat queer +reminiscences of the backwoods to illustrate questions of state; but of +his own part in that old life he spoke reluctantly and sadly. +Nevertheless there was once extracted from him an awkward +autobiographical fragment, and his friends have collected and recorded +concerning his earlier years quite as much as is common in great men's +biographies or can as a rule be reproduced with its true associations. +Thus there are tales enough of the untaught student's perseverance, and +of the boy giant's gentleness and prowess; tales, too, more than enough +in proportion, of the fun which varied but did not pervade his +existence, and of the young rustic's occasional and somewhat oafish +pranks. But, in any conception we may form as to the growth of his +mind and character, this fact must have its place, that to the man +himself the thought of his early life was unattractive, void of +self-content over the difficulties which he had conquered, and void of +romantic fondness for vanished joys of youth. + +Much the same may be said of his ancestry and family connections. +Contempt for lowly beginnings, abhorrent as it is to any honest mind, +would to Lincoln's mind have probably been inconceivable, but he lacked +that interest in ancestry which is generally marked in his countrymen, +and from talk of his nearer progenitors he seems to have shrunk with a +positive sadness of which some causes will soon be apparent. Since his +death it has been ascertained that in 1638 one Samuel Lincoln of +Norwich emigrated to Massachusetts. Descent from him could be claimed +by a prosperous family in Virginia, several of whom fought on the +Southern side in the Civil War. One Abraham Lincoln, grandfather of +the President and apparently a grandson of Samuel, crossed the +mountains from Virginia in 1780 and settled his family in Kentucky, of +which the nearer portions had recently been explored. One morning four +years later he was at work near his cabin with Mordecai, Josiah, and +Thomas, his sons, when a shot from the bushes near by brought him down. +Mordecai ran to the house, Josiah to a fort, which was close to them. +Thomas, aged six, stayed by his father's body. Mordecai seized a gun +and, looking through the window, saw an Indian in war paint stooping to +pick up Thomas. He fired and killed the savage, and, when Thomas had +run into the cabin, continued firing at others who appeared among the +bushes. Shortly Josiah returned with soldiers from the fort, and the +Indians ran off, leaving Abraham the elder dead. Mordecai, his +heir-at-law, prospered. We hear of him long after as an old man of +substance and repute in Western Illinois. He had decided views about +Indians. The sight of a redskin would move him to strange excitement; +he would disappear into the bushes with his gun, and his conscience as +a son and a sportsman would not be satisfied till he had stalked and +shot him. We are further informed that he was a "good old man." +Josiah also moved to Illinois, and it is pleasant to learn that he also +was a good old man, and, as became a good old man, prospered pretty +well. But President Lincoln and his sister knew neither these +excellent elders nor any other of their father's kin. + +And those with whom the story of his own first twenty-one years is +bound up invite almost as summary treatment. Thomas Lincoln never +prospered like Mordecai and Josiah, and never seems to have left the +impress of his goodness or of anything else on any man. But, while +learning to carpenter under one Joseph Hanks, he married his employer's +niece Nancy, and by her became the father first of a daughter Sarah, +and four years later, at the farm near Hodgensville aforesaid, of +Abraham, the future President. In 1816, after several migrations, he +transported his household down the Ohio to a spot on the Indiana shore, +near which the village of Gentryville soon sprang up. There he abode +till Abraham was nearly twenty-one. When the boy was eight his mother +died, leaving him in his sister's care; but after a year or so Thomas +went back alone to Kentucky and, after brief wooing, brought back a +wife, Sarah, the widow of one Mr. Johnston, whom he had courted vainly +before her first marriage. He brought with her some useful additions +to his household gear, and her rather useless son John Johnston. +Relatives of Abraham's mother and other old neighbours--in particular +John and Dennis Hanks--accompanied all the family's migrations. +Ultimately, in 1830, they all moved further west into Illinois. +Meanwhile Abraham from an early age did such various tasks for his +father or for neighbouring farmers as from time to time suited the +father. When an older lad he was put for a while in charge of a ferry +boat, and this led to the two great adventures of his early days, +voyages with a cargo boat; and two mates down by river to New Orleans. +The second and more memorable of these voyages was just after the +migration to Illinois. He returned from it to a place called New +Salem, in Illinois, some distance from his father's new farm, in +expectation of work in a store which was about to be opened. Abraham, +by this time, was of age, and in accordance with custom had been set +free to shift for himself. + +Each of these migrations was effected with great labour in +transportation of baggage (sometimes in home-made boats), clearing of +timber, and building; and Thomas Lincoln cannot have been wanting in +the capacity for great exertions. But historians have been inclined to +be hard on him. He seems to have been without sustained industry; in +any case he had not much money sense and could not turn his industry to +much account. Some hint that he drank, but it is admitted that most +Kentucky men drank more. There are indications that he was a dutiful +but ineffective father, chastising not too often or too much, but +generally on the wrong occasion. He was no scholar and did not +encourage his son that way; but he had a great liking for stories. He +was of a peaceable and inoffensive temper, but on great provocation +would turn on a bully with surprising and dire consequences. Old +Thomas, after Abraham was turned loose, continued a migrant, always +towards a supposed better farm further west, always with a mortgage on +him. Abraham, when he was a struggling professional man, helped him +with money as well as he could. We have his letter to the old man on +his death-bed, a letter of genuine but mild affection with due words of +piety. He explains that illness in his own household makes it +impossible for him to pay a last visit to his father, and then, with +that curious directness which is common in the families of the poor and +has as a rule no sting, he remarks that an interview, if it had been +possible, might have given more pain than pleasure to both. Everybody +has insisted from the first how little Abraham took after his father, +but more than one of the traits attributed to Thomas will certainly +reappear. + +Abraham, as a man, when for once he spoke of his mother, whom he very +seldom mentioned, spoke with intense feeling for her motherly care. "I +owe," he said, "everything that I am to her." It pleased him in this +talk to explain by inheritance from her the mental qualities which +distinguished him from the house of Lincoln, and from others of the +house of Hanks. She was, he said, the illegitimate daughter of a +Virginian gentleman, whose name he did not know, but from whom as he +guessed the peculiar gifts, of which he could not fail to be conscious, +were derived. + +Sarah his sister was married at Gentryville to one Mr. Grigsby. The +Grigsbys were rather great people, as people went in Gentryville. It +is said to have become fixed in the boy's mind that the Grigsbys had +not treated Sarah well; and this was the beginning of certain woes. + +Sarah Bush Lincoln, his stepmother, was good to him and he to her. +Above all she encouraged him in his early studies, to which a fretful +housewife could have opposed such terrible obstacles. She lived to +hope that he might not be elected President for fear that enemies +should kill him, and she lived to have her fear fulfilled. His +affectionate care over her continued to the end. She lived latterly +with her son John Johnston. Abraham's later letters to this companion +of his youth deserve to be looked up in the eight large volumes called +his Works, for it is hard to see how a man could speak or act better to +an impecunious friend who would not face his own troubles squarely. It +is sad that the "ever your affectionate brother" of the earlier letters +declines to "yours sincerely" in the last; but it is an honest decline +of affection, for the man had proved to be cheating his mother, and +Abraham had had to stop it. + +Two of the cousinhood, Dennis Hanks, a character of comedy, and John +Hanks, the serious and steady character of the connection, deserve +mention. They and John Johnston make momentary reappearances again. +Otherwise the whole of Abraham Lincoln's kindred are now out of the +story. They have been disposed of thus hastily at the outset, not +because they were discreditable or slight people, but because Lincoln +himself when he began to find his footing in the world seems to have +felt sadly that his family was just so much to him and no more. The +dearest of his recollections attached to premature death; the next to +chronic failure. Rightly or wrongly (and we know enough about heredity +now to expect any guess as to its working in a particular case to be +wrong) he attributed the best that he had inherited to a licentious +connection and a nameless progenitor. Quite early he must have been +intensely ambitious, and discovered in himself intellectual power; but +from his twelfth year to his twenty-first there was hardly a soul to +comprehend that side of him. This chill upon his memory unmistakably +influenced the particular complexion of his melancholy. Unmistakably +too he early learnt to think that he was odd, that his oddity was +connected with his strength, that he might be destined to stand alone +and capable of so standing. + +The life of the farming pioneer in what was then the Far West afforded +a fair prospect of laborious independence. But at least till Lincoln +was grown up, when a time of rapid growth and change set in, it offered +no hope of quickly gotten wealth, and it imposed severe hardship on +all. The country was thickly wooded; the settler had before him at the +outset heavy toil in clearing the ground and in building some rude +shelter,--a house or just a "half-faced camp," that is, a shed with one +side open to the weather such as that in which the Lincoln family +passed their first winter near Gentryville. The site once chosen and +the clearing once made, there was no such ease of cultivation or such +certain fertility as later settlers found yet further west when the +development of railways, of agricultural machinery, and of Eastern or +European markets had opened out to cultivation the enormous stretches +of level grass plain beyond the Mississippi. + +Till population had grown a good deal, pioneer families were largely +occupied in producing for themselves with their own hands what, in +their hardy if not always frugal view, were the necessities and +comforts of life. They had no Eastern market for their produce, for +railways did not begin to be made till 1840, and it was many years +before they crossed the Eastern mountains. An occasional cargo was +taken on a flat-bottomed boat down the nearest creek, as a stream is +called in America, into the Ohio and so by the innumerable windings of +the Mississippi to New Orleans; but no return cargo could be brought up +stream. Knives and axes were the most precious objects to be gained by +trade; woollen fabrics were rare in the West, when Lincoln was born, +and the white man and woman, like the red whom they had displaced, were +chiefly dressed in deer skins. The woods abounded in game, and in the +early stages of the development of the West a man could largely support +himself by his gun. The cold of every winter is there great, and an +occasional winter made itself long remembered, like the "winter of the +deep snow" in Illinois, by the havoc of its sudden onset and the +suffering of its long duration. The settling of a forest country was +accompanied here as elsewhere by the occasional ravages of strange and +destructive pestilences and the constant presence of malaria. +Population was soon thick enough for occasional gatherings, convivial +or religious, and in either case apt to be wild, but for long it was +not thick enough for the life of most settlers to be other than lonely +as well as hard. + +Abraham Lincoln in his teens grew very fast, and by nineteen he was +nearly six foot four. His weight was never quite proportionate to +this. His ungainly figure, with long arms and large hands and +relatively small development of chest, and the strange deep-cut +lineaments of his face were perhaps the evidence of unfit (sometimes +insufficient) food in these years of growth. But his muscular strength +was great, and startling statistical tales are told of the weight he +could lift and the force of his blows with a mallet or an axe. To a +gentle and thoughtful boy with secret ambition in him such strength is +a great gift, and in such surroundings most obviously so. Lincoln as a +lad was a valuable workman at the varied tasks that came his way, +without needing that intense application to manual pursuits which the +bent of his mind made irksome to him. And he was a person of high +consideration among the lads of his age and company. The manners of +the people then settling in Indiana and Illinois had not the extreme +ferocity for which Kentucky had earlier been famous, and which crops up +here and there in frontier life elsewhere. All the same, as might +naturally be supposed, they shared Plato's opinion that youths and men +in the prime of life should settle their differences with their fists. +Young Lincoln's few serious combats were satisfactorily decisive, and +neither they nor his friendly wrestling bouts ended in the quarrels +which were too common among his neighbours. Thus, for all his +originality and oddity, he early grew accustomed to mix in the sort of +company he was likely to meet, without either inward shrinking or the +need of conscious self-assertion. + +In one thing he stood aloof from the sports of his fellows. Most +backwoodsmen were bred to the gun; he has told us that he shot a turkey +when he was eight and never afterwards shot at all. There is an early +tale of his protests against an aimless slaughter of mud turtles; and +it may be guessed that the dislike of all killing, which gave him sore +trouble later, began when he was young. Tales survive of his kindness +to helpless men and animals. It marks the real hardness of his +surroundings, and their hardening effect on many, that his exertions in +saving a drunken man from death in the snow are related with apparent +surprise. Some tales of his helping a pig stuck in a bog or a dog on +an ice floe and the like seem to indicate a curious and lasting trait. +These things seem not to have been done spontaneously, but on mature +reflection after he had passed unheeding by. He grew to be a man of +prompt action in circumstances of certain kinds; but generally his +impulse was slow and not very sure. Taste and the minor sensibilities +were a little deficient in him. As a lady once candidly explained to +him, he was not ready with little gracious acts. But rare occasions, +such as can arouse a passionate sense of justice, would kindle his +slow, kind nature with a sudden fire. + +The total amount of his schooling, at the several brief periods for +which there happened to have been a school accessible and facility to +get to it, was afterwards computed by himself at something under twelve +months. With this slight help distributed over the years from his +eighth to his fifteenth birthday he taught himself to read, write, and +do sums. The stories of the effort and painful shifts, by which great +men accomplish this initial labour almost unhelped, have in all cases +the same pathos, and have a certain sameness in detail. Having learnt +to read he had the following books within his reach: the Bible, +"Aesop's Fables," "Robinson Crusoe," the "Pilgrim's Progress," a +"History of the United States," and Weems' "Life of Washington." Later +on the fancy took him to learn the laws of his State, and he obtained +the "Laws of Indiana." These books he did read, and read again, and +pondered, not with any dreamy or purely intellectual interest, but like +one who desires the weapon of learning for practical ends, and desires +also to have patterns of what life should be. As already said, his +service as a labourer could be considerable, and when something stirred +his ambition to do a task quickly his energy could be prodigious. But +"bone idle is what I called him," was the verdict long after of one, +perhaps too critical, employer. "I found him," he said, "cocked up on +a haystack with a book. 'What are you reading?' I said. 'I'm not +reading, I'm studying,' says he. 'What are you studying?' says I. +'Law,' says he, as proud as Cicero. 'Great God Almighty!' said I." +The boy's correction, "studying" for "reading," was impertinent, but +probably sound. To be equally sound, we must reckon among his +educational facilities the abundant stories which came his way in a +community which, however unlettered, was certainly not dull-spirited; +the occasional newspaper; the rare lectures or political meetings; the +much more frequent religious meetings, with preachers who taught a grim +doctrine, but who preached with vigour and sometimes with the deepest +sincerity; the hymns often of great emotional power over a simple +congregation--Cowper's "There is a fountain filled with blood," is one +recorded favourite among them; the songs, far other than hymns, which +Dennis Hanks and his other mates would pick up or compose; and the +practice in rhetoric and the art of exposition, which he unblushingly +afforded himself before audiences of fellow labourers who welcomed the +jest and the excuse for stopping work. The achievement of the +self-taught man remains wonderful, but, if he surmounts his +difficulties at all, some of his limitations may turn to sheer +advantage. There is some advantage merely in being driven to make the +most of few books; great advantage in having one's choice restricted by +circumstances to good books; great advantage too in the consciousness +of untrained faculty which leaves a man capable in mature life of +deliberately undertaking mental discipline. + +Along with the legends and authentic records of his self-training, +signs of an ambition which showed itself early and which was from the +first a clean and a high ambition, there are also other legends showing +Lincoln as a naughty boy among naughty boys. The selection here made +from these lacks refinement, and the reader must note that this was +literally a big, naughty boy, not a man who had grown stiff in +coarseness and ill-nature. First it must be recalled that Abraham bore +a grudge against the Grigsbys, an honourable grudge in its origin and +perhaps the only grudge he ever bore. There had arisen from this a +combat, of which the details might displease the fastidious, but which +was noble in so far that Abraham rescued a weaker combatant who was +over-matched. But there ensued something more displeasing, a series of +lampoons by Abraham, in prose and a kind of verse. These were gross +and silly enough, though probably to the taste of the public which he +then addressed, but it is the sequel that matters. In a work called +"The First Chronicles of Reuben," it is related how Reuben and Josiah, +the sons of Reuben Grigsby the elder, took to themselves wives on the +same day. By local custom the bridal feast took place and the two +young couples began their married careers under the roof of the +bridegrooms' father. Moreover, it was the custom that, at a certain +stage in the celebrations, the brides should be escorted to their +chambers by hired attendants who shortly after conducted the +bridegrooms thither. On this occasion some sense of mischief afoot +disturbed the heart of Mrs. Reuben Grigsby the elder, and, hastening +upstairs, just after the attendants had returned, she cried out in a +loud voice and to the great consternation of all concerned, "Why, +Reuben, you're in bed with the wrong wife!" The historian who, to the +manifest annoyance of Lincoln's other biographers, has preserved this +and much other priceless information, infers that Abraham, who was not +invited to the feast, had plotted this domestic catastrophe and won +over the attendants to his evil purpose. This is not a certain +inference, nor is it absolutely beyond doubt that the event recorded in +"The First Chronicles of Reuben" ever happened at all. What is certain +is that these Chronicles themselves, composed in what purports to be +the style of Scripture, were circulated for the joint edification of +the proud race of Grigsby and of their envious neighbours in the +handwriting of Abraham Lincoln, then between seventeen and eighteen. +Not without reason does an earlier manuscript of the same author +conclude, after several correct exercises in compound subtraction, with +the distich:-- + + "Abraham Lincoln, his hand and pen, + He will be good, but God knows when." + + +Not to be too solemn about a tale which has here been told for the +whimsical fancy of its unseemliness and because it is probably the +worst that there is to tell, we may here look forward and face the +well-known fact that the unseemliness in talk of rough, rustic boys +flavoured the great President's conversation through life. It is well +to be plain about this. Lincoln was quite without any elegant and +sentimental dissoluteness, such as can be attractively portrayed. His +life was austere and seems to have been so from the start. He had that +shy reverence for womanhood which is sometimes acquired as easily in +rough as in polished surroundings and often quite as steadily +maintained. The testimony of his early companions, along with some +fragments of the boy's feeble but sincere attempts at verse, shows that +he acquired it young. But a large part of the stories and pithy +sayings for which he was famous wherever he went, but of which when +their setting is lost it is impossible to recover the enjoyment, were +undeniably coarse, and naturally enough this fact was jarring to some +of those in America who most revered him. It should not really be +hard, in any comprehensive view of his character and the circumstances +in which it unfolded itself, to trace in this bent of his humour +something not discordant with the widening sympathy and deepening +tenderness of his nature. The words of his political associate in +Illinois, Mr. Leonard Swett, afterwards Attorney-General of the United +States, may suffice. He writes: "Almost any man, who will tell a very +vulgar story, has, in a degree, a vulgar mind. But it was not so with +him; with all his purity of character and exalted morality and +sensibility, which no man can doubt, when hunting for wit he had no +ability to discriminate between the vulgar and refined substances from +which he extracted it. It was the wit he was after, the pure jewel, +and he would pick it up out of the mud or dirt just as readily as from +a parlour table." In any case his best remembered utterances of this +order, when least fit for print, were both wise and incomparably witty, +and in any case they did not prevent grave gentlemen, who marvelled at +them rather uncomfortably, from receiving the deep impression of what +they called his pure-mindedness. + +One last recollection of Lincoln's boyhood has appealed, beyond any +other, to some of his friends as prophetic of things to come. Mention +has already been made of his two long trips down the Mississippi. With +the novel responsibilities which they threw on him, and the novel +sights and company which he met all the way to the strange, distant +city of New Orleans, they must have been great experiences. Only two +incidents of them are recorded. In the first voyage he and his mates +had been disturbed at night by a band of negro marauders and had had a +sharp fight in repelling them, but in the second voyage he met with the +negro in a way that to him was more memorable. He and the young +fellows with him saw, among the sights of New Orleans, negroes chained, +maltreated, whipped and scourged; they came in their rambles upon a +slave auction where a fine mulatto girl was being pinched and prodded +and trotted up and down the room like a horse to show how she moved, +that "bidders might satisfy themselves," as the auctioneer said, of the +soundness of the article to be sold. John Johnston and John Hanks and +Abraham Lincoln saw these sights with the unsophisticated eyes of +honest country lads from a free State. In their home circle it seems +that slavery was always spoken of with horror. One of them had a +tenacious memory and a tenacious will. "Lincoln saw it," John Hanks +said long after, and other men's recollections of Lincoln's talk +confirmed him--"Lincoln saw it; his heart bled; said nothing much, was +silent. I can say, knowing it, that it was on this trip that he formed +his opinion of slavery. It ran its iron into him then and there, May, +1831. I have heard him say so often." Perhaps in other talks old John +Hanks dramatised his early remembrances a little; he related how at the +slave auction Lincoln said, "By God, boys, let's get away from this. +If ever I get a chance to hit that thing, I'll hit it hard." + +The youth, who probably did not express his indignation in these +prophetic words, was in fact chosen to deal "that thing" a blow from +which it seems unlikely to recover as a permitted institution among +civilised men, and it is certain that from this early time the thought +of slavery never ceased to be hateful to him. Yet it is not in the +light of a crusader against this special evil that we are to regard +him. When he came back from this voyage to his new home in Illinois he +was simply a youth ambitious of an honourable part in the life of the +young country of which he was proud. We may regard, and he himself +regarded, the liberation of the slaves, which will always be associated +with his name, as a part of a larger work, the restoration of his +country to its earliest and noblest tradition, which alone gave +permanence or worth to its existence as a nation. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE GROWTH OF THE AMERICAN NATION + +1. _The Formation of a National Government_. + +It is of course impossible to understand the life of a politician in +another country without study of its conditions and its past. In the +case of America this study is especially necessary, not only because the +many points of comparison between that country and our own are apt to +conceal profound differences of customs and institutions, but because the +broader difference between a new country and an old is in many respects +more important than we conceive. But in the case of Lincoln there is +peculiar reason for carrying such a study far back. He himself appealed +unceasingly to a tradition of the past. In tracing the causes which up +to his time had tended to conjoin the United States more closely and the +cause which more recently had begun to threaten them with disruption, we +shall be examining the elements of the problem with which it was his work +in life to deal. + +The "Thirteen United States of America" which in 1776 declared their +independence of Great Britain were so many distinct Colonies distributed +unevenly along 1,300 miles of the Atlantic coast. These thirteen +Colonies can easily be identified on the map when it is explained that +Maine in the extreme north was then an unsettled forest tract claimed by +the Colony of Massachusetts, that Florida in the extreme south belonged +to Spain, and that Vermont, which soon after asserted its separate +existence, was a part of the State of New York. Almost every one of +these Colonies had its marked peculiarities and its points of antagonism +as against its nearest neighbours; but they fell into three groups. We +may broadly contrast the five southernmost, which included those which +were the richest and of which in many ways the leading State was +Virginia, with the four (or later six) northernmost States known +collectively as New England. Both groups had at first been colonised by +the same class, the smaller landed gentry of England with a sprinkling of +well-to-do traders, though the South received later a larger number of +poor and shiftless immigrants than the North, and the North attracted a +larger number of artisans. The physical conditions of the South led to +the growth of large farms, or "plantations" as they were called, and of a +class of large proprietors; negro slaves thrived there and were useful in +the cultivation of tobacco, indigo, rice, and later of cotton. The North +continued to be a country of small farms, but its people turned also to +fishery and to commerce, and the sea carrying trade became early its +predominant interest, yielding place later on to manufacturing +industries. The South was attached in the main, though by no means +altogether, to the Church of England; New England owed its origin to +successive immigrations of Puritans often belonging to the Congregational +or Independent body; with the honourable exception of Rhode Island these +communities showed none of the liberal and tolerant Spirit which the +Independents of the old country often developed; they manifested, +however, the frequent virtues as well as the occasional defects of the +Puritan character. The middle group of Colonies were of more mixed +origin; New York and New Jersey had been Dutch possessions, Delaware was +partly Swedish, Pennsylvania had begun as a Quaker settlement but +included many different elements; in physical and economic conditions +they resembled on the whole New England, but they lacked, some of them +conspicuously, the Puritan discipline, and had a certain cosmopolitan +character. Though there were sharp antagonisms among the northern +settlements, and the southern settlements were kept distinct by the great +distances between them, the tendency of events was to soften these minor +differences. But it greatly intensified one broad distinction which +marked off the southern group from the middle and the northern groups +equally. + +Nevertheless, before independence was thought of there were common +characteristics distinguishing Americans from English people. They are +the better worth an attempt to note them because, as a historian of +America wrote some years ago, "the typical American of 1900 is on the +whole more like his ancestor of 1775 than is the typical Englishman." In +all the Colonies alike the conditions of life encouraged personal +independence. In all alike they also encouraged a special kind of +ability which may be called practical rather than thorough--that of a +workman who must be competent at many tasks and has neither opportunity +nor inducement to become perfect at one; that of the scientific man +irresistibly drawn to inventions which shall make life less hard; that of +the scholar or philosopher who must supply the new community's need of +lawyers and politicians. + +On the other hand, many of the colonists' forefathers had come to their +new home with distinct aspirations for a better ordering of human life +than the old world allowed, and it has frequently been noticed that +Americans from the first have been more prone than their kinsmen in +England to pay homage to large ideal conceptions. This is a disposition +not entirely favourable to painstaking and sure-footed reform. The +idealist American is perhaps too ready to pay himself with fine words, +which the subtler and shyer Englishman avoids and rather too readily sets +down as insincere in others. Moreover, this tendency is quite consistent +with the peculiar conservatism characteristic of America. New conditions +in which tradition gave no guidance called forth great inventive powers +and bred a certain pride in novelty. An American economist has written +in a sanguine humour, "The process of transplanting removes many of the +shackles of custom and tradition which retard the progress of older +countries. In a new country things cannot be done in the old way, and +therefore they are probably done in the best way." But a new country is +always apt to cling with tenacity to those old things for which it still +has use; and a remote and undeveloped country does not fully share the +continual commerce in ideas which brings about change (and, in the main, +advance) in the old world. The conservatism which these causes tend to +produce has in any case been marked in America. Thus, as readers of +Lowell are aware, in spite of the ceaseless efflorescence of the modern +slang of America, the language of America is in many respects that of an +older England than ours, and the like has all along been true of +important literature, and still more of oratory, in America. Moreover, +as the sentences which have just been quoted may suggest, the maxim that +has once hit the occasion, or the new practice or expedient once +necessitated by the conditions of the moment, has been readily hallowed +as expressing the wisdom of the ages. An Englishman will quote Burke as +he would quote Demosthenes or Plato, but Americans have been apt to quote +their elder statesmen as they would quote the Bible. In like manner +political practices of accidental origin--for instance, that a +representative should be an inhabitant of the place he +represents--acquire in America something like the force of constitutional +law. + +In this connection we must recall the period at which the earliest +settlers came from England, and the political heritage which they +consequently brought with them. This heritage included a certain +aptitude for local government, which was fostered in the south by the +rise of a class of large landowners and in the north by the +Congregational Church system. It included also a great tenacity of the +subject's rights as against the State--the spirit of Hampden refusing +payment of ship-money--and a disposition to look on the law and the +Courts as the bulwarks of such rights against Government. But it did not +include--and this explains the real meaning of the War of +Independence--any sort of feeling of allegiance to a Parliament which +represented Great Britain only, and which had gained its position even in +Great Britain since the fathers of Virginia and Massachusetts left home. +Nor did it include--and this was of great importance in its influence on +the form of the Constitution--any real understanding of or any aptitude +for the English Parliamentary Government, under which the leaders of the +legislative body and the advisers of the Crown in its executive functions +are the same men, and under which the elected persons, presumed for the +moment to represent the people, are allowed for that moment an almost +unfettered supremacy. + +Thus there was much that made it easy for the Colonies to combine in the +single act of repudiating British sovereignty, yet the characteristics +which may be ascribed to them in common were not such as inclined them or +fitted them to build up a great new unity. + +The Colonies, however, backed up by the British Government with the +vigour which Chatham imparted to it, had acted together against a common +danger from the French. When the States, as we must now call them, acted +together against the British Government they did so in name as "United +States," and they shortly proceeded to draw up "Articles of Confederation +and Perpetual Union." But it was union of a feeble kind. The separate +government of each State, in its internal affairs, was easy to provide +for; representative institutions always existed, and no more change was +needed than to substitute elected officers for the Governors and +Councillors formerly appointed by the Crown. For the Union a Congress +was provided which was to represent all the States in dealings with the +outside world, but it was a Government with no effective powers except +such as each separate State might independently choose to lend it. It +might wage war with England, but it could not effectually control or +regularly pay the military service of its own citizens; it might make a +treaty of peace with England, but it could not enforce on its citizens +distasteful obligations of that treaty. Such an ill-devised machine +would have worked well enough for a time, if the Union Government could +have attached to itself popular sentiments of honour and loyalty. But +the sentiments were not there; and it worked badly. + +When once we were reconciled to a defeat which proved good for us, it +became a tradition among English writers to venerate the American +Revolution. Later English historians have revolted from this +indiscriminate veneration. They insist on another side of the facts: on +the hopelessness of the American cause but for the commanding genius of +Washington and his moral authority, and for the command which France and +Spain obtained of the seas; on the petty quarrelsomeness with which the +rights of the Colonists were urged, and the meanly skilful agitation +which forced on the final rupture; on the lack of sustained patriotic +effort during the war; on the base cruelty and dishonesty with which the +loyal minority were persecuted and the private rights guaranteed by the +peace ignored. It does not concern us to ascertain the precise justice +in this displeasing picture; no man now regrets the main result of the +Revolution, and we know that a new country is a new country, and that +there was much in the circumstances of the war to encourage indiscipline +and ferocity. But the fact that there is cause for such an indictment +bears in two ways upon our present subject. + +In the first place, there has been a tendency both in England and in +America to look at this history upside down. The epoch of the Revolution +and the Constitution has been regarded as a heroic age--wherein lived the +elder Brutus, Mucius Scaevola, Claelia and the rest--to be followed by +almost continuous disappointment, disillusionment and decline. A more +pleasing and more bracing view is nearer to the historic truth. The +faults of a later time were largely survivals, and the later history is +largely that of growth though in the face of terrific obstacles and many +influences that favoured decay. The nobility of the Revolution in the +eighteenth century may be rated higher or lower, but in the Civil War, in +which the elder brothers of so many men now living bore their part, the +people of the North and of the South alike displayed far more heroic +qualities. + +In the second place, the War of Independence and of the Revolution lacked +some of the characteristics of other national uprisings. It was not a +revolt against grievous oppression or against a wholly foreign +domination, but against a political system which the people mildly +resented and which only statesmen felt to be pernicious and found to be +past cure. The cause appealed to far-seeing political aspiration and +appealed also to turbulent and ambitious spirits and to whatever was +present of a merely revolutionary temper, but the ordinary law-abiding +man who minded his own business was not greatly moved one way or the +other in his heart. + +The subsequent movement which, in a few years after independence was +secured, gave the United States a national and a working Constitution was +altogether the work of a few, to which popular movement contributed +nothing. Of popular aspiration for unity there was none. Statesmen knew +that the new nation or group of nations lay helpless between pressing +dangers from abroad and its own financial difficulties. They saw clearly +that they must create a Government of the Union which could exercise +directly upon the individual American citizen an authority like that of +the Government of his own State. They did this, but with a reluctant and +half-convinced public opinion behind them. + +The makers of the Constitution earned in a manner the full praise that +has ever since been bestowed on them. But they did not, as it has often +been suggested they did, create a sort of archetype and pattern for all +Governments that may hereafter partake of a federal character. Nor has +the curious machine which they devised--with its balanced opposition +between two legislative chambers, between the whole Legislature and the +independent executive power of the President, between the governing power +of the moment and the permanent expression of the people's will embodied +in certain almost unalterable laws--worked conspicuously better than +other political constitutions. The American Constitution owes its +peculiarities partly to the form which the State Governments had +naturally taken, and partly to sheer misunderstanding of the British +Constitution, but much more to the want at the time of any strong sense +of national unity and to the existence of a good deal of dislike to all +government whatsoever. The sufficient merit of its founders was that of +patient and skilful diplomatists, who, undeterred by difficulties, found +out the most satisfactory settlement that had a chance of being accepted +by the States. + +So the Colonies, which in 1776 had declared their independence of Great +Britain under the name of the United States of America, entered in 1789 +into the possession of machinery of government under which their unity +and independence could be maintained. + +It will be well at once to describe those features of the Constitution +which it will be necessary for us later to bear in mind. It is generally +known that the President of the United States is an elected +officer--elected by what operates, though intended to act otherwise, as a +popular vote. During the four years of his office he might roughly be +said to combine the functions of the King in this country and those of a +Prime Minister whose cabinet is in due subjection to him. But that +description needs one very important qualification. He wields, with +certain slight restrictions, the whole executive power of government, but +neither he nor any of his ministers can, like the ministers of our King, +sit or speak in the Legislature, nor can he, like our King, dissolve that +Legislature. He has indeed a veto on Acts of Congress, which can only be +overridden by a large majority in both Houses. But the executive and the +legislative powers in America were purposely so constituted as to be +independent of each other to a degree which is unknown in this country. + +It is perhaps not very commonly understood that President and Congress +alike are as strictly fettered in their action by the Constitution as a +limited liability company is by its Memorandum of Association. This +Constitution, which defines both the form of government and certain +liberties of the subject, is not unalterable, but it can be altered only +by a process which requires both the consent of a great majority in +Congress or alternatively of a great majority of the legislatures of the +distinct States composing the Union, and also ratification of amendments +by three-fourths of the several States. Thus we shall have to notice +later that a "Constitutional Amendment" abolishing slavery became a +terror of the future to many people in the slave States, but remained all +the time an impossibility in the view of most people in the free States. + +We have, above all things, to dismiss from our minds any idea that the +Legislature of a State is subordinate to the Congress of the United +States, or that a State Governor is an officer under the President. The +Constitution of the Union was the product of a half-developed sense of +nationality. Under it the State authority (in the American sense of +"State") and the Union or Federal authority go on side by side working in +separate spheres, each subject to Constitutional restrictions, but each +in its own sphere supreme. Thus the State authority is powerless to make +peace or war or to impose customs duties, for those are Federal matters. +But the Union authority is equally powerless, wherever a State authority +has been constituted, to punish ordinary crime, to promote education, or +to regulate factories. In particular, by the Constitution as it stood +till after the Civil War, the Union authority was able to prohibit the +importation of slaves from abroad after the end of 1807, but had no power +to abolish slavery itself in any of the States. + +Further, Congress had to be constituted in such a manner as to be +agreeable to the smaller States which did not wish to enter into a Union +in which their influence would be swamped by their more populous +neighbours. Their interest was secured by providing that in the Senate +each State should have two members and no more, while in the House of +Representatives the people of the whole Union are represented according +to population. Thus legislation through Congress requires the +concurrence of two forces which may easily be opposed, that of the +majority of American citizens and that of the majority of the several +States. Of the two chambers, the Senate, whose members are elected for +six years, and to secure continuity do not all retire at the same time, +became as time went on, though not at first, attractive to statesmen of +position, and acquired therefore additional influence. + +Lastly, the Union was and is still the possessor of Territories not +included in any State, and in the Territories, whatever subordinate +self-government they might be allowed, the Federal authority has always +been supreme and uncontrolled in all matters. But as these Territories +have become more settled and more populated, portions of them have +steadily from the first been organised as States and admitted to the +Union. It is for Congress to settle the time of their admission and to +make any conditions in regard to their Constitutions as States. But when +once admitted as States they have thenceforward the full rights of the +original States. Within all the Territories, while they remained under +its jurisdiction it lay with Congress to determine whether slavery should +be lawful or not, and, when any portion of them was ripe for admission to +the Union as a State, Congress could insist that the new State's +Constitution should or should not prohibit slavery. When the +Constitution of the Union was being settled, slavery was the subject of +most careful compromise; but in any union formed between slave States and +free, a bitter root of controversy must have remained, and the opening +through which controversy actually returned was provided by the +Territories. + +On all other matters the makers of the Constitution had in the highest +temper of statesmanship found a way round seemingly insuperable +difficulties. The whole attitude of "the fathers" towards slavery is a +question of some consequence to a biographer of Lincoln, and we shall +return to it in a little while. + + +2. _Territorial Expansion_. + +A machine of government had been created, and we are shortly to consider +how it was got to work. But the large dominion to be governed had to be +settled, and its area was about to undergo an enormous expansion. It +will be convenient at this point to mark the stages of this development. + +The thirteen Colonies had, when they first revolted, definite western +boundaries, the westernmost of them reaching back from the sea-board to a +frontier in the Alleghany Mountains. But at the close of the war Great +Britain ceded to the United States the whole of the inland country up to +the Mississippi River. Virginia had in the meantime effectively +colonised Kentucky to the west of her, and for a time this was treated as +within her borders. In a similar way Tennessee had been settled from +North and South Carolina and was treated as part of the former. Virginia +had also established claims by conquest north of the Ohio River in what +was called the North-West Territory, but these claims and all similar +claims of particular States in unsettled or half-settled territory were +shortly before or shortly after the adoption of the Constitution ceded to +the Union Government. But the dominions of that Government soon received +a vast accession. In 1803, by a brave exercise of the Constitutional +powers which he was otherwise disposed to restrict jealously, President +Jefferson bought from Napoleon I. the great expanse of country west of +the Mississippi called Louisiana. This region in the extreme south was +no wider than the present State of Louisiana, but further north it +widened out so as to take in the whole watershed of the Missouri and its +tributaries, including in the extreme north nearly all the present State +of Montana. In 1819 Florida was purchased from Spain, and that country +at the same time abandoned its claims to a strip of coastland which now +forms the sea-board of Alabama and Mississippi. + +Such was the extent of the United States when Lincoln began his political +life. In the movement of population by which this domain was being +settled up, different streams may be roughly distinguished. First, there +was from 1780 onwards a constant movement of the poorer class and of +younger sons of rich men from the great State of Virginia and to some +extent from the Carolinas into Kentucky and Tennessee, whence they often +shifted further north into Indiana and Illinois, or sometimes further +west into Missouri. It was mainly a movement of single families or +groups of families of adventurous pioneers, very sturdy, and very +turbulent. Then there came the expansion of the great plantation +interest in the further South, carrying with it as it spread, not +occasional slaves as in Kentucky and Tennessee, but the whole plantation +system. This movement went not only directly westward, but still more by +the Gulf of Mexico and up the Mississippi, into the State of Louisiana, +where a considerable French population had settled, the State of +Mississippi, and later into Missouri. Later still came the westward +movement from the Northern States. The energies of the people in these +States had at first been to great extent absorbed by sea-going pursuits +and the subjugation of their own rugged soil, so that they reached +western regions like Illinois rather later than did the settlers from +States further south. Ultimately, as their manufactures grew, +immigration from Europe began its steady flow to these States, and the +great westward stream, which continuing in our days has filled up the +rich lands of the far North-West, grew in volume. But want of natural +timber and other causes hindered the development of the fertile prairie +soil in the regions beyond the upper Mississippi, till the period of +railway development, which began about 1840, was far advanced. Illinois +was Far West in 1830, Iowa and Minnesota continued to be so in 1860. The +Northerners, when they began to move westward, came in comparatively +large numbers, bringing comparatively ordered habits and the full +machinery of outward civilisation with them. Thus a great social change +followed upon their arrival in the regions to which only scattered +pioneers such as the Lincolns had previously penetrated. In Illinois, +with which so much of our story is bound up, the rapidity of that change +may be estimated from the fact that the population of that State +multiplied sevenfold between the time when Lincoln settled there and the +day when he left it as President. + +The concluding stages by which the dominions of the United States came to +be as we know them were: the annexation by agreement in 1846 of the +Republic of Texas, which had separated itself from Mexico and which +claimed besides the great State of Texas a considerable territory +reaching north-west to the upper portions of the Arkansas River; the +apportionment to the Union by a delimitation treaty with Great Britain in +1846 of the Oregon Territory, including roughly the State of that name +and the rest of the basin of the Columbia River up to the present +frontier--British Columbia being at the same time apportioned to Great +Britain; the conquest from Mexico in 1848 of California and a vast +mountainous tract at the back of it; the purchase from Mexico of a small +frontier strip in 1853; and the acquisition at several later times of +various outlying dependencies which will in no way concern us. + + +3. _The Growth of the Practice and Traditions of the Union Government_. + +We must turn back to the internal growth of the new united nation. When +the Constitution had been formed and the question of its acceptance by +the States had been at last settled, and when Washington had been +inaugurated as the first President under it, a wholly new conflict arose +between two parties, led by two Ministers in the President's Cabinet, +Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. Both were potent and remarkable +men, Hamilton in all senses a great man. These two men, for all their +antagonism, did services to their country, without which the vigorous +growth of the new nation would not have been possible. + +The figure of Alexander Hamilton, then Secretary of the Treasury (ranked +by Talleyrand with Fox and Napoleon as one of the three great men he had +known), must fascinate any English student of the period. If his name is +not celebrated in the same way in the country which he so eminently +served, it is perhaps because in his ideas, as in his origin, he was not +strictly American. As a boy, half Scotch, half French Huguenot, from the +English West Indian island of Nevis, he had been at school in New York +when his speeches had some real effect in attaching that city to the +cause of Independence. He had served brilliantly in the war, on +Washington's staff and with his regiment. He had chivalrously defended, +as an advocate and in other ways, the Englishmen and loyalists against +whose cause he fought. He had induced the great central State of New +York to accept the Constitution, when the strongest local party would +have rejected it and made the Union impossible. As Washington's +Secretary of the Treasury he organised the machinery of government, +helped his chief to preserve a strong, upright and cautious foreign +policy at the critical point of the young Republic's infancy, and +performed perhaps the greatest and most difficult service of all in +setting the disordered finances of the country upon a sound footing. In +early middle age he ended a life, not flawless but admirable and lovable, +in a duel, murderously forced upon him by one Aaron Burr. This man, who +was an elegant profligate, with many graces but no public principle, was +a claimant to the Presidency in opposition to Hamilton's greatest +opponent, Jefferson; Hamilton knowingly incurred a feud which must at the +best have been dangerous to him, by unhesitatingly throwing his weight +upon the side of Jefferson, his own ungenerous rival. The details of his +policy do not concern us, but the United States could hardly have endured +for many years without the passionate sense of the need of government and +the genius for actual administration with which Hamilton set the new +nation on its way. Nevertheless--so do gifts differ--the general spirit +which has on the whole informed the American nation and held it together +was neither respected nor understood by him. His party, called the +Federalists, because they claimed to stand for a strong and an efficient +Federal Government, did not survive him long. It is of interest to us +here only because, with its early disappearance, there ceased for ever to +be in America any party whatsoever which in any sense represented +aristocratic principles or leanings. + +The fate of Jefferson's party (at first called Republican but by no means +to be confused with the Republican party which will concern us later) was +far different, for the Democratic party, represented by the President of +the United States at this moment, claims to descend from it in unbroken +apostolic succession. But we need not pause to trace the connecting +thread between them, real as it is, for parties are not to be regarded as +individuals. Indeed the personality of Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of +State in Washington's Cabinet, impressed itself, during his life and long +after, upon all America more than that of any other man. Democrats +to-day have described Lincoln, who by no means belonged to their party, +as Jefferson's spiritual heir; and Lincoln would have welcomed the +description. + +No biographer has achieved an understanding presentment of Jefferson's +curious character, which as presented by unfriendly critics is an +unpleasing combination of contrasting elements. A tall and active +fellow, a good horseman and a good shot, living through seven years of +civil war, which he had himself heralded in, without the inclination to +strike a blow; a scholar, musician, and mathematician, without delicacy, +elevation, or precision of thought or language; a man of intense +ambition, without either administrative capacity or the courage to assert +himself in counsel or in debate; a dealer in philanthropic sentiment, +privately malignant and vindictive. This is not as a whole a credible +portrait; it cannot stand for the man as his friends knew him; but there +is evidence for each feature of it, and it remains impossible for a +foreigner to think of Jefferson and not compare him to his disadvantage +with the antagonist whom he eclipsed. By pertinacious industry, however, +working chiefly through private correspondence, he constructed a great +party, dominated a nation, and dominated it mainly for good. For the +rapid and complete triumph of Jefferson's party over its opponents +signifies a very definite and lasting conversion of the main stream of +American public opinion to what may be called the sane element in the +principles of the French Revolution. At the time when he set himself to +counterwork Hamilton, American statesmanship was likely to be directed +only to making Government strong and to ensuring the stability of the +business world; for reaction against the bloody absurdities that had +happened in France was strong in America, and in English thought, which +still had influence in America, it was all-powerful. Against this he +asserted an intense belief in the value of freedom, in the equal claim of +men of all conditions to the consideration of government, and in the +supreme importance to government of the consenting mind of the governed. +And he made this sense so definitely a part of the national stock of +ideas that, while the older-established principles of strong and sound +government were not lost to sight, they were consciously rated as +subordinate to the principles of liberty. + +It must not be supposed that the ascendency thus early acquired by what +may be called liberal opinions in America was a matter merely of setting +some fine phrases in circulation, or of adopting, as was early done in +most States, a wide franchise and other external marks of democracy. We +may dwell a little longer on the unusual but curiously popular figure of +Jefferson, for it illustrates the spirit with which the commonwealth +became imbued under his leadership. He has sometimes been presented as a +man of flabby character whose historical part was that of intermediary +between impracticable French "philosophes" and the ruffians and swindlers +that Martin Chuzzlewit encountered, who were all "children of liberty," +and whose "boastful answer to the Despot and the Tyrant was that their +bright home was in the Settin' Sun." He was nothing of the kind. His +judgment was probably unsound on the questions of foreign policy on which +as Secretary of State he differed from Washington, and he leaned, no +doubt, to a jealous and too narrow insistence upon the limits set by the +Constitution to the Government's power. But he and his party were +emphatically right in the resistance which they offered to certain +needless measures of coercion. As President, though he was not a great +President, he suffered the sensible course of administration originated +by his opponent to continue undisturbed, and America owed to one bold and +far-seeing act of his the greatest of the steps by which her territory +was enlarged. It is, however, in the field of domestic policy, which +rested with the States and with which a President has often little to do, +that the results of his principles must be sought. Jefferson was a man +who had worked unwearyingly in Virginia at sound, and what we should now +call conservative, reforms, establishing religious toleration, reforming +a preposterous land law, seeking to provide education for the poor, +striving unsuccessfully for a sensible scheme of gradual emancipation of +the slaves. In like manner his disciples after him, in their several +States, devoted themselves to the kind of work in removing manifest +abuses and providing for manifest new social needs in which English +reformers like Romilly and Bentham, and the leaders of the first reformed +Parliament, were to be successful somewhat later. The Americans who so +exasperated Dickens vainly supposed themselves to be far ahead of England +in much that we now consider essential to a well-ordered nation. But +there could have been no answer to Americans of Jefferson's generation if +they had made the same claim. + +It is with this fact in mind that we should approach the famous words of +Jefferson which echoed so long with triumphant or reproachful sound in +the ears of Americans and to which long after Lincoln was to make a +memorable appeal. The propaganda which he carried on when the +Constitution had been adopted was on behalf of a principle which he had +enunciated as a younger man when he drafted the Declaration of +Independence. That document is mainly a rehearsal of the colonists' +grievances, and is as strictly lawyerlike and about as fair or unfair as +the arguments of a Parliamentarian under Charles I. But the +argumentation is prefaced with these sounding words: "We hold these +truths to be self-evident:--that all men are created equal; that they are +endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among +these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure +these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just +powers from the consent of the governed." Few propositions outside the +Bible have offered so easy a mark to the shafts of unintelligently clever +criticism. + +Jefferson, when he said that "all men are created equal," and the Tory +Dr. Johnson, when he spoke of "the natural equality of man," used a +curious eighteenth century phrase, of which a Greek scholar can see the +origin; but it did not mean anything absurd, nor, on the other hand, did +it convey a mere platitude. It should not be necessary to explain, as +Lincoln did long after, that Jefferson did not suppose all men to be of +equal height or weight or equally wise or equally good. He did, however, +contend for a principle of which one elementary application is the law +which makes murder the same crime whatever be the relative positions of +the murderer and the murdered man. Such a law was indeed firmly rooted +in England before Jefferson talked of equality, but it amazed the rest of +Europe when the House of Lords hanged a peer for the murder of his +servant. There are indefinitely many further ways in which men who are +utterly unequal had best be treated as creatures equally entitled to the +consideration of government and of their neighbours. It is safer to +carry this principle too far than not to carry it far enough. If +Jefferson had expressed this and his cognate principle of liberty with +scientific precision, or with the full personal sincerity with which a +greater man like Lincoln expressed it, he would have said little from +which any Englishman to-day would dissent. None the less he would have +enunciated a doctrine which most Governments then existing set at naught +or proscribed, and for which Hamilton and the prosperous champions of +independence who supported him had no use. + +The Declaration of Independence was not a very candid State paper, and +the popularity Jefferson afterwards created for its sentiments was not +wholly free from humbug. Many men were more ready to think themselves +the equals of Washington or Hamilton in the respects in which they were +not so, than to think a negro their own equal in the respects in which he +was. The boundless space and untrammelled conditions of the new world +made liberty and equality in some directions highly attainable ideals, so +much so that they seemed to demand little effort or discipline. The +patriotic orators under whom Lincoln sat in his youth would ascribe to +the political wisdom of their great democracy what was really the result +of geography. They would regard the extent of forest and prairie as +creditable to themselves, just as some few Englishmen have regarded our +location upon an island. + +This does not, however, do away with the value of that tradition of the +new world which in its purest and sincerest form became part and parcel +of Lincoln's mind. Jefferson was a great American patriot. In his case +insistence on the rights of the several States sprang from no +half-hearted desire for a great American nation; he regarded these +provincial organisations as machinery by which government and the people +could be brought nearer together; and he contributed that which was most +needed for the evolution of a vigorous national life. He imparted to the +very recent historical origin of his country, and his followers imparted +to its material conditions, a certain element of poetry and the felt +presence of a wholesome national ideal. The patriotism of an older +country derives its glory and its pride from influences deep rooted in +the past, creating a tradition of public and private action which needs +no definite formula. The man who did more than any other to supply this +lack in a new country, by imbuing its national consciousness--even its +national cant--with high aspiration, did--it may well be--more than any +strong administrator or constructive statesman to create a Union which +should thereafter seem worth preserving. + + +4. _The Missouri Compromise_. + +No sober critic, applying to the American statesmen of the first +generation the standards which he would apply to their English +contemporaries, can blame them in the least because they framed their +Constitution as best they could and were not deterred by the scruples +which they felt about slavery from effecting a Union between States +which, on all other grounds except their latent difference upon slavery, +seemed meant to be one. But many of these men had set their hands in the +Declaration of Independence to the most unqualified claim of liberty and +equality for all men and proceeded, in the Constitution, to give nineteen +years' grace to "that most detestable sum of all villainies," as Wesley +called it, the African slave trade, and to impose on the States which +thought slavery wrong the dirty work of restoring escaped slaves to +captivity. "Why," Dr. Johnson had asked, "do the loudest yelps for +liberty come from the drivers of slaves?" We are forced to recognise, +upon any study of the facts, that they could not really have made the +Union otherwise than as they did; yet a doubt presents itself as to the +general soundness and sincerity of their boasted notions of liberty. +Now, later on we shall have to understand the policy as to slavery on +behalf of which Lincoln stepped forward as a leader. In his own +constantly reiterated words it was a return to the position of "the +fathers," and, though he was not a professional historian, it concerns us +to know that there was sincerity at least in his intensely historical +view of politics. We have, then, to see first how "the fathers"--that +is, the most considerable men among those who won Independence and made +the Constitution--set out with a very honest view on the subject of +slavery, but with a too comfortable hope of its approaching end, which +one or two lived to see frustrated; secondly, how the men who succeeded +them were led to abandon such hopes and content themselves with a +compromise as to slavery which they trusted would at least keep the +American nation in being. + +Among those who signed the Declaration of Independence there were +presumably some of Dr. Johnson's "yelpers." It mattered more that there +were sturdy people who had no idea of giving up slavery and probably did +not relish having to join in protestations about equality. Men like +Jefferson ought to have known well that their associates in South +Carolina and Georgia in particular did not share their aspirations--the +people of Georgia indeed were recent and ardent converts to the slave +system. But these sincere and insincere believers in slavery were the +exceptions; their views did not then seem to prevail even in the greatest +of the slave States, Virginia. Broadly speaking, the American opinion on +this matter in 1775 or in 1789 had gone as far ahead of English opinion, +as English opinion had in turn gone ahead of American, when, in 1833, the +year after the first Reform Bill, the English people put its hand into +its pocket and bought out its own slave owners in the West Indies. The +British Government had forced several of the American Colonies to permit +slavery against their will, and only in 1769 it had vetoed, in the +interest of British trade, a Colonial enactment for suppressing the slave +trade. This was sincerely felt as a part, though a minor part, of the +grievance against the mother country. So far did such views prevail on +the surface that a Convention of all the Colonies in 1774 unanimously +voted that "the abolition of domestic slavery is the greatest object of +desire in those Colonies where it was unhappily introduced in their +infant state. But previous to the enfranchisement of the slaves in law, +it is necessary to exclude all further importation from Africa." It was +therefore very commonly assumed when, after an interval of war which +suspended such reforms, Independence was achieved, that slavery was a +doomed institution. + +Those among the "fathers" whose names are best known in England, +Washington, John Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, and Hamilton, were +all opponents of slavery. These include the first four Presidents, and +the leaders of very different schools of thought. Some of them, +Washington and Jefferson at least, had a few slaves of their own. +Washington's attitude to his slaves is illustrated by a letter which he +wrote to secure the return of a black attendant of Mrs. Washington's who +had run away (a thing which he had boasted could never occur in his +household); the runaway was to be brought back if she could be persuaded +to return; her master's legal power to compel her was not to be used. +She was in fact free, but had foolishly left a good place; and there is +no reason to suppose that it was otherwise with Jefferson's slaves. +Jefferson's theory was vehemently against slavery. In old age he gave up +hope in the matter and was more solicitous for union than for liberty, +but this was after the disappointment of many efforts. In these efforts +he had no illusory notion of equality; he wrote in 1791, when he had been +defeated in the attempt to carry a measure of gradual emancipation in +Virginia: "Nobody wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you +exhibit, that Nature has given to our black brothers talents equal to +those of the other colours of men, and that the appearance of a want of +them is owing mainly to the degraded condition of their existence, both +in Africa and America. I can add with truth, that nobody wishes more +ardently to see a good system commenced for raising the condition both of +their body and mind to what it ought to be, as fast as the imbecility of +their present existence and other circumstances, which cannot be +neglected, will permit." + +When he felt at last that freedom was not making way, his letters, by +which his influence was chiefly exercised, abounded in passionate +regrets. "I tremble for my country," he wrote, "when I think of the +negro and remember that God is just." But if he is judged not by his +sentiments, or even by his efforts, but by what he accomplished, this +rhetorical champion of freedom did accomplish one great act, the first +link as it proved in the chain of events by which slavery was ultimately +abolished. In 1784 the North-West Territory, as it was called, was ceded +by Virginia to the old Congress of the days before the Union. Jefferson +then endeavoured to pass an Ordinance by which slavery should be excluded +from all territory that might ever belong to Congress. In this indeed he +failed, for in part of the territory likely to be acquired slavery was +already established, but the result was a famous Ordinance of 1787, by +which slavery was for ever excluded from the soil of the North-West +Territory itself, and thus, when they came into being, the States of +Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin found themselves +congenitally incapable of becoming slave States. + +The further achievements of that generation in this matter were +considerable. It must of course be understood that the holding of slaves +and the slave trade from Africa were regarded as two distinct questions. +The new Congress abolished the slave trade on the first day on which the +Constitution allowed it to do so, that is, on January 1, 1808. The +mother country abolished it just about the same time. But already all +but three of the States had for themselves abolished the slave trade in +their own borders. As to slavery itself, seven of the original thirteen +States and Vermont, the first of the added States, had abolished that +before 1805. These indeed were Northern States, where slavery was not of +importance, but in Virginia there was, or had been till lately, a growing +opinion that slavery was not economical, and, with the ignorance common +in one part of a country of the true conditions in another part, it was +natural to look upon emancipation as a policy which would spread of +itself. At any rate it is certain fact that the chief among the men who +had made the Constitution had at that time so regarded it, and continued +to do so. Under this belief and in the presence of many pressing +subjects of interest the early movement for emancipation in America died +down with its work half finished. + +But before this happy belief expired an economic event had happened which +riveted slavery upon the South. In 1793 Eli Whitney, a Yale student upon +a holiday in the South, invented the first machine for cleaning cotton of +its seeds. The export of cotton jumped from 192,000 lbs. in 1791 to +6,000,000 lbs. in 1795. Slave labour had been found, or was believed, to +be especially economical in cotton growing. Slavery therefore rapidly +became the mainstay of wealth and of the social system in South Carolina +and throughout the far South; and in a little while the baser sort of +planters in Virginia discovered that breeding slaves to sell down South +was a very profitable form of stock-raising. + +We may pass to the year 1820, when an enactment was passed by Congress +which for thirty-four years thereafter might be regarded as hardly less +fundamental than the Constitution itself. Up till then nine new States +had been added to the original thirteen. It was repugnant to principles +still strong in the North that these States should be admitted to the +Union with State Constitutions which permitted slavery. On the other +hand, it was for two reasons important to the chief slave States, that +they should be. They would otherwise be closed to Southern planters who +wished to migrate to unexhausted soil carrying with them the methods of +industry and the ways of life which they understood. Furthermore, the +North was bound to have before long a great preponderance of population, +and if this were not neutralised by keeping the number of States on one +side and the other equal there would be a future political danger to +slavery. Up to a certain point the North could with good conscience +yield to the South in this matter, for the soil of four of the new slave +States had been ceded to the Union by old slave States and slave-holders +had settled freely upon it; and in a fifth, Louisiana, slavery had been +safeguarded by the express stipulations of the treaty with France, which +applied to that portion, though no other, of the territory then ceded. +Naturally, then, it had happened, though without any definite agreement, +that for years past slave States and free States had been admitted to the +Union in pairs. Now arose the question of a further portion of the old +French territory, the present State of Missouri. A few slave-holders +with their slaves had in fact settled there, but no distinct claims on +behalf of slavery could be alleged. The Northern Senators and members of +Congress demanded therefore that the Constitution of Missouri should +provide for the gradual extinction of slavery there. Naturally there +arose a controversy which sounded to the aged Jefferson like "a fire-bell +in the night" and revealed for the first time to all America a deep rift +in the Union. The Representatives of the South eventually carried their +main point with the votes of several Northern men, known to history as +the "Dough-faces," who all lost their seats at the next election. +Missouri was admitted as a slave State, Maine about the same time as a +free State; and it was enacted that thereafter in the remainder of the +territory that had been bought from France slavery should be unlawful +north of latitude 36 degrees 30 minutes, while by tacit agreement +permitted south of it. + +This was the Missouri Compromise. The North regarded it at first as a +humiliation, but learnt to point to it later as a sort of Magna Carta for +the Northern territories. The adoption of it marks a point from which it +became for thirty-four years the express ambition of the principal +American statesmen and the tacit object, of every party manager to keep +the slavery question from ever becoming again a burning issue in +politics. The collapse of it in 1854 was to prove the decisive event in +the career of Abraham Lincoln, aged 11 when it was passed. + + +5. _Leaders, Parties, and Tendencies in Lincoln's Youth_. + +Just about the year 1830, when Lincoln started life in Illinois, several +distinct movements in national life began or culminated. They link +themselves with several famous names. + +The two leaders to whom, as a young politician, Lincoln owed some sort of +allegiance were Webster and Clay, and they continued throughout his long +political apprenticeship to be recognised in most of America as the great +men of their time. Daniel Webster must have been nearly a great man. He +was always passed over for the Presidency. That was not so much because +of the private failings which marked his robust and generous character, +as because in days of artificial party issues, when vital questions are +dealt with by mere compromise, high office seems to belong of right to +men of less originality. If he was never quite so great as all America +took him to be, it was not for want of brains or of honesty, but because +his consuming passion for the Union at all costs led him into the path of +least apparent risk to it. Twice as Secretary of State (that is, +chiefly, Foreign Minister) he showed himself a statesman, but above all +he was an orator and one of those rare orators who accomplish a definite +task by their oratory. In his style he carried on the tradition of +English Parliamentary speaking, and developed its vices yet further; but +the massive force of argument behind gave him his real power. That power +he devoted to the education of the people in a feeling for the nation and +for its greatness. As an advocate he had appeared in great cases in the +Supreme Court. John Marshall, the Chief Justice from 1801 to 1835, +brought a great legal mind of the higher type to the settlement of +doubtful points in the Constitution, and his statesmanlike judgments did +much both to strengthen the United States Government and to gain public +confidence for it. It was a memorable work, for the power of the Union +Government, under its new Constitution, lay in the grip of the Courts. +The pleading of the young Webster contributed much to this. Later on +Webster, and a school of followers, of whom perhaps we may take "our +Elijah Pogram" to have been one, used ceremonial occasions, on which +Englishmen only suffer the speakers, for the purpose of inculcating their +patriotic doctrine, and Webster at least was doing good. His greatest +speech, upon an occasion to which we shall shortly come, was itself an +event. Lincoln found in it as inspiring a political treatise as many +Englishmen have discovered in the speeches and writings of Burke. + +Henry Clay was a slighter but more attractive person. He was apparently +the first American public man whom his countrymen styled "magnetic," but +a sort of scheming instability caused him after one or two trials to be +set down as an "impossible" candidate for the Presidency. As a dashing +young man from the West he had the chief hand in forcing on the second +war with Great Britain, from 1812 to 1814, which arose out of perhaps +insufficient causes and ended in no clear result, but which, it is +probable, marked a stage in the growth of loyalty to America. As an +older man he was famed as an "architect of compromises," for though he +strove for emancipation in his own State, Kentucky, and dreamed of a +great scheme for colonising the slaves in Africa, he was supremely +anxious to avert collision between North and South, and in this respect +was typical of his generation. But about 1830 he was chiefly known as +the apostle of what was called the "American policy." This was a policy +which aimed at using the powers of the national Government for the +development of the boundless resources of the country. Its methods +comprised a national banking system, the use of the money of the Union on +great public works, and a protective tariff, which it was hoped might +chiefly operate to encourage promising but "infant" industries and to tax +the luxuries of the rich. Whatever may have been the merits of this +policy, which made some commotion for a few years, we can easily +understand that it appealed to the imagination of young Lincoln at a time +of keen political energy on his part of which we have but meagre details. + +A third celebrity of this period, in his own locality a still more +powerful man, was John Caldwell Calhoun, of South Carolina. He enjoyed +beyond all his contemporaries the fame of an intellectual person. +Lincoln conceded high admiration to his concise and penetrating phrases. +An Englishwoman, Harriet Martineau, who knew him, has described him as +"embodied intellect." He had undoubtedly in full measure those negative +tides to respect which have gone far in America to ensure praise from the +public and the historians; for he was correct and austere, and, which is +more, kindly among his family and his slaves. He is credited, too, with +an observance of high principle in public life, which it might be +difficult to illustrate from his recorded actions. But the +warmer-blooded Andrew Jackson set him down as "heartless, selfish, and a +physical coward," and Jackson could speak generously of an opponent whom +he really knew. His intellect must have been powerful enough, but it was +that of a man who delights in arguing, and delights in elaborate +deductions from principles which he is too proud to revise; a man, too, +who is fearless in accepting conclusions which startle or repel the +vulgar mind; who is undisturbed in his logical processes by good sense, +healthy sentiment, or any vigorous appetite for truth. Such men have +disciples who reap the disgrace which their masters are apt somehow to +avoid; they give the prestige of wisdom and high thought to causes which +could not otherwise earn them. A Northern soldier came back wounded in +1865 and described to the next soldier in the hospital Calhoun's monument +at Charleston. The other said: "What you saw is not the real monument, +but I have seen it. It is the desolated, ruined South. . . . That is +Calhoun's real monument." + +This man was a Radical, and known as the successor of Jefferson, but his +Radicalism showed itself in drawing inspiration solely from the popular +catchwords of his own locality. He adored the Union, but it was to be a +Union directed by distinguished politicians from the South in a sectional +Southern interest. He did not originate, but he secured the strength of +orthodoxy and fashion to a tone of sentiment and opinion which for a +generation held undisputed supremacy in the heart of the South. +Americans might have seemed at this time to be united in a curiously +exultant national self-consciousness, but though there was no sharp +division of sections, the boasted glory of the one America meant to many +planters in the South the glory of their own settled and free life with +their dignified equals round them and their often contented dependents +under them. Plain men among them doubtless took things as they were, +and, without any particular wish to change them, did not pretend they +were perfect. But it is evident that in a widening circle of clever +young men in the South the claim of some peculiar virtue for Southern +institutions became habitual in the first half of the nineteenth century. +Their way of life was beautiful in their eyes. It rested upon slavery. +Therefore slavery was a good thing. It was wicked even to criticise it, +and it was weak to apologise for it or to pretend that it needed +reformation. It was easy and it became apparently universal for the +different Churches of the South to prostitute the Word of God in this +cause. Later on crude notions of evolution began to get about in a few +circles of advanced thought, and these lent themselves as easily to the +same purpose. Loose, floating thoughts of this kind might have mattered +little. Calhoun, as the recognised wise man of the old South, +concentrated them and fastened them upon its people as a creed. +Glorification of "our institution at the South" became the main principle +of Southern politicians, and any conception that there may ever have been +of a task for constructive statesmanship, in solving the negro problem, +passed into oblivion under the influence of his revered reasoning faculty. + +But, of his dark and dangerous sort, Calhoun was an able man. He foresaw +early that the best weapon of the common interest of the slave States lay +in the rights which might be claimed for each individual State against +the Union. The idea that a discontented State might secede from the +Union was not novel--it had been mooted in New England, during the last +war against Great Britain, and, curiously enough, among the rump of the +old Federalist party, but it was generally discounted. Calhoun first +brought it into prominence, veiled in an elaborate form which some +previous South Carolinian had devised. The occasion had nothing to do +with slavery. It concerned Free Trade, a very respectable issue, but so +clearly a minor issue that to break up a great country upon it would have +gone beyond the limit of solemn frivolity, and Calhoun must be taken to +have been forging an implement with which his own section of the States +could claim and extort concessions from the Union. A protective tariff +had been passed in 1828. The Southern States, which would have to pay +the protective duties but did not profit by them, disliked it. Calhoun +and others took the intelligible but too refined point, that the powers +of Congress under the Constitution authorised a tariff for revenue but +not a tariff for a protective purpose. Every State, Calhoun declared, +must have the Constitutional right to protect itself against an Act of +Congress which it deemed unconstitutional. Let such a State, in special +Convention, "nullify" the Act of Congress. Let Congress then, unless it +compromised the matter, submit its Act to the people in the form of an +Amendment to the Constitution. It would then require a three-fourths +majority of all the States to pass the obnoxious Act. Last but not +least, if the Act was passed, the protesting State had, Calhoun claimed, +the right to secede from the Union. + +Controversy over this tariff raged for fully four years, and had a +memorable issue. In the course of 1830 the doctrine of "nullification" +and "secession" was discussed in the Senate, and the view of Calhoun was +expounded by one Senator Hayne. Webster answered him in a speech which +he meant should become a popular classic, and which did become so. He +set forth his own doctrine of the Union and appealed to national against +State loyalty in the most influential oration that was perhaps ever made. +"His utterance," writes President Wilson, "sent a thrill through all the +East and North which was unmistakably a thrill of triumph. Men were glad +because of what he had said. He had touched the national +self-consciousness, awakened it, and pleased it with a morning vision of +its great tasks and certain destiny." Later there came in the President, +the redoubtable Andrew Jackson, the most memorable President between +Jefferson and Lincoln. He said very little--only, on Jefferson's +birthday he gave the toast, "Our Federal Union; it must be preserved." +But when in 1832, in spite of concessions by Congress, a Convention was +summoned in South Carolina to "nullify" the tariff, he issued the +appropriate orders to the United States Army, in case such action was +carried out, and it is understood that he sent Calhoun private word that +he would be the first man to be hanged for treason. Nullification +quietly collapsed. The North was thrilled still more than by Webster's +oratory, and as not a single other State showed signs of backing South +Carolina, it became thenceforth the fixed belief of the North that the +Union was recognised as in law indissoluble, as Webster contended it was. +None the less the idea of secession had been planted, and planted in a +fertile soil. + +General Andrew Jackson, whose other great achievements must now be told, +was not an intellectual person, but his ferocious and, in the literal +sense, shocking character is refreshing to the student of this period. +He had been in his day the typical product of the West--a far wilder West +than that from which Lincoln later came. Originally a lawyer, he had won +martial fame in fights with Indians and in the celebrated victory over +the British forces at New Orleans. He was a sincere Puritan; and he had +a courtly dignity of manner; but he was of arbitrary and passionate +temper, and he was a sanguinary duellist. His most savage duels, it +should be added, concerned the honour of a lady whom he married +chivalrously, and loved devotedly to the end. The case that can be made +for his many arbitrary acts shows them in some instances to have been +justifiable, and shows him in general to have been honest. + +When in 1824 Jackson had expected to become President, and, owing to +proceedings which do not now matter, John Quincy Adams, son of a former +President, and himself a remarkable man, was made President instead of +him, Jackson resolved to overthrow the ruling class of Virginian country +gentlemen and Boston city magnates which seemed to him to control +Government, and to call into life a real democracy. To this end he +created a new party, against which of course an opposition party arose. + +Neither of the new parties was in any sense either aristocratic or +democratic. "The Democracy," or Democratic party, has continued in +existence ever since, and through most of Lincoln's life ruled America. +In trying to fix the character of a party in a foreign country we cannot +hope to be exact in our portraiture. At the first start, however, this +party was engaged in combating certain tendencies to Government +interference in business. It was more especially hostile to a National +Bank, which Jackson himself regarded as a most dangerous form of alliance +between the administration and the richest class. Of the growth of what +may be called the money power in American politics he had an intense, +indeed prophetic, dread. Martin Van Buren, his friend and successor, +whatever else he may have been, was a sound economist of what is now +called the old school, and on a financial issue he did what few men in +his office have done, he deliberately sacrificed his popularity to his +principles. Beyond this the party was and has continued prone, in a +manner which we had better not too clearly define, to insist upon the +restrictions of the Constitution, whether in the interest of individual +liberty or of State rights. This tendency was disguised at the first by +the arbitrary action of Jackson's own proceedings, for Jackson alone +among Presidents displayed the sentiments of what may be called a popular +despot. Its insistence upon State rights, aided perhaps by its dislike +of Protection, attracted to it the leading politicians of the South, who +in the main dominated its counsels, though later on they liked to do it +through Northern instruments. But it must not in the least be imagined +that either party was Northern or Southern; for there were many Whigs in +the South, and very many Democrats in the North. Moreover, it should be +clearly grasped, though it is hard, that among Northern Democrats +insistence on State rights did not involve the faintest leaning towards +the doctrine of secession; on the contrary a typical Democrat would +believe that these limitations to the power of the Union were the very +things that gave it endurance and strength. Slavery, moreover, had +friends and foes in both parties. If we boldly attempted to define the +prevailing tone of the Democrats we might say that, while they and their +opponents expressed loyalty to the Union and the Constitution, the +Democrats would be prone to lay the emphasis upon the Constitution. +Whatever might be the case with an average Whig, a man like Lincoln would +be stirred in his heart by the general spirit of the country's +institutions, while the typical Democrat of that time would dwell +affectionately on the legal instruments and formal maxims in which that +spirit was embodied. + +Of the Whigs it is a little harder to speak definitely, nor is it very +necessary, for in two only out of seven Presidential elections did they +elect their candidate, and in each case that candidate then died, and in +1854 they perished as a party utterly and for ever. Just for a time they +were identified with the "American policy" of Clay. When that passed out +of favour they never really attempted to formulate any platform, or to +take permanently any very definite stand. They nevertheless had the +adherence of the ablest men of the country, and, as an opposition party +to a party in power which furnished much ground for criticism, they +possessed an attraction for generous youth. + +The Democrats at once, and the Whigs not long after them, created +elaborate party machines, on the need of which Jackson insisted as the +only means of really giving influence to the common people. The +prevailing system and habit of local self-government made such +organisation easy. Men of one party in a township or in a county +assembled, formulated their opinions, and sent delegates with +instructions, more or less precise, to party conventions for larger +areas, these would send delegates to the State Convention and these in +turn to the National Convention of the Party. The party candidates for +the Presidency, as well as for all other elective positions, were and are +thus chosen, and the party "platform" or declaration of policy was and is +thus formulated. Such machinery, which in England is likely always to +play a less important part, has acquired an evil name. At the best there +has always been a risk that a "platform" designed to detach voters from +the opposite party will be an insincere and eviscerated document, by +which active public opinion is rather muzzled than expressed. There has +been a risk too that the "available" candidate should be some blameless +nonentity, to whom no one objects, and whom therefore no one really +wants. But it must be observed that the rapidity with which such +organisation was taken up betokened the prevalence of a widespread and +keen interest in political affairs. + +The days of really great moneyed interests and of corruption of the +gravest sort were as yet far distant, but one demoralising influence was +imposed upon the new party system by its author at its birth. Jackson, +in his perpetual fury, believed that office holders under the more or +less imaginary ruling clique that had held sway were a corrupt gang, and +he began to turn them out. He was encouraged to extend to the whole +country a system which had prevailed in New York and with which Van Buren +was too familiar. "To the victors belong the spoils," exclaimed a +certain respectable Mr. Marcy. A wholesale dismissal of office holders +large and small, and replacement of them by sound Democrats, soon took +place. Once started, the "spoils system" could hardly be stopped. +Thenceforward there was a standing danger that the party machine would be +in the hands of a crew of jobbers and dingy hunters after petty offices. +England, of course, has had and now has practices theoretically as +indefensible, but none possessing any such sinister importance. It is +hard, therefore, for us to conceive how little of really vicious intent +was necessary to set this disastrous influence going. There was no +trained Civil Service with its unpartisan traditions. In the case of +offices corresponding to those of our permanent heads of departments it +seemed reasonable that the official should, like his chief the Minister +concerned, be a person in harmony with the President. As to the smaller +offices--the thousands of village postmasterships and so forth--one man +was likely to do the work as well as another; the dispossessed official +could, in the then condition of the country, easily find another equally +lucrative employment; "turn and turn about" seemed to be the rule of fair +play. + +There were now few genuine issues in politics. Compromise on vital +questions was understood to be the highest statesmanship. The +Constitution itself, with its curious system of checks and balances, +rendered it difficult to bring anything to pass. Added to this was a +party system with obvious natural weaknesses, infected from the first +with a dangerous malady. The political life, which lay on the surface of +the national life of America, thus began to assume an air of futility, +and, it must be added, of squalor. Only, Englishmen, recollecting the +feebleness and corruption which marked their aristocratic government +through a great part of the eighteenth century, must not enlarge their +phylacteries at the expense of American democracy. And it is yet more +important to remember that the fittest machinery for popular government, +the machinery through which the real judgment of the people will prevail, +can only by degrees and after many failures be devised. Popular +government was then young, and it is young still. + +So much for the great world of politics in those days. But in or about +1830 a Quaker named Lundy had, as Quakers used to say, "a concern" to +walk 125 miles through the snow of a New England winter and speak his +mind to William Lloyd Garrison. Garrison was a poor man who, like +Franklin, had raised himself as a working printer, and was now occupied +in philanthropy. Stirred up by Lundy, he succeeded after many painful +experiences, in gaol and among mobs, in publishing in Boston on January +1, 1831, the first number of the Liberator. In it he said: "I shall +strenuously contend for the immediate enfranchisement of our slave +population. I will be as hard as truth and as uncompromising as justice. +I will not equivocate; I will not excuse; I will not retreat a single +inch; and I will be heard." This was the beginning of the new +Abolitionist movement. The Abolitionists, in the main, were +impracticable people; Garrison in the end proved otherwise. Under the +existing Constitution, they had nothing to propose but that the free +States should withdraw from "their covenant with death and agreement with +hell"--in other words, from the Union,--whereby they would not have +liberated one slave. They included possibly too many of that sort who +would seek salvation by repenting of other men's sins. But even these +did not indulge this propensity at their ease, for by this time the +politicians, the polite world, the mass of the people, the churches (even +in Boston), not merely avoided the dangerous topic; they angrily +proscribed it. The Abolitionists took their lives in their hands, and +sometimes lost them. Only two men of standing helped them: Channing, the +great preacher, who sacrificed thereby a fashionable congregation; and +Adams, the sour, upright, able ex-President, the only ex-President who +ever made for himself an after-career in Congress. In 1852 a still more +potent ally came to their help, a poor lady, Mrs. Beecher Stowe, who in +that year published "Uncle Tom's Cabin," often said to have influenced +opinion more than any other book of modern times. Broadly speaking, they +accomplished two things. If they did not gain love in quarters where +they might have looked for it, they gained the very valuable hatred of +their enemies; for they goaded Southern politicians to fury and madness, +of which the first symptom was their effort to suppress Abolitionist +petitions to Congress. But above all they educated in their labour of +thirty years a school of opinion, not entirely in agreement with them but +ready one day to revolt with decision from continued complicity in wrong. + + +6. _Slavery and Southern Society_. + +In the midst of this growing America, a portion, by no means sharply +marked off, and accustomed to the end to think itself intensely American, +was distinguished by a peculiar institution. What was the character of +that institution as it presented itself in 1830 and onwards? + +Granting, as many slave holders did, though their leaders always denied +it, that slavery originated in foul wrongs and rested legally upon a vile +principle, what did it look like in its practical working? Most of us +have received from two different sources two broad but vivid general +impressions on this subject, which seem hard to reconcile but which are +both in the main true. On the one hand, a visitor from England or the +North, coming on a visit to the South, or in earlier days to the British +West Indies, expecting perhaps to see all the horror of slavery at a +glance, would be, as a young British officer once wrote home, "most +agreeably undeceived as to the situation of these poor people." He would +discern at once that a Southern gentleman had no more notion of using his +legal privilege to be cruel to his slave than he himself had of +overdriving his old horse. He might easily on the contrary find quite +ordinary slave owners who had a very decided sense of responsibility in +regard to their human chattels. Around his host's house, where the +owner's children, petted by a black nurse, played with the little black +children or with some beloved old negro, he might see that pretty aspect +of "our institution at the South," which undoubtedly created in many +young Southerners as they grew up a certain amount of genuine sentiment +in favour of slavery. Riding wider afield he might be struck, as General +Sherman was, with the contentment of the negroes whom he met on the +plantations. On enquiry he would learn that the slave in old age was +sure of food and shelter and free from work, and that as he approached +old age his task was systematically diminished. As to excessive toil at +any time of life, he would perhaps conclude that it was no easy thing to +drive a gang of Africans really hard. He would be assured, quite +incorrectly, that the slave's food and comfort generally were greater +than those of factory workers in the North, and, perhaps only too truly, +that his privations were less than those of the English agricultural +labourer at that time. A wide and careful survey of the subject was made +by Frederick Law Olmsted, a New York farmer, who wrote what but for their +gloomy subject would be among the best books of travel. He presents to +us the picture of a prevailingly sullen, sapless, brutish life, but +certainly not of acute misery or habitual oppression. A Southerner old +enough to remember slavery would probably not question the accuracy of +his details, but would insist, very likely with truth, that there was +more human happiness there than an investigator on such a quest would +readily discover. Even on large plantations in the extreme South, where +the owner only lived part of the year, and most things had to be left to +an almost always unsatisfactory overseer, the verdict of the observer was +apt to be "not so bad as I expected." + +On the other hand, many of us know Longfellow's grim poem of the Hunted +Negro. It is a true picture of the life led in the Dismal Swamps of +Virginia by numbers of skulking fugitives, till the industry of +negro-hunting, conducted with hounds of considerable value, ultimately +made their lairs untenable. The scenes in the auction room where, +perhaps on the death or failure of their owner, husbands and wives, +parents and children, were constantly being severed, and negresses were +habitually puffed as brood mares; the gentleman who had lately sold his +half-brother, to be sent far south, because he was impudent; the devilish +cruelty with which almost the only recorded slave insurrection was +stamped out; the chase and capture and return in fetters of slaves who +had escaped north, or, it might be, of free negroes in their place; the +advertisements for such runaways, which Dickens collected, and which +described each by his scars or mutilations; the systematic slave +breeding, for the supply of the cotton States, which had become a staple +industry of the once glorious Virginia; the demand arising for the +restoration of the African slave trade--all these were realities. The +Southern people, in the phrase of President Wilson, "knew that their +lives were honourable, their relations with their slaves humane, their +responsibility for the existence of slavery amongst them remote"; they +burned with indignation when the whole South was held responsible for the +occasional abuses of slavery. But the harsh philanthropist, who +denounced them indiscriminately, merely dwelt on those aspects of slavery +which came to his knowledge or which he actually saw on the border line. +And the occasional abuses, however occasional, were made by the +deliberate choice of Southern statesmanship an essential part of the +institution. Honourable and humane men in the South scorned exceedingly +the slave hunter and the slave dealer. A candid slave owner, discussing +"Uncle Tom's Cabin," found one detail flagrantly unfair; the ruined +master would have had to sell his slaves to the brute, Legree, but for +the world he would not have shaken hands with him. "Your children," +exclaimed Lincoln, "may play with the little black children, but they +must not play with his"--the slave dealer's, or the slave driver's, or +the slave hunter's. By that fact alone, as he bitingly but unanswerably +insisted, the whole decent society of the South condemned the foundation +on which it rested. + +It is needless to discuss just how dark or how fair American slavery in +its working should be painted. The moderate conclusions which are quite +sufficient for our purpose are uncontested. First, this much must +certainly be conceded to those who would defend the slave system, that in +the case of the average slave it was very doubtful whether his happiness +(apart from that of future generations) could be increased by suddenly +turning him into a free man working for a wage; justice would certainly +have demanded that the change should be accompanied by other provisions +for his benefit. But, secondly, on the refractory negro, more vicious, +or sometimes, one may suspect, more manly than his fellows, the system +was likely to act barbarously. Thirdly, every slave family was exposed +to the risk, on such occasions as the death or great impoverishment of +its owner, of being ruthlessly torn asunder, and the fact that negroes +often rebounded or seemed to rebound from sorrows of this sort with +surprising levity does not much lessen the horror of it. Fourthly, it is +inherent in slavery that its burden should be most felt precisely by the +best minds and strongest characters among the slaves. And, though the +capacity of the negroes for advancement could not then and cannot yet be +truly measured, yet it existed, and the policy of the South shut the door +upon it. Lastly, the system abounded in brutalising influences upon a +large number of white people who were accessory to it, and notoriously it +degraded the poor or "mean whites," for whom it left no industrial +opening, and among whom it caused work to be despised. + +There is thus no escape from Lincoln's judgment: "If slavery is not +wrong, nothing is wrong." It does not follow that the way to right the +wrong was simple, or that instant and unmitigated emancipation was the +best way. But it does follow that, failing this, it was for the +statesmen of the South to devise a policy by which the most flagrant +evils should be stopped, and, however cautiously and experimentally, the +raising of the status of the slave should be proceeded with. It does not +follow that the people who, on one pretext or another, shut their eyes to +the evil of the system, while they tried to keep their personal dealing +humane, can be sweepingly condemned by any man. But it does follow that +a deliberate and sustained policy which, neglecting all reform, strove at +all costs to perpetuate the system and extend it to wider regions, was as +criminal a policy as ever lay at the door of any statesmen. And this, in +fact, became the policy of the South. + +"The South" meant, for political purposes, the owners of land and slaves +in the greater part of the States in which slavery was lawful. The poor +whites never acquired the political importance of the working classes in +the North, and count for little in the story. Some of the more northerly +slave States partook in a greater degree of the conditions and ideas of +the North and were doubtfully to be reckoned with the South. Moreover, +there is a tract of mountainous country, lying between the Atlantic +sea-board and the basin of the Mississippi and extending southwards to +the borders of Georgia and Alabama, of which the very vigorous and +independent inhabitants were and are in many ways a people apart, often +cherishing to this day family feuds which are prosecuted in the true +spirit of the Icelandic Sagas. + +The South, excluding these districts, was predominantly Democratic in +politics, and its leaders owed some allegiance to the tradition of +Radicals like Jefferson. But it was none the less proud of its +aristocracy and of the permeating influence of aristocratic manners and +traditions. A very large number of Southerners felt themselves to be +ladies and gentlemen, and felt further that there were few or none like +them among the "Yankee" traders of the North. A claim of that sort is +likely to be aggressively made by those who have least title to make it, +and, as strife between North and South grew hotter, the gentility of the +latter infected with additional vulgarity the political controversy of +private life and even of Congress. But, as observant Northerners were +quite aware, these pretensions had a foundation of fact. An Englishman, +then or now, in chance meetings with Americans of either section, would +at once be aware of something indefinable in their bearing to which he +was a stranger; but in the case of the Southerner the strangeness would +often have a positive charm, such as may be found also among people of +the Old World under southern latitudes and relatively primitive +conditions. Newly-gotten and ill-carried wealth was in those days (Mr. +Olmsted, of New York State, assures us) as offensive in the more recently +developed and more prosperous parts of the South as in New York City +itself; and throughout the South sound instruction and intellectual +activity were markedly lacking--indeed, there is no serious Southern +literature by which we can check these impressions of his. Comparing the +masses of moderately well-to-do and educated people with whom he +associated in the North and in the South, he finds them both free from +the peculiar vulgarity which, we may be pained to know, he had discovered +among us in England; he finds honesty and dishonesty in serious matters +of conduct as prevalent in one section as in the other; he finds the +Northerner better taught and more alert in mind; but he ascribes to him +an objectionable quality of "smartness," a determination to show you that +he is a stirring and pushing fellow, from which the Southerner is wholly +free; and he finds that the Southerner has derived from home influences +and from boarding schools in which the influence of many similar homes is +concentrated, not indeed any great refinement, but a manner which is +"more true, more quiet, more modestly self-assured, more dignified." This +advantage, we are to understand, is diffused over a comparatively larger +class than in England. Beyond this he discerns in a few parts of the +South and notably in South Carolina a somewhat inaccessible, select +society, of which the nucleus is formed by a few (incredibly few) old +Colonial families which have not gone under, and which altogether is so +small that some old gentlewomen can enumerate all the members of it. Few +as they are, these form "unquestionably a wealthy and remarkably +generous, refined, and accomplished first class, clinging with some +pertinacity, although with too evident an effort, to the traditional +manners and customs of an established gentry." + +No doubt the sense of high breeding, which was common in the South, went +beyond mere manners; it played its part in making the struggle of the +Southern population, including the "mean whites," in the Civil War one of +the most heroic, if one of the most mistaken, in which a whole population +has ever been engaged; it went along with integrity and a high average of +governing capacity among public men; and it fitted the gentry of the +South to contribute, when they should choose, an element of great value +to the common life of America. As it was, the South suffered to the full +the political degeneration which threatens every powerful class which, +with a distinct class interest of its own, is secluded from real contact +with competing classes with other interests and other ideas. It is not +to be assumed that all individual Southerners liked the policy which they +learnt to support in docile masses. But their very qualities of loyalty +made them the more ready, under accepted and respected leaders, to adopt +political aims and methods which no man now recalls without regret. + +The connection between slavery and politics was this; as population +slowly grew in the South, and as the land in the older States became to +some extent exhausted, the desire for fresh territory in which +cultivation by slaves could flourish became stronger and stronger. This +was the reason for which the South became increasingly aware of a +sectional interest in politics. In all other respects the community of +public interests, of business dealings, and of general intercourse was as +great between North and South as between East and West. It is certain +that throughout the South, with the doubtful exception of South Carolina, +political instinct and patriotic pride would have made the idea of +separation intolerable upon any ground except that of slavery. In regard +to this matter of dispute a peculiar phenomenon is to be observed. The +quarrel grew not out of any steady opposition between North and South, +but out of the habitual domination of the country by the South and the +long-continued submission of the North to that domination. + +For the North had its full share of blame for the long course of +proceedings which prepared the coming tragedy, and the most impassioned +writers on the side of the Union during the Civil War have put that blame +highest. The South became arrogant and wrong-headed, and no defence is +possible for the chief acts of Southern policy which will be recorded +later; but the North was abject. To its own best sons it seemed to have +lost both its conscience and its manhood, and to be stifled in the coils +of its own miserable political apparatus. Certainly the prevailing +attitude of the Northern to the Southern politicians was that of +truckling. And Southerners who went to Washington had a further reason +for acquiring a fatal sense of superiority to the North. The tradition +of popular government which maintained itself in the South caused men who +were respected, in private life, and were up to a point capable leaders, +who were, in short, representative, to be sent to Congress and to be kept +there. The childish perversion of popular government which took hold of +the newer and more unsettled population in the North led them to send to +Congress an ever-changing succession of unmeritable and sometimes shady +people. The eventual stirring of the mind of the North which so closely +concerns this biography was a thing hard to bring about, and to the South +it brought a great shock of surprise. + + +7. _Intellectual Development_. + +No survey of the political movements of this period should conclude +without directing attention to something more important, which cannot be +examined here. In the years from 1830 till some time after the death of +Lincoln, America made those contributions to the literature of our common +language which, though neither her first nor her last, seemed likely to +be most permanently valued. The learning and literature of America at +that time centred round Boston and Harvard University in the adjacent +city of Cambridge, and no invidious comparison is intended or will be +felt if they, with their poets and historians and men of letters at that +time, with their peculiar atmosphere, instinct then and now with a life +athletic, learned, business-like and religious, are taken to show the +dawning capacities of the new nation. No places in the United States +exhibit more visibly the kinship of America with England, yet in none +certainly can a stranger see more readily that America is independent of +the Old World in something more than politics. Many of their streets and +buildings would in England seem redolent of the past, yet no cities of +the Eastern States played so large a part in the development, material +and mental, of the raw and vigorous West. The limitations of their +greatest writers are in a manner the sign of their achievement. It would +have been contrary to all human analogy if a country, in such an early +stage of creation out of such a chaos, had put forth books marked +strongly as its own and yet as the products of a mature national mind. +It would also have been surprising if since the Civil War the rush of +still more appalling and more complex practical problems had not +obstructed for a while the flow of imaginative or scientific production. +But the growth of those relatively early years was great. Boston had +been the home of a loveless Christianity; its insurrection in the War of +Independence had been soiled by shifty dealing and mere acidity; but +Boston from the days of Emerson to those of Phillips Brooks radiated a +temper and a mental force that was manly, tender, and clean. The man +among these writers about whose exact rank, neither low nor very high +among poets, there can be least dispute was Longfellow. He might seem +from his favourite subjects to be hardly American; it was his +deliberately chosen task to bring to the new country some savour of +things gentle and mellow caught from the literature of Europe. But, in +the first place, no writer could in the detail of his work have been more +racy of that New England countryside which lay round his home; and, in +the second place, no writer could have spoken more unerringly to the ear +of the whole wide America of which his home was a little part. It seems +strange to couple the name of this mild and scholarly man with the +thought of that crude Western world to which we must in a moment pass. +But the connection is real and vital. It is well shown in the +appreciation written of him and his fellows by the American writer who +most violently contrasts with him, Walt Whitman. + +A student of American history may feel something like the experience +which is common among travellers in America. When they come home they +cannot tell their friends what really interested them. Ugly things and +very dull things are prominent in their story, as in the tales of +American humorists. The general impression they convey is of something +tiresomely extensive, distractingly miscellaneous, and yet insufferably +monotonous. But that is not what they mean. They had better not seek to +express themselves by too definite instances. They will be understood +and believed when they say that to them America, with its vast spaces +from ocean to ocean, does present itself as one country, not less worthy +than any other of the love which it has actually inspired; a country +which is the home of distinctive types of manhood and womanhood, bringing +their own addition to the varying forms in which kindness and courage and +truth make themselves admirable to mankind. The soul of a single people +seems to be somewhere present in that great mass, no less than in some +tiny city State of antiquity. Only it has to struggle, submerged +evermore by a flood of newcomers, and defeated evermore by difficulties +quite unlike those of other lands; and it struggles seemingly with +undaunted and with rational hope. + +Americans are fond of discussing Americanism. Very often they select as +a pattern of it Abraham Lincoln, the man who kept the North together but +has been pronounced to have been a Southerner in his inherited character. +Whether he was so typical or not, it is the central fact of this +biography that no man ever pondered more deeply in his own way, or +answered more firmly the question whether there was indeed an American +nationality worth preserving. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +LINCOLN'S EARLY CAREER + +1. _Life at New Salem_. + +From this talk of large political movements we have to recall ourselves +to a young labouring man with hardly any schooling, naturally and +incurably uncouth, but with a curious, quite modest, impulse to assert +a kindly ascendency over the companions whom chance threw in his way, +and with something of the gift, which odd, shy people often possess, +for using their very oddity as a weapon in their struggles. In the +conditions of real equality which still prevailed in a newly settled +country it is not wonderful that he made his way into political life +when he was twenty-five, but it was not till twenty years later that he +played an important part in events of enduring significance. + +Thus the many years of public activity with which we are concerned in +this and the following chapter belong rather to his apprenticeship than +to his life's work; and this apprenticeship at first sight contrasts +more strongly with his fame afterwards than does his boyhood of poverty +and comparatively romantic hardship. For many poor boys have lived to +make a great mark on history, but as a rule they have entered early on +a life either of learning or of adventure or of large business. But +the affairs in which Lincoln early became immersed have an air of +pettiness, and from the point of view of most educated men and women in +the Eastern States or in Europe, many of the associates and competitors +of his early manhood, to whom he had to look up as his superiors in +knowledge, would certainly have seemed crude people with a narrow +horizon. Indeed, till he was called upon to take supreme control of +very great matters, Lincoln must have had singularly little intercourse +either with men versed in great affairs or with men of approved +intellectual distinction. But a mind too original to be subdued to its +surroundings found much that was stimulating in this time when Illinois +was beginning rapidly to fill up. There were plenty of men with shrewd +wits and robust character to be met with, and the mental atmosphere +which surrounded him was one of keen interest in life. Lincoln +eventually stands out as a surprising figure from among the other +lawyers and little politicians of Illinois, as any great man does from +any crowd, but some tribute is due to the undistinguished and +historically uninteresting men whose generous appreciation gave rapid +way to the poor, queer youth, and ultimately pushed him into a greater +arena as their selected champion. + +In 1831, at the age of twenty-two, Lincoln, returning from his New +Orleans voyage, settled in New Salem to await the arrival of his +patron, Denton Offutt, with the goods for a new store in which Lincoln +was to be his assistant. The village itself was three years old. It +never got much beyond a population of one hundred, and like many +similar little towns of the West it has long since perished off the +earth. But it was a busy place for a while, and, contrary to what its +name might suggest, it aspired to be rather fast. It was a +cock-fighting and whisky-drinking society into which Lincoln was +launched. He managed to combine strict abstinence from liquor with +keen participation in all its other diversions. One departure from +total abstinence stands alleged among the feats of strength for which +he became noted. He hoisted a whisky barrel, of unspecified but +evidently considerable content, on to his knees in a squatting posture +and drank from the bunghole. But this very arduous potation stood +alone. Offutt was some time before he arrived with his goods, and +Lincoln lived by odd jobs. At the very beginning one Mentor Graham, a +schoolmaster officiating in some election, employed him as a clerk, and +the clerk seized the occasion to make himself well known to New Salem +as a story-teller. Then there was a heavy job at rail-splitting, and +another job in navigating the Sangamon River. Offutt's store was at +last set up, and for about a year the assistant in this important +establishment had valuable opportunities of conversation with all New +Salem. He had also leisure for study. He had mentioned to the +aforesaid Mentor Graham his "notion to study English grammar," and had +been introduced to a work called "Kirkham's Grammar," which by a walk +of some miles he could borrow from a neighbour. This he would read, +lying full length on the counter with his head on a parcel of calico. +At other odd times he would work away at arithmetic. Offutt's kindly +interest procured him distinction in another field. At Clary's Grove, +near New Salem, lived a formidable set of young ruffians, over whose +somewhat disguised chivalry of temper the staid historian of Lincoln's +youth becomes rapturous. They were given to wrecking the store of any +New Salem tradesman who offended them; so it shows some spirit in Mr. +Denton Offutt that he backed his Abraham Lincoln to beat their Jack +Armstrong in a wrestling match. He did beat him; moreover, some charm +in the way he bore himself made him thenceforth not hated but beloved +of Clary's Grove in general, and the Armstrongs in particular. Hannah +Armstrong, Jack's wife, thereafter mended and patched his clothes for +him, and, years later, he had the satisfaction, as their unfeed +advocate, of securing the acquittal of their son from a charge of +murder, of which there is some reason to hope he may not have been +guilty. It is, by the way, a relief to tell that there once was a +noted wrestling match in which Lincoln was beaten; it is characteristic +of the country that his friends were sure there was foul play, and +characteristic of him that he indignantly denied it. + +Within a year Offutt's store, in the phrase of the time, "petered out," +leaving Lincoln shiftless. But the victor of Clary's Grove, with his +added mastery of "Kirkham's Grammar," was now ripe for public life. +Moreover, his experience as a waterman gave him ideas on the question, +which then agitated his neighbours, whether the Sangamon River could be +made navigable. He had a scheme of his own for doing this; and in the +spring of 1832 he wrote to the local paper a boyish but modest and +sensible statement of his views and ambitions, announcing that he would +be a candidate in the autumn elections for the State Legislature. + +Meanwhile he had his one experience of soldiering. The Indian chief, +Black Hawk, who had agreed to abide west of the Mississippi, broke the +treaty and led his warriors back into their former haunts in Northern +Illinois. The Governor of the State called for volunteers, and Lincoln +became one. He obtained the elective rank of captain of his company, +and contrived to maintain some sort of order in that, doubtless brave, +but undisciplined body. He saw no fighting, but he could earn his +living for some months, and stored up material for effective chaff in +Congress long afterwards about the military glory which General Cass's +supporters for the Presidency wished to attach to their candidate. His +most glorious exploit consisted in saving from his own men a poor old +friendly Indian who had fallen among them. A letter of credentials, +which the helpless creature produced, was pronounced a forgery and he +was about to be hanged as a spy, when Lincoln appeared on the scene, +"swarthy with resolution and rage," and somehow terrified his +disorderly company into dropping their prey. + +The war ended in time for a brief candidature, and a supporter of his +at the time preserved a record of one of his speeches. His last +important speech will hereafter be given in full for other reasons; +this may be so given too, for it is not a hundred words long: "Fellow +Citizens, I presume you all know who I am. I am humble Abraham +Lincoln. I have been solicited by many friends to become a candidate +for the Legislature. My politics are short and sweet like the old +woman's dance. I am in favour of a national bank. I am in favour of +the internal improvement system and a high protective tariff. These +are my sentiments and political principles. If elected, I shall be +thankful; if not, it will be all the same." + +To this succinct declaration of policy may be added from his earlier +letter that he advocated a law against usury, and laws for the +improvement of education. The principles of the speech are those which +the new Whig party was upholding against the Democrats under Jackson +(the President) and Van Buren. Lincoln's neighbours, like the people +of Illinois generally, were almost entirely on the side of the +Democrats. It is interesting that however he came by his views, they +were early and permanently fixed on the side then unpopular in +Illinois; and it is interesting that though, naturally, not elected, he +secured very nearly the whole of the votes of his immediate +neighbourhood. + +The penniless Lincoln was now hankering to become a lawyer, though with +some thoughts of the more practicable career of a blacksmith. +Unexpectedly, however, he was tempted into his one venture, singularly +unsuccessful, in business. Two gentlemen named Herndon, cousins of a +biographer of Lincoln's, started a store in New Salem and got tired of +it. One sold his share to a Mr. Berry, the other sold his to Lincoln. +The latter sale was entirely on credit--no money passed at the time, +because there was no money. The vendor explained afterwards that he +relied solely on Lincoln's honesty. He had to wait a long while for +full payment, but what is known of storekeeping in New Salem shows that +he did very well for himself in getting out of his venture as he did. +Messrs. Berry and Lincoln next acquired, likewise for credit, the stock +and goodwill of two other storekeepers, one of them the victim of a +raid from Clary's Grove. The senior partner then applied himself +diligently to personal consumption of the firm's liquid goods; the +junior member of the firm was devoted in part to intellectual and +humorous converse with the male customers, but a fatal shyness +prevented him from talking to the ladles. For the rest, he walked long +distances to borrow books, got through Gibbon and through Rollin's +"History of the World," began his study of Blackstone, and acquired a +settled habit of reading novels. So business languished. Early in +1833 Berry and Lincoln sold out to another adventurer. This also was a +credit transaction. The purchaser without avoidable delay failed and +disappeared. Berry then died of drink, leaving to Lincoln the sole +responsibility for the debts of the partnership. Lincoln could with no +difficulty and not much reproach have freed himself by bankruptcy. As +a matter of fact, he ultimately paid everything, but it took him about +fifteen years of striving and pinching himself. + +Lincoln is one of the many public characters to whom the standing +epithet "honest" became attached; in his case the claim to this rested +originally on the only conclusive authority, that of his creditors. +But there is equally good authority, that of his biographer, William +Herndon, for many years his partner as a lawyer, that "he had no money +sense." This must be understood with the large qualification that he +meant to pay his way and, unlike the great statesmen of the eighteenth +century in England, did pay it. But, though with much experience of +poverty in his early career, he never developed even a reasonable +desire to be rich. Wealth remained in his view "a superfluity of the +things one does not want." He was always interested in mathematics, +but mainly as a discipline in thinking, and partly, perhaps, in +association with mechanical problems of which he was fond enough to +have once in his life patented an invention. The interest never led +him to take to accounts or to long-sighted financial provisions. In +later days, when he received a payment for his fees, his partner's +share would be paid then and there; and perhaps the rent would be paid, +and the balance would be spent at once in groceries and other goods +likely to be soon wanted, including at long intervals, when the need +was very urgent, a new hat. + +These are amiable personal traits, but they mark the limitations of his +capacity as a statesman. The chief questions which agitated the +Illinois Legislature were economic, and so at first were the issues +between Whigs and Democrats in Federal policy. Lincoln, though he +threw himself into these affairs with youthful fervour, would appear +never to have had much grasp of such matters. "In this respect alone," +writes an admirer, "I have always considered Mr. Lincoln a weak man." +It is only when (rarely, at first) constitutional or moral issues +emerge that his politics become interesting. We can guess the causes +which attached him to the Whigs. As the party out of power, and in +Illinois quite out of favour, they had doubtless some advantage in +character. As we have seen, the greatest minds among American +statesmen of that day, Webster and Clay, were Whigs. Lincoln's simple +and quite reasonable, if inconclusive, argument for Protection, can be +found among his speeches of some years later. And schemes of internal +development certainly fired his imagination. + +After his failure in business Lincoln subsisted for a while on odd jobs +for farmers, but was soon employed as assistant surveyor by John +Calhoun, then surveyor of the county. This gentleman, who had been +educated as a lawyer but "taught school in preference," was a keen +Democrat, and had to assure Lincoln that office as his assistant would +not necessitate his desertion of his principles. He was a clever man, +and Lincoln remembered him long after as the most formidable antagonist +he ever met in debate. With the help, again, of Mentor Graham, Lincoln +soon learned the surveyor's business. He continued at this work till +he was able to start as a lawyer, and there is evidence that his +surveys of property were done with extreme accuracy. Soon he further +obtained the local Postmastership. This, the only position except the +Presidency itself which he ever held in the Federal Government, was not +onerous, for the mails were infrequent; he "carried the office around +in his hat"; we are glad to be told that "his administration gave +satisfaction." Once calamity threatened him; a creditor distrained on +the horse and the instruments necessary to his surveyorship; but +Lincoln was reputed to be a helpful fellow, and friends were ready to +help him; they bought the horse and instruments back for him. To this +time belongs his first acquaintance with some writers of unsettling +tendency, Tom Paine, Voltaire, and Volney, who was then recognised as +one of the dangerous authors. Cock-fights, strange feats of strength, +or of usefulness with axe or hammer or scythe, and a passion for +mimicry continue. In 1834 he became a candidate again. "Can't the +party raise any better material than that?" asked a bystander before a +speech of his; after it, he exclaimed that the speaker knew more than +all the other candidates put together. This time he was elected, being +then twenty-five, and thereafter he was returned for three further +terms of two years. Shortly before his second election in 1836 the +State capital was removed to Springfield, in his own county. There in +1837 Lincoln fixed his home. He had long been reading law in his +curious, spasmodically concentrated way, and he had practised a little +as a "pettifogger," that is, an unlicensed practitioner in the inferior +courts. He had now obtained his license and was very shortly taken +into partnership by an old friend in Springfield. + + +2. _In the Illinois Legislature_. + +Here his youth may be said to end. Springfield was a different place +from New Salem. There were carriages in it, and ladles who studied +poetry and the fashions. There were families from Virginia and +Kentucky who were conscious of ancestry, while graver, possibly more +pushing, people from the North-eastern States, soon to outnumber them, +were a little inclined to ridicule what they called their "illusory +ascendency." There was a brisk competition of churches, and mutual +improvement societies such as the "Young Men's Lyceum" had a rival +claim to attention with races and cock-fights. + +And it was an altered Abraham Lincoln that came to inhabit Springfield. +Arriving a day or two before his first law partnership was settled he +came into the shop of a thriving young tradesman, Mr. Joshua Speed, to +ask about the price of the cheapest bedding and other necessary +articles. The sum for which Lincoln, who had not one cent, would have +had to ask, and would have been readily allowed, credit, was only +seventeen dollars. But this huge prospect of debt so visibly depressed +him that Speed instantly proposed an arrangement which involved no +money debt. He took him upstairs and installed him--Western domestic +arrangements were and are still simple--as the joint occupant of his +own large bed. "Well, Speed, I'm moved," was the terse acknowledgment. +Speed was to move him later by more precious charity. We are concerned +for the moment with what moved Speed. "I looked up at him," said he, +long after, "and I thought then, as I think now, that I never saw so +gloomy and melancholy a face in my life." The struggle of ambition and +poverty may well have been telling on Lincoln; but besides that a +tragical love story (shortly to be told) had left a deep and permanent +mark; but these influences worked, we may suppose, upon a disposition +quite as prone to sadness as to mirth. His exceedingly gregarious +habit, drawing him to almost any assembly of his own sex, continued all +his life; but it alternated from the first with a habit of solitude or +abstraction, the abstraction of a man who, when he does wish to read, +will read intently in the midst of crowd or noise, or walking along the +street. He was what might unkindly be called almost a professional +humorist, the master of a thousand startling stories, delightful to the +hearer, but possibly tiresome in written reminiscences, but we know too +well that gifts of this kind are as compatible with sadness as they +certainly are with deadly seriousness. + +The Legislature of Illinois in the eight years from 1834 to 1842, in +which Lincoln belonged to it, was, though not a wise, a vigorous body. +In the conditions which then existed it was not likely to have been +captured as the Legislatures of wilder and more thinly-peopled States +have sometimes been by a disreputable element in the community, nor to +have subsided into the hands of the dull mechanical class of +professional politicians with which, rightly or wrongly, we have now +been led to associate American State Government. The fact of Lincoln's +own election suggests that dishonest adventurers might easily have got +there, but equally suggests that a very different type of men +prevailed. "The Legislature," we are told, "contained the youth and +blood and fire of the frontier." Among the Democrats in the +Legislature was Stephen Douglas, who was to become one of the most +powerful men in the United States while Lincoln was still unknown; and +several of Lincoln's Whig colleagues were afterwards to play +distinguished or honourable parts in politics or war. We need not +linger over them, but what we know of those with whom he had any +special intimacy makes it entirely pleasant to associate him with them. +After a short time in which, like any sensible young member of an +assembly, he watched and hardly ever spoke, Lincoln soon made his way +among these men, and in 1838 and 1840 the Whig members--though, being +in a minority, they could not elect him--gave him their unanimous votes +for the Speakership of the Assembly. The business which engrossed the +Legislature, at least up to 1838, was the development of the natural +resources of the State. These were great. It was natural that +railways, canals and other public works to develop them should be +pushed forward at the public cost. Other new countries since, with +less excuse because with greater warning from experience, have plunged +in this matter, and, though the Governor protested, the Illinois +Legislature, Whigs and Democrats, Lincoln and every one else, plunged +gaily, so that, during the collapse which followed, Illinois, though, +like Lincoln himself, it paid its debts in the end, was driven in 1840 +to suspend interest payments for several years. + +Very little is recorded of Lincoln's legislative doings. What is +related chiefly exhibits his delight in the game of negotiation and +combination by which he and the other members for his county, together +known as "the Long Nine," advanced the particular projects which +pleased their constituents or struck their own fancy. Thus he early +had a hand in the removal of the capital from Vandalia to Springfield +in his own county. The map of Illinois suggests that Springfield was a +better site for the purpose than Vandalia and at least as good as +Jacksonville or Peoria or any of its other competitors. Of his few +recorded speeches one concerns a proposed inquiry into some alleged +impropriety in the allotment of shares in the State Bank. It is +certainly the speech of a bold man; it argues with remarkable +directness that whereas a committee of prominent citizens which had +already inquired into this matter consisted of men of known honesty, +the proposed committee of the Legislators, whom he was addressing, +would consist of men who, for all he knew, might be honest, and, for +all he knew, might not. + +The Federal politics of this time, though Lincoln played an active +local part in the campaigns of the Whig party, concern us little. The +Whigs, to whom he did subordinate service, were, as has been said, an +unlucky party. In 1840, in the reaction which extreme commercial +depression created against the previously omnipotent Democrats, the +Whig candidate for the Presidency was successful. This was General +Harrison, a respected soldier of the last war, who was glorified as a +sort of Cincinnatus and elected after an outburst of enthusiastic +tomfoolery such as never before or since rejoiced the American people. +But President Harrison had hardly been in office a month when he died. +Some say he was worried to death by office seekers, but a more prosaic +cause, pneumonia, can also be alleged. It is satisfactory that this +good man's grandson worthily filled his office forty-eight years after, +but his immediate successor was of course the Vice-President, Tyler, +chosen as an influential opponent of the last Democrat Presidents, but +not because he agreed with the Whigs. Cultivated but narrow-minded, +highly independent and wholly perverse, he satisfied no aspiration of +the Whigs and paved the way effectually for the Democrat who succeeded +him. + +Throughout these years Lincoln was of course working at law, which +became, with the development of the country, a more arduous and a more +learned profession. Sessions of the Legislature did not last long, and +political canvasses were only occasional. If Lincoln was active in +these matters he was in many other directions, too, a keen participator +in the keen life of the society round him. Nevertheless politics as +such, and apart from any large purpose to be achieved through them, had +for many years a special fascination for him. For one thing he was +argumentative in the best sense, with a passion for what the Greeks +sometimes called "dialectic"; his rare capacity for solitary thought, +the most marked and the greatest of his powers, went absolutely hand in +hand with the desire to reduce his thoughts to a form which would carry +logical conviction to others. Further, there can be no doubt--and such +a combination of tastes, though it seems to be uncommon, is quite +intelligible--that the somewhat unholy business of party management was +at first attractive to him. To the end he showed no intuitive +comprehension of individual men. His sincere friendly intention, the +unanswerable force of an argument, the convincing analogy veiled in an +unseemly story, must take their chance of suiting the particular taste +of Senator Sherman or General McClellan; but any question of managing +men in the mass--will a given candidate's influence with this section +of people count for more than his unpopularity with that section? and +so on--involved an element of subtle and long-sighted calculation which +was vastly congenial to him. We are to see him hereafter applying this +sort of science on a grand scale and for a great end. His early +discipline in it is a dull subject, interesting only where it displays, +as it sometimes does, the perfect fairness with which this ambitious +man could treat his own claims as against those of a colleague and +competitor. + +In forming any judgment of Lincoln's career it must, further, be +realised that, while he was growing up as a statesman, the prevailing +conception of popular government was all the time becoming more +unfavourable to leadership and to robust individuality. The new party +machinery adopted by the Democrats under Jackson, as the proper mode of +securing government by the people, induced a deadly uniformity of +utterance; breach of that uniformity was not only rash, but improper. +Once in early days it was demanded in a newspaper that "all candidates +should show their hands." "Agreed," writes Lincoln, "here's mine"; and +then follows a young man's avowal of advanced opinions; he would give +the suffrage to "all whites who pay taxes or bear arms, by no means +excluding females." Disraeli, who was Lincoln's contemporary, throve +by exuberances quite as startling as this, nor has any English +politician found it damaging to be bold. On this occasion indeed (in +1836) Lincoln was far from damaging himself; the Whigs had not till a +few years later been induced, for self-preservation, to copy the +Democratic machine. But it is striking that the admiring friend who +reports this declaration, "too audacious and emphatic for the statesmen +of a later day," must carefully explain how it could possibly suit the +temper of a time which in a few years passed away. Very soon the +question whether a proposal or even a sentiment was timely or premature +came to bulk too large in the deliberations of Lincoln's friends. The +reader will perhaps wonder later whether such considerations did not +bulk too largely in Lincoln's own mind. Was there in his +statesmanship, even in later days when he had great work to do, an +element of that opportunism which, if not actually base, is at least +cheap? Or did he come as near as a man with many human weaknesses +could come to the wise and nobly calculated opportunism which is not +merely the most beneficent statesmanship, but demands a heroic +self-mastery? + +The main interest of his doings in Illinois politics and in Congress is +the help they may give in penetrating his later mind. On the one hand, +it is certain that Lincoln trained himself to be a great student of the +fitting opportunity. He evidently paid very serious attention to the +counsels of friends who would check his rasher impulses. One of his +closest associates insists that his impulsive judgment was bad, and he +probably thought so himself. It will be seen later that the most +momentous utterance he ever made was kept back through the whole space +of two years of crisis at the instance of timid friends. It required +not less courage and was certainly more effective when at last it did +come out. The same great capacity for waiting marks any steps that he +took for his own advancement. Indeed it was a happy thing for him and +for his country that his character and the whole cast of his ideas and +sympathies were of a kind to which the restraint imposed on an American +politician was most congenial and to which therefore it could do least +harm. He was to prove himself a patient man in other ways as well as +this. On many things, perhaps on most, the thoughts he worked out in +his own mind diverged very widely from those of his neighbours, but he +was not in the least anxious either to conceal or to obtrude them. His +social philosophy as he expressed it to his friends in these days was +one which contemplated great future reforms--abolition of slavery and a +strict temperance policy were among them. But he looked for them with +a sort of fatalistic confidence in the ultimate victory of reason, and +saw no use and a good deal of harm in premature political agitation for +them. "All such questions," he is reported to have said, "must find +lodgment with the most enlightened souls who stamp them with their +approval. In God's own time they will be organised into law and thus +woven into the fabric of our institutions." This seems a little +cold-blooded, but perhaps we can already begin to recognise the man +who, when the time had fully come, would be on the right side, and in +whom the evil which he had deeply but restrainedly hated would find an +appallingly wary foe. + +But there were crucial instances which test sufficiently whether this +wary politician was a true man or not. The soil of Illinois was free +soil by the Ordinance of 1787, and Congress would only admit it to the +Union as a free State. But it had been largely peopled from the South. +There had been much agitation against this restriction; prevailing +sentiment to a late date strongly approved of slavery; it was at Alton +in Illinois that, in 1836, Elijah Lovejoy, an Abolitionist publisher, +had been martyred by the mob which had failed to intimidate him. In +1837, when the bold agitation of the Abolitionists was exciting much +disapproval, the Illinois Legislature passed resolutions condemning +that agitation and declaring in soothing tones the constitutional +powerlessness of Congress to interfere with slavery in the Southern +States. Now Lincoln himself--whether for good reasons or bad must be +considered later--thoroughly disapproved of the actual agitation of the +Abolitionists; and the resolutions in question, but for one merely +theoretical point of law and for an unctuous misuse of the adjective +"sacred," contained nothing which he could not literally have accepted. +The objection to them lay in the motive which made it worth while to +pass them. Lincoln drew up and placed on the records of the House a +protest against these resolutions. He defines in it his own quite +conservative opinions; he deprecates the promulgation of Abolition +doctrines; but he does so because it "tends rather to increase than +abate the evils" of slavery; and he lays down "that the institution of +slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy." One man alone +could he induce to sign this protest with him, and that man was not +seeking re-election. + +By 1842 Lincoln had grown sensibly older, and a little less ready, we +may take it, to provoke unnecessary antagonism. Probably very old +members of Free Churches are the people best able to appreciate the +daring of the following utterance. Speaking on Washington's birthday +in a Presbyterian church to a temperance society formed among the +rougher people of the town and including former drunkards who desired +to reform themselves, he broke out in protest against the doctrine that +respectable persons should shun the company of people tempted to +intemperance. "If," he said, "they believe as they profess that +Omnipotence condescended to take upon Himself the form of sinful man, +and as such die an ignominious death, surely they will not refuse +submission to the infinitely lesser condescension, for the temporal and +perhaps eternal salvation of a large, erring, and unfortunate class of +their fellow creatures! Nor is the condescension very great. In my +judgment such of us as have never fallen victims have been spared more +from the absence of appetite than from any mental or moral superiority +over those who have. Indeed, I believe, if we take habitual drunkards +as a class, that their heads and their hearts will bear an advantageous +comparison with those of any other class." It proved, at a later day, +very lucky for America that the virtuous Lincoln, who did not drink +strong drink--nor, it is sad to say, smoke, nor, which is all to the +good, chew--did feel like that about drunkenness; But there was great +and loud wrath. "It's a shame," said one, "that he should be permitted +to abuse us so in the house of the Lord." It is certain that in this +sort of way he did himself a good deal of injury as an aspiring +politician. It is also the fact that he continued none the less +persistently in a missionary work conceived in a spirit none the less +Christian because it shocked many pious people. + + +3. _Marriage_. + +The private life of Lincoln continued, and for many years increasingly, +to be equally marked by indiscriminate sociability and brooding +loneliness. Comfort and the various influences which may be associated +with the old-fashioned American word "elegance" seem never to enter +into it. What is more, little can be discerned of positive happiness +in the background of his life, as the freakish elasticity of his youth +disappeared and, after a certain measure of marked success, the further +objects of his ambition though not dropped became unlikely of +attainment and seemed, we may guess, of doubtful value. All along he +was being moulded for endurance rather than for enjoyment. + +Nor, though his children evidently brought him happiness, does what we +know of his domesticities and dearest affections weaken this general +impression. When he married he had gone through a saddening +experience. He started on manhood with a sound and chivalrous outlook +on women in general, and a nervous terror of actual women when he met +them. In New Salem days he absented himself from meals for the whole +time that some ladies were staying at his boarding house. His clothes +and his lack of upbringing must have weighed with him, besides his +natural disposition. None the less, of course he fell in love. Miss +Ann Rutledge, the daughter of a store and tavern keeper from Kentucky +with whom Lincoln was boarding in 1833, has been described as of +exquisite beauty; some say this is over-stated, but speak strongly of +her grace and charm. A lady who knew her gives these curiously +collocated particulars: "Miss Rutledge had auburn hair, blue eyes, fair +complexion. She was pretty, slightly slender, but in everything a +good-hearted young woman. She was about five feet two inches high, and +weighed in the neighbourhood of a hundred and twenty pounds. She was +beloved by all who knew her. She died as it were of grief. In +speaking of her death and her grave Lincoln once said to me, 'My heart +lies buried there.'" The poor girl, when Lincoln first came courting +to her, had passed through a grievous agitation. She had been engaged +to a young man, who suddenly returned to his home in the Eastern +States, after revealing to her, with some explanation which was more +convincing to her than to her friends, that he had been passing under +an assumed name. It seems that his absence was strangely prolonged, +that for a long time she did not hear from him, that his letters when +they did come puzzled her, that she clung to him long, but yielded at +last to her friends, who urged their very natural suspicions upon her. +It is further suggested that there was some good explanation of his +conduct all the while, and that she learnt this too late when actually +engaged to Lincoln. However that may be, shortly after her engagement +to Lincoln she fell seriously ill, insisted, as she lay ill, on a long +interview with Lincoln alone, and a day or two later died. This was in +1835, when he was twenty-six. It is perhaps right to say that one +biographer throws doubt on the significance of this story in Lincoln's +life. The details as to Ann Rutledge's earlier lover are vague and +uncertain. The main facts of Lincoln's first engagement and almost +immediate loss of his betrothed are quite certain; the blow would have +been staggering enough to any ordinary young lover and we know nothing +of Lincoln which would discredit Mr. Herndon's judgment that its effect +on him was both acute and permanent. There can be no real doubt that +his spells of melancholy were ever afterwards more intense, and politer +biographers should not have suppressed the testimony that for a time +that melancholy seemed to his friends to verge upon insanity. He +always found good friends, and, as was to happen again later, one of +them, Mr. Bowline Greene, carried him off to his own secluded home and +watched him carefully. He said "the thought that the snows and rains +fell upon her grave filled him with indescribable grief." Two years +later he told a fellow-legislator that "although he seemed to others to +enjoy life rapturously, yet when alone he was so overcome by mental +depression, he never dared to carry a pocket-knife." Later still +Greene, who had helped him, died, and Lincoln was to speak over his +grave. For once in his life he broke down entirely; "the tears ran +down his yellow and shrivelled cheeks. . . . After repeated efforts he +found it impossible to speak and strode away sobbing." + +The man whom a grief of this kind has affected not only intensely, but +morbidly, is almost sure, before its influence has faded, to make love +again, and is very likely to do so foolishly. Miss Mary Owens was +slightly older than Lincoln. She was a handsome woman; commanding, but +comfortable. In the tales of Lincoln's love stories, much else is +doubtfully related, but the lady's weight is in each case stated with +assurance, and when she visited her sister in New Salem in 1836 Mary +Owens weighed one hundred and fifty pounds. There is nothing sad in +her story; she was before long happily married--not to Lincoln--and she +long outlived him. But Lincoln, who had seen her on a previous visit +and partly remembered her, had been asked, perhaps in jest, by her +sister to marry her if she returned, and had rashly announced half in +jest that he would. Her sister promptly fetched her, and he lingered +for some time in a half-engaged condition, writing her reasonable, +conscientious, feeble letters, in which he put before her +dispassionately the question whether she could patiently bear "to see +without sharing . . . a lot of flourishing about in carriages, . . . to +be poor without the means of hiding your poverty," and assuring her +that "I should be much happier with you than the way I am, provided I +saw no signs of discontent in you." Whether he rather wished to marry +her but felt bound to hold her free, or distinctly wished not to marry +her but felt bound not to hold himself free, he probably was never +sure. The lady very wisely decided that he could not make her happy, +and returned to Kentucky. She said he was deficient in the little +courteous attentions which a woman's happiness requires of her husband. +She gave instances long after to prove her point; but she always spoke +of him with friendship and respect as "a man with a heart full of human +kindness and a head full of common sense." + +Rather unluckily, Lincoln, upon his rejection or release, relieved his +feelings in a letter about Miss Owens to one of the somewhat older +married ladies who were kind to him, the wife of one of his colleagues. +She ought to have burnt his letter, but she preserved it to kindle mild +gossip after his death. It is a burlesque account of his whole +adventure, describing, with touches of very bad taste, his +disillusionment with the now maturer charms of Miss Owens when her +sister brought her back to New Salem, and making comedy of his own +honest bewilderment and his mingled relief and mortification when she +at last refused him. We may take it as evidence of the natural want of +perception and right instinctive judgment in minor matters which some +who knew and loved him attribute to him. But, besides that, the man +who found relief in this ill-conceived exercise of humour was one in +whom the prospect of marriage caused some strange and pitiful +perturbation of mind. + +This was in 1838, and a year later Mary Todd came from Kentucky to stay +at Springfield with her brother-in-law Ninian Edwards, a legislator of +Illinois and a close ally of Lincoln's. She was aged twenty-one, and +her weight was one hundred and thirty pounds. She was well educated, +and had family connections which were highly esteemed. She was +pleasant in company, but somewhat imperious, and she was a vivacious +talker. When among the young men who now became attentive in calling +on the Edwards's Lincoln came and sat awkwardly gazing on Miss Todd, +Mrs. Edwards appears to have remarked that the two were not suited to +each other. But an engagement took place all the same. As to the +details of what followed, whether he or she was the first to have +doubts, and whether, as some say, the great Stephen Douglas appeared on +the scene as a rival and withdrew rather generously but too late, is +uncertain. But Lincoln composed a letter to break off his engagement. +He showed it to Joshua Speed, who told him that if he had the courage +of a man he would not write to her, but see her and speak. He did so. +She cried. He kissed and tried to comfort her. After this Speed had +to point out to him that he had really renewed his engagement. Again +there may be some uncertainty whether on January 1, 1841, the bridal +party had actually assembled and the bridegroom after long search was +found by his friends wandering about in a state which made them watch +day and night and keep knives from him. But it is quite certain from +his letters that in some such way on "the fatal 1st of January, 1841," +he broke down terribly. Some weeks later he wrote to his partner: +"Whether I shall ever be better I cannot tell; I awfully forebode I +shall not. To remain as I am is impossible. I must die or be better, +as it appears to me." After a while Speed was able to remove him to +his own parents' home in Kentucky, where he and his mother nursed him +back to mental life. + +Then in the course of 1841 Speed himself began to contemplate marriage, +and Speed himself had painful searchings of heart, and Lincoln's turn +came to show a sureness of perception in his friend's case that he +wholly lacked in his own. "I know," he writes, "what the painful point +with you is . . . it is an apprehension that you do not love her as you +should. What nonsense! How came you to court her? But you say you +reasoned yourself into it. What do you mean by that? Was it not that +you found yourself unable to reason yourself out of it? Did you not +think, and partly form the purpose, of courting her the first time you +ever saw or heard of her? What had reason to do with it at that early +stage?" A little later the lady of Speed's love falls ill. Lincoln +writes: "I hope and believe that your present anxiety about her health +and her life must and will for ever banish those horrid doubts which I +know you sometimes felt as to the truth of your affection for +her. . . . Perhaps this point is no longer a question with you, and my +pertinacious dwelling upon it is a rude intrusion upon your feelings. +If so, you must pardon me. You know the hell I have suffered upon that +point, and how tender I am upon it." When he writes thus it is no +surprise to hear from him that he has lost his hypochondria, but it may +be that the keen recollection of it gives him excessive anxieties for +Speed. On the eve of the wedding he writes: "You will always hereafter +be on ground that I have never occupied, and consequently, if advice +were needed, I might advise wrong. I do fondly hope, however, that you +will never need comfort from abroad. I incline to think it probable +that your nerves will occasionally fail you for a while; but once you +get them firmly graded now, that trouble is over for ever. If you went +through the ceremony calmly or even with sufficient composure not to +excite alarm in any present, you are safe beyond question, and in two +or three months, to say the most, will be the happiest of men." Soon +he is reassured and can "feel somewhat jealous of both of you now. You +will be so exclusively concerned with one another that I shall be +forgotten entirely. I shall feel very lonesome without you." And a +little later: "It cannot be told how it thrills me with joy to hear you +say you are far happier than you ever expected to be. I know you too +well to suppose your expectations were not at least sometimes +extravagant, and if the reality exceeds them all, I say, 'Enough, dear +Lord.'" And here follows what might perhaps have been foreseen: "Your +last letter gave me more pleasure than the total sum of all that I have +received since the fatal 1st of January, 1841. Since then it seems to +me I should have been entirely happy but for the never absent idea that +there is still one unhappy whom I have contributed to make so. That +kills my soul. I cannot but reproach myself for even wishing to be +happy while she is otherwise." Very significantly he has inquired of +friends how that one enjoyed a trip on the new railway cars to +Jacksonville, and--not being like Falkland in "The Rivals"--praises God +that she has enjoyed it exceedingly. + +This was in the spring of 1842. Some three months later he writes +again to Speed: "I must gain confidence in my own ability to keep my +resolves when they are made. In that ability I once prided myself as +the only chief gem of my character. That gem I lost how and where you +know too well. I have not regained it, and until I do I cannot trust +myself in any matter of much importance. I believe now that, had you +understood my case at the time as well as I understood yours +afterwards, by the aid you would have given me I should have sailed +through clear. . . . I always was superstitious. I believe God made +me one of the instruments of bringing Fanny and you together, which +union I have no doubt He had fore-ordained. Whatever He designs for me +He will do. 'Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord,' is my +text just now. If, as you say, you have told Fanny all, I should have +no objection to her seeing this letter. I do not think I can come to +Kentucky this season. I am so poor and make so little headway in the +world that I drop back in a month of idleness as much as I gain in a +year's sowing." At last in the autumn of that year Lincoln addresses +to Speed a question at once so shrewd and so daringly intimate as +perhaps no other man ever asked of his friend. "The immense sufferings +you endured from the first days of September till the middle of +February" (the date of Speed's wedding) "you never tried to conceal +from me, and I well understood. You have now been the husband of a +lovely woman nearly eight months. That you are happier now than the +day you married her I well know. . . . But I want to ask a close +question! 'Are you in _feeling_ as well as in _judgment_ glad you are +married as you are?' From anybody but me this would be an impudent +question, not to be tolerated, but I know you will pardon it in me. +Please answer it quickly, as I am impatient to know." + +Speed remained in Kentucky; Lincoln was too poor for visits of +pleasure; and Speed was not a man who cared for political life; but the +memorials, from which the above quotations have been taken, of +Lincoln's lasting friendship with Speed and his kind mother, who gave +Lincoln a treasured Bible, and his kind young wife, who made her +husband's friend her own, and whose violet, dropped into her husband's +letter to him just as he was sealing it, was among the few flowers that +Lincoln ever appreciated, throw the clearest light that we can anywhere +obtain on the inner mind of Lincoln. + +As may have been foreseen, Mary Todd and he had met again on a friendly +footing. A managing lady is credited with having brought about a +meeting between them, but evidently she did not do it till Lincoln was +at least getting desirous to be managed. He was much absorbed at this +time in law business, to which since his breakdown he had applied +himself more seriously. It was at this period too that his notable +address on temperance was given. Soon after his meetings with Miss +Todd began again he involved himself in a complication of a different +kind. He had written, partly, it seems, for the young lady's +amusement, some innocent if uninteresting political skits relating to +some question about taxes. This brought on him an unexpected challenge +from a fiery but diminutive revenue official, one Colonel Shields, a +prominent Democratic politician. Lincoln availed himself of the right +of the challenged to impose ridiculous conditions of combat, partly no +doubt in fun, but with the sensible object also of making sure that he +could disarm his antagonist with no risk of harm to the little man. +The tangled controversy which ensued as to how and by whose fault the +duel eventually fell through has nothing in it now, but the whole +undignified business seems to have given Lincoln lasting chagrin, and +worried him greatly at a time when it would have been well that he +should be cheerful. At last on November 4, 1842, when Lincoln was +nearly thirty-three, he was safely married. The wedding, held, +according to the prevailing custom, in a private house, was an +important function, for it was the first Episcopalian wedding that good +society in Springfield had witnessed. Malicious fortune brought in a +ludicrous incident at the last moment, for when in the lawyerlike +verbiage of the then American Prayer-Book the bridegroom said, "With +this ring I thee endow with all my goods, chattels, lands and +tenements," old Judge Brown of the Illinois Supreme Court, who had +never heard the like, impatiently broke in, "God Almighty, Lincoln! +The statute fixes all that." + +There is more than the conventional reason for apology for pressing the +subject a little further. Nothing very illuminating can be said as to +the course of Lincoln's married life, but much has already been made +public about it which, though it cannot be taken as reaching to the +heart of the matter, is not properly to be dismissed as mere gossip. +Mrs. Lincoln, it is clear, had a high temper--the fact that, poor +woman! after her husband had been murdered by her side, she developed +clear symptoms of insanity, may or may not, for all we are entitled to +know, be relevant in this regard. She was much younger than her +husband, and had gone through a cruel experience for him. Moreover, +she had proper ambitions and was accustomed to proper conventional +refinements; so her husband's exterior roughness tried her sorely, not +the less we may be sure because of her real pride in him. Wife and +tailor combined could not, with any amount of money, have dressed him +well. Once, though they kept a servant then, Lincoln thought it +friendly to open the door himself in his shirt sleeves when two most +elegant ladies came to call. On such occasions, and doubtless on other +occasions of less provocation, Mrs. Lincoln's high temper was let +loose. It seems pretty certain, too, that he met her with mere +forbearance, sad patience, and avoidance of conflict. His fellow +lawyers came to notice that he stayed away from home on circuit when +all the rest of them could go home for a day or two. Fifteen years +after his wedding he himself confessed to his trouble, not disloyally, +but in a rather moving remonstrance with some one who had felt +intolerably provoked by Mrs. Lincoln. There are slight indications +that occasions of difficulty and pain to Lincoln happened up to the end +of his life. On the other hand, there are slight indications that +common love for their children helped to make the two happier, and +there are no indications at all of any approach to a serious quarrel. +All that is told us may be perfectly true and not by any means have +justified the pity that some of Lincoln's friends were ready to feel +for him. It is difficult to avoid suspecting that Lincoln's wife did +not duly like his partner and biographer, Mr. Herndon, who felt it his +duty to record so many painful facts and his own possibly too painful +impression from them. On the other side, Mr. Herndon makes it clear +that in some respects Mrs. Lincoln was an admirable wife for her +husband. She faced the difficulties of their poverty with spirit and +resolution. Testimony from other sources to her graceful hospitality +abounds. More than this, from the very first she believed in his +powers. It seems she had the discernment to know, when few others can +have done so, how far greater he was than his rival Douglas. It was +Herndon's belief, in days when he and Mrs. Lincoln were the two persons +who saw most of him, that she sustained his just ambition, and that at +the most critical moment of his personal career she had the courage to +make him refuse an attractive appointment which must have ruined it. +The worst that we are told with any certainty amounts to this, that +like the very happily married writer of "Virginibus Puerisque," Lincoln +discovered that marriage is "a field of battle and not a bed of +roses"--a battle in which we are forced to suspect that he did not play +his full part. + +We should perhaps be right in associating his curious record, of right +and high regard for women and inefficiency where a particular woman's +happiness depended on him, with the belief in Woman Suffrage, which he +early adopted and probably retained. Be that as it may, this part of +his story points to something which runs through his whole character, +something which perhaps may be expressed by saying that the natural +bias of his qualities was towards the negative side. We hear, no +doubt, of occasions when his vigour was instant and terrible--like that +of Hamlet on the ship for England; but these were occasions when the +right or the necessity of the case was obvious. We have seen him also +firm and absolutely independent where his conviction had already been +thought out. Where there was room for further reflection, for +patiently waiting on events, or for taking counsel of wise friends, +manly decision had not come easily to him. He had let a third person +almost engage him to Miss Owens. Once in this relation to her, he had +let it be the woman's part and not the man's to have decision enough +for the two. Speed had to tell him that he must face Miss Todd and +speak to her, and Speed again had to make clear to him what the effect +of his speaking had been. In time he decided what he thought his own +feelings were, but it was by inference from the feelings of Speed. +Lastly, it seems, the troubles of his married life were met by mere +patience and avoidance. All this, of course, concerned a side of +life's affairs in regard to which his mind had suffered painful shocks; +but it shows the direction of his possible weakness and his possible +strength in other things. It falls in with a trait which he himself +noted in one of the letters to Speed: "I have no doubt," he writes, "it +is the peculiar misfortune of both you and me to dream dreams of +Elysium far exceeding all that anything earthly can realise." All such +men have to go through deep waters; but they do not necessarily miss +either success or happiness in the end. Lincoln's life may be said to +have tested him by the test which Mr. Kipling states in his lines about +Washington:-- + + "If you can dream--and not make dreams your master; + If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim." + +He was to prove that he could do this; it is for the following pages to +show in how high a degree. Meanwhile one thing should already be clear +about him. No shrewd judge of men could read his letters to Speed with +care and not feel that, whatever mistakes this man might commit, +fundamentally he was worthy of entire trust. That, as a matter of +fact, is what, to the end of his life, Speed and all the men who knew +him and an ever widening circle of men who had to judge by more casual +impressions did feel about Lincoln. Whatever was questionable in his +private or public acts, his own explanation, if he happened to give +one, would be taken by them as the full and naked truth, and, if there +was no known explanation, it remained to them an irrebuttable +presumption that his main intention was right. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +LINCOLN IN CONGRESS AND IN RETIREMENT + +1. _The Mexican War and Lincoln's Work in Congress_. + +Lincoln had ceased before his marriage to sit in the Illinois +Legislature. He had won sufficient standing for his ambition to aim +higher; a former law partner of his was now in Congress, and he wished +to follow. But he had to submit to a few years' delay of which the +story is curious and honourable. His rivals for the representation of +his own constituency were two fellow Whigs, Baker and Hardin, both of +whom afterwards bore distinguished parts in the Mexican war and with +both of whom he was friendly. Somewhat to his disgust at a party +gathering in his own county in 1843, Baker was preferred to him. A +letter of his gives a shrewd account of the manoeuvres among members of +various Churches which brought this about; it is curiously careful not +to overstate the effect of these influences and characteristically +denies that Baker had part in them. To make the thing harder, he was +sent from this meeting to a convention, for the whole constituency, +with which the nomination lay, and his duty, of course, was to work for +Baker. Here it became obvious that Hardin would be chosen; nothing +could be done for Baker at that time, but Lincoln, being against his +will there in Baker's interests, took an opportunity in the bargaining +that took place to advance Baker's claim, to the detriment of his own, +to be Hardin's successor two years later. + +By some perverse accident notes about details of party management fill +a disproportionate space among those letters of Lincoln's which have +been preserved, but these reveal that, with all his business-like +attention to the affairs of his very proper ambition, he was able +throughout to illuminate dull matters of this order with action of +singular disinterestedness. After being a second time postponed, no +doubt to the advantage of his law business, he took his seat in the +House of Representatives at Washington for two years in the spring of +1847. Two short sessions can hardly suffice for mastering the very +complicated business of that body. He made hardly any mark. He +probably learned much and was able to study at leisure the characters +of his brother politicians. He earned the valuable esteem of some, and +seems to have passed as a very pleasant, honest, plain specimen of the +rough West. Like others of the younger Congressmen, he had the +privilege of breakfasting with Webster. His brief career in the House +seems to have disappointed him, and it certainly dissatisfied his +constituents. The part that he played may impress us more favourably +than it did them, but, slight as it was, it requires a historical +explanation. + +Mexico had detached itself from Spain in 1826, and in 1833 the province +of Texas detached itself from Mexico. Texas was largely peopled by +immigrants from the States, and these had grievances. One of them was +that Mexico abolished slavery, but there was real misgovernment as +well, and, among other cruel incidents of the rebellion which followed, +the massacre of rebels at the Alamo stamped itself on American memory. +The Republic of Texas began to seek annexation to the United States in +1839, but there was opposition in the States and there were +difficulties with Mexico and other Governments. At last in 1845, at +the very close of his term of office, President Tyler got the +annexation pushed through in defiance of the Whigs who made him +President. Mexico broke off diplomatic relations, but peace could no +doubt have been preserved if peace had been any object with the new +President Polk or with the Southern leaders whose views he represented. +They had set their eyes upon a further acquisition, larger even than +Texas--California, and the whole of the territories, still belonging to +Mexico, to the east of it. It is not contested, and would not have +been contested then, that the motive of their policy was the Southern +desire to win further soil for cultivation by slaves. But there was no +great difficulty in gaining some popularity for their designs in the +North. Talk about "our manifest destiny" to reach the Pacific may have +been justly described by Parson Wilbur as "half on it ign'ance and +t'other half rum," but it is easy to see how readily it might be taken +up, and indeed many Northerners at that moment had a fancy of their own +for expansion in the North-West and were not over-well pleased with +Polk when, in 1846, he set the final seal upon the settlement with +Great Britain of the Oregon frontier. + +When he did this Polk had already brought about his own war. The +judgment on that war expressed at the time in the first "Biglow Papers" +has seldom been questioned since, and there seldom can have been a war +so sternly condemned by soldiers--Grant amongst others--who fought in +it gallantly. The facts seem to have been just as Lincoln afterwards +recited them in Congress. The Rio Grande, which looks a reasonable +frontier on a map, was claimed by the United States as the frontier of +Texas. The territory occupied by the American settlers of Texas +reached admittedly up to and beyond the River Nueces, east of the Rio +Grande. But in a sparsely settled country, where water is not +abundant, the actual border line, if there be any clear line, between +settlement from one side and settlement from the other will not for the +convenience of treaty-makers run along a river, but rather for the +convenience of the settlers along the water-parting between two rivers. +So Mexico claimed both banks of the Rio Grande and Spanish settlers +inhabited both sides. Polk ordered General Zachary Taylor, who was +allowed no discretion in the matter, to march troops right up to the +Rio Grande and occupy a position commanding the encampment of the +Mexican soldiers there. The Mexican commander, thus threatened, +attacked. The Mexicans had thus begun the war. Polk could thus allege +his duty to prosecute it. When the whole transaction was afterwards +assailed his critics might be tempted to go, or represented as going, +upon the false ground that only Congress can constitutionally declare +war--that is, of course, sanction purely offensive operations. Long, +however, before the dispute could come to a head, the brilliant +successes of General Taylor and still more of General Scott, with a few +trained troops against large undisciplined numbers, put all criticism +at a disadvantage. The City of Mexico was occupied by Scott in +September, 1847, and peace, with the cession of the vast domain that +had been coveted, was concluded in May, 1848. + +War having begun, the line of the Whig opposition was to vote supplies +and protest as best they might against the language endorsing Polk's +policy which, in the pettiest spirit of political manoeuvre, was +sometimes incorporated in the votes. In this Lincoln steadily +supported them. One of his only two speeches of any length in Congress +was made on the occasion of a vote of this kind in 1848. The subject +was by that time so stale that his speech could hardly make much +impression, but it appears to-day an extraordinarily clear, strong, +upright presentment of the complex and unpopular case against the war. +His other long speech is elevated above buffoonery by a brief, cogent, +and earnest passage on the same theme, but it was a frank piece of +clowning on a licensed occasion. It was the fashion for the House when +its own dissolution and a Presidential election were both imminent to +have a sort of rhetorical scrimmage in which members on both sides +spoke for the edification of their own constituencies and that of +Buncombe. The Whigs were now happy in having "diverted the war-thunder +against the Democrats" by running for the Presidency General Taylor, a +good soldier who did not know whether he was a Whig or a Democrat, but +who, besides being a hero of the war, was inoffensive to the South, for +he lived in Louisiana and had slaves of his own. It is characteristic +of the time that the Democrats, in whose counsels the Southern men +prevailed, now began a practice of choosing Northern candidates, and +nominated General Cass of Michigan, whose distinction had not been won +in war. The Democratic Congressmen in this debate made game of the +Whigs, with their war-hero, and seem to have carried a crude manner of +pleasantry pretty far when Lincoln determined to show them that they +could be beaten at that game. He seems to have succeeded admirably, +with a burlesque comparison, too long to quote, of General Cass's +martial exploits with his own, and other such-like matter enhanced by +the most extravagant Western manner and delivery. + +Anyone who reads much of the always grave and sometimes most moving +orations of Lincoln's later years may do well to turn back to this +agreeable piece of debating-society horse-play. But he should then +turn a few pages further back to Lincoln's little Bill for the gradual +and compensated extinction of slavery in the District of Columbia, +where Washington stands. He introduced this of his own motion, without +encouragement from Abolitionist or Non-Abolitionist, accompanying it +with a brief statement that he had carefully ascertained that the +representative people of the district privately approved of it, but had +no right to commit them to public support of it. It perished, of +course. With the views which he had long formed and continued to hold +about slavery, very few opportunities could in these years come to him +of proper and useful action against it. He seized upon these +opportunities not less because in doing so he had to stand alone. + +His career as a Congressman was soon over. There was no movement to +re-elect him, and the Whigs now lost his constituency. His speeches +and his votes against the Mexican war offended his friends. Even his +partner, the Abolitionist, Mr. Herndon, whose further acquaintance we +have to make, was too much infected with the popularity of a successful +war to understand Lincoln's plain position or to approve of his giving +votes which might seem unpatriotic. Lincoln wrote back to him firmly +but sadly. Persuaded as he was that political action in advance of +public sentiment was idle, resigned and hardened as we might easily +think him to many of the necessities of party discipline, it evidently +caused him naïve surprise that, when he was called upon for a definite +opinion, anybody should expect him, as he candidly puts it, to "tell a +lie." + +As a retiring Congressman he was invited to speak in several places in +the East on behalf of Taylor's candidature; and after Taylor's election +claimed his right as the proper person to be consulted, with certain +others, about Government appointments in Illinois. Taylor carried out +the "spoils system" with conscientious thoroughness; as he touchingly +said, he had thought over the question from a soldier's point of view, +and could not bear the thought that, while he as their chief enjoyed +the Presidency, the private soldiers in the Whig ranks should not get +whatever was going. Lincoln's attitude in the matter may be of +interest. To take an example, he writes to the President, about the +postmastership in some place, that he does not know whether the +President desires to change the tenure of such offices on party +grounds, and offers no advice; that A is a Whig whose appointment is +much desired by the local Whigs, and a most respectable man; that B, +also a Whig, would in Lincoln's judgment be a somewhat better but not +so popular subject for appointment; that C, the present postmaster, is +a Democrat, but is on every ground, save his political party, a proper +person for the office. There was an office which he himself desired, +it was that of "Commissioner of the General Land Office," a new office +in Washington dealing with settlement on Government lands in the West. +He was probably well suited to it; but his application was delayed by +the fact that friends in Illinois wanted the post too; a certain Mr. +Butterfield (a lawyer renowned for his jokes, which showed, it is said, +"at least a well-marked humorous intention") got it; and then it fell +to the lot of the disappointed Lincoln to have to defend Butterfield +against some unfair attack. But a tempting offer was made him, that of +the Governorship of Oregon Territory, and he wavered before refusing to +take work which would, as it happened, have kept him far away when the +opportunity of his life came. It was Mrs. Lincoln who would not let +him cut himself off so completely from politics. As for himself, it is +hard to resist the impression that he was at this time a tired man, +disappointed as to the progress of his career and probably also +disappointed and somewhat despondent about politics and the +possibilities of good service that lay open to politicians. It may be +that this was partly the reason why he was not at all aroused by the +crisis in American politics which must now be related. + + +2. _California and the Compromise of 1850_. + +It has been said that the motive for the conquests from Mexico was the +desire for slave territory. The attractive part of the new dominion +was of course California. Arizona and New Mexico are arid regions, and +the mineral wealth of Nevada was unknown. The peacefully acquired +region of Oregon, far north, need not concern us, but Oregon became a +free State in 1859. Early in the war a struggle began between +Northerners and Southerners (to a large extent independent of party) in +the Senate and the House as to whether slavery should be allowed in the +conquered land or not. David Wilmot, a Northern Democratic +Congressman, proposed a proviso to the very first money grant connected +with the war, that slavery should be forbidden in any territory to be +annexed. The "Wilmot Proviso" was proposed again on every possible +occasion; Lincoln, by the way, sturdily supported it while in Congress; +it was always voted down. Cass proposed as a solution of all +difficulties that the question of slavery should be left to the people +of the new Territories or States themselves. The American public, apt +as condensing an argument into a phrase, dismissed Cass's principle for +the time being with the epithet "squatter sovereignty." Calhoun and +his friends said it was contrary to the Constitution that an American +citizen should not be free to move with his property, including his +slaves, into territory won by the Union. The annexation was carried +out, and the question of slavery was unsettled. Then events took a +surprising turn. + +In the winter of 1848 gold was discovered in California. Throughout +1849 gold-seekers came pouring in from every part of the world. This +miscellaneous new people, whose rough ways have been more celebrated in +literature than those of any similar crowd, lived at first in +considerable anarchy, but they determined without delay to set up some +regular system of government. In the course of 1849 they elected a +Convention to draw up a State Constitution, and to the astonishment of +all the States the Convention unanimously made the prohibition of +slavery part of that Constitution. There was no likelihood that, with +a further influx of settlers of the same sort, this decision of +California would alter. Was California to be admitted as a State with +this Constitution of its own choice, which the bulk of the people of +America approved? + +To politicians of the school now fully developed in the South there +seemed nothing outrageous in saying that it should be refused +admission. To them Calhoun's argument, which regarded a citizen's +slave as his chattel in the same sense as his hat or walking-stick, +seemed the ripe fruit of logic. It did not shock them in the least +that they were forcing the slave system on an unwilling community, for +were not the Northerners prepared to force the free system? A +prominent Southern Senator, talking with a Northern colleague a little +later, said triumphantly: "I see how it is. You may force freedom as +much as you like, but we are to beware how we force slavery," and was +surprised that the Northerner cheerfully accepted this position. It is +necessary to remember throughout the following years that, whatever +ordinary Southerners thought in private, their whole political action +was now based on the assumption that slavery, as it was, was an +institution which no reasonable man could think wrong. + +Zachary Taylor, unlike Harrison, the previous hero of the Whigs, +survived his inauguration by sixteen months. He was no politician at +all, but placed in the position of President, for which fairness and +firmness were really the greatest qualifications, he was man enough to +rely on his own good sense. He had come to Washington under the +impression that the disputes which raged there were due to the +aggressiveness of the North; a very little time there convinced him of +the contrary. Slave-owner as he was, the claim of the South to force +slavery on California struck him as an arrogant pretension, and so far +as matters rested with him, he was simply not to be moved by it. He +sent a message to Congress advising the admission of California with +the constitution of its own choice. When, as we shall shortly see, the +great men of the Senate thought the case demanded conciliation and a +great scheme of compromise, he resolutely disagreed; he used the whole +of his influence against their compromise, and it is believed with good +reason that he would have put his veto as President on the chief +measure in which the compromise issued. If he had lived to carry out +his policy, it seems possible that there would have been an attempt to +execute the threats of secession which were muttered--this time in +Virginia. But it is almost certain that at that time, and with the +position which he occupied, he would have been able to quell the +movement at once. There is nothing to suggest that Taylor was a man of +any unusual gifts of intellect, but he had what we may call character, +and it was the one thing wanting in political life at the time. The +greatest minds in American politics, as we shall see, viewed the +occasion otherwise, but, in the light of what followed, it seems a +signal and irreparable error that, when the spirit of aggression rising +in the South had taken definite shape in a demand which was manifestly +wrongful, it was bought off and not met with a straightforward refusal. +Taylor died in the course of 1850 and Vice-President Millard Fillmore, +of New York, succeeded him. Fillmore had an appearance of grave and +benign wisdom which led a Frenchman to describe him as the ideal ruler +of a Republic, but he was a pattern of that outwardly dignified, yet +nerveless and heartless respectability, which was more dangerous to +America at that period than political recklessness or want of scruple. + +The actual issue of the crisis was that the admission of California was +bought from the South by large concessions in other directions. This +was the proposal of Henry Clay, who was now an old man anxious for the +Union, but had been a lover of such compromises ever since he promoted +the Missouri Compromise thirty years ago; but, to the savage +indignation of some of his Boston admirers, Webster used the whole +force of his influence and debating power in support of Clay. The +chief concessions made to the South were two. In the first place +Territorial Governments were set up in New Mexico and Utah (since then +the home of the Mormons) without any restriction on slavery. This +concession was defended in the North on the ground that it was a sham, +because the physical character of those regions made successful slave +plantations impossible there. But it was, of course, a surrender of +the principle which had been struggled for in the Wilmot Proviso during +the last four years; and the Southern leaders showed the clearness of +their limited vision by valuing it just upon that ground. There had +been reason for the territorial concessions to slavery in the past +generation because it was established in the territories concerned; but +there was no such reason now. The second concession was that of a new +Federal law to ensure the return of fugitive slaves from the free +States. The demand for this was partly factitious, for the States in +the far South, which were not exposed to loss of slaves, were the most +insistent on it, and it would appear that the Southern leaders felt it +politic to force the acceptance of the measure in a form which would +humiliate their opponents. There is no escape from the contention, +which Lincoln especially admitted without reserve, that the enactment +of an effective Act of this sort was, if demanded, due under the +provisions of the Constitution; but the measure actually passed was +manifestly defiant of all principles of justice. It was so framed as +almost to destroy the chance which a lawfully free negro might have of +proving his freedom, if arrested by the professional slave-hunters as a +runaway. It was the sort of Act which a President should have vetoed +as a fraud upon the Constitution. Thus over and above the objection, +now plain, to any compromise, the actual compromise proposed was marked +by flagrant wrong. But it was put through by the weight of Webster and +Clay. + +This event marks the close of a period. It was the last achievement of +Webster and Clay, both of whom passed away in 1852 in the hope that +they had permanently pacified the Union. Calhoun, their great +contemporary, had already died in 1850, gloomily presaging and +lamenting the coming danger to the Union which was so largely his own +creation. For a while the cheerful view of Webster and Clay seemed +better justified. There had been angry protest in the North against +the Fugitive Slave Law; there was some forcible resistance to arrests +of negroes; and some States passed Protection of Liberty Acts of their +own to impede the Federal law in its working. But the excitement, +which had flared up suddenly, died down as suddenly. In the +Presidential election of 1852 Northerners generally reflected that they +wanted quiet and had an instinct, curiously falsified, that the +Democratic party was the more likely to give it them. The Whigs again +proposed a hero, General Scott, a greater soldier than Taylor, but a +vainer man, who mistakenly broke with all precedent and went upon the +stump for himself. The President who was elected, Franklin Pierce of +New Hampshire, a friend of Hawthorne, might perhaps claim the palm +among the Presidents of those days, for sheer, deleterious +insignificance. The favourite observation of his contemporaries upon +him was that he was a gentleman, but his convivial nature made the +social attractiveness of Southern circles in Washington overpowering to +any brain or character that he may have possessed. A new generation of +political personages now came to the front. Jefferson Davis of +Mississippi, a man of force and considerable dignity, began to take the +leading part in the powerful group of Southern Senators; Stephen +Douglas, of Illinois, rapidly became the foremost man of the Democratic +party generally; William Seward, late Governor of New York, and Salmon +Chase, a Democrat, late Governor of Ohio, had played a manful part in +the Senate in opposition to Webster and Clay and their compromise. +From this time on we must look on these two, joined a little later by +Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts, as the obvious leaders in the +struggle against slavery which was shortly to be renewed, and in which +Lincoln's part seemed likely to remain a humble one. + + +3. _Lincoln in Retirement_. + +Whether Seward and Chase and the other opponents of the Compromise were +right, as it now seems they were, or not, Lincoln was not the man who +in the unlooked-for crisis of 1850 would have been likely to make an +insurrectionary stand against his old party-leader Clay, and the +revered constitutional authority of Webster. He had indeed little +opportunity to do so in Illinois, but his one recorded speech of this +period, an oration to a meeting of both parties on the death of Clay in +1852, expresses approval of the Compromise. This speech, which is +significant of the trend of his thoughts at this time, does not lend +itself to brief extracts because it is wanting in the frankness of his +speeches before and after. A harsh reference to Abolitionists serves +to disguise the fact that the whole speech is animated by antagonism to +slavery. The occasion and the subject are used with rather +disagreeable subtlety to insinuate opposition to slavery into the minds +of a cautious audience. The speaker himself seems satisfied with the +mood of mere compromise which had governed Clay in this matter, or +rather perhaps he is twisting Clay's attitude into one of more +consistent opposition to slavery than he really showed. In any case we +can be quite sure that the moderate and subtle but intensely firm +opinion with which a little later Lincoln returned to political strife +was the product of long and deep and anxious thought during the years +from 1849 to 1854. On the surface it did not go far beyond the +condemnation of slavery and acceptance of the Constitution which had +guided him earlier, nor did it seem to differ from the wide-spread +public opinion which in 1854 created a new party; but there was this +difference that Lincoln had by then looked at the matter in all its +bearings, and prepared his mind for all eventualities. We shall find, +and need not be surprised to find, that he who now hung back a little, +and who later moved when public opinion moved, later still continued to +move when public opinion had receded. + +What we know of these years of private life is mainly due to Mr. +William Herndon, the young lawyer already quoted, whom he took into +partnership in 1845, and who kept on the business of the firm in +Springfield till Lincoln's death. This gentleman was, like Boswell, of +opinion that a great man is not best portrayed as a figure in a +stained-glass window. He had lived with Lincoln, groaned under his odd +ways, and loved them, for sixteen years before his Presidency, and +after his death he devoted much research, in his own memory and those +of many others, to the task of substituting for Lincoln's aureole the +battered tall hat, with valuable papers stuck in its lining, which he +had long contemplated with reverent irritation. Mr. Herndon was not +endowed with Boswell's artistic gift for putting his materials +together, perhaps because he lacked that delicacy and sureness of moral +perception which more than redeemed Boswell's absurdities. He +succeeded on the whole in his aim, for the figure that more or less +distinctly emerges from the litter of his workshop is lovable; but in +spite of all Lincoln's melancholy, the dreariness of his life, sitting +with his feet on the table in his unswept and untidy office at +Illinois, or riding on circuit or staying at ramshackle western inns +with the Illinois bar, cannot have been so unrelieved as it is in Mr. +Herndon's presentation. And Herndon overdid his part. He ferreted out +petty incidents which he thought might display the acute Lincoln as +slightly too acute, when for all that can be seen Lincoln acted just as +any sensible man would have acted. But the result is that, in this +part of his life especially, Lincoln's way of living was subjected to +so close a scrutiny as few men have undergone. + +Herndon's scrutiny does not reveal the current of his thoughts either +on life generally or on the political problem which hereafter was to +absorb him. It shows on the contrary, and the recollections of his +Presidency confirm it, that his thought on any important topic though +it might flash out without disguise in rare moments of intimacy, +usually remained long unexpressed. His great sociability had perhaps +even then a rather formidable side to it. He was not merely amusing +himself and other people, when he chatted and exchanged anecdotes far +into the night; there was an element, not ungenial, of purposeful study +in it all. He was building up his knowledge of ordinary human nature, +his insight into popular feeling, his rather slow but sure +comprehension of the individual men whom he did know. It astonished +the self-improving young Herndon that the serious books he read were +few and that he seldom seemed to read the whole of them--though with +the Bible, Shakespeare, and to a less extent Burns, he saturated his +mind. The few books and the great many men were part of one study. In +so far as his thought and study turned upon politics it seems to have +led him soon to the conclusion that he had for the present no part to +play that was worth playing. By 1854, as he said himself, "his +profession as a lawyer had almost superseded the thought of politics in +his mind." But it does not seem that the melancholy sense of some +great purpose unachieved or some great destiny awaiting him ever quite +left him. He must have felt that his chance of political fame was in +all appearance gone, and would have liked to win himself a considerable +position and a little (very little) money as a lawyer; but the study, +in the broadest sense, of which these years were full, evidently +contemplated a larger education of himself as a man than professional +keenness, or any such interest as he had in law, will explain. +Middle-aged and from his own point of view a failure, he was set upon +making himself a bigger man. + +In some respects he let himself be. His exterior oddities never seem +to have toned down much; he could not be taught to introduce tidiness +or method into his office; nor did he make himself an exact lawyer; a +rough and ready familiarity with practice and a firm grasp of larger +principles of law contented him without any great apparatus of +learning. His method of study was as odd as anything else about him; +he could read hard and commit things to memory in the midst of bustle +and noise; on the other hand, since reading aloud was his chosen way of +impressing what he read on his own mind, he would do it at all sorts of +times to the sore distraction of his partner. When his studies are +spoken of, observation and thought on some plan concealed in his own +mind must be taken to have formed the largest element in these studies. +There was, however, one methodic discipline, highly commended of old +but seldom perhaps seriously pursued with the like object by men of +forty, even self-taught men, which he did pursue. Some time during +these years he mastered the first six Books of Euclid. It would +probably be no mere fancy if we were to trace certain definite effects +of this discipline upon his mind and character. The faculty which he +had before shown of reducing his thought on any subject to the simplest +and plainest terms possible, now grew so strong that few men can be +compared with him in this. He was gaining, too, from some source, what +the ancient geometers would themselves have claimed as partly the +product of their study: the plain fact and its plain consequences were +not only clear in calm hours of thought, but remained present to him, +felt and instinctive, through seasons of confusion, passion, and +dismay. His life in one sense was very full of companionship, but it +is probable that in his real intellectual interests he was lonely. To +Herndon, intelligently interested in many things, his master's mind, +much as he held it in awe, seemed chillingly unpoetic--which is a +curious view of a mind steeped in Shakespeare and Burns. The two +partners had been separately to Niagara. Herndon was anxious to know +what had been Lincoln's chief impression, and was pained by the reply, +"I wondered where all that water came from," which he felt showed +materialism and insensibility. Lincoln's thought had, very obviously, +a sort of poetry of its own, but of a vast and rather awful kind. He +had occasionally written verses of his own a little before this time; +sad verses about a friend who had become a lunatic, wondering that he +should be allowed to outlive his mind while happy young lives passed +away, and sad verses about a visit to old familiar fields in Indiana, +where he wandered brooding, as he says, + + "Till every sound appears a knell, + And every spot a grave." + +They are not great poetry; but they show a correct ear for verse, and +they are not the verses of a man to whom any of the familiar forms of +poetic association were unusual. They are those of a man in whom the +habitual undercurrent of thought was melancholy. + +Apart from these signs and the deep, humorous delight which he +evidently took in his children, there may be something slightly +forbidding in this figure of a gaunt man, disappointed in ambition and +not even happy at home, rubbing along through a rather rough crowd, +with uniform rough geniality and perpetual jest; all the while in +secret forging his own mind into an instrument for some vaguely +foreshadowed end. But there are two or three facts which stand out +certain and have to be taken account of in any image we may be tempted +to form of him. In the first place, his was no forbidding figure at +the time to those who knew him; a queer and a comic figure evidently, +but liked, trusted, and by some loved; reputed for honest dealing and +for kindly and gentle dealing; remarked too by some at that time, as +before and ever after, for the melancholy of his face in repose; known +by us beyond doubt to have gone through great pain; known lastly among +his fellows in his profession for a fire of anger that flashed out only +in the presence of cruelty and wrong. + +His law practice, which he pursued with energy, and on which he was +now, it seems, prepared to look as his sole business in life, fitted in +none the less well with his deliberately adopted schemes of +self-education. A great American lawyer, Mr. Choate, assures us that +at the Illinois bar in those days Lincoln had to measure himself +against very considerable men in suits of a class that required some +intellect and training. And in his own way he held his own among these +men. A layman may humbly conjecture that the combination in one person +of the advocate and the solicitor must give opportunities of far truer +intellectual training than the mere advocate can easily enjoy. The +Illinois advocate was not all the time pleading the cause which he was +employed to plead, and which if it was once offered to him it was his +duty to accept; he was the personal adviser of the client whose cause +he pleaded, and within certain limits he could determine whether the +cause was brought at all, and if so whether he should take it up +himself or leave it to another man. The rule in such matters was +elastic and practice varied. Lincoln's practice went to the very limit +of what is permissible in refusing legal aid to a cause he disapproved. +Coming into court he discovered suddenly some fact about his case which +was new to him but which would probably not have justified an English +barrister in throwing up his brief. The case was called; he was +absent; the judge sent to his hotel and got back a message: "Tell the +judge I'm washing my hands." One client received advice much to this +effect: "I can win your case; I can get you $600. I can also make an +honest family miserable. But I shall not take your case, and I shall +not take your fee. One piece of advice I will give you gratis: Go home +and think seriously whether you cannot make $600 in some honest way." +And this habit of mind was beyond his control. Colleagues whom he was +engaged to assist in cases agreed that if a case lost his sympathy he +became helpless and useless in it. This, of course, was not the way to +make money; but he got along and won a considerable local position at +the bar, for his perfect honesty in argument and in statement of fact +was known to have won the confidence of the judges, and a difficult +case which he thought was right elicited the full and curious powers of +his mind. His invective upon occasion was by all accounts terrific. +An advocate glanced at Lincoln's notes for his speech, when he was +appearing against a very heartless swindler and saw that they concluded +with the ominous words, "Skin Defendant." The vitriolic outburst which +occurred at the point thus indicated seems to have been long remembered +by the Illinois bar. To a young man who wished to be a lawyer yet +shrunk from the profession lest it should necessarily involve some +dishonesty Lincoln wrote earnestly and wisely, showing him how false +his impression of the law was, but concluding with earnest entreaty +that he would not enter the profession if he still had any fear of +being led by it to become a knave. + +One of his cases is interesting for its own sake, not for his part in +it. He defended without fee the son of his old foe and friend Jack +Armstrong, and of Hannah, who mended his breeches, on a charge of +murder. Six witnesses swore that they had seen him do the deed about +11 P.M. on such and such a night. Cross-examined: They saw it all +quite clearly; they saw it so clearly because of the moonlight. The +only evidence for the defence was an almanac. There had been no moon +that night. Another case is interesting for his sake. Two young men +set up in a farm together, bought a waggon and team from a poor old +farmer, Lincoln's client, did not pay him, and were sued. They had +both been just under twenty-one when they contracted the debt, and they +were advised to plead infancy. A stranger who was present in Court +described afterwards his own indignation as the rascally tale was +unfolded, and his greater indignation as he watched the locally famous +Mr. Lincoln, lying back in his seat, nodding complacently and saying, +"I reckon that's so," as each of the relevant facts was produced, and +the relevant Statute read and expounded. At last, as the onlooker +proceeded to relate, the time came for Lincoln to address the jury, +with whom, by Illinois law, the issue still rested. Slowly he +disengaged his long, lean form from his seat, and before he had got it +drawn out to its height he had fixed a gaze of extraordinary +benevolence on the two disgraceful young defendants and begun in this +strain: "Gentlemen of the Jury, are you prepared that these two young +men shall enter upon life and go through life with the stain of a +dishonourable transaction for ever affixed to them," and so forth at +just sufficient length and with just enough of Shakespearean padding +about honour. The result with that emotional and probably irregular +Western court is obvious, and the story concludes with the quite +credible assertion that the defendants themselves were relieved. Any +good jury would, of course, have been steeled against the appeal, which +might have been expected, to their compassion for a poor and honest old +man. A kind of innocent and benign cunning has been the most engaging +quality in not a few great characters. It is tempting, though at the +risk of undue solemnity, to look for the secret of Lincoln's cunning in +this instance. We know from copybooks and other sources that these two +young men, starting on the down grade with the help of their +blackguardly legal adviser, were objects for pity, more so than the man +who was about to lose a certain number of dollars. Lincoln, as few +other men would have done, felt a certain actual regret for them then +and there; he felt it so naturally that he knew the same sympathy could +be aroused, at least in twelve honest men who already wished they could +find for the plaintiff. It has often been remarked that the cause of +his later power was a knowledge of the people's mind which was +curiously but vitally bound up with his own rectitude. + +Any attempt that we may make to analyse a subtle character and in some +respects to trace its growth is certain to miss the exact mark. But it +is in any case plain that Abraham Lincoln left political life in 1849, +a praiseworthy self-made man with good sound views but with nothing +much to distinguish him above many other such, and at a sudden call +returned to political life in 1854 with a touch of something quite +uncommon added to those good sound views. + + +4. _The Repeal of the Missouri Compromise_. + +The South had become captive to politicians, personally reputable and +of some executive capacity, who had converted its natural prejudice +into a definite doctrine which was paradoxical and almost inconceivably +narrow, and who, as is common in such instances of perversion and +fanaticism, knew hardly any scruple in the practical enforcement of +their doctrine. In the North, on the other hand, though there were +some few politicians who were clever and well-intentioned, public +opinion had no very definite character, and public men generally +speaking were flabby. At such a time the sheer adventurer has an +excellent field before him and perhaps has his appointed use. + +Stephen Douglas, who was four years younger than Lincoln, had come to +Illinois from the Eastern States just about the time when Lincoln +entered the Legislature. He had neither money nor friends to start +with, but almost immediately secured, by his extraordinary address in +pushing himself, a clerkship in the Assembly. He soon became, like +Lincoln, a lawyer and a legislator, but was on the Democratic side. He +rapidly soared into regions beyond the reach of Lincoln, and in 1847 +became a Senator for Illinois, where he later became Chairman of the +Committee on Territories, and as such had to consider the question of +providing for the government of the districts called Kansas and +Nebraska, which lay west and north-west of Missouri, and from which +slavery was excluded by the Missouri Compromise. He was what in +England is called a "Jingo," and was at one time eager to fight this +country for the possession of what is now British Columbia. His short +figure gave an impression of abounding strength and energy which +obtained him the nickname of "the little Giant." With no assignable +higher quality, and with the blustering, declamatory, shamelessly +fallacious and evasive oratory of a common demagogue, he was +nevertheless an accomplished Parliamentarian, and imposed himself as +effectively upon the Senate as he did upon the people of Illinois and +the North generally. He was, no doubt, a remarkable man, with the gift +of attracting many people. A political opponent has described vividly +how at first sight he was instantly repelled by the sinister and +dangerous air of Douglas' scowl; a still stronger opponent, but a +woman, Mrs. Beecher Stowe, seems on the contrary to have found it +impossible to hate him. What he now did displayed at any rate a +sporting quality. + +In the course of 1854 Stephen Douglas while in charge of an inoffensive +Bill dealing with the government of Kansas and Nebraska converted it +into a form in which it empowered the people of Kansas at any time to +decide for themselves whether they would permit slavery or not, and in +express terms repealed the Missouri Compromise. With the easy +connivance of President Pierce and the enthusiastic support of the +Southerners, and by some extraordinary exercise of his art as demagogue +and Parliamentarian, he triumphantly ran this measure through. + +Just how it came about seems to be rather obscure, but it is easy to +conjecture his motives. Trained in a school in which scruple or +principle were unknown and the man who arrives is the great man, +Douglas, like other such adventurers, was accessible to visions of a +sort. He cared nothing whether negroes were slaves or not, and +doubtless despised Northern and Southern sentiment on that subject +equally; as he frankly said once, on any question between white men and +negroes he was on the side of the white men, and on any question +between negroes and crocodiles he would be on the side of the negroes. +But he did care for the development of the great national heritage in +the West, that subject of an easy but perfectly wholesome patriotic +pride with which we are familiar. It must have been a satisfaction to +him to feel that North and South would now have an equal chance in that +heritage, and also that the white settlers in the West would be +relieved of any restriction on their freedom. None the less his action +was to the last degree reckless. The North had shown itself ready in +1850 to put up with a great deal of quiet invasion of its former +principle, but to lay hands upon the sacred letter of the Act in which +that principle was enshrined was to invite exciting consequences. + +The immediate consequences were two-fold. In the first place Southern +settlers came pouring into Kansas and Northern settlers in still larger +numbers (rendered larger still by the help of an emigration society +formed in the North-East for that purpose) came pouring in too. It was +at first a race to win Kansas for slavery or for freedom. When it +became apparent that freedom was winning easily, the race turned into a +civil war between these two classes of immigrants for the possession of +the Territorial government, and this kept on its scandalous and bloody +course for three or four years. + +In the second place there was a revolution in the party system. The +old Whig party, which, whatever its tendencies, had avoided having any +principle in regard to slavery, now abruptly and opportunely expired. +There had been an attempt once before, and that time mainly among the +Democrats, to create a new "Free-soil Party," but it had come to very +little. This time a permanent fusion was accomplished between the +majority of the former Whigs in the North and a numerous secession from +among the Northern Democrats. They created the great Republican party, +of which the name and organisation have continued to this day, but of +which the original principle was simply and solely that there should be +no further extension of slavery upon territory present or future of the +United States. It naturally consisted of Northerners only. This was +of course an ominous fact, and caused people, who were too timid either +to join the Republicans or turn Democrat, to take refuge in another +strange party, formed about this time, which had no views about +slavery. This was the "American" party, commonly called the +"Know-Nothing" party from its ridiculous and objectionable secret +organisation. Its principle was dislike of foreign immigrants, +especially such as were Roman Catholics. To them ex-President +Fillmore, protesting against "the madness of the times" when men +ventured to say yes or no on a question relating to slavery, fled for +comfort, and became their candidate for the Presidency at the next +election. + +It was in 1854 that Lincoln returned to political life as one of the +founders of the Republican party. But it will be better at once to +deal with one or two later events with which he was not specially +concerned. The Republicans chose as their Presidential candidate in +1856 an attractive figure, John Frémont, a Southerner of French origin, +who had conducted daring and successful explorations in Oregon, had +some hand (perhaps a very important hand) in conquering California from +Mexico, and played a prominent part in securing California for freedom. +The Southern Democrats again secured a Northern instrument in James +Buchanan of Pennsylvania, an elderly and very respectable man, who was +understood to be well versed in diplomatic and official life. He was a +more memorable personage than Pierce. A great chorus of friendly +witnesses to his character has united in ascribing all his actions to +weakness. + +Buchanan was elected; but for a brand-new party the Republicans had put +up a very good fight, and they were in the highest of spirits when, +shortly after Buchanan's Inauguration in 1857, a staggering blow fell +upon them from an unexpected quarter. This was nothing less than a +pronouncement by the Chief Justice and a majority of Justices in the +Supreme Court of the United States, that the exclusion of slavery from +any portion of the Territories, and therefore, of course, the whole aim +and object of the Republicans, was, as Calhoun had contended eight or +ten years before, unconstitutional. + +Dred Scott was a Missouri slave whose misfortunes it is needless to +compassionate, since, after giving his name to one of the most famous +law cases in history, he was emancipated with his family by a new +master into whose hands he had passed. Some time before the Missouri +Compromise was repealed he had been taken by his master into Minnesota, +as a result of which he claimed that he became, by virtue of the +Missouri Compromise, a free man. His right to sue his master in a +Federal Court rested on the allegation that he was now a citizen of +Missouri, while his master was a citizen of another State. There was +thus a preliminary question to be decided, Was he really a citizen, +before the question, Was he a freeman, could arise at all. If the +Supreme Court followed its established practice, and if it decided +against his citizenship, it would not consider the question which +interested the public, that of his freedom. + +Chief Justice Roger Taney may be seen from the refined features of his +portrait and the clear-cut literary style of his famous judgment to +have been a remarkable man. He was now eighty-three, but in unimpaired +intellectual vigour. In a judgment, with which five of his colleagues +entirely concurred and from which only two dissented, he decided that +Dred Scott was not a citizen, and went on, contrary to practice, to +pronounce, in what was probably to be considered as a mere _obiter +dictum_, that Dred Scott was not free, because the Missouri Compromise +had all along been unconstitutional and void. Justices McLean and +Curtis, especially the latter, answered Taney's arguments in cogent +judgments, which it seems generally to be thought were right. Many +lawyers thought so then, and so did the prudent Fillmore. This is one +of the rare cases where a layman may have an opinion on a point of law, +for the argument of Taney was entirely historical and rested upon the +opinion as to negroes and slavery which he ascribed to the makers of +the Constitution and the authors of the Declaration of Independence. +On the question of Scott's citizenship he laid down that these men had +hardly counted Africans as human at all, and used words such as "men," +"persons," "citizens" in a sense which necessarily excluded the negro. +We have seen already that he was wrong--the Southern politician who +called the words of the Declaration of Independence "a self-evident +lie" was a sounder historian than Taney; but an amazing fact is to be +added: the Constitution, whose authors, according to Taney, could not +conceive of a negro as a citizen, was actually the act of a number of +States in several of which negroes were exercising the full rights of +citizens at the time. It would be easy to bring almost equally plain +considerations to bear against the more elaborate argument of Taney +that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, but it is enough to +say this much: the first four Presidents--that is, all the Presidents +who were in public life when the Constitution was made--had all acted +unhesitatingly upon the belief that Congress had the power to allow or +forbid slavery in the Territories. The fifth, John Quincy Adams, when +he set his hand to Acts involving this principle, had consulted before +doing so the whole of his Cabinet on this constitutional point and had +signed such legislation with the full concurrence of them all. Even +Polk had acted later upon the same view. The Dred Scott judgment would +thus appear to show the penetrating power at that time of an altogether +fantastic opinion. + +The hope, which Taney is known to have entertained, that his judgment +would compose excited public opinion, was by no means fulfilled. It +raised fierce excitement. What practical effect would hereafter be +given to the opinion of six out of the nine judges in that Court might +depend on many things. But to the Republicans, who appealed much to +antiquity, it was maddening to be thus assured that their whole +"platform" was unconstitutional. In the long run, there seems to be no +doubt that Taney helped the cause of freedom. He had tried to make +evident the personal sense of compassion for "these unfortunate people" +with which he contemplated the opinion that he ascribed to a past +generation; but he failed to do this, and instead he succeeded in +imparting to the supposed Constitutional view of the slave, as nothing +but a chattel, a horror which went home to many thousands of the +warm-hearted men and women of his country. + +For the time, however, the Republicans were deeply depressed, and a +further perplexity shortly befell them. An attempt, to which we must +shortly return, was made to impose the slave system on Kansas against +the now unmistakable will of the majority there. Against this attempt +Douglas, in opposition to whom the Republican party had been formed, +revolted to his lasting honour, and he now stood out for the occasion +as the champion of freedom. It was at this late period of bewilderment +and confusion that the life-story of Abraham Lincoln became one with +the life-story of the American people. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE RISE OF LINCOLN + +1. _Lincoln's Return to Public Life_. + +We possess a single familiar letter in which Lincoln opened his heart +about politics. It was written while old political ties were not yet +quite broken and new ties not quite knit, and it was written to an old +and a dear friend who was not his political associate. We may +fittingly place it here, as a record of the strong and conflicting +feelings out of which his consistent purpose in this crisis was formed. + + +"_24 August, 1855_. + +"To JOSHUA SPEED. + +"You know what a poor correspondent I am. Ever since I received your +very agreeable letter of the 22nd I have been intending to write you an +answer to it. You suggest that in political action, now, you and I +would differ. I suppose we would; not quite so much, however, as you +may think. You know I dislike slavery, and you fully admit the +abstract wrong of it. So far there is no cause of difference. But you +say that sooner than yield your legal right to the slave, especially at +the bidding of those who are not themselves interested, you would see +the Union dissolved. I am not aware that any one is bidding you yield +that right; very certainly I am not. I leave that matter entirely to +yourself. I also acknowledge your rights and my obligations under the +Constitution in regard to your slaves. I confess I hate to see the +poor creatures hunted down and caught and carried back to their stripes +and unrequited toil; but I bite my lips and keep quiet. In 1841 you +and I had together a tedious low-water trip on a steamboat from +Louisville to St. Louis. You may remember, as I well do, that from +Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio there were on board ten or a dozen +slaves shackled together with irons. That sight was a continual +torment to me, and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio +or any other slave border. It is not fair for you to assume that I +have no interest in a thing which has, and continually exercises, the +power to make me miserable. You ought rather to appreciate how much +the great body of the Northern people do crucify their feelings, in +order to maintain their loyalty to the Constitution and the Union. I +do oppose the extension of slavery because my judgment and feelings so +prompt me, and I am under no obligations to the contrary. If for this +you and I must differ, differ we must. . . . + +"You say that if Kansas fairly votes herself a free State, as a +Christian you will rejoice at it. All decent slave holders talk that +way and I do not doubt their candour. But they never vote that way. +Although in a private letter or conversation you will express your +preference that Kansas shall be free, you will vote for no man for +Congress who would say the same thing publicly. No such man could be +elected from any district in a slave State. . . . The slave breeders +and slave traders are a small, odious and detested class among you; and +yet in politics they dictate the course of all of you, and are as +completely your masters as you are the masters of your own negroes. + +"You inquire where I now stand. That is a disputed point. I think I +am a Whig; but others say there are no Whigs, and that I am an +Abolitionist. When I was at Washington I voted for the Wilmot Proviso +as good as forty times; and I never heard of any one attempting to +un-Whig me for that. I now do no more than oppose the extension of +slavery. I am not a Know-Nothing, that is certain. How could I be? +How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes be in favour of +degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears +to me pretty rapid. As a nation we began by declaring that 'all men +are created equal.' We now practically read it, 'all men are created +equal, except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will +read, 'all men are created equal, except negroes and foreigners and +Catholics.' When it comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some +country where they make no pretence of loving liberty--to Russia, for +instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy +of hypocrisy. + +"Mary will probably pass a day or two in Louisville in October. My +kindest regards to Mrs. Speed. On the leading subject of this letter I +have more of her sympathy than I have of yours; and yet let me say I am + +"Your friend forever, + +"A. LINCOLN." + + +The shade of doubt which this letter suggests related really to the +composition of political parties and the grouping of political forces, +not in the least to the principles by which Lincoln's own actions would +be guided. He has himself recorded that the repeal of the Missouri +Compromise meant for him the sudden revival in a far stronger form of +his interest in politics, and, we may add, of his political ambition. +The opinions which he cherished most deeply demanded no longer patience +but vehement action. The faculties of political organisation and of +popular debate, of which he enjoyed the exercise, could now be used for +a purpose which satisfied his understanding and his heart. + +From 1854 onwards we find Lincoln almost incessantly occupied, at +conventions, at public meetings, in correspondence, in secret +consultation with those who looked to him for counsel, for the one +object of strengthening the new Republican movement in his own State of +Illinois, and, so far as opportunity offered, in the neighbouring +States. Some of the best of his reported and the most effective of his +unreported speeches were delivered between 1854 and 1858. Yet as large +a part of his work in these years was done quietly in the background, +and it continued to be his fate to be called upon to efface himself. + +It is unnecessary to follow in any detail the labours by which he +became a great leader in Illinois. It may suffice to pick out two +instances that illustrate the ways of this astute, unselfish man. The +first is very trifling and shows him merely astute. A Springfield +newspaper called the _Conservative_ was acquiring too much influence as +the organ of moderate and decent opinion that acquiesced in the +extension of negro slavery. The Abolitionist, Mr. Herndon, was a +friend of the editor. One day he showed Lincoln an article in a +Southern paper which most boldly justified slavery whether the slaves +were black or white. Lincoln observed what a good thing it would be if +the pro-slavery papers of Illinois could be led to go this length. +Herndon ingeniously used his acquaintance with the editor to procure +that he should reprint this article with approval. Of course that +promising journalistic venture, the _Conservative_, was at once ruined +by so gross an indiscretion. This was hard on its confiding editor, +and it is not to Lincoln's credit that he suggested or connived at this +trick. But this trumpery tale happens to be a fair illustration of two +things. In the first place a large part of Lincoln's activity went in +the industrious and watchful performance of services to his cause, very +seldom as questionable but constantly as minute as this, and in making +himself as in this case confidant and adviser to a number of less +notable workers. In the second place a biographer must set forth if he +can the materials for the severest judgment on his subject, and in the +case of a man whose fame was built on his honesty, but who certainly +had an aptitude for ingenious tricks and took a humorous delight in +them, this duty might involve a tedious examination of many unimportant +incidents. It may save such discussion hereafter to say, as can safely +be said upon a study of all the transactions in his life of which the +circumstances are known, that this trick on the editor of the +_Conservative_ marks the limit of Lincoln's deviation from the straight +path. Most of us might be very glad if we had really never done +anything much more dishonest. + +Our second tale of this period is much more memorable. In 1856 the +term of office of one of the Senators for Illinois came to an end; and +there was a chance of electing an opponent of Douglas. Those of the +Republicans of Illinois who were former Whigs desired the election of +Lincoln, but could only secure it by the adhesion of a sufficient +number of former Democrats and waverers. United States Senators were +elected by the Legislatures of their own States through a procedure +similar to that of the Conclave of Cardinals which elects a Pope; if +there were several candidates and no one of them had an absolute +majority of the votes first cast, the candidate with most votes was not +elected; the voting was repeated, perhaps many times, till some one had +an absolute majority; the final result was brought about by a transfer +of votes from one candidate to another in which the prompt and cunning +wire-puller had sometimes a magnificent opportunity for his skill. In +this particular contest there were many ballots, and Lincoln at first +led. His supporters were full of eager hope. Lincoln, looking on, +discerned before any of them the setting in of an under-current likely +to result in the election of a supporter of Douglas. He discerned, +too, that the surest way to prevent this was for the whole of his +friends immediately to go over to the Democrat, Lyman Trumbull, who was +a sound opponent of slavery. He sacrificed his own chance instantly by +persuading his supporters to do this. They were very reluctant, but he +overbore them; one, a very old friend, records that he never saw him +more earnest and decided. The same friend records, what is necessary +to the appreciation of Lincoln's conduct, that his personal +disappointment and mortification at his failure were great. Lincoln, +it will be remembered, had acted just in this way when he sought +election to the House of Representatives; he was to repeat this line of +conduct in a manner at least as striking in the following year. Minute +criticism of his action in many matters becomes pointless when we +observe that his managing shrewdness was never more signally displayed +than it was three times over in the sacrifice of his own personal +chances. + +For four years, it is to be remembered, the activity and influence of +which we are speaking were of little importance beyond the boundaries +of Illinois. It is true that at the Republican Convention in 1856 +which chose Frémont as its candidate for the Presidency, Lincoln was +exposed for a moment to the risk (for so it was to be regarded) of +being nominated for the Vice-Presidency; but even his greatest speech +was not noticed outside Illinois, and in the greater part of the +Northern States his name was known to comparatively few and to them +only as a local notability of the West. But in the course of 1858 he +challenged the attention of the whole country. There was again a +vacancy for a Senator for Illinois. Douglas was the sole and obvious +candidate of the Democrats. Lincoln came forward as his opponent. The +elections then pending of the State Legislature, which in its turn +would elect a Senator, became a contest between Lincoln and Douglas. +In the autumn of that year these rival champions held seven joint +debates before mass meetings in the open air at important towns of +Illinois, taking turns in the right of opening the debate and replying +at its close; in addition each was speaking at meetings of his own at +least once a day for three months. At the end of it all Douglas had +won his seat in the Senate, and Lincoln had not yet gained recognition +among the Republican leaders as one of themselves. Nevertheless the +contest between Lincoln and Douglas was one of the decisive events in +American history, partly from the mere fact that at that particular +moment any one opposed Douglas at all; partly from the manner in which, +in the hearing of all America, Lincoln formulated the issue between +them; partly from the singular stroke by which he deliberately ensured +his own defeat and certain further consequences. + + +2. _The Principles and the Oratory of Lincoln_. + +We can best understand the causes which suddenly made him a man of +national consequence by a somewhat close examination of the principles +and the spirit which governed all his public activity from the moment +of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The new Republican party +which then began to form itself stood for what might seem a simple +creed; slavery must be tolerated where it existed because the +Constitution and the maintenance of the Union required it, but it must +not be allowed to extend beyond its present limits because it was +fundamentally wrong. This was what most Whigs and many Democrats in +the North had always held, but the formulation of it as the platform of +a party, and a party which must draw its members almost entirely from +the North, was bound to raise in an acute form questions on which very +few men had searched their hearts. Men who hated slavery were likely +to falter and find excuses for yielding when confronted with the danger +to the Union which would arise. Men who loved the Union might in the +last resort be ready to sacrifice it if they could thereby be rid of +complicity with slavery, or might be unwilling to maintain it at the +cost of fratricidal war. The stress of conflicting emotions and the +complications of the political situation were certain to try to the +uttermost the faith of any Republican who was not very sure just how +much he cared for the Union and how much for freedom, and what loyalty +to either principle involved. It was the distinction of Lincoln--a man +lacking in much of the knowledge which statesmen are supposed to +possess, and capable of blundering and hesitation about details--first, +that upon questions like these he was free from ambiguity of thought or +faltering of will, and further, that upon his difficult path, amid +bewildering and terrifying circumstances, he was able to take with him +the minds of very many very ordinary men. + +In a slightly conventional memorial oration upon Clay, Lincoln had said +of him that "he loved his country, partly because it was his own +country, and mostly because it was a free country." He might truly +have said the like of himself. To him the national unity of America, +with the Constitution which symbolised it, was the subject of pride and +of devotion just in so far as it had embodied and could hereafter more +fully embody certain principles of permanent value to mankind. On this +he fully knew his own inner mind. For the preservation of an America +which he could value more, say, than men value the Argentine Republic, +he was to show himself better prepared than any other man to pay any +possible price. But he definitely refused to preserve the Union by +what in his estimation would have been the real surrender of the +principles which had made Americans a distinct and self-respecting +nation. + +Those principles he found in the Declaration of Independence. Its +rhetorical inexactitude gave him no trouble, and must not, now that its +language is out of fashion, blind us to the fact that the founders of +the United States did deliberately aspire to found a commonwealth in +which common men and women should count for more than elsewhere, and in +which, as we might now phrase it, all authority must defer somewhat to +the interests and to the sentiments of the under dog. "Public opinion +on any subject," he said, "always has a 'central idea' from which all +its minor thoughts radiate. The 'central idea' in our public opinion +at the beginning was, and till recently has continued to be, 'the +equality of man'; and, although it has always submitted patiently to +whatever inequality seemed to be a matter of actual necessity, its +constant working has been a steady and progressive effort towards the +practical equality of all men." The fathers, he said again, had never +intended any such obvious untruth as that equality actually existed, or +that any action of theirs could immediately create it; but they had set +up a standard to which continual approximation could be made. + +So far as white men were concerned such approximation had actually +taken place; the audiences Lincoln addressed were fully conscious that +very many thousands had found in the United States a scope to lead +their own lives which the traditions and institutions no less than the +physical conditions of their former countries had denied them. There +was no need for him to enlarge on this fact; but there are repeated +indications of the distaste and alarm with which he witnessed a demand +that newcomers from Europe, or some classes of them, should be accorded +lesser privileges than they had enjoyed. + +But notions of freedom and equality as applied to the negroes presented +a real difficulty. "There is," said Lincoln, "a natural disgust in the +minds of nearly all white people at the idea of an indiscriminate +amalgamation of the white and black men." (We might perhaps add that +as the inferior race becomes educated and rises in status it is likely +itself to share the same disgust.) Lincoln himself disliked the +thought of intermarriage between the races. He by no means took it for +granted that equality in political power must necessarily and properly +follow upon emancipation. Schemes for colonial settlement of the +negroes in Africa, or for gradual emancipation accompanied by +educational measures, appealed to his sympathy. It was not given him +to take a part in the settlement after the war, and it is impossible to +guess what he would have achieved as a constructive statesman; but it +is certain that he would have proceeded with caution and with the +patience of sure faith; and he had that human sympathy with the white +people of the South, and no less with the slaves themselves, which +taught him the difficulty of the problem. But difficult as the problem +was, one solution was certainly wrong, and that was the permanent +acquiescence in slavery. If we may judge from reiteration in his +speeches, no sophism angered him quite so much as the very popular +sophism which defended slavery by presenting a literal equality as the +real alternative to it. "I protest against the counterfeit logic which +says that since I do not want a negro woman for my slave I must +necessarily want her for my wife. I may want her for neither. I may +simply let her alone. In some respects she is certainly not my equal. +But in her natural right to eat the bread which she has earned by the +sweat of her brow, she is my equal and the equal of any man." + +The men who had made the Union had, as Lincoln contended, and in regard +to most of them contended justly, been true to principle in their +dealing with slavery. "They yielded to slavery," he insists, "what the +necessity of the case required, and they yielded nothing more." It +was, as we know, impossible for them in federating America, however +much they might hope to inspire the new nation with just ideas, to take +the power of legislating as to slavery within each existing State out +of the hands of that State. Such power as they actually possessed of +striking at slavery they used, as we have seen and as Lincoln recounted +in detail, with all promptitude and almost to its fullest extent. They +reasonably believed, though wrongly, that the natural tendency of +opinion throughout the now freed Colonies with principles of freedom in +the air would work steadily towards emancipation. "The fathers," +Lincoln could fairly say, "place slavery, where the public mind could +rest in the belief that it was in the course of ultimate extinction." +The task for statesmen now was "to put slavery back where the fathers +placed it." + +Now this by no means implied that slavery in the States which now +adhered to it should be exposed to attack from outside, or the slave +owner be denied any right which he could claim under the Constitution, +however odious and painful it might be, as in the case of the rendition +of fugitive slaves, to yield him his rights. "We allow," says Lincoln, +"slavery to exist in the slave States, not because it is right, but +from the necessities of the Union. We grant a fugitive slave law +because it is so 'nominated in the bond'; because our fathers so +stipulated--had to--and we are bound to carry out this agreement." And +the obligations to the slave owners and the slave States, which this +original agreement and the fundamental necessities of the Union +involved, must be fulfilled unswervingly, in spirit as well as in the +letter. Lincoln was ready to give the slave States any possible +guarantee that the Constitution should not be altered so as to take +away their existing right of self-government in the matter of slavery. +He had remained in the past coldly aloof from the Abolitionist +propaganda when Herndon and other friends tried to interest him in it, +feeling, it seems, that agitation in the free States against laws which +existed constitutionally in the slave States was not only futile but +improper. With all his power he dissuaded his more impulsive friends +from lending any aid to forcible and unlawful proceedings in defence of +freedom in Kansas. "The battle of freedom," he exclaims in a vehement +plea for what may be called moderate as against radical policy, "is to +be fought out on principle. Slavery is violation of eternal right. We +have temporised with it from the necessities of our condition; but as +sure as God reigns and school children read, that black foul lie can +never be consecrated into God's hallowed truth." In other words, the +sure way and the only way to combat slavery lay in the firm and the +scrupulous assertion of principles which would carry the reason and the +conscience of the people with them; the repeal of the prohibition of +slavery in the Territories was a defiance of such principles, but so +too in its way was the disregard by Abolitionists of the rights +covenanted to the slave States. This side of Lincoln's doctrine is apt +to jar upon us. We feel with a great American historian that the North +would have been depraved indeed if it had not bred Abolitionists, and +it requires an effort to sympathise with Lincoln's rigidly correct +feeling--sometimes harshly expressed and sometimes apparently cold. It +is not possible to us, as it was to him a little later, to look on John +Brown's adventure merely as a crime. Nor can we wonder that, when he +was President and Civil War was raging, many good men in the North +mistook him and thought him half-hearted, because he persisted in his +respect for the rights of the Slave States so long as there seemed to +be a chance of saving the Union in that way. It was his primary +business, he then said, to save the Union if he could; "if I could save +the Union by emancipating all the slaves I would do so; if I could save +it by emancipating none of them, I would do it; if I could save it by +emancipating some and not others, I would do that too." But, as in the +letter at the beginning of this chapter he called Speed to witness, his +forbearance with slavery cost him real pain, and we shall misread both +his policy as President and his character as a man if we fail to see +that in the bottom of his mind he felt this forbearance to be required +by the very same principles which roused him against the extension of +the evil. Years before, he had written to an Abolitionist +correspondent that respect for the rights of the slave States was due +not only to the Constitution but, "as it seems to me, in a sense to +freedom itself." Negro slavery was not the only important issue, nor +was it an isolated issue. What really was in issue was the continuance +of the nation "dedicated," as he said on a great occasion, "to the +proposition that all men are equal," a nation founded by the Union of +self-governing communities, some of which lagged far behind the others +in applying in their own midst the elementary principles of freedom, +but yet a nation actuated from its very foundation in some important +respects by the acknowledgment of human rights. + +The practical policy, then, on which his whole efforts were +concentrated consisted in this single point--the express recognition of +the essential evil of slavery by the enactment that it should not +spread further in the Territories subject to the Union. If slavery +were thus shut up within a ring fence and marked as a wrong thing which +the Union as a whole might tolerate but would not be a party to, +emancipation in the slave States would follow in course of time. It +would come about, Lincoln certainly thought, in a way far better for +the slaves as well as for their masters, than any forced liberation. +He was content to wait for it. "I do not mean that when it takes a +turn towards ultimate extinction, it will be in a day, nor in a year, +nor in two years. I do not suppose that in the most peaceful way +ultimate extinction would occur in less than a hundred years at least, +but that it will occur in the best way for both races in God's own good +time I have no doubt." If we wonder whether this policy, if soon +enough adopted by the Union as a whole, would really have brought on +emancipation in the South, the best answer is that, when the policy did +receive national sanction by the election of Lincoln, the principal +slave States themselves instinctively recognised it as fatal to slavery. + +For the extinction of slavery he would wait; for a decision on the +principle of slavery he would not. It was idle to protest against +agitation of the question. If politicians would be silent that would +not get rid of "this same mighty deep-seated power that somehow +operates on the minds of men, exciting them and stirring them up in +every avenue of society--in politics, in religion, in literature, in +morals, in all the manifold relations of life." The stand, temperate +as it was, that he advocated against slavery should be taken at once +and finally. The difference, of which people grown accustomed to +slavery among their neighbours thought little, between letting it be in +Missouri, which they could not help, and letting it cross the border +into Kansas, which they could help, appeared to Lincoln the whole +tremendous gulf between right and wrong, between a wise people's +patience with ills they could not cure and a profligate people's +acceptance of evil as their good. And here there was a distinction +between Lincoln and many Republicans, which again may seem subtle, but +which was really far wider than that which separated him from the +Abolitionists. Slavery must be stopped from spreading into Kansas not +because, as it turned out, the immigrants into Kansas mostly did not +want it, but because it was wrong, and the United States, where they +were free to act, would not have it. The greatest evil in the repeal +of the Missouri Compromise was the laxity of public tone which had made +it possible. "Little by little, but steadily as man's march to the +grave, we have been giving up the old faith for the new faith." +Formerly some deference to the "central idea" of equality was general +and in some sort of abstract sense slavery was admitted to be wrong. +Now it was boldly claimed by the South that "slavery in the abstract +was right." All the most powerful influences in the country, "Mammon" +(for "the slave property is worth a billion dollars"), "fashion, +philosophy," and even "the theology of the day," were enlisted in +favour of this opinion. And it met with no resistance. "You yourself +may detest slavery; but your neighbour has five or six slaves, and he +is an excellent neighbour, or your son has married his daughter, and +they beg you to help save their property, and you vote against your +interests and principle to oblige a neighbour, hoping your vote will be +on the losing side." And again "the party lash and the fear of +ridicule will overawe justice and liberty; for it is a singular fact, +but none the less a fact and well known by the most common experience, +that men will do things under the terror of the party lash that they +would not on any account or for any consideration do otherwise; while +men, who will march up to the mouth of a loaded cannon without +shrinking, will run from the terrible name of 'Abolitionist,' even when +pronounced by a worthless creature whom they with good reason despise." +And so people in the North, who could hardly stomach the doctrine that +slavery was good, yet lapsed into the feeling that it was a thing +indifferent, a thing for which they might rightly shuffle off their +responsibility on to the immigrants into Kansas. This feeling that it +was indifferent Lincoln pursued and chastised with special scorn. But +the principle of freedom that they were surrendering was the principle +of freedom for themselves as well as for the negro. The sense of the +negro's rights had been allowed to go back till the prospect of +emancipation for him looked immeasurably worse than it had a generation +before. They must recognise that when, by their connivance, they had +barred and bolted the door upon the negro, the spirit of tyranny which +they had evoked would then "turn and rend them." The "central idea" +which had now established itself in the intellect of the Southern was +one which favoured the enslavement of man by man "apart from colour." +A definite choice had to be made between the principle of the fathers, +which asserted certain rights for all men, and that other principle +against which the fathers had rebelled and of which the "divine right +of kings" furnished Lincoln with his example. In what particular +manner the white people would be made to feel the principle of tyranny +when they had definitely "denied freedom to others" and ceased to +"deserve it for themselves" Lincoln did not attempt to say, and perhaps +only dimly imagined. But he was as convinced as any prophet that +America stood at the parting of the ways and must choose now the right +principle or the wrong with all its consequences. + +The principle of tyranny presented itself for their choice in a +specious form in Douglas' "great patent, everlasting principle of +'popular sovereignty.'" This alleged principle was likely, so to say, +to take upon their blind side men who were sympathetic to the +impatience of control of any crowd resembling themselves but not +sympathetic to humanity of another race and colour. The claim to some +divine and indefeasible right of sovereignty overriding all other +considerations of the general good, on the part of a majority greater +or smaller at any given time in any given area, is one which can +generally be made to bear a liberal semblance, though it certainly has +no necessary validity. Americans had never before thought of granting +it in the case of their outlying and unsettled dominions; they would +never, for instance, as Lincoln remarked, have admitted the claim of +settlers like the Mormons to make polygamy lawful in the territory they +occupied. In the manner in which it was now employed the proposed +principle could, as Lincoln contended, be reduced to this simple form +"that, if one man chooses to enslave another, no third man shall have +the right to object." + +It is impossible to estimate how far Lincoln foresaw the strain to +which a firm stand against slavery would subject the Union. It is +likely enough that those worst forebodings for the Union, which events +proved to be very true, were confined to timid men who made a practice +of yielding to threats. Lincoln appreciated better than many of his +fellows the sentiment of the South, but it is often hard for men, not +in immediate contact with a school of thought which seems to them +thoroughly perverse, to appreciate its pervasive power, and Lincoln was +inclined to stake much upon the hope that reason will prevail. +Moreover, he had a confidence in the strength of the Union which might +have been justified if his predecessor in office had been a man of +ordinary firmness. But it is not to be supposed that any undue +hopefulness, if he felt it, influenced his judgment. He was of a +temper which does not seek to forecast what the future has to show, and +his melancholy prepared him well for any evil that might come. Two +things we can say with certainty of his aim and purpose. On the one +hand, as has already been said, whatever view he had taken of the peril +to the Union he would never have sought to avoid the peril by what +appeared to him a surrender of the principle which gave the Union its +worth. On the other hand, he must always have been prepared to uphold +the Union at whatever the cost might prove to be. To a man of deep and +gentle nature war will always be hateful, but it can never, any more +than an individual death, appear the worst of evils. And the claim of +the Southern States to separate from a community which to him was +venerable and to form a new nation, based on slavery and bound to live +in discord with its neighbors, did not appeal to him at all, though in +a certain literal sense it was a claim to liberty. His attitude to any +possible movement for secession was defined four years at least before +secession came, in words such as it was not his habit to use without +full sense of their possible effect or without much previous thought. +They were quite simple: "We won't break up the Union, and you shan't." + +Such were the main thoughts which would be found to animate the whole +of Lincoln's notable campaign, beginning with his first encounter with +Douglas in 1855 and culminating in his prolonged duel with him in the +autumn of 1858. It is unnecessary here to follow the complexities, +especially in regard to the Dred Scott judgments, through which the +discussion wandered. It is now worth few men's while to do more than +glance at two or three of his speeches at that period; his speeches in +the formal Lincoln-Douglas debates, except the first, are not the best +of them. A scientific student of rhetoric, as the art by which man do +actually persuade crowds, might indeed do well to watch closely the use +by Douglas and Lincoln of their respective weapons, but for most of us +it is an unprofitable business to read reiterated argument, even though +in beautiful language, upon points of doubt that no longer trouble us. +Lincoln does not always show to advantage; later readers have found him +inferior in urbanity to Douglas, of whom he disapproved, while Douglas +probably disapproved of no man; his speeches are, of course, not free +either from unsound arguments or from the rough and tumble of popular +debate; occasionally he uses hackneyed phrases; but it is remarkable +that a hackneyed or a falsely sentimental phrase in Lincoln comes +always as a lapse and a surprise. Passages abound in these speeches +which to almost any literate taste are arresting for the simple beauty +of their English, a beauty characteristic of one who had learned to +reason with Euclid and learned to feel and to speak with the authors of +the Bible. And in their own kind they were a classic and probably +unsurpassed achievement. Though Lincoln had to deal with a single +issue demanding no great width of knowledge, it must be evident that +the passions aroused by it and the confused and shifting state of +public sentiment made his problem very subtle, and it was a rare +profundity and sincerity of thought which solved it in his own mind. +In expressing the result of thought so far deeper than that of most +men, he achieved a clearness of expression which very few writers, and +those among the greatest, have excelled. He once during the +Presidential election of 1856 wrote to a supporter of Fillmore to +persuade him of a proposition which must seem paradoxical to anyone not +deeply versed in American institutions, namely, that it was actually +against Fillmore's interest to gain votes from Frémont in Illinois. He +demonstrated his point, but he was not always judicious in his way of +addressing solemn strangers, and in his rural manner he concludes his +letter, "the whole thing is as simple as figuring out the weight of +three small hogs," and this inelegant sentence conveys with little +exaggeration one especial merit of his often austerely graceful +language. Grave difficulties are handled in a style which could arouse +all the interest of a boy and penetrate the understanding of a +case-hardened party man. + +But if in comparison with the acknowledged masterpieces of our prose we +rank many passages in these speeches very high--and in fact the men who +have appreciated them most highly have been fastidious scholars--we +shall not yet have measured Lincoln's effort and performance. For +these are not the compositions of a cloistered man of letters, they are +the outpourings of an agitator upon the stump. The men who think hard +are few; few of them can clothe their thought in apt and simple words; +very, very few are those who in doing this could hold the attention of +a miscellaneous and large crowd. Popular government owes that +comparative failure, of which in recent times we have taken perhaps +exaggerated notice, partly to the blindness of the polite world to the +true difficulty and true value of work of this kind; and the importance +which Roman education under the Empire gave to rhetoric was the mark +not of deadness, but of the survival of a manly public spirit. +Lincoln's wisdom had to utter itself in a voice which would reach the +outskirts of a large and sometimes excited crowd in the open air. It +was uttered in strenuous conflict with a man whose reputation quite +overshadowed his; a person whose extraordinary and good-humoured +vitality armed him with an external charm even for people who, like +Mrs. Beecher Stowe, detested his principles; an orator whose mastery of +popular appeal and of resourceful and evasive debate was quite +unhampered by any weakness for the truth. The utterance had to be kept +up day after day and night after night for a quarter of a year, by a +man too poor to afford little comforts, travelling from one crowded inn +to another, by slow trains on a railway whose officials paid little +attention to him, while his more prosperous and distinguished rival +could travel in comfort and comparative magnificence. The physical +strain of electioneering, which is always considerable, its alternation +of feverish excitement with a lassitude that, after a while, becomes +prevailing and intense, were in this case far greater and more +prolonged than in any other instance recorded of English or probably of +American statesmen. If, upon his sudden elevation shortly afterwards, +Lincoln was in a sense an obscure man raised up by chance, he was +nevertheless a man who had accomplished a heroic labour. + +On the whole the earthen vessel in which he carried his treasure of +clear thought and clean feelings appears to have enhanced its flavour. +There was at any rate nothing outward about him that aroused the +passion of envy. A few peculiarly observant men were immediately +impressed with his distinction, but there is no doubt that to the +ordinary stranger he appeared as a very odd fish. "No portraits that I +have ever seen," writes one, "do justice to the awkwardness and +ungainliness of his figure." Its movements when he began to speak +rather added to its ungainliness, and, though to a trained actor his +elocution seemed perfect, his voice when he first opened his mouth +surprised and jarred upon the hearers with a harsh note of curiously +high pitch. But it was the sort of oddity that arrests attention, and +people's attention once caught was apt to be held by the man's +transparent earnestness. Soon, as he lost thought of himself in his +subject, his voice and manner changed; deeper notes, of which friends +record the beauty, rang out, the sad eyes kindled, and the tall, gaunt +figure, with the strange gesture of the long, uplifted arms, acquired +even a certain majesty. Hearers recalled afterwards with evident +sincerity the deep and instantaneous impression of some appeal to +simple conscience, as when, "reaching his hands towards the stars of +that still night," he proclaimed, "in some things she is certainly not +my equal, but in her natural right to eat the bread that she has earned +with the sweat of her brow, she is my equal, and the equal of Judge +Douglas, and the equal of any man." Indeed, upon a sympathetic +audience, already excited by the occasion, he could produce an effect +which the reader of his recorded speeches would hardly believe. Of his +speech at an early state convention of the Republican party there is no +report except that after a few sentences every reporter laid down his +pen for the opposite of the usual reason, and, as he proceeded, "the +audience arose from their chairs and with pale faces and quivering lips +pressed unconsciously towards him." And of his speech on another +similar occasion several witnesses seem to have left descriptions +hardly less incongruous with English experience of public meetings. If +we credit him with these occasional manifestations of electric +oratory--as to which it is certain that his quiet temperament did at +times blaze out in a surprising fashion--it is not to be thought that +he was ordinarily what could be called eloquent; some of his speeches +are commonplace enough, and much of his debating with Douglas is of a +drily argumentative kind that does honour to the mass meetings which +heard it gladly. But the greatest gift of the orator he did possess; +the personality behind the words was felt. "Beyond and above all +skill," says the editor of a great paper who heard him at Peoria, "was +the overwhelming conviction imposed upon the audience that the speaker +himself was charged with an irresistible and inspiring duty to his +fellow men." + +One fact about the method of his speaking is easily detected. In +debate, at least, he had no use for perorations, and the reader who +looks for them will often find that Lincoln just used up the last few +minutes in clearing up some unimportant point which he wanted to +explain only if there was time for it. We associate our older +Parliamentary oratory with an art which keeps the hearer pleasedly +expectant rather than dangerously attentive, through an argument which +if dwelt upon might prove unsubstantial, secure that it all leads in +the end to some great cadence of noble sound. But in Lincoln's +argumentative speeches the employment of beautiful words is least +sparing at the beginning or when he passes to a new subject. It seems +as if he deliberately used up his rhetorical effects at the outset to +put his audience in the temper in which they would earnestly follow him +and to challenge their full attention to reasoning which was to satisfy +their calmer judgment. He put himself in a position in which if his +argument were not sound nothing could save his speech from failure as a +speech. Perhaps no standing epithet of praise hangs with such a weight +on a man's reputation as the epithet "honest." When the man is proved +not to be a fraud, it suggests a very mediocre virtue. But the method +by which Lincoln actually confirmed his early won and dangerous +reputation of honesty was a positive and potent performance of rare +distinction. It is no mean intellectual and spiritual achievement to +be as honest in speech with a crowd as in the dearest intercourse of +life. It is not, of course, pretended that he never used a fallacious +argument or made an unfair score--he was entirely human. But this is +the testimony of an Illinois political wire-puller to Lincoln: "He was +one of the shrewdest politicians in the State. Nobody had more +experience in that way. Nobody knew better what was passing in the +minds of the people. Nobody knew better how to turn things to +advantage politically." And then he goes on--and this is really the +sum of what is to be said of his oratory: "He could not cheat people +out of their votes any more than he could out of their money." + + +3. _Lincoln against Douglas_. + +It has now to be told how the contest with Douglas which concluded +Lincoln's labours in Illinois affected the broad stream of political +events in America as a whole. Lincoln, as we know, was still only a +local personage; Illinois is a State bigger than Ireland, but it is +only a little part and was still a rather raw and provincial part of +the United States; but Douglas had for years been a national personage, +for a time the greatest man among the Democrats, and now, for a reason +which did him honour, he was in disgrace with many of his party and on +the point of becoming the hero of all moderate Republicans. + +We need not follow in much detail the events of the great political +world. The repeal of the Missouri Compromise threw it into a ferment, +which the continuing disorders in Kansas were in themselves sufficient +to keep up. New great names were being made in debate in the Senate; +Seward, the most powerful opponent of the repeal of the Missouri +Compromise, kept his place as the foremost man in the Republican party +not by consistency in the stand that he made, but by his mastery of New +York political machinery; Sumner of Massachusetts, the friend of John +Bright, kept up a continual protest for freedom in turgid, scholarly +harangues, which caught the spirit of Cicero's Philippics most +successfully in their personal offensiveness. Powerful voices in +literature and the Press were heard upon the same side--the _New York +Tribune_, edited by Horace Greeley, acquired, as far as a paper in so +large a country can, a national importance. Broadly it may be said +that the stirring intellect of America old and young was with the +Republicans--it is a pleasant trifle to note that Longfellow gave up a +visit to Europe to vote for Frémont as President, and we know the views +of Motley and of Lowell and of Darwin's fellow labourer Asa Gray. But +fashion and that better and quite different influence, the tone of +opinion prevailing in the pleasantest society, inclined always to the +Southern view of every question, and these influences were nowhere more +felt than among Washington politicians. A strong and respectable group +of Southern Senators, of whom Jefferson Davis was the strongest, were +the real driving power of the administration. Convivial President +Pierce and doting President Buchanan after him were complaisant to +their least scrupulous suggestions in a degree hardly credible of +honourable men who were not themselves Southerners. + +One famous incident of life in Congress must be told to explain the +temper of the times. In 1856, during one of the many debates that +arose out of Kansas, Sumner recited in the Senate a speech +conscientiously calculated to sting the slave-owning Senators to +madness. Sumner was a man with brains and with courage and rectitude +beyond praise, set off by a powerful and noble frame, but he lacked +every minor quality of greatness. He would not call his opponent in +debate a skunk, but he would expend great verbal ingenuity in coupling +his name with repeated references to that animal's attributes. On this +occasion he used to the full both the finer and the most exquisitely +tasteless qualities of his eloquence. This sort of thing passed the +censorship of many excellent Northern men who would lament Lincoln's +lack of refinement; and though from first to last the serious +provocation in their disputes lay in the set policy of the Southern +leaders, it ought to be realised that they, men who for the most part +were quite kind to their slaves and had long ago argued themselves out +of any compunction about slavery, were often exposed to intense verbal +provocation. Nevertheless, what followed on Sumner's speech is +terribly significant of the depravation of Southern honour. + +Congressman Preston Brooks, of South Carolina, had an uncle in the +Senate; South Carolina, and this Senator in particular, had been +specially favoured with self-righteous insolence in Sumner's speech. A +day or so later the Senate had just risen and Sumner sat writing at his +desk in the Senate chamber in a position in which he could not quickly +rise. Brooks walked in, burning with piety towards his State and his +uncle, and in the presence, it seems, of Southern Senators who could +have stopped him, beat Sumner on the head with a stick with all his +might. Sumner was incapacitated by injuries to his spine for nearly +five years. Brooks, with a virtuous air, explained in Congress that he +had caught Sumner in a helpless attitude because if Sumner had been +free to use his superior strength he, Brooks, would have had to shoot +him with his revolver. It seems to be hardly an exaggeration to say +that the whole South applauded Brooks and exulted. Exuberant +Southerners took to challenging Northern men, knowing well that their +principles compelled them to refuse duels, but that the refusal would +still be humiliating to the North. Brooks himself challenged +Burlingame, a distinguished Congressman afterwards sent by Lincoln as +Minister to China, who had denounced him. Burlingame accepted, and his +second arranged for a rifle duel at a wild spot across the frontier at +Niagara. Brooks then drew back; he alleged, perhaps sincerely, that he +would have been murdered on his way through the Northern States, but +Northern people were a little solaced. The whole disgusting story +contains only one pleasant incident. Preston Brooks, who, after +numbers of congratulations, testimonials, and presentations, died +within a year of his famous exploit, had first confessed himself tired +of being a hero to every vulgar bully in the South! + +Now, though this dangerous temper burned steadily in the South, and +there were always sturdy Republicans ready to provoke it, and questions +arising out of slavery would constantly recur to disturb high political +circles, it is not to be imagined that opinion in the North, the +growing and bustling portion of the States, would remain for years +excited about the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. In 1857 men's +minds were agitated by a great commercial depression and collapse of +credit, and in 1858 there took place one of the most curious (for it +would seem to have deserved this cold description) of evanescent +religious revivals. Meanwhile, by 1857 the actual bloodshed in Kansas +had come to an end under the administration of an able Governor; the +enormous majority of settlers in Kansas were now known to be against +slavery and it was probably assumed that the legalisation of slavery +could not be forced upon them. Prohibition of slavery there by +Congress thus began to seem needless, and the Dred Scott judgments +raised at least a grave doubt as to whether it was possible. Thus +enthusiasm for the original platform of the Republicans was cooling +down, and to the further embarrassment of that party, when towards the +end of 1857 the Southern leaders attempted a legislative outrage, the +great champion of the Northern protest was not a Republican, but +Douglas himself. + +A Convention had been elected in Kansas to frame a State Constitution. +It represented only a fraction of the people, since, for some reason +good or bad, the opponents of slavery did not vote in the election. +But it was understood that whatever Constitution was framed would be +submitted to the popular vote. The Convention framed a Constitution +legalising slavery, and its proposals came before Congress backed by +the influence of Buchanan. Under them the people of Kansas were to +vote whether they would have this Constitution as it stood, or have it +with the legalisation of slavery restricted to the slaves who had then +been brought into the territory. No opportunity was to be given them +of rejecting the Constitution altogether, though Governor Walker, +himself in favor of slavery, assured the President that they wished to +do so. Ultimately, by way of concession to vehement resistance, the +majority in Congress passed an Act under which the people in Kansas +were to vote simply for or against the slavery Constitution as it +stood, only--if they voted for it, they as a State were to be rewarded +with a large grant of public lands belonging to the Union in their +territory. Eventually the Kansas people, unmoved by this bribe, +rejected the Constitution by a majority of more than 11,000 to 1,800. +Now, the Southern leaders, three years before, had eagerly joined with +Douglas to claim a right of free choice for the Kansas people. The +shamelessness of this attempt to trick them out of it is more +significant even than the tale of Preston Brooks. There was no hot +blood there; the affair was quietly plotted by respected leaders of the +South. They were men in many ways of character and honour, understood +by weak men like Buchanan to represent the best traditions of American +public life. But, as they showed also in other instances that cannot +be related here, slavery had become for them a sacred cause which +hallowed almost any means. It is essential to remember this in trying +to understand the then political situation. + +Douglas here behaved very honourably. He, with his cause of popular +sovereignty, could not have afforded to identify himself with the fraud +on Kansas, but he was a good enough trickster to have made his protest +safely if he had cared to do so. As it was he braved the hatred of +Buchanan and the fury of his Southern friends by instant, manly, +courageous, and continued opposition. It may therefore seem an +ungracious thing that, immediately after this, Lincoln should have +accepted the invitation of his friends to oppose Douglas' re-election. +To most of the leading Republicans out of Illinois it seemed altogether +unwise and undesirable that their party, which had seemed to be losing +ground, should do anything but welcome Douglas as an ally. Of these +Seward indeed went too far for his friends, and in his sanguine hope +that it would work for freedom was ready to submit to the doctrine of +"popular sovereignty"; but, except the austere Chase, now Governor of +Ohio, who this once, but unfortunately not again, was whole-heartedly +with Lincoln, the Republican leaders in the East, and great Republican +journals, like the Tribune, declared their wish that Douglas should be +re-elected. Why, then, did Lincoln stand against him? + +It has often been suggested that his personal feelings towards Douglas +played some part in the matter, though no one thinks they played the +chief part. Probably they did play a part, and it is a relief to think +that Lincoln thoroughly gratified some minor feelings in this contest. +Lincoln no doubt enjoyed measuring himself against other men; and it +was galling to his ambition to have been so completely outstripped by a +man inferior to him in every power except that of rapid success. He +had also the deepest distrust for Douglas as a politician, thinking +that he had neither principle nor scruple, though Herndon, who knew, +declares he neither distrusted nor had cause to distrust Douglas in his +professional dealings as a lawyer. He had, by the way, one definite, +if trifling, score to wipe off. After their joint debate at Peoria in +1855 Douglas, finding him hard to tackle, suggested to Lincoln that +they should both undertake to make no more speeches for the present. +Lincoln oddly assented at once, perhaps for no better reason than a +ridiculous difficulty, to which he once confessed, in refusing any +request whatever. Lincoln of course had kept this agreement strictly, +while Douglas had availed himself of the first temptation to break it. +Thus on all grounds we may be sure that Lincoln took pleasure in now +opposing Douglas. But to go further and say that the two men cordially +hated each other is probably to misread both. There is no necessary +connection between a keen desire to beat a man and any sort of +malignity towards him. That much at least may be learned in English +schools, and the whole history of his dealing with men shows that in +some school or other Lincoln had learned it very thoroughly. Douglas, +too, though an unscrupulous, was not, we may guess, an ungenerous man. + +But the main fact of the matter is that Lincoln would have turned +traitor to his rooted convictions if he had not stood up and fought +Douglas even at this moment when Douglas was deserving of some +sympathy. Douglas, it must be observed, had simply acted on his +principle that the question between slavery and freedom was to be +settled by local, popular choice; he claimed for the white men of +Kansas the fair opportunity of voting; given that, he persistently +declared, "I do not care whether slavery be voted up or voted down." +In Lincoln's settled opinion this moral attitude of indifference to the +wrongfulness of slavery, so long as respect was had to the liberties of +the privileged race, was, so to say, treason to the basic principle of +the American Commonwealth, a treason which had steadily been becoming +rife and upon which it was time to stamp. + +There can be no doubt of his earnestness about this. But the +Republican leaders, honourably enough, regarded this as an unpractical +line to take, and indeed to the political historian this is the most +crucial question in American history. Nobody can say that civil war +would or would not have occurred if this or that had been done a little +differently, but Abraham Lincoln, at this crisis of his life, did, in +pursuance of his peculiarly cherished principle, forge at least a link +in the chain of events which actually precipitated the war. And he did +it knowing better than any other man that he was doing something of +great national importance, involving at least great national risk. Was +he pursuing his principles, moderate as they were in the original +conception, with fanaticism, or at the best preferring a solemn +consistency of theory to the conscientious handling of facts not +reducible to theory? As a question of practical statesmanship in the +largest sense, how did matters really stand in regard to slavery and to +the relations between South and North, and what was Lincoln's idea of +"putting slavery back where the fathers placed it" really worth? + +Herndon in these days went East to try to enlist the support of the +great men for Lincoln. He found them friendly but immovable. Editor +Horace Greeley said to him: "The Republican standard is too high; we +want something practical." This, we may be pretty sure, stiffened +Lincoln's back, as a man with a cause that he cared for, and, for that +matter, as a really shrewd manager in a party which he thought stood +for something. It reveals the flabbiness which the Northerners were in +danger of making a governing tradition of policy. The wrongfulness of +any extension of slavery might be loudly asserted in 1854, but in 1858, +when it no longer looked as if so great an extension of it was really +imminent, there was no harm in shifting towards some less provocative +principle on which more people at the moment might agree. Confronted +with Northern politicians who would reason in this fashion stood a +united South whose leaders were by now accustomed to make the Union +Government go which way they chose and had no sort of disposition to +compromise their principle in the least. "What," as Lincoln put it in +an address given, not long after his contest with Douglas, at the +Cooper Institute in New York, "what do you think will content the +South?" "Nothing," he answered, "but an acknowledgment that slavery is +right." "Holding as they do that slavery is morally right and socially +elevating, they cannot cease to demand a full national recognition of +it, as a legal right and a social blessing. Nor can we justifiably +withhold this on any ground save our conviction that slavery is wrong." +That being so, there was no use, he said, in "groping about for some +middle ground between right and wrong," or in "a policy of 'don't care' +on a question about which all true men do care." And there is ample +evidence that he understood rightly the policy of the South. It is +very doubtful whether any large extension of cultivation by slave +labour was economically possible in Kansas or in regions yet further +North, but we have seen to what lengths the Southern leaders would go +in the attempt to secure even a limited recognition of slavery as +lawful in a new State. They were not succeeding in the business of the +Kansas Constitution. But they had a very good prospect of a far more +important success. The celebrated dicta of Chief Justice Taney and +other judges in the Dred Scott case had not amounted to an actual +decision, nor if they had would a single decision have been +irreversible. Whether the principle of them should become fixed in +American Constitutional law depended (though this could not be openly +said) on whether future appointments to the Supreme Court were to be +made by a President who shared Taney's views; whether the executive +action of the President was governed by the same views; and on the +subtle pressure which outside opinion does exercise, and in this case +had surely exercised, upon judicial minds. If the simple principle +that the right to a slave is just one form of the ordinary right to +property once became firmly fixed in American jurisprudence it is hard +to see how any laws prohibiting slavery could have continued to be held +constitutional except in States which were free States when the +Constitution was adopted. Of course, a State like New York where +slaves were industrially useless would not therefore have been filled +with slave plantations, but, among a loyally minded people, the +tradition which reprobated slavery would have been greatly weakened. +The South would have been freed from the sense that slavery was a +doomed institution. If attempts to plant slavery further in the West +with profit failed, there was Cuba and there was Central America, on +which filibustering raids already found favour in the South, and in +which the national Government might be led to adopt schemes of conquest +or annexation. Moreover, it was avowed by leaders like Jefferson Davis +that though it might be impracticable to hope for the repeal of the +prohibition of the slave trade, at least some relaxation of its +severity ought to be striven for, in the interest of Texas and New +Mexico and of possible future Territories where there might be room for +more slaves. Such were the views of the leaders whose influence +preponderated with the present President and in the main with the +present Congress. When Lincoln judged that a determined stand against +their policy was required, and further that no such stand could be +possible to a party which had embraced Douglas with his principle, "I +care not whether slavery be voted up or voted down," there is no doubt +now that he was right and the great body of Republican authority +opposed to him wrong. + +When Lincoln and his friends in Illinois determined to fight Douglas, +it became impossible for the Republican party as a whole to fall far +behind them. This was in itself at that crisis an important thing. +Lincoln added greatly to its importance by the opening words in the +first speech of his campaign. They were the most carefully prepared +words that he had yet spoken, and the most momentous that he had spoken +till now or perhaps ever spoke. There is nothing in them for which +what has been said of the situation and of his views will not have +prepared us, and nothing which thousands of men might not have said to +one another in private for a year or two before. But the first public +avowal by a responsible man in trenchant phrase, that a grave issue has +been joined upon which one party or the other must accept entire +defeat, may be an event of great and perilous consequence. + +He said: "If we could first know where we are and whither we are +tending, we could better judge what to do and how to do it. We are now +far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed +object, and confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation. +Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not +ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion it will not cease +until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. 'A house divided +against itself cannot stand.' I believe this Government cannot endure +permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be +dissolved--I do not expect the house to fall--but I do expect that it +will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the +other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread +of it and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that +it is in course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it +forward till it shall become lawful alike in all the States, old as +well as new--North as well as South." + +It may perhaps be said that American public opinion has in the past +been very timid in facing clear-cut issues. But, as has already been +observed, an apt phrase crystallising the unspoken thought of many is +even more readily caught up in America than anywhere else; so, though +but few people in States at a distance paid much attention to the rest +of the debates, or for a while again to Lincoln, the comparison of the +house divided against itself produced an effect in the country which +did not wear out. In this whole passage, moreover, Lincoln had +certainly formulated the question before the nation more boldly, more +clearly, more truly than any one before. It is impossible to estimate +such influences precisely, but this was among the speeches that rank as +important actions, and the story, most characteristic of the speaker, +which lay behind it, is worth relating in detail. Lincoln had actually +in a speech in 1856 declared that the United States could not long +endure half slave and half free. "What in God's name," said some +friend after the meeting, "could induce you to promulgate such an +opinion?" "Upon my soul," he said, "I think it is true," and he could +not be argued out of this opinion. Finally the friend protested that, +true or not, no good could come of spreading this opinion abroad, and +after grave reflection Lincoln promised not to utter it again for the +present. Now, in 1858, having prepared his speech he read it to +Herndon. Herndon questioned whether the passage on the divided house +was politic. Lincoln said: "I would rather be defeated with this +expression in my speech, and uphold and discuss it before the people, +than be victorious without it." Once more, just before he delivered +it, he read it over to a dozen or so of his closest supporters, for it +was his way to discuss his intentions fully with friends, sometimes +accepting their advice most submissively and sometimes disregarding it +wholly. One said it was "ahead of its time," another that it was a +"damned fool utterance." All more or less strongly condemned it, +except this time Herndon, who, according to his recollection, said, "It +will make you President." He listened to all and then addressed them, +we are told, substantially as follows: "Friends, this thing has been +retarded long enough. The time has come when these sentiments should +be uttered; and if it is decreed that I should go down because of this +speech, then let me go down linked to the truth--let me die in the +advocacy of what is just and right." Rather a memorable pronouncement +of a candidate to his committee; and the man who records it is +insistent upon every little illustration he can find both of Lincoln's +cunning and of his ambition. + +Lincoln did go down in this particular contest. Many friends wrote and +reproved him after this "damned fool utterance," but his defeat was +not, after all, attributed to that. All the same he did himself assure +his defeat, and he did it with extraordinary skill, for the purpose of +ensuring that the next President should be a Republican President, +though it is impossible he should at that time have counted upon being +himself that Republican. Each candidate had undertaken to answer set +questions which his opponent might propound to him. And great public +attention was paid to the answers to these interrogatories. The Dred +Scott judgments created a great difficulty for Douglas; he was bound to +treat them as right; but if they were right and Congress had no power +to prohibit slavery in a Territory, neither could a Territorial +Legislature with authority delegated by Congress have that power; and, +if this were made clear, it would seem there was an end of that free +choice of the people in the Territories of which Douglas had been the +great advocate. Douglas would use all his evasive skill in keeping +away from this difficult point. If, however, he could be forced to +face it Lincoln knew what he would say. He would say that slavery +would not be actually unlawful in a Territory, but would never actually +exist in it if the Territorial Legislature chose to abstain, as it +could, from passing any of the laws which would in practice be +necessary to protect slave property. By advocating this view Douglas +would fully reassure those of his former supporters in Illinois who +puzzled themselves on the Dred Scott case, but he would infuriate the +South. Lincoln determined to force Douglas into this position by the +questions which he challenged him to answer. When he told his friends +of his ambition, they all told him he would lose his election. +"Gentlemen," said Lincoln, "I am killing larger game; if Douglas +answers, he can never be President, and the battle of 1860 is worth a +hundred of this." The South was already angry with Douglas for his +action over the Kansas Constitution, but he would have been an +invincible candidate for the South to support in 1860, and it must have +told in his favour that his offence then had been one of plain honesty. +But in this fresh offence the Southern leaders had some cause to accuse +him of double dealing, and they swore he should not be President. + +A majority of the new Illinois Legislature returned Douglas to the +Senate. Lincoln, however, had an actual majority of the votes of the +whole State. Probably also he had gained a hold on Illinois for the +future out of all proportion to the actual number of votes then given +against the popular Douglas, and above all he had gathered to him a +band of supporters who had unbounded belief in him. But his fall for +the moment was little noticed or regretted outside Illinois, or at any +rate in the great Eastern States, to which Illinois was, so to speak, +the provinces and he a provincial attorney. His first words in the +campaign had made a stir, but the rest of his speeches in these long +debates could not be much noticed at a distance. Douglas had won, and +the presumption was that he had proved himself the better man. Lincoln +had performed what, apart from results, was a work of intellectual +merit beyond the compass of any American statesman since Hamilton; +moreover, as can now be seen, there had been great results; for, first, +the young Republican party had not capitulated and collapsed, and, +then, the great Democratic party, established in power, in +indifference, and in complicity with wrong, was split clean in two. +But these were not results that could be read yet awhile in election +figures. Meanwhile the exhausted Lincoln reconciled himself for the +moment to failure. As a private man he was thoroughly content that he +could soon work off his debt for his election expenses, could earn +about 500 pounds a year, and be secure in the possession of the little +house and the 2,000 pounds capital which was "as much as any man ought +to have." As a public man he was sadly proud that he had at least +"said some words which may bear fruit after I am forgotten." +Persistent melancholy and incurable elasticity can go together, and +they make a very strong combination. The tone of resignation had not +passed away from his comparatively intimate letters when he was writing +little notes to one political acquaintance and another inciting them to +look forward to the fun of the next fight. + + +4. _John Brown_. + +For the next few months the excitements of the great political world +concern this biography little. There was strife between Davis and +Douglas in the Senate. At a meeting strong against slavery, Seward +regained courage from the occasion and roused the North with grave and +earnest words about the "irrepressible conflict." The "underground +railway," or chain of friendly houses by which fugitive slaves were +stealthily passed on to Canada, became famous. Methodist professors +riotously attempted to rescue an arrested fugitive at Oberlin. A +Southern grand jury threw out the bill of indictment against a +slave-trading crew caught red-handed. In California Democrats +belonging to what was nicknamed "the chivalry" forced upon Senator +Broderick, a literally democratic Irishman and the bravest of the +Democrats who stood out for fair treatment to Kansas, a duel in which +he might fairly be said to have been murdered. The one event which +demands more than allusion was the raid and the death of John Brown. + +John Brown, in whom Puritan religion, as strict as that of his +ancestors on the _Mayflower_, put forth gentler beauties of character +than his sanguinary mission may suggest, had been somewhat of a failure +as a scientific farmer, but as a leader of fighting men in desperate +adventure only such men as Drake or Garibaldi seem to have excelled +him. More particularly in the commotions in Kansas he had led forays, +slain ruthlessly, witnesses dry-eyed the deaths of several of his tall, +strong sons, and as a rule earned success by cool judgment--all, as he +was absolutely sure, at the clear call of God. In October, 1859--how +and with whose help the stroke was prepared seems to be a question of +some mystery--John Brown, gathering a little band of Abolitionists and +negroes, invaded the slave States and seized the United States arsenal +at Harper's Ferry in Virginia. In the details, which do not matter, of +this tiny campaign, John Brown seems, for the first time in his life, +to have blundered badly. This was the only thing that lay upon his +conscience towards the last. What manner of success he can have +expected does not appear; most likely he had neither care nor definite +expectation as to the result. The United States troops under Robert +Lee, soon to be famous, of course overcame him quickly. One of his +prisoners describes how he held out to the last; a dead son beside him; +one hand on the pulse of a dying son, his rifle in the other. He was +captured, desperately wounded. Southerners could not believe the fact +that Brown had not contemplated some hideous uprising of slaves against +their wives and children, but he only wished to conquer them with the +sword of the Lord and of Gideon, quietly freeing slaves as he went. So +naturally there was talk of lynching, but the Virginian gentlemen +concerned would not have that. Governor Wise, of Virginia, had some +talk with him and justified his own high character rather than Brown's +by the estimate he gave of him in a speech at Richmond. Brown was +hanged. "Stonewall" Jackson, a brother fanatic, if that is the word, +felt the spectacle "awful," as he never felt slaughter in battle, and +"put up a prayer that if possible Brown might be saved." "So perish +all foes of the human race," said the officer commanding on the +occasion, and the South generally felt the like. + +A little before his death Brown was asked: "How do you justify your +acts?" He said: "I think, my friend, you are guilty of a great wrong +against God and humanity--I say it without wishing to be offensive--and +it would be perfectly right for any one to interfere with you so far as +to free those you wilfully and wickedly hold in bondage. I think I did +right, and that others will do right who interfere with you at any time +and at all times." In a conversation still later, he is reported to +have concluded: "I wish to say furthermore that you had better--all you +people at the South--prepare yourselves for a settlement of this +question, that must come up for settlement sooner than you are prepared +for it. You may dispose of me very easily. I am nearly disposed of +now. But this question is still to be settled--this negro question I +mean. The end of that is not yet." To a friend he wrote that he +rejoiced like Paul because he knew like Paul that "if they killed him, +it would greatly advance the cause of Christ." + +Lincoln, who regarded lawlessness and slavery as twin evils, could only +say of John Brown's raid: "That affair, in its philosophy, corresponds +with the many attempts related in history at the assassination of kings +and emperors. An enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people +till he fancies himself commissioned by Heaven to liberate them. He +ventures the attempt, which ends in little else than his own execution. +Orsini's attempt on Louis Napoleon and John Brown's attempt at Harper's +Ferry were, in their philosophy, precisely the same." Seward, it must +be recorded, spoke far more sympathetically of him than Lincoln; and +far more justly, for there is a flaw somewhere in this example, as his +chief biographer regards it, of "Mr. Lincoln's common-sense judgment." +John Brown had at least left to every healthy-minded Northern boy a +memory worth much in the coming years of war and, one hopes, ever +after. He had well deserved to be the subject of a song which, +whatever may be its technical merits as literature, does stir. Emerson +took the same view of him as the song writer, and Victor Hugo suggested +as an epitaph for him: "Pro Christo sicut Christus." A calmer poet, +Longfellow, wrote in his diary on Friday, December 2, 1859, the day +when Brown was hanged: "This will be a great day in our history, the +date of a new revolution, quite as much needed as the old one. Even +now, as I write, they are leading old John Brown to execution in +Virginia for attempting to rescue slaves. This is sowing the wind to +reap the whirlwind, which will soon come." + +Any one who is interested in Lincoln is almost forced to linger over +the contrasting though slighter character who crossed the stage just +before he suddenly took the principal part upon it. Men like John +Brown may be fitly ranked with the equally rare men who, steering a +very different course, have consistently acted out the principles of +the Quakers, constraining no man whether by violence or by law, yet +going into the thick of life prepared at all times to risk all. All +such men are abnormal in the sense that most men literally could not +put life through on any similar plan and would be wrong and foolish to +try. The reason is that most men have a wider range of sympathy and of +intellect than they. But the common sense of most of us revolts from +any attitude of condemnation or condescension towards them; for they +are more disinterested than most of us, more single-minded, and in +their own field often more successful. With a very clear conscience we +refuse to take example from these men whose very defects have operated +in them as a special call; but undoubtedly most of us regard them with +a warmth of sympathy which we are slow to accord to safer guides. We +turn now from John Brown, who saw in slavery a great oppression, and +was very angry, and went ahead slaying the nearest oppressor and +liberating--for some days at least--the nearest slave, to a patient +being, who, long ago in his youth, had boiled with anger against +slavery, but whose whole soul now expressed itself in a policy of +deadly moderation towards it: "Let us put back slavery where the +fathers placed it, and there let it rest in peace." We are to study +how he acted when in power. In almost every department of policy we +shall see him watching and waiting while blood flows, suspending +judgment, temporising, making trial of this expedient and of that, +adopting in the end, quite unthanked, the measure of which most men +will say, when it succeeds, "That is what we always said should be +done." Above all, in that point of policy which most interests us, we +shall witness the long postponement of the blow that killed negro +slavery, the steady subordination of this particular issue to what will +not at once appeal to us as a larger and a higher issue. All this +provoked at the time in many excellent and clever men dissatisfaction +and deep suspicion; they longed for a leader whose heart visibly glowed +with a sacred passion; they attributed his patience, the one quality of +greatness which after a while everybody might have discerned in him, +not to a self-mastery which almost passed belief, but to a tepid +disposition and a mediocre if not a low level of desire. We who read +of him to-day shall not escape our moments of lively sympathy with +these grumblers of the time; we shall wish that this man could ever +plunge, that he could ever see red, ever commit some passionate +injustice; we shall suspect him of being, in the phrase of a great +philosopher, "a disgustingly well-regulated person," lacking that +indefinable quality akin to the honest passions of us ordinary men, but +deeper and stronger, which alone could compel and could reward any true +reverence for his memory. These moments will recur but they cannot +last. A thousand little things, apparent on the surface but deeply +significant; almost every trivial anecdote of his boyhood, his prime, +or his closing years; his few recorded confidences; his equally few +speeches made under strong emotion; the lineaments of his face +described by observers whom photography corroborated; all these +absolutely forbid any conception of Abraham Lincoln as a worthy +commonplace person fortunately fitted to the requirements of his office +at the moment, or as merely a "good man" in the negative and +disparaging sense to which that term is often wrested. It is really +evident that there were no frigid perfections about him at all; indeed +the weakness of some parts of his conduct is so unlike what seems to be +required of a successful ruler that it is certain some almost +unexampled quality of heart and mind went to the doing of what he did. +There is no need to define that quality. The general wisdom of his +statesmanship will perhaps appear greater and its not infrequent errors +less the more fully the circumstances are appreciated. As to the man, +perhaps the sense will grow upon us that this balanced and calculating +person, with his finger on the pulse of the electorate while he cracked +his uncensored jests with all comers, did of set purpose drink and +refill and drink again as full and fiery a cup of sacrifice as ever was +pressed to the lips of hero or of saint. + + +5. _The Election of Lincoln_. + +Unlooked-for events were now raising Lincoln to the highest place which +his ambition could contemplate. His own action in the months that +followed his defeat by Douglas cannot have contributed much to his +surprising elevation, yet it illustrates well his strength and his +weakness, his real fitness, now and then startlingly revealed, for the +highest position, and the superficial unfitness which long hid his +capacity from many acute contemporaries. + +In December, 1859, he made a number of speeches in Kansas and elsewhere +in the West, and in February, 1860, he gave a memorable address in the +Cooper Institute in New York before as consciously intellectual an +audience as could be collected in that city, proceeding afterwards to +speak in several cities of New England. His appearance at the Cooper +Institute, in particular, was a critical venture, and he knew it. +There was natural curiosity about this untutored man from the West. An +exaggerated report of his wit prepared the way for probable +disappointment. The surprise which awaited his hearers was of a +different kind; they were prepared for a florid Western eloquence +offensive to ears which were used to a less spontaneous turgidity; they +heard instead a speech with no ornament at all, whose only beauty was +that it was true and that the speaker felt it. The single flaw in the +Cooper Institute speech has already been cited, the narrow view of +Western respectability as to John Brown. For the rest, this speech, +dry enough in a sense, is an incomparably masterly statement of the +then political situation, reaching from its far back origin to the +precise and definite question requiring decision at that moment. Mr. +Choate, who as a young man was present, set down of late years his +vivid recollection of that evening. "He appeared in every sense of the +word like one of the plain people among whom he loved to be counted. +At first sight there was nothing impressive or imposing about him; his +clothes hung awkwardly on his giant frame; his face was of a dark +pallor without the slightest tinge of colour; his seamed and rugged +features bore the furrows of hardship and struggle; his deep-set eyes +looked sad and anxious; his countenance in repose gave little evidence +of the brilliant power which raised him from the lowest to the highest +station among his countrymen; as he talked to me before the meeting he +seemed ill at ease." We know, as a fact, that among his causes of +apprehension, he was for the first time painfully conscious of those +clothes. "When he spoke," proceeds Mr. Choate, "he was transformed; +his eye kindled, his voice rang, his face shone and seemed to light up +the whole assembly. For an hour and a half he held his audience in the +hollow of his hand. His style of speech and manner of delivery were +severely simple. What Lowell called 'the grand simplicities of the +Bible,' with which he was so familiar, were reflected in his discourse. +. . . It was marvellous to see how this untutored man, by mere +self-discipline and the chastening of his own spirit, had outgrown all +meretricious arts, and found his way to the grandeur and strength of +absolute simplicity." + +The newspapers of the day after this speech confirm these reverent +reminiscences. On this, his first introduction to the cultivated world +of the East, Lincoln's audience were at the moment and for the moment +conscious of the power which he revealed. The Cooper Institute speech +takes the plain principle that slavery is wrong, and draws the plain +inference that it is idle to seek for common ground with men who say it +is right. Strange but tragically frequent examples show how rare it is +for statesmen in times of crisis to grasp the essential truth so +simply. It is creditable to the leading men of New York that they +recognised a speech which just at that time urged this plain thing in +sufficiently plain language as a very great speech, and had an inkling +of great and simple qualities in the man who made it. It is not +specially discreditable that very soon and for a long while part of +them, or of those who were influenced by their report, reverted to +their former prejudices in regard to Lincoln. When they saw him thrust +by election managers into the Presidency, very few indeed of what might +be called the better sort believed, or could easily learn, that his +great qualities were great enough to compensate easily for the many +things he lacked. This specially grotesque specimen of the wild West +was soon seen not to be of the charlatan type; as a natural alternative +he was assumed to be something of a simpleton. Many intelligent men +retained this view of him throughout the years of his trial, and, only +when his triumph and tragic death set going a sort of Lincoln myth, +began to recollect that "I came to love and trust him even before I +knew him," or the like. A single speech like this at the Cooper +Institute might be enough to show a later time that Lincoln was a man +of great intellect, but it could really do little to prepare men in the +East for what they next heard of him. + +Already a movement was afoot among his friends in Illinois to secure +his nomination for the Presidency at the Convention of the Republican +party which was to be held in Chicago in May. Before that Convention +could assemble it had become fairly certain that whoever might be +chosen as the Republican candidate would be President of the United +States, and signs were not wanting that he would be faced with grave +peril to the Union. For the Democratic party, which had met in +Convention at Charleston in April, had proceeded to split into two +sections, Northern and Southern. This memorable Convention was a +dignified assembly gathered in a serious mood in a city of some +antiquity and social charm. From the first, however, a latent +antipathy between the Northern and the Southern delegates made itself +felt. The Northerners, predisposed to a certain deference towards the +South and prepared to appreciate its graceful hospitality, experienced +an uneasy sense that they were regarded as social inferiors. Worse +trouble than this appeared when the Convention met for its first +business, the framing of the party platform. Whether the position +which Lincoln had forced Douglas to take up had precipitated this +result or not, dissension between Northern and Southern Democrats on +the subject of slavery had already manifested itself in Congress, and +in the party Convention the division became irreparable. Douglas, it +will be remembered, had started with the principle that slavery in the +Territories formed a question for the people of each territory to +decide; he had felt bound to accept the doctrine underlying the Dred +Scott judgments, according to which slavery was by the Constitution +lawful in all territories; pressed by Lincoln, he had tried to +reconcile his original position with this doctrine by maintaining that +while slavery was by the Constitution lawful in every Territory it was +nevertheless lawful for a Territorial Legislature to make slave-owning +practically impossible. In framing a declaration of the party +principles as to slavery the Southern delegates in the Democratic +Convention aimed at meeting this evasion. With considerable show of +logic they asserted, in the party platform which they proposed, not +merely the abstract rightfulness and lawfulness of slavery, but the +duty of Congress itself to make any provision that might be necessary +to protect it in the Territories. To this the Northern majority of the +delegates could not consent; they carried an amendment declaring merely +that they would abide by any decision of the Supreme Court as to +slavery. Thereupon the delegates, not indeed of the whole South but of +all the cotton-growing States except Georgia, withdrew from the +Convention. The remaining delegates were, under the rules of the +Convention, too few to select a candidate for the Presidency, and the +Convention adjourned, to re-assemble at Baltimore in June. Eventually, +after attempts at reunion and further dissensions, two separate +Democratic Conventions at Baltimore, a Northern and a Southern, +nominated, as their respective candidates, Stephen Douglas, the obvious +choice with whom, if the Southerners had cared to temporise further, a +united Democratic party could have swept the polls, and John C. +Breckinridge of Kentucky, a gentleman not otherwise known than as the +standard bearer on this great occasion of the undisguised and +unmitigated claims of the slave owners. + +Thus it was that the American Democratic party forfeited power for +twenty-four years, divided between the consistent maintenance of a +paradox and the adroit maintenance of inconsistency. Another party in +this election demands a moment's notice. A Convention of delegates, +claiming to represent the old Whigs, met also at Baltimore and declared +merely that it stood for "the Constitution of the country, the union of +the States, and the enforcement of the laws." They nominated for the +Presidency John Bell of Tennessee, and for the Vice-Presidency Edward +Everett. This latter gentleman was afterwards chosen as the orator of +the day at the ceremony on the battlefield of Gettysburg when Lincoln's +most famous speech was spoken. He was a travelled man and a scholar; +he was Secretary of State for a little while under Fillmore, and dealt +honestly and firmly with the then troublous question of Cuba. His +orations deserve to be looked at, for they are favourable examples of +the eloquence which American taste applauded, and as such they help to +show how original Lincoln was in the simpler beauty of his own simpler +diction. In justice to the Whigs, let it be noted that they declared +for the maintenance of the Union, committing themselves with decision +on the question of the morrow; but it was a singular platform that +resolutely and totally ignored the only issue of the day. Few +politicians can really afford to despise either this conspicuously +foolish attempt to overcome a difficulty by shutting one's eyes to it, +or the more plausible proposal of the Northern Democrats to continue +temporising with a movement for slavery in which they were neither bold +enough nor corrupted enough to join. The consequences, now known to +us, of a determined stand against the advance of slavery were +instinctively foreseen by these men, and they cannot be blamed for +shrinking from them. Yet the historian now, knowing that those +consequences exceeded in terror all that could have been foreseen, can +only agree with the judgment expressed by Lincoln in one of his Kansas +speeches: "We want and must have a national policy as to slavery which +deals with it as being a wrong. Whoever would prevent slavery becoming +national and perpetual yields all when he yields to a policy which +treats it either as being right, or as being a matter of indifference." +The Republican party had been founded upon just this opinion. +Electoral victory was now being prepared for it, not because a majority +was likely yet to take so resolute a view, but because its effective +opponents were divided between those who had gone the length of calling +slavery right and those who strove to treat it as indifferent. The +fate of America may be said to have depended in the early months of +1860 on whether the nominee of the Republican party was a man who would +maintain its principles with irresolution, or with obstinacy, or with +firm moderation. + +When it had first been suggested to Lincoln in the course of 1859 that +he might be that nominee he said, "I do not think myself fit for the +Presidency." This was probably his sincere opinion at the moment, +though perhaps the moment was one of dejection. In any case his +opinion soon changed, and though it is not clear whether he encouraged +his friends to bring his name forward, we know in a general way that +when they decided to do so he used every effort of his own to help +them. We must accept without reserve Herndon's reiterated assertion +that Lincoln was intensely ambitious; and, if ambition means the eager +desire for great opportunities, the depreciation of it, which has long +been a commonplace of literature, and which may be traced back to the +Epicureans, is a piece of cant which ought to be withdrawn from +currency, and ambition, commensurate with the powers which each man can +discover in himself, should be frankly recognised as a part of +Christian duty. In judging him to be the best man for the Presidency, +Lincoln's Illinois friends and he himself formed a very sensible +judgment, but they did so in flagrant contradiction to many superficial +appearances. This candidate for the chief magistracy at a critical +time of one of the great nations of the world had never administered +any concern much larger than that post office that he once "carried +around in his hat." Of the several other gentlemen whose names were +before the party there was none who might not seem greatly to surpass +him in experience of affairs. To one of them, Seward, the nomination +seemed to belong almost of right. Chase and Seward both were known and +dignified figures in that great assembly the Senate. Chase was of +proved rectitude and courage, Seward of proved and very considerable +ability. Chase had been Governor of Ohio, Seward of New York State; +and the position of Governor in a State--a State it must be remembered +is independent in almost the whole of what we call domestic +politics--is strictly analogous to the position of President in the +Union, and, especially in a great State, is the best training ground +for the Presidency. But beyond this, Seward, between whom and Lincoln +the real contest lay, had for some time filled a recognised though +unofficial position as the leader of his party. He had failed, as has +been seen in his dealings with Douglas, in stern insistence upon +principle, but the failure was due rather to his sanguine and hopeful +temper than to lack of courage. On the whole from the time when he +first stood up against Webster in the discussions of 1850, when Lincoln +was both silent and obscure, he had earned his position well. +Hereafter, as Lincoln's subordinate, he was to do his country +first-rate service, and to earn a pure fame as the most generously +loyal subordinate to a chief whom he had thought himself fit to +command. We happen to have ample means of estimating now all Lincoln's +Republican competitors; we know that none of the rest were equal to +Seward; and we know that Seward himself, if he had had his way, would +have brought the common cause to ruin. Looking back now at the +comparison which Lincoln, when he entered into the contest, must have +drawn between himself and Seward--for of the rest we need not take +account--we can see that to himself at least and some few in Illinois +he had now proved his capacities, and that in Seward's public record, +more especially in his attitude towards Douglas, he had the means of +measuring Seward. In spite of the far greater experience of the latter +he may have thought himself to be his superior in that indefinable +thing--the sheer strength of a man. Not only may he have thought this; +he must have known it. He had shown his grasp of the essential facts +when he forced the Republican party to do battle with Douglas and the +party of indifference; he showed the same now when, after long years of +patience and self-discipline, he pushed himself into Seward's place as +the Republican leader. + +All the same, what little we know of the methods by which he now helped +his own promotion suggests that the people who then and long after set +him down as a second-rate person may have had a good deal to go upon. +A kind friend has produced a letter which he wrote in March, 1860, to a +Kansas gentleman who desired to be a delegate to the Republican +Convention, and who offered, upon condition, to persuade his fellow +delegates from Kansas to support Lincoln. Here is the letter: "As to +your kind wishes for myself, allow me to say I cannot enter the ring on +the money basis--first because in the main it is wrong; and secondly I +have not and cannot get the money. I say in the main the use of money +is wrong; but for certain objects in a political contest the use of +some is both right and indispensable. With me, as with yourself, this +long struggle has been one of great pecuniary loss. I now distinctly +say this: If you shall be appointed a delegate to Chicago I will +furnish one hundred dollars to bear the expenses of the trip." The +Kansas gentleman failed to obtain the support of the Kansas delegates +as a body for Lincoln. Lincoln none the less held to his promise of a +hundred dollars if the man came to Chicago; and, having, we are +assured, much confidence in him, took the earliest opportunity of +appointing him to a lucrative office, besides consulting him as to +other appointments in Kansas. This is all that we know of the affair, +but our informant presents it as one of a number of instances in which +Lincoln good-naturedly trusted a man too soon, and obstinately clung to +his mistake. As to the appointment, the man had evidently begun by +soliciting money in a way which would have marked him to most of us as +a somewhat unsuitable candidate for any important post; and the payment +of the hundred dollars plainly transgresses a code both of honour and +of prudence which most politicians will recognise and which should not +need definition. To say, as Lincoln probably said to himself, that +there is nothing intrinsically wrong in a moderate payment for expenses +to a fellow worker in a public cause, whom you believe to have +sacrificed much, is to ignore the point, indeed several points. +Lincoln, hungry now for some success in his own unrewarded career, was +tempted to a small manoeuvre by which he might pick up a little +support; he was at the same time tempted, no less, to act generously +(according to his means) towards a man who, he readily believed, had +made sacrifices like his own. He was not the man to stand against this +double temptation. + +Petty lapses of this order, especially when the delinquent may be seen +to hesitate and excuse himself, are more irritating than many larger +and more brazen offences, for they give us the sense of not knowing +where we are. When they are committed by a man of seemingly strong and +high character, it is well to ask just what they signify. Some of the +shrewdest observers of Lincoln, friendly and unfriendly, concur in +their description of the weaknesses of which this incident may serve as +the example, weaknesses partly belonging to his temperament, but partly +such as a man risen from poverty, with little variety of experience and +with no background of home training, stands small chance of escaping. +For one thing his judgment of men and how to treat them was as bad in +some ways as it was good in others. His own sure grasp of the largest +and commonest things in life, and his sober and measured trust in human +nature as a whole, gave him a rare knowledge of the mind of the people +in the mass. So, too, when he had known a man long, or been with him +or against him in important transactions, he sometimes developed great +insight and sureness of touch; and, when the man was at bottom +trustworthy, his robust confidence in him was sometimes of great public +service. But he had no gift of rapid perception and no instinctive +tact or prudence in regard to the very numerous and very various men +with whom he had slight dealings on which he could bestow no thought. +This is common with men who have risen from poverty; if they have not +become hard and suspicious, they are generally obtuse to the minor +indications by which shrewd men of education know the impostor, and +they are perversely indulgent to little meannesses in their fellows +which they are incapable of committing themselves. In Lincoln this was +aggravated by an immense good-nature--as he confessed, he could hardly +say "no";--it was an obstinate good-nature, which found a naughty +pleasure in refusing to be corrected; and if it should happen that the +object of his weak benevolence had given him personal cause of offence, +the good-nature became more incorrigible than ever. Moreover, +Lincoln's strength was a slow strength, shown most in matters in which +elementary principles of right or the concentration of intense thought +guided him. Where minor and more subtle principles of conduct should +have come in, on questions which had not come within the range of his +reflection so far and to which, amidst his heavy duties, he could not +spare much cogitation, he would not always show acute perception, and, +which is far worse, he would often show weakness of will. The present +instance may be ever so trifling, yet it does relate to the indistinct +and dangerous borderland of political corruption. It need arouse no +very serious suspicions. Mr. Herndon, whose pertinacious researches +unearthed that Kansas gentleman's correspondence, and who is keenly +censorious of Lincoln's fault, in the upshot trusts and reveres +Lincoln. And the massive testimony of his keenest critics to his +honesty quite decides the matter. But Lincoln had lived in a simple +Western town, not in one of the already polluted great cities; he was a +poor man himself and took the fact that wealth was used against him as +a part of the inevitable drawbacks of his lot; and it is certain that +he did not clearly take account of the whole business of corruption and +jobbery as a hideous and growing peril to America. It is certain too +that he lacked the delicate perception of propriety in such matters, or +the strict resolution in adhering to it on small occasions, which might +have been possessed by a far less honest man. The severest criticisms +which Lincoln afterwards incurred were directed to the appointments +which he made; we shall see hereafter that he had very solid reasons +for his general conduct in such matters; but it cannot be said with +conviction that he had that horror of appointment on other grounds than +merit which enlightens, though it does not always govern, more educated +statesmen. His administration would have been more successful, and the +legacy he left to American public life more bountiful, if his +traditions, or the length of his day's work, had allowed him to be more +careful in these things. As it is he was not commended to the people +of America and must not be commended to us by the absence of defects as +a ruler or as a man, but by the qualities to which his defects +belonged. An acute literary man wrote of Lincoln, when he had been +three years in office, these remarkable words: "You can't help feeling +an interest in him, a sympathy and a kind of pity; feeling, too, that +he has some qualities of great value, yet fearing that his weak points +may wreck him or may wreck something. His life seems a series of wise, +sound conclusions, slowly reached, oddly worked out, on great questions +with constant failures in administration of detail and dealings with +individuals." It was evidently a clever man who wrote this; he would +have been a wise man if he had known that the praise he was bestowing +on Lincoln was immeasurably greater than the blame. + +So the natural prejudice of those who welcomed Lincoln as a prophet in +the Cooper Institute but found his candidature for the Presidency +ridiculous, was not wholly without justification. His partisans, +however--also not unjustly--used his humble origin for all it was +worth. The Republicans of Illinois were assembled at Decatur in +preparation for the Chicago Convention, when, amid tumultuous cheers, +there marched in old John Hanks and another pioneer bearing on their +shoulders two long fence rails labelled: "Two rails from a lot made by +Abraham Lincoln and John Hanks in the Sangamon Bottom in the year +1830." "Gentlemen," said Lincoln, in response to loud calls, "I +suppose you want to know something about those things. Well, the truth +is, John Hanks and I did make rails in the Sangamon Bottom. I don't +know whether we made those rails or not; fact is, I don't think they +are a credit to the makers. But I do know this: I made rails then, and +I think I could make better ones than these now." It is unnecessary to +tell of the part those rails were to play in the coming campaign. It +is a contemptible trait in books like that able novel "Democracy," that +they treat the sentiment which attached to the "Rail-splitter" as +anything but honourable. + +The Republican Convention met at Chicago in circumstances of far less +dignity than the Democratic Convention at Charleston. Processions and +brass bands, rough fellows collected by Lincoln's managers, rowdies +imported from New York by Seward's, filled the streets with noise; and +the saloon keepers did good business. Yet the actual Convention +consisted of grave men in an earnest mood. Besides Seward and Chase +and Lincoln, Messrs. Cameron of Pennsylvania and Bates of Missouri, of +whom we shall hear later, were proposed for the Presidency. So also +were Messrs. Dayton and Collamer, politicians of some repute; and +McLean, of the Supreme Court, had some supporters. The prevalent +expectation in the States was that Seward would easily secure the +nomination, but it very soon appeared in the Convention that his +opponents were too strong for that. Several ballots took place; there +were the usual conferences and bargainings, which probably affected the +result but little; Lincoln's managers, especially Judge David Davis, +afterwards of the Supreme Court, were shrewd people; Lincoln had +written to them expressly that they could make no bargain binding on +him, but when Cameron was clearly out of the running they did promise +Cameron's supporters a place in Lincoln's Cabinet, and a similar +promise was made for one Caleb Smith. The delegates from Pennsylvania +went on to Lincoln; then those of Ohio; and before long his victory was +assured. A Committee of the Convention, some of them sick at heart, +was sent to bear the invitation to Lincoln. He received them in his +little house with a simple dignity which one of them has recorded; and +as they came away one said, "Well, we might have chosen a handsomer +article, but I doubt whether a better." + +On the whole, if we can put aside the illusion which besets us, who +read the preceding history if at all in the light of Lincoln's +speeches, and to whom his competitors are mere names, this was the most +surprising nomination ever made in America. Other Presidential +candidates have been born in poverty, but none ever wore the scars of +poverty so plainly; others have been intrinsically more obscure, but +these have usually been chosen as bearing the hall-mark of eminent +prosperity or gentility. Lincoln had indeed at this time displayed +brilliant ability in the debates with Douglas, and he had really shown +a statesman's grasp of the situation more than any other Republican +leader. The friends in Illinois who put him forward--men like David +Davis, who was a man of distinction himself--did so from a true +appreciation of his powers. But this does not seem to have been the +case with the bulk of the delegates from other States. The explanation +given us of their action is curious. The choice was not the result of +merit; on the other hand, it was not the work of the ordinary wicked +wire-puller, for what may be called the machine was working for Seward. +The choice was made by plain representative Americans who set to +themselves this question: "With what candidate can we beat Douglas?" +and who found the answer in the prevalence of a popular impression, +concerning Lincoln and Seward, which was in fact wholly mistaken. +There was, it happens, earnest opposition to Seward among some Eastern +Republicans on the good ground that he was a clean man but with +doubtful associates. This opposition could not by itself have defeated +him. What did defeat him was his reputation at the moment as a very +advanced Republican who would scare away the support of the weaker +brethren. He was, for instance, the author of the alarming phrase +about "irrepressible conflict," and he had spoken once, in a phrase +that was misinterpreted, about "a higher law than the Constitution." +Lincoln had in action taken a far stronger line than Seward; he was +also the author of the phrase about the house divided against itself; +but then, besides the fact that Lincoln was well regarded just where +Douglas was most popular, Lincoln was a less noted man than Seward and +his stronger words occasioned less wide alarm. So, to please those who +liked compromise, the Convention rejected a man who would certainly +have compromised, and chose one who would give all that moderation +demanded and die before he yielded one further inch. Many Americans +have been disposed to trace in the raising up of Lincoln the hand of a +Providence protecting their country in its worst need. It would be +affectation to set their idea altogether aside; it is, at any rate, a +memorable incident in the history of a democracy, permeated with +excellent intentions but often hopelessly subject to inferior +influences, that at this critical moment the fit man was chosen on the +very ground of his supposed unfitness. + +The result of the contest between the four Presidential candidates was +rendered almost a foregone conclusion by the decision of the Democrats. +Lincoln in deference to the usual and seemly procedure took no part in +the campaign, nor do his doings in the next months concern us. Seward, +to his great honour, after privately expressing his bitter chagrin at +the bestowal of what was his due upon "a little Illinois attorney," +threw himself whole-heartedly into the contest, and went about making +admirable speeches. On the night of November 6, Lincoln sat alone with +the operator in the telegraph box at Springfield, receiving as they +came in the results of the elections of Presidential electors in the +various States. Long before the returns were complete his knowledge of +such matters made him sure of his return, and before he left that box +he had solved in principle, as he afterwards declared, the first and by +no means least important problem of his Presidency, the choice of a +Cabinet. + +The victory was in one aspect far from complete. If we look not at the +votes in the Electoral College with which the formal choice of +President lay, but at the popular votes by which the electors were +returned, we shall see that the new President was elected by a minority +of the American people. He had a large majority over Douglas, but if +Douglas had received the votes which were given for the Southern +Democrat, Breckinridge, he would have had a considerable majority over +Lincoln, though the odd machinery of the Electoral College would still +have kept him out of the Presidency. In another aspect it was a +fatally significant victory. Lincoln's votes were drawn only from the +Northern States; he carried almost all the free States and he carried +no others. For the first time in American history, the united North +had used its superior numbers to outvote the South. This would in any +case have caused great vexation, and the personality of the man chosen +by the North aggravated it. The election of Lincoln was greeted +throughout the South with a howl of derision. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +SECESSION + +1. _The Case of the South against the Union_. + + +The Republicans of the North had given their votes upon a very clear +issue, but probably few of them had fully realised how grave a result +would follow. Within a few days of the election of Lincoln the first +step in the movement of Secession had been taken, and before the new +President entered upon his duties it was plain that either the +dissatisfied States must be allowed to leave the Union or the Union must +be maintained by war. + +Englishmen at that time and since have found a difficulty in grasping the +precise cause of the war that followed. Of those who were inclined to +sympathise with the North, some regarded the war as being simply about +slavery, and, while unhesitatingly opposed to slavery, wondered whether +it was right to make war upon it; others, regarding it as a war for the +Union and not against slavery at all, wondered whether it was right to +make war for a Union that could not be peaceably maintained. Now it is +seldom possible to state the cause of a war quite candidly in a single +sentence, because as a rule there are on each side people who concur in +the final rupture for somewhat different reasons. But, in this case, +forecasting a conclusion which must be examined in some detail, we can +state the cause of war in a very few sentences. If we ask first what the +South fought for, the answer is: the leaders of the South and the great +mass of the Southern people had a single supreme and all-embracing object +in view, namely, to ensure the permanence and, if need be, the extension +of the slave system; they carried with them, however, a certain number of +Southerners who were opposed or at least averse to slavery, but who +thought that the right of their States to leave the Union or remain in it +as they chose must be maintained. If we ask what the North fought for, +the answer is: A majority, by no means overwhelming, of the Northern +people refused to purchase the adhesion of the South by conniving at any +further extension of slavery, and an overwhelming majority refused to let +the South dissolve the Union for slavery or for any other cause. + +The issue about slavery, then, became merged in another issue, concerning +the Union, which had so far remained in the background. + +The first thing that must be grasped about it is the total difference of +view which now existed between North and South in regard to the very +nature of their connection. The divergence had taken place so completely +and in the main so quietly that each side now realised with surprise and +indignation that the other held an opposite opinion. In the North the +Union was regarded as constituting a permanent and unquestionable +national unity from which it was flat rebellion for a State or any other +combination of persons to secede. In the South the Union appeared merely +as a peculiarly venerable treaty of alliance, of which the dissolution +would be very painful, but which left each State a sovereign body with an +indefeasible right to secede if in the last resort it judged that the +painful necessity had come. In a few border States there was division +and doubt on this subject, a fact which must have helped to hide from +each side the true strength of opinion on the other. But, setting aside +these border States, there were in the North some who doubted whether it +was expedient to fight for the Union, but none of any consequence who +doubted that it was constitutionally correct; and there were in the South +men who insisted that no occasion to secede had arisen, but these very +men, when outvoted in their States, maintained most passionately the +absolute right of secession. + +The two sides contended for two contrary doctrines of constitutional law. +It is natural when parties are disputing over a question of political +wisdom and of moral right that each should claim for its contention if +possible the sanction of acknowledged legal principle. So it was with +the parties to the English Civil War, and the tendency to regard matters +from a legal point of view is to this day deeply engrained in the mental +habits of America. But North and South were really divided by something +other than legal opinion, a difference in the objects to which their +feelings of loyalty and patriotism were directed. This difference found +apt expression in the Cabinet of President Buchanan, who of course +remained in office between the election of Lincoln in November and his +inauguration in March. General Cass of Michigan had formerly stood for +the Presidency with the support of the South, and he held Cabinet office +now as a sympathiser with the South upon slavery, but he was a +Northerner. "I see how it is," he said to two of his colleagues; "you +are a Virginian, and you are a South Carolinian; I am not a Michigander, +I am an American." + +In a former chapter the creation of the Union and the beginnings of a +common national life have been traced in outline. Obstacles to the Union +had existed both in the North and in the South, and, after it had been +carried, the tendency to threaten disruption upon some slight conflict of +interest had shown itself in each. But a proud sense of single +nationality had soon become prevalent in both, and in the North nothing +whatever had happened to set back this growth, for the idea which Lowell +had once attributed to his Hosea Biglow of abjuring Union with slave +owners was a negligible force. Undivided allegiance to the Union was the +natural sentiment of citizens of Ohio or Wisconsin, States created by the +authority of the Union out of the common dominion of the Union. It had +become, if anything, more deeply engrained in the original States of the +North, for their predominant occupation in commerce would tend in this +particular to give them larger views. The pride of a Boston man in the +Commonwealth of Massachusetts was of the same order as his pride in the +city of Boston; both were largely pride in the part which Boston and +Massachusetts had taken in making the United States of America. Such a +man knew well that South Carolina had once threatened secession, but, for +that matter, the so-called Federalists of New England had once threatened +it. The argument of Webster in the case of South Carolina was a classic, +and was taken as conclusive on the question of legal right. The terser +and more resonant declaration of President Jackson, a Southerner, and the +response to it which thrilled all States, South or North, outside South +Carolina, had set the seal to Webster's doctrines. There had been loud +and ominous talk of secession lately; it was certainly not mere bluster; +Northerners in the main were cautious politicians and had been tempted to +go far to conciliate it. But if the claim of Southern States were put in +practice, the whole North would now regard it not as a respectable claim, +but as an outrage. + +It is important to notice that the disposition to take this view did not +depend upon advanced opinions against slavery. Some of the most violent +opponents of slavery would care relatively little about the Constitution +or the Union; they would at first hesitate as to whether a peaceful +separation between States which felt so differently on a moral question +like slavery was not a more Christian solution of their difference than a +fratricidal war. On the other hand, men who cared little about slavery, +and would gladly have sacrificed any convictions they had upon that +matter for the sake of the Union, were at first none the less vehement in +their anger at an attack upon the Union. There is, moreover, a more +subtle but still important point to be observed in this connection. +Democrats in the North inclined as a party to stringent and perhaps +pedantically legal views of State rights as against the rights of the +Union; but this by no means necessarily meant that they sympathised more +than Republicans with the claim to dissolve the Union. They laid +emphasis on State rights merely because they believed that these would be +a bulwark against any sort of government tyranny, and that the large +power which was reserved to the local or provincial authorities of the +States made the government of the nation as a whole more truly expressive +of the will of the whole people. They now found themselves entangled (as +we shall see) in curious doubts as to what the Federal Government might +do to maintain the Union, but they had not the faintest doubt that the +Union was meant to be maintained. The point which is now being +emphasised must not be misapprehended; differences of sentiment in regard +to slavery, in regard to State rights, in regard to the authority of +Government, did, as the war went on and the price was paid, gravely +embarrass the North; but it was a solid and unhesitating North which said +that the South had no right to secede. + +Up to a certain point the sense of patriotic pride in the Union had grown +also in the South. It was fostered at first by the predominant part +which the South played in the political life of the country. But for a +generation past the sense of a separate interest of the South had been +growing still more vigorously. The political predominance of the South +had continued, but under a standing menace of downfall as the North grew +more populous and the patriotism which it at first encouraged had become +perverted into an arrogantly unconscious feeling that the Union was an +excellent thing on condition that it was subservient to the South. The +common interest of the Southern States was slavery; and, when the +Northerners had become a majority which might one day dominate the +Federal Government, this common interest of the slave States found a +weapon at hand in the doctrine of the inherent sovereignty of each +individual State. This doctrine of State sovereignty had come to be held +as universally in the South as the strict Unionist doctrine in the North, +and held with as quiet and unshakable a confidence that it could not be +questioned. It does not seem at all strange that the State, as against +the Union, should have remained the supreme object of loyalty in old +communities like those of South Carolina and Virginia, abounding as they +did in conservative influences which were lacking in the North. But this +provincial loyalty was not in the same sense a natural growth in States +like Alabama or Mississippi. These, no less than Indiana and Illinois, +were the creatures of the Federal Congress, set up within the memory of +living men, with arbitrary boundaries that cut across any old lines of +division. There was, in fact, no spontaneous feeling of allegiance +attaching to these political units, and the doctrine of their sovereignty +had no use except as a screen for the interest in slavery which the +Southern States had in common. But Calhoun, in a manner characteristic +of his peculiar and dangerous type of intellect, had early seen in a view +of State sovereignty, which would otherwise have been obsolete, the most +serviceable weapon for the joint interests of the Southern States. In a +society where intellectual life was restricted, his ascendency had been +great, though his disciples had, reasonably enough, thrown aside the +qualifications which his subtle mind had attached to the right of +secession. Thus in the Southern States generally, even among men most +strongly opposed to the actual proposal to secede, the real or alleged +constitutional right of a State to secede if it chose now passed +unquestioned and was even regarded as a precious liberty. + +It is impossible to avoid asking whether on this question of +constitutional law the Northern opinion or the Southern opinion was +correct. (The question was indeed an important question in determining +the proper course of procedure for a President when confronted with +secession, but it must be protested that the moral right and political +wisdom of neither party in the war depended mainly, if at all, upon this +legal point. It was a question of the construction which a court of law +should put upon a document which was not drawn up with any view to +determining this point.) If we go behind the Constitution, which was +then and is now in force, to the original document of which it took the +place, we shall find it entitled "Articles of Confederation and Perpetual +Union," but we shall not find any such provisions as men desirous of +creating a stable and permanent federal government might have been +expected to frame. If we read the actual Constitution we shall find no +word distinctly implying that a State could or could not secede. As to +the real intention of its chief authors, there can be no doubt that they +hoped and trusted the Union would prove indissoluble, and equally little +doubt that they did not wish to obtrude upon those whom they asked to +enter into it the thought that this step would be irrevocable. For the +view taken in the South there is one really powerful argument, on which +Jefferson Davis insisted passionately in the argumentative memoirs with +which he solaced himself in old age. It is that in several of the +States, when the Constitution was accepted, public declarations were made +to the citizens of those States by their own representatives that a State +might withdraw from the Union. But this is far from conclusive. No man +gets rid of the obligation of a bond by telling a witness that he does +not mean to be bound; the question is not what he means, but what the +party with whom he deals must naturally take him to mean. Now the +Constitution of the United States upon the face of it purports to create +a government able to take its place among the other governments of the +world, able if it declares war to wield the whole force of its country in +that war, and able if it makes peace to impose that peace upon all its +subjects. This seems to imply that the authority of that government over +part of the country should be legally indefeasible. It would have been +ridiculous if, during a war with Great Britain, States on the Canadian +border should have had the legal right to secede, and set up a neutral +government with a view to subsequent reunion with Great Britain. The +sound legal view of this matter would seem to be: that the doctrine of +secession is so repugnant to the primary intention with which the +national instrument of government was framed that it could only have been +supported by an express reservation of the right to secede in the +Constitution itself. + +The Duke of Argyll, one of the few British statesmen of the time who +followed this struggle with intelligent interest, briefly summed up the +question thus: "I know of no government in the world that could possibly +have admitted the right of secession from its own allegiance." Oddly +enough, President Buchanan, in his Message to Congress on December 4, put +the same point not less forcibly. + +But to say--as in a legal sense we may--that the Southern States rebelled +is not necessarily to say that they were wrong. The deliberate endeavour +of a people to separate themselves from the political sovereignty under +which they live and set up a new political community, in which their +national life shall develop itself more fully or more securely, must +always command a certain respect. Whether it is entitled further to the +full sympathy and to the support or at least acquiescence of others is a +question which in particular cases involves considerations such as cannot +be foreseen in any abstract discussion of political theory. But, +speaking very generally, it is a question in the main of the worth which +we attribute on the one hand to the common life to which it is sought to +give freer scope, and on the other hand to the common life which may +thereby be weakened or broken up. It sometimes seems to be held that +when a decided majority of the people whose voices can be heard, in a +more or less defined area, elect to live for the future under a +particular government, all enlightened men elsewhere would wish them to +have their way. If any such principle could be accepted without +qualification, few movements for independence would ever have been more +completely justified than the secession of the Southern States. If we +set aside the highland region of which mention has already been made, in +the six cotton-growing States which first seceded, and in several of +those which followed as soon as it was clear that secession would be +resisted, the preponderance of opinion in favour of the movement was +overwhelming. This was not only so among the educated and governing +portions of society, which were interested in slavery. While the negroes +themselves were unorganised and dumb and made no stir for freedom, the +poorer class of white people, to whom the institution of slavery was in +reality oppressive, were quite unconscious of this; the enslavement of +the negro appeared to them a tribute to their own dignity, and their +indiscriminating spirit of independence responded enthusiastically to the +appeal that they should assert themselves against the real or fancied +pretensions of the North. So large a statement would require some +qualification if we were here concerned with the life of a Southern +leader; and there was of course a brief space, to be dealt with in this +chapter, in which the question of secession hung in the balance, and it +is true in this, as in every case, that the men who gave the initial push +were few. But, broadly speaking, it is certain that the movement for +secession was begun with at least as general an enthusiasm and maintained +with at least as loyal a devotion as any national movement with which it +can be compared. And yet to-day, just fifty-one years after the +consummation of its failure, it may be doubted whether one soul among the +people concerned regrets that it failed. + +English people from that time to this have found the statement +incredible; but the fact is that this imposing movement, in which rich +and poor, gentle and simple, astute men of state and pious clergymen, +went hand in hand to the verge of ruin and beyond, was undertaken simply +and solely in behalf of slavery. Northern writers of the time found it +so surprising that they took refuge in the theory of conspiracy, alleging +that a handful of schemers succeeded, by the help of fictitious popular +clamour and intimidation of their opponents, in launching the South upon +a course to which the real mind of the people was averse. Later and +calmer historical survey of the facts has completely dispelled this view; +and the English suspicion, that there must have been some cause beyond +and above slavery for desiring independence, never had any facts to +support it. Since 1830 no exponent of Southern views had ever hinted at +secession on any other ground than slavery; every Southern leader +declared with undoubted truth that on every other ground he prized the +Union; outside South Carolina every Southern leader made an earnest +attempt before he surrendered the Union cause to secure the guarantees he +thought sufficient for slavery within the Union. The Southern statesman +(for the soldiers were not statesmen) whose character most attracts +sympathy now was Alexander Stephens, the Vice-President of the Southern +Confederacy, and though he was the man who persisted longest in the view +that slavery could be adequately secured without secession, he was none +the less entitled to speak for the South in his remarkable words on the +Constitution adopted by the Southern Confederacy: "The new Constitution +has put at rest for ever all the agitating questions relating to our +peculiar institution, African slavery. This was the immediate cause of +the late rupture and present revolution. The prevailing ideas +entertained by Jefferson and most of the leading statesmen at the time of +the old Constitution were that the enslavement of the African was wrong +in principle socially, morally, and politically. Our new government is +founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its +corner stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not the equal +of the white man; that slavery--subordination to the white man--is his +natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first in +the history of the world based upon this great physical, philosophical, +and moral truth. The great objects of humanity are best attained when +there is conformity to the Creator's laws and decrees." Equally explicit +and void of shame was the Convention of the State of Mississippi. "Our +position," they declared, "is thoroughly identified with slavery." + +It is common to reproach the Southern leaders with reckless folly. They +tried to destroy the Union, which they really valued, for the sake of +slavery, which they valued more; they in fact destroyed slavery; and they +did this, it is said, in alarm at an imaginary danger. This is not a +true ground of reproach to them. It is true that the danger to slavery +from the election of Lincoln was not immediately pressing. He neither +would have done nor could have done more than to prevent during his four +years of office any new acquisition of territory in the slave-holding +interest, and to impose his veto on any Bill extending slavery within the +existing territory of the Union. His successor after four years might or +might not have been like-minded. He did not seem to stand for any +overwhelming force in American politics; there was a majority opposed to +him in both Houses of Congress; a great majority of the Supreme Court, +which might have an important part to play, held views of the +Constitution opposed to his; he had been elected by a minority only of +the whole American people. Why could not the Southern States have sat +still, secure that no great harm would happen to their institution for +the present, and hoping that their former ascendency would come back to +them with the changing fortunes of party strife? This is an argument +which might be expected to have weighed with Southern statesmen if each +of them had been anxious merely to keep up the value of his own slave +property for his own lifetime, but this was far from being their case. +It is hard for us to put ourselves at the point of view of men who could +sincerely speak of their property in negroes as theirs by the "decree of +the Creator"; but it is certain that within the last two generations +trouble of mind as to the rightfulness of slavery had died out in a large +part of the South; the typical Southern leader valued the peculiar form +of society under which he lived and wished to hand it on intact to his +children's children. If their preposterous principle be granted, the +most extreme among them deserve the credit of statesmanlike insight for +having seen, the moment that Lincoln was elected, that they must strike +for their institution now if they wished it to endure. The Convention of +South Carolina justly observed that the majority in the North had voted +that slavery was sinful; they had done little more than express this +abstract opinion, but they had done all that. Lincoln's administration +might have done apparently little, and after it the pendulum would +probably have swung back. But the much-talked-of swing of the pendulum +is the most delusive of political phenomena; America was never going to +return to where it was before this first explicit national assertion of +the wrongfulness of slavery had been made. It would have been hard to +forecast how the end would come, or how soon; but the end was certain if +the Southern States had elected to remain the countrymen of a people who +were coming to regard their fundamental institution with growing +reprobation. Lincoln had said, "This government cannot endure +permanently, half slave and half free." Lincoln was right, and so from +their own point of view, that of men not brave or wise enough to take in +hand a difficult social reform, were the leaders who declared immediately +for secession. + +In no other contest of history are those elements in human affairs on +which tragic dramatists are prone to dwell so clearly marked as in the +American Civil War. No unsophisticated person now, except in ignorance +as to the cause of the war, can hesitate as to which side enlists his +sympathy, or can regard the victory of the North otherwise than as the +costly and imperfect triumph of the right. But the wrong +side--emphatically wrong--is not lacking in dignity or human worth; the +long-drawn agony of the struggle is not purely horrible to contemplate; +there is nothing that in this case makes us reluctant to acknowledge the +merits of the men who took arms in the evil cause. The experience as to +the relations between superior and inferior races, which is now at the +command of every intelligent Englishman, forbids us to think that the +inferiority of the negro justified slavery, but it also forbids us to +fancy that men to whom the relation of owner to slave had become natural +must themselves have been altogether degraded. The men upon the Southern +side who can claim any special admiration were simple soldiers who had no +share in causing the war; among the political leaders whom they served, +there was none who stands out now as a very interesting personality, and +their chosen chief is an unattractive figure; but we are not to think of +these authors of the war as a gang of hardened, unscrupulous, corrupted +men. As a class they were reputable, public-spirited, and religious men; +they served their cause with devotion and were not wholly to blame that +they chose it so ill. The responsibility for the actual secession does +not rest in an especial degree on any individual leader. Secession began +rather with the spontaneous movement of the whole community of South +Carolina, and in the States which followed leading politicians expressed +rather than inspired the general will. The guilt which any of us can +venture to attribute for this action of a whole deluded society must rest +on men like Calhoun, who in a previous generation, while opinion in the +South was still to some extent unformed, stifled all thought of reform +and gave the semblance of moral and intellectual justification to a +system only susceptible of a historical excuse. + +The South was neither base nor senseless, but it was wrong. To some +minds it may not seem to follow that it was well to resist it by war, and +indeed at the time, as often happens, people took up arms with greater +searchings of heart upon the right side than upon the wrong. If the +slave States had been suffered to depart in peace they would have set up +a new and peculiar political society, more truly held together than the +original Union by a single avowed principle; a nation dedicated to the +inequality of men. It is not really possible to think of the free +national life which they could thus have initiated as a thing to be +respected and preserved. Nor is it true that their choice for themselves +of this dingy freedom was no concern of their neighbours. We have seen +how the slave interest hankered for enlarged dominion; and it is certain +that the Southern Confederacy, once firmly established, would have been +an aggressive and disturbing power upon the continent of America. The +questions of territorial and other rights between it and the old Union +might have been capable of satisfactory settlement for the moment, or +they might have proved as insoluble as Lincoln thought they were. But, +at the best, if the States which adhered to the old Union had admitted +the claim of the first seceding States to go, they could only have +retained for themselves an insecure existence as a nation, threatened at +each fresh conflict of interest or sentiment with a further disruption +which could not upon any principle have been resisted. The preceding +chapters have dwelt with iteration upon the sentiments which had operated +to make Americans a people, and on the form and the degree in which those +sentiments animated the mind of Lincoln. Only so perhaps can we fully +appreciate for what the people of the North fought. It is inaccurate, +though not gravely misleading, to say that they fought against slavery. +It would be wholly false to say that they fought for mere dominion. They +fought to preserve and complete a political unity nobly conceived by +those who had done most to create it, and capable, as the sequel showed, +of a permanent and a healthy continuance. + +And it must never be forgotten, if we wish to enter into the spirit which +sustained the North in its struggle, that loyalty for Union had a larger +aspect than that of mere allegiance to a particular authority. Vividly +present to the mind of some few, vaguely but honestly present to the mind +of a great multitude, was the sense that even had slavery not entered +into the question a larger cause than that of their recent Union was +bound up with the issues of the war. The Government of the United States +had been the first and most famous attempt in a great modern country to +secure government by the will of the mass of the people. If in this +crucial instance such a Government were seen to be intolerably weak, if +it was found to be at the mercy of the first powerful minority which +seized a worked-up occasion to rebel, what they had learnt to think the +most hopeful agency for the uplifting of man everywhere would for ages to +come have proved a failure. This feeling could not be stronger in any +American than it was in Lincoln himself. "It has long been a question," +he said, "whether any Government which is not too strong for the +liberties of the people can be strong enough to maintain itself." There +is one marked feature of his patriotism, which could be illustrated by +abundance of phrases from his speeches and letters, and which the people +of several countries of Europe can appreciate to-day. His affection for +his own country and its institutions is curiously dependent upon a wider +cause of human good, and is not a whit the less intense for that. There +is perhaps no better expression of this widespread feeling in the North +than the unprepared speech which he delivered on his way to become +President, in the Hall of Independence at Philadelphia, in which the +Declaration of Independence had been signed. "I have never," he said, +"had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments +embodied in the Declaration of Independence. I have often pondered over +the dangers which were incurred by the men who assembled here and framed +and adopted that Declaration of Independence. I have pondered over the +toils that were endured by the officers and soldiers of the army who +achieved that independence. I have often inquired of myself what great +principle or idea it was that kept the Confederacy so long together. It +was not the mere matter of separation of the colonies from the +motherland, it was the sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which +gave liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but I hope to the +world, for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due +time the weight would be lifted from the shoulders of all men." + + +2. _The Progress of Secession_. + +So much for the broad causes without which there could have been no Civil +War in America. We have now to sketch the process by which the fuel was +kindled. It will be remembered that the President elected in November +does not enter upon his office for nearly four months. For that time, +therefore, the conduct of government lay in the hands of President +Buchanan, who, for all his past subserviency to Southern interests, +believed and said that secession was absolutely unlawful. Several +members of his Cabinet were Southerners who favoured secession; but the +only considerable man among them, Cobb of Georgia, soon declared that his +loyalty to his own State was not compatible with his office and resigned; +and, though others, including the Secretary for War, hung on to their +position, it does not appear that they influenced Buchanan much, or that +their somewhat dubious conduct while they remained was of great +importance. Black, the Attorney-General, and Cass, the Secretary of +State, who, however, resigned when his advice was disregarded, were not +only loyal to the Union, but anxious that the Government should do +everything that seemed necessary in its defence. Thus this +administration, hitherto Southern in its sympathies, must be regarded for +its remaining months as standing for the Union, so far as it stood for +anything. Lincoln meanwhile had little that he could do but to watch +events and prepare. There was, nevertheless, a point in the negotiations +which took place between parties at which he took on himself a tremendous +responsibility and at which his action was probably decisive of all that +followed. + +The Presidential election took place on November 6, 1860. On November 10 +the Legislature of South Carolina, which had remained in session for this +purpose, convened a specially elected Convention of the State to decide +upon the question of secession. Slave owners and poor whites, young and +old, street rabble, persons of fashion, politicians and clergy, the whole +people of this peculiar State, distinguished in some marked respects even +from its nearest neighbours, received the action of the Legislature with +enthusiastic but grave approval. It was not till December 20 that the +Convention could pass its formal "Ordinance of Secession," but there was +never for a moment any doubt as to what it would do. The question was +what other States would follow the example of South Carolina. There +ensued in all the Southern States earnest discussion as to whether to +secede or not, and in the North, on which the action of South Carolina, +however easily it might have been foretold, came as a shock, great +bewilderment as to what was to be done. As has been said, there was in +the South generally no disposition to give up Southern claims, no doubt +as to the right of secession, and no fundamental and overriding loyalty +to the Union, but there was a considerable reluctance to give up the +Union and much doubt as to whether secession was really wise; there was +in the North among those who then made themselves heard no doubt whatever +as to the loyalty due to the Union, but there was, apart from previous +differences about slavery, every possible variety and fluctuation of +opinion as to the right way of dealing with States which should secede or +rebel. In certain border States, few in number but likely to play an +important part in civil war, Northern and Southern elements were mingled. +Amid loud and distracted discussion, public and private, leaders of the +several parties and of the two sections of the country conducted earnest +negotiations in the hope of finding a peaceable settlement, and when +Congress met, early in December, their debates took a formal shape in +committees appointed by the Senate and by the House. + +Meanwhile the President was called upon to deal with the problem +presented for the Executive Government of the Union by the action of +South Carolina. It may be observed that if he had given his mind to the +military measures required to meet the possible future, the North, which +in the end had his entire sympathy, would have begun the war with that +advantage in preparation which, as it was, was gained by the South. In +this respect he did nothing. But, apart from this, if he had taken up a +clear and comprehensible attitude towards South Carolina and had given a +lead to Unionist sympathy, he would have consolidated public opinion in +the North, and he would have greatly strengthened those in the South who +remained averse to secession. There would have been a considerable +further secession, but in all likelihood it would not have become so +formidable as it did. As it was, the movement for secession proceeded +with all the proud confidence that can be felt in a right which is not +challenged, and the people of the South were not aware, though shrewd +leaders like Jefferson Davis knew it well, of the risk they would +encounter till they had committed themselves to defying it. + +The problem before Buchanan was the same which, aggravated by his failure +to deal with it, confronted Lincoln when he came into office, and it must +be clearly understood. The secession of South Carolina was not a +movement which could at once be quelled by prompt measures of repression. +Even if sufficient military force and apt forms of law had existed for +taking such measures they would have united the South in support of South +Carolina, and alienated the North, which was anxious for conciliation. +Yet it was possible for the Government of the Union, while patiently +abstaining from violent or provocative action, to make plain that in the +last resort it would maintain its rights in South Carolina with its full +strength. The main dealings of the Union authorities with the people of +a State came under a very few heads. There were local Federal Courts to +try certain limited classes of issues; jurors, of course, could not be +compelled to serve in these nor parties to appear. There was the postal +service; the people of South Carolina did not at present interfere with +this source of convenience to themselves and of revenue to the Union. +There were customs duties to be collected at the ports, and there were +forts at the entrance of the harbour in Charleston, South Carolina, as +well as forts, dockyards and arsenals of the United States at a number of +points in the Southern States; the Government should quietly but openly +have taken steps to ensure that the collection should go on unmolested, +and that the forts and the like should be made safe from attack, in South +Carolina and everywhere else where they were likely to be threatened. +Measures of this sort were early urged upon Buchanan by Scott, the +Lieutenant-General (that is, Second in Command under the President) of +the Army, who had been the officer that carried out Jackson's military +dispositions when secession was threatened in South Carolina thirty years +before, and by other officers concerned, particularly by Major Anderson, +a keen Southerner, but a keen soldier, commanding the forts at +Charleston, and by Cass and Black in his Cabinet. Public opinion in the +North demanded such measures. + +If further action than the proper manning and supply of certain forts had +been in contemplation, an embarrassing legal question would have arisen. +In the opinion of the Attorney-General, of leading Democrats like Cass +and Douglas, and apparently of most legal authorities of every party, +there was an important distinction, puzzling to an English lawyer even if +he is versed in the American Constitution, between the steps which the +Government might justly take in self-protection, and measures which could +be regarded as coercion of the State of South Carolina as such. These +latter would be unlawful. Buchanan, instead of acting on or declaring +his intentions, entertained Congress, which met early in December, with a +Message, laying down very clearly the illegality of secession, but +discussing at large this abstract question of the precise powers of the +Executive in resisting secession. The legal question will not further +concern us because the distinction which it was really intended to draw +between lawful and unlawful measures against secession quite coincided, +in its practical application, with what common sense and just feeling +would in these peculiar circumstances have dictated. But, as a natural +consequence of such discussion, an impression was spread abroad of the +illegality of something vaguely called coercion, and of the shadowy +nature of any power which the Government claimed. + +Up to Lincoln's inauguration the story of the Charleston forts, of which +one, lying on an island in the mouth of the harbour, was the famous Fort +Sumter, is briefly this. Buchanan was early informed that if the Union +Government desired to hold them, troops and ships of war should instantly +be sent. Congressmen from South Carolina remaining in Washington came to +him and represented that their State regarded these forts upon its soil +as their own; they gave assurances that there would be no attack on the +forts if the existing military situation was not altered, and they tried +to get a promise that the forts should not be reinforced. Buchanan would +give them no promise, but he equally refused the entreaties of Scott and +his own principal ministers that he should reinforce the forts, because +he declared that this would precipitate a conflict. Towards the end of +the year Major Anderson, not having men enough to hold all the forts if, +as he expected, they were attacked, withdrew his whole force to Fort +Sumter, which he thought the most defensible, dismantling the principal +other fort. The Governor of South Carolina protested against this as a +violation of a supposed understanding with the President, and seized upon +the United States arsenal and the custom house, taking the revenue +officers into State service. Commissioners had previously gone from +South Carolina to Washington to request the surrender of the forts, upon +terms of payment for property; they now declared that Anderson's +withdrawal, as putting him in a better position for defence, was an act +of war, and demanded that he should be ordered to retire to the mainland. +Buchanan wavered; decided to yield to them on this last point; +ultimately, on the last day of 1860, yielded instead to severe pressure +from Black, and decided to reinforce Anderson on Fort Sumter. The actual +attempt to reinforce him was bungled; a transport sent for this purpose +was fired upon by the South Carolina forces, and returned idle. This +first act of war, for some curious reason, caused no excitement. The +people of the North were intensely relieved that Buchanan had not yielded +to whatever South Carolina might demand, and, being prone to forgive and +to applaud, seem for a time to have experienced a thrill of glory in the +thought that the national administration had a mind. Dix, the Secretary +of the Treasury, elated them yet further by telegraphing to a Treasury +official at New Orleans, "If any one attempts to haul down the American +flag, shoot him on the spot." But Anderson remained without +reinforcements or further provisions when Lincoln entered office; and +troops in the service first of South Carolina and afterwards of the +Southern Confederacy, which was formed in February, erected batteries and +prepared to bombard Fort Sumter. + +No possible plea for President Buchanan can make him rank among those who +have held high office with any credit at all, but he must at once be +acquitted of any intentional treachery to the Union. It is agreed that +he was a truthful and sincere man, and there is something pleasant in the +simple avowal he made to a Southern negotiator who was pressing him for +some instant concession, that he always said his prayers before deciding +any important matter of State. His previous dealings with Kansas would +suggest to us robust unscrupulousness, but it seems that he had quite +given his judgment over into the keeping of a little group of Southern +Senators. Now that he was deprived of this help, he had only enough will +left to be obstinate against other advice. It is suggested that he had +now but one motive, the desire that the struggle should break out in his +successor's time rather than his own. Even this is perhaps to judge +Buchanan's notorious and calamitous laches unfairly. Any action that he +took must to a certain extent have been provocative, and he knew it, and +he may have clung to the hope that by sheer inaction he would give time +for some possible forces of reason and conciliation to work. If so, he +was wrong, but similar and about as foolish hopes paralysed Lincoln's +Cabinet (and to a less but still very dangerous degree Lincoln himself) +when they took up the problem which Buchanan's neglect had made more +urgent. Buchanan had in this instance the advantage of far better +advice, but this silly old man must not be gibbeted and Lincoln left free +from criticism for his part in the same transaction. Both Presidents +hesitated where to us who look back the case seems clear. The +circumstances had altered in some respects when Lincoln came in, but it +is only upon a somewhat broad survey of the governing tendencies of +Lincoln's administration and of its mighty result in the mass that we +discover what really distinguishes his slowness of action in such cases +as this from the hesitation of a man like Buchanan. Buchanan waited in +the hope of avoiding action, Lincoln with the firm intention to see his +path in the fullest light he could get. + +From an early date in November, 1860, every effort was made, by men too +numerous to mention, to devise if possible such a settlement of what were +now called the grievances of the South as would prevent any other State +from following the example of South Carolina. Apart from the intangible +difference presented by much disapprobation of slavery in the North and +growing resentment in the South as this disapprobation grew louder, the +solid ground of dispute concerned the position of slavery in the existing +Territories and future acquisitions of the United States Government; the +quarrel arose from the election of a President pledged to use whatever +power he had, though indeed that might prove little, to prevent the +further extension of slavery; and we may almost confine our attention to +this point. Other points came into discussion. Several of the Northern +States had "Personal Liberty Laws" expressly devised to impede the +execution of the Federal law of 1850 as to fugitive slaves. Some +attention was devoted to these, especially by Alexander Stephens, who, as +the Southern leader most opposed to immediate secession, wished to direct +men's minds to a grievance that could be remedied. Lincoln, who had +always said that, though the Fugitive Slave Law should be made just and +seemly, it ought in substance to be enforced, made clear again that he +thought such "Personal Liberty Laws" should be amended, though he +protested that it was not for him as President-elect to advise the State +Legislatures on their own business. The Republicans generally agreed. +Some of the States concerned actually began amending their laws. Thus, +if the disquiet of the South had depended on this grievance, the cause of +disquiet would no doubt have been removed. Again the Republican leaders, +including Lincoln in particular, let there be no ground for thinking that +an attack was intended upon slavery in the States where it was +established; they offered eventually to give the most solemn pledge +possible in this matter by passing an Amendment of the Constitution +declaring that it should never be altered so as to take away the +independence of the existing slave States as to this portion of their +democratic institutions. Lincoln indeed refused on several occasions to +make any fresh public disclaimer of an intention to attack existing +institutions. His views were "open to all who will read." "For the good +men in the South," he writes privately, "--I regard the majority of them +as such--I have no objection to repeat them seventy times seven. But I +have bad men to deal with both North and South; men who are eager for +something new upon which to base new misrepresentations; men who would +like to frighten me, or at least fix upon me the character of timidity +and cowardice." Nevertheless he endeavoured constantly in private +correspondence to narrow and define the issue, which, as he insisted, +concerned only the territorial extension of slavery. + +The most serious of the negotiations that took place, and to which most +hope was attached, consisted in the deliberations of a committee of +thirteen appointed by the Senate in December, 1860, which took for its +guidance a detailed scheme of compromise put forward by Senator +Crittenden, of Kentucky. The efforts of this committee to come to an +agreement broke down at the outset upon the question of the Territories, +and the responsibility, for good or for evil, of bringing them to an end +must probably be attributed to the advice of Lincoln. Crittenden's first +proposal was that there should be a Constitutional Amendment declaring +that slavery should be prohibited "in all the territory of the United +States, now held or hereafter acquired, north of latitude 36 degrees 30 +minutes"--(the limit fixed in the Missouri Compromise, but restricted +then to the Louisiana purchase)--while in all territory, now held or +thereafter acquired south of that line, it should be permitted. +Crittenden also proposed that when a Territory on either side of the line +became a State, it should become free to decide the question for itself; +but the discussion never reached this point. On the proposal as to the +Territories there seemed at first to be a prospect that the Republicans +would agree, in which case the South might very likely have agreed too. +The desire for peace was intensely strong among the commercial men of New +York and other cities, and it affected the great political managers and +the statesmen who, like Seward himself, were in close touch with this +commercial influence. Tenacious adherence to declared principle may have +been as strong in country districts as the desire for accommodation was +in these cities, but it was at any rate far less vocal, and on the whole +it seems that compromise was then in the air. It seemed clear from the +expressed opinions of his closest allies that Seward would support this +compromise. Now Seward just at this time received Lincoln's offer of the +office of Secretary of State, a great office and one in which Seward +expected to rule Lincoln and the country, but in accepting which, as he +did, he made it incumbent on himself not to part company at once with the +man who would be nominally his chief. Then there occurred a visit paid +on Seward's behalf by his friend Thurlow Weed, an astute political +manager but also an able statesman, to Lincoln at Springfield. Weed +brought back a written statement of Lincoln's views. Seward's support +was not given to the compromise; nor naturally was that of the more +radical Republicans, to use a term which now became common; and the +Committee of Thirteen found itself unable to agree. + +It is unnecessary to repeat what Lincoln's conviction on this, to him the +one essential point of policy, was, or to quote from the numerous letters +in which from the time of his nomination he tried to keep the minds of +his friends firm on this single principle, and to show them that if there +were the slightest further yielding as to this, save indeed as to the +peculiar case of New Mexico, which did not matter, and which perhaps he +regarded as conceded already, the Southern policy of extending slavery +and of "filibustering" against neighbouring counties for that purpose +would revive in full force, and the whole labour of the Republican +movement would have to begin over again. Since his election he had been +writing also to Southern politicians who were personally friendly, to +Gilmer of North Carolina, to whom he offered Cabinet office, and to +Stephens, making absolutely plain that his difference with them lay in +this one point, but making it no less plain that on this point he was, +with entire respect to them, immovable. Now, on December 22, the _New +York Tribune_ was "enabled to state that Mr. Lincoln stands now as he +stood in May last, square upon the Republican platform." The writing +that Weed brought to Seward must have said, perhaps more elaborately, the +same. If Lincoln had not stood square upon that platform there were +others like Senator Wade of Ohio and Senator Grimes of Iowa who might +have done so and might have been able to wreck the compromise. Lincoln, +however, did wreck it, at a time when it seemed likely to succeed, and it +is most probable that thereby he caused the Civil War. It cannot be said +that he definitely expected the Civil War. Probably he avoided making +any definite forecast; but he expressed no alarm, and he privately told a +friend about this time that "he could not in his heart believe that the +South designed the overthrow of the Government." But, if he had in his +heart believed it, nothing in his life gives reason to think that he +would have been more anxious to conciliate the South; on the contrary, it +is in line with all we know of his feelings to suppose that he would have +thought firmness all the more imperative. We cannot recall the solemnity +of his long-considered speech about "a house divided against itself," +with which all his words and acts accorded, without seeing that, if +perhaps he speculated little about the risks, he was prepared to face +them whatever they were. Doubtless he took a heavy responsibility, but +it is painful to find honourable historians, who heartily dislike the +cause of slavery, capable to-day of wondering whether he was right to do +so. "If he had not stood square" in December upon the same "platform" on +which he had stood in May, if he had preferred to enroll himself among +those statesmen of all countries whose strongest words are uttered for +their own subsequent enjoyment in eating them, he might conceivably have +saved much bloodshed, but he would not have left the United States a +country of which any good man was proud to be a citizen. + +Thus, by the end of 1860, the bottom was really out of the policy of +compromise, and it is not worth while to examine the praiseworthy efforts +that were still made for it while State after State in the South was +deciding to secede. One interesting proposal, which was aired in +January, 1861, deserves notice, namely, that the terms of compromise +proposed by Crittenden should have been submitted to a vote of the whole +people. It was not passed. Seward, whom many people now thought likely +to catch at any and every proposal for a settlement, said afterwards with +justice that it was "unconstitutional and ineffectual." Ineffectual it +would have been in this sense: the compromise would in all probability +have been carried by a majority consisting of men in the border States +and of all those elsewhere who, though they feared war and desired good +feeling, had no further definite opinion upon the chief questions at +issue; but it would have left a local majority in many of the Southern +States and a local majority in many of the Northern States as +irreconcilable with each other as ever. It was opposed also to the +spirit of the Constitution. In a great country where the people with +infinitely varied interests and opinions can slowly make their +predominant wishes appear, but cannot really take counsel together and +give a firm decision upon any emergency, there may be exceptional cases +when a popular vote on a defined issue would be valuable, significant, +desired by the people themselves; but the machinery of representative +government, however faulty, is the only machinery by which the people can +in some sense govern itself, instead of making itself ungovernable. +Above all, in a serious crisis it is supremely repugnant to the spirit of +popular government that the men chosen by a people to govern it should +throw their responsibility back at the heads of the electors. It is well +to be clear as to the kind of proceeding which the authors of this +proposal were really advocating: a statesman has come before the ordinary +citizen with a definite statement of the principle on which he would act, +and an ordinary citizen has thereupon taken his part in entrusting him +with power; then comes the moment for the statesman to carry out his +principle, and the latent opposition becomes of necessity more alarming; +the statesman is therefore to say to the ordinary citizen, "This is a +more difficult matter than I thought; and if I am to act as I said I +would, take on yourself the responsibility which I recently put myself +forward to bear." The ordinary citizen will naturally as a rule decline +a responsibility thus offered him, but he will not be grateful for the +offer or glad to be a forced accomplice in this process of indecision. + +If we could determine the prevailing sentiment in the North at some +particular moment during the crisis, it would probably represent what +very few individual men continued to think for six months together. +Early in the crisis some strong opponents of slavery were for letting the +South go, declaring, as did Horace Greeley of the _New York Tribune_, +that "they would not be citizens of a Republic of which one part was +pinned to the other part with bayonets"; but this sentiment seems soon to +have given way when the same men began to consider, as Lincoln had +considered, whether an agreement to sever the Union between the States, +with the difficult adjustment of mutual interests which it would have +involved, could be so effected as to secure a lasting peace. A blind +rage on behalf of conciliation broke out later in prosperous business men +in great towns--even in Boston it is related that "Beacon Street +aristocrats" broke up a meeting to commemorate John Brown on the +anniversary of his death, and grave persons thought the meeting an +outrage. Waves of eager desire for compromise passed over the Northern +community. Observers at the time and historians after are easily +mistaken as to popular feeling; the acute fluctuations of opinion +inevitable among journalists, and in any sort of circle where men are +constantly meeting and talking politics, may leave the great mass of +quiet folk almost unaffected. We may be sure that there was a +considerable body of steady opinion very much in accord with Lincoln; +this should not be forgotten, but it must not be supposed that it +prevailed constantly. On the contrary, it was inherent in the nature of +the crisis that opinion wavered and swayed. We should miss the whole +significance of Lincoln's story if we did not think of the North now and +to the end of the war as exposed to disunion, hesitation, and quick +reaction. If at this time a sufficiently authoritative leader with +sufficiently determined timidity had inaugurated a policy of stampede, he +might have had a vast and tumultuous following. Only his following would +quickly, if too late, have repented. What was wanted, if the people of +the North were to have what most justly might be called their way, was a +leader who would not seem to hurry them along, nor yet be ever looking +round to see if they followed, but just go groping forward among the +innumerable obstacles, guided by such principles of good sense and of +right as would perhaps on the whole and in the long run be approved by +the maturer thought of most men; and Lincoln was such a leader. + +When we turn to the South, where, as has been said, the movement for +secession was making steady though not unopposed progress, we have indeed +to make exceptions to any sweeping statement, but we must recognise a far +more clearly defined and far more prevailing general opinion. We may set +aside for the moment the border slave States of Maryland, Virginia, +Kentucky, and Missouri, each of which has a distinct and an important +history. Delaware belonged in effect to the North. In Texas there were +peculiar conditions, and Texas had an interesting history of its own in +this matter, but may be treated as remote. There was also, as has been +said, a highland region covering the west of Virginia and the east of +Kentucky but reaching far south into the northern part of Alabama. +Looking at the pathetic spectacle of enduring heroism in a mistaken cause +which the South presented, many people have been ready to suppose that it +was manoeuvred and tricked into its folly by its politicians and might +have recovered itself from it if the North and the Government had +exercised greater patience and given it time. In support of this view +instances are cited of strong Unionist feeling in the South. Such +instances probably belong to the peculiar people of this highland +country, or else to the mixed and more or less neutral population that +might be found at New Orleans or trading along the Mississippi. There +remains a solid and far larger South in which indeed (except for South +Carolina) dominant Southern policy was briskly debated, but as a question +of time, degree, and expediency. Three mental forces worked for the same +end: the alarmed vested interest of the people of substance, aristocratic +and otherwise; the racial sentiment of the poor whites, a sentiment often +strongest in those who have no subject of worldly pride but their colour; +and the philosophy of the clergy and other professional men who +constituted what in some countries is called the intellectual class. +These influences resulted in a rare uniformity of opinion that slavery +was right and all attacks on it were monstrous, that the Southern States +were free to secede and form, if they chose, a new Confederacy, and that +they ought to do this if the moment should arrive when they could not +otherwise safeguard their interests. Doubtless there were leading men +who had thought over the matter in advance of the rest and taken counsel +together long before, but the fact seems to be that such leaders now +found their followers in advance of them. Jefferson Davis, by far the +most commanding man among them, now found himself--certainly it served +him right--anxiously counselling delay, and spending nights in prayer +before he made his farewell speech to the Senate in words of greater +dignity and good feeling than seem to comport with the fanatical +narrowness of his view and the progressive warping of his determined +character to which it condemned him. Whatever fundamental loyalty to the +Union existed in any man's heart there were months of debate in which it +found no organised and hardly any audible expression. The most notable +stand against actual secession was that which was made in Georgia by +Stephens; he was determined and outspoken, but he proceeded wholly upon +the ground that secession was premature. And this instance is +significant of something further. It has been said that discussion and +voting were not free, and it would be altogether unlikely that their +freedom should in no cases be infringed, but there is no evidence that +this charge was widely true. It is surely significant of the general +temper of the South, and most honourable to it, that Stephens, who thus +struggled against secession at that moment, was chosen Vice-President of +the Southern Confederacy. + +By February 4, 1861, the States of Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, +Georgia, and Louisiana had followed South Carolina by passing Ordinances +of Secession, and on that date representatives of these States met at +Montgomery in Alabama to found a new Confederacy. Texas, where +considerable resistance was offered by Governor Houston, the adventurous +leader under whom that State had separated from Mexico, was in process of +passing the like Ordinance. Virginia and North Carolina, which lie north +of the region where cotton prevails, and with them their western +neighbour Tennessee, and Arkansas, yet further west and separated from +Tennessee by the Mississippi River, did not secede till after Lincoln's +inauguration and the outbreak of war. But the position of Virginia +(except for its western districts) admitted of very little doubt, and +that of Tennessee and North Carolina was known to be much the same. +Virginia took a historic pride in the Union, and its interest in slavery +was not quite the same as that of the cotton States, yet its strongest +social ties were to the South. This State was now engaged in a last idle +attempt to keep itself and other border States in the Union, with some +hope also that the departed States might return; and on this same +February 6, a "Peace Convention," invited by Virginia and attended by +delegates from twenty-one States, met at Washington with ex-President +Tyler in the chair; but for Virginia it was all along a condition of any +terms of agreement that the right of any State to secede should be fully +acknowledged. + +The Congress of the seceding States, which met at Montgomery, was +described by Stephens as, "taken all in all, the noblest, soberest, most +intelligent, and most conservative body I was ever in." It has been +remarked that Southern politicians of the agitator type were not sent to +it. It adopted a provisional Constitution modelled largely upon that of +the United States. Jefferson Davis, who had retired to his farm, was +sent for to become President; Stephens, as already said, became +Vice-President. The delegates there were to continue in session for the +present as the regular Congress. Whether sobered by the thought that +they were acting in the eyes of the world, or in accordance with their +own prevailing sentiment, these men, some of whom had before urged the +revival of the slave trade, now placed in their Constitution a perpetual +prohibition of it, and when, as a regular legislature, they afterwards +passed a penal statute which carried out this intention inadequately, +President Davis conscientiously vetoed it and demanded a more +satisfactory measure. At his inauguration the Southern President +delivered an address, typical of that curious blending of propriety and +insincerity, of which the politics of that period in America had offered +many examples. It may seem incredible, but it contained no word of +slavery, but recited in dignified terms how the South had been driven to +separation by "wanton aggression on the part of others," and after it had +"vainly endeavoured to secure tranquillity." The new Southern Congress +now resolved to take over the forts and other property in the seceded +States that had belonged to the Union, and the first Confederate general, +Beauregard, was sent to Charleston to hover over Fort Sumter. + + +3. _The Inauguration of Lincoln_. + +The first necessary business of the President-elect, while he watched the +gathering of what Emerson named "the hurricane in which he was called to +the helm," was to construct a strong Cabinet, to which may be added the +seemingly unnecessary business forced upon him of dealing with a horde of +pilgrims who at once began visiting him to solicit some office or, in +rarer cases, to press their disinterested opinions. His Cabinet, +designed in principle, as has been said, while he was waiting in the +telegraph office for election returns, was actually constructed with some +delay and hesitation. Lincoln could not know personally all the men he +invited to join him, but he proceeded with the view of conjoining in his +administration representatives of the chief shades of opinion which in +this critical time it would be his supreme duty to hold together. Not +only different shades of opinion, but the local sentiment of different +districts had to be considered; he once complained that if the twelve +Apostles had to be chosen nowadays the principle of locality would have +to be regarded; but at this time there was very solid reason why +different States should be contented and why he should be advised as to +their feelings. His own chief rivals for the Presidency offered a good +choice from both these points of view. They were Seward of New York, +Chase of Ohio, Bates of Missouri, Cameron of Pennsylvania. Seward and +Chase were both able and outstanding men: the former was in a sense the +old Republican leader, but was more and more coming to be regarded as the +typical "Conservative," or cautious Republican; Chase on the other hand +was a leader of the "Radicals," who were "stern and unbending" in their +attitude towards slavery and towards the South. These two must be got +and kept together if possible. Bates was a good and capable man who +moreover came from Missouri, a border slave State, where his influence +was much to be desired. He became Attorney-General. Cameron, an +unfortunate choice as it turned out, was a very wealthy business man of +Pennsylvania, representative of the weighty Protectionist influence +there. After he had been offered office, which had been without +Lincoln's authority promised him in the Republican Convention, Lincoln +was dismayed by representations that he was "a bad, corrupted man"; he +wrote a curious letter asking Cameron to refuse his offer; Cameron +instead produced evidence of the desire of Pennsylvania for him; Lincoln +stuck to his offer; the old Whig element among Republicans, the +Protectionist element, and above all, the friends of the indispensable +Seward, would otherwise have been outweighted in the Cabinet. Cameron +eventually became for a time Secretary of War. To these Lincoln, upon +somebody's strong representations, tried, without much hope, to add some +distinctly Southern politician. The effort, of course, failed. +Ultimately the Cabinet was completed by the addition of Caleb Smith of +Indiana as Secretary of the Interior, Gideon Welles of Connecticut as +Secretary of the Navy, and Montgomery Blair of Maryland as +Postmaster-General. Welles, with the guidance of a brilliant +subordinate, Fox, served usefully, was very loyal to Lincoln, had an +antipathy to England which was dangerous, and kept very diligently a +diary for which we may be grateful now. Blair was a vehement, +irresponsible person with an influential connection, and, which was +important, his influence and that of his family lay in Maryland and other +border slave States. Of all these men, Seward, Secretary of State--that +is, Foreign Minister and something more--and Chase, Secretary of the +Treasury, most concern us. Lincoln's offer to Seward was made and +accepted in terms that did credit to both men, and Seward, still smarting +at his own defeat, was admirably loyal. But his friends, though they had +secured the appointment of Cameron to support them, thought increasingly +ill of the prospects of a Cabinet which included the Radical Chase. On +the very night before his inauguration Lincoln received from Seward, who +had just been helping to revise his Inaugural Address, a letter +withdrawing his acceptance of office. By some not clearly recorded +exercise of that great power over men, which, if with some failures, was +generally at his command, he forced Seward to see that the unconditional +withdrawal of this letter was his public duty. It must throughout what +follows be remembered that Lincoln's first and most constant duty was to +hold together the jarring elements in the North which these jarring +elements in his own Cabinet represented; and it was one of his great +achievements that he kept together, for as long as was needful, able but +discordant public servants who could never have combined together without +him. + +On February 11, 1861, Lincoln, standing on the gallery at the end of a +railway car, upon the instant of departure from the home to which he +never returned, said to his old neighbours (according to the version of +his speech which his private secretary got him to dictate immediately +after): "My friends, no one, not in my situation, can appreciate my +feeling of sadness at this parting. To this place, and the kindness of +these people, I owe everything. Here I have lived for a quarter of a +century, and have passed from a young to an old man. Here my children +have been born and one is buried. I now leave, not knowing when or +whether ever I may return, with a task before me greater than that which +rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being who +ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance, I cannot +fail. Trusting in Him who can go with me, and remain with you, and be +everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. +To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend +me, I bid you an affectionate farewell." + +He was, indeed, going to a task not less great than Washington's, but he +was going to it with a preparation in many respects far inferior to his. +For the last eight years he had laboured as a public speaker, and in a +measure as a party leader, and had displayed and developed comprehension, +perhaps unequalled, of some of the larger causes which mould public +affairs. But, except in sheer moral discipline, those years had done +nothing to supply the special training which he had previously lacked, +for high executive office. In such office at such a time ready decision +in an obscure and passing situation may often be a not less requisite +than philosophic grasp either of the popular mind or of eternal laws. +The powers which he had hitherto shown would still be needful to him, but +so too would other powers which he had never practised in any comparable +position, and which nature does not in a moment supply. Any attempt to +judge of Lincoln's Presidency--and it can only be judged at all when it +has gone on some way--must take account, not perhaps so much of his +inexperience, as of his own reasonable consciousness of it and his great +anxiety to use the advice of men who were in any way presumably more +competent. + +He deliberately delayed his arrival in Washington and availed himself of +official invitations to stay at four great towns and five State capitals +which he could conveniently pass on his way. The journey abounded in +small incidents and speeches, some of which exposed him to a little +ridicule in the press, though they probably created an undercurrent of +sympathy for him. Near one station where the train stopped lived a +little girl he knew, who had recently urged upon him to wear a beard or +whiskers. To this dreadful young person, and to that persistent good +nature of his which was now and then fatuous, was due the ill-designed +hairy ornamentation which during his Presidency hid the really beautiful +modelling of his jaw and chin. He enquired for her at the station, had +her fetched from the crowd, claimed her praise for this supposed +improvement, and kissed her in presence of the press. In New York he was +guilty of a more sinister and tragic misfeasance. In that city, where, +if it may be said with respect, there has existed from of old a +fashionable circle not convinced of its own gentility and insisting the +more rigorously on minor decorum, Lincoln went to the opera, and history +still deplores that this misguided man went there and sat there with his +large hands in black kid gloves. Here perhaps it is well to say that the +educated world of the Eastern States, including those who privately +deplored Lincoln's supposed unfitness, treated its untried chief +magistrate with that engrained good breeding to which it was utterly +indifferent how plain a man he might be. His lesser speeches as he went +were unstudied appeals to loyalty, with very simple avowals of inadequacy +to his task, and expressions of reliance on the people's support when he +tried to do his duty. To a man who can sometimes speak from the heart +and to the heart as Lincoln did it is perhaps not given to be uniformly +felicitous. Among these speeches was that delivered at Philadelphia, +which has already been quoted, but most of them were not considered +felicitous at the time. They were too unpretentious. Moreover, they +contained sentences which seemed to understate the gravity of the crisis +in a way which threw doubt on his own serious statesmanship. Whether +they were felicitous or not, the intention of these much-criticised +utterances was the best proof of his statesmanship. He would appeal to +the steady loyalty of the North, but he was not going to arouse its +passion. He assumed to the last that calm reflection might prevail in +the South, which was menaced by nothing but "an artificial crisis." He +referred to war as a possibility, but left no doubt of his own wish by +all means to avoid it. "There will," he said, "be no bloodshed unless it +be forced on the Government. The Government will not use force unless +force is used against it." + +Before he passed through Baltimore he received earnest communications +from Seward and from General Scott. Each had received trustworthy +information of a plot, which existed, to murder him in that city. Owing +to their warnings he went through Baltimore secretly at night, so that +his arrival in Washington, on February 23, was unexpected. This was his +obvious duty, and nobody who knew him was ever in doubt of his personal +intrepidity; but of course it helped to damp the effect of what many +people would have been glad to regard as a triumphal progress. + +On March 4, 1861, old Buchanan came in his carriage to escort his +successor to the inaugural ceremony, where it was the ironical fate of +Chief Justice Taney to administer the oath to a President who had already +gone far to undo his great work. Yet a third notable Democrat was there +to do a pleasant little act. Douglas, Lincoln's defeated rival, placed +himself with a fine ostentation by his side, and, observing that he was +embarrassed as to where to put his new tall hat and preposterous +gold-knobbed cane, took charge of these encumbrances before the moment +arrived for the most eagerly awaited of all his speeches. Lincoln had +submitted his draft of his "First Inaugural" to Seward, and this draft +with Seward's abundant suggestions of amendment has been preserved. It +has considerable literary interest, and, by the readiness with which most +of Seward's suggestions were adopted, and the decision with which some, +and those not the least important, were set aside by Lincoln, it +illustrates well the working relation which, after one short struggle, +was to be established between these two men. By Seward's advice Lincoln +added to an otherwise dry speech some concluding paragraphs of emotional +appeal. The last sentence of the speech, which alone is much remembered, +is Seward's in the first conception of it, Seward's in the slightly +hackneyed phrase with which it ends, Lincoln's alone in the touch of +haunting beauty which is on it. + +His "First Inaugural" was by general confession an able state paper, +setting forth simply and well a situation with which we are now familiar. +It sets out dispassionately the state of the controversy on slavery, lays +down with brief argument the position that the Union is indissoluble, and +proceeds to define the duty of the Government in face of an attempt to +dissolve it. "The power," he said, "confided to me will be used to hold, +occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government, +and to collect the duties on imports; but beyond what may be necessary +for these objects there will be no invasion, no using of force against or +among the people anywhere. The mails, unless repelled, will continue to +be furnished in all parts of the Union." He proceeded to set out what he +conceived to be the impossibility of real separation; the intimate +relations between the peoples of the several States must still continue; +they would still remain for adjustment after any length of warfare; they +could be far better adjusted in Union than in enmity. He concluded: "In +your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the +momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You +can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. I am loath +to close. We are not enemies but friends. We must not be enemies. +Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of +affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every +battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all +over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again +touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." + + +4. _The Outbreak of War_. + +Upon the newly-inaugurated President there now descended a swarm of +office-seekers. The Republican party had never been in power before, and +these patriotic people exceeded in number and voracity those that had +assailed any American President before. To be accessible to all such was +the normal duty of a President; it was perhaps additionally incumbent on +him at this time. When in the course of nature the number of +office-seekers abated, they were succeeded, as will be seen, by +supplicants of another kind, whose petitions were often really harrowing. +The horror of this enduring visitation has been described by Artemus Ward +in terms which Lincoln himself could not have improved upon. His +classical treatment of the subject is worth serious reference; for it +should be realised that Lincoln, who had both to learn his new trade of +statecraft and to exercise it in a terrible emergency, did so with a +large part of each day necessarily consumed by worrying and distasteful +tasks of a much paltrier kind. + +On the day after the Inauguration came word from Major Anderson at Fort +Sumter that he could only hold out a few weeks longer unless reinforced +and provisioned. With it came to Lincoln the opinion of General Scott, +that to relieve Fort Sumter now would require a force of 20,000 men, +which did not exist. The Cabinet was summoned with military and naval +advisers. The sailors thought they could throw men and provisions into +Fort Sumter; the soldiers said the ships would be destroyed by the +Confederate batteries. Lincoln asked his Cabinet whether, assuming it to +be feasible, it was politically advisable now to provision Fort Sumter. +Blair said yes emphatically; Chase said yes in a qualified way. The +other five members of the Cabinet said no; General Scott had given his +opinion, as on a military question, that the fort should now be +evacuated; they argued that the evacuation of this one fort would be +recognised by the country as merely a military necessity arising from the +neglect of the last administration. Lincoln reserved his decision. + +Let us conceive the effect of a decision to evacuate Fort Sumter. South +Carolina had for long claimed it as a due acknowledgment of its sovereign +and independent rights, and for no other end; the Confederacy now claimed +it and its first act had been to send Beauregard to threaten the fort. +Even Buchanan had ended by withstanding these claims. The assertion that +he would hold these forts had been the gist of Lincoln's Inaugural. This +was the one fort that was in the eyes of the Northern public or the +Southern public either; they probably never realised that there were +other forts, Fort Pickens, for example, on the Gulf of Mexico, which the +administration was prepared to defend. And now it was proposed that +Lincoln, who had put down his foot with a bang yesterday, should take it +up with a shuffle to-day. And Lincoln reserved his judgment; and, which +is much more, went on reserving it till the question nearly settled +itself to his disgrace. + +Lincoln lacked here, it would seem, not by any means the qualities of the +trained administrator, but just that rough perception and vigour which +untaught genius might be supposed to possess. The passionate Jackson +(who, by the way, was a far more educated man in the respects which +count) would not have acted so. Lincoln, it is true, had declared that +he would take no provocative step--"In your hands, my dissatisfied +fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war," +and the risk which he would have taken by over-ruling that day the +opinion of the bulk of his Cabinet based on that of his chief military +adviser is obvious, but it seems to have been a lesser risk than he did +take in delaying so long to overrule his Cabinet. It is precisely +characteristic of his strength and of his weakness that he did not at +once yield to his advisers; that he long continued weighing the matter +undisturbed by the danger of delay; that he decided as soon as and no +sooner than he felt sure as to the political results, which alone here +mattered, for the military consequences amounted to nothing. + +This story was entangled from the first with another difficult story. +Commissioners from the Southern Confederacy came to Washington and sought +interviews with Seward; they came to treat for the recognition of the +Confederacy and the peaceful surrender of forts and the like within its +borders. Meanwhile the action of Virginia was in the balance, and the +"Peace Convention," summoned by Virginia, still "threshing again," as +Lowell said, "the already twice-threshed straw of debate." The action of +Virginia and of other border States, about which Lincoln was intensely +solicitous, would certainly depend upon the action of the Government +towards the States that had already seceded. Might it not be well that +the Government should avoid immediate conflict with South Carolina about +Fort Sumter, though conflict with the Confederacy about Fort Pickens and +the rest would still impend? Was it not possible that conflict could be +staved off till an agreement could be reached with Virginia and the +border States, which would induce the seceded States to return? These +questions were clearly absurd, but they were as clearly natural, and they +greatly exercised Seward. Disappointed at not being President and +equally disturbed at the prospect of civil war, but still inclined to +large and sanguine hopes, he was rather anxious to take things out of +Lincoln's hands and very anxious to serve his country as the great +peacemaker. Indirect negotiations now took place between him and the +Southern Commissioners, who of course could not be officially recognised, +through the medium of two Supreme Court Judges, especially one Campbell, +who was then in Washington. Seward was quite loyal to Lincoln and told +him in a general way what he was doing; he was also candid with Campbell +and his friends, and explained to them his lack of authority, but he +talked freely and rashly of what he hoped to bring about. Lincoln gave +Seward some proper cautions and left him all proper freedom; but it is +possible that he once told Douglas that he intended, at that moment, to +evacuate Fort Sumter. The upshot of the matter is that the decision of +the Government was delayed by negotiations which, as it ought to have +known, could come to nothing, and that the Southern Government and the +Commissioners, after they had got home, thought they had been deceived in +these negotiations. + +Discussions were still proceeding as to Fort Sumter when a fresh +difficulty arose for Lincoln, but one which enabled him to become +henceforth master in his Cabinet. The strain of Seward's position upon a +man inclined to be vain and weak can easily be imagined, but the sudden +vagary in which it now resulted was surprising. Upon April 1 he sent to +Lincoln "Some Thoughts for the President's Consideration." In this +paper, after deploring what he described as the lack of any policy so +far, and defining, in a way that does not matter, his attitude as to the +forts in the South, he proceeded thus: "I would demand explanations from +Great Britain and Russia, and send agents into Canada, Mexico, and +Central America, to raise a vigorous spirit of independence on this +continent against European intervention, and if satisfactory explanations +are not received from Spain and France, would convene Congress and +declare war against them." In other words, Seward would seek to end all +domestic dissensions by suddenly creating out of nothing a dazzling +foreign policy. But this was not the only point, even if it was the main +point; he proceeded: "Either the President must do it" (that is the sole +conduct of this policy) "himself, or devolve it on some member of his +Cabinet. It is not my especial province. But I neither seek to evade +nor assume responsibility." In other words, Seward put himself forward +as the sole director of the Government. In his brief reply Lincoln made +no reference whatever to Seward's amazing programme. He pointed out that +the policy so far, as to which Seward had complained, was one in which +Seward had entirely concurred. As to the concluding demand that some one +man, and that man Seward, should control all policy, he wrote, "If this +must be done, I must do it. When a general line of policy is adopted, I +apprehend there is no danger of its being changed without good reason, or +continuing to be a subject of unnecessary debate; still, upon points +arising in its progress I wish, and suppose I am entitled to have, the +advice of all the Cabinet." Seward was not a fool, far from it; he was +one of the ablest men in America, only at that moment strained and +excited beyond the limits of his good sense. Lincoln's quiet answer +sobered him then and for ever after. He showed a generous mind; he wrote +to his wife soon after: "Executive force and vigour are rare qualities; +the President is the best of us." And Lincoln's generosity was no less; +his private secretary, Nicolay, saw these papers; but no other man knew +anything of Seward's abortive rebellion against Lincoln till after they +both were dead. The story needs no explanation, but the more attentively +all the circumstances are considered, the more Lincoln's handling of this +emergency, which threatened the ruin of his Government, throws into shade +the weakness he had hitherto shown. + +Lincoln was thus in a stronger position when he finally decided as to +Fort Sumter. It is unnecessary to follow the repeated consultations that +took place. There were preparations for possible expeditions both to +Fort Sumter and to Fort Pickens, and various blunders about them, and +Seward made some trouble by officious interference about them. An +announcement was sent to the Governor of South Carolina that provisions +would be sent to Fort Sumter and he was assured that if this was +unopposed no further steps would be taken. What chiefly concerns us is +that the eventual decision to send provisions but not troops to Fort +Sumter was Lincoln's decision; but that it was not taken till after +Senators and Congressmen had made clear to him that Northern opinion +would support him. It was the right decision, for it conspicuously +avoided the appearance of provocation, while it upheld the right of the +Union; but it was taken perilously late, and the delay exposed the +Government to the risk of a great humiliation. + +An Alabama gentleman had urged Jefferson Davis that the impending +struggle must not be delayed. "Unless," he said, "you sprinkle blood in +the face of the people of Alabama, they will be back in the old Union in +ten days." There is every reason to suppose that the gentleman's +statement as to the probable collapse of the South was mere rhetoric, but +it seems that his advice led to orders being sent to Beauregard to reduce +Fort Sumter. Beauregard sent a summons to Anderson; Anderson, now all +but starved out, replied that unless he received supplies or instructions +he would surrender on April 15. Whether by Beauregard's orders or +through some misunderstanding, the Confederate batteries opened fire on +Fort Sumter on April 12. Fort Sumter became untenable on the next day, +when the relief ships, which Anderson had been led to expect sooner, but +which could in no case really have helped him, were just appearing in the +offing. Anderson very properly capitulated. On Sunday, April 14, 1861, +he marched out with the honours of war. The Union flag had been fired +upon in earnest by the Confederates, and, leaving Virginia and the States +that went with it to join the Confederacy if they chose, the North sprang +to arms. + +In the events which had led up to the outbreak of war Abraham Lincoln had +played a part more admirable and more decisive in its effect than his +countrymen could have noted at the time or perhaps have appreciated +since. He was confronted now with duties requiring mental gifts of a +different kind from those which he had hitherto displayed, and with +temptations to which he had not yet been exposed. In a general sense the +greatness of mind and heart which he unfolded under fierce trial does not +need to be demonstrated to-day. Yet in detail hardly an action of his +Presidency is exempt from controversy; nor is his many-sided character +one of those which men readily flatter themselves that they understand. +There are always, moreover, those to whom it is a marvel how any great +man came by his name. The particular tribute, which in the pages that +follow it is desired to pay to him, consists in the careful examination +of just those actions and just those qualities of his upon which candid +detraction has in fact fastened, or on which candid admiration has +pronounced with hesitancy. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE CONDITIONS OF THE WAR + +In recounting the history of Lincoln's Presidency, it will be necessary +to mark the course of the Civil War stage by stage as we proceed. +There are, however, one or two general features of the contest with +which it may be well to deal by way of preface. + +It has seldom happened that a people entering upon a great war have +understood at the outset what the character of that war would be. When +the American Civil War broke out the North expected an easy victory, +but, as disappointment came soon and was long maintained, many clever +people adopted the opinion, which early prevailed in Europe, that there +was no possibility of their success at all. At the first the +difficulty of the task was unrecognised; under early and long-sustained +disappointment the strength by which those difficulties could be +overcome began to be despaired of without reason. + +The North, after several slave States, which were at first doubtful, +had adhered to it, had more than double the population of the South; of +the Southern population a very large part were slaves, who, though +industrially useful, could not be enlisted. In material resources the +superiority of the North was no less marked, and its material wealth +grew during the war to a greater extent than had perhaps ever happened +to any other belligerent power. These advantages were likely to be +decisive in the end, if the North could and would endure to the end. +But at the very beginning these advantages simply did not tell at all, +for the immediately available military force of the North was +insignificant, and that of the South clearly superior to it; and even +when they began to tell, it was bound to be very long before their full +weight could be brought to bear. And the object which was to be +obtained was supremely difficult of attainment. It was not a defeat of +the South which might result in the alteration of a frontier, the +cession of some Colonies, the payment of an indemnity, and such like +matters; it was a conquest of the South so complete that the Union +could be restored on a firmer basis than before. Any less result than +this would be failure in the war. And the country, to be thus +completely conquered by an unmilitary people of nineteen millions, was +of enormous extent: leaving out of account the huge outlying State of +Texas, which is larger than Germany, the remaining Southern States +which joined in the Confederacy have an area somewhat larger than that +of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Holland, and Belgium put together; and +this great region had no industrial centres or other points of such +great strategic importance that by the occupation of them the remaining +area could be dominated. The feat which the Northern people eventually +achieved has been said by the English historians of the war (perhaps +with some exaggeration) to have been "a greater one than that which +Napoleon attempted to his own undoing when he invaded Russia in 1812." + +On the other hand, the South was in some respects very favourably +placed for resisting invasion from the North. The Southern forces +during most of the war were, in the language of military writers, +operating on interior lines; that is, the different portions of them +lay nearer to one another than did the different portions of the +Northern forces, and could be more quickly brought to converge on the +same point; the country abounded in strong positions for defence which +could be held by a relatively small force, while in every invading +movement the invaders had to advance long distances from the base, thus +exposing their lines of communication to attack. The advantage of this +situation, if competent use were made of it, was bound to go very far +towards compensating for inferiority of numbers; the North could not +make its superior numbers on land tell in any rapidly decisive fashion +without exposing itself to dangerous counter-strokes. In naval +strength its superiority was asserted almost from the first, and by +cutting off foreign supplies caused the Southern armies to suffer +severe privations before the war was half through; but its full effect +could only be produced very slowly. Thus, if its people were brave and +its leaders capable, the South was by no means in so hopeless a case as +might at first have appeared; with good fortune it might hope to strike +its powerful antagonist some deadly blow before that antagonist could +bring its strength to bear; and even if this hope failed, a +sufficiently tenacious defence might well wear down the patience of the +North. + +As soldiers the Southerners started with a superiority which the +Northerners could only overtake slowly. If each people were taken in +the mass, the proportion of Southerners bred to an outdoor life was +higher. Generally speaking, if not exactly more frugal, they were far +less used to living comfortably. Above all, all classes of people +among them were still accustomed to think of fighting as a normal and +suitable occupation for a man; while the prevailing temper of the North +thought of man as meant for business, and its higher temper was apt to +think of fighting as odious and war out of date. This, like the other +advantages of the South, was transitory; before very long Northerners +who became soldiers at a sacrifice of inclination, from the highest +spirit of patriotism or in the methodic temper in which business has to +be done, would become man for man as good soldiers as the Southerners; +but the original superiority of the Southerners would continue to have +a moral effect in their own ranks and on the mind of the enemy, more +especially of the enemy's generals, even after its cause had ceased to +exist; and herein the military advantage of the South was undoubtedly, +through the first half of the war, considerable. + +In the matter of leadership the South had certain very real and certain +other apparent but probably delusive advantages. The United States had +no large number of trained military officers, still capable of active +service. The armies of the North and South alike had to be commanded +and staffed to a great extent by men who first studied their profession +in that war; and the lack of ripe military judgment was likely to be +felt most in the higher commands where the forces to be employed and +co-ordinated were largest. The South secured what may be called its +fair proportion of the comparatively few officers, but it was of +tremendous moment that, among the officers who, when the war began, +were recognised as competent, two, who sadly but in simple loyalty to +the State of Virginia took the Southern side, were men of genius. The +advantages of the South would have been no advantages without skill and +resolution to make use of them. The main conditions of the war--the +vast space, the difficulty in all parts of it of moving troops, the +generally low level of military knowledge--were all such as greatly +enhance the opportunities of the most gifted commander. Lee and +"Stonewall" Jackson thus became, the former throughout the war, the +latter till he was killed in the summer of 1863, factors of primary +importance in the struggle. Wolseley, who had, besides studying their +record, conversed both with Lee and with Moltke, thought Lee even +greater than Moltke, and the military writers of our day speak of him +as one of the great commanders of history. As to Jackson, Lee's belief +in him is sufficient testimony to his value. And the good fortune of +the South was not confined to these two signal instances. Most of the +Southern generals who appeared early in the war could be retained in +important commands to the end. + +The South might have seemed at first equally fortunate in the character +of the Administration at the back of the generals. An ascendency was +at once conceded to Jefferson Davis, a tried political leader, to which +Lincoln had to win his way, and the past experiences of the two men had +been very different. The operations of war in which Lincoln had taken +part were confined, according to his own romantic account in a speech +in Congress, to stealing ducks and onions from the civil population; +his Ministers were as ignorant in the matter as he; their military +adviser, Scott, was so infirm that he had soon to retire, and it proved +most difficult to replace him. Jefferson Davis, on the other hand, +started with knowledge of affairs, including military affairs; he had +been Secretary of War in Pierce's Cabinet and Chairman of the Senate +Committee on War since then; above all, he had been a soldier and had +commanded a regiment with some distinction in the Mexican War. It is +thought that he would have preferred a military command to the +Presidency of the Confederacy, and as his own experience of actual war +was as great as that of his generals, he can hardly be blamed for a +disposition to interfere with them at the beginning. But military +historians, while criticising (perhaps a little hastily) all Lincoln's +interventions in the affairs of war up to the time when he found +generals whom he trusted, insist that Davis' systematic interference +was far more harmful to his cause; and Wolseley, who watched events +closely from Canada and who visited the Southern Army in 1863, is most +emphatic in this opinion. He interfered with Lee to an extent which +nothing but Lee's devoted friendship and loyalty could have made +tolerable. He put himself into relations of dire hostility with Joseph +Johnston, and in 1864 suspended him in the most injudicious manner. +Above all, when the military position of the South had begun to be +acutely perilous, Jefferson Davis neither devised for himself, nor +allowed his generals to devise, any bold policy by which the chance +that still remained could be utilised. His energy of will showed +itself in the end in nothing but a resolution to protract bloodshed +after it had certainly become idle. + +If we turn to the political conditions, on which, in any but a short +war, so much depends, the South will appear to have had great +advantages. Its people were more richly endowed than the mixed and +crudely democratic multitude of the North, in the traditional aptitude +for commanding or obeying which enables people to pull together in a +crisis. And they were united in a cause such as would secure the +sustained loyalty of any ordinary people under any ordinary leader. +For, though it was nothing but slavery that led to their assertion of +independence, from the moment that they found themselves involved in +war, they were fighting for a freedom to which they felt themselves +entitled, and for nothing else whatever. A few successful encounters +at the start tempted the ordinary Southerner to think himself a better +man than the ordinary Northerner, even as the Southern Congressmen felt +themselves superior to the persons whom the mistaken democracy of the +North too frequently elected. This claim of independence soon acquired +something of the fierce pride that might have been felt by an ancient +nation. But it would have been impossible that the Northern people as +a whole should be similarly possessed by the cause in which they +fought. They did not seem to be fighting for their own liberty, and +they would have hated to think that they were fighting for conquest. +They were fighting for the maintenance of a national unity which they +held dear. The question how far it was worth fighting a formidable +enemy for the sake of eventual unity with him, was bound to present +itself. Thus, far from wondering that the cause of the Union aroused +no fuller devotion than it did in the whole lump of the Northern +people, we may wonder that it inspired with so lofty a patriotism men +and women in every rank of life who were able to leaven that lump. But +the political element in this war was of such importance as to lead to +a startling result; the North came nearest to yielding at a time when +in a military sense its success had become sure. To preserve a united +North was the greatest and one of the hardest of the duties of +President Lincoln. + +To a civilian reader the history of the war, in spite of the +picturesque incidents of many battles, may easily be made dreary. Till +far on in the lengthy process of subjecting the South, we might easily +become immersed in some futile story of how General X. was superseded +by General Y. in a command, for which neither discovered any purpose +but that of not co-operating with General Z. And this impression is +not merely due to our failure to understand the difficulties which +confronted these gallant officers. The dearth of trained military +faculty, which was felt at the outset, could only be made good by the +training which the war itself supplied. Such commanders as Grant and +Sherman and Sheridan not only could not have been recognised at the +beginning of the war; they were not then the soldiers that they +afterwards became. And the want was necessarily very serious in the +case of the higher commands which required the movement of large +forces, the control of subordinates each of whom must have a wide +discretion, and the energy of intellect and will necessary for +resolving the more complex problems of strategy. We are called upon to +admire upon both sides the devotion of forgotten thousands, and to +admire upon the side of the South the brilliant and daring operations +by which in so many battles Lee and Jackson defeated superior forces. +On the Northern side, later on, great generals came to view, but it is +in the main a different sort of achievement which we are called upon to +appreciate. An Administration appointed to direct a stupendous +operation of conquest was itself of necessity ill prepared for such a +task; behind it were a Legislature and a public opinion equally ill +prepared to support and to assist it. There were in its military +service many intelligent and many enterprising men, but none, at first, +so combining intelligence and enterprise that he could grapple with any +great responsibility or that the civil power would have been warranted +in reposing complete confidence in him. The history of the war has to +be recounted in this volume chiefly with a view to these difficulties +of the Administration. + +One of the most interesting features of the war would, in any military +study of it, be seen to be the character of the troops on both sides. +On both sides their individual quality was high; on both, circumstances +and the disposition of the people combined to make discipline weak. +This character, common to the two armies, was conspicuous in many +battles of the war, but a larger interest attaches to the policy of the +two administrations in raising and organising their civilian armies. +The Southern Government, if its proceedings were studied in detail, +would probably seem to have been better advised at the start on matters +of military organisation; for instance, it had early and long retained +a superiority in cavalry which was not a mere result of good fortune. +But here, too, there was an inherent advantage in the very fact that +the South had started upon a desperate venture. There can hardly be a +more difficult problem of detail for statesmen than the co-ordination +of military and civil requirements in the raising of an army. But in +the South all civil considerations merged themselves in the paramount +necessity of a military success for which all knew the utmost effort +was needed. The several States of the South, claiming as they did a +far larger independence than the Northern States, knew that they could +only make that claim good by being efficient members of the +Confederacy. Thus it was comparatively easy for the Confederate +Government to adopt and maintain a consecutive policy in this matter, +and though, from the conditions of a widely spread agricultural +population, voluntary enlistment produced poor results at the beginning +of the war, it appears to have been easy to introduce quite early an +entirely compulsory system of a stringent kind. + +The introduction of compulsory service in the North has its place in +our subsequent story. The system that preceded it need not be dwelt +upon here, because, full of instruction as a technical study of it +(such as has been made by Colonel Henderson) must be, no brief survey +by an amateur could be useful. It is necessary, however, to understand +the position in which Lincoln's Administration was placed, without much +experience In America, or perhaps elsewhere in the world, to guide it. +It must not be contended, for it cannot be known that the problem was +fully and duly envisaged by Lincoln on his Cabinet, but it would +probably in any case have been impossible for them to pursue from the +first a consecutive and well-thought-out policy for raising an army and +keeping up its strength. The position of the North differed +fundamentally from that of the South; the North experienced neither the +ardour nor the throes of a revolution; it was never in any fear of +being conquered, only of not conquering. There was nothing, therefore, +which at once bestowed on the Government a moral power over the country +vastly in excess of that which it exercised in normal times. This, +however, was really necessary to it if the problem of the Army was to +be handled in the way which was desirable from a military point of +view. Compulsory service could not at first be thought of. It was +never supposed that the tiny regular Army of the United States +Government could be raised to any very great size by voluntary +enlistment, and the limited increase of it which was attempted was not +altogether successful. The existing militia system of the several +States was almost immediately found faulty and was discarded. A great +Volunteer Force had to be raised which should be under the command of +the President, who by the Constitution is Commander-in-Chief of the +forces of the Union, but which must be raised in each State by the +State Governor (or, if he was utterly wanting, by leading local +citizens). Now State Governors are not--it must be recalled--officers +under the President, but independent potentates acting usually in as +much detachment from him as the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford or Cambridge +from the Board of Education or a Presbyterian minister from a bishop. +This group of men, for the most part able, patriotic, and determined, +were there to be used and had to be consulted. It follows that the +policy of the North in raising and organising its armies had at first +to be a policy evolved between numerous independent authorities which +never met and were held together by a somewhat ignorant public opinion, +sometimes much depressed and sometimes, which was worse, oversanguine. +It is impossible to judge exactly how ill or how well Lincoln, under +such circumstances, grappled with this particular problem, but many +anomalies which seem to us preposterous--the raising of raw new +regiments when fine seasoned regiments were short of half their +strength, and so forth--were in these circumstances inevitable. The +national system of recruiting, backed by compulsion, which was later +set up, still required for its success the co-operation of State and +local authorities of this wholly independent character. + +Northern and Southern armies alike had necessarily to be commanded to a +great extent by amateur officers; the number of officers, in the +service or retired, who had been trained at West Point, was +immeasurably too small for the needs of the armies. Amateurs had to be +called in, and not only so, but they had in some cases to be given very +important commands. The not altogether unwholesome tradition that a +self-reliant man can turn his hand to anything was of course very +strong in America, and the short military annals of the country had +been thought to have added some illustrious instances to the roll of +men of peace who have distinguished themselves in arms. So a political +leader, no matter whether he was Democrat or Republican, who was a man +of known general capacity, would sometimes at first seem suitable for +an important command rather than the trained but unknown professional +soldier who was the alternative. Moreover, it seemed foolish not to +appoint him, when, as sometimes happened, he could bring thousands of +recruits from his State. The Civil War turned out, however, to show +the superiority of the duly trained military mind in a marked degree. +Some West-Pointers of repute of course proved incapable, and a great +many amateur colonels and generals, both North and South, attained a +very fair level of competence in the service (the few conspicuous +failures seem to have been quite exceptional); but, all the same, of +the many clever and stirring men who then took up soldiering as novices +and served for four years, not one achieved brilliant success; of the +generals in the war whose names are remembered, some had indeed passed +years in civil life, but every one had received a thorough military +training in the years of his early manhood. It certainly does not +appear that the Administration was really neglectful of professional +merit; it hungered to find it; but many appointments must at first have +been made in a haphazard fashion, for there was no machinery for +sifting claims. A zealous but unknown West-Pointer put under an +outsider would be apt to write as Sherman did in early days: "Mr. +Lincoln meant to insult me and the Army"; and a considerable jealousy +evidently arose between West-Pointers and amateurs. It was aggravated +by the rivalry between officers of the Eastern army and those of the, +more largely amateur, Western army. The amateurs, too, had something +to say on their side; they were apt to accuse West-Pointers as a class +of a cringing belief that the South was invincible. There was nothing +unnatural or very serious in all this, but political influences which +arose later caused complaints of this nature to be made the most of, +and a general charge to be made against Lincoln's Administration of +appointing generals and removing them under improper political +influences. This general charge, however, rests upon a limited number +of alleged instances, and all of these which are of any importance will +necessarily be examined in later chapters. + +It may be useful to a reader who wishes to follow the main course of +the war carefully, if the chief ways in which geographical facts +affected it are here summarised--necessarily somewhat dryly. Minor +operations at outlying points on the coast or in the Far West will be +left out of account, so also will a serious political consideration, +which we shall later see caused doubt for a time as to the proper +strategy of the North. + +It must be noted first, startling as it may be to Englishmen who +remember the war partly by the exploits of the _Alabama_, that the +naval superiority of the North was overwhelming. In spite of many +gallant efforts by the Southern sailors, the North could blockade their +coasts and could capture most of the Southern ports long before its +superiority on land was established. Turning then to land, we may +treat the political frontier between the two powers, after a short +preliminary stage of war, as being marked by the southern boundaries of +Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri, just as they are seen +on the map to-day. In doing so, we must note that at the commencement +of large operations parts of Kentucky and Missouri were occupied by +Southern invading forces. This frontier is cut, not far from the +Atlantic, by the parallel mountain chains which make up the Alleghanies +or Appalachians. These in effect separated the field of operations +into a narrow Eastern theatre of war, and an almost boundless Western +theatre; and the operations in these two theatres were almost to the +end independent of each other. + +In the Eastern theatre of war lies Washington, the capital of the +Union, a place of great importance to the North for obvious reasons, +and especially because if it fell European powers would be likely to +recognise the Confederacy. It lies, on the Potomac, right upon the +frontier; and could be menaced also in the rear, for the broad and +fertile trough between the mountain chains formed by the valley of the +Shenandoah River, which flows northward to join the Potomac at a point +north-west of Washington, was in Confederate hands and formed a sort of +sally-port by which a force from Richmond could get almost behind +Washington. A hundred miles south of Washington lay Richmond, which +shortly became the capital of the Confederates, instead of Montgomery +in Alabama. As a brand-new capital it mattered little to the +Confederates, though at the very end of the war it became their last +remaining stronghold. The intervening country, which was in Southern +hands, was extraordinarily difficult. The reader may notice on the map +the rivers with broad estuaries which are its most marked features, and +with the names of which we shall become familiar. The rivers +themselves were obstacles to an invading Northern army; their +estuaries, on the other hand, soon afforded it safe communication by +sea. + +In the Western theatre of war we must remember first the enormous +length of frontier in proportion to the population on either side. +This necessarily made the progress of Northern invasion slow, and its +proper direction hard to determine, for diversions could be created by +a counter-invasion elsewhere along the frontier or a stroke at the +invaders' communications. The principal feature of the whole region is +the great waterways, on which the same advantages which gave the sea to +the North gave it also an immense superiority in the river warfare of +flotillas of gunboats. When the North with its gunboats could get +control of the Mississippi the South would be deprived of a +considerable part of its territory and resources, and cut off from its +last means of trading with Europe (save for the relief afforded by +blockade-runners) by being cut off from Mexico and its ports. Further, +when the North could control the tributaries of the Mississippi, +especially the Cumberland and the Tennessee which flow into the great +river through the Ohio, it would cut deep into the internal +communications of the South. Against this menace the South could only +contend by erecting powerful fortresses on the rivers, and the capture +of some of them was the great object of the earlier Northern operations. + +The railway system of the South must also be taken into account in +connection with their waterways. This, of course, cannot be seen on a +modern map. Perhaps the following may make the main points clear. The +Southern railway system touched the Mississippi and the world beyond it +at three points only: Memphis, Vicksburg, and New Orleans. A traveller +wishing to go, say, from Richmond by rail towards the West could have, +if distance were indifferent to him, a choice of three routes for part +of the way. He could go through Knoxville in Tennessee to Chattanooga +in that State, where he had a choice of routes further West, or he +could take one of two alternative lines south into Georgia and thence +go either to Atlanta or to Columbus in the west of that State. Arrived +at Atlanta or Columbus, he could proceed further West either by making +a detour northwards through Chattanooga or by making a detour +southwards through the seaport town of Mobile, crossing the harbour by +boat. Thus the capture of Chattanooga from the South would go far +towards cutting the whole Southern railway system in two, and the +capture of Mobile would complete it. Lastly, we may notice two lines +running north and south through the State of Mississippi, one through +Corinth and Meridian, and the other nearer the great river. From this +and the course of the rivers the strategic importance of some of the +towns mentioned may be partly appreciated. + +The subjugation of the South in fact began by a process, necessarily +slow and much interrupted, whereby having been blockaded by sea it was +surrounded by land, cut off from its Western territory, and deprived of +its main internal lines of communication. Richmond, against which the +North began to move within the first three months of the war, did not +fall till nearly four years later, when the process just described had +been completed, and when a Northern army had triumphantly progressed, +wasting the resources of the country as it went, from Chattanooga to +Atlanta, thence to the Atlantic coast of Georgia, and thence northward +through the two Carolinas till it was about to join hands with the army +assailing Richmond. Throughout this time the attention of a large part +of the Northern public and of all those who watched the war from Europe +was naturally fastened to a great extent upon the desperate fighting +which occurred in the region of Washington and of Richmond and upon the +ill success of the North in endeavours of unforeseen difficulty against +the latter city. We shall see, however, that the long and humiliating +failure of the North in this quarter was neither so unaccountable nor +nearly so important as it appeared. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE OPENING OF THE WAR AND LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION + +1. _Preliminary Stages_. + +On the morning after the bombardment of Fort Sumter there appeared a +Proclamation by the President calling upon the Militia of the several +States to furnish 75,000 men for the service of the United States in +the suppression of an "unlawful combination." Their service, however, +would expire by law thirty days after the next meeting of Congress, +and, in compliance with a further requirement of law upon this subject, +the President also summoned Congress to meet in extraordinary session +upon July 4. The Army already in the service of the United States +consisted of but 16,000 officers and men, and, though the men of this +force, being less affected by State ties than their officers, remained, +as did the men of the Navy, true almost without exception to their +allegiance, all but 3,000 of them were unavailable and scattered in +small frontier forts in the West. A few days later, when it became +plain that the struggle might long outlast the three months of the +Militia, the President called for Volunteers to enlist for three years' +service, and perhaps (for the statements are conflicting) some 300,000 +troops of one kind and another had been raised by June. + +The affair of Fort Sumter and the President's Proclamation at once +aroused and concentrated the whole public opinion of the free States in +the North and, in an opposite sense, of the States which had already +seceded. The border slave States had now to declare for the one side +or for the other. Virginia as a whole joined the Southern Confederacy +forthwith, but several Counties in the mountainous region of the west +of that State were strongly for the Union. These eventually succeeded +with the support of Northern troops in separating from Virginia and +forming the new State of West Virginia. Tennessee also joined the +South, though in Eastern Tennessee the bulk of the people held out for +the Union without such good fortune as their neighbours in West +Virginia. Arkansas beyond the Mississippi followed the same example, +though there were some doubt and division in all parts of that State. +In Delaware, where the slaves were very few, the Governor did not +formally comply with the President's Proclamation, but the people as a +whole responded to it. The attitude of Maryland, which almost +surrounds Washington, kept the Government at the capital in suspense +and alarm for a while, for both the city of Baltimore and the existing +State legislature were inclined to the South. In Kentucky and Missouri +the State authorities were also for the South, and it was only after a +struggle, and in Missouri much actual fighting, that the Unionist +majority of the people in each State had its way. The secession of +Virginia had consequences even more important than the loss to the +Union of a powerful State. General Robert E. Lee, a Virginian, then in +Washington, was esteemed by General Scott to be the ablest officer in +the service. Lincoln and his Secretary of War desired to confer on him +the command of the Army. Lee's decision was made with much reluctance +and, it seems, hesitation. He was not only opposed to the policy of +secession, but denied the right of a State to secede; yet he believed +that his absolute allegiance was due to Virginia. He resigned his +commission in the United States Army, went to Richmond, and, in +accordance with what Wolseley describes as the prevailing principle +that had influenced most of the soldiers he met in the South, placed +his sword at the disposal of his own State. The same loyalty to +Virginia governed another great soldier, Thomas J. Jackson, whose +historic nickname, "Stonewall," fails to convey the dashing celerity of +his movements. While they both lived these two men were to be linked +together in the closest comradeship and mutual trust. They sprang from +different social conditions and were of contrasting types. The epithet +Cavalier has been fitly enough applied to Lee, and Jackson, after +conversion from the wild courses of his youth, was an austere Puritan. +To quote again from a soldier's memoirs, Wolseley calls Lee "one of the +few men who ever seriously impressed and awed me with their natural, +their inherent, greatness"; he speaks of his "majesty," and of the +"beauty," of his character, and of the "sweetness of his smile and the +impressive dignity of the old-fashioned style of his address"; "his +greatness," he says, "made me humble." "There was nothing," he tells +us, "of these refined characteristics in Stonewall Jackson," a man with +"huge hands and feet." But he possessed "an assured self-confidence, +the outcome of his sure trust in God. How simple, how humble-minded a +man. As his impressive eyes met yours unflinchingly, you knew that his +was an honest heart." To this he adds touches less to be expected +concerning a Puritan warrior, whose Puritanism was in fact inclined to +ferocity--how Jackson's "remarkable eyes lit up for the moment with a +look of real enthusiasm as he recalled the architectural beauty of the +seven lancet windows in York Minster," how "intense" was the +"benignity" of his expression, and how in him it seemed that "great +strength of character and obstinate determination were united with +extreme gentleness of disposition and with absolute tenderness towards +all about him." Men such as these brought to the Southern cause +something besides their military capacity; but as to the greatness of +that capacity, applied in a war in which the scope was so great for +individual leaders of genius, there is no question. A civilian reader, +looking in the history of war chiefly for the evidences of personal +quality, can at least discern in these two famous soldiers the moral +daring which in doubtful circumstances never flinches from the +responsibility of a well-considered risk, and, in both their cases as +in those of some other great commanders, can recognise in this rare and +precious attribute the outcome of their personal piety. We shall +henceforth have to do with the Southern Confederacy and its armies, not +in their inner history but with sole regard to the task which they +imposed upon Lincoln and the North. But at this parting of the ways a +tribute is due to the two men, pre-eminent among many devoted people, +who, in their soldier-like and unreflecting loyalty to their cause, +gave to it a lustre in which, so far as they can be judged, neither its +statesmen nor its spiritual guides had a share. + +There were Virginian officers who did not thus go with their State. Of +these were Scott himself, and G. H. Thomas; and Farragut, the great +sailor, was from Tennessee. + +Throughout the free States of the North there took place a national +uprising of which none who remember it have spoken without feeling anew +its spontaneous ardour. Men flung off with delight the hesitancy of +the preceding months, and recruiting went on with speed and enthusiasm. +Party divisions for the moment disappeared. Old Buchanan made public +his adhesion to the Government. Douglas called upon Lincoln to ask how +best he could serve the public cause, and, at his request, went down to +Illinois to guide opinion and advance recruiting there; so employed, +the President's great rival, shortly after, fell ill and died, leaving +the leadership of the Democrats to be filled thereafter by more +scrupulous but less patriotic men. There was exultant confidence in +the power of the nation to put down rebellion, and those who realised +the peril in which for many days the capital and the administration +were placed were only the more indignantly determined. Perhaps the +most trustworthy record of popular emotions is to be found in popular +humorists. Shortly after these days Artemus Ward, the author who +almost vied with Shakespeare in Lincoln's affections, relates how the +confiscation of his show in the South led him to have an interview with +Jefferson Davis. "Even now," said Davis, in this pleasant fiction, "we +have many frens in the North." "J. Davis," is the reply, "there's your +grate mistaik. Many of us was your sincere frends, and thought certin +parties amung us was fussin' about you and meddlin' with your consarns +intirely too much. But, J. Davis, the minit you fire a gun at the +piece of dry goods called the Star-Spangled Banner, the North gits up +and rises en massy, in defence of that banner. Not agin you as +individooals--not agin the South even--but to save the flag. We should +indeed be weak in the knees, unsound in the heart, milk-white in the +liver, and soft in the hed, if we stood quietly by and saw this glorus +Govyment smashed to pieces, either by a furrin or a intestine foe. The +gentle-harted mother hates to take her naughty child across her knee, +but she knows it is her dooty to do it. So we shall hate to whip the +naughty South, but we must do it if you don't make back tracks at onct, +and we shall wallup you out of your boots!" In the days which +followed, when this prompt chastisement could not be effected and it +seemed indeed as if the South would do most of the whipping, the +discordant elements which mingled in this unanimity soon showed +themselves. The minority that opposed the war was for a time silent +and insignificant, but among the supporters of the war there were those +who loved the Union and the Constitution and who, partly for this very +reason, had hitherto cultivated the sympathies of the South. +These--adherents mainly of the Democratic party--would desire that +civil war should be waged with the least possible breach of the +Constitution, and be concluded with the least possible social change; +many of them would wish to fight not to a finish but to a compromise. +On the other hand, there were those who loved liberty and hated alike +the slave system of the South and the arrogance which it had +engendered. These--the people distinguished within the Republican +party as Radicals--would pay little heed to constitutional restraints +in repelling an attack on the Constitution, and they would wish from +the first to make avowed war upon that which caused the war--slavery. +In the border States there was of course more active sympathy with the +South, and in conflict with this the Radicalism of some of these States +became more stalwart and intractable. To such causes of dissension was +added as time went on sheer fatigue of the war, and strangely enough +this influence was as powerful with a few Radicals as it was with the +ingrained Democratic partisans. They despaired of the result when +success at last was imminent, and became sick of bloodshed when it +passed what they presumably regarded as a reasonable amount. + +It was the task of the Administration not only to conduct the war, but +to preserve the unity of the North in spite of differences and its +resolution in spite of disappointments. Lincoln was in more than one +way well fitted for this task. Old experience in Illinois and Kentucky +enabled him to understand very different points of view in regard to +the cause of the South. The new question that was now to arise about +slavery was but a particular form of the larger question of principle +to which he had long thought out an answer as firm and as definite as +it was moderate and in a sense subtle. He had, moreover, a quality of +heart which, as it seemed to those near him, the protraction of the +conflict, with its necessary strain upon him, only strengthened. In +him a tenacity, which scarcely could falter in the cause which he +judged to be right, was not merely pure from bitterness towards his +antagonists, it was actually bound up with a deep-seated kindliness +towards them. Whatever rank may be assigned to his services and to his +deserts, it is first and foremost in these directions, though not in +these directions alone, that the reader of his story must look for +them. Upon attentive study he will probably appear as the embodiment, +in a degree and manner which are alike rare, of the more constant and +the higher judgment of his people. It is plainer still that he +embodied the resolute purpose which underlay the fluctuations upon the +surface of their political life. The English military historians, Wood +and Edmonds, in their retrospect over the course of the war, well sum +up its dramatic aspect when they say: "Against the great military +genius of certain of the Southern leaders fate opposed the unbroken +resolution and passionate devotion to the Union, which he worshipped, +of the great Northern President. As long as he lived, and ruled the +people of the North, there could be no turning back." + +There are plenty of indications in the literature of the time that +Lincoln's determination soon began to be widely felt and to be +appreciated by common people. Literally, crowds of people from all +parts of the North saw him, exchanged a sentence or two, and carried +home their impressions; and those who were near him record the constant +fortitude of his bearing, noting as marked exceptions the unrestrained +words of impatience and half-humorous despondency which did on rare +occasions escape him. In a negative way, too, even the political world +bore its testimony to this; his administration was charged with almost +every other form of weakness, but there was never a suspicion that he +would give in. Nor again, in the severest criticisms upon him by +knowledgeable men that have been unearthed and collected, does the +suggestion of petty personal aims or of anything but unselfish devotion +ever find a place. The belief that he could be trusted spread itself +among plain people, and, given this belief, plain people liked him the +better because he was plain. But if at the distance at which we +contemplate him, and at which from the moment of his death all America +contemplated him, certain grand traits emerge, it is not for a moment +to be supposed that in his life he stood out in front of the people as +a great leader, or indeed as a leader at all, in the manner, say, of +Chatham or even of Palmerston. Lincoln came to Washington doubtless +with some deep thoughts which other men had not thought, doubtless also +with some important knowledge, for instance of the border States, which +many statesmen lacked, but he came there a man inexperienced in +affairs. It was a part of his strength that he knew this very well, +that he meant to learn, thought he could learn, did not mean to be +hurried where he had not the knowledge to decide, entirely appreciated +superior knowledge in others, and was entirely unawed by it. But +Senators and Representatives in Congress and journalists of high +standing, as a rule, perceived the inexperience and not the strength. +The deliberation with which he acted, patiently watching events, saying +little, listening to all sides, conversing with a naïveté which was +genuine but not quite artless, seemingly obdurate to the pressure of +wise counsels on one side and on the other--all this struck many +anxious observers as sheer incompetence, and when there was just and +natural cause for their anxiety, there was no established presumption +of his wisdom to set against it. And this effect was enhanced by what +may be called his plainness, his awkwardness, and actual eccentricity +in many minor matters. To many intelligent people who met him they +were a grievous stumbling-block, and though some most cultivated men +were not at all struck by them, and were pleased instead by his +"seeming sincere, and honest, and steady," or the like, it is clear +that no one in Washington was greatly impressed by him at first +meeting. His oddities were real and incorrigible. Young John Hay, +whom Nicolay, his private secretary, introduced as his assistant, a +humorist like Lincoln himself, but with leanings to literary elegance +and a keen eye for social distinctions, loved him all along and came to +worship him, but irreverent amusement is to be traced in his recently +published letters, and the glimpses which he gives us of "the Ancient" +or "the Tycoon" when quite at home and quite at his ease fully justify +him. Lincoln had great dignity and tact for use when he wanted them, +but he did not always see the use of them. Senator Sherman was +presented to the new President. "So you're John Sherman?" said +Lincoln. "Let's see if you're as tall as I am. We'll measure." The +grave politician, who was made to stand back to back with him before +the company till this interesting question was settled, dimly perceived +that the intention was friendly, but felt that there was a lack of +ceremony. Lincoln's height was one of his subjects of harmless vanity; +many tall men had to measure themselves against him in this manner, and +probably felt like John Sherman. On all sorts of occasions and to all +sorts of people he would "tell a little story," which was often enough, +in Lord Lyons' phrase, an "extreme" story. This was the way in which +he had grown accustomed to be friendly in company; it served a purpose +when intrusive questions had to be evaded, or reproofs or refusals to +be given without offence. As his laborious and sorrowful task came to +weigh heavier upon him, his capacity for play of this sort became a +great resource to him. As his fame became established people +recognised him as a humorist; the inevitable "little story" became to +many an endearing form of eccentricity; but we may be sure it was not +so always or to everybody. + +"Those," says Carl Schurz, a political exile from Prussia, who did good +service, military and political, to the Northern cause--"those who +visited the White House--and the White House appeared to be open to +whosoever wished to enter--saw there a man of unconventional manners, +who, without the slightest effort to put on dignity, treated all men +alike, much like old neighbours; whose speech had not seldom a rustic +flavour about it; who always seemed to have time for a homely talk and +never to be in a hurry to press business; and who occasionally spoke +about important affairs of State with the same nonchalance--I might +almost say irreverence--with which he might have discussed an every-day +law case in his office at Springfield, Illinois." + +Thus Lincoln was very far from inspiring general confidence in anything +beyond his good intentions. He is remembered as a personality with a +"something" about him--the vague phrase is John Bright's--which widely +endeared him, but his was by no means that "magnetic" personality which +we might be led to believe was indispensable in America. Indeed, it is +remarkable that to some really good judges he remained always +unimpressive. Charles Francis Adams, who during the Civil War served +his country as well as Minister in London as his grandfather had done +after the War of Independence, lamented to the end that Seward, his +immediate chief, had to serve under an inferior man; and a more +sympathetic man, Lord Lyons, our representative at Washington, refers +to Lincoln with nothing more than an amused kindliness. No detail of +his policy has escaped fierce criticism, and the man himself while he +lived was the subject of so much depreciation and condescending +approval, that we are forced to ask who discovered his greatness till +his death inclined them to idealise him. The answer is that precisely +those Americans of trained intellect whose title to this description is +clearest outside America were the first who began to see beneath his +strange exterior. Lowell, watching the course of public events with +ceaseless scrutiny; Walt Whitman, sauntering in Washington in the +intervals of the labour among the wounded by which he broke down his +robust strength, and seeing things as they passed with the sure +observation of a poet; Motley, the historian of the Dutch Republic, +studying affairs in the thick of them at the outset of the war, and not +less closely by correspondence when he went as Minister to Vienna--such +men when they praised Lincoln after his death expressed a judgment +which they began to form from the first; a judgment which started with +the recognition of his honesty, traced the evidence of his wisdom as it +appeared, gradually and not by repentant impulse learned his greatness. +And it is a judgment large enough to explain the lower estimate of +Lincoln which certainly had wide currency. Not to multiply witnesses, +Motley in June, 1861, having seen him for the second time, writes: "I +went and had an hour's talk with Mr. Lincoln. I am very glad of it, +for, had I not done so, I should have left Washington with a very +inaccurate impression of the President. I am now satisfied that he is +a man of very considerable native sagacity; and that he has an +ingenuous, unsophisticated, frank, and noble character. I believe him +to be as true as steel, and as courageous as true. At the same time +there is doubtless an ignorance about State matters, and particularly +about foreign affairs, which he does not attempt to conceal, but which +we must of necessity regret in a man placed in such a position at such +a crisis. Nevertheless his very modesty in this respect disarms +criticism. We parted very affectionately, and perhaps I shall never +set eyes on him again, but I feel that, so far as perfect integrity and +directness of purpose go, the country will be safe in his hands." +Three years had passed, and the political world of America was in that +storm of general dissatisfaction in which not a member of Congress +would be known as "a Lincoln man," when Motley writes again from Vienna +to his mother, "I venerate Abraham Lincoln exactly because he is the +true, honest type of American democracy. There is nothing of the +shabby-genteel, the would-be-but-couldn't-be fine gentleman; he is the +great American Demos, honest, shrewd, homely, wise, humorous, cheerful, +brave, blundering occasionally, but through blunders struggling onwards +towards what he believes the right." In a later letter he observes, +"His mental abilities were large, and they became the more robust as +the more weight was imposed upon them." + +This last sentence, especially if in Lincoln's mental abilities the +qualities of his character be included, probably indicates the chief +point for remark in any estimate of his presidency. It is true that he +was judged at first as a stranger among strangers. Walt Whitman has +described vividly a scene, with "a dash of comedy, almost farce, such +as Shakespeare puts in his blackest tragedies," outside the hotel in +New York where Lincoln stayed on his journey to Washington; "his look +and gait, his perfect composure and coolness," to cut it short, the +usually noted marks of his eccentricity, "as he stood looking with +curiosity on that immense sea of faces, and the sea of faces returned +the look with similar curiosity, not a single one" among the crowd "his +personal friend." He was not much otherwise situated when he came to +Washington. It is true also that in the early days he was learning his +business. "Why, Mr. President," said some one towards the end of his +life, "you have changed your mind." "Yes, I have," said he, "and I +don't think much of a man who isn't wiser to-day than he was +yesterday." But it seems to be above all true that the exercise of +power and the endurance of responsibility gave him new strength. This, +of course, cannot be demonstrated, but Americans then living, who +recall Abraham Lincoln, remark most frequently how the man grew to his +task. And this perhaps is the main impression which the slight record +here presented will convey, the impression of a man quite unlike the +many statesmen whom power and the vexations attendant upon it have in +some piteous way spoiled and marred, a man who started by being tough +and shrewd and canny and became very strong and very wise, started with +an inclination to honesty, courage, and kindness, and became, under a +tremendous strain, honest, brave, and kind to an almost tremendous +degree. + +The North then started upon the struggle with an eagerness and +unanimity from which the revulsion was to try all hearts, and the +President's most of all; and not a man in the North guessed what the +strain of that struggle was to be. At first indeed there was alarm in +Washington for the immediate safety of the city. Confederate flags +could be seen floating from the hotels in Alexandria across the river; +Washington itself was full of rumours of plots and intended +assassinations, and full of actual Southern spies; everything was +disorganised; and Lincoln himself, walking round one night, found the +arsenal with open doors, absolutely unguarded. + +By April 20, first the Navy Yard at Gosport, in Virginia, had to be +abandoned, then the Arsenal at Harper's Ferry, and on the day of this +latter event Lee went over to the South. One regiment from +Massachusetts, where the State authorities had prepared for war before +the fall of Sumter, was already in Washington; but it had had to fight +its way through a furious mob in Baltimore, with some loss of life on +both sides. A deputation from many churches in that city came to the +President, begging him to desist from his bloodthirsty preparations, +but found him "constitutionally genial and jovial," and "wholly +inaccessible to Christian appeals." It mattered more that a majority +of the Maryland Legislature was for the South, and that the Governor +temporised and requested that no more troops should pass through +Baltimore. The Mayor of Baltimore and the railway authorities burned +railway bridges and tore up railway lines, and the telegraph wires were +cut. Thus for about five days the direct route to Washington from the +North was barred. It seemed as if the boast of some Southern orator +that the Confederate flag would float over the capital by May 1 might +be fulfilled. Beauregard could have transported his now drilled troops +by rail from South Carolina and would have found Washington isolated +and hardly garrisoned. As a matter of fact, no such daring move was +contemplated in the South, and the citizens of Richmond, Virginia, were +themselves under a similar alarm; but the South had a real opportunity. + +The fall of Washington at that moment would have had political +consequences which no one realised better than Lincoln. It might well +have led the Unionists in the border States to despair, and there is +evidence that even then he so fully realised the task which lay before +the North as to feel that the loss of Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri +would have made it impossible. He was at heart intensely anxious, and +quaintly and injudiciously relieved his feelings by the remark to the +"6th Massachusetts" that he felt as if all other help were a dream, and +they were "the only real thing." Yet those who were with him testify +to his composure and to the vigour with which he concerted with his +Cabinet the various measures of naval, military, financial, postal, and +police preparation which the occasion required, but which need not here +be detailed. Many of the measures of course lay outside the powers +which Congress had conferred on the public departments, but the +President had no hesitation in "availing himself," as he put it, "of +the broader powers conferred by the Constitution in cases of +insurrection," and looking for the sanction of Congress afterwards, +rather than "let the Government at once fall into ruin." The +difficulties of government were greatly aggravated by the uncertainty +as to which of its servants, civil, naval, or military, were loyal, and +the need of rapidly filling the many posts left vacant by unexpected +desertion. Meanwhile troops from New England, and also from New York, +which had utterly disappointed some natural expectations in the South +by the enthusiasm of its rally to the Union, quickly arrived near +Baltimore. They repaired for themselves the interrupted railway tracks +round the city, and by April 25 enough soldiers were in Washington to +put an end to any present alarm. In case of need, the law of "habeas +corpus" was suspended in Maryland. The President had no wish that +unnecessary recourse should be had to martial law. Naturally, however, +one of his generals summarily arrested a Southern recruiting agent in +Baltimore. The ordinary law would probably have sufficed, and Lincoln +is believed to have regretted this action, but it was obvious that he +must support it when done. Hence arose an occasion for the old Chief +Justice Taney to make a protest on behalf of legality, to which the +President, who had armed force on his side, could not give way, and +thus early began a controversy to which we must recur. It was gravely +urged upon Lincoln that he should forcibly prevent the Legislature of +Maryland from holding a formal sitting; he refused on the sensible +ground that the legislators could assemble in some way and had better +not assemble with a real grievance in constitutional law. Then a +strange alteration came over Baltimore. Within three weeks all active +demonstration in favour of the South had subsided; the disaffected +Legislature resolved upon neutrality; the Governor, loyal at heart--if +the brief epithet loyal may pass, as not begging any profound legal +question--carried on affairs in the interest of the Union; postal +communication and the passage of troops were free from interruption by +the middle of May; and the pressing alarm about Maryland was over. +These incidents of the first days of war have been recounted in some +detail, because they may illustrate the gravity of the issue in the +border States, in others of which the struggle, though further removed +from observation, lasted longer; and because, too, it is well to +realise the stress of agitation under which the Government had to make +far-reaching preparation for a larger struggle, while Lincoln, whose +will was decisive in all these measures, carried on all the while that +seemingly unimportant routine of a President's life which is in the +quietest times exacting. + +The alarm in Washington was only transitory, and it was generally +supposed in the North that insurrection would be easily put down. Some +even specified the number of days necessary, agreeably fixing upon a +smaller number than the ninety days for which the militia were called +out. Secretary Seward has been credited with language of this kind, +and even General Scott, whose political judgment was feeble, though his +military judgment was sound, seems at first to have rejected proposals, +for example, for drilling irregular cavalry, made in the expectation of +a war of some length. There is evidence that neither Lincoln nor +Cameron, the Secretary of War, indulged in these pleasant fancies. +Irresistible public opinion, in the East especially, demanded to see +prompt activity. The North had arisen in its might; it was for the +Administration to put forth that might, capture Richmond, to which the +Confederate Government had moved, and therewith make an end of +rebellion. The truth was that the North had to make its army before it +could wisely advance into the assured territory of the South; the +situation of the Southern Government in this respect was precisely the +same. The North had enough to do meantime in making sure of the States +which were still debatable ground. Such forces as were available must +of necessity be used for this purpose, but for any larger operations of +war military considerations, especially on the side which had the +larger resources at its back, were in favour of waiting and perfecting +the instrument which was to be used. But in the course of July the +pressure of public opinion and of Congress, which had then assembled, +overcame, not without some reason, the more cautious military view, and +on the 21st of that month the North received its first great lesson in +adversity at the battle of Bull Run. + +Before recounting this disaster we may proceed with the story of the +struggle in the border States. At an early date the rising armies of +the North had been organised into three commands, called the Department +of the Potomac, on the front between Washington and Richmond, the +Department of the Ohio, on the upper watershed of the river of that +name, and the Department of the West. Of necessity the generals +commanding in these two more Western Departments exercised a larger +discretion than the general at Washington. The Department of the Ohio +was under General McClellan, before the war a captain of Engineers, who +had retired from active service and had been engaged as a railway +manager, in which capacity he has already been noticed, but who had +earned a good name in the Mexican War, had been keen enough in his +profession to visit the Crimea, and was esteemed by General Scott. The +people of West Virginia, who, as has been said, were trying to organise +themselves as a new State, adhering to the Union, were invaded by +forces despatched by the Governor of their old State. They lay mainly +west of the mountains, and help could reach them up tributary valleys +of the Ohio. They appealed to McClellan, and the successes quickly won +by forces despatched by him, and afterwards under his direct command, +secured West Virginia, and incidentally the reputation of McClellan. +In Kentucky, further west, the Governor endeavoured to hold the field +for the South with a body known as the State Guard, while Unionist +leaders among the people were raising volunteer regiments for the +North. Nothing, however, was determined by fighting between these +forces. The State Legislature at first took up an attitude of +neutrality, but a new Legislature, elected in June, was overwhelmingly +for the Union. Ultimately the Confederate armies invaded Kentucky, and +the Legislature thereupon invited the Union armies into the State to +expel them, and placed 40,000 Kentucky volunteers at the disposal of +the President. Thenceforward, though Kentucky, stretching as it does +for four hundred miles between the Mississippi and the Alleghanies, +remained for long a battle-ground, the allegiance of its people to the +Union was unshaken. But the uncertainty about their attitude continued +till the autumn of 1861, and while it lasted was an important element +in Lincoln's calculations. (It must be remembered that slavery existed +in Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri.) In Missouri the strife of +factions was fierce. Already in January there had been reports of a +conspiracy to seize the arsenal at St. Louis for the South when the +time came, and General Scott had placed in command Captain Nathaniel +Lyon, on whose loyalty he relied the more because he was an opponent of +slavery. The Governor was in favour of the South--as was also the +Legislature, and the Governor could count on some part of the State +Militia; so Lincoln, when he called for volunteers, commissioned Lyon +to raise them in Missouri. In this task a Union State Committee in St. +Louis greatly helped him, and the large German population in that city +was especially ready to enlist for the Union. Many of the German +immigrants of those days had come to America partly for the sake of its +free institutions. A State Convention was summoned by the Governor to +pass an Ordinance of Secession, but its electors were minded otherwise, +and the Convention voted against secession. In several encounters +Lyon, who was an intrepid soldier, defeated the forces of the Governor; +in June he took possession of the State capital, driving the Governor +and Legislature away; the State Convention then again assembled and set +up a Unionist Government for the State. This new State Government was +not everywhere acknowledged; conspiracies in the Southern interest +continued to exist in Missouri; and the State was repeatedly molested +by invasions, of no great military consequence, from Arkansas. Indeed, +in the autumn there was a serious recrudescence of trouble, in which +Lyon lost his life. But substantially Missouri was secured for the +Union. Naturally enough, a great many of the citizens of Missouri who +had combined to save their State to the Union became among the +strongest of the "Radicals" who will later engage our attention. Many, +however, of the leading men who had done most in this cause, including +the friends of Blair, Lincoln's Postmaster-General, adhered no less +emphatically to the "Conservative" section of the Republicans. + + +2. _Bull Run_. + +Thus, in the autumn of 1861, North and South had become solidified into +something like two countries. In the month of July, which now concerns +us, this process was well on its way, but it is to be marked that the +whole long tract of Kentucky still formed a neutral zone, which the +Northern Government did not wish to harass, and which perhaps the South +would have done well to let alone, while further west in Missouri the +forces of the North were not even as fully organised as in the East. +So the only possible direction in which any great blow could be struck +was the direction of Richmond, now the capital, and it might seem, +therefore, the heart, of the Confederacy. The Confederate Congress was +to meet there on July 20. The _New York Tribune_, which was edited by +Mr. Horace Greeley, a vigorous writer whose omniscience was unabated by +the variation of his own opinion, was the one journal of far-reaching +influence in the North; and it only gave exaggerated point to a general +feeling when it declared that the Confederate Congress must not meet. +The Senators and Congressmen now in Washington were not quite so +exacting, but they had come there unanimous in their readiness to vote +taxes and support the war in every way, and they wanted to see +something done; and they wanted it all the more because the three +months' service of the militia was running out. General Scott, still +the chief military adviser of Government, was quite distinct in his +preference for waiting and for perfecting the discipline and +organisation of the volunteers, who had not yet even been formed into +brigades. On the militia he set no value at all. For long he refused +to countenance any but minor movements preparatory to a later advance. +It is not quite certain, however, that Congress and public opinion were +wrong in clamouring for action. The Southern troops were not much, if +at all, more ready for use than the Northerners; and Jefferson Davis +and his military adviser, Lee, desired time for their defensive +preparations. It was perhaps too much to expect that the country after +its great uprising should be content to give supplies and men without +end while nothing apparently happened; and the spirit of the troops +themselves might suffer more from inaction than from defeat. A further +thought, while it made defeat seem more dangerous, made battle more +tempting. There was fear that European Powers might recognise the +Southern Confederacy and enter into relations with it. Whether they +did so depended on whether they were confirmed in their growing +suspicion that the North could not conquer the South. Balancing the +military advice which was given them as to the risk against this +political importunity, Lincoln and his Cabinet chose the risk, and +Scott at length withdrew his opposition. Lincoln was possibly more +sensitive to pressure than he afterwards became, more prone to treat +himself as a person under the orders of the people, but there is no +reason to doubt that he acted on his own sober judgment as well as that +of his Cabinet. Whatever degree of confidence he reposed in Scott, +Scott was not very insistent; the risk was not overwhelming; the battle +was very nearly won, would have been won if the orders of Scott had +been carried out. No very great harm in fact followed the defeat of +Bull Run; and the danger of inaction was real. He was probably then, +as he certainly was afterwards, profoundly afraid that the excessive +military caution which he often encountered would destroy the cause of +the North by disheartening the people who supported the war. That is +no doubt a kind of fear to which many statesmen are too prone, but +Lincoln's sense of real popular feeling throughout the wide extent of +the North is agreed to have been uncommonly sure. Definite judgment on +such a question is impossible, but probably Lincoln and his Cabinet +were wise. + +However, they did not win their battle. The Southern army under +Beauregard lay near the Bull Run river, some twenty miles from +Washington, covering the railway junction of Manassas on the line to +Richmond. The main Northern army, under General McDowell, a capable +officer, lay south of the Potomac, where fortifications to guard +Washington had already been erected on Virginian soil. In the +Shenandoah Valley was another Southern force, under Joseph Johnston, +watched by the Northern general Patterson at Harper's Ferry, which had +been recovered by Scott's operations. Each of these Northern generals +was in superior force to his opponent. McDowell was to attack the +Confederate position at Manassas, while Patterson, whose numbers were +nearly double Johnston's, was to keep him so seriously occupied that he +could not join Beauregard. With whatever excuse of misunderstanding or +the like, Patterson made hardly an attempt to carry out his part of +Scott's orders, and Johnston, with the bulk of his force, succeeded in +joining Beauregard the day before McDowell's attack, and without his +gaining knowledge of this movement. The battle of Bull Run or Manassas +(or rather the earlier and more famous of two battles so named) was an +engagement of untrained troops in which up to a certain point the high +individual quality of those troops supplied the place of discipline. +McDowell handled with good judgment a very unhandy instrument. It was +only since his advance had been contemplated that his army had been +organised in brigades. The enemy, occupying high wooded banks on the +south side of the Bull Run, a stream about as broad as the Thames at +Oxford but fordable, was successfully pushed back to a high ridge +beyond; but the stubborn attacks over difficult ground upon this +further position failed from lack of co-ordination, and, when it +already seemed doubtful whether the tired soldiers of the North could +renew them with any hope, they were themselves attacked on their right +flank. It seems that from that moment their success upon that day was +really hopeless, but some declare that the Northern soldiers with one +accord became possessed of a belief that this flank attack by a +comparatively small body was that of the whole force of Johnston, +freshly arrived upon the scene. In any case they spontaneously retired +in disorder; they were not effectively pursued, but McDowell was unable +to rally them at Centreville, a mile or so behind the Bull Run. Among +the camp followers the panic became extreme, and they pressed into +Washington in wild alarm, accompanied by citizens and Congressmen who +had come out to see a victory, and who left one or two of their number +behind as prisoners of war. The result was a surprise to the Southern +army. Johnston, who now took over the command, declared that it was as +much disorganised by victory as the Northern army by defeat. With the +full approval of his superiors in Richmond, he devoted himself to +entrenching his position at Manassas. But in Washington, where rumours +of victory had been arriving all through the day of battle, there +prevailed for some time an impression that the city was exposed to +immediate capture, and this impression was shared by McClellan, to whom +universal opinion now turned as the appointed saviour, and who was +forthwith summoned to Washington to take command of the army of the +Potomac. + +Within the circle of the Administration there was, of course, deep +mortification. Old General Scott passionately declared himself to have +been the greatest coward in America in having ever given way to the +President's desire for action. Lincoln, who was often to prove his +readiness to take blame on his own shoulders, evidently thought that +the responsibility in this case was shared by Scott, and demanded to +know whether Scott accused him of having overborne his judgment. The +old general warmly, if a little ambiguously, replied that he had served +under many Presidents, but never known a kinder master. Plainly he +felt that his better judgment had somehow been overpowered, and yet +that there was nothing in their relations for which in his heart he +could blame the President; and this trivial dialogue is worth +remembering during the dreary and controversial tale of Lincoln's +relations with Scott's successor. Lincoln, however bitterly +disappointed, showed no signs of discomposure or hesitancy. The +business of making the army of the Potomac quietly began over again. +To the four days after Bull Run belongs one of the few records of the +visits to the troops which Lincoln constantly paid when they were not +too far from Washington, cheering them with little talks which served a +good purpose without being notable. He was reviewing the brigade +commanded at Bull Run by William Sherman, later, but not yet, one of +the great figures in the war. He was open to all complaints, and a +colonel of militia came to him with a grievance; he claimed that his +term of service had already expired, that he had intended to go home, +but that Sherman unlawfully threatened to shoot him if he did so. +Lincoln had a good look at Sherman, and then advised the colonel to +keep out of Sherman's way, as he looked like a man of his word. This +was said in the hearing of many men, and Sherman records his lively +gratitude for a simple jest which helped him greatly in keeping his +brigade in existence. + +Not one of the much more serious defeats suffered later in the war +produced by itself so lively a sense of discomfiture in the North as +this; thus none will equally claim our attention. But, except for the +first false alarms in Washington, there was no disposition to mistake +its military significance. The "second uprising of the North," which +followed upon this bracing shock, left as vivid a memory as the little +disaster of Bull Run. But there was of necessity a long pause while +McClellan remodelled the army in the East, and the situation in the +West was becoming ripe for important movements. The eagerness of the +Northern people to make some progress, again asserted itself before +long, but to their surprise, and perhaps to that of a reader to-day, +the last five months of 1861 passed without notable military events. +Here then we may turn to the progress of other affairs, departmental +affairs, foreign affairs, and domestic policy, which, it must not be +forgotten, had pressed heavily upon the Administration from the moment +that war began. + + +3. _Lincoln's Administration Generally_. + +Long before the Eastern public was very keenly aware of Lincoln the +members of his Cabinet had come to think of the Administration as his +Administration, some, like Seward, of whom it could have been little +expected, with a loyal, and for America most fortunate, acceptance of +real subordination, and one at least, Chase, with indignant surprise +that his own really great abilities were not dominant. One Minister +early told his friends that there was but one vote in the Cabinet, the +President's. This must not be taken in the sense that Lincoln's +personal guidance was present in every department. He had his own +department, concerned with the maintenance of Northern unity and with +that great underlying problem of internal policy which will before long +appear again, and the business of the War Department was so immediately +vital as to require his ceaseless attention; but in other matters the +degree and manner of his control of course varied. Again, it is far +from being the case that the Cabinet had little influence on his +action. He not only consulted it much, but deferred to it much. His +wisdom seems to have shown itself in nothing more strongly than in +recognising when he wanted advice and when he did not, when he needed +support and when he could stand alone. Sometimes he yielded to his +Ministers because he valued their judgment, sometimes also because he +gauged by them the public support without which his action must fail. +Sometimes, when he was sure of the necessity, he took grave steps +without advice from them or any one. More often he tried to arrive +with them at a real community of decision. It is often impossible to +guess what acts of an Administration are rightly credited to its chief. +The hidden merit or demerit of many statesmen has constantly lain in +the power, or the lack of it, of guiding their colleagues and being +guided in turn. If we tried to be exact in saying Lincoln, or +Lincoln's Cabinet, or the North did this or that, it would be necessary +to thresh out many bushels of tittle-tattle. The broad impression, +however, remains that in the many things in which Lincoln did not +directly rule he ruled through a group of capable men of whom he made +the best use, and whom no other chief could have induced to serve so +long in concord. As we proceed some authentic examples of his precise +relations with them will appear, in which, unimportant as they seem, +one test of his quality as a statesman and of his character should be +sought. + +The naval operations of the war afford many tales of daring on both +sides which cannot here be noticed. They afford incidents of strange +interest now, such as the exploit of the first submarine. (It belonged +to the South; its submersion invariably resulted in the death of the +whole crew; and, with full knowledge of this, a devoted crew went down +and destroyed a valuable Northern iron-clad.) The ravages on commerce +of the _Alabama_ and some other Southern cruisers became only too +famous in England, from whose ship-building yards they had escaped. +The North failed too in some out of the fairly numerous combined naval +and military expeditions, which were undertaken with a view to making +the blockade more complete and less arduous by the occupation of +Southern ports, and perhaps to more serious incursions into the South. +Among those of them which will require no special notice, most +succeeded. Thus by the spring of 1863 Florida was substantially in +Northern hands, and by 1865 the South had but two ports left, +Charleston and Wilmington; but the venture most attractive to Northern +sentiment, an attack upon Charleston itself, proved a mere waste of +military force. Moreover, till a strong military adviser was at last +found in Grant there was some dissipation of military force in such +expeditions. Nevertheless, the naval success of the North was so +continuous and overwhelming that its history in detail need not be +recounted in these pages. Almost from the first the ever-tightening +grip of the blockade upon the Southern coasts made its power felt, and +early in 1862 the inland waterways of the South were beginning to fall +under the command of the Northern flotillas. Such a success needed, of +course, the adoption of a decided policy from the outset; it needed +great administrative ability to improvise a navy where hardly any +existed, and where the conditions of its employment were in many +respects novel; and it needed resourceful watching to meet the +surprises of fresh naval invention by which the South, poor as were its +possibilities for ship-building, might have rendered impotent, as once +or twice it seemed likely to do, the Northern blockade. Gideon Welles, +the responsible Cabinet Minister, was constant and would appear to have +been capable at his task, but the inspiring mind of the Naval +Department was found in Gustavus V. Fox, a retired naval officer, who +at the beginning of Lincoln's administration was appointed Assistant +Secretary of the Navy. The policy of blockade was begun by Lincoln's +Proclamation on April 19, 1861. It was a hardy measure, certain to be +a cause of friction with foreign Powers. The United States Government +had contended in 1812 that a blockade which is to confer any rights +against neutral commerce must be an effective blockade, and has not +lately been inclined to take lax views upon such questions; but when it +declared its blockade of the South it possessed only three steamships +of war with which to make it effective. But the policy was stoutly +maintained. The Naval Department at the very first set about buying +merchant ships in Northern ports and adapting them to warlike use, and +building ships of its own, in the design of which it shortly obtained +the help of a Commission of Congress on the subject of ironclads. The +Naval Department had at least the fullest support and encouragement +from Lincoln in the whole of its policy. Everything goes to show that +he followed naval affairs carefully, but that, as he found them +conducted on sound lines by men that he trusted, his intervention in +them was of a modest kind. Welles continued throughout the member of +his Cabinet with whom he had the least friction, and was probably one +of those Ministers, common in England, who earn the confidence of their +own departments without in any way impressing the imagination of the +public; and a letter by Lincoln to Fox immediately after the affair of +Fort Sumter shows the hearty esteem and confidence with which from the +first he regarded Fox. Of the few slight records of his judgment in +these matters one is significant. The unfortunate expedition against +Charleston in the spring of 1863 was undertaken with high hopes by the +Naval Department; but Lincoln, we happen to know, never believed it +could succeed. He has, rightly or wrongly, been blamed for dealings +with his military officers in which he may be said to have spurred them +hard; he cannot reasonably be blamed for giving the rein to his expert +subordinates, because his own judgment, which differed from theirs, +turned out right. This is one of very many instances which suggest +that at the time when his confidence in himself was full grown his +disposition, if any, to interfere was well under control. It is also +one of the indications that his attention was alert in many matters in +which his hand was not seen. + +He was no financier, and that important part of the history of the war, +Northern finance, concerns us little. The real economic strength of +the North was immense, for immigration and development were going on so +fast, that, for all the strain of the war, production and exports +increased. But the superficial disturbance caused by borrowing and the +issue of paper money was great, and, though the North never bore the +pinching that was endured in the South, it is an honourable thing that, +for all the rise in the cost of living and for all the trouble that +occurred in business when the premium on gold often fluctuated between +40 and 60 and on one occasion rose to 185, neither the solid working +class of the country generally nor the solid business class of New York +were deeply affected by the grumbling at the duration of the war. The +American verdict upon the financial policy of Chase, a man of intellect +but new to such affairs, is one of high praise. Lincoln left him free +in that policy. He had watched the acts and utterances of his chief +contemporaries closely and early acquired a firm belief in Chase's +ability. How much praise is due to the President, who for this reason +kept Chase in his Cabinet, a later part of this story may show. + +One function of Government was that of the President alone. An English +statesman is alleged to have said upon becoming Prime Minister, "I had +important and interesting business in my old office, but now my chief +duty will be to create undeserving Peers." Lincoln, in the anxious +days that followed his first inauguration, once looked especially +harassed; a Senator said to him: "What is the matter, Mr. President? +Is there bad news from Fort Sumter?" "Oh, no," he answered, "it's the +Post Office at Baldinsville." The patronage of the President was +enormous, including the most trifling offices under Government, such as +village postmasterships. In the appointment to local offices, he was +expected to consult the local Senators and Representatives of his own +party, and of course to choose men who had worked for the party. In +the vast majority of cases decent competence for the office in the +people so recommended might be presumed. The established practice +further required that a Republican President on coming in should +replace with good Republicans most of the nominees of the late +Democratic administration, which had done the like in its day. +Lincoln's experience after a while led him to prophesy that the +prevalence of office-seeking would be the ruin of American politics, +but it certainly never occurred to him to try and break down then the +accepted rule, of which no party yet complained. It would have been +unmeasured folly, even if he had thought of it, to have taken during +such a crisis a new departure which would have vexed the Republicans +far more than it would have pleased the Democrats. And at that time it +was really of great consequence that public officials should be men of +known loyalty to the Union, for obviously a postmaster of doubtful +loyalty might do mischief. Lincoln, then, except in dealing with posts +of special consequence, for which men with really special +qualifications were to be found, frankly and without a question took as +the great principle of his patronage the fairest possible distribution +of favours among different classes and individuals among the supporters +of the Government, whom it was his primary duty to keep together. His +attitude in the whole business was perfectly understood and respected +by scrupulous men who watched politics critically. It was the cause in +one way of great worry to him, for, except when his indignation was +kindled, he was abnormally reluctant to say "no,"--he once shuddered to +think what would have happened to him if he had been a woman, but was +consoled by the thought that his ugliness would have been a shield; and +his private secretaries accuse him of carrying out his principle with +needless and even ridiculous care. In appointments to which the party +principle did not apply, but in which an ordinary man would have felt +party prejudice, Lincoln's old opponents were often startled by his +freedom from it. If jobbery be the right name for his persistent +endeavour to keep the partisans of the Union pleased and united, his +jobbery proved to have one shining attribute of virtue; later on, when, +apart from the Democratic opposition which revived, there arose in the +Republican party sections hostile to himself, the claims of personal +adherence to him and the wavering prospects of his own reelection seem, +from recorded instances, to have affected his choice remarkably little. + + +4. _Foreign Policy and England_. + +The question, what was his influence upon foreign policy, is more +difficult than the general praise bestowed upon it might lead us to +expect; because, though he is known to have exercised a constant +supervision over Seward, that influence was concealed from the +diplomatic world. + +For at least the first eighteen months of the war, apart from lesser +points of quarrel, a real danger of foreign intervention hung over the +North. The danger was increased by the ambitions of Napoleon III. in +regard to Mexico, and by the loss and suffering caused to England, +above all, not merely from the interruption of trade but from the +suspension of cotton supplies by the blockade. From the first there +was the fear that foreign powers would recognise the Southern +Confederacy as an independent country; that they were then likely to +offer mediation which it would at the best have been embarrassing for +the President to reject; that they might ultimately, when their +mediation had been rejected, be tempted to active intervention. It is +curious that the one European Government which was recognised all along +as friendly to the Republic was that of the Czar, Alexander II. of +Russia, who in this same year, 1861, was accomplishing the project, +bequeathed to him by his father, of emancipating the serfs. Mercier, +the French Minister in Washington, advised his Government to recognise +the South Confederacy as early as March, 1861. The Emperor of the +French, though not the French people, inclined throughout to this +policy; but he would not act apart from England, and the English +Government, though Americans did not know it, had determined, and for +the present was quite resolute, against any hasty action. Nevertheless +an almost accidental cause very soon brought England and the North +within sight of a war from which neither people was in appearance +averse. + +Neither the foreign policy of Lincoln's Government nor, indeed, the +relations of England and America from his day to our own can be +understood without some study of the attitude of the two countries to +each other during the war. If we could put aside any previous judgment +on the cause as between North and South, there are still some marked +features in the attitude of England during the war which every +Englishman must now regret. It should emphatically be added that there +were some upon which every Englishman should look back with +satisfaction. Many of the expressions of English opinion at that time +betray a powerlessness to comprehend another country and a +self-sufficiency in judging it, which, it may humbly be claimed, were +not always and are not now so characteristic of Englishmen as they were +in that period of our history, in many ways so noble, which we +associate with the rival influences of Palmerston and of Cobden. It is +not at all surprising that ordinary English gentlemen started with a +leaning towards the South; they liked Southerners and there was much in +the manners of the North, and in the experiences of Englishmen trading +with or investing in the North, which did not impress them favourably. +Many Northerners discovered something snobbish and unsound in this +preference, but they were not quite right. With this leaning, +Englishmen readily accepted the plea of the South that it was +threatened with intolerable interference; indeed to this day it is +hardly credible to Englishmen that the grievance against which the +South arose in such passionate revolt was so unsubstantial as it really +was. On the other hand, the case of the North was not apprehended. +How it came to pass, in the intricate and usually uninteresting play of +American politics, that a business community, which had seemed pretty +tolerant of slavery, was now at war on some point which was said to be +and said not to be slavery, was a little hard to understand. Those of +us who remember our parents' talk of the American Civil War did not +hear from them the true and fairly simple explanation of the war, that +the North fought because it refused to connive further in the extension +of slavery, and would not--could not decently--accept the disruption of +a great country as the alternative. It is strictly true that the +chivalrous South rose in blind passion for a cause at the bottom of +which lay the narrowest of pecuniary interests, while the over-sharp +Yankees, guided by a sort of comic backwoodsman, fought, whether wisely +or not, for a cause as untainted as ever animated a nation in arms. +But it seems a paradox even now, and there is no reproach in the fact, +that our fathers, who had not followed the vacillating course of +Northern politics hitherto, did not generally take it in. We shall see +in a later chapter how Northern statesmanship added to their +perplexity. But it is impossible not to be ashamed of some of the +forms in which English feeling showed itself and was well known in the +North to show itself. Not only the articles of some English +newspapers, but the private letters of Americans who then found +themselves in the politest circles in London, are unpleasant to read +now. It is painful, too, that a leader of political thought like +Cobden should even for a little while--and it was only a little +while--have been swayed in such a matter by a sympathy relatively so +petty as agreement with the Southern doctrine of Free Trade. We might +now call it worthier of Prussia than of England that a great Englishman +like Lord Salisbury (then Lord Robert Cecil) should have expressed +friendship for the South as a good customer of ours, and antagonism for +the North as a rival in our business. When such men as these said such +things they were, of course, not brutally indifferent to right, they +were merely blind to the fact that a very great and plain issue of +right and wrong was really involved in the war. Gladstone, to take +another instance, was not blind to that, but with irritating +misapprehension he protested against the madness of plunging into war +to propagate the cause of emancipation. Then came in his love of small +states, and from his mouth, while he was a Cabinet Minister, came the +impulsive pronouncement, bitterly regretted by him and bitterly +resented in the North: "Jefferson Davis and other leaders of the South +have made an army; they are making, it appears, a navy; and they have +made--what is more than either--they have made a nation." Many other +Englishmen simply sympathised with the weaker side; many too, it should +be confessed, with the apparently weaker side which they were really +persuaded would win. ("Win the battles," said Lord Robert Cecil to a +Northern lady, "and we Tories shall come round at once.") These things +are recalled because their natural effect in America has to be +understood. What is really lamentable is not that in this distant and +debatable affair the sympathy of so many inclined to the South, but +that, when at least there was a Northern side, there seemed at first to +be hardly any capable of understanding or being stirred by it. Apart +from politicians there were only two Englishmen of the first rank, +Tennyson and Darwin, who, whether or not they understood the matter in +detail, are known to have cared from their hearts for the Northern +cause. It is pleasant to associate with these greater names that of +the author of "Tom Brown." The names of those hostile to the North or +apparently quite uninterested are numerous and surprising. Even +Dickens, who had hated slavery, and who in "Martin Chuzzlewit" had +appealed however bitterly to the higher national spirit which he +thought latent in America, now, when that spirit had at last and in +deed asserted itself, gave way in his letters to nothing but hatred of +the whole country. And a disposition like this--explicable but +odious--did no doubt exist in the England of those days. + +There is, however, quite another aspect of this question besides that +which has so painfully impressed many American memories. When the +largest manufacturing industry of England was brought near to famine by +the blockade, the voice of the stricken working population was loudly +and persistently uttered on the side of the North. There has been no +other demonstration so splendid of the spirit which remains widely +diffused among individual English working men and which at one time +animated labour as a concentrated political force. John Bright, who +completely grasped the situation in America, took a stand, in which J. +S. Mill, W. E. Forster, and the Duke of Argyll share his credit, but +which did peculiar and great honour to him as a Quaker who hated war. +But there is something more that must be said. The conduct of the +English Government, supported by the responsible leaders of the +Opposition, was at that time, no less than now, the surest indication +of the more deep-seated feelings of the real bulk of Englishmen on any +great question affecting our international relations; and the attitude +of the Government, in which Lord Palmerston was Prime Minister and Lord +John Russell Foreign Secretary, and with which in this matter +Conservative leaders like Disraeli and Sir Stafford Northcote entirely +concurred, was at the very least free from grave reproach. Lord John +Russell, and, there can be little doubt, his colleagues generally, +regarded slavery as an "accursed institution," but they felt no anger +with the people of the South for it, because, as he said, "we gave them +that curse and ours were the hands from which they received that fatal +gift"; in Lord John at least the one overmastering sentiment upon the +outbreak of the war was that of sheer pain that "a great Republic, +which has enjoyed institutions under which the people have been free +and happy, is placed in jeopardy." Their insight into American affairs +did not go deep; but the more seriously we rate "the strong antipathy +to the North, the strong sympathy with the South, and the passionate +wish to have cotton," of which a Minister, Lord Granville, wrote at the +time, the greater is the credit due both to the Government as a whole +and to Disraeli for having been conspicuously unmoved by these +considerations; and "the general approval from Parliament, the press, +and the public," which, as Lord Granville added, their policy received, +is creditable too. It is perfectly true, as will be seen later, that +at one dark moment in the fortunes of the North, the Government very +cautiously considered the possibility of intervention, but Disraeli, to +whom a less patriotic course would have offered a party advantage, +recalled to them their own better judgment; and it is impossible to +read their correspondence on this question without perceiving that in +this they were actuated by no hostility to the North, but by a sincere +belief that the cause of the North was hopeless and that intervention, +with a view to stopping bloodshed, might prove the course of honest +friendship to all America. Englishmen of a later time have become +deeply interested in America, and may wish that their fathers had +better understood the great issue of the Civil War, but it is matter +for pride, which in honesty should be here asserted, that with many +selfish interests in this contest, of which they were most keenly +aware, Englishmen, in their capacity as a nation, acted with complete +integrity. + +But for our immediate purpose the object of thus reviewing a subject on +which American historians have lavished much research is to explain the +effect produced in America by demonstrations of strong antipathy and +sympathy in England. The effect in some ways has been long lasting. +The South caught at every mark of sympathy with avidity, was led by its +politicians to expect help, received none, and became resentful. It is +surprising to be told, but may be true, that the embers of this +resentment became dangerous to England in the autumn of 1914. In the +North the memory of an antipathy which was almost instantly perceived +has burnt deep--as many memoirs, for instance those recently published +by Senator Lodge, show--into the minds of precisely those Americans to +whom Englishmen have ever since been the readiest to accord their +esteem. There were many men in the North with a ready-made dislike of +England, but there were many also whose sensitiveness to English +opinion, if in some ways difficult for us to appreciate, was intense. +Republicans such as James Russell Lowell had writhed under the +reproaches cast by Englishmen upon the acquiescence of all America in +slavery; they felt that the North had suddenly cut off this reproach +and staked everything on the refusal to give way to slavery any +further; they looked now for expressions of sympathy from many quarters +in England; but in the English newspapers which they read and the +reports of Americans in England they found evidence of nothing but +dislike. There soon came evidence, as it seemed to the whole North, of +actually hostile action on the part of the British Government. It +issued a Proclamation enjoining neutrality upon British subjects. This +was a matter of course on the outbreak of what was nothing less than +war; but Northerners thought that at least some courteous explanation +should first have been made to their Government, and there were other +matters which they misinterpreted as signs of an agreement of England +with France to go further and open diplomatic relations with the +Confederate Government. Thus alike in the most prejudiced and in the +most enlightened quarters in the North there arose an irritation which +an Englishman must see to have been natural but can hardly think to +have been warranted by the real facts. + +Here came in the one clearly known and most certainly happy +intervention of Lincoln's in foreign affairs. Early in May Seward +brought to him the draft of a vehement despatch, telling the British +Government peremptorily what the United States would not stand, and +framed in a manner which must have frustrated any attempt by Adams in +London to establish good relations with Lord John Russell. That draft +now exists with the alterations made in Lincoln's own hand. With a few +touches, some of them very minute, made with the skill of a master of +language and of a life-long peacemaker, he changed the draft into a +firm but entirely courteous despatch. In particular, instead of +requiring Adams, as Seward would have done, to read the whole despatch +to Russell and leave him with a copy of it, he left it to the man on +the spot to convey its sense in what manner he judged best. Probably, +as has been claimed for him, his few penstrokes made peaceful relations +easy when Seward's despatch would have made them almost impossible; +certainly a study of this document will prove both his strange, +untutored diplomatic skill and the general soundness of his view of +foreign affairs. + +Now, however, followed a graver crisis in which his action requires +some discussion. Messrs. Mason and Slidell were sent by the +Confederate Government as their emissaries to England and France. They +got to Havana and there took ship again on the British steamer _Trent_. +A watchful Northern sea captain overhauled the _Trent_, took Mason and +Slidell off her, and let her go. If he had taken the course, far more +inconvenient to the _Trent_, of bringing her into a Northern harbour, +where a Northern Prize Court might have adjudged these gentlemen to be +bearers of enemy despatches, he would have been within the law. As it +was he violated well-established usage, and no one has questioned the +right and even the duty of the British Government to demand the release +of the prisoners. This they did in a note of which the expression was +made milder by the wish of the Queen (conveyed in almost the last +letter of the Prince Consort), but which required compliance within a +fortnight. Meanwhile Secretary Welles had approved the sea captain's +action. The North was jubilant at the capture, the more so because +Mason and Slidell were Southern statesmen of the lower type and held to +be specially obnoxious; and the House of Representatives, to make +matters worse, voted its approval of what had been done. Lincoln, on +the very day when the news of the capture came, had seen and said +privately that on the principles which America had itself upheld in the +past the prisoners would have to be given up with an apology. But +there is evidence that he now wavered, and that, bent as he was on +maintaining a united North, he was still too distrustful of his own +better judgment as against that of the public. At this very time he +was already on other points in painful conflict with many friends. In +any case he submitted to Seward a draft despatch making the ill-judged +proposal of arbitration. He gave way to Seward, but at the Cabinet +meeting on Christmas Eve, at which Seward submitted a despatch yielding +to the British demand, it is reported that Lincoln, as well as Chase +and others, was at first reluctant to agree, and that it was Bates and +Seward that persuaded the Cabinet to a just and necessary surrender. + +This was the last time that there was serious friction in the actual +intercourse of the two Governments. The lapse of Great Britain in +allowing the famous _Alabama_ to sail was due to delay and misadventure +("week-ends" or the like) in the proceedings of subordinate officials, +and was never defended, and the numerous minor controversies that +arose, as well as the standing disagreement as to the law of blockade +never reached the point of danger. For all this great credit was due +to Lord Lyons and to C. F. Adams, and to Seward also, when he had a +little sobered down, but it might seem as if the credit commonly given +to Lincoln by Americans rested on little but the single happy +performance with the earlier despatch which has been mentioned. Adams +and Lyons were not aware of his beneficent influence--the papers of the +latter contain little reference to him beyond a kindly record of a +trivial conversation, at the end of which, as the Ambassador was going +for a holiday to England, the President said, "Tell the English people +I mean them no harm." Yet it is evident that Lincoln's supporters in +America, the writer of the Biglow Papers, for instance, ascribed to him +a wise, restraining power in the _Trent_ dispute. What is more, +Lincoln later claimed this for himself. Two or three years later, in +one of the confidences with which he often startled men who were but +slight acquaintances, but who generally turned out worthy of +confidence, he exclaimed with emphatic self-satisfaction, "Seward knows +that I am his master," and recalled with satisfaction how he had forced +Seward to yield to England in the _Trent_ affair. It would have been +entirely unlike him to claim praise when it was wholly undue to him; we +find him, for example, writing to Fox, of the Navy Department, about "a +blunder which was probably in part mine, and certainly was not yours"; +so that a puzzling question arises here. It is quite possible that +Lincoln, who did not press his proposal of arbitration, really +manoeuvred Seward and the Cabinet into full acceptance of the British +demands by making them see the consequences of any other action. It is +also, however, likely enough that, being, as he was, interested in +arbitration generally, he was too inexperienced to see the +inappropriateness of the proposal in this case. If so, we may none the +less credit him with having forced Seward to work for peace and +friendly relations with Great Britain, and made that minister the +agent, more skilful than himself, of a peaceful resolution which in its +origin was his own. + + +5. _The Great Questions of Domestic Policy_. + +The larger questions of civil policy which arose out of the fact of the +war, and which weighed heavily on Lincoln before the end of 1861, can +be related with less intricate detail if the fundamental point of +difficulty is made clear. + +Upon July 4 Congress met. In an able Message which was a skilful but +simple appeal not only to Congress, but to the "plain people," the +President set forth the nature of the struggle as he conceived it, +putting perhaps in its most powerful form the contention that the Union +was indissoluble, and declaring that the "experiment" of "our popular +government" would have failed once for all if it did not prove that +"when ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided, there can be no +successful appeal back to bullets." He recounted the steps which he +had taken since the bombardment of Fort Sumter, some of which might be +held to exceed his constitutional authority as indeed they did, saying +he would have been false to his trust if for fear of such illegality he +had let the whole Constitution perish, and asking that, if necessary, +Congress should ratify them. He appealed to Congress now to do its +part, and especially he appealed for such prompt and adequate provision +of money and men as would enable the war to be speedily brought to a +close. Congress, with but a few dissentient voices, chiefly from the +border States, approved all that he had done, and voted the supplies +that he had asked. Then, by a resolution of both Houses, it defined +the object of the war; the war was not for any purpose of conquest or +subjugation, or of "overthrowing or interfering with the rights or +established institutions" of the Southern States; it was solely "to +preserve the Union with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the +several States unimpaired." + +In this resolution may be found the clue to the supreme political +problem with which, side by side with the conduct of the war, Lincoln +was called upon to grapple unceasingly for the rest of his life. That +problem lay in the inevitable change, as the war dragged on, of the +political object involved in it. The North as yet was not making war +upon the institutions of Southern States, in other words upon slavery, +and it would have been wrong to do so. It was simply asserting the +supremacy of law by putting down what every man in the North regarded +as rebellion. That rebellion, it seemed likely, would completely +subside after a decisive defeat or two of the Southern forces. The law +and the Union would then have been restored as before. A great victory +would in fact have been won over slavery, for the policy of restricting +its further spread would have prevailed, but the constitutional right +of each Southern State to retain slavery within its borders was not to +be denied by those who were fighting, as they claimed, for the +Constitution. + +Such at first was the position taken up by an unanimous Congress. It +was obviously in accord with those political principles of Lincoln +which have been examined in a former chapter. More than that, it was +the position which, as he thought, his official duty as President +imposed on him. It is exceedingly difficult for any Englishman to +follow his course as the political situation developed. He was neither +a dictator, nor an English Prime Minister. He was first and foremost +an elected officer with powers and duties prescribed by a fixed +Constitution which he had sworn to obey. His oath was continually +present to his mind. + +He was there to uphold the Union and the laws, with just so much +infraction of the letter of the law, and no more, as might be obviously +necessary if the Union and the whole fabric of law were not to perish. + +The mere duration of the war altered of necessity the policy of the +North and of the President. Their task had presented itself as in +theory the "suppression of an unlawful combination" within their +country; it became in manifest fact the reabsorption of a country now +hostile, with which reunion was possible only if slavery, the +fundamental cause of difference, was uprooted. + +As the hope of a speedy victory and an easy settlement vanished, wide +differences of opinion appeared again in the North, and the lines on +which this cleavage proceeded very soon showed themselves. There were +those who gladly welcomed the idea of a crusade against slavery, and +among them was an unreasonable section of so-called Radicals. These +resented that delay in a policy of wholesale liberation which was +enforced by legal and constitutional scruples, and by such practical +considerations as the situation in the slave States which adhered to +the North. There was, on the other hand, a Democratic party Opposition +which before long began to revive. It combined many shades of opinion. +There were supporters or actual agents of the South, few at first and +very quiet, but ultimately developing a treasonable activity. There +were those who constituted themselves the guardians of legality and +jealously criticised all the measures of emergency which became more or +less necessary. Of the bulk of the Democrats it would probably be fair +to say that their conscious intention throughout was to be true to the +Union, but that throughout they were beset by a respect for Southern +rights which would have gone far to paralyse the arm of the Government. +Lastly, there were Republicans, by no means in sympathy with the +Democratic view, who became suspect to their Radical fellows and were +vaguely classed together as Conservatives. This term may be taken to +cover men simply of moderate and cautious, or in some cases, of +variable disposition, but it included, too, some men who, while +rigorous against the South, were half-hearted in their detestation of +slavery. + +So far as Lincoln's private opinions were concerned, it would have been +impossible to rank him in any of these sections. He had as strong a +sympathy with the Southern people as any Democrat, but he was for the +restoration of the Union absolutely and without compromise. He was the +most cautious of men, but his caution veiled a detestation of slavery +of which he once said that he could not remember the time when he had +not felt it. It was his business, so far as might be, to retain the +support of all sections in the North to the Union. In the course, full +of painful deliberation, which we shall see him pursuing, he tried to +be guided by a two-fold principle which he constantly avowed. The +Union was to be restored with as few departures from the ways of the +Constitution as was possible; but such departures became his duty +whenever he was thoroughly convinced that they were needful for the +restoration of the Union. + +Before the war was four months old, the inevitable subject of dispute +between Northern parties had begun to trouble Lincoln. As soon as a +Northern force set foot on Southern soil slaves were apt to escape to +it, and the question arose, what should the Northern general do with +them, for he was not there to make war on the private property of +Southern citizens. General Butler--a newspaper character of some fame +or notoriety throughout the war--commanded at Fort Monroe, a point on +the coast of Virginia which was always held by the North. He learnt +that the slaves who fled to him had been employed on making +entrenchments for the Southern troops, so he adopted a view, which took +the fancy of the North, that they were "contraband of war," and should +be kept from their owners. The circumstances in which slaves could +thus escape varied so much that great discretion must be left to the +general on the spot, and the practice of generals varied. Lincoln was +well content to leave the matter so. Congress, however, passed an Act +by which private property could be confiscated, if used in aid of the +"insurrection" but not otherwise, and slaves were similarly dealt with. +This moderate provision as to slaves met with a certain amount of +opposition; it raised an alarming question in slave States like +Missouri that had not seceded. Lincoln himself seems to have been +averse to any legislation on the subject. He had deliberately +concentrated his mind, or, as his critics would have said, narrowed it +down to the sole question of maintaining the Union, and was resolved to +treat all other questions as subordinate to this. + +Shortly after, there reappeared upon the political scene a leader with +what might seem a more sympathetic outlook. This was Frémont, +Lincoln's predecessor as the Republican candidate for the Presidency. +Frémont was one of those men who make brilliant and romantic figures in +their earlier career, and later appear to have lost all solid +qualities. It must be recalled that, though scarcely a professional +soldier (for he had held a commission, but served only in the Ordnance +Survey) he had conducted a great exploring expedition, had seen +fighting as a free-lance in California, and, it is claimed, had with +his handful of men done much to win that great State from Mexico. Add +to this that he, a Southerner by birth, was known among the leaders who +had made California a free State, and it is plain how appropriate it +must have seemed when he was set to command the Western Department, +which for the moment meant Missouri. Here by want of competence, and, +which was more surprising, lethargy he had made a present of some +successes to a Southern invading force, and had sacrificed the +promising life of General Lyon. Lincoln, loath to remove him, had made +a good effort at helping him out by tactfully persuading a more +experienced general to serve as a subordinate on his staff. At the end +of August Frémont suddenly issued a proclamation establishing martial +law throughout Missouri. This contained other dangerous provisions, +but above all it liberated the slaves and confiscated the whole +property of all persons proved (before Court Martial) to have taken +active part with the enemy in the field. It is obvious that such a +measure was liable to shocking abuse, that it was certain to infuriate +many friends of the Union, and that it was in conflict with the law +which Congress had just passed on the subject. To Lincoln's mind it +presented the alarming prospect that it might turn the scale against +the Union cause in the still pending deliberations in Kentucky. +Lincoln's overpowering solicitude on such a point is among the proofs +that his understanding of the military situation, however elementary, +was sound. He wished, characteristically, that Frémont himself should +withdraw his Proclamation. He invited him to withdraw it in private +letters from which one sentence may be taken: "You speak of it as being +the only means of saving the Government. On the contrary, it is itself +the surrender of the Government. Can it be pretended that it is any +longer the Government of the United States--any government of +constitution and laws--wherein a general or a president may make +permanent rules of property by proclamation?" Frémont preferred to +make Lincoln publicly overrule him, which he did; and the inevitable +consequence followed. When some months later, the utter military +disorganisation, which Frémont let arise while he busied himself with +politics, and the scandalous waste, out of which his flatterers +enriched themselves, compelled the President to remove him from his +command, Frémont became, for a time at least, to patriotic crowds and +to many intelligent, upright and earnest men from St. Louis to Boston, +the chivalrous and pure-hearted soldier of freedom, and Lincoln, the +soulless politician, dead to the cause of liberty, who, to gratify a +few wire-pulling friends, had struck this hero down on the eve of +victory to his army--an army which, by the way, he had reduced almost +to nonentity. + +This salient instance explains well enough the nature of one half of +the trial which Lincoln throughout the war had to undergo. Pursuing +the restoration of the Union with a thoroughness which must estrange +from him the Democrats of the North, he was fated from the first to +estrange also Radicals who were generally as devoted to the Union as +himself and with whose over-mastering hatred of slavery he really +sympathised. In the following chapter we are more concerned with the +other half of his trial, the war itself. Of his minor political +difficulties few instances need be given--only it must be remembered +that they were many and involved, besides delicate questions of +principle, the careful sifting of much confident hearsay; and, though +the critics of public men are wont to forget it, that there are only +twenty-four hours in the day. + +But the year 1861 was to close with a further vexation that must be +related. Secretary Cameron proved incapable on the business side of +war administration. Waste and alleged corruption called down upon him +a searching investigation by a committee of the House of +Representatives. He had not added to his own considerable riches, but +his political henchmen had grown fat. The displeasure with the whole +Administration was the greater because the war was not progressing +favourably, or at all. There were complaints of the Naval Department +also, but politicians testified their belief in the honesty of Welles +without saying a word for Cameron. There is every reason to think he +was not personally dishonourable. Lincoln believed in his complete +integrity, and so also did sterner critics, Chase, an apostle of +economy and uprightness, and Senator Sumner. But he had to go. He +opened the door for his removal by a circular to generals on the +subject of slaves, which was comparable to Frémont's Proclamation and +of which Lincoln had to forbid the issue. He accepted the appointment +of Minister to Russia, and when, before long, he returned, he justified +himself and Lincoln's judgment by his disinterested friendship and +support. He was removed from the War Office at the end of December and +a remarkable incident followed. While Lincoln's heart was still set on +his law practice, the prospect of appearing as something more than a +backwoods attorney smiled for a single moment on him. He was briefed +to appear in an important case outside Illinois with an eminent lawyer +from the East, Edwin M. Stanton; but he was not allowed to open his +mouth, for Stanton snuffed him out with supreme contempt, and he +returned home crestfallen. Stanton before the war was a strong +Democrat, but hated slavery. In the last days of Buchanan's Presidency +he was made Attorney-General and helped much to restore the lost credit +of that Administration. He was now in Washington, criticising the slow +conduct of the war with that explosive fury and scorn which led him to +commit frequent injustice (at the very end of the war he publicly and +monstrously accused Sherman of being bribed into terms of peace by +Southern gold), which concealed from most eyes his real kindness and a +lurking tenderness of heart, but which made him a vigorous +administrator intolerant of dishonesty and inefficiency. He was more +contemptuous of Lincoln than ever, he would constantly be denouncing +his imbecility, and it is incredible that kind friends were wanting to +convey his opinion to Lincoln. Lincoln made him Secretary of War. + +Since the summer, to the impatient bewilderment of the Northern people, +of Congress, now again in session, and of the President himself, their +armies in the field were accomplishing just nothing at all, and, as +this agitating year, 1861, closed, a deep gloom settled on the North, +to be broken after a while by the glare of recurrent disaster. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE DISASTERS OF THE NORTH + +1. _Military Policy of the North_. + +The story of the war has here to be told from the point of view of the +civilian administrator, the President; stirring incidents of combat and +much else of interest must be neglected; episodes in the war which +peculiarly concerned him, or have given rise to controversy about him, +must be related lengthily. The President was an inexperienced man. It +should be said, too--for respect requires perfect frankness--that he +was one of an inexperienced people. The Americans had conquered their +independence from Great Britain at the time when the ruling factions of +our country had reached their utmost degree of inefficiency. They had +fought an indecisive war with us in 1812-14, while our main business +was to win at Salamanca and Vittoria. These experiences in some ways +warped American ideas of war and politics, and their influence perhaps +survives to this day. The extent of the President's authority and his +position in regard to the advice he could obtain have been explained. +An examination of the tangle in which military policy was first +involved may make the chief incidents of the war throughout easier to +follow. + +Immediately after Bull Run McClellan had been summoned to Washington to +command the army of the Potomac. In November, Scott, worn out by +infirmity, and finding his authority slighted by "my ambitious junior," +retired, and thereupon McClellan, while retaining his immediate command +upon the Potomac, was made for the time General-in-Chief over all the +armies of the North. There were, it should be repeated, two other +principal armies besides that of the Potomac: the army of the Ohio, of +which General Buell was given command in July; and that of the West, to +which General Halleck was appointed, though Frémont seems to have +retained independent command in Missouri. All these armies were in an +early stage of formation and training, and from a purely military point +of view there could be no haste to undertake a movement of invasion +with any of them. + +Three distinct views of military policy were presented to Lincoln in +the early days. Scott, as soon as it was clear that the South meant +real fighting, saw how serious its resistance would be. His military +judgment was in favour of a strictly defensive attitude before +Washington; of training the volunteers for at least four months in +healthy camps; and of then pushing a large army right down the +Mississippi valley to New Orleans, making the whole line of that river +secure, and establishing a pressure on the South between this Western +army and the naval blockade which must slowly have strangled the +Confederacy. He was aware that public impatience might not allow a +rigid adherence to his policy, and in fact, when his view was made +public before Bull Run, "Scott's Anaconda," coiling itself round the +Confederacy, was the subject of general derision. The view of the +Northern public and of the influential men in Congress was in favour of +speedy and, as it was hoped, decisive action, and this was understood +as involving, whatever else was done, an attempt soon to capture +Richmond. In McClellan's view, as in Scott's, the first object was the +full preparation of the Army, but he would have wished to wait till he +had a fully trained force of 273,000 men on the Potomac, and a powerful +fleet with many transports to support his movements; and, when he had +all this, to move southwards in irresistible force, both advancing +direct into Virginia and landing at points on the coast, subduing each +of the Atlantic States of the Confederacy in turn. If the indefinite +delay and the overwhelming force which his fancy pictured could have +been granted him, it is plain, the military critics have said, that "he +could not have destroyed the Southern armies--they would have withdrawn +inland, and the heart of the Confederacy would have remained +untouched." But neither the time nor the force for which he wished +could be allowed him. So he had to put aside his plan, but in some +ways perhaps it still influenced him. + +It would have been impossible to disregard the wishes of those, who in +the last resort were masters, for a vigorous attempt on Richmond, and +the continually unsuccessful attempts that were made did serve a +military purpose, for they kept up a constant drain upon the resources +of the South. In any well-thought-out policy the objects both of +Scott's plan and of the popular plan would have been borne in mind. +That no such policy was consistently followed from the first was partly +a result of the long-continued difficulty in finding any younger man +who could adequately take the place of Scott; it was not for a want of +clear ideas, right or wrong, on Lincoln's part. + +Only two days after the battle of Bull Run, he put on paper his own +view as to the future employment of the three armies. He thought that +one should "threaten" Richmond; that one should move from Cincinnati, +in Ohio, by a pass called Cumberland Gap in Kentucky, upon Knoxville in +Eastern Tennessee; and that the third, using Cairo on the Mississippi +as its base, should advance upon Memphis, some 120 miles further south +on that river. Apparently he did not at first wish to commit the army +of the Potomac very deeply in its advance on Richmond, and he certainly +wished throughout that it should cover Washington against any possible +attack. Memphis was one of the three points at which the Southern +railway system touched the great river and communicated with the States +beyond--Vicksburg and New Orleans, much further south, were the others. +Knoxville again is a point, by occupying which, the Northern forces +would have cut the direct railway communication between Virginia and +the West, but for this move into Eastern Tennessee Lincoln had other +reasons nearer his heart. The people of that region were strongly for +the Union; they were invaded by the Confederates and held down by +severe coercion, and distressing appeals from them for help kept +arriving through the autumn; could they have been succoured and their +mountainous country occupied by the North, a great stronghold of the +Union would, it seemed to Lincoln, have been planted securely far into +the midst of the Confederacy. Therefore he persistently urged this +part of his scheme on the attention of his generals. The chief +military objection raised by Buell was that his army would have to +advance 150 miles from the nearest base of supply upon a railway; (for +200 miles to the west of the Alleghanies there were no railways running +from north to south). To meet this Lincoln, in September, urged upon a +meeting of important Senators and Representatives the construction of a +railway line from Lexington in Kentucky southwards, but his hearers, +with their minds narrowed down to an advance on Richmond, seem to have +thought the relatively small cost in time and money of this work too +great. Lincoln still thought an expedition to Eastern Tennessee +practicable at once, and it has been argued from the circumstances in +which one was made nearly two years later that he was right. It would, +one may suppose, have been unwise to separate the armies of the Ohio +and of the West so widely; for the main army of the Confederates in the +West, under their most trusted general, Albert Sidney Johnston, was +from September onwards in South-western Kentucky, and could have struck +at either of these two Northern armies; and this was in Buell's mind. +On the other hand, Lincoln's object was a wise one in itself and would +have been worth some postponement of the advance along the Mississippi +if thereby the army in the West could have been used in support of it. +However this may be, the fact is that Lincoln's plan, as it stood, was +backed up by McClellan; McClellan was perhaps unduly anxious for Buell +to move on Eastern Tennessee, because this would have supported the +invasion of Virginia which he himself was now contemplating, and he was +probably forgetful of the West; but he was Lincoln's highest military +adviser and his capacity was still trusted. Buell's own view was that, +when he moved, it should be towards Western Tennessee. He would have +had a railway connection behind him all his way, and Albert Johnston's +army would have lain before him. He wished that Halleck meanwhile +should advance up the courses of the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers; +Eastern Tennessee (he may have thought) would be in the end more +effectively succoured; their two armies would thus have converged on +Johnston's. Halleck agreed with Buell to the extent of disagreeing +with Lincoln and McClellan, but no further. He declined to move in +concert with Buell. Frémont had disorganised the army of the West, and +Halleck, till he had repaired the mischief, permitted only certain +minor enterprises under his command. + +Each of the three generals, including the General-in-Chief, who was the +Government's chief adviser, was set upon his own immediate purpose, and +indisposed to understanding the situation of the others--Buell perhaps +the least so. Each of them had at first a very sound reason, the +unreadiness of his army, for being in no hurry to move, but then each +of them soon appeared to be a slow or unenterprising commander. Buell +was perhaps unlucky in this, for his whole conduct is the subject of +some controversy; but he did appear slow, and the two others, it is +universally agreed, really were so. As 1861 drew to a close, it became +urgent that something should be done somewhere, even if it were not +done in the best possible direction. The political pressure upon the +Administration became as great as before Bull Run. The army of the +Potomac had rapidly become a fine army, and its enemy, in no way +superior, lay entrenching at Manassas, twenty miles in front of it. +When Lincoln grew despondent and declared that "if something was not +done soon, the bottom would drop out of the whole concern," soldiers +remark that the military situation was really sound; but he was right, +for a people can hardly be kept up to the pitch of a high enterprise if +it is forced to think that nothing will happen. Before the end of the +year 1861 military reasons for waiting were no longer being urged; +McClellan had long been promising immediate action, Buell and Halleck +seemed merely unable to agree. + +In later days when Lincoln had learnt much by experience it is hard to +trace the signs of his influence in military matters, because, though +he followed them closely, he was commonly in full agreement with his +chief general and he invariably and rightly left him free. At this +stage, when his position was more difficult, and his guidance came from +common sense and the military books, of which, ever since Bull Run, he +had been trying, amidst all his work, to tear out the heart, there is +evidence on which to judge the intelligence which he applied to the +war. Certainly he now and ever after looked at the matter as a whole +and formed a clear view of it, which, for a civilian at any rate, was a +reasonable view. Certainly also at this time and for long after no +military adviser attempted, in correcting any error of his, to supply +him with a better opinion equally clear and comprehensive. This is +probably why some Northern military critics, when they came to read his +correspondence with his generals, called him, as his chief biographers +were tempted to think him, "the ablest strategist of the war." Grant +and Sherman did not say this; they said, what is another thing, that +his was the greatest intellectual force that they had met with. +Strictly speaking, he could not be a strategist. If he were so judged, +he would certainly be found guilty of having, till Grant came to +Washington, unduly scattered his forces. He could pick out the main +objects; but as to how to economise effort, what force and how composed +and equipped was necessary for a particular enterprise, whether in +given conditions of roads, weather, supplies, and previous fatigue, a +movement was practicable, and how long it would take any clever +subaltern with actual experience of campaigning ought to have been a +better judge than he. The test, which the reader must be asked to +apply to his conduct of the war, is whether he followed, duly or unduly +his own imperfect judgment, whether, on the whole, he gave in whenever +it was wise to the generals under him, and whether he did so without +losing his broad view or surrendering his ultimate purpose. It is +really no small proof of strength that, with the definite judgments +which he constantly formed, he very rarely indeed gave imperative +orders as Commander-in-Chief, which he was, to any general. The +circumstances, all of which will soon appear, in which he was tempted +or obliged to do so, are only the few marked exceptions to his habitual +conduct. There are significant contrary instances in which he +abstained even from seeking to know his general's precise intentions. +At the time which has just been reviewed, when the scheme of the war +was in the making, his correspondence with Buell and Halleck shows his +fundamental intention. He emphatically abstains from forcing them; he +lucidly, though not so tactfully as later, urges his own view upon the +consideration of his general, begging him, not necessarily to act upon +it, but at least to see the point, and if he will not do what is +wished, to form and explain as clearly a plan for doing something +better. + + +2. _The War in the West Up to May, 1862_. + +The pressure upon McClellan to move grew stronger and indeed more +justifiable month after month, and when at last, in March, 1862, +McClellan did move, the story of the severest adversity to the North, +of Lincoln's sorest trials, and, some still say, his gravest failures, +began. Its details will concern us more than those of any other part +of the war. But events in the West began earlier, proceeded faster, +and should be told first. Buell could not obtain from McClellan +permission to carry out his own scheme. He did, however, obtain +permission for Halleck, if he consented, to send flotillas up the +Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers to make a diversion while Buell, as +Lincoln had proposed and as McClellan had now ordered, marched upon +Eastern Tennessee. Halleck would not move. Buell prepared to move +alone, and in January, 1862, sent forward a small force under Thomas to +meet an equally small Confederate force that had advanced through +Cumberland Gap into Eastern Kentucky. Thomas won a complete victory, +most welcome as the first success since the defeat of Bull Run, at a +place called Mill Springs, far up the Cumberland River towards the +mountains. But at the end of January, while Buell was following up +with his forces rather widely dispersed because he expected no support +from Halleck, he was brought to a stop, for Halleck, without warning, +did make an important movement of his own, in which he would need +Buell's support. + +The Cumberland and the Tennessee are navigable rivers which in their +lower course flow parallel in a northerly or north-westerly direction +to join the Ohio not far above its junction with the Mississippi at +Cairo. Fort Henry was a Confederate fort guarding the navigation of +the Tennessee near the northern boundary of the State of that name, +Fort Donelson was another on the Cumberland not far off. Ulysses +Simpson Grant, who had served with real distinction in the Mexican War, +had retired from the Army and had been more or less employed about his +father's leather store in Illinois and in the gloomy pursuit of +intoxication and of raising small sums from reluctant friends when he +met them. On the outbreak of the Civil War he suddenly pulled himself +together, and with some difficulty got employment from the Governor of +Illinois as a Major-General in the State Militia (obtaining Army rank +later). Since then, while serving under Halleck, he had shown sense +and promptitude in seizing an important point on the Ohio, upon which +the Confederates had designs. He had a quick eye for seeing important +points. Grant was now ordered or obtained permission from Halleck to +capture Fort Henry and Fort Donelson. By the sudden movements of Grant +and of the flotilla acting with him, the Confederates were forced to +abandon Fort Henry on February 6, 1862. Ten days later Fort Donelson +surrendered with nearly 10,000 prisoners, after a brilliant and nearly +successful sortie by the garrison, in which Grant showed, further, +tenacity and a collected mind under the pressure of imminent calamity. +Halleck had given Grant little help. Buell was reluctant to detach any +of his volunteer troops from their comrades to act with a strange army, +and Halleck had not warned him of his intentions. Halleck soon applied +to Lincoln for the supreme command over the two Western armies with +Buell under him. This was given to him. Experience showed that one or +the other must command now that concerted action was necessary. +Nothing was known at Washington to set against Halleck's own claim of +the credit for the late successes. So Lincoln gave him the command, +though present knowledge shows clearly that Buell was the better man. +Grant had been left before Fort Donelson in a position of some danger +from the army under Albert Johnston; and, from needless fear of +Beauregard with a Confederate force under him yet further West, Halleck +let slip the chance of sending Grant in pursuit of Johnston, who was +falling back up the Cumberland valley. As it was, Johnston for a time +evacuated Nashville, further up the Cumberland, the chief town of +Tennessee and a great railway centre, which Buell promptly occupied; +Beauregard withdrew the Confederate troops from Columbus, a fortress of +great reputed strength on the Mississippi not far below Cairo, to +positions forty or fifty miles (as the crow flies) further down the +stream. Thus, as it was, some important steps had been gained in +securing that control of the navigation of the river which was one of +the great military objects of the North. Furthermore, successful work +was being done still further West by General Curtis in Missouri, who +drove an invading force back into Arkansas and inflicted a crushing +defeat upon them there in March. But a great stroke should now have +been struck. Buell, it is said, saw plainly that his forces and +Halleck's should have been concentrated as far up the Tennessee as +possible in an endeavour to seize upon the main railway system of the +Confederacy in the West. Halleck preferred, it would seem, to +concentrate upon nothing and to scatter his forces upon minor +enterprises, provided he did not risk any important engagement. An +important engagement with the hope of destroying an army of the enemy +was the very thing which, as Johnston's forces now stood, he should +have sought, but he appears to have been contented by the temporary +retirement of an unscathed enemy who would return again reinforced. +Buell was an unlucky man, and Halleck got quite all he deserved, so it +is possible that events have been described to us without enough regard +to Halleck's case as against Buell. But at any rate, while much should +have been happening, nothing very definite did happen till April 6, +when Albert Johnston, now strongly reinforced from the extreme South, +came upon Grant, who (it is not clear why) had lain encamped, without +entrenching, and not expecting immediate attack, near Shiloh, far up +the Tennessee River in the extreme south of Tennessee State. Buell at +the time, though without clear information as to Grant's danger, was on +his way to join him. There seems to have been negligence both on +Halleck's part and on Grant's. The battle of Shiloh is said to have +been highly characteristic of the combats of partly disciplined armies, +in which the individual qualities, good or bad, of the troops play a +conspicuous part. Direction on the part of Johnston or Grant was not +conspicuously seen, but the latter, whose troops were surprised and +driven back some distance, was intensely determined. In the course of +that afternoon Albert Johnston was killed. Rightly or wrongly +Jefferson Davis and his other friends regarded his death as the +greatest of calamities to the South. After the manner of many battles, +more especially in this war, the battle of Shiloh was the subject of +long subsequent dispute between friends of Grant and of Buell, and far +more bitter dispute between friends of Albert Johnston and Beauregard. +But it seems that the South was on the point of winning, till late on +the 6th the approach of the first reinforcements from Buell made it +useless to attempt more. By the following morning further large +reinforcements had come up; Grant in his turn attacked, and Beauregard +had difficulty in turning a precipitate retirement into an orderly +retreat upon Corinth, forty miles away, a junction upon the principal +railway line to be defended. The next day General Pope, who had some +time before been detached by Halleck for this purpose, after arduous +work in canal cutting, captured, with 7,000 prisoners, the northernmost +forts held by the Confederacy on the Mississippi. But Halleck's plans +required that his further advance should be stopped. Halleck himself, +in his own time, arrived at the front. In his own time, after being +joined by Pope, he advanced, carefully entrenching himself every night. +He covered in something over a month the forty miles route to Corinth, +which, to his surprise, was bloodlessly evacuated before him. He was +an engineer, and like some other engineers in the Civil War, was +overmuch set upon a methodical and cautious procedure. But his mere +advance to Corinth caused the Confederates to abandon yet another fort +on the Mississippi, and on June 6 the Northern troops were able to +occupy Memphis, for which Lincoln had long wished, while the flotilla +accompanying them destroyed a Confederate flotilla. Meanwhile, on May +1, Admiral Farragut, daringly running up the Mississippi, had captured +New Orleans, and a Northern force under Butler was able to establish +itself in Louisiana. The North had now gained the command of most of +the Mississippi, for only the hundred miles or so between Vicksburg far +south and Port Hudson, between that and New Orleans, was still held by +the South; and command by Northern gunboats of the chief tributaries of +the great river was also established. The Confederate armies in the +West were left intact, though with some severe losses, and would be +able before long to strike northward in a well-chosen direction; for +all that these were great and permanent gains. Yet the North was not +cheered. The great loss of life at Shiloh, the greatest battle in the +war so far, created a horrible impression. Halleck, under whom all +this progress had been made, properly enough received a credit, which +critics later have found to be excessive, though it is plain that he +had reorganised his army well; but Grant was felt to have been caught +napping at Shiloh; there were other rumours about him, too, and he fell +deep into general disfavour. The events of the Western war did not +pause for long, but, till the end of this year 1862, the North made no +further definite progress, and the South, though it was able to invade +the North, achieved no Important result. It will be well then here to +take up the story of events in the East and to follow them continuously +till May, 1863, when the dazzling fortune of the South in that theatre +if the war reached its highest point. + + +3. _The War in the East Up to May, 1863_. + +The interest of this part of the Civil War lies chiefly in the +achievements of Lee and "Stonewall" Jackson. From the point of view of +the North, it was not only disastrous but forms a dreary and +controversial chapter. George McClellan came to Washington amid +overwhelming demonstrations of public confidence. His comparative +youth added to the interest taken in him; and he was spoken of as "the +young Napoleon." This ridiculous name for a man already thirty-four +was a sign that the people expected impossible things from him. +Letters to his wife, which have been injudiciously published, show him +to us delighting at first in the consideration paid to him by Lincoln +and Scott, proudly confident in his own powers, rather elated than +otherwise by a sense that the safety of the country rested on him +alone. "I shall carry the thing _en grande_, and crush the rebels in +one campaign." He soon had a magnificent army; he may be said to have +made it himself. Before, as he thought, the time had come to use it, +he had fallen from favour, and a dead set was being made against him in +Washington. A little later, at the crisis of his great venture, when, +as he claimed, the Confederate capital could have been taken, his +expedition was recalled. Then at a moment of deadly peril to the +country his services were again called in. He warded off the danger. +Yet a little while and his services were discarded for ever. This +summary, which is the truth, but not the whole truth, must enlist a +certain sympathy for him. The chief fact of his later life should at +once be added. In 1864, when a Presidential election was approaching +and despondency prevailed widely in the North, he was selected as the +champion of a great party. The Democrats adopted a "platform" which +expressed neither more nor less than a desire to end the war on any +terms. In accordance with the invariable tradition of party opposition +in war time, they chose a war hero as their candidate for the +Presidency. McClellan publicly repudiated their principles, and no +doubt he meant it, but he became their candidate--their master or their +servant as it might prove. That he was Lincoln's opponent in the +election of that year ensured that his merits and his misfortunes would +be long remembered, but his action then may suggest to any one the +doubtful point in his career all along. + +Some estimate of his curious yet by no means uncommon type of character +is necessary, if Lincoln's relations with him are to be understood at +all. The devotion to him shown by his troops proves that he had great +titles to confidence, besides, what he also had, a certain faculty of +parade, with his handsome charger, his imposing staff and the rest. He +was a great trainer of soldiers, and with some strange lapses, a good +organiser. He was careful for the welfare of his men; and his almost +tender carefulness of their lives contrasted afterwards with what +appeared the ruthless carelessness of Grant. Unlike some of his +successors, he could never be called an incapable commander. His great +opponent, Lee, who had known him of old, was wont to calculate on his +extraordinary want of enterprise, but he spoke of him on the whole in +terms of ample respect--also, by the way, he sympathised with him like +a soldier when, as he naturally assumed, he became a victim to scheming +politicians; and Lee confided this feeling to the ready ears of another +great soldier, Wolseley. As he showed himself in civil life, McClellan +was an attractive gentleman of genial address; it was voted that he was +"magnetic," and his private life was so entirely irreproachable as to +afford lively satisfaction. More than this, it may be conjectured that +to a certain standard of honour, loyalty, and patriotism, which he set +consciously before himself, he would always have been devotedly true. +But if it be asked further whether McClellan was the desired instrument +for Lincoln's and the country's needs, and whether, as the saying is, +he was a man to go tiger-hunting with, something very much against him, +though hard to define, appears in every part of his record (except +indeed, one performance in his Peninsular Campaign). Did he ever do +his best to beat the enemy? Did he ever, except for a moment, +concentrate himself singly upon any great object? Were even his +preparations thorough? Was his information ever accurate? Was his +purpose in the war ever definite, and, if so, made plain to his +Government? Was he often betrayed into marked frankness, or into +marked generosity? No one would be ready to answer yes to any of these +questions. McClellan fills so memorable a place in American history +that he demands such a label as can be given to him. In the most +moving and the most authentic of all Visions of Judgment, men were not +set on the right hand or the left according as they were of +irreproachable or reproachable character; they were divided into those +who did and those who did not. In the provisional judgment which men, +if they make it modestly, should at times make with decision, +McClellan's place is clear. The quality, "spiacente a Dio ed ai nemici +suoi," of the men who did not, ran through and through him. + +Lincoln required first a general who would make no fatal blunder, but +he required too, when he could find him, a general of undaunted +enterprise; he did not wish to expose the North to disaster, but he did +mean to conquer the South. There was some security in employing +McClellan, though employing him did at one time throw on Lincoln's +unfit shoulders the task of defending Washington. It proved very hard +to find another general equally trustworthy. But, in the light of +facts which Lincoln came to perceive, it proved impossible to consider +McClellan as the man to finish the war. + +We need only notice the doings of the main armies in this theatre of +the war and take no account of various minor affairs at outlying posts. +From the battle of Bull Run, which was on July 21, 1861, to March 5, +1862, the Southern army under Joseph Johnston lay quietly drilling at +Manassas. It, of course, entrenched its position, but to add to the +appearance of its strength, it constructed embrasures for more than its +number of guns and had dummy guns to show in them. At one moment there +was a prospect that it might move. Johnston and the general with him +had no idea of attacking the army of the Potomac where it lay, but they +did think that with a further 50,000 or 60,000 they might successfully +invade Maryland, crossing higher up the Potomac, and by drawing +McClellan away from his present position, get a chance of defeating +him. The Southern President came to Manassas, at their invitation, on +October 1, but he did not think well to withdraw the trained men whom +he could have sent to Johnston from the various points in the South at +which they were stationed; he may have had good reasons but it is +likely that he sacrificed one of the best chances of the South. +McClellan's army was soon in as good a state of preparation as +Johnston's. Early in October McClellan had, on his own statement, over +147,000 men at his disposal; Joseph Johnston, on his own statement, +under 47,000. Johnston was well informed as to McClellan's +numbers--very likely he could get information from Maryland more easily +than McClellan from Virginia. The two armies lay not twenty-five miles +apart. The weather and the roads were good to the end of December; the +roads were practicable by March and they seem to have been so all the +time. As spring approached, it appeared to the Southern generals that +McClellan must soon advance. Johnston thought that his right flank was +liable to be turned and the railway communications south of Manassas +liable to be cut. In the course of February it was realised that his +position was too dangerous; the large stores accumulated there were +removed; and when, early in March, there were reports of unusual +activity in the Northern camp, Johnston, still expecting attack from +the same direction, began his retreat. On March 9 it was learned in +Washington that Manassas had been completely evacuated. McClellan +marched his whole army there, and marched it back. Johnston withdrew +quietly behind the Rapidan River, some 30 miles further south, and to +his surprise was left free from any pursuit. + +For months past the incessant report in the papers, "all quiet upon the +Potomac," had been getting upon the nerves of the North. The gradual +conversion of their pride in an imposing army into puzzled rage at its +inactivity has left a deeper impression on Northern memories than the +shock of disappointment at Bull Run. Public men of weight had been +pressing for an advance in November, and when the Joint Committee of +Congress, an arbitrary and meddlesome, but able and perhaps on the +whole useful body, was set up in December, it brought its full +influence to bear on the President. Lincoln was already anxious +enough; he wished to rouse McClellan himself to activity, while he +screened him against excessive impatience or interference with his +plans. It is impossible to say what was McClellan's real mind. Quite +early he seems to have held out hopes to Lincoln that he would soon +attack, but he was writing to his wife that he expected to be attacked +by superior numbers. It is certain, however, that he was possessed now +and always by a delusion as to the enemy's strength. For instance +Lincoln at last felt bound to work out for himself definite prospects +for a forward movement; it is sufficient to say of this layman's effort +that he proposed substantially the line of advance which Johnston a +little later began to dread most; Lincoln's plan was submitted for +McClellan's consideration; McClellan rejected it, and his reasons were +based on his assertion that he would have to meet nearly equal numbers. +He, in fact, out-numbered the enemy by more than three to one. If we +find the President later setting aside the general's judgment on +grounds that are not fully explained, we must recall McClellan's vast +and persistent miscalculations of an enemy resident in his +neighbourhood. And the distrust which he thus created was aggravated +by another propensity of his vague mind. His illusory fear was the +companion of an extravagant hope; the Confederate army was invincible +when all the world expected him to attack it then and there, but the +blow which he would deal it in his own place and his own time was to +have decisive results, which were indeed impossible; the enemy was to +"pass beneath the Caudine Forks." The demands which he made on the +Administration for men and supplies seemed to have no finality about +them; his tone in regard to them seemed to degenerate into a chronic +grumble. The War Department certainly did not intend to stint him in +any way; but he was an unsatisfactory man to deal with in these +matters. There was a great mystery as to what became of the men sent +to him. In the idyllic phrase, which Lincoln once used of him or of +some other general, sending troops to him was "like shifting fleas +across a barn floor with a shovel--not half of them ever get there." +But his fault was graver than this; utterly ignoring the needs of the +West, he tried, as General-in-Chief, to divert to his own army the +recruits and the stores required for the other armies. + +The difficulty with him went yet further; McClellan himself +deliberately set to work to destroy personal harmony between himself +and his Government. It counts for little that in private he soon set +down all the civil authorities as the "greatest set of incapables," and +so forth, but it counts for more that he was personally insolent to the +President. Lincoln had been in the habit, mistaken in this case but +natural in a chief who desires to be friendly, of calling at +McClellan's house rather than summoning him to his own. McClellan +acquired a habit of avoiding him, he treated his enquiries as idle +curiosity, and he probably thought, not without a grain of reason, that +Lincoln's way of discussing matters with many people led him into +indiscretion. So one evening when Lincoln and Seward were waiting at +the general's house for his return, McClellan came in and went +upstairs; a message was sent that the President would be glad to see +him; he said he was tired and would rather be excused that night. +Lincoln damped down his friends' indignation at this; he would, he once +said, "hold General McClellan's stirrup for him if he will only win us +victories." But he called no more at McClellan's, and a curious +abruptness in some of his orders later marks his unsuccessful effort to +deal with McClellan in another way. The slightly ridiculous light in +which the story shows Lincoln would not obscure to any soldier the full +gravity of such an incident. It was not merely foolish to treat a kind +superior rudely; a general who thus drew down a curtain between his own +mind and that of the Government evidently went a very long way to +ensure failure in war. + +Lincoln had failed to move McClellan early in December. For part of +that month and January McClellan was very ill. Consultations were held +with other generals, including McDowell, who could not be given the +chief command because the troops did not trust him. McDowell and the +rest were in agreement with Lincoln. Then McClellan suddenly recovered +and was present at a renewed consultation. He snubbed McDowell; the +inadequacy of his force to meet, in fact, less than a third of its +number was "so plain that a blind man could see it"; he was severely +and abruptly tackled as to his own plans by Secretary Chase; Lincoln +intervened to shield him, got from him a distinct statement that he had +in his mind a definite time for moving, and adjourned the meeting. +Stanton, one of the friends to whom McClellan had confided his +grievances, was now at the War Department and was at one with the Joint +Committee of Congress in his impatience that McClellan should move. At +last, on January 27, Lincoln published a "General War Order" that a +forward movement was to be made by the army of the Potomac and the +Western armies on February 22. It seems a blundering step, but it +roused McClellan. For a time he even thought of acting as Lincoln +wished; he would move straight against Johnston, and "in ten days," he +told Chase on February 13, "I shall be in Richmond." But he quickly +returned to the plan which he seems to have been forming before but +which he only now revealed to the Government, and it was a plan which +involved further delay. When February 22 passed and nothing was done, +the Joint Committee were indignant that Lincoln still stood by +McClellan. But McClellan now was proposing definite action; apart from +the difficulty of finding a better man, there was the fact that +McClellan had made his army and was beloved by it; above all, Lincoln +had not lost all the belief he had formed at first in McClellan's +capacity; he believed that "if he could once get McClellan started" he +would do well. Professional criticism, alive to McClellan's military +faults, has justified Lincoln in this, and it was for something other +than professional failure that Lincoln at last removed him. + +McClellan had determined to move his army by sea to some point further +down the coast of the Chesapeake Bay. The questions which Lincoln +wrote to him requesting a written answer have never been adequately +answered. Did McClellan's plan, he asked, require less time or money +than Lincoln's? Did it make victory more certain? Did it make it more +valuable? In case of disaster, did it make retreat more easy? The one +point for consideration in McClellan's reply to him is that the enemy +did not expect such a movement. This was quite true; but the enemy was +able to meet it, and McClellan was far too deliberate to reap any +advantage from a surprise. His original plan was to land near a place +called Urbana on the estuary of the Rappahannock, not fifty miles east +of Richmond. When he heard that Johnston had retreated further south, +he assumed, and ever after declared, that this was to anticipate his +design upon Urbana, which, he said, must have reached the enemy's ears +through the loose chattering of the Administration. As has been seen, +this was quite untrue. His project of going to Urbana was now changed, +by himself or the Government, upon the unanimous advice of his chief +subordinate generals, into a movement to Fort Monroe, which he had even +before regarded as preferable to a direct advance southwards. A few +days after Johnston's retreat, the War Department began the embarkation +of his troops for this point. Fort Monroe is at the end of the +peninsula which lies between the estuaries of the York River on the +north and the James on the south. Near the base of this projection of +land, seventy-five miles from Fort Monroe, stands Richmond. On April +2, 1862, McClellan himself landed to begin the celebrated Peninsula +Campaign which was to close in disappointment at the end of July. + +Before the troops were sent to the Peninsula several things were to be +done. An expedition to restore communication westward by the Baltimore +and Ohio Rail way involved bridging the Potomac with boats which were +to be brought by canal. It collapsed because McClellan's boats were +six inches too wide for the canal locks. Then Lincoln had insisted +that the navigation of the lower Potomac should be made free from the +menace of Confederate batteries which, if McClellan would have +co-operated with the Navy Department, would have been cleared away long +before. This was now done, and though a new peril to the +transportation of McClellan's army suddenly and dramatically disclosed +itself, it was as suddenly and dramatically removed. In the hasty +abandonment of Norfolk harbour on the south of the James estuary by the +North, a screw steamer called the _Merrimac_ had been partly burnt and +scuttled by the North. On March 1 she steamed out of the harbour in +sight of the North. The Confederates had raised her and converted her +into an ironclad. Three wooden ships of the North gave gallant but +useless fight to her and were destroyed that day; and the news spread +consternation in every Northern port. On the very next morning there +came into the mouth of the James the rival product of the Northern Navy +Department and of the Swedish engineer Ericsson's invention. She was +compared to a "cheesebox on a raft"; she was named the _Monitor_, and +was the parent of a type of vessel so called which has been heard of +much more recently. The _Merrimac_ and the _Monitor_ forthwith fought +a three hours' duel; then each retired into harbour without fatal +damage. But the _Merrimac_ never came out again; she was destroyed by +the Confederates when McClellan had advanced some way up the Peninsula; +and it will be unnecessary to speak of the several similar efforts of +the South, which nearly but not quite achieved very important successes +later. + +Before and after his arrival at the Peninsula, McClellan received +several mortifications. Immediately after the humiliation of the +enemy's escape from Manassas, he was without warning relieved of his +command as General-in-Chief. This would in any case have followed +naturally upon his expedition away from Washington; it was in public +put on that ground alone; and he took it well. He had been urged to +appoint corps commanders, for so large a force as his could not remain +organised only in divisions; he preferred to wait till he had made +trial of the generals under him; Lincoln would not have this delay, and +appointed corps commanders chosen by himself because he believed them +to be fighting men. The manner in which these and some other +preparatory steps were taken were, without a doubt, intended to make +McClellan feel the whip. They mark a departure, not quite happy at +first, from Lincoln's formerly too gentle manner. A worse shock to +McClellan followed. The President had been emphatic in his orders that +a sufficient force should be left to make Washington safe, and supposed +that he had come to a precise understanding on this point. He suddenly +discovered that McClellan, who had now left for Fort Monroe, had +ordered McDowell to follow him with a force so large that it would not +leave the required number behind. Lincoln immediately ordered McDowell +and his whole corps to remain, though he subsequently sent a part of it +to McClellan. McClellan's story later gives reason for thinking that +he had intended no deception; but if so, he had expressed himself with +unpardonable vagueness, and he had not in fact left Washington secure. +Now and throughout this campaign Lincoln took the line that Washington +must be kept safe--safe in the judgment of all the best military +authorities available. + +McClellan's progress up the Peninsula was slow. He had not informed +himself correctly as to the geography; he found the enemy not so +unprepared as he had supposed; he wasted, it is agreed, a month in +regular approaches to their thinly-manned fortifications at Yorktown, +when he might have carried them by assault. He was soon confronted by +Joseph Johnston, and he seems both to have exaggerated Johnston's +numbers again and to have been unprepared for his movements. The +Administration does not seem to have spared any effort to support him. +In addition to the 100,000 troops he took with him, 40,000 altogether +were before long despatched to him. He was operating in a very +difficult country, but he was opposed at first by not half his own +number. Lincoln, in friendly letters, urged upon him that delay +enabled the enemy to strengthen himself both in numbers and in +fortifications. The War Department did its best for him. The whole of +his incessant complaints on this score are rendered unconvincing by the +language of his private letters about that "sink of iniquity, +Washington," "those treacherous hounds," the civil authorities, who +were at least honest and intelligent men, and the "Abolitionists and +other scoundrels," who, he supposed, wished the destruction of his +army. The criticism in Congress of himself and his generals was no +doubt free, but so, as Lincoln reminded him, was the criticism of +Lincoln himself. Justly or not, there were complaints of his relations +with corps commanders. Lincoln gave no weight to them, but wrote him a +manly and a kindly warning. The points of controversy which McClellan +bequeathed to writers on the Civil War are innumerable, but no one can +read his correspondence at this stage without concluding that he was +almost impossible to deal with, and that the whole of his evidence in +his own case was vitiated by a sheer hallucination that people wished +him to fail. He had been nearly two months in the Peninsula when he +was attacked at a disadvantage by Johnston, but defeated him on May 31 +and June 1 in a battle which gave confidence and prestige to the +Northern side, but which he did not follow up. A part of his army +pursued the enemy to within four miles of Richmond, and it has been +contended that if he had acted with energy he could at this time have +taken that city. His delay, to whatever it was due, gave the enemy +time to strengthen himself greatly both in men and in fortifications. +The capable Johnston was severely wounded in the battle, and was +replaced by the inspired Lee. According to McClellan's own account, +which English writers have followed, his movements had been greatly +embarrassed by the false hope given him that McDowell was now to march +overland and join him. His statement that he was influenced by this is +refuted by his own letters at the time. McClellan, however, suffered a +great disappointment. The front of Washington was now clear of the +enemy and Lincoln had determined to send McDowell when he was induced +to keep him back by a diversion in the war which he had not expected, +and which indeed McClellan had advised him not to expect. + +"Stonewall" Jackson's most famous campaign happened at this juncture, +and to save Washington, Lincoln and Stanton placed themselves, or were +placed, in the trying position of actually directing movements of +troops. There were to the south and south-west of Washington, besides +the troops under McDowell's command, two Northern forces respectively +commanded by Generals Banks and Frémont. These two men were among the +chief examples of those "political generals," the use of whom in this +early and necessarily blundering stage of the war has been the subject +of much comment. Banks was certainly a politician, a self-made man, +who had worked in a factory and who had risen to be at one time Speaker +of the House. He was now a general because as a powerful man in the +patriotic State of Massachusetts he brought with him many men, and +these were ready to obey him. On the other hand, he on several +occasions showed good judgment both in military matters and in the +questions of civil administration which came under him; his heart was +in his duty; and, though he held high commands almost to the end of the +war, want of competence was never imputed to him till the failure of a +very difficult enterprise on which he was despatched in 1864. He was +now in the lower valley of the Shenandoah, keeping a watch over a much +smaller force under Jackson higher up the valley. Frémont was in some +sense a soldier, but after his record in Missouri he should never have +been employed. His new appointment was one of Lincoln's greatest +mistakes, and it was a mistake of a characteristic kind. It will +easily be understood that there were real political reasons for not +leaving this popular champion of freedom unused and unrecognized. +These reasons should not have, and probably would not have, prevailed. +But Lincoln's personal reluctance to resist all entreaties on behalf of +his own forerunner and his own rival was great; and then Frémont came +to Lincoln and proposed to him a knight-errant's adventure to succour +the oppressed Unionists of Tennessee by an expedition through West +Virginia. So he was now to proceed there, but was kept for the present +in the mountains near the Shenandoah valley. The way in which the +forces under McDowell, Banks and Frémont were scattered on various +errands was unscientific; what could be done by Jackson, in +correspondence with Lee, was certainly unforeseen. At the beginning of +May, Jackson, who earlier in the spring had achieved some minor +successes in the Shenandoah valley and had raided West Virginia, began +a series of movements of which the brilliant skill and daring are +recorded in Colonel Henderson's famous book. With a small force, +surrounded by other forces, each of which, if concentrated, should have +outnumbered him, he caught each in turn at a disadvantage, inflicted on +them several damaging blows, and put the startled President and +Secretary of War in fear for the safety of Washington. There seemed to +be no one available who could immediately be charged with the supreme +command of these three Northern forces, unless McDowell could have been +spared from where he was; so Lincoln with Stanton's help took upon +himself to ensure the co-operation of their three commanders by orders +from Washington. His self-reliance had now begun to reach its full +stature, his military good sense in comparison with McClellan's was +proving greater than he had supposed, and he had probably not +discovered its limitations. Presumably his plans now were, like an +amateur's, too complicated, and it is not worth while to discuss them. +But he was trying to cope with newly revealed military genius, and, so +far as can be told, he was only prevented from crushing the adventurous +Jackson by a piece of flat disobedience on the part of Frémont. +Frémont, having thus appropriately punished Lincoln, was removed, this +time finally, from command. Jackson, having successfully kept McDowell +from McClellan, had before the end of June escaped safe southward. +McClellan was nearing Richmond. Lee, by this time, had been set free +from Jefferson Davis' office and had taken over the command of Joseph +Johnston's army. Lincoln must have learnt a great deal, and he fully +realised that the forces not under McClellan in the East should be +under some single commander. Pope, an experienced soldier, had +succeeded well in the West; he was no longer necessary there, and there +was no adverse criticism upon him. He was in all respects a proper +choice, and he was now summoned to take command of what was to be +called the army of Virginia. A few days later, upon the advice, as it +seems, of Scott, Halleck himself was called from the West. His old +command was left to Grant and he himself was made General-in-Chief and +continued at Washington to the end of the war as an adviser of the +Government. All the progress in the West had been made under Halleck's +supervision, and his despatches had given an exaggerated impression of +his own achievement at Corinth. He had not seen active service before +the war, but he had a great name as an accomplished military writer; in +after years he was well known as a writer on international law. He is +not thought to have justified his appointment by showing sound judgment +about war, and Lincoln upon some later emergency told him in his direct +way that his military knowledge was useless if he could not give a +definite decision in doubtful circumstances. But whether Halleck's +abilities were great or small, Lincoln continued to use them, because +he found him "wholly for the service," without personal favour or +prejudice. + +McClellan was slowly but steadily nearing Richmond. From June 26 to +July 2 there took place a series of engagements between Lee and +McClellan, or rather the commanders under him, known as the Seven Days' +Battles. The fortunes of the fighting varied greatly, but the upshot +is that, though the corps on McClellan's left won a strong position not +far from Richmond, the sudden approach of Jackson's forces upon +McClellan's right flank, which began on the 26th, placed him in what +appears to have been, as he himself thought it, a situation of great +danger. Lee is said to have "read McClellan like an open book," +playing upon his caution, which made him, while his subordinates +fought, more anxious to secure their retreat than to seize upon any +advantage they gained. But Lee's reading deceived him in one respect. +He had counted upon McClellan's retreating, but thought he would +retreat under difficulties right down the Peninsula to his original +base and be thoroughly cut up on the way. But on July 2 McClellan with +great skill withdrew his whole army to Harrison's Landing far up the +James estuary, having effected with the Navy a complete transference of +his base. Here his army lay in a position of security; they might yet +threaten Richmond, and McClellan's soldiers still believed in him. But +the South was led by a great commander and had now learned to give him +unbounded confidence; there was some excuse for a panic in Wall Street, +and every reason for dejection in the North. + +On the third of the Seven Days, McClellan, much moved by the sight of +dead and wounded comrades, sent a gloomy telegram to the Secretary of +War, appealing with excessive eloquence for more men. "I only wish to +say to the President," he remarked in it, "that I think he is wrong in +regarding me as ungenerous when I said that my force was too weak." He +concluded: "If I save the army now, I tell you plainly that I owe no +thanks to you nor to any other persons in Washington. You have done +your best to sacrifice this army." Stanton still expressed the +extraordinary hope that Richmond would fall in a day or two. He had +lately committed the folly of suspending enlistment, an act which, +though of course there is an explanation of it, must rank as the one +first-rate blunder of Lincoln's Administration. He was now negotiating +through the astute Seward for offers from the State Governors of a levy +of 300,000 men to follow up McClellan's success. Lincoln, as was his +way, feared the worst. He seems at one moment to have had fears for +McClellan's sanity. But he telegraphed, himself, an answer to him, +which affords as fair an example as can be given of his characteristic +manner. "Save your army at all events. Will send reinforcements as +fast as we can. Of course they cannot reach you to-day or to-morrow, +or next day. I have not said you were ungenerous for saying you needed +reinforcements. I thought you were ungenerous in assuming that I did +not send them as fast as I could. I feel any misfortune to you and +your army quite as keenly as you feel it yourself. If you have had a +drawn battle or repulse, it is the price we pay for the enemy not being +in Washington. We protected Washington and the enemy concentrated on +you. Had we stripped Washington, he would have been upon us before the +troops could have gotten to you. Less than a week ago you notified us +reinforcements were leaving Richmond to come in front of us. It is +the nature of the case, and neither you nor the Government are to +blame. Please tell me at once the present condition and aspect of +things." + +Demands for an impossible number of reinforcements continued. Lincoln +explained to McClellan a few days later that they were impossible, and +added: "If in your frequent mention of responsibility you have the +impression that I blame you for not doing more than you can, please be +relieved of such an impression. I only beg that, in like manner, you +will not ask impossibilities of me." Much argument upon Lincoln's next +important act may be saved by the simple observations that the problem +in regard to the defence of Washington was real, that McClellan's +propensity to ask for the impossible was also real, and that Lincoln's +patient and loyal attitude to him was real too. + +Five days after his arrival at Harrison's Landing, McClellan wrote +Lincoln a long letter. It was a treatise upon Lincoln's political +duties. It was written as "on the brink of eternity." He was not then +in fact in any danger, and possibly he had composed it seven days +before as his political testament; and apprehensions, free from +personal fear, excuse, without quite redeeming, its inappropriateness. +The President is before all things not to abandon the cause. But the +cause should be fought for upon Christian principles. Christian +principles exclude warfare on private property. More especially do +they exclude measures for emancipating slaves. And if the President +gives way to radical views on slavery, he will get no soldiers. Then +follows a mandate to the President to appoint a Commander-in-Chief, not +necessarily the writer. Such a summary does injustice to a certain +elevation of tone in the letter, but that elevation is itself slightly +strained. McClellan, whatever his private opinions, had not meddled +with politics before he left Washington. The question why in this +military crisis he should have written what a Democratic politician +might have composed as a party manifesto must later have caused Lincoln +some thought, but it apparently did not enter into the decision he next +took. He arrived himself at Harrison's Landing next day. McClellan +handed him the letter. Lincoln read it, and said that he was obliged +to him. McClellan sent a copy to his wife as "a very important record." + +Lincoln had come in order to learn the views of McClellan and all his +corps commanders. They differed a good deal on important points, but a +majority of them were naturally anxious to stay and fight there. +Lincoln was left in some anxiety as to how the health of the troops +would stand the climate of the coming months if they had to wait long +where they were. He was also disturbed by McClellan's vagueness about +the number of his men, for he now returned as present for duty a number +which far exceeded that which some of his recent telegrams had given +and yet fell short of the number sent him by an amount which no +reasonable estimate of killed, wounded, and sick could explain. This +added to Lincoln's doubt on the main question presented to him. +McClellan believed that he could take Richmond, but he demanded for +this very large reinforcements. Some part of them were already being +collected, but the rest could by no means be given him without leaving +Washington with far fewer troops to defend it than McClellan or anybody +else had hitherto thought necessary. + +On July 24, the day after his arrival at Washington, Halleck was sent +to consult with McClellan and his generals. The record of their +consultations sufficiently shows the intricacy of the problem to be +decided. The question of the health of the climate in August weighed +much with Halleck, but the most striking feature of their conversation +was the fluctuation of McClellan's own opinion upon each important +point--at one moment he even gave Halleck the impression that he wished +under all the circumstances to withdraw and to join Pope. When Halleck +returned to Washington McClellan telegraphed in passionate anxiety to +be left in the Peninsula and reinforced. On the other hand, some of +the officers of highest rank with him wrote strongly urging withdrawal. +This latter was the course on which Lincoln and Halleck decided. In +the circumstances it was certainly the simplest course to concentrate +all available forces in an attack upon the enemy from the direction of +Washington which would keep that capital covered all the while. It was +in any case no hasty and no indefensible decision, nor is there any +justification for the frequent assertion that some malignant influence +brought it about. It is one of the steps taken by Lincoln which have +been the most often lamented. But if McClellan had had all he demanded +to take Richmond and had made good his promise, what would Lee have +done? Lee's own answer to a similar question later was, "We would swap +queens"; that is, he would have taken Washington. If so the +Confederacy would not have fallen, but in all probability the North +would have collapsed, and European Powers would at the least have +recognised the Confederacy. + +Lincoln indeed had acted as any prudent civilian Minister would then +have acted. But disaster followed, or rather there followed, with +brief interruption, a succession of disasters which, after this long +tale of hesitation, can be quickly told. It would be easy to represent +them as a judgment upon the Administration which had rejected the +guidance of McClellan. But in the true perspective of the war, the +point which has now been reached marks the final election by the North +of the policy by which it won the war. McClellan, even if he had taken +Richmond while Washington remained safe, would have concentrated the +efforts of the North upon a line of advance which gave little promise +of finally reducing the Confederacy. It is evident to-day that the +right course for the North was to keep the threatening of Richmond and +the recurrent hammering at the Southern forces on that front duly +related to that continual process by which the vitals of the Southern +country were being eaten into from the west. This policy, it has been +seen, was present to Lincoln's mind from an early day; the temptation +to depart from it was now once for all rejected. On the other hand, +the three great Southern victories, the second battle of Bull Run, +Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville, which followed within the next +nine months, had no lasting influence. Jefferson Davis might perhaps +have done well if he had neglected all else and massed every man he +could gather to pursue the advantage which these battles gave him. He +did not--perhaps could not--do this. But he concentrated his greatest +resource of all, the genius of Lee, upon a point at which the real +danger did not lie. + +Pope had now set vigorously to work collecting and pulling together his +forces, which had previously been scattered under different commanders +in the north of Virginia. He was guilty of a General Order which +shocked people by its boastfulness, insulted the Eastern soldiers by a +comparison with their Western comrades, and threatened harsh and most +unjust treatment of the civil population of Virginia. But upon the +whole he created confidence, for he was an officer well trained in his +profession as well as an energetic man. The problem was now to effect +as quickly as possible the union of Pope's troops and McClellan's in an +overwhelming force. Pope was anxious to keep McClellan unmolested +while he embarked his men. So, to occupy the enemy, he pushed boldly +into Virginia; he pushed too far, placed himself in great danger from +the lightning movements which Lee now habitually employed Jackson to +execute, but extricated himself with much promptitude, though with some +considerable losses. McClellan had not been deprived of command; he +was in the curious and annoying position of having to transfer troops +to Pope till, for a moment, not a man remained under him, but the +process of embarking and transferring them gave full scope for energy +and skill. McClellan, as it appeared to Lincoln, performed his task +very slowly. This was not the judgment of impatience, for McClellan +caused the delay by repeated and perverse disobedience to Halleck's +orders. But the day drew near when 150,000 men might be concentrated +under Pope against Lee's 55,000. The stroke which Lee now struck after +earnest consultation with Jackson has been said to have been "perhaps +the most daring in the history of warfare." He divided his army almost +under the enemy's eyes and sent Jackson by a circuitous route to cut +Pope's communications with Washington. Then followed an intricate +tactical game, in which each side was bewildered as to the movements of +the other. Pope became exasperated and abandoned his prudence. He +turned on his enemy when he should and could have withdrawn to a safe +position and waited. On August 29 and 30, in the ominous neighbourhood +of the Bull Run and of Manassas, he sustained a heavy defeat. Then he +abandoned hope before he need have done so, and, alleging that his men +were demoralised, begged to be withdrawn within the defences of +Washington, where he arrived on September 3, and, as was inevitable in +the condition of his army, was relieved of his command. McClellan, in +Lincoln's opinion, had now been guilty of the offence which that +generous mind would find it hardest to forgive. He had not bestirred +himself to get his men to Pope. In Lincoln's belief at the time he had +wished Pope to fail. McClellan, who reached Washington at the crisis +of Pope's difficulties, was consulted, and said to Lincoln that Pope +must be left to get out of his scrape as best he could. It was perhaps +only an awkward phrase, but it did not soften Lincoln. + +Washington was now too strongly held to be attacked, but Lee determined +to invade Maryland. At least this would keep Virginia safe during +harvest time. It might win him many recruits in Maryland. It would +frighten the North, all the more because a Confederate force further +west was at that same time invading Kentucky; it might accomplish there +was no saying how much. This much, one may gather from the "Life of +Lord John Russell," any great victory of the South on Northern soil +would probably have accomplished: the Confederacy would have been +recognised, as Jefferson Davis longed for it to be, by European Powers. +Lincoln now acted in total disregard of his Cabinet and of all +Washington, and in equal disregard of any false notions of dignity. By +word of mouth he directed McClellan to take command of all the troops +at Washington. His opinion of McClellan had not altered, but, as he +said to his private secretaries, if McClellan could not fight himself, +he excelled in making others ready to fight. No other step could have +succeeded so quickly in restoring order and confidence to the Army. +Few or no instructions were given to McClellan. He was simply allowed +the freest possible hand, and was watched with keen solicitude as to +how he would rise to his opportunity. + +Lee, in his advance, expected his opponent to be slow. He actually +again divided his small army, leaving Jackson with a part of it behind +for a while to capture, as he did, the Northern fort at Harper's Ferry. +A Northern private picked up a packet of cigars dropped by some +Southern officer with a piece of paper round it. The paper was a copy +of an order of Lee's which revealed to McClellan the opportunity now +given him of crushing Lee in detail. But he did not rouse himself. He +was somewhat hampered by lack of cavalry, and his greatest quality in +the field was his care not to give chances to the enemy. His want of +energy allowed Lee time to discover what, had happened and fall back a +little towards Harper's Ferry. Yet Lee dared, without having yet +reunited his forces, to stop at a point where McClellan must be tempted +to give him battle, and where, if he could only stand against +McClellan, Jackson would be in a position to deliver a deadly +counter-stroke. Lee knew that for the South the chance of rapid +success was worth any risk. McClellan, however, moved so slowly that +Jackson was able to join Lee before the battle. The Northern army came +up with them near the north bank of the Potomac on the Antietam Creek, +a small tributary of that river, about sixty miles north-east of +Washington. There, on September 17, 1862, McClellan ordered an attack, +to which he did not attempt to give his personal direction. His corps +commanders led assaults on Lee's position at different times and in so +disconnected a manner that each was repulsed singly. But on the +following morning Lee found himself in a situation which determined him +to retreat. + +As a military success the battle of Antietam demanded to be followed +up. Reinforcements had now come to McClellan, and Lincoln telegraphed, +"Please do not let him get off without being hurt." Lee was between +the broad Potomac and a Northern army fully twice as large as his own, +with other large forces near. McClellan's subordinates urged him to +renew the attack and drive Lee into the river. But Lee was allowed to +cross the river, and McClellan lay camped on the Antietam battlefield +for a fortnight. He may have been dissatisfied with the condition of +his army and its supplies. Some of his men wanted new boots; many of +Lee's were limping barefoot. He certainly, as often before, +exaggerated the strength of his enemy. Lee recrossed the Potomac +little damaged. Lincoln, occupied in those days over the most +momentous act of his political life, watched McClellan eagerly, and +came to the Antietam to see things for himself. He came back in the +full belief that McClellan would move at once. Once more undeceived, +he pressed him with letters and telegrams from himself and Halleck. He +was convinced that McClellan, if he tried, could cut off Lee from +Richmond. Hearing of the fatigue of McClellan's horses, he telegraphed +about the middle of October, "Will you pardon me for asking what your +horses have done since the battle of Antietam that tires anything." +This was unkind; McClellan indeed should have seen about cavalry in the +days when he was organising in Washington, but at this moment the +Southern horse had just raided right round his lines and got safe back, +and his own much inferior cavalry was probably worn out with vain +pursuit of them. On the same day Lincoln wrote more kindly, "My dear +Sir, you remember my speaking to you of what I called your +over-cautiousness. Are you not over-cautious when you assume that you +cannot do what the enemy is constantly doing? Change positions with +the enemy, and think you not, he would break your communications with +Richmond within the next twenty-four hours." And after a brief +analysis of the situation, which seems conclusive, he ends: "I say +'try'; if we never try we shall never succeed. . . . If we cannot beat +him now when he bears the wastage of coming to us, we never can when we +bear the wastage of going to him." His patience was nearing a limit +which he had already fixed in his own mind. On October 28, more than +five weeks after the battle, McClellan began to cross the Potomac, and +took a week in the process. On November 5, McClellan was removed from +his command, and General Burnside appointed in his place. + +Lincoln had longed for the clear victory that he thought McClellan +would win; he gloomily foreboded that he might not find a better man to +put in his place; he felt sadly how he would be accused, as he has been +ever since, of displacing McClellan because he was a Democrat. "In +considering military merit," he wrote privately, "the world has +abundant evidence that I disregard politics." A friend, a Republican +general, wrote to him a week or so after McClellan had been removed to +urge that all the generals ought to be men in thorough sympathy with +the Administration. He received a crushing reply (to be followed in a +day or two by a friendly invitation) indignantly proving that Democrats +served as well in the field as Republicans. But in regard to McClellan +himself we now know that a grave suspicion had entered Lincoln's mind. +He might, perhaps, in the fear of finding no one better, have tolerated +his "over-cautiousness"; he did not care what line an officer who did +his duty might in civil life take politically; but he would not take +the risk of entrusting the war further to a general who let his +politics govern his strategy, and who, as he put it simply, "did not +want to hurt the enemy." This, he had begun to believe, was the cause +of McClellan's lack of energy. He resolved to treat McClellan's +conduct now, in fighting Lee or in letting him escape South, as the +test of whether his own suspicion about him was justified or not. Lee +did get clear away, and Lincoln dismissed McClellan in the full belief, +right or wrong, that he was not sorry for Lee's escape. + +It is not known exactly what further evidence Lincoln then had for his +belief, but information which seems to have come later made him think +afterwards that he had been right. The following story was told him by +the Governor of Vermont, whose brother, a certain General Smith, served +under McClellan and was long his intimate friend. Lincoln believed the +story; so may we. The Mayor of New York, a shifty demagogue named +Fernando Wood, had visited McClellan in the Peninsula with a proposal +that he should become the Democratic candidate for the Presidency, and +with a view to this should pledge himself to certain Democratic +politicians to conduct the war in a way that should conciliate the +South, which to Lincoln's mind meant an "inefficient" way. McClellan, +after some days of unusual reserve, told Smith of this and showed him a +letter which he had drafted giving the desired pledge. On Smith's +earnest remonstrance that this "looked like treason," he did not send +the letter then. But Wood came again after the battle of Antietam, and +this time McClellan sent a letter in the same sense. This he +afterwards confessed to Smith, showing him a copy of the letter. Smith +and other generals asked, after this, to be relieved from service under +him. If, as can hardly be doubted, McClellan did this, there can be no +serious excuse for him, and no serious question that Lincoln was right +when he concluded it was unsafe to employ him. McClellan, according to +all evidence except his own letters, was a nice man, and was not likely +to harbour a thought of what to him seemed treason; it is honourable to +him that he wished later to serve under Grant but was refused by him. +But, to one of his views, the political situation before and after +Antietam was alarming, and it is certain that to his inconclusive mind +and character an attitude of half loyalty would be easy. He may not +have wished that Lee should escape, but he had no ardent desire that he +should not. Right or wrong, such was the ground of Lincoln's +independent and conscientiously deliberate decision. + +The result again did not reward him. His choice of Burnside was a +mistake. There were corps commanders under McClellan who had earned +special confidence, but they were all rather old. General Burnside, +who was the senior among the rest, had lately succeeded in operations +in connection with the Navy on the North Carolina coast, whereby +certain harbours were permanently closed to the South. He had since +served under McClellan at the Antietam, but had not earned much credit. +He was a loyal friend to McClellan and very modest about his own +capacity. Perhaps both these things prejudiced Lincoln in his favour. +He continued in active service till nearly the end of the war, when a +failure led to his retirement; and he was always popular and respected. +At this juncture he failed disastrously. On December 11 and 12, 1862, +Lee's army lay strongly posted on the south of the Rappahannock. +Burnside, in spite, as it appears, of express warnings from Lincoln, +attacked Lee at precisely the point, near the town of Fredericksburg, +where his position was really impregnable. The defeat of the Northern +army was bloody and overwhelming. Burnside's army became all but +mutinous; his corps commanders, especially General Hooker, were loud in +complaint. He was tempted to persist, in spite of all protests, in +some further effort of rashness. Lincoln endeavoured to restrain him. +Halleck, whom Lincoln begged to give a definite military opinion, +upholding or overriding Burnside's, had nothing more useful to offer +than his own resignation. After discussions and recriminations among +all officers concerned, Burnside offered his resignation. Lincoln was +by no means disposed to remove a general upon a first failure or to +side with his subordinates against him, and refused to accept it. +Burnside then offered the impossible alternative of the dismissal of +all his corps commanders for disaffection to him, and on January 25, +1863, his resignation was accepted. + +There was much discussion in the Cabinet as to the choice of his +successor. It was thought unwise to give the Eastern army a commander +from the West again. At Chase's instance [Transcriber's note: +insistance?] the senior corps commander who was not too old, General +Hooker, sometimes called "Fighting Joe Hooker," was appointed. He +received a letter, often quoted as the letter of a man much altered +from the Lincoln who had been groping a year earlier after the right +way of treating McClellan: "I have placed you," wrote Lincoln, "at the +head of the Army of the Potomac. Of course I have done this upon what +appear to me to be sufficient reasons, and yet I think it best for you +to know that there are some things in regard to which I am not quite +satisfied with you. I believe you to be a brave and skilful soldier, +which of course I like. I also believe that you do not mix politics +with your profession, in which you are right. You have confidence in +yourself, which is a valuable, if not indispensable, quality. You are +ambitious, which, within reasonable bounds, does good rather than harm; +but I think that during General Burnside's command of the army you have +taken counsel of your ambition and thwarted him as much as you could, +in which you did a great wrong to the country, and to a most +meritorious and honourable brother officer. I have heard, in such a +way as to believe it, of your recently saying that both the Army and +the Government needed a dictator. Of course it was not for this, but +in spite of it, that I gave you the command. Only those generals who +gain successes can set up dictators. What I now ask of you is military +success, and I will risk the dictatorship. The Government will support +you to the utmost of its ability, which is neither more nor less than +it has done and will do for all commanders. I much fear that the +spirit which you have aided to infuse into the army, of criticising +their commander and withholding confidence from him, will now turn upon +you. Neither you nor Napoleon, if he were alive again, could get any +good out of an army while such a spirit prevails in it; and now beware +of rashness. Beware of rashness, but with energy and sleepless +vigilance go forward and give us victories." + +"He talks to me like a father," exclaimed Hooker, enchanted with a +rebuke such as this. He was a fine, frank, soldierly fellow, with a +noble figure, with "a grand fighting head," fresh complexion and bright +blue eyes. He was a good organiser; he put a stop to the constant +desertions; he felt the need of improving the Northern cavalry; and he +groaned at the spirit with which McClellan had infected his army, a +curious collective inertness among men who individually were daring. +He seems to have been highly strung; the very little wine that he drank +perceptibly affected him; he gave it up altogether in his campaigns. +And he cannot have been very clever, for the handsomest beating that +Lee could give him left him unaware that Lee was a general. In the end +of April he crossed the Rappahannock and the Rapidan, which still +divided the two armies, and in the first week of May, 1863, a brief +campaign, full of stirring incident, came to a close with the three +days' battle of Chancellorsville, in which Hooker, hurt and dazed with +pain, lost control and presence of mind, and, with heavy loss, drew +back across the Rappahannock. The South had won another amazing +victory; but "Stonewall" Jackson, at the age of thirty-nine, had fallen +in the battle. + +Abroad, this crowning disaster to the North seemed to presage the full +triumph of the Confederacy; and it was a gloomy time enough for Lincoln +and his Ministers. A second and more serious invasion by Lee was +impending, and the lingering progress of events in the West, of which +the story must soon be resumed, caused protracted and deepening +anxiety. But the tide turned soon. Moreover, Lincoln's military +perplexities, which have demanded our detailed attention during these +particular campaigns, were very nearly at an end. We have here to turn +back to the political problem of his Presidency, for the bloody and +inconclusive battle upon the Antietam, more than seven months before, +had led strangely to political consequences which were great and +memorable. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +EMANCIPATION + +When the news of a second battle of Bull Run reached England it seemed +at first to Lord John Russell that the failure of the North was +certain, and he asked Palmerston and his colleagues to consider whether +they must not soon recognise the Confederacy, and whether mediation in +the interest of peace and humanity might not perhaps follow. But +within two months all thoughts of recognising the Confederacy had been +so completely put aside that even Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville +caused no renewal of the suggestion, and an invitation from Louis +Napoleon to joint action of this kind between England and France had +once for all been rejected. The battle of Antietam had been fought in +the meantime. This made men think that the South could no more win a +speedy and decisive success than the North, and that victory must rest +in the end with the side that could last. But that was not all; the +battle of Antietam was followed within five days by an event which made +it impossible for any Government of this country to take action +unfriendly to the North. + +On September 22, 1862, Abraham Lincoln set his hand to a Proclamation +of which the principal words were these: "That, on the first day of +January in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and +sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State, or designated +part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against +the United States, shall be then, thenceforward and forever free." + +The policy and the true effect of this act cannot be understood without +some examination. Still less so can the course of the man who will +always be remembered as its author. First, in regard to the legal +effect of the Proclamation; in normal times the President would of +course not have had the power, which even the Legislature did not +possess, to set free a single slave; the Proclamation was an act of war +on his part, as Commander-in-Chief of the forces, by which slaves were +to be taken from people at war with the United States, just as horses +or carts might be taken, to subtract from their resources and add to +those of the United States. In a curiously prophetic manner, +ex-President John Quincy Adams had argued in Congress many years before +that, if rebellion ever arose, this very thing might be done. Adams +would probably have claimed that the command of the President became +law in the States which took part in the rebellion. Lincoln only +claimed legal force for his Proclamation in so far as it was an act of +war based on sufficient necessity and plainly tending to help the +Northern arms. If the legal question had ever been tried out, the +Courts would no doubt have had to hold that at least those slaves who +obtained actual freedom under the Proclamation became free in law; for +it was certainly in good faith an act of war, and the military result +justified it. A large amount of labour was withdrawn from the industry +necessary to the South, and by the end of the war 180,000 coloured +troops were in arms for the North, rendering services, especially in +occupying conquered territory that was unhealthy for white troops, +without which, in Lincoln's opinion, the war could never have been +finished. The Proclamation had indeed an indirect effect more +far-reaching than this; it committed the North to a course from which +there could be no turning back, except by surrender; it made it a +political certainty that by one means or another slavery would be ended +if the North won. But in Lincoln's view of his duty as President, this +ulterior consequence was not to determine his action. The fateful step +by which the end of slavery was precipitated would not have taken the +form it did take if it had not come to commend itself to him as a +military measure conducing to the suppression of rebellion. + +On the broader grounds on which we naturally look at this measure, many +people in the North had, as we have seen, been anxious from the +beginning that he should adopt an active policy of freeing Southern +slaves. It was intolerable to think that the war might end and leave +slavery where it was. To convert the war into a crusade against +slavery seemed to many the best way of arousing and uniting the North. +This argument was reinforced by some of the American Ministers abroad. +They were aware that people in Europe misunderstood and disliked the +Constitutional propriety with which the Union government insisted that +it was not attacking the domestic institutions of Southern States. +English people did not know the American Constitution, and when told +that the North did not threaten to abolish slavery would answer "Why +not?" Many Englishmen, who might dislike the North and might have +their doubts as to whether slavery was as bad as it was said to be, +would none the less have respected men who would fight against it. +They had no interest in the attempt of some of their own seceded +Colonists to coerce, upon some metaphysical ground of law, others who +in their turn wished to secede from them. Seward, with wonderful +misjudgment, had instructed Ministers abroad to explain that no attack +was threatened on slavery, for he was afraid that the purchasers of +cotton in Europe would feel threatened in their selfish interests; the +agents of the South were astute enough to take the same line and insist +like him that the North was no more hostile to slavery than the South. +If this misunderstanding were removed English hostility to the North +would never again take a dangerous form. Lincoln, who knew less of +affairs but more of men than Seward, was easily made to see this. Yet, +with full knowledge of the reasons for adopting a decided policy +against slavery, Lincoln waited through seventeen months of the war +till the moment had come for him to strike his blow. + +Some of his reasons for waiting were very plain. He was not going to +take action on the alleged ground of military necessity till he was +sure that the necessity existed. Nor was he going to take it till it +would actually lead to the emancipation of a great number of slaves. +Above all, he would not act till he felt that the North generally would +sustain his action, for he knew, better than Congressmen who judged +from their own friends in their own constituencies, how doubtful a +large part of Northern opinion really was. We have seen how in the +summer of 1861 he felt bound to disappoint the advanced opinion which +supported Frémont. He continued for more than a year after in a course +which alienated from himself the confidence of the men with whom he had +most sympathy. He did this deliberately rather than imperil the +unanimity with which the North supported the war. There was indeed +grave danger of splitting the North in two if he appeared unnecessarily +to change the issue from Union to Liberation. We have to remember that +in all the Northern States the right of the Southern States to choose +for themselves about slavery had been fully admitted, and that four of +the Northern States were themselves slave States all this while. + +But this is not the whole explanation of his delay. It is certain that +apart from this danger he would at first rather not have played the +historic part which he did play as the liberator of the slaves, if he +could have succeeded in the more modest part of encouraging a process +of gradual emancipation. In his Annual Message to Congress in +December, 1861, he laid down the general principles of his policy in +this matter. He gave warning in advance to the Democrats of the North, +who were against all interference with Southern institutions, that +"radical and extreme measures" might become indispensable to military +success, and if indispensable would be taken; but he declared his +anxiety that if possible the conflict with the South should not +"degenerate into a violent and remorseless revolutionary struggle," for +he looked forward with fear to a complete overturning of the social +system of the South. He feared it not only for the white people but +also for the black. "Gradual and not sudden emancipation," he said, in +a later Message, "is better for all." It is now probable that he was +right, and yet it is difficult not to sympathise with the earnest +Republicans who were impatient at his delay, who were puzzled and +pained by the free and easy way in which in grave conversation he would +allude to "the nigger question," and who concluded that "the President +is not with us; has no sound Anti-slavery sentiment." Indeed, his +sentiment did differ from theirs. Certainly, he hated slavery, for he +had contended more stubbornly than any other man against any concession +which seemed to him to perpetuate slavery by stamping it with approval; +but his hatred of it left him quite without the passion of moral +indignation against the slave owners, in whose guilt the whole country, +North and South, seemed to him an accomplice. He would have classed +that very natural indignation under the head of "malice"--"I shall do +nothing in malice," he wrote to a citizen of Louisiana; "what I deal +with is too vast for malicious dealing." But it was not, as we shall +see before long, too vast for an interest, as sympathetic as it was +matter of fact, in the welfare of the negroes. They were actual human +beings to him, and he knew that the mere abrogation of the law of +slavery was not the only thing necessary to their advancement. Looking +back, with knowledge of what happened later, we cannot fail to be glad +that they were emancipated somehow, but we are forced to regret that +they could not have been emancipated by some more considerate process. +Lincoln, perhaps alone among the Americans who were in earnest in this +matter, looked at it very much in the light in which all men look at it +to-day. + +In the early part of 1862 the United States Government concluded a +treaty with Great Britain for the more effectual suppression of the +African slave trade, and it happened about the same time that the first +white man ever executed as a pirate under the American law against the +slave trade was hanged in New York. In those months Lincoln was +privately trying to bring about the passing by the Legislature of +Delaware of an Act for emancipating, with fit provisions for their +welfare, the few slaves in that State, conditionally upon compensation +to be paid to the owners by the United States. He hoped that if this +example were set by Delaware, it would be followed in Maryland, and +would spread later. The Delaware House were favourable to the scheme, +but the Senate of the State rejected it. Lincoln now made a more +public appeal in favour of his policy. In March, 1862, he sent a +Message to Congress, which has already been quoted, and in which he +urged the two Houses to pass Resolutions pledging the United States to +give pecuniary help to any State which adopted gradual emancipation. +It must be obvious that if the slave States of the North could have +been led to adopt this policy it would have been a fitting preliminary +to any action which might be taken against slavery in the South; and +the policy might have been extended to those Southern States which were +first recovered for the Union. The point, however, upon which Lincoln +dwelt in his Message was that, if slavery were once given up by the +border States, the South would abandon all hope that they would ever +join the Confederacy. In private letters to an editor of a newspaper +and others he pressed the consideration that the cost of compensated +abolition was small in proportion to what might be gained by a quicker +ending of the war. During the discussion of his proposal in Congress +and again after the end of the Session he invited the Senators and +Representatives of the border States to private conference with him in +which he besought of them "a calm and enlarged consideration, ranging, +if it may be, far above, personal and partisan politics," of the +opportunity of good now open to them. The hope of the Confederacy was, +as he then conceived, fixed upon the sympathy which it might arouse in +the border States, two of which, Kentucky and Maryland, were in fact +invaded that year with some hope of a rising among the inhabitants. +The "lever" which the Confederates hoped to use in these States was the +interest of the slave owners there; "Break that lever before their +eyes," he urged. But the hundred and one reasons which can always be +found against action presented themselves at once to the +Representatives of the border States. Congress itself so far accepted +the President's view that both Houses passed the Resolution which he +had suggested. Indeed it gladly did something more; a Bill, such as +Lincoln himself had prepared as a Congressman fourteen years before, +was passed for abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia; +compensation was paid to the owners; a sum was set apart to help the +settlement in Liberia of any of the slaves who were willing to go; and +at Lincoln's suggestion provision was added for the education of the +negro children. Nothing more was done at this time. + +Throughout this matter Lincoln took counsel chiefly with himself. He +could not speak his full thought to the public, and apparently he did +not do so to any of his Cabinet. Supposing that the border States had +yielded to his persuasion, it may still strike us as a very sanguine +calculation that their action would have had much effect upon the +resolution of the Confederates. But it must be noted that when Lincoln +first approached the Representatives of the border States, the highest +expectations were entertained of the victory that McClellan would win +in Virginia, and when he made his last, rather despairing, appeal to +them, the decision to withdraw the army from the Peninsula had not yet +been taken. If a really heavy blow had been struck at the Confederates +in Virginia, their chief hope of retrieving their military fortunes +would certainly have lain in that invasion of Kentucky, which did +shortly afterwards occur and which was greatly encouraged by the hope +of a rising of Kentucky men who wished to join the Confederacy. This +part of Lincoln's calculations was therefore quite reasonable. And it +was further reasonable to suppose that, if the South had then given in +and Congress had acted in the spirit of the Resolution which it had +passed, the policy, of gradual emancipation, starting in the border +States, would have spread steadily. The States which were disposed to +hold out against the inducement that the cost of compensated +emancipation, if they adopted it, would be borne by the whole Union, +would have done so at a great risk; for each new free State would have +been disposed before long to support a Constitutional Amendment to +impose enfranchisement, possibly with no compensation, upon the States +that still delayed. The force of example and the presence of this fear +could not have been resisted long. Lincoln was not a man who could be +accused of taking any course without a reason well thought out; we can +safely conclude that in the summer of 1862 he nursed a hope, by no +means visionary, of initiating a process of liberation free from +certain evils in that upon which he was driven back. + +Before, however, he had quite abandoned this hope he had already begun +to see his way in case it failed. His last appeal to the border States +was made on July 12, 1862, while McClellan's army still lay at +Harrison's Landing. On the following day he privately told Seward and +Bates that he had "about come to the conclusion that it was a military +necessity, absolutely essential to the salvation of the nation, that we +must free the slaves or be ourselves subdued." On July 22 he read to +his Cabinet the first draft of his Proclamation of Emancipation; +telling them before he consulted them that substantially his mind was +made up. Various members of the Cabinet raised points on which he had +already thought and had come to a conclusion, but, as he afterwards +told a friend, Seward raised a point which had never struck him before. +He said that, if issued at that time of depression, just after the +failure in the Peninsula, the Proclamation would seem like "a cry of +distress"; and that it would have a much better effect if it were +issued after some military success. + +Seward was certainly right. The danger of division in the North would +have been increased and the prospect of a good effect abroad would have +been diminished if the Proclamation had been issued at a time of +depression and manifest failure. Lincoln, who had been set on issuing +it, instantly felt the force of this objection. He put aside his +draft, and resolved not to issue the Proclamation till the right +moment, and apparently resolved to keep the whole question open in his +own mind till the time for action came. + +Accordingly the two months which followed were not only full of anxiety +about the war; they were full for him of a suspense painfully +maintained. It troubled him perhaps comparatively little that he was +driven into a position of greater aloofness from the support and +sympathy of any party or school. He must now expect an opposition from +the Democrats of the North, for they had declared themselves strongly +against the Resolution which he had induced Congress to pass. And the +strong Republicans for their part had acquiesced in it coldly, some of +them contemptuously. In May of this year he had been forced for a +second time publicly to repress a keen Republican general who tried to +take this question of great policy into his own hands. General Hunter, +commanding a small expedition which had seized Port Royal in South +Carolina and some adjacent islands rich in cotton, had in a grand +manner assumed to declare free all the slaves in South Carolina, +Georgia and Florida. This, of course, could not be let pass. +Congress, too, had been occupied in the summer with a new measure for +confiscating rebel property; some Republicans in the West set great +store on such confiscation; other Republicans saw in it the incidental +advantage that more slaves might be liberated under it. It was learnt +that the President might put his veto upon it. It seemed to purport, +contrary to the Constitution, to attaint the property of rebels after +their death, and Lincoln was unwilling that the Constitution should be +stretched in the direction of revengeful harshness. The objectionable +feature in the Bill was removed, and Lincoln accepted it. But the +suspicion with which many Republicans were beginning to regard him was +now reinforced by a certain jealousy of Congressmen against the +Executive power; they grumbled and sneered about having to "ascertain +the Royal pleasure" before they could legislate. This was an able, +energetic, and truly patriotic Congress, and must not be despised for +its reluctance to be guided by Lincoln. But it was reluctant. + +Throughout August and September he had to deal in the country with +dread on the one side of any revolutionary action, and belief on the +other side that he was timid and half-hearted. The precise state of +his intentions could not with advantage be made public. To up-holders +of slavery he wrote plainly, "It may as well be understood once for all +that I shall not surrender this game leaving any available card +unplayed"; to its most zealous opponents he had to speak in an entirely +different strain. While the second battle of Bull Run was impending, +Horace Greeley published in the _New York Tribune_ an "open letter" of +angry complaint about Lincoln's supposed bias for slavery. Lincoln at +once published a reply to his letter. "If there be in it," he said, +"any statements or assumptions of fact which I may know to be +erroneous, I do not now and here controvert them. If there be +perceptible in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in +deference to an old friend whose heart I have always supposed to be +right. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union. If +I could save the Union without freeing any slaves I would do it; and if +I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could +save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. +I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the +cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will +help the cause. I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear +to be true views." + +It was probably easy to him now to write these masterful generalities, +but a week or two later, after Pope's defeat, he had to engage in a +controversy which tried his feelings much more sorely. It had really +grieved him that clergymen in Illinois had opposed him as unorthodox, +when he was fighting against the extension of slavery. Now, a week or +two after his correspondence with Greeley, a deputation from a number +of Churches in Chicago waited upon him, and some of their members spoke +to him with assumed authority from on high, commanding him in God's +name to emancipate the slaves. He said, "I am approached with the most +opposite opinions and advice, and that by religious men who are equally +certain that they represent the divine will. I am sure that either the +one or the other class is mistaken in that belief, and perhaps in some +respects both. I hope it will not be irreverent for me to say that, if +it is probable that God would reveal His will to others, on a point so +connected with my duty, it might be supposed He would reveal it +directly to me. What good would a proclamation of emancipation from me +do especially as we are now situated? I do not want to issue a +document that the whole world will see must necessarily be inoperative +like the Pope's Bull against the comet. Do not misunderstand me, +because I have mentioned these objections. They indicate the +difficulties that have thus far prevented my acting in some such way as +you desire. I have not decided against a proclamation of liberty to +the slaves, but hold the matter under advisement. And I can assure you +that the subject is on my mind, by day and night, more than any other. +Whatever shall appear to be God's will, I will do." The language of +this speech, especially when the touch is humorous, seems that of a +strained and slightly irritated man, but the solemnity blended in it +showed Lincoln's true mind. + +In this month, September, 1862, he composed for his own reading alone a +sad and inconclusive fragment of meditation which was found after his +death. "The will of God prevails," he wrote. "In great contests each +party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be +and one must be wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at +the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that +God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party, +and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of +the best adaptation to effect His purpose. I am almost ready to say +that this is probably true, that God wills this contest, and wills that +it shall not end yet. By His mere great power on the minds of the +contestants, He could have either saved or destroyed the Union without +a human contest. Yet the contest began, and, having begun, He could +give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest +proceeds." For Lincoln's own part it seemed his plain duty to do what +in the circumstances he thought safest for the Union, and yet he was +almost of a mind with the deputation which had preached to him, that he +must be doing God's will in taking a great step towards emancipation. +The solution, that the great step must be taken at the first opportune +moment, was doubtless clear enough in principle, but it must always +remain arguable whether any particular moment was opportune. He told +soon afterwards how his mind was finally made up. + +On the day that he received the news of the battle of Antietam, the +draft Proclamation was taken from its drawer and studied afresh; his +visit to McClellan on the battlefield intervened; but on the fifth day +after the battle the Cabinet was suddenly called together. When the +Ministers had assembled Lincoln first entertained them by reading the +short chapter of Artemus Ward entitled "High-handed Outrage at Utica." +It is less amusing than most of Artemus Ward; but it had just appeared; +it pleased all the Ministers except Stanton, to whom the frivolous +reading he sometimes had to hear from Lincoln was a standing vexation; +and it was precisely that sort of relief to which Lincoln's mind when +overwrought could always turn. Having thus composed himself for +business, he reminded his Cabinet that he had, as they were aware, +thought a great deal about the relation of the war to slavery, and had +a few weeks before read them a draft Proclamation on this subject. +Ever since then, he said, his mind had been occupied on the matter, +and, though he wished it were a better time, he thought the time had +come now. "When the rebel army was at Frederick," he is related to +have continued, "I determined, as soon as it should be driven out of +Maryland, to issue a Proclamation of Emancipation such as I thought +likely to be most useful. I said nothing to any one, but I made the +promise to myself and"--here he hesitated a little--"to my Maker. The +rebel army is now driven out, and I am going to fulfil that promise. I +have got you together to hear what I have written down. I do not wish +your advice about the main matter, for that I have determined for +myself. This I say without intending anything but respect for any one +of you." He then invited their suggestions upon the expressions used +in his draft and other minor matters, and concluded: "One other +observation I will make. I know very well that many others might in +this matter, as in others, do better than I can; and if I was satisfied +that the public confidence was more fully possessed by any one of them +than by me, and knew of any constitutional way in which he could be put +in my place, he should have it. I would gladly yield it to him. But +though I believe I have not so much of the confidence of the people as +I had some time since, I do not know that, all things considered, any +other person has more; and, however this may be, there is no way in +which I can have any other man put where I am. I am here; I must do +the best I can, and bear the responsibility of taking the course which +I feel I ought to take." Then he read his draft, and in the long +discussion which followed, and owing to which a few slight changes were +made in it, he told them further, without any false reserve, just how +he came to his decision. In his great perplexity he had gone on his +knees, before the battle of Antietam, and, like a child, he had +promised that if a victory was given which drove the enemy out of +Maryland he would consider it as an indication that it was his duty to +move forward. "It might be thought strange," he said, "that he had in +this way submitted the disposal of matters, when the way was not clear +to his mind what he should do. God had decided this question in favour +of the slaves." + +Such is the story of what we may now remember as one of the signal +events in the chequered progress of Christianity. We have to follow +its consequences a little further. These were not at first all that +its author would have hoped. "Commendation in newspapers and by +distinguished individuals is," he said in a private letter, "all that a +vain man could wish," but recruits for the Army did not seem to come in +faster. In October and November there were elections for Congress, and +in a number of States the Democrats gained considerably, though it was +noteworthy that the Republicans held their ground not only in New +England and in the furthest Western States, but also in the border +slave States. The Democrats, who from this time on became very +formidable to Lincoln, had other matters of complaint, as will be seen +later, but they chiefly denounced the President for trying to turn the +war into one against slavery. "The Constitution as it is and the Union +as it was" had been their election cry. The good hearing that they +got, now as at a later time, was due to the fact that people were +depressed about the war; and it is plain enough that Lincoln had been +well advised in delaying his action till after a military success. As +it was, there was much that seemed to show that public confidence in +him was not strong, but public confidence in any man is hard to +estimate, and the forces that in the end move opinion most are not +quickly apparent. There are little indications that his power and +character were slowly establishing their hold; it seems, for instance, +to have been about this time that "old Abe" or "Uncle Abe" began to be +widely known among common people by the significant name of "Father +Abraham," and his secretaries say that he was becoming conscious that +his official utterances had a deeper effect on public opinion than any +immediate response to them in Congress showed. + +In his Annual Message of December, 1862, Lincoln put before Congress, +probably with little hope of result, a comprehensive policy for dealing +with slavery justly and finally. He proposed that a Constitutional +Amendment should be submitted to the people providing: first, that +compensation should be given in United States bonds to any State, +whether now in rebellion or not, which should abolish slavery before +the year 1900; secondly, that the slaves who had once enjoyed actual +freedom through the chances of the war should be permanently free and +that their owners should be compensated; thirdly, that Congress should +have authority to spend money on colonisation for negroes. Even if the +greater part of these objects could have been accomplished without a +Constitutional Amendment, it is evident that such a procedure would +have been more satisfactory in the eventual resettlement of the Union. +He urged in his Message how desirable it was, as a part of the effort +to restore the Union, that the whole North should be agreed in a +concerted policy as to slavery, and that parties should for this +purpose reconsider their positions. "The dogmas of the quiet past," he +said, "are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled +high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case +is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall +ourselves, and then we shall save our country. Fellow citizens, we +cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this Administration +will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or +insignificance can spare one or another of us. We say we are for the +Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to +save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. In giving +freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free. We shall nobly +save or meanly lose the last, best hope of earth. Other means may +succeed, this could not fail." The last four words expressed too +confident a hope as to what Northern policy apart from Northern arms +could do towards ending the war, but it was impossible to exaggerate +the value which a policy, concerted between parties in a spirit of +moderation, would have had in the settlement after victory. Every +honest Democrat who then refused any action against slavery must have +regretted it before three years were out, and many sensible Republicans +who saw no use in such moderation may have lived to regret their part +too. Nothing was done. It is thought that Lincoln expected this; but +the Proclamation of Emancipation would begin to operate within a month; +it would produce by the end of the war a situation in which the country +would be compelled to decide on the principle of slavery, and Lincoln +had at least done his part in preparing men to face the issue. + +Before this, the nervous and irritable feeling of many Northern +politicians, who found in emancipation a good subject for quarrel among +themselves and in the slow progress of the war a good subject of +quarrel with the Administration, led to a crisis in Lincoln's Cabinet. +Radicals were inclined to think Seward's influence in the +Administration the cause of all public evils; some of them had now got +hold of a foolish private letter, which he had written to Adams in +England a few months before, denouncing the advocates of emancipation. +Desiring his downfall, they induced a small "caucus" of Republican +Senators to speak in the name of the party and the nation and send the +President a resolution demanding such changes in his Cabinet as would +produce better results in the war. Discontented men of opposite +opinions could unite in demanding success in the war; and Conservative +Senators joined in this resolution hoping that it would get rid not +only of Seward, but also of Chase and Stanton, the objects of their +particular antipathy. Seward, on hearing of this, gave Lincoln his +resignation, which was kept private. Though egotistic, he was a clever +man, and evidently a pleasant man to work with; he was a useful +Minister under a wise chief, though he later proved a harmful one under +a foolish chief. Stanton was most loyal, and invaluable as head of the +War Department. Chase, as Lincoln said in private afterwards, was "a +pretty good fellow and a very able man"; Lincoln had complete +confidence in him as a Finance Minister, and could not easily have +replaced him. But this handsome, dignified, and righteous person was +unhappily a sneak. Lincoln found as time went on that, if he ever had +to do what was disagreeable to some important man, Chase would pay +court to that important man and hint how differently he himself would +have done as President. On this occasion he was evidently aware that +Chase had encouraged the Senators who attacked Seward. Much as he +wished to retain each of the two for his own worth, he was above all +determined that one should not gain a victory over the other. +Accordingly, when a deputation of nine important Senators came to +Lincoln to present their grievances against Seward, they found +themselves, to their great annoyance, confronted with all the Cabinet +except Seward, who had resigned, and they were invited by Lincoln to +discuss the matter in his presence with these Ministers. Chase, to his +still greater annoyance, found himself, as the principal Minister +there, compelled for decency's sake to defend Seward from the very +attack which he had helped to instigate. The deputation withdrew, not +sure that, after all, it wanted Seward removed. Chase next day +tendered, as was natural, his resignation. Lincoln was able, now that +he had the resignations of both men, to persuade both of their joint +duty to continue in the public service. By this remarkable piece of +riding he saved the Union from a great danger. The Democratic +opposition, not actually to the prosecution of the war, but to any and +every measure essential for it, was now developing, and a serious +division, such as at this stage any important resignation would have +produced in the ranks of the Republicans, or, as they now called +themselves, the "Union men," would have been perilous. + +On the first day of January, 1863, the President signed the further +Proclamation needed to give effect to emancipation. The small portions +of the South which were not in rebellion were duly excepted; the naval +and military authorities were ordered to maintain the freedom of the +slaves seeking their protection; the slaves were enjoined to abstain +from violence and to "labour faithfully for reasonable wages" if +opportunity were given them; all suitable slaves were to be taken into +armed service, especially for garrison duties. Before the end of 1863, +a hundred thousand coloured men were already serving, as combatants or +as labourers, on military work in about equal number. They were +needed, for volunteering was getting slack, and the work of guarding +and repairing railway lines was specially repellent to Northern +volunteers. The coloured regiments fought well; they behaved well in +every way. Atrocious threats of vengeance on them and their white +officers were officially uttered by Jefferson Davis, but, except for +one hideous massacre wrought in the hottest of hot blood, only a few +crimes by individuals were committed in execution of these threats. To +Lincoln himself it was a stirring thought that when democratic +government was finally vindicated and restored by the victory of the +Union, "then there will be some black men who can remember that with +silent tongue and clenched teeth and steady eye and well-poised bayonet +they have helped mankind on to this great consummation." There was, +however, prejudice at first among many Northern officers against negro +enlistment. The greatest of the few great American artists, St. +Gaudens, commemorated in sculpture (as the donor of the new playing +fields at Harvard commemorated by his gift) the action of a brilliant +and popular Massachusetts officer, Robert Gould Shaw, who set the +example of leaving his own beloved regiment to take command of a +coloured regiment, at the head of which he died, gallantly leading them +and gallantly followed by them in a desperate fight. + +It was easier to raise and train these negro soldiers than to arrange +for the control, shelter, and employment of the other refugees who +crowded especially to the protection of Grant's army in the West. The +efforts made for their benefit cannot be related here, but the +recollections of Army Chaplain John Eaton, whom Grant selected to take +charge of them in the West, throw a little more light on Lincoln and on +the spirit of his dealing with "the nigger question." When Eaton after +some time had to come to Washington, upon the business of his charge +and to visit the President, he received that impression, of versatile +power and of easy mastery over many details as well as over broad +issues, which many who worked under Lincoln have described, but he was +above all struck with the fact that from a very slight experience in +early life Lincoln had gained a knowledge of negro character such as +very few indeed in the North possessed. He was subjected to many +seemingly trivial questions, of which he was quick enough to see the +grave purpose, about all sorts of persons and things in the West, but +he was also examined closely, in a way which commanded his fullest +respect as an expert, about the ideas, understanding, and expectations +of the ordinary negroes under his care, and more particularly as to the +past history and the attainments of the few negroes who had become +prominent men, and who therefore best illustrated the real capacities +of their race. Later visits to the capital and to Lincoln deepened +this impression, and convinced Eaton, though by trifling signs, of the +rare quality of Lincoln's sympathy. Once, after Eaton's difficult +business had been disposed of, the President turned to relating his own +recent worries about a colony of negroes which he was trying to +establish on a small island off Hayti. There flourishes in Southern +latitudes a minute creature called _Dermatophilus penetrans_, or the +jigger, which can inflict great pain on barefooted people by housing +itself under their toe-nails. This Colony had a plague of jiggers, and +every expedient for defeating them had failed. Lincoln was not merely +giving the practical attention to this difficulty that might perhaps be +expected; the Chaplain was amazed to find that at that moment, at the +turning point of the war, a few days only after Vicksburg and +Gettysburg, with his enormous pre-occupations, the President's mind had +room for real and keen distress about the toes of the blacks in the Cow +Island. At the end of yet another interview Eaton was startled by the +question, put by the President with an air of shyness, whether +Frederick Douglass, a well-known negro preacher, could be induced to +visit him. Of course he could. Frederick Douglass was then reputed to +be the ablest man ever born as a negro slave; he must have met many of +the best and kindest Northern friends of the negro; and he went to +Lincoln distressed at some points in his policy, particularly at his +failure to make reprisals for murders of negro prisoners by Southern +troops. When he came away he was in a state little short of ecstasy. +It was not because he now understood, as he did, Lincoln's policy. +Lincoln had indeed won his warm approval when he told him "with a +quiver in his voice" of his horror of killing men in cold blood for +what had been done by others, and his dread of what might follow such a +policy; but he had a deeper gratification, the strangeness of which it +is sad to realise. "He treated me as a man," exclaimed Douglass. "He +did not let me feel for a moment that there was any difference in the +colour of our skins." + +Perhaps the hardest effort of speech that Lincoln ever essayed was an +address to negroes which had to do with this very subject of colour. +His audience were men who had been free from birth or for some time and +were believed to be leaders among their community. It was Lincoln's +object to induce some of them to be pioneers in an attempt at +colonisation in some suitable climate, an attempt which he felt must +fail if it started with negroes whose "intellects were clouded by +slavery." He clung to these projects of colonisation, as probably the +best among the various means by which the improvement of the negro must +be attempted, because their race, "suffering the greatest wrong ever +inflicted on any people," would "yet be far removed from being on an +equality with the white race" when they ceased to be slaves; a +"physical difference broader than exists between almost any other two +races" and constituting "a greater disadvantage to us both," would +always set a "ban" upon the negroes even where they were best treated +in America. This unpalatable fact he put before them with that total +absence of pretence which was probably the only possible form of tact +in such a discussion, with no affectation of a hope that progress would +remove it or of a desire that the ordinary white man should lose the +instinct that kept him apart from the black. But this only makes more +apparent his simple recognition of an equality and fellowship which did +exist between him and his hearers in a larger matter than that of +social intercourse or political combination. His appeal to their +capacity for taking large and unselfish views was as direct and as +confident as in his addresses to his own people; it was made in the +language of a man to whom the public spirit which might exist among +black people was of the same quality as that which existed among white, +in whose belief he and his hearers could equally find happiness in +"being worthy of themselves" and in realising the "claim of kindred to +the great God who made them." + +It may be well here, without waiting to trace further the course of the +war, in which at the point where we left it the slow but irresistible +progress of conquest was about to set in, to recount briefly the later +stages of the abolition of slavery in America. In 1863 it became +apparent that popular feeling in Missouri and in Maryland was getting +ripe for abolition. Bills were introduced into Congress to compensate +their States if they did away with slavery; the compensation was to be +larger if the abolition was immediate and not gradual. There was a +majority in each House for these Bills, but the Democratic minority was +able to kill them in the House of Representatives by the methods of +"filibustering," or, as we call it, obstruction, to which the procedure +of that body seems well adapted. The Republican majority had not been +very zealous for the Bills; its members asked "why compensate for a +wrong" which they had begun to feel would soon be abolished without +compensation; but their leaders at least did their best for the Bills. +It would have been idle after the failure of these proposals to +introduce the Bills that had been contemplated for buying out the loyal +slave owners in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, which was now +fast being regained for the Union. Lincoln after his Message of +December, 1862, recognised it as useless for him to press again the +principles of gradual emancipation or of compensation, as to which it +is worth remembrance that the compensation which he proposed was for +loyal and disloyal owners alike. His Administration, however, bought +every suitable slave in Delaware for service (service as a free man) in +the Army. In the course of 1864 a remarkable development of public +opinion began to be manifest in the States chiefly concerned. In the +autumn of that year Maryland, whose representatives had paid so little +attention to Lincoln two years before, passed an Amendment to the State +Constitution abolishing slavery without compensation. A movement in +the same direction was felt to be making progress in Kentucky and +Tennessee; and Missouri followed Maryland's example in January, 1865. +Meanwhile, Louisiana had been reconquered, and the Unionists in these +States, constantly encouraged and protected by Lincoln when Congress +looked upon them somewhat coldly or his generals showed jealousy of +their action, had banded themselves together to form State Governments +with Constitutions that forbade slavery. Lincoln, it may be noted, had +suggested to Louisiana that it would be well to frame some plan by +which the best educated of the negroes should be admitted to the +franchise. Four years after his death a Constitutional Amendment was +passed by which any distinction as to franchise on the ground of race +or colour is forbidden in America. The policy of giving the vote to +negroes indiscriminately had commended itself to the cold pedantry of +some persons, including Chase, on the ground of some natural right of +all men to the suffrage; but it was adopted as the most effective +protection for the negroes against laws, as to vagrancy and the like, +by which it was feared they might practically be enslaved again. +Whatever the excuse for it, it would seem to have proved in fact a +great obstacle to healthy relations between the two races. The true +policy in such a matter is doubtless that which Rhodes and other +statesmen adopted in the Cape Colony and which Lincoln had advocated in +the case of Louisiana. It would be absurd to imagine that the spirit +which could champion the rights of the negro and yet face fairly the +abiding difficulty of his case died in America with Lincoln, but it +lost for many a year to come its only great exponent. + +But the question of overwhelming importance, between the principles of +slavery and of freedom, was ready for final decision when local opinion +in six slave States was already moving as we have seen. The Republican +Convention of 1864, which again chose Lincoln as its candidate for the +Presidency, declared itself in favour of a Constitutional Amendment to +abolish slavery once for all throughout America. Whether the first +suggestion came from him or not, it is known that Lincoln's private +influence was energetically used to procure this resolution of the +Convention. In his Message to Congress in 1864 he urged the initiation +of this Amendment. Observation of elections made it all but certain +that the next Congress would be ready to take this action, but Lincoln +pleaded with the present doubtful Congress for the advantage which +would be gained by ready, and if possible, unanimous concurrence in the +North in the course which would soon prevail. The necessary Resolution +was passed in the Senate, but in the House of Representatives till +within a few hours of the vote it was said to be "the toss of a copper" +whether the majority of two-thirds, required for such a purpose, would +be obtained. In the efforts made on either side to win over the few +doubtful voters Lincoln had taken his part. Right or wrong, he was not +the man to see a great and beneficent Act in danger of postponement +without being tempted to secure it if he could do so by terrifying some +unprincipled and white-livered opponents. With the knowledge that he +was always acquiring of the persons in politics, he had been able to +pick out two Democratic Congressmen who were fit for his +purpose--presumably they lay under suspicion of one of those +treasonable practices which martial law under Lincoln treated very +unceremoniously. He sent for them. He told them that the gaining of a +certain number of doubtful votes would secure the Resolution. He told +them that he was President of the United States. He told them that the +President of the United States in war time exercised great and dreadful +powers. And he told them that he looked to them personally to get him +those votes. Whether this wrong manoeuvre affected the result or not, +on January 31, 1865, the Resolution was passed in the House by a +two-thirds majority with a few votes to spare, and the great crowd in +the galleries, defying all precedent, broke out in a demonstration of +enthusiasm which some still recall as the most memorable scene in their +lives. On December 18 of that year, when Lincoln had been eight months +dead, William Seward, as Secretary of State, was able to certify that +the requisite majority of States had passed the Thirteenth Amendment to +the Constitution, and the cause of that "irrepressible conflict" which +he had foretold, and in which he had played a weak but valuable part, +was for ever extinguished. + +At the present day, alike in the British Empire and in America, the +unending difficulty of wholesome human relations between races of +different and unequal development exercises many minds; but this +difficulty cannot obscure the great service done by those who, first in +England and later and more hardly in America, stamped out that cardinal +principle of error that any race is without its human claim. Among +these men William Lloyd Garrison lived to see the fruit of his labours, +and to know and have friendly intercourse with Lincoln. There have +been some comparable instances in which men with such different +characters and methods have unconsciously conspired for a common end, +as these two did when Garrison was projecting the "Liberator" and +Lincoln began shaping himself for honourable public work in the vague. +The part that Lincoln played in these events did not seem to him a +personal achievement of his own. He appeared to himself rather as an +instrument. "I claim not," he once said in this connection, "to have +controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me." +In 1864, when a petition was sent to him from some children that there +should be no more child slaves, he wrote, "Please tell these little +people that I am very glad their young hearts are so full of just and +generous sympathy, and that, while I have not the power to grant all +they ask, I trust they will remember that God has, and that, as it +seems, He wills to do it." Yet, at least, he redeemed the boyish +pledge that has been, fancifully perhaps, ascribed to him; each +opportunity that to his judgment ever presented itself of striking some +blow for human freedom was taken; the blows were timed and directed by +the full force of his sagacity, and they were never restrained by +private ambition or fear. It is probable that upon that cool review, +which in the case of this singular figure is difficult, the sense of +his potent accomplishment would not diminish, but increase. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE APPROACH OF VICTORY + + +1. _The War to the End of 1863_. + +The events of the Eastern theatre of war have been followed into the +early summer of 1863, when Lee was for the second time about to invade +the North. The Western theatre of war has been left unnoticed since the +end of May, 1862. From that time to the end of the year no definite +progress was made here by either side, but here also the perplexities of +the military administration were considerable; and in Lincoln's life it +must be noted that in these months the strain of anxiety about the +Eastern army and about the policy of emancipation was accompanied by +acute doubt in regard to the conduct of war in the West. + +When Halleck had been summoned from the West, Lincoln had again a general +by his side in Washington to exercise command under him of all the +armies. Halleck was a man of some intellectual distinction who might be +expected to take a broad view of the war as a whole; this and his freedom +from petty feelings, as to which Lincoln's known opinion of him can be +corroborated, doubtless made him useful as an adviser; nor for a +considerable time was there any man with apparently better qualifications +for his position. But Lincoln soon found, as has been seen, that Halleck +lacked energy of will, and cannot have been long in discovering that his +judgment was not very good. The President had thus to make the best use +he could of expert advice upon which he would not have been justified in +relying very fully. + +When Halleck arrived at Corinth at the end of May, 1862, the whole of +Western and Middle Tennessee was for the time clear of the enemy, and he +turned his attention at once to the long delayed project of rescuing the +Unionists in Eastern Tennessee, which was occupied by a Confederate army +under General Kirby Smith. His object was to seize Chattanooga, which +lay about 150 miles to the east of him, and invade Eastern Tennessee by +way of the valley of the Tennessee River, which cuts through the +mountains behind Chattanooga. With this in view he would doubtless have +been wise if he had first continued his advance with his whole force +against the Confederate army under Beauregard, which after evacuating +Corinth had fallen back to rest and recruit in a far healthier situation +50 miles further south. Beauregard would have been obliged either to +fight him with inferior numbers or to shut himself up in the fortress of +Vicksburg. As it was, Halleck spent the month of June merely in +repairing the railway line which runs from Corinth in the direction of +Chattanooga. When he was called to Washington he left Grant, who for +several months past had been kept idle as his second in command, in +independent command of a force which was to remain near the Mississippi +confronting Beauregard, but he restricted him to a merely defensive part +by ordering him to keep a part of his army ready to send to Buell +whenever that general needed it, as he soon did. Buell, who again took +over his former independent command, was ordered by Halleck to advance on +Chattanooga, using Corinth as his base of supply. Buell had wished that +the base for the advance upon Chattanooga should be transferred to +Nashville, in the centre of Tennessee, in which case the line of railway +communication would have been shorter and also less exposed to raids by +the Southern cavalry. After Halleck had gone, Buell obtained permission +to effect this change of base. The whole month of June had been wasted +in repairing the railway with a view to Halleck's faulty plan. When +Buell himself was allowed to proceed on his own lines and was approaching +Chattanooga, his communications with Nashville were twice, in the middle +of July and in the middle of August, cut by Confederate cavalry raids, +which did such serious damage as to impose great delay upon him. In the +end of August and beginning of September Kirby Smith, whose army had been +strengthened by troops transferred from Beauregard, crossed the mountains +from East Tennessee by passes some distance northeast of Chattanooga, and +invaded Kentucky, sending detachments to threaten Louisville on the +Indiana border of Kentucky and Cincinnati in Ohio. It was necessary for +Buell to retreat, when, after a week or more of uncertainty, it became +clear that Kirby Smith's main force was committed to this invasion. +Meanwhile General Bragg, who, owing to the illness of Beauregard, had +succeeded to his command, left part of his force to hold Grant in check, +marched with the remainder to support Kirby Smith, and succeeded in +placing himself between Buell's army and Louisville, to protect which +from Kirby Smith had become Buell's first object. It seems that Bragg, +who could easily have been reinforced by Kirby Smith, had now an +opportunity of fighting Buell with great advantage. But the Confederate +generals, who mistakenly believed that Kentucky was at heart with them, +saw an imaginary political gain in occupying Frankfort, the State +capital, and formally setting up a new State Government there. Bragg +therefore marched on to join Kirby Smith at Frankfort, which was well to +the east of Buell's line of retreat, and Buell was able to reach +Louisville unopposed by September 25. + +These events were watched in the North with all the more anxiety because +the Confederate invasion of Kentucky began just about the time of the +second battle of Bull Run, and Buell arrived at Louisville within a week +after the battle of Antietam while people were wondering how that victory +would be followed up. Men of intelligence and influence, especially in +the Western States, were loud in their complaints of Buell's want of +vigour. It is remarkable that the Unionists of Kentucky, who suffered +the most through his supposed faults, expressed their confidence in him; +but his own soldiers did not like him, for he was a strict disciplinarian +without either tact or any quality which much impressed them. Their +reports to their homes in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, from which they +mostly came, increased the feeling against him which was arising in those +States, and his relations with the Governors of Ohio and Indiana, who +were busy in sending him recruits and whose States were threatened with +invasion, seem, wherever the fault may have lain, to have been +unfortunate. Buell's most powerful friend had been McClellan, and by an +irrational but unavoidable process of thought the real dilatoriness of +McClellan became an argument for blaming Buell as well. Halleck defended +him loyally, but this by now probably seemed to Lincoln the apology of +one irresolute man for another. Stanton, whose efficiency in the +business of the War Department gave him great weight, had become eager +for the removal of Buell. Lincoln expected that as soon as Buell could +cover Louisville he would take the offensive promptly. His army appears +to have exceeded in numbers, though not very much, the combined forces of +Bragg and Kirby Smith, and except as to cavalry it was probably as good +in quality. If energetically used by Halleck some months before, the +Western armies should have been strong enough to accomplish great +results; and if the attempt had been made at first to raise much larger +armies, it seems likely that the difficulties of training and +organisation and command would have increased out of proportion to any +gain. Buell remained some days at Louisville itself, receiving +reinforcements which were considerable, but consisted mainly of raw +recruits. While he was there orders arrived from Lincoln removing him +and appointing his second in command, the Virginian Thomas, in his place. +This was a wise choice; Thomas was one of the four Northern generals who +won abiding distinction in the Civil War. But Thomas felt the injustice +which was done to Buell, and he refused the command in a letter +magnanimously defending him. The fact was that Lincoln had rescinded his +orders before they were received, for he had issued them under the belief +that Buell was remaining on the defensive, but learnt immediately that an +offensive movement was in progress, and had no intention of changing +commanders under those circumstances. + +On October 8 a battle, which began in an accidental minor conflict, took +place between Buell with 58,000 men and Bragg with considerably less than +half that number of tried veterans. Buell made little use of his +superior numbers, for which the fault may have lain with the corps +commander who first became engaged and who did not report at once to him; +the part of Buell's army which bore the brunt of the fighting suffered +heavy losses, which made a painful impression in the North, and the +public outcry against him, which had begun as soon as Kentucky was +invaded by the Confederates, now increased. After the battle Bragg fell +back and effected a junction with Kirby Smith. Their joint forces were +not very far inferior to Buell's in numbers, but after a few more days +Bragg determined to evacuate Kentucky, in which his hope of raising many +recruits had been disappointed. Buell, on perceiving his intention, +pursued him some distance, but, finding the roads bad for the movement of +large bodies of troops, finally took up a position at Bowling Green, on +the railway to the north of Nashville, intending later in the autumn to +move a little south of Nashville and there to wait for the spring before +again moving on Chattanooga. He was urged from Washington to press +forward towards Chattanooga at once, but replied decidedly that he was +unable to do so, and added that if a change of command was desired the +present was a suitable time for it. At the end of October he was removed +from command. In the meantime the Confederate forces that had been left +to oppose Grant had attacked him and been signally defeated in two +engagements, in each of which General Rosecrans, who was serving under +Grant, was in immediate command on the Northern side. Rosecrans, who +therefore began to be looked upon as a promising general, and indeed was +one of those who, in the chatter of the time, were occasionally spoken of +as suitable for a "military dictatorship," was now put in Buell's place, +which Thomas had once refused. He advanced to Nashville, but was as firm +as Buell in refusing to go further till he had accumulated rations enough +to make him for a time independent of the railway. Ultimately he moved +on Murfreesborough, some thirty miles further in the direction of +Chattanooga. Here on December 31, 1862, Bragg, with somewhat inferior +numbers, attacked him and gained an initial success, which Rosecrans and +his subordinates, Thomas and Sheridan, were able to prevent him from +making good. Bragg's losses were heavy, and, after waiting a few days in +the hope that Rosecrans might retreat first, he fell back to a point near +the Cumberland mountains a little in advance of Chattanooga. Thus the +battle of Murfreesborough counted as a victory to the North, a slight +set-off to the disaster at Fredericksburg a little while before. But it +had no very striking consequences. For over six months Rosecrans +proceeded no further. The Northern armies remained in more secure +possession of all Tennessee west of the mountains than they had obtained +in the first half of 1862; but the length of their communications and the +great superiority of the South in cavalry, which could threaten those +communications, suspended their further advance. Lincoln urged that +their army could subsist on the country which it invaded, but Buell and +Rosecrans treated the idea as impracticable; in fact, till a little later +all Northern generals so regarded it. + +Thus Chattanooga, which it was hoped would be occupied soon after Halleck +had occupied Corinth, remained in Southern hands for more than a year +after that, notwithstanding the removal of Buell, to whom this +disappointment and the mortifying invasion of Kentucky were at first +attributed. This was rightly felt to be unsatisfactory, but the chief +blame that can now be imputed falls upon the mistakes of Halleck while he +was still commanding in the West. There is no reason to suppose that +Buell had any exceptional amount of intuition or of energy and it was +right to demand that a general with both these qualities should be +appointed if he could be found. But he was at least a prudent officer, +of fair capacity, doing his best. The criticisms upon him, of which the +well informed were lavish, were uttered without appreciation of practical +difficulties or of the standard by which he was really to be judged. So, +with far more justice than McClellan, he has been numbered among the +misused generals. Lincoln, there is no doubt, had watched his +proceedings, as he watched those of Rosecrans after him, with a feeling +of impatience, and set him down as unenterprising and obstinate. In one +point his Administration was much to blame in its treatment of the +Western commanders. It became common political talk that the way to get +victories was to treat unsuccessful generals almost as harshly as the +French in the Revolution were understood to have treated them. Lincoln +did not go thus far, but it was probably with his authority that before +Buell was removed Halleck, with reluctance on his own part, wrote a +letter referring to this prevalent idea and calculated to put about among +the Western commanders an expectation that whichever of them first did +something notable would be put over his less successful colleagues. +Later on, and, as we can hardly doubt, with Lincoln's consent, Grant and +Rosecrans were each informed that the first of them to win a victory +would get the vacant major-generalship in the United States Army in place +of his present volunteer rank. This was not the way to handle men with +proper professional pride, and it is one of those cases, which are +strangely few, where Lincoln made the sort of mistake that might have +been expected from his want of training and not from his native +generosity. But in the main his treatment of this difficult question was +sound. Sharing as he did the prevailing impatience with Buell, he had no +intention of yielding to it till there was a real prospect that a change +of generals would be a change for the better. When the appointment of +Thomas was proposed there really was such a prospect. When Rosecrans was +eventually put in Buell's place the result was disappointing to Lincoln, +but it was evidently not a bad appointment, and a situation had then +arisen in which it would have been folly to retain Buell if any capable +successor to him could be found; for the Governors of Indiana, Ohio and +Illinois, of whom the first named was reputed the ablest of the "war +Governors" in the West, and on whom his army depended for recruits, now +combined in representations against him which could not be ignored. +Lincoln, who could not have personal acquaintance with the generals of +the Western armies as he had with those in the East, was, it should be +observed, throughout unceasing in his efforts to get the fullest and +clearest impression of them that he could; he was always, as it has been +put, "taking measurements" of men, and a good deal of what seemed idle +and gossipy talk with chance visitors, who could tell him little +incidents or give him new impressions, seems to have had this serious +purpose. For the first half of the war the choice of men for high +commands was the most harassing of all the difficulties of his +administration. There is no doubt of his constant watchfulness to +discern and promote merit. He was certainly beset by the feeling that +generals were apt to be wanting in the vigour and boldness which the +conduct of the war demanded, but, though this in some cases probably +misled him, upon the whole there was good reason for it. On the other +hand, it must be considered that all this while he knew himself to be +losing influence through his supposed want of energy in the war, and that +he was under strong and unceasing pressure from every influential quarter +to dismiss every general who caused disappointment. Newspapers and +private letters of the time demonstrate that there was intense impatience +against him for not producing victorious generals. This being so, his +own patience in this matter and his resolution to give those under him a +fair chance appear very remarkable and were certainly very wise. + +We have come, however, to the end, not of all the clamour against +Lincoln, but of his own worst perplexities. In passing to the operations +further west we are passing to an instance in which Lincoln felt it right +to stand to the end by a decried commander, and that decried commander +proved to possess the very qualities for which he had vainly looked in +others. The reverse side of General Grant's fame is well enough known to +the world. Before the war he had been living under a cloud. In the +autumn of 1862, while his army lay between Corinth and Memphis, the cloud +still rested on his reputation. In spite of the glory he had won for a +moment at Fort Donelson, large circles were ready to speak of him simply +as an "incompetent and disagreeable man." The crowning work of his life +was accomplished with terrible bloodshed which was often attributed to +callousness and incapacity on his part. The eight years of his +Presidency afterwards, which cannot properly be discussed here, added at +the best no lustre to his memory. Later still, when he visited Europe as +a celebrity the general impression which he created seems to be contained +in the words "a rude man." Thus the Grant that we discover in the +recollections of a few loyal and loving friends, and in the memoirs which +he himself began when late in life he lost his money and which he +finished with the pains of death upon him, is a surprising, in some ways +pathetic, figure. He had been a shy country boy, ready enough at all the +work of a farm and good with horses, but with none of the business +aptitude that make a successful farmer, when his father made him go to +West Point. Here he showed no great promise and made few friends; his +health became delicate, and he wanted to leave the army and become a +teacher of mathematics. But the Mexican War, one of the most unjust in +all history, as he afterwards said, broke out, and--so he later +thought--saved his life from consumption by keeping him in the open air. +After that he did retire, failed at farming and other ventures, and at +thirty-nine, when the Civil War began, was as has been seen, a +shabby-looking, shiftless fellow, pretty far gone in the habit of drink, +and more or less occupied about a leather business of his father's. +Rough in appearance and in manner he remained--the very opposite of +smart, the very opposite of versatile, the very opposite of expansive in +speech or social intercourse. Unlike many rough people, he had a really +simple character--truthful, modest, and kind; without varied interests, +or complicated emotions, or much sense of fun, but thinking intensely on +the problems that he did see before him, and in his silent way keenly +sensitive on most of the points on which it is well to be sensitive. His +friends reckoned up the very few occasions on which he was ever seen to +be angry; only one could be recalled on which he was angry on his own +account; the cruelty of a driver to animals in his supply train, +heartless neglect in carrying out the arrangements he had made for the +comfort of the sick and wounded, these were the sort of occasions which +broke down Grant's habitual self-possession and good temper. "He was +never too anxious," wrote Chaplain Eaton, who, having been set by him in +charge of the negro refugees with his army, had excellent means of +judging, "never too preoccupied with the great problems that beset him, +to take a sincere and humane interest in the welfare of the most +subordinate labourer dependent upon him." And he had delicacy of feeling +in other ways. Once in the crowd at some hotel, in which he mingled an +undistinguished figure, an old officer under him tried on a lecherous +story for the entertainment of the General, who did not look the sort of +man to resent it; Grant, who did not wish to set down an older man +roughly, and had no ready phrases, but had, as it happens, a sensitive +skin, was observed to blush to the roots of his hair in exquisite +discomfort. It would be easy to multiply little recorded traits of this +somewhat unexpected kind, which give grace to the memory of his +determination in a duty which became very grim. + +The simplicity of character as well as manner which endeared him to a few +close associates was probably a very poor equipment for the Presidency, +which, from that very simplicity, he afterwards treated as his due; and +Grant presented in some ways as great a contrast as can be imagined to +the large and complex mind of Lincoln. But he was the man that Lincoln +had yearned for. Whatever degree of military skill may be ascribed to +him, he had in the fullest measure the moral attributes of a commander. +The sense that the war could be put through and must be put through +possessed his soul. He was insusceptible to personal danger--at least, +so observers said, though he himself told a different story--and he +taught himself to keep a quiet mind in the presence of losses, rout in +battle, or failure in a campaign. It was said that he never troubled +himself with fancies as to what the enemy might be doing, and he +confessed to having constantly told himself that the enemy was as much +afraid of him as he of the enemy. His military talent was doubled in +efficacy by his indomitable constancy. In one sense, moreover, and that +a wholly good sense, he was a political general; for he had constantly +before his mind the aims of the Government which employed him, perceiving +early that there were only two possible ends to the war, the complete +subjugation of the South or the complete failure of the Union; perceiving +also that there was no danger of exhausting the resources of the North +and great danger of discouraging its spirit, while the position of the +South was in this respect the precise contrary. He was therefore the +better able to serve the State as a soldier, because throughout he +measured by a just standard the ulterior good or harm of success or +failure in his enterprises. + +The affectionate confidence which existed between Lee and "Stonewall" +Jackson till the latter was killed at Chancellorsville had a parallel in +the endearing friendship which sprung up between Grant and his principal +subordinate, William T. Sherman, who was to bear a hardly less momentous +part than his own in the conclusion of the war. Sherman was a man of +quick wits and fancy, bright and mercurial disposition, capable of being +a delightful companion to children, and capable of being sharp and +inconsiderate to duller subordinates. It is a high tribute both to this +brilliant soldier and to Grant himself that he always regarded Grant as +having made him, not only by his confidence but by his example. + +As has been said, Grant was required to remain on the defensive between +Memphis and Corinth, which mark the line of the Northern frontier at this +period, while Buell was advancing on Chattanooga. Later, while the +Confederates were invading Kentucky further east, attacks were also +directed against Grant to keep him quiet. These were defeated, though +Grant was unable to follow up his success at the time. When the invasion +of Kentucky had collapsed and the Confederates under Bragg were +retreating before Buell and his successor out of Middle Tennessee, it +became possible for Grant and for Halleck and the Government at +Washington to look to completing the conquest of the Mississippi River. +The importance to the Confederates of a hold upon the Mississippi has +been pointed out; if it were lost the whole of far South-West would +manifestly be lost with it; in the North, on the other hand, public +sentiment was strongly set upon freeing the navigation of the great +river. The Confederacy now held the river from the fortress of +Vicksburg, which after taking New Orleans Admiral Farragut had attacked +in vain, down to Port Hudson, 120 miles further south, where the +Confederate forces had since then seized and fortified another point of +vantage. Vicksburg, it will be observed, lies 175 to 180 miles south of +Memphis, or from Grand Junction, between Memphis and Corinth, the points +in the occupation of the North which must serve Grant as a base. At +Vicksburg itself, and for some distance south of it, a line of bluffs or +steep-sided hills lying east of the Mississippi comes right up to the +edge of the river. The river as it approaches these bluffs makes a +sudden bend to the north-east and then again to the south-west, so that +two successive reaches of the stream, each from three to four miles long, +were commanded by the Vicksburg guns, 200 feet above the valley; the +eastward or landward side of the fortress was also well situated for +defence. To the north of Vicksburg the country on the east side of the +Mississippi is cut up by innumerable streams and "bayous" or marshy +creeks, winding and intersecting amid a dense growth of cedars. The +North, with a flotilla under Admiral Porter, commanded the Mississippi +itself, and the Northern forces could freely move along its western shore +to the impregnable river face of Vicksburg beyond. But the question of +how to get safely to the assailable side of Vicksburg presented +formidable difficulty to Grant and to the Government. + +Grant's operations began in November, 1862. Advancing directly southward +along the railway from Memphis with the bulk of his forces, he after a +while detached Sherman with a force which proceeded down the Mississippi +to the mouth of the Yazoo, a little north-west of Vicksburg. Here +Sherman was to land, and, it was hoped, surprise the enemy at Vicksburg +itself while the bulk of the enemy's forces were fully occupied by +Grant's advance from the north. But Grant's lengthening communications +were cut up by a cavalry raid, and he had to retreat, while Sherman came +upon an enemy fully prepared and sustained a defeat a fortnight after +Burnside's defeat at Fredericksburg. This was the first of a long series +of failures during which Grant, who for his part was conspicuously frank +and loyal in his relations with the Government, received upon the whole +the fullest confidence and support from them. There occurred, however, +about this time an incident which was trying to Grant, and of which the +very simple facts must be stated, since it was the last of the occasions +upon which severe criticism of Lincoln's military administration has been +founded. General McClernand was an ambitious Illinois lawyer-politician +of energy and courage; he was an old acquaintance of Lincoln's, and an +old opponent; since the death of Douglas he and another +lawyer-politician, Logan, had been the most powerful of the Democrats in +Illinois; both were zealous in the war and had joined the Army upon its +outbreak. Logan served as a general under Grant with confessed ability. +It must be repeated that, North and South, former civilians had to be +placed in command for lack of enough soldiers of known capacity to go +round, and that many of them, like Logan and like the Southern general, +Polk, who was a bishop in the American Episcopal Church, did very good +service. McClernand had early obtained high rank and had shown no sign +as yet of having less aptitude for his new career than other men of +similar antecedents. Grant, however, distrusted him, and proved to be +right. In October, 1862, McClernand came to Lincoln with an offer of his +personal services in raising troops from Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa, +with a special view to clearing the Mississippi. He of course expected +to be himself employed in this operation. Recruiting was at a low ebb, +and it would have been folly to slight this offer. McClernand did in +fact raise volunteers to the number of a whole army corps. He was placed +under Grant in command of the expedition down the Mississippi which had +already started under Sherman. Sherman's great promise had not yet been +proved to any one but Grant; he appears at this time to have come under +the disapproval of the Joint Committee of Congress on the War, and the +newspaper Press had not long before announced, with affected regret, the +news that he had become insane. McClernand, arriving just after +Sherman's defeat near Vicksburg, fell in at once with a suggestion of his +to attack the Post of Arkansas, a Confederate stronghold in the State of +Arkansas and upon the river of that name, from the shelter of which +Confederate gunboats had some chance of raiding the Mississippi above +Vicksburg. The expedition succeeded in this early in January, 1863, and +was then recalled to join Grant. This was a mortification to McClernand, +who had hoped for a command independent of Grant. In his subsequent +conduct he seems to have shown incapacity; he was certainly insubordinate +to Grant, and he busied himself in intrigues against him, with such +result as will soon be seen. As soon as Grant told the Administration +that he was dissatisfied with McClernand, he was assured that he was at +liberty to remove him from command. This he eventually did after some +months of trial. + +In the first three months of 1863, while the army of the Potomac, +shattered at Fredericksburg, was being prepared for the fresh attack upon +Lee which ended at Chancellorsville, and while Bragg and Rosecrans lay +confronting each other in Middle Tennessee, each content that the other +was afraid to weaken himself by sending troops to the Mississippi, Grant +was occupied in a series of enterprises apparently more cautious than +that in which he eventually succeeded, but each in its turn futile. An +attempt was made to render Vicksburg useless by a canal cutting across +the bend of the Mississippi to the west of that fortress. Then Grant +endeavoured with the able co-operation of Admiral Porter and his flotilla +to secure a safe landing on the Yazoo, which enters the Mississippi a +little above Vicksburg, so that he could move his army to the rear of +Vicksburg by this route. Next Grant and Porter tried to establish a sure +line of water communication from a point far up the Mississippi through +an old canal, then somehow obstructed, into the upper waters of the Yazoo +and so to a point on that river 30 or 40 miles to the north-east of +Vicksburg, by which they would have turned the right of the main +Confederate force; but this was frustrated by the Confederates, who +succeeded in establishing a strong fort further up the Yazoo. Yet a +further effort was made to establish a waterway by a canal quitting the +Mississippi about 40 miles north of Vicksburg and communicating, through +lakes, bayous, and smaller rivers, with its great tributary the Red River +far to the south. This, like the first canal attempted, would have +rendered Vicksburg useless. + +Each of these projects failed in turn. The tedious engineering work +which two of them involved was rendered more depressing by adverse +conditions of weather and by ill-health among Grant's men. Natural +grumbling among the troops was repeated and exaggerated in the North. +McClernand employed the gift for intrigue, which perhaps had helped him +to secure his command, in an effort to get Grant removed. It is +melancholy to add that a good many newspapers at this time began to print +statements that Grant had again taken to drink. It is certain that he +was at this time a total abstainer. It is said that he had offended the +authors of this villainy by the restrictions which he had long before +found necessary to put upon information to the Press. Some of the men +freely confessed afterwards that they had been convinced of his sobriety, +and added the marvellous apology that their business was to give the +public "the news." Able and more honest journalists urged that Grant had +proved his incompetence. Secretary Chase took up their complaints and +pressed that Grant should be removed. Lincoln, before the outcry against +Grant had risen to its height, had felt the need of closer information +than he possessed about the situation on the Mississippi; and had hit +upon the happy expedient of sending an able official of the War +Department, who deserved and obtained the confidence of Grant and his +officers, to accompany the Western army and report to him. Apart, +however, from the reports he thus received, he had always treated the +attacks on Grant with contempt. "I cannot spare this general; he +fights," he said. In reply to complaints that Grant drank, he enquired +(adapting, as he knew, George II.'s famous saying about Wolfe) what +whisky he drank, explaining that he wished to send barrels of it to some +of his other generals. His attitude is remarkable, because in his own +mind he had not thought well of any of Grant's plans after his first +failure in December; he had himself wished from an early day that Grant +would take the very course by which he ultimately succeeded. He let him +go his own way, as he afterwards told him, from "a general hope that you +know better than I." + +At the end of March Grant took a memorable determination to transfer his +whole force to the south of Vicksburg and approach it from that +direction. He was urged by Sherman to give up any further attempt to use +the river, and, instead, to bring his whole army back to Memphis and +begin a necessarily slow approach on Vicksburg by the railway. He +declared himself that on ordinary grounds of military prudence this would +have been the proper course, but he decided for himself that the +depressing effect of the retreat to Memphis would be politically +disastrous. At Grand Gulf, 30 miles south of Vicksburg, the South +possessed another fortified post on the river; to reach this Grant +required the help of the Navy, not only in crossing from the western bank +of the river, but in transporting the supplies for which the roads west +of the river were inadequate. Admiral Porter, with his gunboats and +laden barges, successfully ran the gauntlet of the Vicksburg batteries by +night without serious damage. Grand Gulf was taken on May 3, and Grant's +army established at this new base. A further doubt now arose. General +Banks in Louisiana was at this time preparing to besiege Port Hudson. It +might be well for Grant to go south and join him, and, after reducing +Port Hudson, return with Banks' forces against Vicksburg. This was what +now commended itself to Lincoln. In the letter of congratulation which +some time later he was able to send to Grant, after referring to his +former opinion which had been right, he confessed that he had now been +wrong. Banks was not yet ready to move, and Vicksburg, now seriously +threatened, might soon be reinforced. Orders to join Banks, though they +were probably meant to be discretionary, were actually sent to Grant, but +too late. He had cut himself loose from his base at Grand Gulf and +marched his troops north, to live with great hardship to themselves on +the country and the supplies they could take with them. He had with him +35,000 men. General Pemberton, to whom he had so far been opposed, lay +covering Vicksburg with 20,000 and a further force in the city; Joseph +Johnston, whom he afterwards described as the Southern general who in all +the war gave him most trouble, had been sent by Jefferson Davis to take +supreme command in the West, and had collected 11,000 men at Jackson, the +capital of Mississippi, 45 miles east of Vicksburg. Grant was able to +take his enemy in detail. Having broken up Johnston's force he defeated +Pemberton in a series of battles. His victory at Champion's Hill on May +16, not a fortnight after Chancellorsville, conveyed to his mind the +assurance that the North would win the war. An assault on Vicksburg +failed with heavy loss. Pemberton was at last closely invested in +Vicksburg and Grant could establish safe communications with the North by +way of the lower Yazoo and up the Mississippi above its mouth. There had +been dissension between Pemberton and Johnston, who, seeing that gunboats +proved able to pass Vicksburg in any case, thought that Pemberton, whom +he could not at the moment hope to relieve, should abandon Vicksburg and +try to save his army. Long before Johnston could be sufficiently +reinforced to attack Grant, Grant's force had been raised to 71,000. On +July 4, 1863, the day of the annual commemoration of national +Independence, Vicksburg was surrendered. Its garrison, who had suffered +severely, were well victualled by Grant and allowed to go free on parole. +Pemberton in his vexation treated Grant with peculiar insolence, which +provoked a singular exhibition of the conqueror's good temper to him; and +in his despatches to the President, Grant mentioned nothing with greater +pride than the absence of a word or a sign on the part of his men which +could hurt the feelings of the fallen. Johnston was forced to abandon +the town of Jackson with its large stores to Sherman, but could not be +pursued in his retreat. On July 9, five days later, the defender of Port +Hudson, invested shortly before by Banks, who had not force enough for an +assault, heard the news of Vicksburg and surrendered. Lincoln could now +boast to the North that "the Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the +sea." + +At the very hour when Vicksburg was surrendered Lincoln had been issuing +the news of another victory won in the preceding three days, which, along +with the capture of Vicksburg, marked the turning point of the war. For +more than a month after the battle of Chancellorsville the two opposing +armies in the East had lain inactive. The Conscription Law, with which +we must deal later, had recently been passed, and various elements of +discontent and disloyalty in the North showed a great deal of activity. +It seems that Jefferson Davis at first saw no political advantage in the +military risk of invading the North. Lee thought otherwise, and was +eager to follow up his success. At last, early in June, 1863, he started +northward. This time he aimed at the great industrial regions of +Pennsylvania, hoping also while assailing them to draw Hooker further +from Washington. Hooker, on first learning that Lee had crossed the +Rappahannock, entertained the thought of himself going south of it and +attacking Richmond. Lincoln dissuaded him, since he might be "entangled +upon the river, like an ox jumped half over a fence"; he could not take +Richmond for weeks, and his communications might be cut; besides, Lincoln +added, his true objective point throughout was Lee's army and not +Richmond. Hooker's later movements, in conformity with what he could +gather of Lee's movements, were prudent and skilful. He rejected a later +suggestion of Lincoln's that he should strike quickly at the most +assailable point in Lee's lengthening line of communications, and he was +wise, for Lee could live on the country he was traversing, and Hooker now +aimed at covering Philadelphia or Baltimore and Washington, according to +the direction which Lee might take, watching all the while for the moment +to strike. He found himself hampered in some details by probably +injudicious orders of his superior, Halleck, and became irritable and +querulous; Lincoln had to exercise his simple arts to keep him to his +duty and to soothe him, and was for the moment successful. Suddenly on +June 27, with a battle in near prospect, Hooker sent in his resignation; +probably he meant it, but there was no time to debate the matter. +Probably he had lost confidence in himself, as he did before at +Chancellorsville. Lincoln evidently judged that his state of mind made +it wise to accept this resignation. He promptly appointed in Hooker's +place one of his subordinates, General George Meade, a lean, tall, +studious, somewhat sharp-tongued man, not brilliant or popular or the +choice that the army would have expected, but with a record in previous +campaigns which made him seem to Lincoln trustworthy, as he was. A +subordinate command in which he could really distinguish himself was +later found for Hooker, who now took leave of his army in words of marked +generosity towards Meade. All this while there was great excitement in +the North. Urgent demands had been raised for the recall of McClellan, a +course of which, Lincoln justly observed, no one could measure the +inconvenience so well as he. + +Lee was now feeling his way, somewhat in the dark as to his enemy's +movements, because he had despatched most of his cavalry upon raiding +expeditions towards the important industrial centre of Harrisburg. Meade +continued on a parallel course to him, with his army spread out to guard +against any movements of Lee's to the eastward. Each commander would +have preferred to fight the other upon the defensive. Suddenly on July +1, three days after Meade had taken command, a chance collision took +place north of the town of Gettysburg between the advance guards of the +two armies. It developed into a general engagement, of which the result +must partly depend on the speed with which each commander could bring up +the remainder of his army. On the first day Lee achieved a decided +success. The Northern troops were driven back upon steep heights just +south of Gettysburg, of which the contour made it difficult for the enemy +to co-ordinate his movements in any attack on them. Here Meade, who when +the battle began was ten miles away and did not expect it, was able by +the morning of the 2nd or during that day to bring up his full force; and +here, contrary to his original choice of a position for bringing on a +battle, he made his stand. The attack planned by Lee on the following +day must, in his opinion, afterwards have been successful if "Stonewall" +Jackson had been alive and with him. As it was, his most brilliant +remaining subordinate, Longstreet, disapproved of any assault, and on +this and the following day obeyed his orders reluctantly and too slowly. +On July 3, 1863, Lee renewed his attack. In previous battles the +Northern troops had been contending with invisible enemies in woods; now, +after a heavy cannonade, the whole Southern line could be seen advancing +in the open to a desperate assault. This attack was crushed by the +Northern fire. First and last in the fighting round Gettysburg the North +lost 23,000 out of about 93,000 men, and the South about an equal number +out of 78,000. The net result was that, after a day's delay, Lee felt +compelled to retreat. Nothing but an actual victory would have made it +wise for him to persist in his adventurous invasion. + +The importance of this, which has been remembered as the chief battle of +the war, must be estimated rather by the peril from which the North was +delivered than by the results it immediately reaped. Neither on July 3 +nor during Lee's subsequent retreat did Meade follow up his advantage +with the boldness to which Lincoln, in the midst of his congratulations, +exhorted him. On July 12 Lee recrossed the Potomac. Meade on the day +before had thought of attacking him, but desisted on the advice of the +majority in a council of war. That council of war, as Lincoln said, +should never have been held. Its decision was demonstrably wrong, since +it rested on the hope that Lee would himself attack. Lincoln writhed at +a phrase in Meade's general orders about "driving the invader from our +soil." "Will our generals," he exclaimed in private, "never get that +idea out of their heads? The whole country is our soil." Meade, +however, unlike McClellan, was only cautious, not lukewarm, nor without a +mind of his own. The army opposed to him was much larger than that which +McClellan failed to overwhelm after Antietam. He had offered to resign +when he inferred Lincoln's dissatisfaction from a telegram. Lincoln +refused this, and made it clear through another officer that his strong +opinion as to what might have been done did not imply ingratitude or want +of confidence towards "a brave and skilful officer, and a true man." +Characteristically he relieved his sense of Meade's omissions in a letter +of most lucid criticism, and characteristically he never sent it. Step +by step Meade moved on Lee's track into the enemy's country. Indecisive +manoeuvres on both sides continued over four months. Lee was forced over +the Rappahannock, then over the Rapidan; Meade followed him, found his +army in peril, and prudently and promptly withdrew. In December the two +armies went into winter quarters on the two sides of the Rappahannock to +await the opening of a very different campaign when the next spring was +far advanced. + +The autumn months of 1863 witnessed in the Middle West a varying conflict +ending in a Northern victory hardly less memorable than those of +Gettysburg and Vicksburg. At last, after the fall of Vicksburg, +Rosecrans in Middle Tennessee found himself ready to advance. By skilful +manoeuvres, in the difficult country where the Tennessee River cuts the +Cumberland mountains and the parallel ranges which run from north-east to +south-west behind, he turned the flank of Bragg's position at Chattanooga +and compelled him to evacuate that town in the beginning of September. +Bragg, as he retreated, succeeded in getting false reports as to his +movements and the condition of his army conveyed to Rosecrans, who +accordingly followed him up in an incautious manner. By this time the +bulk of the forces that had been used against Vicksburg should have been +brought to support Rosecrans. Halleck, however, at first scattered them +for purposes which he thought important in the West. After a while, +however, one part of the army at Vicksburg was brought back to General +Burnside in Ohio, from whom it had been borrowed. Burnside accomplished +the very advance by Lexington, in Kentucky, over the mountains into +Eastern Tennessee, which Lincoln had so long desired for the relief of +the Unionists there, and he was able to hold his ground, defeating at +Knoxville a little later an expedition under Longstreet which was sent to +dislodge him. Other portions of the Western army were at last ordered to +join Rosecrans, but did not reach him before he had met with disaster. +For the Confederate authorities, eager to retrieve their losses, sent +every available reinforcement to Bragg, and he was shortly able to turn +back towards Chattanooga with over 71,000 men against the 57,000 with +which Rosecrans, scattering his troops in false security, was pursuing +him. The two armies came upon one another, without clear expectation, +upon the Chicamauga Creek beyond the ridge which lies south-east of +Chattanooga. The battle fought among the woods and hills by Chicamauga +on September 19 and 20 surpassed any other in the war in the heaviness of +the loss on each side. On the second day Bragg's manoeuvres broke +Rosecrans' line, and only an extraordinarily gallant stand by Thomas with +a part of the line, in successive positions of retreat, prevented Bragg +from turning the hasty retirement of the remainder into a disastrous +rout. As it was, Rosecrans made good his retreat to Chattanooga, but +there he was in danger of being completely cut off. A corps was promptly +detached from Meade in Virginia, placed under Hooker, and sent to relieve +him. Rosecrans, who in a situation of real difficulty seems to have had +no resourcefulness, was replaced in his command by Thomas. Grant was +appointed to supreme command of all the forces in the West and ordered to +Chattanooga. There, after many intricate operations on either side, a +great battle was eventually fought on November 24 and 25, 1863. Grant +had about 60,000 men; Bragg, who had detached Longstreet for his vain +attack on Burnside, had only 33,000, but he had one steep and entrenched +ridge behind another on which to stand. The fight was marked by notable +incidents--Hooker's "battle above the clouds"; and the impulse by which +apparently with no word of command, Thomas' corps, tired of waiting while +Sherman advanced upon the one flank and Hooker upon the other, arose and +carried a ridge which the enemy and Grant himself had regarded as +impregnable. It ended in a rout of the Confederates, which was +energetically followed up. Bragg's army was broken and driven right back +into Georgia. To sum up the events of the year, the one serious invasion +of the North by the South had failed, and the dominion on which the +Confederacy had any real hold was now restricted to the Atlantic States, +Alabama, and a part of the State of Mississippi. + +At this point, at which the issue of the war, if it were only pursued, +could not be doubted, and at which, as it happens, the need of Lincoln's +personal intervention in military matters became greatly diminished, we +may try to obtain a general impression of his wisdom, or want of it, in +such affairs. The closeness and keen intelligence with which he followed +the war is undoubted, but could only be demonstrated by a lengthy +accumulation of evidence. The larger strategy of the North, sound in the +main, was of course the product of more than one co-operating mind, but +as his was undoubtedly the dominant will of his Administration, so too it +seems likely that, with his early and sustained grasp of the general +problem, he contributed not a little to the clearness and consistency of +the strategical plans. The amount of the forces raised was for long, as +we shall see later, beyond his control, and, in the distribution of what +he had to the best effect, his own want of knowledge and the poor +judgment of his earlier advisers seem to have caused some errors. He +started with the evident desire to put himself almost unreservedly in the +hands of the competent military counsellors, and he was able in the end +to do so; but for a long intermediate period, as we have seen, he was +compelled as a responsible statesman to forego this wish. It was all +that time his function first to pick out, with very little to go by, the +best officers he could find, replacing them with better when he could; +and secondly to give them just so much direction, and no more, as his +wisdom at a distance and their more expert skill upon the spot made +proper. In each of these respects his occasional mistakes are plain +enough, but the evidence, upon which he has often been thought capable of +setting aside sound military considerations causelessly or in obedience +to interested pressure, breaks down when the facts of any imputed +instance are known. It is manifest that he gained rapidly both in +knowledge of the men he dealt with and in the firm kindness with which he +treated them. It is remarkable that, with his ever-burning desire to see +vigour and ability displayed, he could watch so constantly as he did for +the precise opportunity or the urgent necessity before he made changes in +command. It is equally remarkable that, with his decided and often right +views as to what should be done, his advice was always offered with equal +deference and plainness. "Quite possibly I was wrong both then and now," +he once wrote to Hooker, "but in the great responsibility resting upon +me, I cannot be entirely silent. Now, all I ask is that you will be in +such mood that we can get into action the best cordial judgment of +yourself and General Halleck, with my poor mite added, if indeed he and +you shall think it entitled to any consideration at all." The man whose +habitual attitude was this, and who yet could upon the instant take his +own decision, may be presumed to have been wise in many cases where we do +not know his reasons. Few statesmen, perhaps, have so often stood +waiting and refrained themselves from a firm will and not from the want +of it, and for the sake of the rare moment of action. + +The passing of the crisis in the war was fittingly commemorated by a +number of State Governors who combined to institute a National Cemetery +upon the field of Gettysburg. It was dedicated on November 19, 1863. +The speech of the occasion was delivered by Edward Everett, the +accomplished man once already mentioned as the orator of highest repute +in his day. The President was bidden then to say a few words at the +close. The oration with which for two hours Everett delighted his vast +audience charms no longer, though it is full of graceful sentiment and +contains a very reasonable survey of the rights and wrongs involved in +the war, and of its progress till then. The few words of Abraham Lincoln +were such as perhaps sank deep, but left his audience unaware that a +classic had been spoken which would endure with the English language. +The most literary man present was also Lincoln's greatest admirer, young +John Hay. To him it seemed that Mr. Everett spoke perfectly, and "the +old man" gracefully for him. These were the few words: "Four score and +seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, +conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are +created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether +that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long +endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to +dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who +here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether +fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we +cannot dedicate--we cannot consecrate--we cannot hallow--this ground. +The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it +far above our poor power to add or to detract. The world will little +note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what +they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to +the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly +advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task +remaining before us--that from these honoured dead we take increased +devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of +devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died +in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; +and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall +not perish from the earth." + + +2. _Conscription and the Politics of 1863_. + +The events of our day may tempt us to underestimate the magnitude of the +American Civil War, not only in respect of its issues, but in respect of +the efforts that were put forth. Impartial historians declare that "no +previous war had ever in the same time entailed upon the combatants such +enormous sacrifices of life and wealth." Even such battles as Malplaquet +had not rivalled in carnage the battles of this war, and in the space of +these four years there took place a number of engagements--far more than +can be recounted here--in many of which, as at Gettysburg, the casualties +amounted to a quarter of the whole forces engaged. The Southern armies, +especially towards the end of the war, were continually being pitted +against vastly superior numbers; the Northern armies, whether we look at +the whole war as one vast enterprise of conquest or at almost any +important battle save that of Gettysburg, were as continually confronted +with great obstacles in the matter of locality and position. In this +case, of a new and not much organised country unprepared for war, exact +or intelligible figures as to losses or as to the forces raised must not +be expected, but, according to what seems to be a fair estimate, the +total deaths on the Northern and the Southern side directly due to the +war stood to the population of the whole country at its beginning as at +least 1 to 32. Of these deaths about half occurred on the Northern and +half on the Southern side; this, however, implies that in proportion to +its population the South lost twice as heavily as the North. + +Neither side obtained the levies of men that it needed without resort to +compulsion. The South, in which this necessity either arose more quickly +or was seen more readily, had called up before the end of the war its +whole available manhood. In the North the proportion of effort and +sacrifice required was obviously less, and, at least at one critical +moment, it was disastrously under-estimated. A system of compulsion, to +be used in default of volunteering, was brought into effect half-way +through the war. Under this system there were in arms at the end of the +war 980,000 white Northern soldiers, who probably stood to the population +at that time in as high a proportion as 1 to 25, and everything was in +readiness for calling up a vastly greater number if necessary. After +twenty months of war, when the purely voluntary system still existed but +was proving itself inadequate to make good the wastage of the armies, the +number in arms for the North was 860,717, perhaps as much as 1 in 27 of +the population then. It would be useless to evade the question which at +once suggests itself, whether the results of voluntary enlistment in this +country during the present war have surpassed to the extent to which they +undoubtedly ought to have surpassed the standard set by the North in the +Civil War. For these two cases furnish the only instances in which the +institution of voluntary enlistment has been submitted to a severe test +by Governments reluctant to abandon it. The two cases are of course not +strictly comparable. Our own country in this matter had the advantages +of riper organisation, political and social, and of the preparatory +education given it by the Territorials and by Lord Roberts. The +extremity of the need was in our case immediately apparent; and the cause +at issue appealed with the utmost simplicity and intensity to every brave +and to every gentle nature. In the Northern States, on the other hand, +apart from all other considerations, there were certain to be sections, +local, racial, and political, upon which the national cause could take no +very firm hold. That this was so proves no unusual prevalence of +selfishness or of stupidity; and the apathy of such sections of the +people, like that of smaller sections in our own case, sets in a brighter +light the devotion which made so many eager to give their all. Moreover, +the general patriotism of the Northern people is not to be judged by the +failure of the purely voluntary system, but rather, as will be seen +later, by the success of the system which succeeded it. There is in our +case no official statement of the exact number serving on any particular +day, but the facts which are published make it safe to conclude that, at +the end of fifteen months of war, when no compulsion was in force, the +soldiers then in service and drawn from the United Kingdom alone amounted +to 1 in 17 of the population. The population in this case is one of +which a smaller proportion are of military age than was the case in the +Northern States, with their great number of immigrants. The apparent +effect of these figures would be a good deal heightened if it were +possible to make a correct addition in the case of each country for the +numbers killed or disabled in war up to the dates in question and for the +numbers serving afloat. Moreover, the North, when it was driven to +abandon the purely voluntary system, had not reached the point at which +the withdrawal of men from civil occupations could have been regarded +among the people as itself a national danger, or at which the Government +was compelled to deter some classes from enlisting; new industries +unconnected with the war were all the while springing up, and the +production and export of foodstuffs were increasing rapidly. For the +reasons which have been stated, there is nothing invidious in thus +answering an unavoidable question. Judged by any previous standard of +voluntary national effort, the North answered the test well. Each of our +related peoples must look upon the rally of its fathers and grandfathers +in the one case, its brothers and sons in the other, with mingled +feelings in which pride predominates, the most legitimate source of pride +in our case being the unity of the Empire. To each the question must +present itself whether the nations, democratic and otherwise, which have +followed from the first, or, like the South, have rapidly adopted a +different principle, have not, in this respect, a juster cause of pride. +In some of these countries, by common and almost unquestioning consent, +generation after generation of youths and men in their prime have held +themselves at the instant disposal of their country if need should arise; +and, in the absence of need and the absence of excitement, have +contentedly borne the appreciable sacrifice of training. With this it is +surely necessary to join a further question, whether the compulsion +which, under conscription, the public imposes on individuals is +comparable in its harshness to the sacrifice and the conflict of duties +imposed by the voluntary system upon the best people in all classes as +such. + +From the manner in which the war arose it will easily be understood that +the South was quicker than the North in shaping its policy for raising +armies. Before a shot had been fired at Fort Sumter, and when only seven +of the ten Southern States had yet seceded, President Jefferson Davis had +at his command more than double the number of the United States Army as +it then was. He had already lawful authority to raise that number to +nearly three times as many. And, though there was protest in some +States, and some friction between the Confederate War Department and the +State militias, on the whole the seceding States, in theory jealous of +their rights, submitted very readily in questions of defence to the +Confederacy. + +It is not clear how far the Southern people displayed their warlike +temper by a sustained flow of voluntary enlistment; but their Congress +showed the utmost promptitude in granting every necessary power to their +President, and on April 16, 1862, a sweeping measure of compulsory +service was passed. The President of the Confederacy could call into the +service any white resident in the South between the ages of eighteen and +thirty-five, with certain statutory exemptions. There was, of course, +trouble about the difficult question of exemptions, and under conflicting +pressure the Confederate Congress made and unmade various laws about +them. After a time all statutory exemptions were done away, and it was +left entirely in the discretion of the Southern President to say what men +were required in various departments of civil life. The liability to +serve was extended in September, 1862, to all between eighteen and +forty-five, and finally in February, 1864, to all between seventeen and +fifty. The rigorous conscription which necessity required could not be +worked without much complaint. There was a party disposed to regard the +law as unconstitutional. The existence of sovereign States within the +Confederacy was very likely an obstacle to the local and largely +voluntary organisation for deciding claims which can exist in a unified +country. A Government so hard driven must, even if liberally minded, +have enforced the law with much actual hardship. A belief in the +ruthlessness of the Southern conscription penetrated to the North. If +was probably exaggerated from the temptation to suppose that secession +was the work of a tyranny and not of the Southern people. Desertion and +failure of the Conscription Law became common in the course of 1864, but +this would seem to have been due not so much to resentment at the system +as to the actual loss of a large part of the South, and the spread of a +perception that the war was now hopelessly lost. In the last extremities +of the Confederate Government the power of compulsion of course +completely broke down. But, upon the surface at least, it seems plain +that what has been called the military despotism of Jefferson Davis +rested upon the determination rather than upon the submissiveness of the +people. + +In the North, where there was double the population to draw upon, the +need for compulsion was not likely to be felt as soon. The various +influences which would later depress enlistment had hardly begun to +assert themselves, when the Government, as if to aggravate them in +advance, committed a blunder which has never been surpassed in its own +line. On April 3, 1862, recruiting was stopped dead; the central +recruiting office at Washington was closed and its staff dispersed. Many +writers agree in charging this error against Stanton. He must have been +the prime author of it, but this does not exonerate Lincoln. It was no +departmental matter, but a matter of supreme policy. Lincoln's knowledge +of human nature and his appreciation of the larger bearings of every +question might have been expected to set Stanton right, unless, indeed, +the thing was done suddenly behind his back. In any case, this must be +added to the indications seen in an earlier chapter, that Lincoln's calm +strength and sure judgment had at that time not yet reached their full +development. As for Stanton, a man of much narrower mind, but acute, +devoted, and morally fearless, kept in the War Department as a sort of +tame tiger to prey on abuses, negligences, pretensions, and political +influences, this was one among a hundred smaller erratic doings, which +his critics have never thought of as outweighing his peculiar usefulness. +His departmental point of view can easily be understood. Recruits, +embarrassingly, presented themselves much faster than they could be +organised or equipped, and an overdriven office did not pause to think +out some scheme of enlistment for deferred service. Waste had been +terrific, and Stanton did not dislike a petty economy which might shock +people in Washington. McClellan clamoured for more men--let him do +something with what he had got; Stanton, indeed, very readily became +sanguine that McClellan, once in motion, would crush the Confederacy. +Events conspired to make the mistake disastrous. In these very days the +Confederacy was about to pass its own Conscription Act. McClellan, +instead of pressing on to Richmond, sat down before Yorktown and let the +Confederate conscripts come up. Halleck was crawling southward, when a +rapid advance might have robbed the South of a large recruiting area. +The reopening of enlistment came on the top of the huge disappointment at +McClellan's failure in the peninsula. There was a creditable response to +the call which was then made for volunteers. But the disappointment of +the war continued throughout 1862; the second Bull Run; the inconclusive +sequel to Antietam; Fredericksburg; and, side by side with these events, +the long-drawn failure of Buell's and Rosecrans' operations. The spirit +of voluntary service seems to have revived vigorously enough wherever and +whenever the danger of Southern invasion became pressing, but under this +protracted depressing influence it no longer rose to the task of subduing +the South. It must be added that wages in civil employment were very +high. Lincoln, it is evident, felt this apparent failure of patriotism +sadly, but in calm retrospect it cannot seem surprising. + +In the latter part of 1862 attempts were made to use the powers of +compulsion which the several States possessed, under the antiquated laws +as to militia which existed in all of them, in order to supplement +recruiting. The number of men raised for short periods in this way is so +small that the description of the Northern armies at this time as purely +volunteer armies hardly needs qualification. It would probably be worth +no one's while to investigate the makeshift system with which the +Government, very properly, then tried to help itself out; for it speedily +and completely failed. The Conscription Act, which became law on March +3, 1863, set up for the first time an organisation for recruiting which +covered the whole country but was under the complete control of the +Federal Government. It was placed under an officer of great ability, +General J. B. Fry, formerly chief of staff to Buell, and now entitled +Provost-Marshal-General. It was his business, through provost-marshals +in a number of districts, each divisible into sub-districts as +convenience might require, to enroll all male citizens between twenty and +forty-five. He was to assign a quota, in other words a stated proportion +of the number of troops for which the Government might at any time call, +to each district, having regard to the number of previous enlistments +from each district. The management of voluntary enlistment was placed in +his hands, in order that the two methods of recruiting might be worked in +harmony. The system as a whole was quite distinct from any such system +of universal service as might have been set up beforehand in time of +peace. Compulsion only came into force in default of sufficient +volunteers from any district to provide its required number of the troops +wanted. When it came into force the "drafts" of conscripts were chosen +by lot from among those enrolled as liable for service. But there was a +way of escape from actual service. It seems, from what Lincoln wrote, to +have been looked upon as a time-honoured principle, established by +precedent in all countries, that the man on whom the lot fell might +provide a substitute if he could. The market price of a substitute (a +commodity for the provision of which a class of "substitute brokers" came +into being) proved to be about 1,000 dollars. Business or professional +men, who felt they could not be spared from home but wished to act +patriotically, did buy substitutes; but they need not have done so, for +the law contained a provision intended, as Lincoln recorded, to safeguard +poorer men against such a rise in prices. They could escape by paying +300 dollars, or 60 pounds, not, in the then state of wages, an +extravagant penalty upon an able-bodied man. The sums paid under this +provision covered the cost of the recruiting business. + +Most emphatically the Conscription Law operated mainly as a stimulus to +voluntary enlistment. The volunteer received, as the conscript did not, +a bounty from the Government; States, counties, and smaller localities, +when once a quota was assigned to them, vied with one another in filling +their quota with volunteers, and for that purpose added to the Government +bounty. It goes without saying that in a new country, with its scattered +country population and its disorganised great new towns, there were +plenty of abuses. Substitute brokers provided the wrong article; +ingenious rascals invented the trade of "bounty-jumping," and would +enlist for a bounty, desert, enlist for another bounty, and so on +indefinitely; and the number of men enrolled who were afterwards +unaccounted for was large. There was of course also grumbling of +localities at the quotas assigned to them, though no pains were spared to +assign them fairly. There was some opposition to the working of the law +after it was passed, but it was, not general, but partly the opposition +of rowdies in degraded neighbourhoods, partly factitious political +opposition, and partly seditious and openly friendly to the South. In +general the country accepted the law as a manifest military necessity. +The spirit and manner of its acceptance may be judged from the results of +any of the calls for troops under this law. For example, in December, +1864, towards the end of the war, 211,752 men were brought up to the +colours; of these it seems that 194,715 were ordinary volunteers, 10,192 +were substitutes provided by conscripts, and only 6,845 were actually +compelled men. It is perhaps more significant still that among those who +did not serve there were only 460 who paid the 300-dollar penalty, as +against the 10,192 who must have paid at least three times that sum for +substitutes. Behind the men who had been called up by the end of the war +the North had, enrolled and ready to be called, over two million men. +The North had not to suffer as the South suffered, but unquestionably in +this matter it rose to the occasion. + +The constitutional validity of the law was much questioned by +politicians, but never finally tried out on appeal to the Supreme Court. +There seems to be no room for doubt that Lincoln's own reasoning on this +matter was sound. The Constitution simply gave to Congress "power to +raise and support armies," without a word as to the particular means to +be used for the purpose; the new and extremely well-considered +Constitution of the Confederacy was in this respect the same. The +Constitution, argued Lincoln, would not have given the power of raising +armies without one word as to the mode in which it was to be exercised, +if it had not meant Congress to be the sole judge as to the mode. "The +principle," he wrote, "of the draft, which simply is involuntary or +enforced service, is not new. It has been practised in all ages of the +world. It was well known to the framers of our Constitution as one of +the modes of raising armies. . . . It had been used just before, in +establishing our independence, and it was also used under the +Constitution in 1812." In fact, as we have seen, a certain power of +compelling military service existed in each of the States and had existed +in them from the first. Their ancestors had brought the principle with +them from the old country, in which the system of the "militia ballot" +had not fallen into desuetude when they became independent. The +traditional English jealousy, which the American Colonies had imbibed, +against the military power of the Crown had never manifested itself in +any objection to the means which might be taken to raise soldiers, but in +establishing a strict control of the number which the Crown could at any +moment maintain; and this control had long been in England and had always +been in America completely effective. We may therefore treat the protest +which was raised against the law as unconstitutional, and the companion +argument that it tended towards military despotism, as having belonged to +the realm of political verbiage, and as neither founded in reason nor +addressed to living popular emotions. + +This is the way in which the Northern people, of whom a large part were, +it must be remembered, Democrats, seem to have regarded these +contentions, and a real sense, apart from these contentions, that +conscription was unnecessary or produced avoidable hardship seems +scarcely to have existed. It was probably for this reason that Lincoln +never published the address to the people, or perhaps more particularly +to the Democratic opposition, to which several references have already +been made. In the course of it he said: "At the beginning of the war, +and ever since, a variety of motives, pressing, some in one direction and +some in the other, would be presented to the mind of each man physically +fit to be a soldier, upon the combined effect of which motives he would, +or would not, voluntarily enter the service. Among these motives would +be patriotism, political bias, ambition, personal courage, love of +adventure, want of employment, and convenience, or the opposite of some +of these. We already have and have had in the service, as it appears, +substantially all that can be obtained upon this voluntary weighing of +motives. And yet we must somehow obtain more or relinquish the original +object of the contest, together with all the blood and treasure already +expended in the effort to secure it. To meet this necessity the law for +the draft has been enacted. You who do not wish to be soldiers do not +like this law. This is natural; nor does it imply want of patriotism. +Nothing can be so just and necessary as to make us like it if it is +disagreeable to us. We are prone, too, to find false arguments with +which to excuse ourselves for opposing such disagreeable things." He +proceeded to meet some of these arguments upon the lines which have +already been indicated. After speaking of the precedents for +conscription in America, he continued: "Wherein is the peculiar hardship +now? Shall we shrink from the necessary means to maintain our free +government, which our grandfathers employed to establish it and our +fathers have already once employed to maintain it? Are we degenerate? +Has the manhood of our race run out?" Unfair administration was +apprehended. "This law," he said, "belongs to a class, which class is +composed of those laws whose object is to distribute burthens or benefits +on the principle of equality. No one of these laws can ever be +practically administered with that exactness which can be conceived of in +the mind. A tax law . . . will be a dead letter if no one will be +compelled to pay until it can be shown that every other one will be +compelled to pay in precisely the same proportion according to value; +nay, even it will be a dead letter if no one can be compelled to pay +until it is certain that every other one will pay at all. . . . This +sort of difficulty applies in full force to the practical administration +of the draft law. In fact, the difficulty is greater in the case of the +draft law"; and he proceeded to state the difficulties. "In all these +points," he continued, "errors will occur in spite of the utmost +fidelity. The Government is bound to administer the law with such an +approach to exactness as is usual in analogous cases, and as entire good +faith and fidelity will reach." Errors, capable of correction, should, +he promised, be corrected when pointed out; but he concluded: "With these +views and on these principles, I feel bound to tell you it is my purpose +to see the draft law faithfully executed." It was his way, as has been +seen, sometimes to set his thoughts very plainly on paper and to consider +afterwards the wisdom of publishing them. This paper never saw the light +till after his death. It is said that some scruple as to the custom in +his office restrained him from sending it out, but this scruple probably +weighed with him the more because he saw that the sincere people whom he +had thought of addressing needed no such appeal. It was surely a wise +man who, writing so wisely, could see the greater wisdom of silence. + +The opposition to the Conscription Law may be treated simply as one +element in the propaganda of the official Opposition to the +Administration. The opposition to such a measure which we might possibly +have expected to arise from churches, or from schools of thought +independent of the ordinary parties, does not seem, as a matter of fact, +to have arisen. The Democratic party had, as we have seen, revived in +force in the latter part of 1862. Persons, ambitious, from whatever +mixture of motives, of figuring as leaders of opposition during a war +which they did not condemn, found a public to which to appeal, mainly +because the war was not going well. They found a principle of opposition +satisfactory to themselves in condemning the Proclamation of +Emancipation. (It was significant that McClellan shortly after the +Proclamation issued a General Order enjoining obedience to the Government +and adding the hint that "the remedy for political errors, if any are +committed, is to be found only in the action of the people at the +polls.") In the curious creed which respectable men, with whom +allegiance to an ancient party could be a powerful motive at such a time, +were driven to construct for themselves, enforcement of the duty to +defend the country and liberation of the enemy's slaves appeared as twin +offences against the sacred principles of constitutional freedom. It +would have been monstrous to say that most of the Democrats were opposed +to the war. Though a considerable number had always disliked it and now +found courage to speak loudly, the bulk were as loyal to the Union as +those very strong Republicans like Greeley, who later on despaired of +maintaining it. But there were naturally Democrats for whom a chance now +appeared in politics, and who possessed that common type of political +mind that meditates deeply on minor issues and is inflamed by zeal +against minor evils. Such men began to debate with their consciences +whether the wicked Government might not become more odious than the +enemy. There arose, too, as there often arises in war time, a fraternal +feeling between men who hated the war and men who reflected how much +better they could have if waged it themselves. + +There was, of course, much in the conduct of the Government which called +for criticism, and on that account it was a grievous pity that +independence should have stultified itself by reviving in any form the +root principle of party government, and recognising as the best critics +of the Administration men who desired to take its place. More useful +censure of the Government at that time might have come from men who, if +they had axes to grind, would have publicly thrown them away. There were +two points which especially called for criticism, apart from military +administration, upon which, as it happened, Lincoln knew more than his +critics knew and more than he could say. One of these points was +extravagance and corruption in the matter of army contracts and the like; +these evils were dangerously prevalent, but members of the Cabinet were +as anxious to prevent them as any outside critic could be, and it was +friendly help, not censure, that was required. The other point was the +exercise of martial law, a difficult question, upon which a word must +here be said, but upon which only those could usefully have spoken out +whose general support of the Government was pronounced and sincere. + +In almost every rebellion or civil war statesmen and the military +officers under them are confronted with the need, for the sake of the +public safety or even of ordinary justice, of rules and procedure which +the law in peace time would abhor. In great conflicts, such as our own +wars after the French Revolution and the American Civil War, statesmen +such as Pitt and Lincoln, capable of handling such a problem well, have +had their hands full of yet more urgent matters. The puzzling part of +the problem does not lie in the neighbourhood of the actual fighting, +where for the moment there can be no law but the will of the commander, +but in the districts more distantly affected, or in the period when the +war is smouldering out. Lincoln's Government had at first to guard +itself against dangerous plots which could be scented but not proved in +Washington; later on it had to answer such questions as this: What should +be done when a suspected agent of the enemy is vaguely seen to be working +against enlistment, when an attack by the civil mob upon the recruits is +likely to result, and when the local magistrate and police are not much +to be trusted? There is no doubt that Seward at the beginning, and +Stanton persistently, and zealous local commanders now and then solved +such problems in a very hasty fashion, or that Lincoln throughout was far +more anxious to stand by vigorous agents of the Government than to +correct them. + +Lincoln claimed that as Commander-in-Chief he had during the continuance +of civil war a lawful authority over the lives and liberties of all +citizens, whether loyal or otherwise, such as any military commander +exercises in hostile country occupied by his troops. He held that there +was no proper legal remedy for persons injured under this authority +except by impeachment of himself. He held, further, that this authority +extended to every place to which the action of the enemy in any form +extended--that is, to the whole country. This he took to be the doctrine +of English Common Law, and he contended that the Constitution left this +doctrine in full force. Whatever may be said as to his view of the +Common Law doctrine, his construction of the Constitution would now be +held by every one to have been wrong. Plainly read, the Constitution +swept away the whole of that somewhat undefined doctrine of martial law +which may be found in some decisions of our Courts, and it did much more. +Every Legislature in the British Empire can, subject to the veto of the +Crown, enact whatever exceptional measures of public safety it thinks +necessary in an emergency. The Constitution restricted this legislative +power within the very narrowest limits. There is, moreover, a recognised +British practice, initiated by Wellington and Castlereagh, by which all +question as to the authority of martial law is avoided; a governor or +commander during great public peril is encouraged to consider what is +right and necessary, not what is lawful, knowing that if necessary there +will be enquiry into his conduct afterwards, but knowing also that, +unless he acts quite unconscionably, he and his agents will be protected +by an Act of Indemnity from the legal consequences of whatever they have +done in good faith. The American Constitution would seem to render any +such Act of Indemnity impossible. In a strictly legal sense, therefore, +the power which Lincoln exercised must be said to have been usurped. The +arguments by which he defended his own legality read now as good +arguments on what the law should have been, but bad arguments on what the +law was. He did not, perhaps, attach extreme importance to this legal +contention, for he declared plainly that he was ready to break the law in +minor matters rather than let the whole fabric of law go to ruin. This, +however, does not prove that he was insincere when he pleaded legal as +well as moral justification; he probably regarded the Constitution in a +manner which modern lawyers find it difficult to realise; he probably +applied in construing it a principle such as Hamilton laid down for the +construction of statutes, that it was "qualified and controlled" by the +Common Law and by considerations of "convenience" and of "reason" and of +the policy which its framers, as wise and honest men, would have followed +in present circumstances; he probably would have adapted to the occasion +Hamilton's position that "construction may be made against the letter of +the statute to render it agreeable to natural justice." + +In the exercise of his supposed prerogative Lincoln sanctioned from +beginning to end of the war the arrest of many suspected dangerous +persons under what may be called "letters de cachet" from Seward and +afterwards from Stanton. He publicly professed in 1863 his regret that +he had not caused this to be done in cases, such as those of Lee and +Joseph Johnston, where it had not been done. When agitation arose on the +matter in the end of 1862 many political prisoners were, no doubt wisely, +released. Congress then proceeded, in 1863, to exercise such powers in +the matter as the Constitution gave it by an Act suspending, where the +President thought fit, the privilege of the writ of _habeas corpus_. A +decision of the Supreme Court, delivered curiously enough by Lincoln's +old friend David Davis, showed that the real effect of this Act, so far +as valid under the Constitution, was ridiculously small (see _Ex parte +Milligan_, 4 Russell, 2). In any case the Act was hedged about with many +precautions. These were entirely disregarded by the Government, which +proceeded avowedly upon Lincoln's theory of martial law. The whole +country was eventually proclaimed to be under martial law, and many +persons were at the orders of the local military commander tried and +punished by court-martial for offences, such as the discouragement of +enlistment or the encouragement of desertion, which might not have been +punishable by the ordinary law, or of which the ordinary Courts might not +have convicted them. This fresh outbreak of martial law must in large +part be ascribed to Lincoln's determination that the Conscription Act +should not be frustrated; but apart from offences relating to enlistment +there was from 1863 onwards no lack of seditious plots fomented by the +agents of the Confederacy in Canada, and there were several secret +societies, "knights" of this, that, or the other. Lincoln, it is true, +scoffed at these, but very often the general on the spot thought +seriously of them, and the extreme Democratic leader, Vallandigham, +boasted that there were half a million men in the North enrolled in such +seditious organisations. Drastic as the Government proceedings were, the +opposition to them died down before the popular conviction that strong +measures were necessary, and the popular appreciation that the +blood-thirsty despot "King Abraham I.," as some Democrats were pleased to +call him, was not of the stuff of which despots were made and was among +the least blood-thirsty men living. The civil Courts made no attempt to +interfere; they said that, whatever the law, they could not in fact +resist generals commanding armies. British Courts would in many cases +have declined to interfere, not on the ground that the general had the +might, but on the ground that he had the right; yet, it seems, they would +not quite have relinquished their hold on the matter, but would have held +themselves free to consider whether the district in which martial law was +exercised was materially affected by the state of war or not. The legal +controversy ended in a manner hardly edifying to the layman; in the +course of 1865 the Supreme Court solemnly tried out the question of the +right of one Milligan to a writ of _habeas corpus_. At that time the +war, the only ground on which the right could have been refused him, had +for some months been ended; and nobody in court knew or cared whether +Milligan was then living to enjoy his right or had been shot long before. + +Save in a few cases of special public interest, Lincoln took no personal +part in the actual administration of these coercive measures. So great a +tax was put upon his time, and indeed his strength, by the personal +consideration of cases of discipline in the army, that he could not +possibly have undertaken a further labour of the sort. Moreover, he +thought it more necessary for the public good to give steady support to +his ministers and generals than to check their action in detail. He +contended that no great injustice was likely to arise. Very likely he +was wrong; not only Democrats, but men like Senator John Sherman, a +strong and sensible Republican, thought him wrong. There are evil +stories about the secret police under Stanton, and some records of the +proceedings of the courts-martial, composed sometimes of the officers +least useful at the front, are not creditable. Very likely, as John +Sherman thought, the ordinary law would have met the needs of the case in +many districts. The mere number of the political prisoners, who counted +by thousands, proves nothing, for the least consideration of the +circumstances will show that the active supporters of the Confederacy in +the North must have been very numerous. Nor does it matter much that, to +the horror of some people, there were persons of station, culture, and +respectability among the sufferers; persons of this kind were not likely +to be exposed to charges of disloyal conduct if they were actively loyal. +Obscure and ignorant men are much more likely to have become the innocent +victims of spiteful accusers or vile agents of police. Doubtless this +might happen; but that does not of itself condemn Lincoln for having +maintained an extreme form of martial law. The particular kind of +oppression that is likely to have occurred is one against which the +normal procedure of justice and police in America is said to-day to +provide no sufficient safeguard. It is almost certain that the regular +course of law would have exposed the public weal to formidable dangers; +but it by no means follows that it would have saved individuals from +wrong. The risk that many individuals would be grievously wronged was at +least not very great. The Government was not pursuing men for erroneous +opinions, but for certain very definite kinds of action dangerous to the +State. These were indeed kinds of action with which Lincoln thought +ordinary Courts of justice "utterly incompetent" to deal, and he avowed +that he aimed rather at preventing intended actions than at punishing +them when done. To some minds this will seem to be an attitude dangerous +to liberty, but he was surely justified when he said, "In such cases the +purposes of men are much more easily understood than in cases of ordinary +crime. The man who stands by and says nothing when the peril of his +Government is discussed cannot be misunderstood. If not hindered, he is +sure to help the enemy, much more if he talks ambiguously--talks for his +country with 'buts' and 'ifs' and 'ands.'" In any case, Lincoln stood +clearly and boldly for repressing speech or act, that could help the +enemy, with extreme vigour and total disregard for the legalities of +peace time. A little later on we shall see fully whether this imported +on his part any touch whatever of the ferocity which it may seem to +suggest. + +The Democratic opposition which made some headway in the first half of +1863 comprised a more extreme opposition prevailing in the West and led +by Clement Vallandigham, a Congressman from Ohio, and a milder opposition +led by Horatio Seymour, who from the end of 1862 to the end of 1864, when +he failed of re-election, was Governor of New York State. The extreme +section were often called "Copperheads," after a venomous snake of that +name. Strictly, perhaps, this political term should be limited to the +few who went so far as to desire the victory of the South; more loosely +it was applied to a far larger number who went no further than to say +that the war should be stopped. This demand, it must be observed, was +based upon the change of policy shown in the Proclamation of +Emancipation. "The war for the Union," said Vallandigham in Congress in +January, 1863, "is in your hands a most bloody and costly failure. War +for the Union was abandoned; war for the negro openly begun. With what +success? Let the dead at Fredericksburg answer.--Ought this war to +continue? I answer no--not a day, not an hour. What then? Shall we +separate? Again I answer, no, no, no.--Stop fighting. Make an +armistice. Accept at once friendly foreign mediation." And further: +"The secret but real purpose of the war was to abolish slavery in the +States, and with it the change of our present democratical form of +government into an imperial despotism." This was in no sense treason; it +was merely humbug. The alleged design to establish despotism, chiefly +revealed at that moment by the liberation of slaves, had of course no +existence. Equally false, as will be seen later, was the whole +suggestion that any peace could have been had with the South except on +the terms of separation. Vallandigham, a demagogue of real vigour, had +perhaps so much honesty as is compatible with self-deception; at any +rate, upon his subsequent visit to the South his intercourse with +Southern leaders was conducted on the footing that the Union should be +restored. But his character inspired no respect. Burnside, now +commanding the troops in Ohio, held that violent denunciation of the +Government in a tone that tended to demoralise the troops was treason, +since it certainly was not patriotism, and when in May, 1863, +Vallandigham made a very violent and offensive speech in Ohio he had him +arrested in his house at night, and sent him before a court-martial which +imprisoned him. Loud protest was raised by every Democrat. This worry +came upon Lincoln just after Chancellorsville. He regretted Burnside's +action--later on he had to reverse the rash suppression of a newspaper by +which Burnside provoked violent indignation--but on this occasion he +would only say in public that he "regretted the necessity" of such +action. Evidently he thought it his duty to support a well-intentioned +general against a dangerous agitator. The course which after some +consideration he took was of the nature of a practical joke, perhaps +justified by its success. Vallandigham was indeed released; he was taken +to the front and handed over to the Confederates as if he had been an +exchanged prisoner of war. In reply to demands from the Democratic +organisation in Ohio that Vallandigham might be allowed to return home, +Lincoln offered to consent if their leaders would sign a pledge to +support the war and promote the efficiency of the army. This they called +an evasion. Vallandigham made his way to Canada and conducted intrigues +from thence. In his absence he was put up for the governorship of Ohio +in November, but defeated by a huge majority, doubtless the larger +because of Gettysburg and Vicksburg. The next year he suddenly returned +home, braving the chance of arrest, and, probably to his disappointment, +Lincoln let him be. In reply to protests against Vallandigham's arrest +which had been sent by meetings in Ohio and New York, Lincoln had written +clear defences of his action, from which the foregoing account of his +views on martial law has been taken. In one of them was a sentence which +probably went further with the people of the North than any other: "Must +I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a +hair of a wily agitator who induces him to desert?" There may or may not +be some fallacy lurking here, but it must not be supposed that this +sentence came from a pleader's ingenuity. It was the expression of a man +really agonised by his weekly task of confirming sentences on deserters +from the army. + +Governor Seymour was a more presentable antagonist than Vallandigham. He +did not propose to stop the war. On the contrary, his case was that the +war could only be effectively carried on by a law-abiding Government, +which would unite the people by maintaining the Constitution, not, as the +Radicals argued, by the flagitious policy of freeing the slaves. It +should be added that he was really concerned at the corruption which was +becoming rife, for which war contracts gave some scope, and which, with a +critic's obliviousness to the limitations of a human force, he thought +the most heavily-burdened Administration of its time could easily have +put down. With a little imagination it is easy to understand the +difficult position of the orthodox Democrats, who two years before had +voted against restricting the extension of slavery, and were now asked +for the sake of the Union to support a Government which was actually +abolishing slavery by martial law. Also the attitude of the thoroughly +self-righteous partisan is perfectly usual. Many of Governor Seymour's +utterances were fair enough, and much of his conduct was patriotic +enough. His main proceedings can be briefly summarised. His election as +Governor in the end of 1862 was regarded as an important event, the +appearance of a new leader holding an office of the greatest influence. +Lincoln, assuming, as he had a right to do, the full willingness of +Seymour to co-operate in prosecuting the war, did the simplest and best +thing. He wrote and invited Seymour after his inauguration in March, +1863, to a personal conference with himself as to the ways in which, with +their divergent views, they could best co-operate. The Governor waited +three weeks before he acknowledged this letter. He then wrote and +promised a full reply later. He never sent this reply. He protested +energetically and firmly against the arrest of Vallandigham. In July, +1863, the Conscription Act began to be put in force in New York city; +then occurred the only serious trouble that ever did occur under the Act; +and it was very serious. A mob of foreign immigrants, mainly Irish, put +a forcible stop to the proceeding of the draft. It set fire to the +houses of prominent Republicans, and prevented the fire brigade from +saving them. It gave chase to all negroes that it met, beating some to +death, stringing up others to trees and lamp-posts and burning them as +they hung. It burned down an orphanage for coloured children after the +police had with difficulty saved its helpless inmates. Four days of +rioting prevailed throughout the city before the arrival of fresh troops +restored order. After an interval of prudent length the draft was +successfully carried out. Governor Seymour arrived in the city during +the riots. He harangued this defiled mob in gentle terms, promising +them, if they would be good, to help them in securing redress of the +grievance to which he attributed their conduct. Thenceforward to the end +of his term of office he persecuted Lincoln with complaints as to the +unfairness of the quota imposed on certain districts under the +Conscription Act. It is true that he also protested on presumably +sincere constitutional grounds against the Act itself, begging Lincoln to +suspend its enforcement till its validity had been determined by the +Courts. As to this Lincoln most properly agreed to facilitate, if he +could, an appeal to the Supreme Court, but declined, on the ground of +urgent military necessity, to delay the drafts in the meantime. +Seymour's obstructive conduct, however, was not confined to the +intelligible ground of objection to the Act itself; it showed itself in +the perpetual assertion that the quotas were unfair. No complaint as to +this had been raised before the riots. It seems that a quite unintended +error may in fact at first have been made. Lincoln, however, immediately +reduced the quotas in question to the full extent which the alleged error +would have required. Fresh complaints from Seymour followed, and so on +to the end. Ultimately Seymour was invited to come to Washington and +have out the whole matter of his complaints in conference with Stanton. +Like a prudent man, he again refused to face personal conference. It +seems that Governor Seymour, who was a great person in his day, was very +decidedly, in the common acceptance of the term, a gentleman. This has +been counted unto him for righteousness. It should rather be treated as +an aggravation of his very unmeritable conduct. + +Thus, since the Proclamation of Emancipation the North had again become +possessed of what is sometimes considered a necessity of good government, +an organised Opposition ready and anxious to take the place of the +existing Administration. It can well be understood that honourable men +entered into this combination, but it is difficult to conceive on what +common principle they could hold together which would not have been +disastrous in its working. The more extreme leaders, who were likely to +prove the driving force among them, were not unfitly satirised in a novel +of the time called the "Man Without a Country." Their chance of success +in fact depended upon the ill-fortune of their country in the war and on +the irritation against the Government, which could be aroused by that +cause alone and not by such abuses as they fairly criticised. In the +latter part of 1863 the war was going well. A great meeting of "Union +men" was summoned in August in Illinois. Lincoln was tempted to go and +speak to them, but he contented himself with a letter. Phrases in it +might suggest the stump orator, more than in fact his actual stump +speeches usually did. In it, however, he made plain in the simplest +language the total fallacy of such talk of peace as had lately become +common; the Confederacy meant the Confederate army and the men who +controlled it; as a fact no suggestion of peace or compromise came from +them; if it ever came, the people should know it. In equally simple +terms he sought to justify, even to supporters of the Union who did not +share his "wish that all men could be free," his policy in regard to +emancipation. In any case, freedom had for the sake of the Union been +promised to negroes who were now fighting or working for the North, "and +the promise being made must be kept." As that most critical year of the +war drew to a close there was a prevailing recognition that the rough but +straight path along which the President groped his way was the right +path, and upon the whole he enjoyed a degree of general favour which was +not often his portion. + + +3. _The War in 1864_. + +It is the general military opinion that before the war entered on its +final stage Jefferson Davis should have concentrated all his forces for a +larger invasion of the North than was ever in fact undertaken. In the +Gettysburg campaign he might have strengthened Lee's army by 20,000 men +if he could have withdrawn them from the forts at Charleston. +Charleston, however, was threatened during 1863 by the sea and land +forces of the North, in an expedition which was probably itself unwise, +as Lincoln himself seems to have suspected, but which helped to divert a +Confederate army. In the beginning of 1864 Davis still kept this force +at Charleston; he persisted also in keeping a hold on his own State, +Mississippi, with a further small army; while Longstreet still remained +in the south-east corner of Tennessee, where a useful employment of his +force was contemplated but none was made. The chief Southern armies with +which we have to deal are that of Lee, lying south of the Rapidan, and +that of Bragg, now superseded by Joseph Johnston, at Dalton, south of +Chattanooga. The Confederacy, it is thought, was now in a position in +which it might take long to reduce it, but the only military chance for +it was concentration on one great counter-stroke. This seems to have +been the opinion of Lee and Longstreet. Jefferson Davis clung, even late +in the year 1864, to the belief that disaster must somehow overtake any +invading Northern army which pushed far. Possibly he reckoned also that +the North would weary of the repeated checks in the process of conquest. +Indeed, as will be seen later, the North came near to doing so, while a +serious invasion of the North, unless overwhelmingly successful, might +really have revived its spirit. In any case Jefferson Davis, unlike +Lincoln, had no desire to be guided by his best officers. He was for +ever quarrelling with Joseph Johnston and often with Beauregard; the less +capable Bragg, though removed from the West, was now installed as his +chief adviser in Richmond; and the genius of Lee was not encouraged to +apply itself to the larger strategy of the war. + +At the beginning of 1864 an advance from Chattanooga southward into the +heart of the Confederate country was in contemplation. Grant and +Farragut wished that it should be supported by a joint military and naval +attack upon Mobile, in Alabama, on the Gulf of Mexico. Other +considerations on the part of the Government prevented this. In 1863 +Marshal Bazaine had invaded Mexico to set up Louis Napoleon's ill-fated +client the Archduke Maximilian as Emperor. As the so-called "Monroe +Doctrine" (really attributable to the teaching of Hamilton and the action +of John Quincy Adams, who was Secretary of State under President Monroe) +declared, such an extension of European influence, more especially +dynastic influence, on the American continent was highly unacceptable to +the United States. Many in the North were much excited, so much so that +during 1864 a preposterous resolution, which meant, if anything, war with +France, was passed on the motion of one Henry Winter Davis. It was of +course the business of Lincoln and of Seward, now moulded to his views, +to avoid this disaster, and yet, with such dignity as the situation +allowed, keep the French Government aware of the enmity which they might +one day incur. They did this. But they apprehended that the French, +with a footing for the moment in Mexico, had designs on Texas; and thus, +though the Southern forces in Texas were cut off from the rest of the +Confederacy and there was no haste for subduing them, it was thought +expedient, with an eye on France, to assert the interest of the Union in +Texas. General Banks, in Louisiana, was sent to Texas with the forces +which would otherwise have been sent to Mobile. His various endeavours +ended in May, 1864, with the serious defeat of an expedition up the Red +River. This defeat gave great annoyance to the North and made an end of +Banks' reputation. It might conceivably have had a calamitous sequel in +the capture by the South of Admiral Porter's river flotilla, which +accompanied Banks, and the consequent undoing of the conquest of the +Mississippi. As it was it wasted much force. + +Before Grant could safely launch his forces southward from Chattanooga +against Johnston, it was necessary to deal in some way with the +Confederate force still at large in Mississippi. Grant determined to do +this by the destruction of the railway system by which alone it could +move eastward. For this purpose he left Thomas to hold Chattanooga, +while Sherman was sent to Meridian, the chief railway centre in the +Southern part of Mississippi. In February Sherman arrived there, and, +though a subsidiary force, sent from Memphis on a similar but less +important errand somewhat further north, met with a severe repulse, he +was able unmolested to do such damage to the lines around Meridian as to +secure Grant's purpose. + +There was yet a further preliminary to the great final struggle. On +March 1, 1864, pursuant to an Act of Congress which was necessary for +this object, Lincoln conferred upon Grant the rank of Lieutenant-General, +never held by any one else since Washington, for it was only brevet rank +that was conferred on Scott. Therewith Grant took the command, under the +President, of all the Northern armies. Grant came to Washington to +receive his new honour. He had taken leave of Sherman in an interchange +of letters which it is good to read; but he had intended to return to the +West. Sherman, who might have desired the command in the West for +himself, had unselfishly pressed him to return. He feared that the +dreaded politicians would in some way hurt Grant, and that he would be +thwarted by them, become disgusted, and retire; they did hurt him, but +not then, nor in the way that Sherman had expected. Grant, however, +could trust Sherman to carry out the work he wanted done in the West, and +he now saw that, as Lincoln might have told him and possibly did, the +work he wanted done in the East must be done by him. He went West again +for a few days only, to settle his plans with Sherman. Sherman with his +army of 100,000 was to follow Johnston's army of about 60,000, wherever +it went, till he destroyed it. Grant with his 120,000 was to keep up an +equally unfaltering fight with Lee's army, also of 60,000. There was, of +course, nothing original about this conception except the idea, fully +present to both men's minds, of the risk and sacrifice with which it was +worth while to carry it out. Lincoln and Grant had never met till this +month. Grant at the first encounter was evidently somewhat on his guard. +He was prepared to like Lincoln, but he was afraid of mistaken dictation +from him, and determined to discourage it. Also Stanton had advised him +that Lincoln, out of mere good nature, would talk unwisely of any plans +discussed with him. This was probably quite unjust. Stanton, in order +to keep politicians and officers in their places, was accustomed to bite +off the noses of all comers. Lincoln, on the contrary, would talk to all +sorts of people with a readiness which was sometimes astonishing, but +there was a good deal of method in this--he learnt something from these +people all the time--and he certainly had a very great power of keeping +his own counsel when he chose. In any case, when Grant at the end of +April left Washington for the front, he parted with Lincoln on terms of +mutual trust which never afterwards varied. Lincoln in fact, satisfied +as to his general purpose, had been happy to leave him to make his plans +for himself. He wrote to Grant: "Not expecting to see you again before +the spring campaign begins, I wish to express in this way my entire +satisfaction with what you have done up to this time so far as I +understand it. The particulars of your plan I neither know nor seek to +know. You are vigilant and self-reliant, and, pleased with this, I wish +not to obtrude any constraints or restraints upon you. While I am very +anxious that any great disaster or capture of our men in great numbers +shall be avoided, I know these points are less likely to escape your +attention than they would be mine. If there is anything wanting which is +within my power to give, do not fail to let me know it. And now, with a +brave army and a just cause, may God sustain you." Grant replied: "From +my first entrance into the volunteer service of the country to the +present day I have never had cause of complaint--have never expressed or +implied a complaint against the Administration, or the Secretary of War, +for throwing any embarrassment in the way of my vigorously prosecuting +what appeared to me my duty. Indeed, since the promotion which placed me +in command of all the armies, and in view of the great responsibility and +importance of success, I have been astonished at the readiness with which +everything asked for has been yielded, without even an explanation being +asked. Should my success be less than I desire or expect, the least I +can say is, the fault is not with you." At this point the real +responsibility of Lincoln in regard to military events became +comparatively small, and to the end of the war those events may be traced +with even less detail than has hitherto been necessary. + +Upon joining the Army of the Potomac Grant retained Meade, with whom he +was pleased, in a somewhat anomalous position under him as commander of +that army. "Wherever Lee goes," he told him, "there you will go too." +His object of attack was, in agreement with the opinion which Lincoln had +from an early date formed, Lee's army. If Lee could be compelled, or +should choose, to shut himself up in Richmond, as did happen, then +Richmond would become an object of attack, but not otherwise. Grant, +however, hoped that he might force Lee to give him battle in the open. +In the open or behind entrenchments, he meant to fight him, reckoning +that if he lost double the number that Lee did, his own loss could easily +be made up, but Lee's would be irreparable. His hope was to a large +extent disappointed. He had to do with a greater general than himself, +who, with his men, knew every inch of a tangled country. In the +engagements which now followed, Grant's men were constantly being hurled +against chosen positions, entrenched and with the new device of wire +entanglements in front of them. "I mean," he wrote, "to fight it out on +this line if it takes all summer." It took summer, autumn, winter, and +the early spring. Once across the Rapidan he was in the tract of scrubby +jungle called the Wilderness. He had hoped to escape out of this +unopposed and at the same time to turn Lee's right by a rapid march to +his own left. But he found Lee in his way. On May 5 and 6 there was +stubborn and indecisive fighting, with a loss to Grant of 17,660 and to +Lee of perhaps over 10,000--from Grant's point of view something gained. +Then followed a further movement to the left to out-flank Lee. Again Lee +was to be found in the way in a chosen position of his own near +Spottsylvania Court House. Here on the five days from May 8 to May 12 +the heavy fighting was continued, with a total loss to Grant of over +18,000 and probably a proportionate loss to Lee. Another move by Grant +to the left now caused Lee to fall back to a position beyond the North +Anna River, on which an attack was made but speedily given up. Further +movements in the same general direction, but without any such serious +fighting--Grant still endeavouring to turn Lee's right, Lee still moving +so as to cover Richmond--brought Grant by the end of the month to Cold +Harbour, some ten miles east by north of Richmond, close upon the scene +of McClellan's misadventures. Meanwhile Grant had caused an expedition +under General Butler to go by sea up the James, and to land a little +south of Richmond, which, with the connected fortress of Petersburg, +twenty-two miles to the south of it, had only a weak garrison left. +Butler was a man with remarkable powers of self-advertisement; he had now +a very good chance of taking Petersburg, but his expedition failed +totally. From June 1 to June 3 Grant was occupied on the most disastrous +enterprise of his career, a hopeless attack upon a strong entrenched +position, which, with the lesser encounters that took place within the +next few days, cost the North 14,000 men, against a loss to the South +which has been put as low as 1,700. It was the one battle which Grant +regretted having fought. He gave up the hope of a fight with Lee on +advantageous conditions outside Richmond. On June 12 he suddenly moved +his army across the James to the neighbourhood of City Point, east of +Petersburg. Lee must now stand siege in Richmond and Petersburg. Had he +now marched north against Washington, Grant would have been after him and +would have secured for his vastly larger force the battle in the open +which he had so far vainly sought. Yet another disappointment followed. +On July 30 an attempt was made to carry Petersburg by assault immediately +after the explosion of an enormous mine. It failed with heavy loss, +through the fault of the amiable but injudicious Burnside, who now passed +into civil life, and of the officers under him. The siege was to be a +long affair. In reality, for all the disappointment, and in spite of +Grant's confessed mistake at Cold Harbour, his grim plan was progressing. +The force which the South could ill spare was being worn down, and Grant +was in a position in which, though he might have got there at less cost, +and though the end would not be yet, the end was sure. His army was for +the time a good deal shaken, and the estimation in which the West Point +officers held him sank low. His own determination was quite unshaken, +and, though Lincoln hinted somewhat mildly that these enormous losses +ought not to recur, his confidence in Grant was unabated, too. + +People in Washington who had watched all this with alternations of +feeling that ended in dejection had had another trial to their nerves +early in July. The Northern General Sigel, who commanded in the lower +part of the Shenandoah Valley, protecting the Baltimore and Ohio Railway, +had marched southward in June in pursuance of a subsidiary part of +Grant's scheme, but in a careless and rather purposeless manner. General +Early, detached by Lee to deal with him, defeated him; outmanoeuvred and +defeated General Hunter, who was sent to supersede him; overwhelmed with +superior force General Lew Wallace, who stood in his way further on; and +upon July 11 appeared before Washington itself. The threat to Washington +had been meant as no more than a threat, but the garrison was largely +made up of recruits; reinforcements to it sent back by Grant arrived only +on the same day as Early, and if that enterprising general had not wasted +some previous days there might have been a chance that he could get into +Washington, though not that he could hold it. As it was he attacked one +of the Washington forts. Lincoln was present, exhibiting, till the +officers there insisted on his retiring, the indifference to personal +danger which he showed on other occasions too. The attack was soon given +up, and in a few days Early had escaped back across the Potomac, leaving +in Grant's mind a determination that the Shenandoah Valley should cease +to be so useful to the South. + +Sherman set out from Chattanooga on the day when Grant crossed the +Rapidan. Joseph Johnston barred his way in one entrenched position after +another. Sherman, with greater caution than Grant, or perhaps with +greater facilities of ground, manoeuvred him out of each position in +turn, pushing him slowly back along the line of the railway towards +Atlanta, the great manufacturing centre of Georgia, one hundred and +twenty miles south by east from Chattanooga. Only once, towards the end +of June at Kenesaw Mountain, some twenty miles north of Atlanta, did he +attack Johnston's entrenchments, causing himself some unnecessary loss +and failing in his direct attack on them, but probably thinking it +necessary to show that he would attack whenever needed. Johnston has +left a name as a master of defensive warfare, and doubtless delayed and +hampered Sherman as much as he could. Jefferson Davis angrily and +unwisely sent General Hood to supersede him. This less prudent officer +gave battle several times, bringing up the Confederate loss before +Atlanta fell to 34,000 against 30,000 on the other side, and being, by +great skill on Sherman's part, compelled to evacuate Atlanta on September +2. + +By this time there had occurred the last and most brilliant exploit of +old Admiral Farragut, who on August 5 in a naval engagement of +extraordinarily varied incident, had possessed himself of the harbour of +Mobile, with its forts, though the town remained as a stronghold in +Confederate hands and prevented a junction with Sherman which would have +quite cut the Confederacy in two. + +Nearer Washington, too, a memorable campaign was in process. For three +weeks after Early's unwelcome visit, military mismanagement prevailed +near Washington. Early was able to turn on his pursuers, and a further +raid, this time into Pennsylvania, took place. Grant was too far off to +exercise control except through a sufficiently able subordinate, which +Hunter was not. Halleck, as in a former crisis, did not help matters. +Lincoln, though at this time he issued a large new call for recruits, was +unwilling any longer to give military orders. Just now his political +anxieties had reached their height. His judgment was never firmer, but +friends thought his strength was breaking under the strain. On this and +on all grounds he was certainly wise to decline direct interference in +military affairs. On August 1 Grant ordered General Philip H. Sheridan +to the Shenandoah on temporary duty, expressing a wish that he should be +put "in command of all the troops in the field, with instructions to put +himself south of the enemy or follow him to the death." Lincoln +telegraphed to Grant, quoting this despatch and adding, "This I think is +exactly right; but please look over the despatches you may have received +from here even since you made that order and see if there is any idea in +the head of any one here of putting our army south of the enemy or +following him to the death in any direction. I repeat to you it will +neither be done nor attempted unless you watch it every day and hour and +force it." Grant now came to Hunter's army and gently placed Sheridan in +that general's place. The operations of that autumn, which established +Sheridan's fame and culminated in his final defeat of Early at Cedar +Creek on October 19, made him master of all the lower part of the valley. +Before he retired into winter quarters he had so laid waste the resources +of that unfortunate district that Richmond could no longer draw supplies +from it, nor could it again support a Southern army in a sally against +the North. + +In the month of November Sherman began a new and extraordinary movement, +of which the conception was all his own, sanctioned with reluctance by +Grant, and viewed with anxiety by Lincoln, though he maintained his +absolute resolve not to interfere. He had fortified himself in Atlanta, +removing its civil inhabitants, in an entirely humane fashion, to places +of safety, and he had secured a little rest for his army. But he lay far +south in the heart of what he called "Jeff Davis' Empire," and Hood could +continually harass him by attacks on his communications. Hood, now +supervised by Beauregard, was gathering reinforcements, and Sherman +learnt that he contemplated a diversion by invading Tennessee. Sherman +determined to divide his forces, to send Thomas far back into Tennessee +with sufficient men, as he calculated, to defend it, and himself with the +rest of his army to set out for the eastern sea-coast, wasting no men on +the maintenance of his communications, but living on the country and +"making the people of Georgia feel the weight of the war." He set out +for the East on November 15. Hood, at Beauregard's orders, shortly +marched off for the North, where the cautious Thomas awaited events +within the fortifications of Nashville. At Franklin, in the heart of +Tennessee, about twenty miles south of Nashville, Hood's army suffered +badly in an attack upon General Schofield, whom Thomas had left to check +his advance while further reinforcements came to Nashville. Schofield +fell back slowly on Thomas, Hood rashly pressing after him with a small +but veteran army now numbering 44,000. Grant and the Washington +authorities viewed with much concern an invasion which Thomas had +suffered to proceed so far. Grant had not shared Sherman's faith in +Thomas. He now repeatedly urged him to act, but Thomas had his own views +and obstinately bided his time. Days followed when frozen sleet made an +advance impossible. Grant had already sent Logan to supersede Thomas, +and, growing still more anxious, had started to come west himself, when +the news reached him of a battle on December 15 and 16 in which Thomas +had fallen on Hood, completely routing him, taking on these days and in +the pursuit that followed no less than 13,000 prisoners. + +There was a song, "As we go marching through Georgia," which was +afterwards famous, and which Sherman could not endure. What his men most +often sang, while they actually were marching through Georgia, was +another, and of its kind a great song:-- + + "John Brown's body lies amouldering in the grave, + But his soul goes marching on. + Glory, glory, Hallelujah." + +Their progress was of the nature of a frolic, though in one way a very +stern frolic. They had little trouble from the small and scattered +Confederate forces that lay near their route. They industriously and +ingeniously destroyed the railway track of the South, heating the rails +and twisting them into knots; and the rich country of Georgia, which had +become the chief granary of the Confederates, was devastated as they +passed, for a space fifty or sixty miles broad, by the destruction of all +the produce they could not consume. This was done under control by +organised forage parties. Reasonable measures were taken to prevent +private pillage of houses. No doubt it happened. Sherman's able cavalry +commander earned a bad name, and "Uncle Billy," as they called him to his +face, clearly had a soft corner in his heart for the light-hearted and +light-fingered gentlemen called "bummers" (a "bummer," says the Oxford +Dictionary, "is one who quits the ranks and goes on an independent +foraging expedition on his own account"). They were, incidentally, +Sherman found, good scouts. But the serious crimes committed were very +few, judged by the standard of the ordinary civil population. The +authentic complaints recorded relate to such matters as the smashing of a +grand piano or the disappearance of some fine old Madeira. Thus the +suffering caused to individuals was probably not extreme, and a long +continuance of the war was rendered almost impossible. A little before +Christmas Day, 1864, Sherman had captured, with slight opposition, the +city of Savannah, on the Atlantic, with many guns and other spoils, and +was soon ready to turn northwards on the last lap of his triumphant +course. Lincoln's letter of thanks characteristically confessed his +earlier unexpressed and unfulfilled fears. + +Grant was proceeding all the time with his pressure on the single large +fortress which Richmond and Petersburg together constituted. Its circuit +was far too great for complete investment. His efforts were for a time +directed to seizing the three railway lines which converged from the +south on Petersburg and to that extent cutting off the supplies of the +enemy. But he failed to get hold of the most important of these +railways. He settled down to the slow process of entrenching his own +lines securely and extending the entrenchment further and further round +the south side of Petersburg. Lee was thus being forced to extend the +position held by his own small army further and further. In time the +lines would crack and the end come. + +It need hardly be said that despair was invading the remnant of the +Confederacy; supplies began to run short in Richmond, recruiting had +ceased, desertion was increasing. Before the story of its long +resistance closes it is better to face the gravest charge against the +South. That charge relates to the misery inflicted upon many thousands +of Northern prisoners in certain prisons or detention camps of the South. +The alleged horrors were real and were great. The details should not be +commemorated, but it is right to observe that the pitiable condition in +which the stricken survivors of this captivity returned, and the tale +they had to tell, caused the bitterness which might be noted afterwards +in some Northerners. The guilt lay mainly with a few subordinate but +uncontrolled officials. In some degree it must have been shared by +Jefferson Davis and his Administration, though a large allowance should +be made for men so sorely driven. But it affords no ground whatever, as +more fortunate prisoners taken by the Confederates have sometimes +testified, for any general imputation of cruelty against the Southern +officers, soldiers, or people. There is nothing in the record of the war +which dishonours the South, nothing to restrain the tribute to its +heroism which is due from a foreign writer, and which is irrepressible in +the case of a writer who rejoices that the Confederacy failed. + + +4. _The Second Election of Lincoln: 1864_. + +Having the general for whom he had long sought, Lincoln could now be in +military matters little more than the most intelligent onlooker; he could +maintain the attitude, congenial to him where he dealt with skilled men, +that when he differed from them they probably knew better than he. This +was well, for in 1864 his political anxieties became greater than they +had been since war declared itself at Fort Sumter. Whole States which +had belonged to the Confederacy were now securely held by the Union +armies, and the difficult problem of their government was approaching its +final settlement. It seemed that the war should soon end; so the +question of peace was pressed urgently. Moreover, the election of a +President was due in the autumn, and, strange as it is, the issue was to +be whether, with victory in their grasp, the victors should themselves +surrender. + +It was not given to Lincoln after all to play a great part in the +reconstruction of the South; that was reserved for much rougher and much +weaker hands. But the lines on which he had moved from the first are of +interest. West Virginia, with its solid Unionist population, was simply +allowed to form itself into an ordinary new State. But matters were not +so simple where the Northern occupation was insecure, or where a tiny +fraction of a State was held, or where a large part of the people leaned +to the Confederacy. Military governors were of course appointed; in +Tennessee this position was given to a strong Unionist, Andrew Johnson, +who was already Senator for that State. In Louisiana and elsewhere +Lincoln encouraged the citizens who would unreservedly accept the Union +to organise State Governments for themselves. Where they did so there +was friction between them and the Northern military governor who was +still indispensable. There was also to the end triangular trouble +between the factions in Missouri and the general commanding there. To +these little difficulties, which were of course unceasing, Lincoln +applied the firmness and tact which were no longer surprising in him, +with a pleasing mixture of good temper and healthy irritation. But +further difficulties lay in the attitude of Congress, which was concerned +in the matter because each House could admit or reject the Senators or +Representatives claiming to sit for a Southern State. There were +questions about slavery in such States. Lincoln, as we have seen, had +desired, if he could, to bring about the abolition of slavery through +gradual and through local action, and he had wished to see the franchise +given only to the few educated negroes. Nothing came of this, but it +kept up the suspicion of Radicals in Congress that he was not sound on +slavery; and, apart from slavery, the whole question of the terms on +which people lately in arms against the country could be admitted as +participators in the government of the country was one on which statesmen +in Congress had their own very important point of view. Lincoln's main +wish was that, with the greatest speed and the least heat spent on +avoidable controversy, State government of spontaneous local growth +should spring up in the reconquered South. "In all available ways," he +had written to one of his military governors, "give the people a chance +to express their wishes at these elections. Follow forms of law as far +as convenient, but at all events get the expression of the largest number +of people possible." Above all he was afraid lest in the Southern +elections to Congress that very thing should happen which after his death +did happen. "To send a parcel of Northern men here as representatives, +elected, as would be understood (and perhaps really so), at the point of +the bayonet, would be disgraceful and outrageous." For a time he and +Congress worked together well enough, but sharp disagreement arose in +1864. He had propounded a particular plan for the reconstruction of +Southern States. Senator Wade, the formidable Chairman of the Joint +Committee on the War, and Henry Winter Davis, a keen, acrid, and fluent +man who was powerful with the House, carried a Bill under which a State +could only be reconstructed on their own plan, which differed from +Lincoln's. The Bill came to Lincoln for signature in the last hours of +the session, and, amidst frightened protests from friendly legislators +then in his room, he let it lie there unsigned, till it expired with the +session, and went on with his work. This was in July, 1864; his +re-election was at stake. The Democrats were gaining ground; he might be +giving extreme offence to the strongest Republican. "If they choose," he +said, "to make a point of this I do not doubt that they can do harm" +(indeed, those powerful men Wade and Davis now declared against his +re-election with ability and extraordinary bitterness); but he continued: +"At all events I must keep some consciousness of being somewhere near +right. I must keep some standard or principle fixed within myself." The +Bill would have repressed loyal efforts already made to establish State +Governments in the South. It contained also a provision imposing the +abolition of slavery on every such reconstructed State. This was an +attempt to remedy any flaw in the constitutional effect of the +Proclamation of Emancipation. But it was certainly in itself flagrantly +unconstitutional; and the only conclusive way of abolishing slavery was +the Constitutional Amendment, for which Lincoln was now anxious. This +was not a pedantic point, for there might have been great trouble if the +courts had later found a constitutional flaw in some negro's title to +freedom. But the correctness of Lincoln's view hardly matters. In lots +of little things, like a tired man who was careless by nature, Lincoln +may perhaps have yielded to influence or acted for his political +convenience in ways which may justly be censured, but it would be merely +immoral to care whether he did so or did not, since at the crisis of his +fate he could risk all for one scruple. In an earlier stage of his +controversies with the parties he had written: "From time to time I have +done and said what appeared to me proper to do and say. The public knows +it all. It obliges nobody to follow me, and I trust it obliges me to +follow nobody. The Radicals and Conservatives each agree with me in some +things and disagree in others. I could wish both to agree with me in all +things; for then they would agree with each other, and be too strong for +any foe from any quarter. They, however, choose to do otherwise, and I +do not question their right. I, too, shall do what seems to be my duty. +I hold whoever commands in Missouri or elsewhere responsible to me and +not to either Radicals or Conservatives. It is my duty to hear all; but +at last I must, within my sphere, judge what to do and what to forbear." + +In this same month of July, after the Confederate General Early's +appearance before Washington had given Lincoln a pause from political +cares, another trouble reached a point at which it is known to have tried +his patience more than any other trouble of his Presidency. Peace after +war is not always a matter of substituting the diplomatist for the +soldier. When two sides were fighting, one for Union and the other for +Independence, one or the other had to surrender the whole point at issue. +In this case there might appear to have been a third possibility. The +Southern States might have been invited to return to the Union on terms +which admitted their right to secede again if they felt aggrieved. The +invitation would in fact have been refused. But, if it had been made and +accepted, this would have been a worse surrender for the North than any +mere acknowledgment that the South could not be reconquered; for national +unity from that day to this would have existed on the sufferance of a +factious or a foreign majority in any single State. Lincoln had faced +this. He was there to restore the Union on a firm foundation. He meant +to insist to the point of pedantry that, by not so much as a word or line +from the President or any one seeming to act for him, should the lawful +right of secession even appear to be acknowledged. Some men would have +been glad to hang Jefferson Davis as a traitor, yet would have been ready +to negotiate with him as with a foreign king. Lincoln, who would not +have hurt one hair of his head, and would have talked things over with +Mr. Davis quite pleasantly, would have died rather than treat with him on +the footing that he was head of an independent Confederacy. The blood +shed might have been shed for nothing if he had done so. But to many +men, in the long agony of the war and its disappointments, the plain +position became much obscured. The idea in various forms that by some +sort of negotiation the issue could be evaded began to assert itself +again and again. The delusion was freely propagated that the South was +ready to give in if only Lincoln would encourage its approaches. It was +sheer delusion. Jefferson Davis said frankly to the last that the +Confederacy would have "independence or extermination," and though +Stephens and many others spoke of peace to the electors in their own +States, Jefferson Davis had his army with him, and the only result which +agitation against him ever produced was that two months before the +irreparable collapse the chief command under him was given to his most +faithful servant Lee. But it was useless for Lincoln to expose the +delusion in the plainest terms; it survived exposure and became a danger +to Northern unity. + +Lincoln therefore took a strange course, which generally succeeded. When +honest men came to him and said that the South could be induced to yield, +he proposed to them that they should go to Jefferson Davis and see for +themselves. The Chairman of the Republican organisation ultimately +approached Lincoln on this matter at the request of a strong committee; +but he was a sensible man whom Lincoln at once converted by drafting the +precise message that would have to be sent to the Confederate President. +On two earlier occasions such labourers for peace were allowed to go +across the lines and talk with Davis; it could be trusted to their honour +to pretend to no authority; they had interesting talks with the great +enemy, and made religious appeals to him or entertained him with wild +proposals for a joint war on France over Mexico. They returned, +converted also. But in July Horace Greeley, the great editor, who was +too opinionated to be quite honest, was somehow convinced that Southern +agents at Niagara, who had really come to hold intercourse with the +disloyal group among the Democrats, were "two ambassadors" from the +Confederacy seeking an audience of Lincoln. He wrote to Lincoln, begging +him to receive them. Lincoln caused Greeley to go to Niagara and see the +supposed ambassadors himself. He gave him written authority to bring to +him any person with proper credentials, provided, as he made plain in +terms that perhaps were blunt, that the basis of any negotiation should +include the recognition of the Union and the abolition of slavery. The +persons whom Greeley saw had no authority to treat about anything. +Greeley in his irritation now urged Lincoln to convey to Jefferson Davis +through these mysterious men his readiness to receive them if they were +accredited. In other words, the North was to begin suing for peace--a +thing clearly unwise, which Lincoln refused. Greeley now involved +Lincoln in a tangled controversy to which he gave such a turn that, +unless Lincoln would publish the most passionately pacific of Greeley's +letters, to the great discouragement of the public with whom Greeley +counted, he must himself keep silent on what had passed. He elected to +keep silent while Greeley in his paper criticised him as the person +responsible for the continuance of senseless bloodshed. This was +publicly harmful; and, as for its private bearing, the reputation of +obstinate blood-thirstiness was certain to be painful to Lincoln. + +The history of Lincoln's Cabinet has a bearing upon what is to follow. +He ruled his Ministers with undisputed authority, talked with them +collectively upon the easiest terms, spoke to them as a headmaster to his +school when they caballed against one another, kept them in some sort of +unison in a manner which astonished all who knew them. Cameron had had +to retire early; so did the little-known Caleb Smith, who was succeeded +in his unimportant office as Secretary of the Interior by a Mr. Usher, +who seems to have been well chosen. Bates, the Attorney-General, +retired, weary of his work, towards the end of 1864, and Lincoln had the +keen pleasure of appointing James Speed, the brother of that unforgotten +and greatly honoured friend whom he honoured the more for his +contentedness with private station. James Speed himself was in Lincoln's +opinion "an honest man and a gentleman, and one of those well-poised men, +not too common here, who are not spoiled by a big office." + +Blair might be regarded as a delightful, or equally as an intolerable +man. He attacked all manner of people causelessly and violently, and +earned implacable dislike from the Radicals In his party. Then he +frankly asked Lincoln to dismiss him whenever it was convenient. There +came a time when Lincoln's re-election was in great peril, and he might, +it was urged, have made it sure by dismissing Blair. It is significant +that Lincoln then refused to promote his own cause by seeming to +sacrifice Blair, but later on, when his own election was fairly certain, +but a greater degree of unity in the Republican party was to be gained, +did ask Blair to go; (Blair's quarrels, it should be added, had become +more and more outrageous). So he went and immediately flung himself with +enthusiasm into the advocacy of Lincoln's cause. All the men who left +Lincoln remained his friends, except one who will shortly concern us. Of +Lincoln's more important ministers Welles did his work for the Navy +industriously but unnoted. Stanton, on the other hand, and Lincoln's +relations with Stanton are the subjects of many pages of literature. +These two curious and seemingly incompatible men hit upon extraordinary +methods of working together. It can be seen that Lincoln's chief care in +dealing with his subordinates was to give support and to give free play +to any man whose heart was in his work. In countless small matters he +would let Stanton disobey him and flout him openly. ("Did Stanton tell +you I was a damned fool? Then I expect I must be one, for he is almost +always right and generally says what he means.") But every now and then, +when he cared much about his own wish, he would step in and crush Stanton +flat. Crowds of applicants to Lincoln with requests of a kind that must +be granted sparingly were passed on to Stanton, pleased with the +President, or mystified by his sadly observing that he had not much +influence with this Administration but hoped to have more with the next. +Stanton always refused them. He enjoyed doing it. Yet it seems a low +trick to have thus indulged his taste for unpopularity, till one +discovers that, when Stanton might have been blamed seriously and +unfairly, Lincoln was very careful to shoulder the blame himself. The +gist of their mutual dealings was that the hated Stanton received a +thinly disguised, but quite unfailing support, and that hated or +applauded, ill or well, wrong in this detail and right in that, he abode +in his department and drove, and drove, and drove, and worshipped +Lincoln. To Seward, who played first and last a notable part in history, +and who all this time conducted foreign affairs under Lincoln without any +mishap in the end, one tribute is due. When he had not a master it is +said that his abilities were made useless by his egotism; yet it can be +seen that, with his especial cause to be jealous of Lincoln, he could not +even conceive how men let private jealousy divide them in the performance +of duty. + +It was otherwise with the ablest man in the Cabinet. Salmon P. Chase +must really have been a good man in the days before he fell in love with +his own goodness. Lincoln and the country had confidence in his +management of the Treasury, and Lincoln thought more highly of his +general ability than of that of any other man about him. He, for his +part, distrusted and despised Lincoln. Those who read Lincoln's +important letters and speeches see in him at once a great gentleman; +there were but few among the really well-educated men of America who made +much of his lacking some of the minor points of gentility to which most +of them were born; but of these few Chase betrayed himself as one. At +the beginning of 1864 Chase was putting it about that he had himself no +wish to be President, but--; that of course he was loyal to Mr. Lincoln, +but--; and so forth. He had, as indeed he deserved, admirers who wished +he should be President, and early in the year some of them expressed this +wish in a manifesto. Chase wrote to Lincoln that this was not his own +doing; Lincoln replied that he himself knew as little of these things "as +my friends will allow me to know." To those who spoke to him of Chase's +intrigues he only said that Chase would in some ways make a very good +President, and he hoped they would never have a worse President than he. +The movement in favour of Chase collapsed very soon, and it evidently had +no effect on Lincoln. Chase, however, was beginning to foster grievances +of his own against Lincoln. These related always to appointments in the +service of the Treasury. He professed a horror of party influences in +appointments, and imputed corrupt motives to Lincoln in such matters. He +shared the sound ideas of the later civil service reformers, though he +was far too easily managed by a low class of flatterers to have been of +the least use in carrying them out. Lincoln would certainly not at that +crisis have permitted strife over civil service reform, but some of his +admirers have probably gone too far in claiming him as a sturdy supporter +of the old school who would despise the reforming idea. Letters of his +much earlier betray his doubts as to the old system, and he was exactly +the man who in quieter times could have improved matters with the least +possible fuss. However that may be, all the tiresome circumstances of +Chase's differences with him are well known, and in these instances +Lincoln was clearly in the right, and Chase quarrelled only because he +could not force upon him appointments that would have created fury. Once +Chase was overruled and wrote his resignation. Lincoln went to him with +the resignation in his hand, treated him with simple affection for a man +whom he still liked, and made him take it back. Later on Chase got his +own way on the whole, but was angry and sent another resignation. Some +one heard of it and came to Lincoln to say that the loss of Chase would +cause a financial panic. Lincoln's answer was to this effect: "Chase +thinks he has become indispensable to the country; that his intimate +friends know it, and he cannot comprehend why the country does not +understand it. He also thinks he ought to be President; has no doubt +whatever about that. It is inconceivable to him why people do not rise +as one man and say so. He is a great statesman, and at the bottom a +patriot. Ordinarily he discharges the duties of a public office with +greater ability than any man I know. Mind, I say 'ordinarily,' but he +has become irritable, uncomfortable, so that he is never perfectly happy +unless he is thoroughly miserable and able to make everybody else just as +uncomfortable as he is himself. He is either determined to annoy me, or +that I shall pat him on the shoulder and coax him to stay. I don't think +I ought to do it. I will not do it. I will take him at his word." So +he did. This was at the end of June, 1864, when Lincoln's apprehensions +about his own re-election were keen, and the resignation of Chase, along +with the retention of Blair, seemed likely to provoke anger which was +very dangerous to himself. An excellent successor to the indispensable +man was soon found. Chase found more satisfaction than ever in insidious +opposition to Lincoln. Lincoln's opportunity of requiting him was not +yet. + +The question of the Presidency loomed large from the beginning of the +year to the election in November. At first, while the affairs of war +seemed to be in good train, the chief question was who should be the +Republican candidate. It was obviously not a time when a President of +even moderate ability and character, with all the threads in his hands, +could wisely have been replaced except for overwhelming reasons. But +since 1832, when Jackson had been re-elected, the practice of giving a +President a second term had lapsed. It has been seen that there was +friction, not wholly unnatural, between Lincoln and many of his party. +The inner circles of politicians were considering what candidate could +carry the country. They were doing so with great anxiety, for +disaffection was growing serious in the North and the Democrats would +make a good fight. They honestly doubted whether Lincoln was the best +candidate, and attributed their own excited mood of criticism to the +public at large. They forgot the leaning of ordinary men towards one who +is already serving them honestly. Of the other possible candidates, +including Chase, Frémont had the most energetic backers. Enough has been +said already of his delusive attractiveness. General Butler had also +some support. He was an impostor of a coarser but more useful stamp. A +successful advocate in Massachusetts, he had commanded the militia of the +State when they first appeared on the scene at Baltimore in 1861, and he +had been in evidence ever since without sufficient opportunity till May, +1864, of proving that real military incapacity of which some of Lincoln's +friends suspected him. He had a kind of resourceful impudence, coupled +with executive vigour and a good deal of wit, which had made him useful +in the less martial duties of his command. Generals in a war of this +character were often so placed that they had little fighting to do and +much civil government, and Butler, who had first treated slaves as +"contraband" and had dealt with his difficulties about negroes with more +heart and more sense than many generals, had to some extent earned his +reputation among the Republicans. Thus of those volunteer generals who +never became good soldiers he is said to have been the only one that +escaped the constant process of weeding out. To the end he kept +confidently claiming higher rank in the Army, and when he had signally +failed under Grant at Petersburg he succeeded somehow in imposing himself +upon that, at first indignant, general. Nothing actually came of the +danger that the public might find a hero in this man, who was neither +scrupulous nor able, but he had so captivated experienced politicians +that some continued even after Lincoln's re-election to think Butler the +man whom the people would have preferred. Last but not least many were +anxious to nominate Grant. It was an innocent thought, but Grant's +merits were themselves the conclusive reason why he should not be taken +from the work he had already in hand. + +Through the early months of the year the active politicians earnestly +collogued among themselves about possible candidates, and it seems there +was little sign among them of that general confidence in Lincoln which a +little while before had been recognised as prevailing in the country. In +May the small and light-headed section of the so-called Radicals who +favoured Frémont organised for themselves a "national meeting" of some +few people at which they nominated him for the Presidency. They had no +chance of success, but they might have helped the Democrats by carrying +off some Republican votes. Besides, there are of course men who, having +started as extremists in one direction and failed, will go over to the +opposite extreme rather than moderate their aims. Months later, when a +Republican victory of some sort became certain, unanimity among +Republicans was secured; for some passions were appeased by the +resignation of Blair, and Frémont was prevailed upon to withdraw. But in +the meantime the Republican party had sent its delegates to a Convention +at Baltimore early in June. This Convention met in a comparatively +fortunate hour. In spite of the open disaffection of small sections, the +Northern people had been in good spirits about the war when Grant set out +to overcome Lee. At first he was felt to be progressing pretty well, +and, though the reverse at Cold Harbour had happened a few days before, +the size of that mishap was not yet appreciated. Ordinary citizens, +called upon now and then to decide a broad and grave issue, often judge +with greater calm than is possible to any but the best of the politicians +and the journalists. Indeed, some serious politicians had been anxious +to postpone the Convention, justly fearing that these ignorant delegates +were not yet imbued with that contempt for Lincoln which they had worked +up among themselves. At the Baltimore Convention the delegates of one +State wanted Grant, but the nomination of Lincoln was immediate and +almost unanimous. This same Convention declared for a Constitutional +Amendment to abolish slavery. Lincoln would say nothing as to the choice +of a candidate for the Vice-Presidency. He was right, but the result was +most unhappy in the end. The Convention chose Andrew Johnson. Johnson, +whom Lincoln could hardly endure, began life as a journeyman tailor. He +had raised himself like Lincoln, and had performed a great part in +rallying the Unionists of Tennessee. But--not to dwell upon the fact +that he was drunk when he was sworn in as Vice-President--his political +creed was that of bitter class-hatred, and his character degenerated into +a weak and brutal obstinacy. This man was to succeed Lincoln. Lincoln, +in his letter to accept the nomination, wrote modestly, refusing to take +the decision of the Convention as a tribute to his peculiar fitness for +his post, but was "reminded in this connection of a story of an old Dutch +farmer, who remarked to a companion that it was not best to swap horses +when crossing a stream." + +It remained possible that the dissatisfied Republicans would revolt later +and put another champion in the field. But now attention turned to the +Democrats. Their Convention was to meet at Chicago at the end of August, +and in the interval the North entered upon the period of deepest mental +depression that came to it during the war. It is startling to learn now +that in the course of that year, when the Confederacy lay like a nut in +the nutcrackers, when the crushing of its resistance might indeed require +a little stronger pressure than was expected, and the first splitting in +its hard substance might not come on the side on which it was looked for, +but when no wise man could have a doubt as to the end, the victorious +people were inclined to think that the moment had come for giving in. +"In this purpose to save the country and its liberties," said Lincoln, +"no class of people seem so nearly unanimous as the soldiers in the field +and the sailors afloat. Do they not have the hardest of it? Who should +quail while they do not?" Yet there is conclusive authority for saying +that there was now more quailing in the North than there had ever been +before. When the war had gone on long, checks to the course of victory +shook the nerves of people at home more than crushing defeats had shaken +them in the first two years of the struggle, and men who would have +wrapped the word "surrender" in periphrasis went about with surrender in +their hearts. Thus the two months that went before the great rally of +the Democrats at Chicago were months of good omen for a party which, +however little the many honourable men in its ranks were willing to face +the fact, must base its only hope upon the weakening of the national +will. For public attention was turned away from other fields of war and +fixed upon the Army of the Potomac. Sherman drove back Johnston, and +routed Hood; Farragut at Mobile enriched the annals of the sea; but what +told upon the imagination of the North was that Grant's earlier progress +was followed by the definite failure of his original enterprise against +Lee's army, by Northern defeats on the Shenandoah and an actual dash by +the South against Washington, by the further failure of Grant's first +assault upon Petersburg, and by hideous losses and some demoralisation in +his army. The candidate that the Democrats would put forward and the +general principle of their political strategy were well known many weeks +before their Convention met; and the Republicans already despaired of +defeating them. In the Chicago Convention there were men, apparently +less reputable in character than their frank attitude suggests, who were +outspoken against the war; their leader was Vallandigham. There were men +who spoke boldly for the war, but more boldly against emancipation and +the faults of the Government; their leader was Seymour, talking with the +accent of dignity and of patriotism. Seymour, for the war, presided over +the Convention; Vallandigham, against the war, was the master spirit in +its debates. It was hard for such men, with any saving of conscience, to +combine. The mode of combination which they discovered is memorable in +the history of faction. First they adopted a platform which meant peace; +then they adopted a candidate intended to symbolise successful war. They +resolved "that this Convention does explicitly declare, as the sense of +the American people, that after four years of failure to restore the +Union by the experiment of war . . . justice, humanity, liberty, and the +public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of +hostilities, with a view to an ultimate convention of the States or other +peaceable means, to the end that at the earliest practicable moment peace +may be restored on the basis of the Federal Union of the States." The +fallacy which named the Union as the end while demanding as a means the +immediate cessation of hostilities needs no demonstration. The +resolution was thus translated: "Resolved that the war is a failure"; and +the translation had that trenchant accuracy which is often found in +American popular epigram. The candidate chosen was McClellan; McClellan +in set terms repudiated the resolution that the war was a failure, and +then accepted the candidature. He meant no harm to the cause of the +Union, but he meant no definite and clearly conceived good. Electors +might now vote Democratic because the party was peaceful or because the +candidate was a warrior. The turn of fortune was about to arrest this +combination in the really formidable progress of its crawling approach to +power. Perhaps it was not only, as contemporary observers thought, +events in the field that began within a few days to make havoc with the +schemes of McClellan and his managers. Perhaps if the patience of the +North had been tried a little longer the sense of the people would still +have recoiled from the policy of the Democrats, which had now been +defined in hard outline. As a matter of fact it was only in the months +while the Chicago Convention was still impending and for a few days or +weeks after it had actually taken place that the panic of the Republicans +lasted. But during that time the alarm among them was very great, +whether it was wholly due to the discouragement of the people about the +war or originated among the leaders and was communicated to their flock. +Sagacious party men reported from their own neighbourhoods that there was +no chance of winning the election. In one quarter or another there was +talk of setting aside Lincoln and compelling Grant to be a candidate. +About August 12 Lincoln was told by Thurlow Weed, the greatest of party +managers, that his election was hopeless. Ten days later he received the +same assurance from the central Republican Committee through their +chairman, Raymond, together with the advice that he should make overtures +for peace. + +Supposing that in the following November McClellan should have been +elected, and that in the following March he should have come into office +with the war unfinished, it seems now hardly credible that he would have +returned to slavery, or at least disbanded without protection the 150,000 +negroes who were now serving the North. Lincoln, however, seriously +believed that this was the course to which McClellan's principles and +those of his party committed him, and that (policy and honour apart) this +would have been for military reasons fatal. McClellan had repudiated the +Peace Resolution, but his followers and his character were to be reckoned +with rather than his words, and indeed his honest principles committed +him deeply to some attempt to reverse Lincoln's policy as to slavery, and +he clearly must have been driven into negotiations with the South. The +confusion which must inevitably be created by attempts to satisfy the +South, when it was in no humour of moderation, and by the fury which +yielding would have provoked in half the people of the North, was well +and tersely described by Grant in a letter to a friend, which that friend +published in support of Lincoln. At a fair at Philadelphia for the help +of the wounded Lincoln said: "We accepted this war; we did not begin it. +We accepted it for an object, and when that object is accomplished the +war will end, and I hope to God that it will never end until that object +is accomplished." Whatever the real mind of McClellan and of the average +Democrat may have been, it was not this; and the posterity of Mr. +Facing-both-ways may succeed in an election, but never in war or the +making of lasting peace. + +Lincoln looked forward with happiness, after he was actually re-elected, +to the quieter pursuits of private life which might await him in four +years' time. He looked forward not less happily to a period of peace +administration first, and there can be no doubt that he would have prized +as much as any man the highest honour that his countrymen could bestow, a +second election to the Presidency. But, even in a smaller man who had +passed through such an experience as he had and was not warped by power, +these personal wishes might well have been merged in concern for the +cause in hand. There is everything to indicate that they were completely +so in his case. A President cannot wisely do much directly to promote +his own re-election, but he appears to have done singularly little. At +the beginning of 1864, when the end of the war seemed near, and the +election of a Republican probable, he may well have thought that he would +be the Republican candidate, but he had faced the possible choice of +Chase very placidly, and of Grant he said, "If he takes Richmond let him +have the Presidency." It was another matter when the war again seemed +likely to drag on and a Democratic President might come in before the end +of it. An editor who visited the over-burdened President in August told +him that he needed some weeks of rest and seclusion. But he said, "I +cannot fly from my thoughts. I do not think it is personal vanity or +ambition, though I am not free from those infirmities, but I cannot but +feel that the weal or woe of the nation will be decided in November. +There is no proposal offered by any wing of the Democratic party but that +must result in the permanent destruction of the Union." He would have +been well content to make place for Grant if Grant had finished his work. +But that work was delayed, and then Lincoln became greatly troubled by +the movement to force Grant, the general whom he had at last found, into +politics with his work undone; for all would have been lost if McClellan +had come in with the war still progressing badly. Lincoln had been +invited in June to a gathering in honour of Grant, got up with the thinly +disguised object of putting the general forward as his rival. He wrote, +with true diplomacy: "It is impossible for me to attend. I approve +nevertheless of whatever may tend to strengthen and sustain General Grant +and the noble armies now under his command. 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." In August he told his mind +plainly to Grant's friend Eaton. He never dreamed for a moment that +Grant would willingly go off into politics with the military situation +still insecure, and he believed that no possible pressure could force +Grant to do so; but on this latter question he wished to make himself +sure; with a view to future military measures he really needed to be sure +of it. Eaton saw Grant, and in the course of conversation very tactfully +brought to Grant's notice the designs of his would-be friends. "We had," +writes Eaton, "been talking very quietly, but Grant's reply came in an +instant and with a violence for which I was not prepared. He brought his +clenched fists down hard on the strap arms of his camp chair, 'They can't +do it. They can't compel me to do it.' Emphatic gesture was not a +strong point with Grant. 'Have you said this to the President?' I asked. +'No,' said Grant. 'I have not thought it worth while to assure the +President of my opinion. I consider it as important for the cause that +he should be elected as that the army should be successful in the +field.'" "I told you," said Lincoln afterwards, "they could not get him +to run till he had closed out the rebellion." Since the great danger was +now only that McClellan would become President in March, there was but +one thing to do--to try and finish the war before then. Raymond's advice +in favour of negotiations with the South now came, and Lincoln's mode of +replying to this has been noticed. Rumours were afloat that if McClellan +won in November there would be an attempt to bring him irregularly into +power at once. Lincoln let it be known that he should stay at his post +at all costs till the last lawful day. On August 23, in that curious way +in which deep emotion showed itself with him, he wrote a resolution upon +a paper, which he folded and asked his ministers to endorse with their +signatures without reading it. They all wrote their names on the back of +it, ready, if that were possible, to commit themselves blindly to support +of him in whatever he had resolved; a great tribute to him and to +themselves. He sealed it up and put it away. + +How far in this dark time the confidence of the people had departed from +Lincoln no one can tell. It might be too sanguine a view of the world to +suppose that they would have been proof against what may be called a +conspiracy to run him down. There were certainly quarters in which the +perception of his worth came soon and remained. Not all those who are +poor or roughly brought up were among those plain men whose approval +Lincoln desired and often expected; but at least the plain man does exist +and the plain people did read Lincoln's words. The soldiers of the +armies in the East by this time knew Lincoln well, and there were by now, +as we shall see, in every part of the North, honest parents who had gone +to Washington, and entered the White House very sad, and came out very +happy, and taken their report of him home. No less could there be found, +among those to whom America had given the greatest advantages that birth +and upbringing can offer, families in which, when Lincoln died, a +daughter could write to her father as Lady Harcourt (then Miss Lily +Motley) wrote: "I echo your 'thank God' that we always appreciated him +before he was taken from us." But if we look at the political world, we +find indeed noble exceptions such as that of Charles Sumner among those +who had been honestly perplexed by Lincoln's attitude on slavery; we have +to allow for the feelings of some good State Governor who had come to him +with a tiresome but serious proposition and been adroitly parried with an +untactful and coarse apologue; yet it remains to be said that a thick +veil, woven of self-conceit and half-education, blinded most politicians +to any rare quality in Lincoln, and blinded them to what was due in +decency to any man discharging his task. The evidence collected by Mr. +Rhodes as to the tone prevailing in 1864 at Washington and among those in +touch with Washington suggests that strictly political society was on the +average as poor in brain and heart as the court of the most decadent +European monarchy. It presents a stern picture of the isolation, on one +side at least, in which Lincoln had to live and work. + +A little before this crowning period of Lincoln's career Walt Whitman +described him as a man in the streets of Washington could see him, if he +chose. He has been speaking of the cavalry escort which the President's +advisers insisted should go clanking about with him. "The party," he +continues, "makes no great show in uniform or horses. Mr. Lincoln on the +saddle generally rides a good-sized, easy-going grey horse, is dressed in +plain black, somewhat rusty and dusty, and looks about as ordinary in +attire, etc., as the commonest man. The entirely unornamental _cortège_ +arouses no sensation; only some curious stranger stops and gazes. I see +very plainly Abraham Lincoln's dark brown face, with the deep-cut lines, +the eyes always to me with a deep latent sadness in the expression. We +have got so that we exchange bows, and very cordial ones. Sometimes the +President goes and comes in an open barouche" (not, the poet intimates, a +very smart turn-out). "Sometimes one of his sons, a boy of ten or +twelve, accompanies him, riding at his right on a pony. They passed me +once very close, and I saw the President in the face fully as they were +moving slowly, and his look, though abstracted, happened to be directed +steadily in my eye. He bowed and smiled, but far beneath his smile I +noticed well the expression I have alluded to. None of the artists or +pictures has caught the deep though subtle and indirect expression of +this man's face. There is something else there. One of the great +portrait painters of two or three centuries ago is needed." + +The little boy on the pony was Thomas, called "Tad," a constant companion +of his father's little leisure, now dead. An elder boy, Robert, has +lived to be welcomed as Ambassador in this country, and was at this time +a student at Harvard. Willie, a clever and lovably mischievous child, +"the chartered libertine of the White House" for a little while, had died +at the age of twelve in the early days of 1862, when his father was +getting so impatient to stir McClellan into action. These and a son who +had long before died in infancy were the only children of Mr. and Mrs. +Lincoln. Little has been made public concerning them, but enough to +convey the impression of a wise and tender father, trusted by his +children and delighting in them. John Nicolay, his loyal and capable +secretary, and the delightful John Hay must be reckoned on the cheerful +side--for there was one--of Lincoln's daily life. The life of the home +at the White House, and sometimes in summer at the "Soldiers' Home" near +Washington, was simple, and in his own case (not in that of his guests) +regardless of the time, sufficiency, or quality of meals. He cannot have +given people much trouble, but he gave some to the guard who watched him, +themselves keenly watched by Stanton; for he loved, if he could, to walk +alone from his midnight conferences at the War Department to the White +House or the Soldiers' Home. The barest history of the events with which +he dealt is proof enough of long and hard and anxious working days, which +continued with hardly a break through four years. In that history many a +complication has here been barely glanced at or clean left out; in this +year, for example, the difficulty about France and Mexico and the failure +of the very estimable Banks in Texas have been but briefly noted. And +there must be remembered, in addition, the duty of a President to be +accessible to all people, a duty which Lincoln especially strove to +fulfil. + +Apart from formal receptions, the stream of callers on him must have +given Lincoln many compensations for its huge monotony. Very odd, and +sometimes attractive, samples of human nature would come under his keen +eye. Now and then a visitor came neither with a troublesome request, nor +for form's sake or for curiosity, but in simple honesty to pay a tribute +of loyalty or speak a word of good cheer which Lincoln received with +unfeigned gratitude. Farmers and back-country folk, of the type he could +best talk with, came and had more time than he ought to have spared +bestowed on them. At long intervals there came a friend of very +different days. Some ingenious men, for instance, fitted out Dennis +Hanks in a new suit of clothes and sent him as their ambassador to plead +for certain political offenders. It is much to be feared that they were +more successful than they deserved, though Stanton intervened and Dennis, +when he had seen him, favoured his old companion, the President, with +advice to dismiss that minister. But the immense variety of puzzling +requests to be dealt with in such interviews must have made heavy demands +upon a conscientious and a kind man, especially if his conscience and his +kindness were, in small matters, sometimes at variance. Lincoln sent a +multitude away with that feeling, so grateful to poor people, that at +least they had received such hearing as it was possible to give them; and +in dealing with the applications which imposed the greatest strain on +himself he made an ineffaceable impression upon the memory of his +countrymen. + +The American soldier did not take naturally to discipline. Death +sentences, chiefly for desertion or for sleeping or other negligence on +the part of sentries, were continually being passed by courts-martial. +In some cases or at some period these used to come before the President +on a stated day of the week, of which Lincoln would often speak with +horror. He was continually being appealed to in relation to such +sentences by the father or mother of the culprit, or some friend. At one +time, it may be, he was too ready with pardon; "You do not know," he +said, "how hard it is to let a human being die, when you feel that a +stroke of your pen will save him." Butler used to write to him that he +was destroying the discipline of the army. A letter of his to Meade +shows clearly that, later at least, he did not wish to exercise a merely +cheap and inconsiderate mercy. The import of the numberless pardon +stories really is that he would spare himself no trouble to enquire, and +to intervene wherever he could rightly give scope to his longing for +clemency. A Congressman might force his way into his bedroom in the +middle of the night, rouse him from his sleep to bring to his notice +extenuating facts that had been overlooked, and receive the decision, +"Well, I don't see that it will do him any good to be shot." It is +related that William Scott, a lad from a farm in Vermont, after a +tremendous march in the Peninsula campaign, volunteered to do double +guard duty to spare a sick comrade, slept at his post, was caught, and +was under sentence of death, when the President came to the army and +heard of him. The President visited him, chatted about his home, looked +at his mother's photograph, and so forth. Then he laid his hands on the +boy's shoulders and said with a trembling voice, "My boy, you are not +going to be shot. I believe you when you tell me that you could not keep +awake. I am going to trust you and send you back to the regiment. But I +have been put to a great deal of trouble on your account. . . . Now what +I want to know is, how are you going to pay my bill?" Scott told +afterwards how difficult it was to think, when his fixed expectation of +death was suddenly changed; but how he managed to master himself, thank +Mr. Lincoln and reckon up how, with his pay and what his parents could +raise by mortgage on their farm and some help from his comrades, he might +pay the bill if it were not more than five or six hundred dollars. "But +it is a great deal more than that," said the President. "My bill is a +very large one. Your friends cannot pay it, nor your bounty, nor the +farm, nor all your comrades. There is only one man in the world who can +pay it, and his name is William Scott. If from this day William Scott +does his duty, so that, when he comes to die, he can look me in the face +as he does now and say, 'I have kept my promise and I have done my duty +as a soldier,' then my debt will be paid. Will you make the promise and +try to keep it?" And William Scott did promise; and, not very long +after, he was desperately wounded, and he died, but not before he could +send a message to the President that he had tried to be a good soldier, +and would have paid his debt in full if he had lived, and that he died +thinking of Lincoln's kind face and thanking him for the chance he gave +him to fall like a soldier in battle. If the story is not true--and +there is no reason whatever to doubt it--still it is a remarkable man of +whom people spin yarns of that kind. + +When Lincoln's strength became visibly tried friends often sought to +persuade him to spare himself the needless, and to him very often +harrowing, labour of incessant interviews. They never succeeded. +Lincoln told them he could not forget what he himself would feel in the +place of the many poor souls who came to him desiring so little and with +so little to get. But he owned to the severity of the strain. He was +not too sensitive to the ridicule and reproach that surrounded him. +"Give yourself no uneasiness," he had once said to some one who had +sympathised with him over some such annoyance, "I have endured a great +deal of ridicule without much malice, and have received a great deal of +kindness not quite free from ridicule. I am used to it." But the gentle +nature that such words express, and that made itself deeply felt by those +that were nearest him, cannot but have suffered from want of +appreciation. With all this added to the larger cares, which before the +closing phases of the war opened had become so intense, Lincoln must have +been taxed near to the limit of what men have endured without loss of +judgment, or loss of courage or loss of ordinary human feeling. There is +no sign that any of these things happened to him; the study of his record +rather shows a steady ripening of mind and character to the end. It has +been seen how throughout his previous life the melancholy of his +temperament impressed those who had the opportunity of observing it. A +colleague of his at the Illinois bar has told how on circuit he sometimes +came down in the morning and found Lincoln sitting alone over the embers +of the fire, where he had sat all night in sad meditation, after an +evening of jest apparently none the less hilarious for his total +abstinence. There was no scope for this brooding now, and in a sense the +time of his severest trial cannot have been the saddest time of Lincoln's +life. It must have been a cause not of added depression but of added +strength that he had long been accustomed to face the sternest aspect of +the world. He had within his own mind two resources, often, perhaps +normally, associated together, but seldom so fully combined as with him. +In his most intimate circle he would draw upon his stores of poetry, +particularly of tragedy; often, for instance, he would recite such +speeches as Richard II.'s: + + "For God's sake let us sit upon the ground + And tell sad stories of the death of kings. + . . . . . All murdered." + +Slighter acquaintances saw, day by day, another element in his thoughts, +the companion to this; for the hardly interrupted play of humour in which +he found relief continued to help him to the end. Whatever there was in +it either of mannerism or of coarseness, no one can grudge it him; it is +an oddity which endears. The humour of real life fades in reproduction, +but Lincoln's, there is no doubt was a vein of genuine comedy, deep, +rich, and unsoured, of a larger human quality than marks the brilliant +works of literary American humorists. It was, like the comedy of +Shakespeare, plainly if unaccountably akin with the graver and grander +strain of thought and feeling that inspired the greatest of his speeches. +Physically his splendid health does not seem to have been impaired beyond +recovery. But it was manifestly near to breaking; and the "deep-cut +lines" were cut still deeper, and the long legs were always cold. + +The cloud over the North passed very suddenly. The North indeed paid the +penalty of a nation which is spared the full strain of a war at the +first, and begins to discover its seriousness when the hope of easy +victory has been many times dashed down. It has been necessary to dwell +upon the despondency which at one time prevailed; but it would be hard to +rate too highly the military difficulty of the conquest undertaken by the +North, or the trial involved to human nature by perseverance in such a +task. If the depression during the summer was excessive, as it clearly +was, at least the recovery which followed was fully adequate to the +occasion which produced it. On September 2 Sherman telegraphed, "Atlanta +is ours and fairly won." The strategic importance of earlier successes +may have been greater, but the most ignorant man who looked at a map +could see what it signified that the North could occupy an important city +in the heart of Georgia. Then they recalled Farragut's victory of a +month before. Then there followed, close to Washington, putting an end +to a continual menace, stirring and picturesquely brilliant beyond other +incidents of the war, Sheridan's repeated victories in the Shenandoah +Valley. The war which had been "voted a failure" was evidently not a +failure. At the same time men of high character conducted a vigorous +campaign of speeches for Lincoln. General Schurz, the German +revolutionary Liberal, who lived to tell Bismarck at his table that he +still preferred democracy to his amused host's method of government, +sacrificed his command in the Army--for Lincoln told him it could not be +restored--to speak for Lincoln. Even Chase was carried away, and after +months of insidious detraction, went for Lincoln on the stump. In the +elections in November Lincoln was elected by an enormous popular +majority, giving him 212 out of the 233 votes in the electoral college, +where in form the election is made. Three Northern States only, one of +them his native State, had gone against him. He made some little +speeches to parties which came to "serenade" him; some were not very +formal speeches, for, as he said, he was now too old to "care much about +the mode of doing things." But one was this: "It has long been a grave +question whether any Government not too strong for the liberties of its +people can be strong enough to maintain its existence in great +emergencies. On this point the present rebellion brought our Government +to a severe test, and a Presidential election occurring in regular course +during the rebellion added not a little to the strain. But we cannot +have a free Government without elections; and if the rebellion could +force us to forego or postpone a national election it might fairly claim +to have already conquered and ruined us. But the election along with its +incidental and undesirable strife has done good too. It has demonstrated +that a people's Government can sustain a national election in the midst +of a great civil war. Until now it has not been known to the world that +this was a possibility. But the rebellion continues, and now that the +election is over may not all have a common interest to reunite in a +common effort to save our common country? For my own part I have striven +and shall strive to avoid placing any obstacle in the way. So long as I +have been here I have not willingly planted a thorn in any man's bosom. +While I am duly sensible to the high compliment of a re-election, and +duly grateful as I trust to Almighty God for having directed my +countrymen to a right conclusion, as I think, for their good, it adds +nothing to my satisfaction that any man may be disappointed by the +result. May I ask those who have not differed from me to join with me in +this same spirit towards those who have? And now let me close by asking +three hearty cheers for our brave soldiers and seamen, and their gallant +and skilful commanders." + +In the Cabinet he brought out the paper that he had sealed up in the dark +days of August; he reminded his ministers of how they had endorsed it +unread, and he read it them. Its contents ran thus: "This morning, as +for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this +Administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be my duty to so +co-operate with the President-elect as to save the Union between the +election and the inauguration, as he will have secured his election on +such ground that he cannot possibly save it afterwards." Lincoln +explained what he had intended to do if McClellan had won. He would have +gone to him and said, "General, this election shows that you are +stronger, have more influence with the people of this country than I"; +and he would have invited him to co-operate in saving the Union now, by +using that great influence to secure from the people the willing +enlistment of enough recruits. "And the general," said Seward, "would +have said, 'Yes, yes'; and again the next day, when you spoke to him +about it, 'Yes, yes'; and so on indefinitely, and he would have done +nothing." + +"Seldom in history," wrote Emerson in a letter after the election, "was +so much staked upon a popular vote. I suppose never in history." + +And to those Americans of all classes and in all districts of the North, +who had set their hearts and were giving all they had to give to preserve +the life of the nation, the political crisis of 1864 would seem to have +been the most anxious moment of the war. It is impossible--it must be +repeated--to guess how great the danger really was that their popular +government might in the result betray the true and underlying will of the +people; for in any country (and in America perhaps more than most) the +average of politicians, whose voices are most loudly heard, can only in a +rough and approximate fashion be representative. But there is in any +case no cause for surprise that the North should at one time have +trembled. Historic imagination is easily, though not one whit too +deeply, moved by the heroic stand of the South. It is only after the +effort to understand the light in which the task of the North has +presented itself to capable soldiers, that a civilian can perceive what +sustained resolution was required if, though far the stronger, it was to +make its strength tell. Notwithstanding the somewhat painful impression +which the political chronicle of this time at some points gives, it is +the fact that the wisest Englishmen who were in those days in America and +had means of observing what passed have retained a lasting sense of the +constancy, under trial, of the North. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE END + +On December 6, 1864, Lincoln sent the last of his Annual Messages to +Congress. He treated as matter for oblivion the "impugning of motives +and heated controversy as to the proper means of advancing the Union +cause," which had played so large a part in the Presidential election +and the other elections of the autumn. For, as he said, "on the +distinct issue of Union or no Union the politicians have shown their +instinctive knowledge that there is no diversity among the people." +This was accurate as well as generous, for though many Democrats had +opposed the war, none had avowed that for the sake of peace he would +give up the Union. Passing then to the means by which the Union could +be made to prevail he wrote: "On careful consideration of all the +evidence accessible it seems to me that no attempt at negotiation with +the insurgent leader could result in any good. He would accept nothing +short of severance of the Union--precisely what we will not and cannot +give. Between him and us the issue is distinct, simple, and +inflexible. It is an issue which can only be tried by war and decided +by victory. The abandonment of armed resistance to the national +authority on the part of the insurgents is the only indispensable +condition to ending the war on the part of the Government." To avoid a +possible misunderstanding he added that not a single person who was +free by the terms of the Emancipation Proclamation or of any Act of +Congress would be returned to slavery while he held the executive +authority. "If the people should by whatever mode or means make it an +executive duty to re-enslave such persons, another, and not I, must be +their instrument to perform it." This last sentence was no meaningless +flourish; the Constitutional Amendment prohibiting slavery could not be +passed for some time, and might conceivably be defeated; in the +meantime the Courts might possibly have declared any negro in the +Southern States a slave; Lincoln's words let it be seen that they would +have found themselves without an arm to enforce their decision. But in +fact there was no longer an issue with the South as to abolition. +Jefferson Davis had himself declared that slavery was gone, for most +slaves had now freed themselves, and that he for his part troubled very +little over that. There remained, then, no issue between North and +South except that between Independence and Union. + +On the same day that he sent his annual message Lincoln gave himself a +characteristic pleasure by another communication which he sent to the +Senate. Old Roger Taney of the Dred Scott case had died in October; +the Senate was now requested to confirm the President's nomination of a +new Chief Justice to succeed him; and the President had nominated +Chase. Chase's reputation as a lawyer had seemed to fit him for the +position, but the well informed declared that, in spite of some +appearances on the platform for Lincoln he still kept "going around +peddling his griefs in private ears and sowing dissatisfaction against +Lincoln." So in spite of Lincoln's pregnant remark on this subject +that he "did not believe in keeping any man under," nobody supposed +that Lincoln would appoint him. Sumner and Congressman Alley of +Massachusetts had indeed gone to Lincoln to urge the appointment. "We +found, to our dismay," Alley relates, "that the President had heard of +the bitter criticisms of Mr. Chase upon himself and his Administration. +Mr. Lincoln urged many of Chase's defects, to discover, as we +afterwards learned, how his objection could be answered. We were both +discouraged and made up our minds that the President did not mean to +appoint Mr. Chase. It really seemed too much to expect of poor human +nature." One morning Alley again saw the President. "I have something +to tell you that will make you happy," said Lincoln. "I have just sent +Mr. Chase word that he is to be appointed Chief Justice, and you are +the first man I have told of it." Alley said something natural about +Lincoln's magnanimity, but was told in reply what the only real +difficulty had been. Lincoln from his "convictions of duty to the +Republican party and the country" had always meant to appoint Chase, +subject to one doubt which he had revolved in his mind till he had +settled it. This doubt was simply whether Chase, beset as he was by a +craving for the Presidency which he could never obtain, would ever +really turn his attention with a will to becoming the great Chief +Justice that Lincoln thought he could be. Lincoln's occasional +failures of tact had sometimes a noble side to them; he even thought +now of writing to Chase and telling him with simple seriousness where +he felt his temptation lay, and he with difficulty came to see that +this attempt at brotherly frankness would be misconstrued by a +suspicious and jealous man. Charles Sumner, Chase's advocate on this +occasion, was all this time the most weighty and the most pronounced of +those Radicals who were beginning to press for unrestricted negro +suffrage in the South and in general for a hard and inelastic scheme of +"reconstruction," which they would have imposed on the conquered South +without an attempt to conciliate the feeling of the vanquished or to +invite their co-operation in building up the new order. He was thus +the chief opponent of that more tentative, but as is now seen, more +liberal and more practical policy which lay very close to Lincoln's +heart; enough has been said of him to suggest too that this grave +person, bereft of any glimmering of fun, was in one sense no congenial +companion for Lincoln. But he was stainlessly unselfish and sincere, +and he was the politician above all others in Washington with whom +Lincoln most gladly and most successfully maintained easy social +intercourse. And, to please him in little ways, Lincoln would +disentangle his long frame from the "grotesque position of comfort" +into which he had twisted it in talk with some other friend, and would +assume in an instant a courtly demeanour when Sumner was about to enter +his room. + +On January 31, 1865, the resolution earlier passed by the Senate for a +Constitutional Amendment to prohibit slavery was passed by the House of +Representatives, as Lincoln had eagerly desired, so that the requisite +voting of three quarters of the States in its favour could now begin. +Before that time the Confederate Congress had, on March 13, 1865, +closed its last, most anxious and distracted session by passing an Act +for the enlistment of negro volunteers, who were to become free on +enlistment. As a military measure it was belated and inoperative, but +nothing could more eloquently have marked the practical extinction of +slavery which the war had wrought than the consent of Southern +legislators to convert the remaining slaves into soldiers. + +The military operations of 1865 had proceeded but a very little way +when the sense of what they portended was felt among the Southern +leaders in Richmond. The fall of that capital itself might be hastened +or be delayed; Lee's army if it escaped from Richmond might prolong +resistance for a shorter or for a longer time, but Sherman's march to +the sea, and the far harder achievements of the same kind which he was +now beginning, made the South feel, as he knew it would feel, that not +a port, not an arsenal, not a railway, not a corn district of the South +lay any longer beyond the striking range of the North. Congressmen and +public officials in Richmond knew that the people of the South now +longed for peace and that the authority of the Confederacy was gone. +They beset Jefferson Davis with demands that he should start +negotiations. But none of them had determined what price they would +pay for peace; and there was not among them any will that could really +withstand their President. In one point indeed Jefferson Davis did +wisely yield. On February 9, 1865, he consented to make Lee +General-in-Chief of all the Southern armies. This belated delegation +of larger authority to Lee had certain military results, but no +political result whatever. Lee could have been the dictator of the +Confederacy if he had chosen, and no one then or since would have +blamed him; but it was not in his mind to do anything but his duty as a +soldier. The best beloved and most memorable by far of all the men who +served that lost cause, he had done nothing to bring about secession at +the beginning, nor now did he do anything but conform to the wishes of +his political chief. As for that chief, Lincoln had interpreted Davis' +simple position quite rightly. Having once embraced the cause of +Southern independence and taken the oath as chief magistrate of an +independent Confederacy, he would not yield up that cause while there +was a man to obey his orders. Whether this attitude should be set +down, as it usually has been set down, to a diseased pride or to a very +real heroism on his part, he never faced the truth that the situation +was desperate and the spirit of his people daunted at last. But it is +probable that just like Lincoln he was ready that those who were in +haste to make peace should see what peace involved; and it is probable +too that, in his terrible position, he deluded himself with some vague +and vain hopes as to the attitude of the North. Lincoln on the other +hand would not enter into any proceedings in which the secession of the +South was treated otherwise than as a rebellion which must cease; but +this did not absolutely compel him to refuse every sort of informal +communication with influential men in the South, which might help them +to see where they stood and from which he too might learn something. + +Old Mr. Francis Blair, the father of Lincoln's late Postmaster-General, +was the last of the honest peace-makers whom Lincoln had allowed to see +things for themselves by meeting Jefferson Davis. His visit took place +in January, 1865, and from his determination to be a go-between and the +curious and difficult position in which Lincoln and Davis both stood in +this respect an odd result arose. The Confederate Vice-President +Stephens, who had preached peace in the autumn without a quarrel with +Davis, and two other Southern leaders presented themselves at Grant's +headquarters with the pathetic misrepresentation that they were sent by +Davis on a mission which Lincoln had undertaken to receive. What they +could show was authority from Davis to negotiate with Lincoln on the +footing of the independence of the Confederacy, and a politely turned +intimation from Lincoln that he would at any time receive persons +informally sent to talk with a view to the surrender of the rebel +armies. Grant, however, was deeply impressed with the sincerity of +their desire for peace, and he entreated Lincoln to receive them. +Lincoln therefore decided to overlook the false pretence under which +they came. He gave Grant strict orders not to delay his operations on +this account, but he came himself with Seward and met Davis' three +commissioners on a ship at Hampton Roads on February 3. He and +Stephens had in old days been Whig Congressmen together, and Lincoln +had once been moved to tears by a speech of Stephens. They met now as +friends. Lincoln lost no time in making his position clear. The +unhappy commissioners made every effort to lead him away from the plain +ground he had chosen. It is evident that they and possible that +Jefferson Davis had hoped that when face to face with them he would +change his mind, and possibly Blair's talk had served to encourage this +hope. They failed, but the conversation continued in a frank and +friendly manner. Lincoln told them very freely his personal opinions +as to how the North ought to treat the South when it did surrender, but +was careful to point out that he could make no promise or bargain, +except indeed this promise that so far as penalties for rebellion were +concerned the executive power, which lay in his sole hands, would be +liberally used. Slavery was discussed, and Seward told them of the +Constitutional Amendment which Congress had now submitted to the +people. One of the commissioners returning again to Lincoln's refusal +to negotiate with armed rebels, as he considered them, cited the +precedent of Charles I.'s conduct in this respect. "I do not profess," +said Lincoln, "to be posted in history. On all such matters I turn you +over to Seward. All I distinctly recollect about Charles I. is that he +lost his head in the end." Then he broke out into simple advice to +Stephens as to the action he could now pursue. He had to report to +Congress afterwards that the conference had had no result. He brought +home, however, a personal compliment which he valued. "I understand, +then," Stephens had said, "that you regard us as rebels, who are liable +to be hanged for treason." "That is so," said Lincoln. "Well," said +Stephens, "we supposed that would have to be your view. But, to tell +you the truth, we have none of us been much afraid of being hanged with +you as President." He brought home, besides the compliment, an idea of +a kind which, if he could have had his way with his friends, might have +been rich in good. He had discovered how hopeless the people of the +South were, and he considered whether a friendly pronouncement might +not lead them more readily to surrender. He deplored the suffering in +which the South might now lie plunged, and it was a fixed part of his +creed that slavery was the sin not of the South but of the nation. So +he spent the day after his return in drafting a joint resolution which +he hoped the two Houses of Congress might pass, and a Proclamation +which he would in that case issue. In these he proposed to offer to +the Southern States four hundred million dollars in United States +bonds, being, as he calculated the cost to the North of two hundred +days of war, to be allotted among those States in proportion to the +property in slaves which each had lost. One half of this sum was to be +paid at once if the war ended by April 1, and the other half upon the +final adoption of the Constitutional Amendment. It would have been a +happy thing if the work of restoring peace could have lain with a +statesman whose rare aberrations from the path of practical politics +were of this kind. Yet, considering the natural passions which even in +this least revengeful of civil wars could not quite be repressed, we +should be judging the Congress of that day by a higher standard than we +should apply in other countries if we regarded this proposal as one +that could have been hopefully submitted to them. Lincoln's illusions +were dispelled on the following day when he read what he had written to +his Cabinet, and found that even among his own ministers not one man +supported him. It would have been worse than useless to put forward +his proposals and to fail. "You are all opposed to me," he said sadly; +and he put his papers away. But the war had now so far progressed that +it is necessary to turn back to the point at which we left it at the +end of 1864. + +Winter weather brought a brief pause to the operations of the armies. +Sherman at Savannah was preparing to begin his northward march, a +harder matter, owing to the rivers and marshes that lay in his way, +than his triumphal progress from Atlanta. Efforts were made to +concentrate all available forces against him at Augusta to his +north-west. Making feints against Augusta on the one side, and against +the city and port of Charleston on the other, he displayed the +marvellous engineering capacity of his army by an advance of +unlooked-for speed across the marshes to Columbia, due north of him, +which is the State capital of South Carolina. He reached it on +February 17, 1865. The intended concentration of the South at Augusta +was broken up. The retreating Confederates set fire to great stores of +cotton and the unfortunate city was burnt, a calamity for which the +South, by a natural but most unjust mistake, blamed Sherman. The +railway communications of Charleston were now certain to be severed; so +the Confederates were forced to evacuate it, and on February 18, 1865, +the North occupied the chief home of the misbegotten political ideals +of the South and of its real culture and chivalry. + +Admiral Porter (for age and ill-health had come upon Farragut) was +ready at sea to co-operate with Sherman. Thomas' army in Tennessee had +not been allowed by Grant to go into winter quarters. A part of it +under Schofield was brought to Washington and there shipped for North +Carolina, where, ever since Burnside's successful expedition in 1862, +the Union Government had held the ports north of Wilmington. +Wilmington itself was the only port left to the South, and Richmond had +now come to depend largely on the precarious and costly supplies which +could still, notwithstanding the blockade, be run into that harbour. +At the end of December, Butler, acting in flagrant disobedience to +Grant, had achieved his crowning failure in a joint expedition with +Porter against Wilmington. But Porter was not discouraged, nor was +Grant, who from beginning to end of his career had worked well together +with the Navy. On February 8, Porter, this time supported by an +energetic general, Terry, effected a brilliant capture of Fort Fisher +at the mouth of Wilmington harbour. The port was closed to the South. +On the 22nd, the city itself fell to Schofield, and Sherman had now +this sea base at hand if he needed it. + +Meanwhile Grant's entrenchments on the east of Richmond and Petersburg +were still extending southward, and Lee's defences had been stretched +till they covered nearly forty miles. Grant's lines now cut the +principal railway southward from the huge fortress, and he was able +effectually to interrupt communication by road to the southwest. There +could be little doubt that Richmond would fall soon, and the real +question was coming to be whether Lee and his army could escape from +Richmond and still carry on the war. + +The appointment of Lee as General-in-Chief was not too late to bear one +consequence which may have prolonged the war a little. Joseph +Johnston, whose ability in a campaign of constant retirement before +overwhelming force had been respected and redoubted by Sherman, had +been discarded by Davis in the previous July. He was now put in +command of the forces which it was hoped to concentrate against +Sherman, with a view to holding up his northward advance and preventing +him from joining hands with Grant before Richmond. There were +altogether about 89,000 Confederate troops scattered in the Carolinas, +Georgia, and Florida, and there would be about the same number under +Sherman when Schofield in North Carolina could join him, but the number +which Johnston could now collect together seems never to have exceeded +33,000. It was Sherman's task by the rapidity of his movements to +prevent a very formidable concentration against him. Johnston on the +other hand must hinder if he could Sherman's junction with Schofield. +Just before that junction took place he narrowly missed dealing a +considerable blow to Sherman's army at the battle of Bentonville in the +heart of North Carolina, but had in the end to withdraw within an +entrenched position where Sherman would not attack him, but which upon +the arrival of Schofield he was forced to abandon. On March 23, 1865, +Sherman took possession of the town and railway junction of +Goldsborough between Raleigh and New Berne. From Savannah to +Goldsborough he had led his army 425 miles in fifty days, amid +disadvantages of ground and of weather which had called forth both +extraordinary endurance and mechanical skill on the part of his men. +He lay now 140 miles south of Petersburg by the railway. The port of +New Berne to the east of him on the estuary of the Neuse gave him a +sure base of supplies, and would enable him quickly to move his army by +sea to Petersburg and Richmond if Grant should so decide. The +direction in which Johnston would now fall back lay inland up the Neuse +Valley, also along a railway, towards Greensborough, some 150 miles +south-west of Petersburg; Greensborough was connected by another +railway with Petersburg and Richmond, and along this line Lee might +attempt to retire and join him. + +All this time whatever designs Lee had of leaving Richmond were +suspended because the roads in that weather were too bad for his +transport; and, while of necessity he waited, his possible openings +narrowed. Philip Sheridan had now received the coveted rank of +Major-General, which McClellan had resigned on the day on which he was +defeated for the Presidency. The North delighted to find in his +achievements the dashing quality which appeals to civilian imagination, +and Grant now had in him, as well as in Sherman, a lieutenant who would +faithfully make his chief's purposes his own, and who would execute +them with independent decision. The cold, in which his horses +suffered, had driven Sheridan into winter quarters, but on February 27 +he was able to start up the Shenandoah Valley again with 10,000 +cavalry. Most of the Confederate cavalry under Early had now been +dispersed, mainly for want of forage in the desolated valley; the rest +were now dispersed by Sheridan, and the greater part of Early's small +force of infantry with all his artillery were captured. There was a +garrison in Lynchburg, 80 or 90 miles west of Richmond, which though +strong enough to prevent Sheridan's cavalry from capturing that place +was not otherwise of account; but there was no Confederate force in the +field except Johnston's men near enough to co-operate with Lee; only +some small and distant armies, hundreds of miles away with the railway +communication between them and the East destroyed. Sheridan now broke +up the railway and canal communication on the north-west side of +Richmond. He was to have gone on south and eventually joined Sherman +if he could; but, finding himself stopped for the time by floods in the +upper valley of the James, he rode past the north of Richmond, and on +March 19 joined Grant, to put his cavalry and brains at his service +when Grant judged that the moment for his final effort had come. + +On March 4, 1865, Abraham Lincoln took office for the second time as +President of the United. States. There was one new and striking +feature in the simple ceremonial, the presence of a battalion of negro +troops in his escort. This time, though he would say no sanguine word, +it cannot have been a long continuance of war that filled his thoughts, +but the scarcely less difficult though far happier task of restoring +the fabric of peaceful society in the conquered South. His +difficulties were now likely to come from the North no less than the +South. Tentative proposals which he had once or twice made suggest the +spirit in which he would have felt his way along this new path. In the +Inaugural address which he now delivered that spirit is none the less +perceptible because he spoke of the past. The little speech at +Gettysburg, with its singular perfection of form, and the "Second +Inaugural" are the chief outstanding examples of his peculiar +oratorical power. The comparative rank of his oratory need not be +discussed, for at any rate it was individual and unlike that of most +other great speakers in history, though perhaps more like that of some +great speeches in drama. + +But there is a point of some moment in which the Second Inaugural does +invite a comment, and a comment which should be quite explicit. +Probably no other speech of a modern statesman uses so unreservedly the +language of intense religious feeling. The occasion made it natural; +neither the thought nor the words are in any way conventional; no +sensible reader now could entertain a suspicion that the orator spoke +to the heart of the people but did not speak from his own heart. But +an old Illinois attorney, who thought he knew the real Lincoln behind +the President, might have wondered whether the real Lincoln spoke here. +For Lincoln's religion, like everything else in his character, became, +when he was famous, a stock subject of discussion among his old +associates. Many said "he was a Christian but did not know it." Some +hinted, with an air of great sagacity, that "so far from his being a +Christian or a religious man, the less said about it the better." In +early manhood he broke away for ever from the scheme of Christian +theology which was probably more or less common to the very various +Churches which surrounded him. He had avowed this sweeping denial with +a freedom which pained some friends, perhaps rather by its rashness +than by its impiety, and he was apt to regard the procedure of +theologians as a blasphemous twisting of the words of Christ. He +rejected that belief in miracles and in the literally inspired accuracy +of the Bible narrative which was no doubt held as fundamental by all +these Churches. He rejected no less any attempt to substitute for this +foundation the belief in any priestly authority or in the authority of +any formal and earthly society called the Church. With this total +independence of the expressed creeds of his neighbours he still went +and took his boys to Presbyterian public worship--their mother was an +Episcopalian and his own parents had been Baptists. He loved the Bible +and knew it intimately--he is said also by the way to have stored in +his memory a large number of hymns. In the year before his death he +wrote to Speed: "I am profitably engaged in reading the Bible. Take +all of this book upon reason that you can and the balance upon faith +and you will live and die a better man." It was not so much the Old +Testament as the New Testament and what he called "the true spirit of +Christ" that he loved especially, and took with all possible +seriousness as the rule of life. His theology, in the narrower sense, +may be said to have been limited to an intense belief in a vast and +over-ruling Providence--the lighter forms of superstitious feelings +which he is known to have had in common with most frontiersmen were +apparently of no importance in his life. And this Providence, darkly +spoken of, was certainly conceived by him as intimately and kindly +related to his own life. In his Presidential candidature, when he +owned to some one that the opposition of clergymen hurt him deeply, he +is said to have confessed to being no Christian and to have continued, +"I know that there is a God and that He hates injustice and slavery. I +see the storm coming and I know that His hand is in it. If He has a +place and work for me, and I think He has, I believe I am ready. I am +nothing, but truth is everything; I know I am right because I know that +liberty is right, for Christ teaches it, and Christ is God. I have +told them that a house divided against itself cannot stand, and Christ +and reason say the same, and they will find it so." When old +acquaintances said that he had no religion they based their opinion on +such remarks as that the God, of whom he had just been speaking +solemnly, was "not a person." It would be unprofitable to enquire what +he, and many others, meant by this expression, but, later at any rate, +this "impersonal" power was one with which he could hold commune. His +robust intellect, impatient of unproved assertion, was unlikely to rest +in the common assumption that things dimly seen may be treated as not +being there. So humorous a man was also unlikely to be too conceited +to say his prayers. At any rate he said them; said them intently; +valued the fact that others prayed for him and for the nation; and, as +in official Proclamations (concerning days of national religious +observance) he could wield, like no other modern writer, the language +of the Prayer Book, so he would speak of prayer without the smallest +embarrassment in talk with a general or a statesman. It is possible +that this was a development of later years. Lincoln did not, like most +of us, arrest his growth. To Mrs. Lincoln it seemed that with the +death of their child, Willie, a change came over his whole religious +outlook. It well might; and since that grief, which came while his +troubles were beginning, much else had come to Lincoln; and now through +four years of unsurpassed trial his capacity had steadily grown, and +his delicate fairness, his pitifulness, his patience, his modesty had +grown therewith. Here is one of the few speeches ever delivered by a +great man at the crisis of his fate on the sort of occasion which a +tragedian telling his story would have devised for him. This man had +stood alone in the dark. He had done justice; he had loved mercy; he +had walked humbly with his God. The reader to whom religious utterance +makes little appeal will not suppose that his imaginative words stand +for no real experience. The reader whose piety knows no questions will +not be pained to think that this man had professed no faith. + +He said, "Fellow Countrymen: At this second appearance to take the oath +of the Presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended +address than there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat in +detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at +the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have +been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great +contest which still absorbs the energies and engrosses the attention of +the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our +arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the +public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and +encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in +regard to it is ventured. + +"On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts +were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it--all +sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered +from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, +insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without +war--seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects, by negotiation. +Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than +let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let +it perish. And the war came. + +"One-eighth of the whole population were coloured slaves, not +distributed generally over the Union, but localised in the Southern +part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. +All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To +strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for +which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the +Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial +enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or +the duration which it has already attained. Neither expected that the +cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict +itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result +less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to +the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem +strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in +wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us +judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be +answered--that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has +His own purposes. 'Woe unto the world because of offenses! for it must +needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense +cometh.' If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those +offenses, which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, +having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, +and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war, as the woe +due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any +departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living +God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope--fervently do we +pray--that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if +God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's +two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until +every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid with another +drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it +must be said, 'The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous +altogether.' + +"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the +right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the +work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who +shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do +all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among +ourselves, and with all nations." + +Lincoln's own commentary may follow upon his speech: + +"March 15, 1865. Dear Mr. Weed,--Every one likes a little compliment. +Thank you for yours on my little notification speech and on the recent +inaugural address. I expect the latter to wear as well as--perhaps +better than--anything I have produced; but I believe it is not +immediately popular. Men are not flattered by being shown that there +has been a difference of purpose between the Almighty and them. To +deny it however in this case is to deny that there is a God governing +the world. It is a truth which I thought needed to be told, and, as +whatever of humiliation there is in it falls most directly on myself, I +thought others might afford for me to tell it. + +"Truly yours, + +"A. LINCOLN." + + +On March 20, 1865, a period of bright sunshine seems to have begun in +Lincoln's life. Robert Lincoln had some time before finished his +course at Harvard, and his father had written to Grant modestly asking +him if he could suggest the way, accordant with discipline and good +example, in which the young man could best see something of military +life. Grant immediately had him on to his staff, with a commission as +captain, and now Grant invited Lincoln to come to his headquarters for +a holiday visit. There was much in it besides holiday, for Grant was +rapidly maturing his plans for the great event and wanted Lincoln near. +Moreover Sheridan had just arrived, and while Lincoln was there Sherman +came from Goldsborough with Admiral Porter for consultation as to +Sherman's next move. Peremptory as he was in any necessary political +instructions, Lincoln was now happy to say nothing of military matters, +beyond expressing his earnest desire that the final overmastering of +the Confederate armies should be accomplished with the least further +bloodshed possible, and indulging the curiosity that any other guest +might have shown. A letter home to Mrs. Lincoln betrays the interest +with which he heard heavy firing quite near, which seemed to him a +great battle, but did not excite those who knew. Then there were rides +in the country with Grant's staff. Lincoln in his tall hat and frock +coat was a marked and curious figure on a horse. He had once, by the +way, insisted on riding with Butler, catechising him with remorseless +chaff on engineering matters and forbidding his chief engineer to +prompt him, along six miles of cheering Northern troops within easy +sight and shot of the Confederate soldiers to whom his hat and coat +identified him. But, however odd a figure, he impressed Grant's +officers as a good and bold horseman. Then, after Sherman's arrival, +there evidently was no end of talk. Sherman was at first amused by the +President's anxiety as to whether his army was quite safe without him +at Goldsborough; but that keen-witted soldier soon received, as he has +said, an impression both of goodness and of greatness such as no other +man ever gave him. + +What especially remained on Sherman's and on Porter's mind was the +recollection of Lincoln's over-powering desire for mercy and for +conciliation with the conquered. Indeed Sherman blundered later in the +terms he first accepted from Johnston; for he did not see that +Lincoln's clemency for Southern leaders and desire for the welfare of +the South included no mercy at all for the political principle of the +Confederacy. Grant was not exposed to any such mistake, for a week or +two before Lee had made overtures to him for some sort of conference +and Lincoln had instantly forbidden him to confer with Lee for any +purpose but that of his unconditional surrender. What, apart from the +reconstruction of Southern life and institutions, was in part weighing +with Lincoln was the question of punishments for rebellion. By Act of +Congress the holders of high political and military office in the South +were liable as traitors, and there was now talk of hanging in the +North. Later events showed that a very different sentiment would make +itself heard when the victory came; but Lincoln was much concerned. To +some one who spoke to him of this matter he exclaimed, "What have I to +do with you, ye sons of Zeruiah, that ye should this day be adversaries +unto me? Shall there any man be put to death this day in Israel?" +There can be no doubt that the prerogative of mercy would have been +vigorously used in his hands, but he did not wish for a conflict on +this matter at all; and Grant was taught, in a parable about a teetotal +Irishman who forgave being served with liquor unbeknownst to himself, +that zeal in capturing Jefferson Davis and his colleagues was not +expected of him. + +While Lincoln was at Grant's headquarters at City Point, Lee, hoping to +recover the use of the roads to the south-west, endeavoured to cause a +diversion of the besiegers' strength by a sortie on his east front. It +failed and gave the besiegers a further point of vantage. On April 1 +Sheridan was sent far round the south of Lee's lines, and in a battle +at a point called Five Forks established himself in possession of the +railway running due west from Petersburg. The defences were weakest on +this side, and to prevent the entrance of the enemy there Lee was bound +to withdraw troops from other quarters. On the two following days +Grant's army delivered assaults at several points on the east side of +the Petersburg defences, penetrating the outer lines and pushing on +against the inner fortifications of the town. On Sunday, April 2, +Jefferson Davis received in church word from Lee to make instant +preparation for departure, as Petersburg could not be held beyond that +night and Richmond must fall immediately. That night the Confederate +Government left the capital, and Lee's evacuation of the fortress began +the next day. Lincoln was sent for. He came by sea, and to the +astonishment and alarm of the naval officers made his way at once to +Richmond with entirely insufficient escort. There he strolled about, +hand in hand with his little son Tad, greeted by exultant negroes, and +stared at by angry or curious Confederates, while he visited the former +prison of the Northern prisoners and other places of more pleasant +attraction without receiving any annoyance from the inhabitants. He +had an interesting talk with Campbell, formerly a Supreme Court judge, +and a few weeks back one of Davis' commissioners at Hampton Roads. +Campbell obtained permission to convene a meeting of the members of the +Virginia Legislature with a view to speedier surrender by Lee's army. +But the permission was revoked, for he somewhat clumsily mistook its +terms, and, moreover, the object in view had meantime been accomplished. + +Jefferson Davis was then making his way with his ministers to +Johnston's army. When they arrived he and they held council with +Johnston and Beauregard. He would issue a Proclamation which would +raise him many soldiers and he would "whip them yet." No one answered +him. At last he asked the opinion of Johnston, who bluntly undeceived +him as to facts, and told him that further resistance would be a crime, +and got his permission to treat with Sherman, while the fallen +Confederate President escaped further south. + +Lee's object was to make his way along the north side of the Appomattox +River, which flows east through Petersburg to the James estuary, and at +a certain point strike southwards towards Johnston's army. He fought +for his escape with all his old daring and skill, while hardly less +vigorous and skilful efforts were made not only to pursue, but to +surround him. Grant in his pursuit sent letters of courteous entreaty +that he would surrender and spare further slaughter. Northern cavalry +got ahead of Lee, tearing up the railway lines he had hoped to use and +blocking possible mountain passes; and his supply trains were being cut +off. After a long running fight and one last fierce battle on April 6, +at a place called Sailor's Creek, Lee found himself on April 9 at +Appomattox Court House, some seventy miles west of Petersburg, +surrounded beyond hope of escape. On that day he and Grant with their +staffs met in a neighbouring farmhouse. Those present recalled +afterwards the contrast of the stately Lee and the plain, ill-dressed +Grant arriving mud-splashed in his haste. Lee greeted Meade as an old +acquaintance and remarked how grey he had grown with years. Meade +gracefully replied that Lee and not age was responsible for that. +Grant had started "quite jubilant" on the news that Lee was ready to +surrender, but in presence of "the downfall of a foe who had fought so +long and valiantly" he fell into sadness. Pleasant "talk of old army +times" followed, and he had almost forgotten, as he declares, the +business in hand, when Lee asked him on what terms he would accept +surrender. Grant sat down and wrote, not knowing when he began what he +should go on to write. As he wrote he thought of the handsome sword +Lee carried. Instantly he added to his terms permission for every +Southern officer to keep his sword and his horse. Lee read the paper +and when he came to that point was visibly moved. He gauged his man, +and he ventured to ask something more. He thought, he said, Grant +might not know that the Confederate cavalry troopers owned their own +horses. Grant said they would be badly wanted on the farms and added a +further concession accordingly. "This will have the best possible +effect on the men," said Lee. "It will do much towards conciliating +our people." Grant included also in his written terms words of general +pardon to Confederate officers for their treason. This was an +inadvertent breach, perhaps, of Lincoln's orders, but it was one which +met with no objection. Lee retired into civil life and devoted himself +thereafter to his neighbours' service as head of a college in +Virginia--much respected, very free with alms to old soldiers and not +much caring whether they had fought for the South or for the North. +Grant did not wait to set foot in the capital which he had conquered, +but, the main business being over, posted off with all haste to see his +son settled in at school. + +Lincoln remained at City Point till April 8, when he started back by +steamer. Those who were with him on the two days' voyage told +afterwards of the happy talk, as of a quiet family party rejoicing in +the return of peace. Somebody said that Jefferson Davis really ought +to be hanged. The reply came in the quotation that he might almost +have expected, "Judge not, that ye be not judged." On the second day, +Sunday, the President read to them parts of "Macbeth." Sumner, who was +one of them, recalled that he read twice over the lines, + + "Duncan is in his grave; + After life's fitful fever he sleeps well; + Treason has done his worst; nor steel, nor poison, + Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing + Can touch him further." + +On the Tuesday, April 11, a triumphant crowd came to the White House to +greet Lincoln. He made them a speech, carefully prepared in substance +rather than in form, dealing with the question of reconstruction in the +South, with special reference to what was already in progress in +Louisiana. The precise points of controversy that arose in this regard +hardly matter now. Lincoln disclaimed any wish to insist pedantically +upon any detailed plan of his; but he declared his wish equally to keep +clear of any merely pedantic points of controversy with any in the +South who were loyally striving to revive State Government with +acceptance of the Union and without slavery; and he urged that genuine +though small beginnings should be encouraged. He regretted that in +Louisiana his wish for the enfranchisement of educated negroes and of +negro soldiers had not been followed; but as the freedom of the negroes +was unreservedly accepted, as provision was made for them in the public +schools, and the new State constitution allowed the Legislature to +enfranchise them, there was clear gain. "Concede that the new +government of Louisiana is only to what it should be as the egg is to +the fowl, we shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by +smashing it. What has been said of Louisiana will apply generally to +other States. So new and unprecedented," he ended, "is the whole case +that no exclusive and inflexible plan can safely be prescribed as to +details and collaterals. Such exclusive and inflexible plan would +surely become a new entanglement. Important principles may and must be +inflexible. In the present situation, as the phrase goes, it may be my +duty to make some new announcement to the people of the South. I am +considering, and shall not fail to act when satisfied that action will +be proper." A full generation has had cause to lament that that +announcement was never to be made. + +On Good Friday, April 14, 1865, with solemn religious service the Union +flag was hoisted again on Fort Sumter by General Anderson, its old +defender. On that morning there was a Cabinet Council in Washington. +Seward was absent, in bed with an injury from a carriage accident. +Grant was there a little anxious to get news from Sherman. Lincoln was +in a happy mood. He had earlier that morning enjoyed greatly a talk +with Robert Lincoln about the young man's new experience of soldiering. +He now told Grant and the Cabinet that good news was coming from +Sherman. He knew it, he said, for last night he had dreamed a dream, +which had come to him several times before. In this dream, whenever it +came, he was sailing in a ship of a peculiar build, indescribable but +always the same, and being borne on it with great speed towards a dark +and undefined shore. He had always dreamed this before victory. He +dreamed it before Antietam, before Murfreesborough, before Gettysburg, +before Vicksburg. Grant observed bluntly that Murfreesborough had not +been a victory, or of any consequence anyway. Lincoln persisted on +this topic undeterred. After some lesser business they discussed the +reconstruction of the South. Lincoln rejoiced that Congress had +adjourned and the "disturbing element" in it could not hinder the work. +Before it met again, "if we are wise and discreet we shall re-animate +the States and get their governments in successful operation, with +order prevailing and the Union re-established." Lastly, there was talk +of the treatment of rebels and of the demand that had been heard for +"persecution" and "bloody work." "No one need expect me," said +Lincoln, "to take any part in hanging or killing these men, even the +worst of them. Frighten them out of the country, open the gates, let +down the bars, scare them off." "Shoo," he added, throwing up his +large hands like a man scaring sheep. "We must extinguish our +resentments if we expect harmony and union. There is too much of the +desire on the part of some of our very good friends to be masters, to +interfere with and dictate to those States, to treat the people not as +fellow citizens; there is too little respect for their rights. I do +not sympathise in these feelings." Such was the tenor of his last +recorded utterance on public affairs. + +In the afternoon Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln drove together and he talked to +her with keen pleasure of the life they would live when the Presidency +was over. That night Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln went to the theatre, for the +day was not observed as in England. The Grants were to have been with +them, but changed their minds and left Washington that day, so a young +officer, Major Rathbone, and the lady engaged to him, both of them +thereafter ill-fated, came instead. The theatre was crowded; many +officers returned from the war were there and eager to see Lincoln. +The play was "Our American Cousin," a play in which the part of Lord +Dundreary was afterwards developed and made famous. Some time after 10 +o'clock, at a point in the play which it is said no person present +could afterwards remember, a shot was heard in the theatre and Abraham +Lincoln fell forward upon the front of the box unconscious and dying. +A wild-looking man, who had entered the box unobserved and had done his +work, was seen to strike with a knife at Major Rathbone, who tried to +seize him. Then he jumped from the box to the stage; he caught a spur +in the drapery and fell, breaking the small bone of his leg. He rose, +shouted "Sic semper tyrannis," the motto of Virginia, disappeared +behind the scenes, mounted a horse that was in waiting at the stage +door, and rode away. + +This was John Wilkes Booth, brother of a famous actor then playing +"Hamlet" in Boston. He was an actor too, and an athletic and daring +youth. In him that peculiarly ferocious political passion which +occasionally showed itself among Southerners was further inflamed by +brandy and by that ranting mode of thought which the stage develops in +some few. He was the leader of a conspiracy which aimed at compassing +the deaths of others besides Lincoln. Andrew Johnson, the +Vice-President, was to die. So was Seward. That same night one of the +conspirators, a gigantic boy of feeble mind, gained entrance to +Seward's house and wounded three people, including Seward himself, who +was lying already injured in bed and received four or five wounds. +Neither he nor the others died. The weak-minded or mad boy, another +man, whose offense consisted in having been asked to kill Johnson and +refused to do so, and another alleged conspirator, a woman, were hanged +after a court-martial whose proceedings did credit neither to the new +President nor to others concerned. Booth himself, after many +adventures, was shot in a barn in which he stood at bay and which had +been set on fire by the soldiers pursuing him. During his flight he is +said to have felt much aggrieved that men did not praise him as they +had praised Brutus and Cassius. + +There were then in the South many broken and many permanently +embittered men, indeed the temper which would be glad at Lincoln's +death could be found here and there and notably among the partisans of +the South in Washington. But, if it be wondered what measure of +sympathy there was for Booth's dark deed, an answer lies in the fact +that the murder of Lincoln would at no time have been difficult for a +brave man. Fair blows were now as powerless as foul to arrest the end. +On the very morning when Lincoln and Grant at the Cabinet had been +telling of their hopes and fears for Sherman, Sherman himself at +Raleigh in North Carolina had received and answered a letter from +Johnston opening negotiations for a peaceful surrender. Three days +later he was starting by rail for Greensborough when word came to him +from the telegraph operator that an important message was upon the +wire. He went to the telegraph box and heard it. Then he swore the +telegraph operator to secrecy, for he feared that some provocation +might lead to terrible disorders in Raleigh, if his army, flushed with +triumph, were to learn, before his return in peace, the news that for +many days after hushed their accustomed songs and shouts and cheering +into a silence which was long remembered. He went off to meet Johnston +and requested to be with him alone in a farmhouse near. There he told +him of the murder of Lincoln. "The perspiration came out in large +drops on Johnston's forehead," says Sherman, who watched him closely. +He exclaimed that it was a disgrace to the age. Then he asked to know +whether Sherman attributed the crime to the Confederate authorities. +Sherman could assure him that no one dreamed of such a suspicion +against men like him and General Lee; but he added that he was not so +sure of "Jefferson Davis and men of that stripe." Then followed some +delay, through a mistake of Sherman's which the authorities in +Washington reversed, but in a few days all was settled and the whole of +the forces under Johnston's command laid down their arms. Twenty years +later, as an old man and infirm, their leader left his Southern home to +be present at Sherman's funeral, where he caught a chill from which he +died soon after. Jefferson Davis was captured on May 10, near the +borders of Florida. He was, not without plausible grounds but quite +unjustly, suspected in regard to the murder, and he suffered +imprisonment for some time till President Andrew Johnson released him +when the evidence against him had been seen to be worthless. He lived +many years in Mississippi and wrote memoirs, in which may be found the +fullest legal argument for the great Secession, his own view of his +quarrels with Joseph Johnston, and much besides. Amongst other things +he tells how when they heard the news of Lincoln's murder some troops +cheered, but he was truly sorry for the reason that Andrew Johnson was +more hostile to the cause than Lincoln. It is disappointing to think, +of one who played a memorable part in history with much determination, +that in this reminiscence he sized his stature as a man fairly +accurately. After several other surrenders of Southern towns and small +scattered forces, the Confederate General Kirby Smith, in Texas, +surrendered to General Canby, Banks' successor, on May 26, and after +four years and forty-four days armed resistance to the Union was at an +end. + +On the night of Good Friday, Abraham Lincoln had been carried still +unconscious to a house near the theatre. His sons and other friends +were summoned. He never regained consciousness. "A look of +unspeakable peace," say his secretaries who were there, "came over his +worn features." At 7.22 on the morning of April 15, Stanton, watching +him more closely than the rest, told them what had passed in the words, +"Now he belongs to the ages." + +The mourning of a nation, voiced to later times by some of the best +lines of more than one of its poets, and deeper and more prevailing for +the lack of comprehension which some had shown him before, followed his +body in its slow progress--stopping at Baltimore, where once his life +had been threatened, for the homage of vast crowds; stopping at New +York, where among the huge assembly old General Scott came to bid him +affectionate farewell; stopping at other cities for the tribute of +reverent multitudes--to Springfield, his home of so many years, where, +on May 4, 1865, it was laid to rest. After the burial service the +"Second Inaugural" was read over his grave, nor could better words than +his own have been chosen to honour one who "with malice toward none, +with charity toward all, with firmness in the right as God gave him to +see the right, had striven on to finish the work that he was in." In +England, apart from more formal tokens of a late-learnt regard and an +unfeigned regret, Punch embodied in verse of rare felicity the manly +contrition of its editor for ignorant derision in past years; and Queen +Victoria symbolised best of all, and most acceptably to Americans, the +feeling of her people when she wrote to Mrs. Lincoln "as a widow to a +widow." Nor, though the transactions in which he bore his part were +but little understood in this country till they were half forgotten, +has tradition ever failed to give him, by just instinct, his rank with +the greatest of our race. + +Many great deeds had been done in the war. The greatest was the +keeping of the North together in an enterprise so arduous, and an +enterprise for objects so confusedly related as the Union and freedom. +Abraham Lincoln did this; nobody else could have done it; to do it he +bore on his sole shoulders such a weight of care and pain as few other +men have borne. When it was over it seemed to the people that he had +all along been thinking their real thoughts for them; but they knew +that this was because he had fearlessly thought for himself. He had +been able to save the nation, partly because he saw that unity was not +to be sought by the way of base concession. He had been able to free +the slaves, partly because he would not hasten to this object at the +sacrifice of what he thought a larger purpose. This most unrelenting +enemy to the project of the Confederacy was the one man who had quite +purged his heart and mind from hatred or even anger towards his +fellow-countrymen of the South. That fact came to be seen in the South +too, and generations in America are likely to remember it when all +other features of his statecraft have grown indistinct. A thousand +reminiscences ludicrous or pathetic, passing into myth but enshrining +hard fact, will prove to them that this great feature of his policy was +a matter of more than policy. They will remember it as adding a +peculiar lustre to the renovation of their national existence; as no +small part of the glory, surpassing that of former wars, which has +become the common heritage of North and South. For perhaps not many +conquerors, and certainly few successful statesmen, have escaped the +tendency of power to harden or at least to narrow their human +sympathies; but in this man a natural wealth of tender compassion +became richer and more tender while in the stress of deadly conflict he +developed an astounding strength. + +Beyond his own country some of us recall his name as the greatest among +those associated with the cause of popular government. He would have +liked this tribute, and the element of truth in it is plain enough, yet +it demands one final consideration. He accepted the institutions to +which he was born, and he enjoyed them. His own intense experience of +the weakness of democracy did not sour him, nor would any similar +experience of later times have been likely to do so. Yet if he +reflected much on forms of government it was with a dominant interest +in something beyond them. For he was a citizen of that far country +where there is neither aristocrat nor democrat. No political theory +stands out from his words or actions; but they show a most unusual +sense of the possible dignity of common men and common things. His +humour rioted in comparisons between potent personages and Jim Jett's +brother or old Judge Brown's drunken coachman, for the reason for which +the rarely jesting Wordsworth found a hero in the "Leech-Gatherer" or +in Nelson and a villain in Napoleon or in Peter Bell. He could use and +respect and pardon and overrule his far more accomplished ministers +because he stood up to them with no more fear or cringing, with no more +dislike or envy or disrespect than he had felt when he stood up long +before to Jack Armstrong. He faced the difficulties and terrors of his +high office with that same mind with which he had paid his way as a +poor man or navigated a boat in rapids or in floods. If he had a +theory of democracy it was contained in this condensed note which he +wrote, perhaps as an autograph, a year or two before his Presidency: +"As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses +my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the +difference, is no democracy.--A. LINCOLN." + + + + +APPENDIX + + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE + +A complete bibliography of books dealing specially with Lincoln, and of +books throwing important light upon his life or upon the history of the +American Civil War, cannot be attempted here. The author aims only at +mentioning the books which have been of greatest use to him and a few +others to which reference ought obviously to be made. + +The chief authorities for the life of Lincoln are:-- + +"Abraham Lincoln: A History," by John G. Nicolay and John Hay (his +private secretaries), in ten volumes: The Century Company, New York, +and T. Fisher Unwin, London; "The Works of Abraham Lincoln" (_i. e._, +speeches, letters, and State papers), in eight volumes: G. Putnam's +Sons, London and New York; and, for his early life, "The Life of +Abraham Lincoln," by Herndon and Weik: Appleton, London and New York. + +There are numerous short biographies of Lincoln, but among these it is +not invidious to mention as the best (expressing as it does the mature +judgment of the highest authority) "A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln," +by John G. Nicolay: The Century Company, New York. + +The author may be allowed to refer, moreover, to the interest aroused +in him as a boy by "Abraham Lincoln," by C. G. Leland, in the "New +Plutarch Series": Marcus Ward & Co., London; and to the light he has +much later derived from "Abraham Lincoln," by John T. Morse, Junior: +Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, U.S.A. + +Among studies of Lincoln, containing a wealth of illustrative stories, +a very high place is due to "The True Abraham Lincoln," by William +Eleroy Curtis: The J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia and London. + +For the history of America at the period concerned the reader may be +most confidently referred to a work, which by plentiful extracts and +citations enables its writer's judgment to be checked, without +detracting from the interest and power of his narrative, namely, +"History of the United States, 1850-1877," by James Ford Rhodes, in +seven volumes: The Macmillan Company, London and New York. + +Among the shorter complete histories of the United States are: "The +United States: an Outline of Political History," by Goldwin Smith: The +Macmillan Company, London and New York; the article "United States of +America" (section "History") in the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" (see +also the many excellent articles on American biography in the +"Encyclopaedia Britannica"); "The Cambridge Modern History: Vol. VII., +United States of America": Cambridge University Press, and The +Macmillan Company, New York. + +Two volumes of special interest in regard to the early days of the +United States, in some ways complementary to each other in their +different points of view, are: "Alexander Hamilton," by F. G. Oliver: +Constable & Co., and "Historical Essays," by John Fitch. + +Almost every point in regard to American institutions and political +practice is fully treated in "The American Commonwealth," by Viscount +Bryce, O.M., two volumes: The Macmillan Company, London and New York. + +For the attitude of the British Government during the war the +conclusive authority is the correspondence to be found in "The Life of +Lord John Russell," by Sir Spencer Walpole, K.C.B., two volumes: +Longmans, Green & Co., London and New York; and light on the attitude +of the English people is thrown by "The Life of John Bright," by G. M. +Trevelyan: Constable, London, and Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, +U.S.A. + +With respect to the military history of the Civil War the author is +specially indebted to "The Civil War in the United States," by W. +Birkbeck Wood and Major J. E. Edmonds, R.E., with an introduction by +Spenser Wilkinson: Methuen & Co., London, and Putnam, New York, which +is the only concise and complete history of the war written with full +knowledge of all recent works bearing on the subject. Mr. Nicolay's +chapters in the "Cambridge Modern History" give a very lucid narrative +of the war. + +Among works of special interest bearing on the war, though not much +concerning the subject of this book, it is only necessary to mention +"'Stonewall' Jackson," by Colonel Henderson, C.B., two volumes: +Longmans, London and New York; "Battles and Leaders of the Civil War" +(a book of monographs by several authors, many of them actors in the +war), four volumes: T. Fisher Unwin, London, and Century Company, New +York, and "Story of the Civil War," by J. C. Ropes: Putnam, London and +New York. + +It may be added that a life of General Robert E. Lee had been +projected, as a companion volume to this in the same series, by +Brigadier-General Frederick Maurice, C.B., and it is to be hoped that, +though suspended by the present war, this book may still be written. +Existing biographies of Lee are disappointing. It has been (especially +in view of this intended book on Lee) outside the scope of this volume +to present the history of the Civil War with special reference to the +Southern actors in it, but "Memoirs of Jefferson Davis" must be here +referred to as in some sense an authoritative, though not a very +attractive or interesting, exposition of the views of Southern +statesmen at the time. + +An interesting sidelight on the war may be found in "Life with the +Confederate Army," by Watson, being the experiences of a Scotchman who +for a time served under the Confederacy. + +In regard to slavery and to Southern society before the war the author +has made much use of "Our Slave States," by Frederick Law Olmsted; Dix +and Edwards, New York, 1856, and other works of the same author. Mr. +Olmsted was a Northerner, but his very full observations can be checked +by the numerous quotations on the same subject collected by Mr. Rhodes +in his history. + +For the history of the South since the war and the present position of +the negroes, see the chapters on this subject in Bryce's "American +Commonwealth," second or any later edition, two volumes: Macmillan, +London and New York. + +Mr. Owen Wister's novel, "Lady Baltimore": Macmillan, London and New +York, embraces a most interesting study of the survivals of the old +Southern society at the present time and of the present relations +between it and the North. + +The treatment of the negroes freed during the war is the main subject +of "Grant, Lincoln and the Freedmen," by John Eaton and E. O. Mason: +Longmans, Green & Co., London and New York, a book to which the author +is also indebted for other interesting matter. + +The personal memoirs, and especially the autobiographies dealing with +the Civil War, are very numerous, and the author therefore would only +wish to mention those which seem to him of altogether unusual interest. +"Personal Memoirs of General U. S. Grant": Century Company, New York, +is a book of very high order (Sherman's memoirs: Appleton, New York, +and his correspondence with his brother: Scribner, New York, have also +been quoted in these pages). + +Great interest both in regard to Lincoln personally and to the history +of the United States after his death attaches to "Reminiscences," by +Carl Schurz, three volumes (Vol. I. being concerned with Germany in +1848): John Murray, London, and Doubleday Page, New York, and to "The +Life of John Hay," by W. R. Thayer, two volumes: Constable & Co., +London, and Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, U.S.A. + +The author has derived much light from "Specimen Days, and Collect," by +Walt Whitman: Wilson and McCormick, Glasgow, and McKay, U.S.A. + +He may be allowed, in conclusion, to mention the encouragement given to +him in beginning his work by the late Mr. Henry James, O.M., whose +vivid and enthusiastic judgment of Lincoln he had the privilege of +receiving. + + + + + CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE + + Some events in History of United Some events in English and + States. General History. + + 1759. Capture of Quebec. 1759. Capture of Quebec. + + 1757-60. Ministry of Chatham + (William Pitt). + + 1760. _Contrat Social_ published. + + 1764-76. Great inventions in + spinning industries. + + 1765. Stamp Act passed. 1765. Watt's steam engine. + + 1776. Declaration of 1776. Publication of "Wealth of + Independence Nations." + + 1778. Death of Chatham. + + 1782. Rodney's victory. + + 1783. American Independence + recognised. + + 1787. Constitution framed. + North West Territory ceded + by States to Congress and + slavery excluded from it. + + 1789. Constitution comes into 1789. Meeting of States General. + force. + + 1793. Eli Whitney invents cotton 1793. England at war with French + gin. Republic. + + 1794. Slave Trade abolished by + French Convention. + + 1799. Death of Washington. + + 1802. Peace of Amiens. + + 1803. Louisiana purchase. 1803. England at war with + Napoleon. + + 1804. Death of Hamilton. + + 1805. Trafalgar. + + 1806. The American Fulton's + steam-boat on Seine. + + 1807. Fulton's steam-boat on 1807. Slave Trade abolished by + Hudson. Great Britain. + + 1808. Slave Trade abolished by 1808. Battle of Vimiera. + U. S. A. Convention of Cintra. + + Wordsworth's literary + activity about at its + culmination. + + 1809. Abraham Lincoln born. 1809. Darwin, Tennyson, and + Gladstone born. + + 1812-1814. War with Great + Britain. + + 1815. Waterloo. + + 1820. Missouri Compromise. + + 1823. Monroe doctrine declared. + + 1825. First railway opened in + England. + + 1826. Death of Jefferson. 1826. Independence of Mexico and + Spanish Colonies in South + America recognised by + Canning. + + 1827. Navarino. + + 1828. Commencement of + "nullification" movement. + Election of Jackson. + + 1829. Catholic emancipation. + + 1830. Hayne-Webster debate. + + 1831. Garrison publishes first 1831. Mazzini founds Young + number of _Liberator_. Italy. + Lincoln starts life in New + Salem. + First railway opened in + America. + + 1832. First Reform Bill. + + 1833. Slavery abolished in + British Colonies. + + 1834. Lincoln elected to Illinois + legislature + + 1836-40. Great Boer Trek. + + 1837. End of Jackson's second 1837. Queen Victoria's accession. + presidency. First steam-boat from + England to America. + + 1838. First telegraph line in + England. + + 1839. Lord Durham's report on + Canada. + + 1841. First telegraph in America. + + 1842. Lincoln leaves Illinois + legislature, and (Nov.) + is married. + + 1844. "Martin Chuzzlewit" + published. + + 1845. Annexation of Texas. + + 1846. Boundary of Oregon and 1846. Boundary of Oregon and + British Columbia settled British Columbia settled + with Great Britain. with U. S. A. + + 1846-7. Mexican War. 1846-7. Irish famine. + + 1847-8. Lincoln in Congress. + + 1848. Gold discovery in 1848. Revolution in France and + California. in many parts of Europe. + + 1850. Clay's compromise adopted. 1850. Constitution Act for + Death of Calham. Australian colonies. + + 1852. Deaths of Clay and Webster. 1852. Constitution Act for New + Zealand. + + 1854. Missouri Compromise 1854-5. Gold rush to Australia. + repealed. + Republican Party formed. Crimean War. + + 1854-6. Abolition of slavery in + various Portuguese + Dominions. + + 1856. Defeat of Frémont by + Buchanan. + + 1857. Dred Scott case. 1857-8. Indian Mutiny. + + 1858. Kansas. Lincoln-Douglas + debate. + + 1859. John Brown's raid. 1859. Publication of "Origin of + Species." + + 1859-60. Kingdom of Italy formed. + + 1860. Nov. Lincoln elected 1860. Slavery abolished in Dutch + President. East Indies. + + Dec. Secession carried in + South Carolina. + + 1861. Feb. 4. Southern 1861. Emancipation of Russian + Confederacy formed. serfs. + + Mar. 4. Lincoln inaugurated. + + Ap. 12-14. Bombardment + of Fort Sumter. + + Ap. War begins. Further + secessions. + + July. First Battle of Bull + Run. + + Dec. Claim of Great Britain + as to Trent accepted. + + 1862. Ap.-Aug. McClellan in 1862. _Alabama_ escapes from the + Peninsula. Mersey (July). + + Ap. Shiloh. + + May. Jackson in Shenandoah + Valley. + + Aug.-Oct. Confederates in + Kentucky. + + Aug. Second Battle of Bull + Run. + + Sept. Antietam. Proclamation + of emancipation. + + Nov. McClellan removed. + + Dec. Fredericksburg. + Murfreesborough. + + 1863. Mar. 1. Conscription Act. 1863. Revolution in Poland. + Maximilian proclaimed Emperor + of Mexico. + + May. Chancellorsville. + Jackson killed. + + July. Gettysburg, Vicksburg. + New York riots. + + Sept. Chickamauga. + + Nov. Gettysburg speech. + Chattanooga. + + 1864. May. Beginning of Grant's 1864. Prussia and Austria invade + and Sherman's great Denmark. + campaigns. + + 1864. June. Cold Harbour. + Baltimore Convention. + + July. Early's raid reaches + Washington. + + Aug. Mobile. Chicago + Convention. + + Sept. Sherman at Atlanta. + Sheridan in Shenandoah + Valley. + + Nov. Lincoln re-elected + President. + + Dec. Nashville. Sherman + at Savannah. + + 1865. Jan. Congress passes 13th + Amendment. + + Feb. Further progress of + Sherman and Sheridan. + + Mar. 4. Second inauguration + of Lincoln. + + Ap. 2-9. Richmond falls, + and Lee surrenders. + + Ap. 14-15. Lincoln + assassinated and dies. + + Dec. 13. Amendment + ratified. + + 1866. Atlantic cable 1866. Atlantic cable successfully + successfully laid. laid. + + War between Austria and + Prussia. + + 1867. British North America Act. + Slave children emancipated + in Brazil. + Fall and execution of + Maximilian in Mexico. + + 1868. Rise of acute disorder in 1868. Mikado resumes + "reconstructed" South. government in Japan. + + 1870. Amendment securing negro 1870. Papal infallibility. + suffrage. Franco-German War. + + 1872. _Alabama_ arbitration with 1872. _Alabama_ arbitration with + Great Britain. U. S. A. + Responsible Government in + Cape Colony. + + 1876. Admitted failure of + Reconstruction. Election + of Hayes. + + 1877. Federal troops withdrawn + from South. + + 1878. Slavery abolished in Cuba + (last of Spanish Colonies). + + + + +INDEX + + +Abolition and Abolitionists: Early movement dies down, 36-9; rise of +later movement, 50-2; persecuted, 51, 76; Lincoln's attitude, 76, 101, +116, 126-7, 151; their position in view of civil war, 172. _See_ +Slavery and Garrison. + +Adams, Charles Francis: 236, 262, 264, 328. + +Adams, John: 37, 236. + +Adams, John Quincy: 47, 51, 115, 314, 388. + +Aesop: 10. + +_Alabama_, the: 224, 251, 264. + +Alabama State: 175, 199, 212, 361, 388. + +Alamo, the: 91. + +Alexander II. of Russia: 256. + +Alleghany (or Appalachian) Mountains: 26, 225, 244; distinct character +of people in them, 56, 198. + +Alley: 429. + +Alton: 76. + +Amendment of Constitution: how carried, 24; suggested amendment to +conciliate South, 192; Thirteenth Amendment prohibiting slavery, 335-7, +431, 433; Fifteenth Amendment requiring negro suffrage, 334-5. + +America, United States of, and American: Diverse character of Colonies, +resemblances to and differences from England, 16-20; first attempt at +Union, 20; independence and making of Constitution, 21-3; features of +Constitution, 23-5; expansion, 26-8; Union Government brought into +effect, 28-30, 41; rise of national tradition, 30-5; compromise on main +cause of disunion, slavery, 35-40; parties and tendencies in the first +half of nineteenth century, 40-52; triumph of Union sentiment, 45-6; +growth of separate interest and sentiment in South, 43-5, 52-9; +intellectual development and foundations of American patriotism, 59-61; +further compromise on slavery, 96-101; political cleavage of North and +South becomes definite, 109-12; "a house divided against itself," +143-7; for further developments, _see_ North and South; _see also_ +Lincoln; Lincoln's position as to enforcement of union, 143-4; common +heritage of America from Civil War, 455. + +American Party, or Know-Nothings: 112, 117-8. + +American Policy (so-called): 42-8. + +Anderson, Major: 189-90, 208, 212-3, 449. + +Appalachians. _See_ Alleghany Mountains. + +Appomattox River and Court House: 447. + +Arbitration: 263-4. + +Argyll, Duke of: 176, 260. + +Arizona: 96. + +Arkansas River: 28, 351. + +Arkansas State: 199, 229, 244, 351. + +Armstrong, Jack and Hannah: 64, 108. + +Army: comparison of Northern and Southern men, 216; and their officers, +216-7, 220, 223-4, 350; system of recruiting, 221-3, 363-74; +discipline, 220, 248, 282, 420-1; size of regular army, 228. _See +also_ Conscription, Voluntary Service and Militia. + +Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union: 20, 175. + +Atlanta: 226-7, 394-5, 396, 424. + +Augusta: 435. + + +Baker: 90. + +Baltimore: 205, 239-42, 453; Conventions there, 159-60, 410-1. + +Banks, N. P., General: 296, 354-5, 389. + +Bates, Attorney-General: 166, 201-2, 264, 320, 405. + +Battles (sieges, campaigns, etc., separately entered): Antietam, 306-7, +313, 324-5, 450; Bentonville, 437; Bull Run, first battle, 245-9; Bull +Run, second battle, 305, 313; Cedar Creek, 396; Champion's Hill, 355; +Chancellorsville, 311-13; Chattanooga, 360; Chickamauga, 360; Cold +Harbour, 393, 410; Five Forks, 446; Fort Donelson, 281; Four Oaks, 295; +Franklin, 396; Fredericksburg, 309, 313; Gettysburg, 357. 450; Kenesaw +Mountain, 394; Manassas (two battles), _see_ Bull Run; Mill Springs, +280; Mobile, 395; Murfreesborough, 343, 450; Nashville, 396; New +Orleans, 283; Perryville, 342; Sailor's Creek, 447; Seven Days' +Battles, 298; Seven Pines, _see_ Four Oaks; Shiloh, 282-3; +Spottsylvania, 392; Wilderness, 392. + +Bazaine, Marshal: 388. + +Bell, John: 159. + +Bentham, Jeremy: 32. + +Berry: 66-7. + +Bible: 10, 132, 439-40. + +Bismarck: 424. + +Black: 185. + +Black Hawk: 65. + +Blackstone's Commentaries: 67. + +Blair, Francis, senr.: 432-3. + +Blair, Montgomery: 202, 208, 245, 405, 410. + +Blockade: 224, 226, 251-2, 436. + +Booth, John Wilkes: 451. + +Border States: 171, 228-9, 243-5, 270, 318-9, 333-4. + +Boston: 47, 51, 59-60, 172-3. + +Boswell, James: 102. + +Bragg, General: 340-3, 352, 359-60, 387-8. + +Breckinridge, John C.: 159. + +Bright, John: 127, 236, 260. + +British Columbia: 28, 110. + +Brooks, Phillips: 60. + +Brooks, Preston: 138-9. + +Brown, John: 126, 150-5, 197, 397. + +Brown, Judge: 85. + +Buchanan, James: 113, 138, 140, 141, 177, 184-90, 206, 208, 231. + +Buell, Don Carlos, General; 274, 276-82, 339-44, 369. + +Bummers: 397. + +Burlingame: 139. + +Barns, Robert: 103, 105. + +Burnside, Ambrose, General: 307, 309, 359-60, 382, 393, 435. + +Burr, Aaron: 29. + +Butler, Benjamin, General: 268, 283, 392-3, 409, 436, 444. + +Butterfield: 95. + + +Calhoun, John: 68. + +Calhoun, John Caldwell: his character and influence, 42-5: his doctrine +of "nullification" and secession, 45-6; his death, 100; further +references, 97, 113, 175, 182. + +California: 28, 91-3, 96-9. + +Cambridge, Massachusetts: 59. + +Cameron, Simon: 166-7, 201-3, 242, 271. + +Campbell, Justice: 210, 446. + +Canada: 176, 211, 383. + +Carolina. _See_ North Carolina and South Carolina. + +Cass, General: 65, 94, 96, 172, 186. + +Castlereagh: 377. + +Cecil, Lord R. _See_ Salisbury. + +Central America: 145. + +Charming, Rev. William Eleroy: 51. + +Charles I.: 433. + +Charleston: 43, 251-3, 387, 435. _And see_ Fort Sumter. + +Chase, Salmon P.; rising opponent of slavery, 101; approves of +Lincoln's opposition to Douglas, 141; claims to the Presidency, 161, +166; Secretary of the Treasury, 201-2; his successful administration of +finance, 254; regarded as Radical leader, intrigues against Lincoln and +causes difficulty in Cabinet, 328-9; continues troublesome, desires +Presidency, resigns, 406-8; appointed Chief Justice, 429-30; other +references, 208, 311, 415. + +Chatham, 20, 234. + +Chattanooga: 226-7, 339-40, 342-3, 359-60, 387-8, 394. + +Chicago: Republican Convention there, 166-9; deputation of clergy, 323; +Democratic Convention, 411-4. + +Choate, Joseph H.: 106, 156. + +Civil Service: 50. + +Civil War. _See_ War. + +Clary's Grove: 64, 66. + +Clay, Henry: 41; his character and career, 42, 48; compromise of 1850 +originated by him, 99; his death, 100; Lincoln on him, 101, 122. + +Cobb: 185. + +Cobden, Richard: 257-8. + +Cock-fighting: 63, 69. + +Collamer, Senator: 167. + +Colonies. _See_ America. + +Colonisation. _See_ Negroes. + +Columbia, South Carolina: 435. + +Columbia, District of: 94, 319. + +Columbia River: 28. + +Columbus, Georgia: 226-7. + +Compulsory Service. _See_ Conscription. + +Confederacy, Confederates; _see also_ South; Confederacy of six States +formed and Constitution adopted at Montgomery and claims of these +States to Federal Government's forts, etc., or their soil taken over, +199-201; commencement of war by Confederacy, 212-3; area of its country +and difficulty of conquest, 214-6; character of population, 216; spirit +of independence animating Confederacy, 218-9; other conditions telling +against or for its success in the war, 214-27; original Confederate +States, viz., South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, +Florida, joined subsequently by Texas, and on outbreak of war by +Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas, 228-9; capital moved +to Richmond, 242; for course of war, _see_ War; for political course of +Confederacy, _see_ J. Davis and Congress of Confederacy; attitude of +foreign Governments to Confederacy, 256, 261, 302, 313; refusal of +Lincoln to treat with Confederacy as an independent state, 403, 432-3; +refusal of Davis to negotiate on other terms, 428, 432-3; ultimate +surrender of Confederate forces and dispersion of its Government, 445-8. + +Congregationalists: 17, 19. + +Congress of original American Confederation: 20, 38. + +Congress of U.S.A. under the Constitution: distinguished from +Parliament by the severance between it and the executive government, by +the limitation of its functions to strictly Federal matters, and by its +subjection to provisions of Constitution, 23-4, _see also_ 371, 377-9, +402, 429; for certain Acts of Congress, _see_ Slavery; attempts at +pacification during progress of Secession, 192-3; action of and +discussions in Congress during Civil War, 246, 253, 263, 265-6, 269, +271, 276, 288, 316-9, 321-3, 324-7, 333-6, 351, 369-70, 379, 380, 382, +388, 389, 400-1, 434. + +Congress of Confederacy: 200, 366-7, 431. + +Conscription: in South; 366-7; in North, 364-5, 369-70; superior on +grounds of moral principle to voluntary system, 366. + +_Conservative_, the: 119. + +Conservatives: 245, 267-8, 328. + +Constitution, British: 20, 23, 377. + +Constitution of United States: 22-5, 41. _See also_ Amendment of +Constitution. + +Contraband: 268, 409. + +Cooper Institute; 144, 155. + +Copperheads: 382. + +Corinth: 283, 338-9. + +Cotton: 39, 259-60, 313. + +Cow Island: 331. + +Cowper, William: 11. + +Crittenden: 192-5. + +Cuba: 145, 159. + +Cumberland River: 226, 277, 280-1. + +Curtis, B. R., Justice; 114. + + +Darwin, Charles: 138, 259. + +Davis, David, Justice: 167, 379. + +Davis, Henry Winter: 388, 401. + +Davis, Jefferson: his rise as an extreme Southern leader, 101, 138, +150; inclined to favour slave trade, 145; his-argument for right of +Secession, 176; his part in Secession, 198-200; President of +Confederacy, 200; vetoes Bill against slave trade as inadequate and +fraudulent, 200; orders attack on Fort Sumter, 212; criticisms upon his +military policy, 217-8, 387-8; his part in the war, 246, 355, 387-8, +395, 431, 433, 446; his determination to hold out and his attitude to +peace, 403-4, 431-4; as to prisoners of war, 330, 399; escape from +Richmond and last public action, 446; his capture, and his emotions on +Lincoln's assassination, 452-3; his memoirs, 453, 460. + +Dayton, Senator: 167. + +Declaration of Independence: meaning of its principles, 32-5; how +slave-holders signed it, 35-9; Lincoln's interpretation of it, 123; his +great speech upon it, 184. + +Delaware: 17, 198, 318, 334. + +Democracy: fundamental ideas in it, 32-9, 123; development of extreme +form and of certain abuses of it in America, 47-50; its institutions +and practices still in an early stage of development, 50; a foolish +perversion of it in the Northern States, 59, 218; Lincoln sees a decay +of worthy and honest democratic feeling, 117; the Civil War regarded by +Lincoln and many in North as a test whether democratic government could +maintain itself, 183-4, 362-3, 425; the sense in which Lincoln was a +great democrat, 455-6. + +Democratic Party: traces descent from Jefferson, 30; originated or +started anew by Jackson, its principles, 47-8; general subservience of +its leaders to Southern interests, 91, 110, 140, _see also_ Mexico, +Pierce, Douglas, Buchanan; breach between Northern and Southern +Democrats, 141, 148-50, 157-9; Northern Democrats loyal to Union, +172-4, 177, 188, 231; progress of Democratic opposition to Lincoln, +267, 316, 374-5, 381-5, 401, 411-5; Lincoln's appeal after defeating +them, 425. + +Dickens, Charles: 31, 32, 41, 259. + +Disraeli, Benjamin: 74, 260. + +Dough-Faces: 40. + +Douglas, Stephen: rival to Lincoln in Illinois Legislature, 71; +possibly also in love, 81, 87; his rise, influence, and character, 101, +110-1; repeals Missouri Compromise, 110-1; supports rights of Kansas, +115, 140; Lincoln's contest with him, 121-2, 132-7, 140-9; gist of +Lincoln's objection to his principles, 130, 142-5; unsuccessful +candidate for Presidency, 159, 168-9; attitude to Secession, 188; +relations with Lincoln after Secession, 206, 210, 231; death, 231. + +Douglass, Frederick: 332. + +Drink: 63, 76-7, 353, 423. + +Dundreary: 451. + + +Early, General: 394, 395, 438. + +Eaton, John: 330-2, 347, 416, 461. + +Edmonds. _See_ Wood and Edmonds. + +Edwards, Mrs. Ninian: 81. + +Emerson, Ralph Waldo: 60, 152, 426. + +Episcopalians: 85, 351, 440. + +Equality. _See_ Declaration of Independence. + +Euclid: 104, 132. + +Everett, Edward: 159, 362. + + +Farragut, David, Admiral: 231, 283, 349, 388, 395, 412, 424, 435. + +Federalism: 22. + +Federalist Party: 30, 173. + +Filibustering: (1) in sense of piracy: 194. (2) in sense of +obstruction: 333. + +Fillmore, Millard: 99, 112, 114, 133. + +Finance: 67-8, 254. + +Florida: 16, 26, 199, 251, 453. + +Fort Donelson: 280-1. + +Fort Fisher: 436. + +Fort Henry: 281. + +Fort Monroe: 268, 292. + +Fort Sumter: 187-90, 201, 208, 210, 212-3, 228, 449. + +Fox, Gustavus V.: 202, 252-3, 264. + +France: influence of French Revolution, 31; Louisiana territory +acquired from France, 26; French settlers, 27; slavery in Louisiana +State, 39-40; relations with America during Civil War, 211, 256, 262, +313, 388, 404, 420. + +Frankfort, Kentucky: 340. + +Franklin, Benjamin: 37. + +Franklin, Tennessee: 396-7. + +Free-Soil Party: 111. + +Free Trade: 45, 258. + +Frémont, John: 112, 133, 269-70, 274, 277, 296-7, 316, 409-10. + +Fry, J. B., General: 370. + + +Garrison, William Lloyd: 50-2, 336. + +Gentryville: 4, 6, 7. + +Gettysburg, Lincoln's speech at: 363. + +Georgia: 36, 56, 199, 226, 396-7. + +George II.: 353. + +Gibbon, Edward: 67. + +Gilmer: 194. + +Gladstone, W. E.: 258. + +Goldsborough: 437, 444. + +Governors of States: 20, 161, 222, 299, 343-5, 362. + +Graham, Mentor: 63, 64, 68. + +Grant, Ulysses S., General: previous disappointing career and return to +Army, earlier success in Civil War, 280; captures Fort Henry and Fort +Donelson, surprised but successful at Shiloh, 280-4; negro refugees +with his army, 330; kept idle as Halleck's second in command, and on +his departure left on defensive near Corinth, 339, 342; his reputation +now and his real greatness of character, 345-8; Vicksburg campaigns, +348-55; Lincoln's relations with him from the first, 352-3; Chattanooga +campaign, 359-60; appointed Lieutenant General, meeting with Lincoln, +parting from Sherman, 389-90; plans for final stages of war, 390; +unsuccessful attempts to crush Lee in the open field and movement to +City Point for siege of Petersburg and Richmond in which first +operations fail, 391-2; sends Sheridan to Shenandoah Valley, 393-4; +unnecessary anxiety as to Thomas, 397; siege of Petersburg and Richmond +continued, 398; attempts to get him to run for Presidency, 410-11; his +loyalty to Lincoln, 416-7; his wish to promote peace, 433; further +progress of siege, 436, 437-8; Lincoln's visit to him at City Point, +443-5; forbidden to treat with Lee on political questions, 445; fall of +Richmond, 445-6; Lee forced to surrender, 446-8; last interview with +Lincoln, 449-50; Memoirs, 459. + +Granville, Earl: 260. + +Gray, Asa: 138. + +Great Britain and Ireland: early relations with U.S.A., 16-20; relative +progress of the two countries at different periods, 32, 33, 38; English +views of American Revolution, 21, _see_ Constitution of Great Britain +and U.S.A.; war in 1812-14 with U.S.A., 42, 46, 273; comparisons of +English and American Government, 49, 50; relations of the two countries +in the Civil War, 211, 256-65, 313; voluntary system of recruiting in +the two countries and its result in each, 364-6, 370; Lincoln's fame in +England, 454. + +Greeley, Horace: 137, 143, 245, 322-3, 404. + +Greene, Bowline: 79. + +Greensborough: 437, 452. + +Grigsby, Reuben, and family: 6, 11, 12. + +Grimes, Senator: 194. + + +Halleck, Henry W., General: 274, 277-84, 297-8, 301-2, 306, 309, +338-43, 349, 356, 395. + +Hamilton, Alexander: his greatness, 29; his origin and career, he +brings the Union Government into successful operation, his beautiful +and heroic character, 29-30; original source of Monroe doctrine, 385; +other references, 34, 37; his view on construction of Statutes, 377-8. + +Hampton Roads: 433. + +Hanks, Dennis: 4, 6, 420. + +Hanks, John: 4, 6, 14, 166. + +Hanks, Joseph: 4. + +Harcourt, Lady: 417. + +Hardin: 90. + +Harper's Ferry: 151, 239. + +Harrison, William Henry: 72. + +Harrison's Landing: 298-302. + +Harvard: 59, 330, 444. + +Hawthorne, Nathaniel: 101. + +Hay, John: 235, 419, 458, 461. + +Hayne, Senator: 45. + +Henderson, Colonel: 221. + +Herndon, William: 66, 79, 87, 94, 102-3, 105, 119, 126, 142, 147, 165. + +Hood, John B., General: 394, 396-7. + +Hooker, Joseph, General: 309-11, 355-6, 360, 362. + +House of Commons. _See_ Parliament. + +House of Lords: 33. + +House of Representatives. _See_ Congress of U.S.A. + +Houston, Governor: 199. + +Hugo, Victor: 152. + +Hunter, General: 321, 395. + +Hymns: 11, 440. + + +Illinois, 27, 38, Chapters I., III., IV., 1 and 3, and V., 1, 3, and 5; +344, 350. + +Inaugural Address: Lincoln's first, 206-7; his second, 441-3; Jefferson +Davis', 200-1. + +Inaugural Ceremony: Lincoln's first, 206; Lincoln's second, 438. + +Independence. _See_ Declaration of Independence. + +Independents. _See_ Congregationalists. + +Indiana: 4, 9, 27, 38, 345. + +Indians, North American: 3, 65. + +Iowa; 27, 194. + +Ironclads: 252. + + +Jackson, Andrew: his opinion of Calhoun, 43; frustrates movement for +nullification, 46; his character, 46; revives party and promotes growth +of party machinery, and adopts "spoils system," 46-49; other +references, 66, 173, 209, 409. + +Jackson, Thomas J., called "Stonewall," General: his acknowledged +genius, 217, 220; goes with State of Virginia, 229; his character, 230; +Shenandoah Valley campaign and movement to outflank McClellan, 295-8; +Antietam campaign, 305; killed during victory of Chancellorsville, 311; +Lee's estimate of his loss, 357. + +James, Henry: 461. + +James River: 292, 298, 392-3, 438, 447. + +Jefferson, Thomas: curious and displeasing character, 30; great and +lasting influence on American life, 30-2; practical achievements in +statesmanship, 32; real sense and value of his doctrine, 32-5; opinion +and action as to slavery, 37-8; other references, 28, 46, 56, 179. + +Jiggers: 331. + +Johnson, Andrew: 400, 411, 451, 453. + +Johnson, Samuel: 33, 35. + +Johnston, Albert Sidney, General: 276-7, 281-2. + +Johnston, John: 4, 6, 14. + +Johnston, Joseph, General; 218, 247-8, 287-8, 295, 354-5, 378, 387, +390, 394, 436-7, 452. + + +Kansas: 110-2, 115, 117, 126, 128, 139-40, 162-3. + +Kentucky: 2-5, 9, 26, 81, 192, 197, 225, 229, 270, 334, 339-43. + +Kipling, Rudyard: 88. + +Kirkham's Grammar: 63. + +"Know-Nothings." _See_ American Party. + +Knoxville: 226, 275, 359. + + +Law, Lincoln's law study and practice, 10, 67, 68, 106-8, 271-2, 423. + +Lee, Robert E., General: his acknowledged genius, 217, 220; goes with +State of Virginia, 229, 239, 376; his character, 230; cautious military +advice at first, 246; opinion of McClellan, 285; operations against +McClellan, Pope, Burnside, and Hooker, 297, 311; invasion of +Pennsylvania and retreat, 355-8, 386-7; resistance to Grant, _see_ +Grant, 391-2, 398; appointed General in Chief, 431; abstains always +from political action, 431-2; final effort, surrender and later life, +445-6. + +Lincoln, Abraham, President: his career and policy up to his +Presidency, _see_ in Table of Contents; his military administration and +policy, 273-9, 302, 308, 345, _and see_ McClellan; his administration +generally, 250-5; his foreign policy, 261-5; his policy generally, +265-72, _and see_ Slavery, Negotiations for Peace, Reconstruction; +development of his abilities and character, 7-15, 62, 73-7, 87-8, +103-6, 134-6, 153-5, 163-6, 233-9, 337, 418-24, 439-41; his fame +to-day, 454-6. + +Lodge, Senator: 261. + +Logan, General: 350, 397. + +Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth: 53, 60, 61, 137, 152. + +Longstreet, General: 357, 359-60, 387. + +Louisiana Purchase: 26, 32, 39-40. + +Louisiana State: 26, 39-40, 199, 283, 334, 400, 448-9. + +Louisville: 116, 339-41. + +Love joy: 76. + +Lowell, James Russell, and references to his writings: 19, 92, 138, +172, 209, 237, 261, 264. + +Lundy: 50. + +Lynchburg: 438. + +Lyon, Nathaniel: 244-5, 269. + +Lyons, Lord: 236, 237, 264. + + +McDowell, General: 247-8, 290, 293-7. + +Machine, in politics: 48-9, 167-8. + +McClellan, George B., General: practical help to Douglas, 134; +successes in West Virginia, 243; put in command of Army of Potomac and +later of all armies, 272; his strategic views at outset of war, 274-5, +276, 280; his career and character, 284-6; Lincoln's problem about him, +286-7; procrastination and friction before he moved, 287-91; +preliminaries to campaign in Peninsula, 291-3; relieved of command over +Western armies, 293; campaign in Peninsula, 293-5, 298-302; his recall +and failure to support Pope, 302-4; army of Potomac restored to him, +305; battle of Antietam and subsequent delays, 305-7; his final +dismissal and its cause, 307-9; his political career, 300, 308, 374, +413-5, 416, 424; resigns from Army, 437; Seward's judgment on him, 427. + +McClernand, General: 350-2. + +McLean, Justice: 114, 167. + +Madison, James: 37. + +Maine: 16, 40. + +Malplaquet: 364. + +Marcy: 49. + +Marshall, John: 41. + +Martial Law: 376-81. _See also_ 265-7, 269-70, 313, 321, 335-6, 451. + +Martineau, Harriet: 43. + +Maryland: 197, 225, 240-2, 304-7, 333-4. + +Mason: 263. + +Massachusetts: 16, 19, 172-3, 239-40, 296, 409. + +Mathematics: 67. _And see_ Euclid. + +Maximilian, Archduke and Emperor: 388. + +_Mayflower_: 150. + +Meade, George, General: 356-8, 391, 447. + +Memphis: 226, 275, 349, 389. + +Meridian: 227, 389. + +Merrimac: 292-3. + +Methodists: 150. + +Mexico: 28, 90; war with, 91-3; later relations, 211, 256, 388-9, 404, +420. + +Mexico, Gulf of: 27, 208. + +Michigan: 38, 172. + +Militia: 228, 246, 369. + +Mill, John Stuart: 260. + +Milligan, case of, in Supreme Court: 378. + +Minnesota: 27. + +Mississippi River: 7, 8, 13, 26, 56, 198, 226, 275, 281, 283, 348-55. + +Mississippi State: 26, 175, 179, 199, 227. _And see_ Meridian and +Vicksburg. + +Missouri Compromise: 39-40; repealed, 109-12; question whether +unconstitutional, 112-5. + +Missouri River: 26. + +Missouri State: 27, 39-40, 113, 197, 225, 229, 244-5, 269-70, 333-4, +400. + +Mobile: 227, 388, 395, 412. + +Moltke: 217. + +Monroe Doctrine: 388. + +Montana: 26. + +Montgomery: 199-200, 225. + +Mormons: 99, 130. + +Motley, John Lathrop: 138, 237, 238, 417. + + +Napoleon I.: 26, 215. + +Napoleon III.: 256, 313, 388. + +Nashville: 339, 396. + +National Bank: 42, 47, 65. + +Nebraska: 110, 113. + +Negotiations for peace, impossible demand for them: 402-5, 428, 431-4. + +Negroes: Lincoln on notion of equality as applied to them, 124; +Stephens on great moral truth of their inferiority, 179; their good +conduct during the war and their valour as soldiers, 330; Lincoln's +human sympathy with them, and the right attitude in face of the bar +between the two races, 330-3; mistaken precipitancy in giving them the +suffrage, 334-5, 430; the Confederacy ultimately enlists negroes, 431; +negro bodyguard at Lincoln's second Inauguration, 435; projects for +colonisation of negroes, 42, 317, 331, 332. _See also_ Slavery. + +Neuse River: 437. + +Nevada: 95. + +New Berne: 437. + +New England: 17, 173, 241, 326. + +New Hampshire: 100. + +New Jersey: 17. + +New Mexico: 96, 99, 145, 194. + +New Orleans; 4, 13-4, 46, 198, 226, 283. + +New Salem: 4, 63-9, 78-80. + +New York City: 29, 49, 144, 155-6, 205, 241, 254, 384. + +New York State: 16, 17, 29. + +Niagara: 105, 139, 404. + +Nicolay, John: 211, 235, 419, 458, 460. + +North: original characteristics and gradual divergence from South, in +America and South; advantages and disadvantages in the war, 214-9; +divisions in the North, _see_ Democrats and Radicals; magnitude of +effort and endurance shown by the North, 363-6, 426-7. + +North Anna River: 392. + +North Carolina: 26, 27, 194; secedes with Virginia, 229, 435-7, 452. + +North-West Territory: 38. + +Northcote, Sir Stafford: 260. + +Novels: 67. + +Nueces River: 92. + + +Oberlin, 150. + +Officers: 220, 223-4, 350. + +Ohio River: 4, 8, 26, 117, 226, 243, 280. + +Ohio State: 38, 161, 172, 340-2, 344, 359, 381-3. + +Olmsted, Frederick Law: 53, 57, 460. + +Oratory in America: 34, 41, 133, 136, 138, 155, 159, 362. + +Oregon, Territory and State: 28, 92, 96, 112. + +Orsini: 152. + +Owens, Mary: 80-1. + + +Paine, Tom: 69. + +Palmerston: 234, 260, 313. + +Pardon of offenders by Lincoln; 420-1. + +Parliament: relation to Colonies, 19; contrast with Congress, 20, 23. + +Parliamentarians under Charles I.: 33. + +Party and Parties: 46-50, 374-5, 385. _And see_ American, Federalist, +Free-Soil, Democratic, Republican and Whig. + +Patterson, General: 247. + +Pemberton, General: 354-5. + +Pennsylvania: 17, 202, 355-8. + +Peoria: 72, 135, 142. + +Petersburg. _See_ Richmond. + +Philadelphia: 184, 356. + +Pierce, Franklin: 100, 111, 138, 218. + +Pilgrim's Progress: 10. + +Pitt, William, the younger: 376. + +Polk, President: 91-3. + +Polk, Bishop and General, 350. + +Pope, General: 283, 301, 302-3. + +Port Hudson: 343, 354-5. + +Porter, Admiral: 349, 353, 388, 435-6, 444. + +Post of Arkansas: 351. + +Potomac: 225, 243, 249, 288, 306, 358. + +Presbyterian: 77, 439. + +Prince Consort: 263. + +Prisoners of War: 398. + +Protection: 42, 45, 65, 68, 202. + +Public Works; 42, 65, 71. + +Puritans: 17. + + +Quakers: 17, 50, 153. + + +Radicals: 232-3, 245, 267-70, 328, 398-400, 410, 430. + +Railways: 7, 27, 226-7, 276, 339, 388, 396, 397, 447. + +Raleigh: 437, 452. + +Rapidan: 288, 311, 358, 391. + +Rappahannock: 309, 311, 355, 358. + +Rathbone, Major: 450-1. + +Raymond: 414. _And see_ 404. + +Reconstruction: 326-8, 333-5, 398-401, 434-5, 448-50. + +Red River: 388. + +Republican Party: (1) Party of this name which followed Jefferson and +of which leading members were afterwards Democrats, 30, 31; (2) New +party formed in 1854 to resist extension of slavery in Territories, +111; runs Frémont for Presidency, 112; embarrassed by Dred Scott +judgment, 112, 115; possibility of differences underlying its simple +principles, 122; disposition among its leaders to support Douglas after +Kansas scandal, 141-3; consistency of thought and action supplied to it +by Lincoln, 122, 145-6; nomination and election of Lincoln, 160-2, +166-9; sections in the party during war, 267-71; increasing divergence +between Lincoln and the leading men in the party, 321, 326-9, 401-2, +409-14, 430, 434-5, 450. + +Reuben, First Chronicles of: 11-2. + +Revolution, American: 20-2. + +Revolution, French: 31. + +Rhodes, Cecil: 335. + +Rhodes, James Ford: 418, 459. + +Richmond: 225-7, 242, 245, 275, 302, 392; siege of Petersburg and +Richmond, _see_ Lee or Grant; feeling in Richmond towards end, 431-2; +Lincoln's visit to it, 447. + +Roberts, F. M. Earl: 364. + +Robinson Crusoe: 10. + +Rollin: 67. + +Romilly, Samuel: 32. + +Rosecrans, General: 342-3, 351, 359-60. + +Russell, Lord John: 260, 263, 313. + +Russia: 118, 211, 256. + +Rutledge, Ann: 78. + + +St. Gaudens, Augustus: 330. + +St. Louis: 116, 244. + +Salisbury, Marquess of: 258, 259. + +Sangamon: 64-5, 166. + +Savannah: 398, 435. + +Schofield, General: 397, 436-7. + +Schools, Lincoln's: 10. + +Schurz, Carl: 235, 421. + +Scott, Dred, and his case; 112-5, 144. + +Scott, William: 421-2. + +Scott, Winfield, General: 93, 100, 205, 208, 231, 246-9, 274-5, 388, +453. + +Secession. _See_ South and Confederacy. + +Seward, William: opponent of compromise of 1850 and rising Republican +leader, 101, 137, 152; against opposing Douglas, 141; speaks well of +John Brown, 152; expected to be Republican candidate for Presidency, +rejected partly for his unworthy associates, more for his supposed +strong opinions, 161-8; supports Lincoln in election, 169; action +during progress of Secession, 193-5, 204; on First Inaugural, 206; +action during crisis of Fort Sumter, 208-10; vain attempt to master +Lincoln and generous acceptance of defeat, 210-1, 250; his part in +foreign policy, 262-5, 387; wise advice to postpone Emancipation, 320; +retained by Lincoln in spite of intrigues against him, 328-30; +administration of martial law, 376; his usefulness and great loyalty, +406; his judgment on McClellan, 426; attempt to assassinate him, 451; +certifies ratification of 13th amendment, 336. + +Seymour, Horatio: 381, 383-5, 413. + +Sigel, General: 394. + +Shakespeare: 103, 108, 423, 448. + +Shaw, Robert Gould: 330. + +Shenandoah Valley; 225, 247, 296, 394, 395-6, 424, 437-8. + +Sheridan, Philip, General: 220, 343, 395-6, 424, 437-8, 444. + +Sherman, John, Senator: 235, 380. + +Sherman, William Tecumseh, General; 52, 220, 224, 249; character and +relations with Grant, 348; failure in first attempt on Vicksburg, 350; +under McClernand, takes Post of Arkansas, 351; with Grant in rest of +Vicksburg campaigns, 353-5; at Chattanooga, 360; at Meridian, 388; +parting with Grant, his fears for him, their concerted plans, 389; +Atlanta campaign, 394-5, 424; detaches Thomas against Hood, 397-8; from +Atlanta to the sea, 397-9; campaigns in the Carolinas, 435-6; meets +Lincoln at City Point, 444-5; Lincoln's dream about him, 449; +Johnston's surrender to him, 452. + +Shields, Colonel: 85. + +Slave Trade: how treated by Constitution of U.S.A., 24; prohibition of +it in American colonies vetoed, 36; prohibited by several American +States, by United Kingdom, and by Union, 38; movement to revive it in +Southern States, 145, 150; prohibited by Confederate Constitution and +inadequate Bill against it vetoed by J. Davis, 200; treaty between +United Kingdom and U.S.A., for its more effectual prevention, and first +actual execution of a slave-trader in U.S.A., 317. + +Slavery: compromise about it in Constitution, 25; opinion and action of +the "Fathers" in regard to it, 35-9; becomes more firmly rooted in +South, 39; disputes as to it temporarily settled by Missouri +Compromise, 39-40; its real character in America, 52-5; its political +and social effect on the South, 43-5, 55-9; Abolition movement, _see_ +Abolition; its increasing influence on Southern policy; _see_ South; +repeal of Missouri Compromise, and dicta of Supreme Court in favour of +slavery, 109-15; Lincoln's attitude from first in regard to it, 14, 76, +94; his principles as to it, 121-131, 144; slavery the sole cause of +Secession, 178-9; the progress of actual Emancipation, 313-37; already +coming to an end in the South before the end of the war, 429, 431. +_See also_ Negroes. + +Slidell: 263. + +Smith, Baldwin, General: 308. + +Smith, Caleb: 167, 202, 405. + +Smith, Kirby, General: 339-42, 453. + +South: original difference of character and interest between Northern +and Southern States becoming more marked concurrently with growth of +Union, 17-8, 36, 39-40, 43-5; slavery and Southern society, 52-9; +growing power of a Southern policy for slavery to which the North +generally is subservient, 91-2, 98-100, 117, 138-41; rise of resistance +to this, _see_ Republican Party; causes of Secession and prevailing +feeling in South about it, 170-88; history of Secession and War, _see_ +Confederacy and War; Southern spirit in the war, 216, 218-20; heroism +of struggle, 397; memory of the war a common inheritance to North and +South, 455. + +South Carolina: 26-7, 36, 44-6, 57-8, 173, 179-80, 182, 185-90, 200-1, +208, 253, 321, 386, 435. + +Spain: 16, 26, 90, 211. + +Speed, James: 405. + +Speed, Joshua: 70, 81, 87, 116-8, 405, 440. + +Spoils System: 49-50, 95, 254-5. + +Springfield: Lincoln's life there, 70-7, 81-7, 101-9; his farewell +speech there, 203; his funeral there, 453. + +Stanton, Edwin: rude to Lincoln in law case, services in Buchanan's +Cabinet, denounces Lincoln's administration, made Secretary of War, +272; great mistake as to recruiting, 299, 368; Conservative hostility +to him, 328-9; services in War Department and loyalty to Lincoln, 272, +290, 329, 389, 406, 419-20; at Lincoln's death-bed, 453. + +States: relations to Federal Government and during secession to +Confederacy, 24, 221-3. + +Stephens, Alexander: 179, 199-200, 432-4. + +Stevenson, Robert Louis: 87. + +Stowe, Mrs. Beecher: 51, 54, 110. + +Submarines: 251. + +Sumner, Charles: 101, 138-9, 418, 429, 448. + +Supreme Court: 41, 112-5, 144, 378, 382. + +Swedish colonists: 17. + +Swett, Leonard: 13. + + +Talleyrand: 29. + +Taney, Roger: 112-5, 144, 206, 242, 429. + +Taylor, Zachary: 92-3, 95, 98. + +Tennessee River: 226, 280, 339. + +Tennessee State: 27, 199, 226, 229, 275-7, 279-84, 338-40, 342-3, +393-4, 397, 408. + +Tennyson, Alfred: 259. + +Territories: their position under Constitution, 25; expansion and +settlement, 26-8; cessions of Territories by States to Union, 38; +conflict as to slavery in them, _see_ Slavery. + +Terry, General; 433. + +Texas: 28, 91, 198, 199, 388, 453. + +Thomas, George H., General: 231, 280, 341, 343, 369, 388, 396-7. + +Todd, Mary. _See_ Lincoln, Mrs. + +Trumbull, Lyman: 120. + +Tyler, John: 72, 91, 200. + + +"Underground Railway": 150. + +Union and United States. _See_ America. + +Union men: letter of Lincoln to great meeting of, 384-5. + +Urbana: 291-2. + +Usher: 405. + +Utah: 99. + + +Vallandigham, Clement: 379, 381-3, 413. + +Van Buren, Martin: 47, 49, 66. + +Vandalia: 72. + +Vermont: 16, 38. + +Vicksburg: 226, 282, 339, 348-55, 449. + +Victoria, Queen: 263, 451. + +Virginia: 3, 27, 37, 38, 39, 47, 54, 69, 98, 197-200, 209, 213, 217, +228; and for stages of war in Virginia _see_ McClellan, Lee and +Shenandoah Valley. + +Volney: 69. + +Voltaire: 69. + +Voluntary enlistment in the North, 221-2; results here and in U.S.A., +364-5; its fundamental immorality when used on a large scale, 366. + + +Wad, Senator: 194, 400. + +Walker, Governor: 140. + +Wallace, General: 393. + +War, Civil, in U.S.A.: general conditions and strategic aspects of the +war, 214-27, 273-8; preliminary struggles in border States, 228-45; +first Battle of Bull Run, 245-50; blockade of South and naval +operations generally, 251-3; war in West to occupation of Corinth and +taking of New Orleans, 279-84; _Merrimac_ and _Monitor_, 292-3; +beginning of Peninsula campaign, 290-5; "Stonewall" Jackson's Valley +campaign, 295-7; end of Peninsula campaign, 298-302; second Battle of +Bull Run, 303-4; Lee's invasion of Maryland and Antietam, 304-7; +Fredericksburg, 309; Chancellorsville, 311; Buell's operations in +autumn of 1863, Confederate invasion of Kentucky, and Murfreesborough, +338-43; Vicksburg campaigns and completion of, conquest of Mississippi, +348-55; Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania, Gettysburg, and Meade's +campaign in Virginia, 355-8; campaigns of Chickamauga, Eastern +Tennessee, and Chattanooga, 358-64; certain minor operations, 386-8; +military situation at beginning of 1864 and Grant's plans, 386, 389; +Grant's campaign against Lee to beginning of siege of Petersburg, +390-2; Early's Shenandoah campaign, 394; Sherman's Atlanta campaign, +394-5; Farragut at Mobile, 395; Sheridan in Lower Shenandoah Valley, +395-6; Sherman's plans, 396; Hood's invasion of Tennessee, 396-7; +Sherman's march to Savannah, 397-8; Petersburg siege continues, 398; +effect of Sherman's operations, 431; Sherman's advance northward from +Savannah, 435; Porter and Terry take Fort Fisher, 435-6; Petersburg +siege progresses, 436; Sherman in North Carolina, 436-7; Sheridan in +Upper Shenandoah Valley, 437-8; fall of Petersburg and Richmond, and +surrender of Lee, 445-8; surrender of other Confederate forces, 452-3. + +Ward, Artemus: 208, 231, 324. + +Washington City: its importance and dangers in the war, 225, 239-42, +248, 293-4, 295-7, 302, 304, 355-6, 376, 392-3; its political society, +418. + +Washington, George: 10, 21, 37, 76, 203-4, 388. + +Watson, William: 460. + +Webster, Daniel: his career and services, 41-2; his great speech, 45-6, +173; value of his support to Whigs, 68; Lincoln meets him, 91; his +support of compromise of 1850 and his death, 99-100. + +Weed, Thurlow, 193-4, 414, 443. + +Weems' Life of Washington: 10. + +Welles, Gideon: 202, 252-3, 263, 271, 406. + +Wellington: 377. + +Wesley, Samuel: 35. + +West, the: 7-9, 27-8, 46, 61, 91, 93, 155, 224, 226, 303, 305. _And +see_ War. + +West Indies, British: 29, 52. + +West Point: 223, 390. + +West Virginia: 225, 229, 243, 296, 334, 400. + +Whig Party: 48, 66-8, 91-3, 95, 100, 111, 117, 159, 433. + +Whites, Poor or Mean: 55, 178. + +Whitman, Walt: 61, 237, 238, 418-9. + +Whitney, Eli: 39. + +Wilmington: 251, 435-6. + +Wilmot, David and Wilmot Proviso: 96, 99, 117. + +Wilson, President: 45, 54. + +Wisconsin: 38, 172. + +Wood and Edmonds: 233, 456. + +Wood, Fernando: 309. + +Wolfe, Sir James: 353. + +Wolseley, F. M. Viscount: 217, 218, 229-30, 285. + + +Yazoo: 350, 352. + +Young Men's Lyceum: 69. + + +Zeruiah, her sons: 445. + + + + +MAY WE HELP? + +_The publishers of Star books have tried to maintain a high standard in +the selection of titles for their list, and to offer a consistent +quality of workmanship and material. They trust that the book you have +just read has, in part at least, earned your esteem for other titles in +their list._ + +_They are trying to make the Star Library comprehend the best in the +literary fields of biography, science, history, true adventure, travel, +art, philosophy, psychology, etc._ + +_Believing that you will be interested in other books of a nature +similar to that which you have just finished reading, the publishers +have reproduced on the following pages a few extracts from other Star +books. These are pages picked at random. Although there is no +continuity, we hope that they will give you some idea of the style in +which the books are written and perhaps the character of the subject +from which you may form an opinion as to its place on your personal +book shelf._ + + + + +_Reprinted by permission from_ + +LINCOLN'S OWN STORIES + +_told by Anthony Gross_ + + +VI + +THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF + +Delegations from Baltimore called to protest against the "pollution" of +the soil of Maryland by the feet of the soldiers marching across it to +fight against the South. They had no difficulty in understanding the +President's reply: + +"We must have troops; and, as they can neither crawl _under_ Maryland +nor fly _over_ it, they must come across it." + + +When the war had actually begun he delighted in the soldiers' grim +humor in the face of death. He told story after story about the +"boys," laughing, with tears in his gray eyes, at their heroism in +danger. He never laughed at the private soldier, except in the pride +of his hearty patriotism. But he made constant fun of the assumptions +of generals and other high officials. The stories he most enjoyed +telling were of the soldiers' scoffing at rank and pretension. He +delighted in the following: + +A picket challenged a tug going up Broad River, South Carolina, with: + +"Who goes there?" + +"The Secretary of War and Major-General Foster," was the pompous reply. + +"Aw! We've got major-generals enough up here--why don't you bring us +up some hardtack?" + + +On another occasion a friend burst into his room to tell him that a +brigadier-general and twelve army mules had been carried off by a +Confederate raid. + +"How unfortunate! Those mules cost us two hundred dollars apiece!" was +the President's only reply. + + +Mr. Lincoln was a very abstemious man, ate very little and drank +nothing but water, not from principle, but because he did not like wine +or spirits. Once, in rather dark days early in the war, a temperance +committee came to him and said that the reason we did not win was +because our army drank so much whisky as to bring the curse of the Lord +upon them. He said, in reply, that it was rather unfair on the part of +the aforesaid curse, as the other side drank more and worse whisky than +ours did. + + +Some one urged President Lincoln to place General Frémont in command of +some station. While the President did not want to offend his friend at +a rather critical time of the war, he pushed him gently and firmly +aside in this wise: He said he did not know where to place General +Frémont, and it reminded him of an old man who advised his son to take +a wife, to which the young man responded, "Whose wife shall I take?" + + +On one occasion, exasperated at the discrepancy between the aggregate +of troops forwarded to McClellan and the number of men the General +reported as having received, Lincoln exclaimed, "Sending men to that +army is like shoveling fleas across a barnyard--half of them never get +there." + + +Lincoln's orders to his generals are filled with the kindly courtesy, +the direct argument, and the dry humor which are so characteristic of +the man. To Grant, who had telegraphed, "If the thing is pressed, I +think that Lee will surrender," Lincoln replied, "Let the thing be +pressed." + +To McClellan, gently chiding him for his inactivity: "I have just read +your despatch about sore tongue and fatigued horse. Will you pardon me +for asking what the horses of your army have done since the battle of +Antietam that fatigues anything?" + +Referring to General McClellan's inactivity, President Lincoln once +expressed his impatience by saying, "McClellan is a pleasant and +scholarly gentleman; he is an admirable engineer, but he seems to have +a special talent for stationary engineering." + + +After a long period of inaction on the part of the Union forces a +telegram from Cumberland Gap reached Mr. Lincoln, saying that firing +was heard in the direction of Knoxville. The President simply remarked +that he was glad of it. As General Burnside was in a perilous position +in Tennessee at that time, those present were greatly surprised at +Lincoln's calm view of the case. "You see," said the President, "it +reminds me of Mistress Sallie Ward, a neighbor of mine, who had a very +large family. Occasionally one of her numerous progeny would be heard +crying in some out-of-the-way place, upon which Mrs. Ward would +exclaim, 'There's one of my children not dead yet!'" + + +Writing to Hooker, who succeeded Burnside, Lincoln said: + +"I believe you to be a brave and skilful soldier, which, of course, I +like. I also believe you do not mix politics with your profession, in +which you are right. You have confidence in yourself, which is a +valuable, if not indispensable, quality. You are ambitious, which +within reasonable bounds does good rather than harm; but I think that +during General Burnside's command of the army you have taken counsel +with your ambition, and thwarted him as much as you could, in which you +did a great wrong to the country and to a most meritorious and +honorable brother-officer. I have heard, in such a way as to believe +it, of your recently saying that both the army and the government +needed a dictator. Of course, it is not for this, but in spite of it, +that I have given you the command. Only those generals who gain +successes can set up dictators. What I now ask of you is military +success, and I will risk the dictatorship." + + +General Fry, who was Provost-Marshal of the War Department and received +daily instructions from the President in regard to the draft for +troops, which was one of the most embarrassing and perplexing questions +that arose during the war, illustrates this peculiar trait by an +anecdote. He says: + +"Upon one occasion the Governor of a State came to my office bristling +with complaints in relation to the number of troops required from his +State, the details of drafting the men, and the plan of compulsory +service in general. I found it impossible to satisfy his demands, and +accompanied him to the Secretary of War's office, whence, after a +stormy interview with Stanton, he went alone to press his ultimatum +upon the highest authority. After I had waited anxiously for some +hours, expecting important orders or decisions from the President, or +at least a summons to the White House for explanation, the Governor +returned, and said, with a pleasant smile, that he was going home by +the next train, and merely dropping in _en route_ to say good-by. +Neither the business he came upon nor his interview with the President +was alluded to. + +"As soon as I could see Lincoln I said: 'Mr. President, I am very +anxious to learn how you disposed of Governor ----. He went to your +office from the War Department in a towering rage. I suppose you found +it necessary to make large concessions to him, as he returned from you +entirely satisfied.' + +"'Oh no,' he replied, 'I did not concede anything. You know how that +Illinois farmer managed the big log that lay in the middle of the +field? To the inquiries of his neighbors, one Sunday, he announced +that he had got rid of the big log. "Got rid of it!" said they. "How +did you do it? It was too big to haul out, too knotty to split, and +too wet and soggy to burn; what did you do?" "Well, now, boys," +replied the farmer, "if you won't divulge the secret, I'll tell you how +I got rid of it. I _plowed around_ it." Now,' said Lincoln, 'don't +tell anybody, but that's the way I got rid of Governor ----. I _plowed +around_ him, but it took me three mortal hours to do it, and I was +afraid every moment he'd see what I was at.'" + + +Commenting on Jeb Stuart's raid into Maryland and Pennsylvania and his +complete circuit of McClellan's army and his return over the river +unharmed despite McClellan's attempt to head him off, Lincoln remarked: + +"When I was a boy we used to play a game, three times round and out. +Stuart has been round twice; if he goes round him once more, gentlemen, +McClellan will be out." + +The General ascribed Stuart's success to his lack of horses, and +telegraphed that unless the army got more horses there would be similar +expeditions. To this Halleck telegraphed: + +"The President has read your telegram, and + + +[Transcriber's note: end of this extract.] + + + + + The following + is reprinted by permission from + RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS + OF ROBERT E. LEE + by his son Captain Robert E. Lee + + +LEE'S OPINION UPON THE LATE WAR + +envelope in which they were inclosed was the following indorsement in +General Lee's handwriting: + + +"LONDON, July 31, 1866. + +"Herbert C. Saunders asks permission to publish his conversation with +me. August 22d--Refused." + + +"3 BOLTON GARDENS, SOUTH KENSINGTON, + +"LONDON, July 31, 1866. + +"_My Dear General Lee_: Presuming on the acquaintance with you which I +had the honour and pleasure of making last November at Lexington, while +travelling in Virginia, I venture now to write to you under these +circumstances. You may remember that, at the time I presented to you +my letter of introduction, I told you that two other Englishmen, +friends of mine, who had come with me to America, were then making a +tour through Georgia, the Carolinas, and some other Southern States. +One of them, Mr. Kennaway, was so much interested with all he saw, and +the people at home have appreciated his letters descriptive of it so +well, that he is intending to publish a short account of his visit. +Not having, however, had an introduction to yourself, he is anxious to +avail himself of the somewhat full accounts I wrote home at the time, +descriptive of my most interesting interview with you, and, with this +view, he has asked me to put into the shape of a letter all those more +prominent points which occur to me as gathered from my letters and my +recollection, and which are likely to interest and instruct the English +public. I have, after some hesitation, acceded to the request--a +hesitation caused mainly by the fact that at the time I saw you I +neither prepared my notes with a view to publication nor did I inform +you that there was any chance of what you told me being repeated. I +may add that I never until a month or two ago had the slightest thought +of publishing anything, and, in fact, have constantly resisted the many +applications by my friends that I should let my letters see the light. +My object in now writing to you is to know whether you have any +objection to my giving my friend the inclosed short account of our +interview, as it would, I am convinced, add greatly to the interest of +the narrative. If you have no objection to this, perhaps you would +kindly correct any statements put into your mouth which are not quite +accurate, or expunge anything which might prejudice you with the public +either of the North or the South, if unluckily anything of this nature +should have crept in. My letters were written a day or two after the +conversation, but you had so much of interest and new to tell me that I +do not feel sure that I may not have confused names of battles, etc., +in some instances. It will be necessary for me to deliver my part of +the performance early in September to the publishers, and, therefore, I +should feel much obliged by your sending me an answer at your earliest +convenience. There will be a mail due here about the first of that +month, leaving the United States on Wednesday, the 22d., and I shall, +therefore, wait till its arrival before sending my letter to Mr. +Kennaway; but should I not hear from you then I shall consider you have +no objections to make or alterations to suggest, and act accordingly. +If you have any new facts which you think it desirable should be known +by the public, it will give me much pleasure to be the medium of their +communication. + +"I am sure I need scarcely tell you with what keen interest I have read +all the accounts from your continent of the proceedings in Congress and +elsewhere in connection with the reconstruction of the South. I do +sincerely trust it may be eventually effected in a way satisfactory to +the South, and I most deeply deplore the steps taken by the Radical +side of the House to set the two (North and South) by the ears again. +President Johnson's policy seems to me to be that which, if pursued, +would be most likely to contribute to the consolidation of the country; +but I am both surprised and pained to find how little power the +Executive has against so strong a faction as the Radicals, who, while +they claim to represent the North, do, in fact, but misrepresent the +country. I am sure you will believe that I say with sincerity that I +always take great interest in anything I hear said or that I read of +yourself, and I am happy to say that, even with all the rancour of the +Northern Radicals against the South, it is little they find of ill to +say of you. + +"Hoping you will not think I am doing wrong in the course I propose to +take, and that your answer may be satisfactory, I remain, my dear +General Lee, + +"Yours very sincerely, HERBERT C. SAUNDERS. + + +"GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE." + +"LEXINGTON, Virginia, August 22, 1866. + +"MR. HERBERT C. SAUNDERS, + +"3 Bolton Gardens, + +"South Kensington, London, England. + +"_My Dear Mr. Saunders_: I received to-day your letter of the 31st ult. +What I stated to you in conversation, during the visit which you did me +the honour to pay me in November last, was entirely for your own +information, and was in no way intended for publication. My only +object was to gratify the interest which you apparently evinced on the +several topics which were introduced, and to point to facts which you +might investigate, if you so desired, in your own way. I have an +objection to the publication of my private conversations, which are +never intended but for those to whom they are addressed. I cannot, +therefore, without an entire disregard of the rule which I have +followed in other cases, and in violation of my own sense of propriety, +assent to what you propose. I hope, therefore, you will excuse me. +What you may think proper to publish I hope will be the result of your +own observations and convictions, and not on my authority. In the +hasty perusal which I have been obliged to give the manuscript inclosed +to me, I perceive many inaccuracies, resulting as much, perhaps, from +my imperfect narration as from misapprehension on your part. Though +fully appreciating your kind wish to correct certain erroneous +statements as regards myself, I prefer remaining silent to doing +anything that might excite angry discussion at this time, when strong +efforts are being made by conservative men, North and South, to sustain +President Johnson in his policy, which, I think, offers the only means +of healing the lamentable divisions of the country, and which the +result of the late convention at Philadelphia gives great promise of +doing. Thanking you for the opportunity afforded me of expressing my +opinion before executing your purpose, I am, etc., + +"R. E. LEE." + + +The following is Mr. Saunders' account of the interview: + +"On only one subject would he talk at any length about his own conduct, +and that was with reference to the treatment of the Federal prisoners +who had fallen into his hands. He seemed to feel deeply the backhanded +stigma cast upon him by his having been included by name in the first +indictment framed against Wirz, though he was afterward omitted from +the new charges. He explained to me the circumstances under which he +had arranged with McClellan for the exchange of prisoners; how he had, +after the battles of Manassas, Fredericksburg, and (I think) +Chancellorsville, sent all the wounded over to the enemy on the +engagement of their generals to parole them. He also told me that on +several occasions his commissary generals had come to him after a +battle and represented that he had not rations enough both for +prisoners and the army when the former had to be sent several days' +march to their place of confinement, and he had always given orders +that the wants of the prisoners should be first attended to, as from +their position they could not save themselves from starvation by +foraging or otherwise, as the army could when in straits for +provisions. The General also explained how every effort had always +been made by the Confederates to do away with the necessity of +retaining prisoners by offering every facility for exchange, till at +last, when all exchange was refused, they found themselves with 30,000 +prisoners for whom they were quite unable to do as much as they wished +in the way of food. He stated, furthermore, that many of their +hardships arose from the necessity of constantly changing the prisons +to prevent recapture. With the management of the prisons he assured me +he had no more to do than I had, and did not even know that Wirz was in +charge of Andersonville prison (at least, I think he asserted this) +till after the war was over. I could quite sympathise with him in his +feeling of pain under which his generous nature evidently suffered that +the authorities at Washington should have included him and others +similarly circumstanced in this charge of cruelty at the time that +letters written by himself (General Lee), taken in Richmond when +captured, complaining that the troops in his army had actually been for +days together on several occasions without an ounce of meat, were in +possession of the military authorities. + +"When discussing the state of feeling in England with regard to the +war, he assured me that it had all along given him the greatest +pleasure to feel that the Southern cause had the sympathies of so many +in the 'old country,' to which he looked as a second home; but, in +answer to my questions, he replied that he had never expected us to +give them material aid, and added that he thought all governments were +right in studying only the interests of their own people and in not +going to war for an 'idea' when they had no distinct cause of quarrel. + +"On the subject of slavery, he assured me that he had always been in +favour of the emancipation of the negroes, and that in Virginia the +feeling had been strongly inclining in the same direction, till the +ill-judged enthusiasm (amounting to rancour) of the abolitionists in +the North had turned the Southern tide of feeling in the other +direction. In Virginia, about thirty years ago, an ordinance for the +emancipation of the slaves had been rejected by only a small majority, +and every one fully expected at the next convention it would have been +carried, but for the above cause. He went on to say that there was +scarcely a Virginian now who was not glad that the subject had been +definitely settled, though nearly all regretted that they had not been +wise enough to do it themselves the first year of the war. Allusion +was made by him to a conversation he had with a distinguished +countryman of mine. He had been visiting a large slave plantation +(Shirley) on the James River. The Englishman had told him that the +working population were better cared for there than in any country he +had ever visited, but that he must never expect an approval of the +institution of slavery by England, or aid from her in any cause in +which that question was involved. Taking these facts and the +well-known antipathy of the mass of the English to the institution into +consideration, he said he had never expected help from England. The +people 'at the South' (as the expression is), in the main, though +scarcely unanimously, seem to hold much the same language as General +Lee with reference to our neutrality, and to be much less bitter than +Northerners generally--who, I must confess, in my own opinion, have +much less cause to complain of our interpretation of the laws of +neutrality than the South. I may mention here, by way of parenthesis, +that I was, on two separate occasions (once in Washington and once in +Lexington), told that there were many people in the country who wished +that General Washington had never lived and that they were still +subjects of Queen Victoria; but I should certainly say as a rule the +Americans are much too well satisfied with themselves for this feeling +to be at all common. General Lee, in the course of this to me most +interesting evening's _séance_, gave me many details of the war too +long to put on paper, but, with reference to the small result of their +numerous victories, accounted for it in this way: the force which the +Confederates brought to bear was so often inferior in numbers to that +of the Yankees that the more they followed up the victory against one +portion of the enemy's line the more did they lay themselves open to +being surrounded by the remainder of the enemy. He likened the +operation to a man breasting a wave of the sea, who, as rapidly as he +clears a way before him, is enveloped by the very water he has +displaced. He spoke of the final surrender as inevitable owing to the +superiority in numbers of the enemy. His own army had, during the last +few weeks, suffered materially from defection in its ranks, and, +discouraged by failures and worn out by hardships, had at the time of +the surrender only 7,892 men under arms, and this little army was +almost surrounded by one of 100,000. They might, the General said with +an air piteous to behold, have cut their way out as they had done +before, but, looking upon the struggle as hopeless, I was not surprised +to hear him say that he thought it cruel to prolong it. In two other +battles he named (Sharpsburg and Chancellorsville, I think he said), +the Confederates were to the Federals in point of numbers as 35,000 to +120,000 and as 45,000 to 155,000 respectively, so that the mere +disparity of numbers was not sufficient to convince him of the +necessity of surrender; but feeling that his own army was persuaded of +the ultimate hopelessness of the contest as evidenced by their +defection, he took the course of surrendering his army in lieu of +reserving it for utter annihilation. + +"Turning to the political bearing of the important question at issue, +the great Southern general gave me, at some length, his feelings with +regard to the abstract right of secession. This right, he told me, was +held as a constitutional maxim at the South. As to its exercise at the +time on the part of the South, he was distinctly opposed, and it was +not until Lincoln issued a proclamation for 75,000 men to invade the +South, which was deemed clearly unconstitutional, that Virginia +withdrew from the United States. + +"We discussed a variety of other topics, and, at eleven o'clock when I +rose to go, he begged me to stay on, as he found the nights full long. +His son, General Custis Lee, who had distinguished himself much during +the war, but whom I had not the good fortune of meeting, is the only +one of his family at present with him at Lexington, where he occupies +the position of a professor in the Military Institute of Virginia. +This college had 250 cadets in it when the war broke out, General +'Stonewall' Jackson being one of the professors. At one moment in the +war, when the Federals were advancing steadily up the Shenandoah +Valley, these youths (from 16 to 22 years of age) were marched to join +the Confederate Army, and did good service. In one battle at +Newmarket, of which I shall have occasion to speak later in my letters, +they distinguished themselves in a conspicuous way under the leadership +of Colonel Shipp, who is still their commandant. By a brilliant +charge, they contributed, in a great measure, to turn the tide of +affairs, losing nine of their number killed and more than forty +wounded. General Hunter, on a subsequent occasion, when occupying +Lexington with a body of Federal troops, quartered his men in the +Military Institute for several days, and, on leaving, had the +building--a very handsome and extensive one--fired in numerous places, +completely destroying all but the external walls, which now stand. The +professors' houses stood in detached positions, and these, too, with +the house of Mr. Letcher, a former governor of the State, he also burnt +to the ground. The Washington College, the presidency of which General +Lee now holds, they also ransacked, destroying everything it contained, +and were preparing it for the flames, to which they were with +difficulty restrained from devoting it by earnest representations of +its strictly educational nature." + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Abraham Lincoln, by Lord Charnwood + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ABRAHAM LINCOLN *** + +***** This file should be named 18379-8.txt or 18379-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/3/7/18379/ + +Produced by Al Haines + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Abraham Lincoln + +Author: Lord Charnwood + +Release Date: May 11, 2006 [EBook #18379] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ABRAHAM LINCOLN *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + +ABRAHAM LINCOLN + + +BY LORD CHARNWOOD + + + + + +GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK + +GARDEN CITY PUBLISHING CO., INC. + + + + +COPYRIGHT, 1917 + +BY + +HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY + + + + +GENERAL EDITOR'S PREFACE + +Statesmen--even the greatest--have rarely won the same unquestioning +recognition that falls to the great warriors or those supreme in +science, art or literature. Not in their own lifetime and hardly to +this day have the claims to supremacy of our own Oliver Cromwell, +William III. and Lord Chatham rested on so sure a foundation as those +of a Marlborough or a Nelson, a Newton, a Milton or a Hogarth. This is +only natural. A warrior, a man of science, an artist or a poet are +judged in the main by definite achievements, by the victories they have +won over foreign enemies or over ignorance and prejudice, by the joy +and enlightenment they have brought to the consciousness of their own +and succeeding generations. For the statesman there is no such exact +measure of greatness. The greater he is, the less likely is his work +to be marked by decisive achievement which can be recalled by +anniversaries or signalised by some outstanding event: the chief work +of a great statesman rests in a gradual change of direction given to +the policy of his people, still more in a change of the spirit within +them. Again, the statesman must work with a rough and ready +instrument. The soldier finds or makes his army ready to yield +unhesitating obedience to his commands, the sailor animates his fleet +with his own personal touch, and the great man in art, literature or +science is master of his material, if he can master himself. The +statesman cannot mould a heterogeneous people, as the men of a +well-disciplined army or navy can be moulded, to respond to his call +and his alone. He has to do all his work in a society of which a large +part cannot see his object and another large part, as far as they do +see it, oppose it. Hence his work at the best is often incomplete and +he has to be satisfied with a rough average rather than with his ideal. + +Lincoln, one of the few supreme statesmen of the last three centuries, +was no exception to this rule. He was misunderstood and underrated in +his lifetime, and even yet has hardly come to his own. For his place +is among the great men of the earth. To them he belongs by right of +his immense power of hard work, his unfaltering pursuit of what seemed +to him right, and above all by that childlike directness and simplicity +of vision which none but the greatest carry beyond their earliest +years. It is fit that the first considered attempt by an Englishman to +give a picture of Lincoln, the great hero of America's struggle for the +noblest cause, should come at a time when we in England are passing +through as fiery a trial for a cause we feel to be as noble. It is a +time when we may learn much from Lincoln's failures and success, from +his patience, his modesty, his serene optimism and his eloquence, so +simple and so magnificent. + +BASIL WILLIAMS. + +BISCOT CAMP, + +LUTON, + +March, 1916. + + + + + CONTENTS + + GENERAL EDITOR'S PREFACE + + + CHAP. + + I. BOYHOOD OF LINCOLN + + II. THE GROWTH OF THE AMERICAN NATION + 1. The Formation of a National Government + 2. Territorial Expansion + 3. The Growth of the Practice and Traditions of the Union Government + 4. The Missouri Compromise + 5. Leaders, Parties, and Tendencies in Lincoln's Youth + 6. Slavery and Southern Society + 7. Intellectual Development + + III. LINCOLN'S EARLY CAREER + 1. Life at New Salem + 2. In the Illinois Legislature + 3. Marriage + + IV. LINCOLN IN CONGRESS AND IN RETIREMENT + 1. The Mexican War and Lincoln's Work in Congress + 2. California and the Compromise of 1850 + 3. Lincoln in Retirement + 4. The Repeal of the Missouri Compromise + + V. THE RISE OF LINCOLN + 1. Lincoln's Return to Public Life + 2. The Principles and the Oratory of Lincoln + 3. Lincoln against Douglas + 4. John Brown + 5. The Election of Lincoln as President + + + VI. SECESSION + 1. The Case of the South against the Union + 2. The Progress of Secession + 3. The Inauguration of Lincoln + 4. The Outbreak of War + + VII. THE CONDITIONS OF THE WAR + + VIII. THE OPENING OF THE WAR AND LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION + 1. Preliminary Stages of the War + 2. Bull Run + 3. Lincoln's Administration Generally + 4. Foreign Policy and England + 5. The Great Questions of Domestic Policy + + IX. THE DISASTERS OF THE NORTH + 1. Military Policy of the North + 2. The War in the West up to May, 1862 + 3. The War in the East up to May, 1863 + + X. EMANCIPATION + + XI. THE APPROACH OF VICTORY + 1. The War to the End of 1863 + 2. Conscription and the Politics of 1863 + 3. The War in 1864 + 4. The Second Election of Lincoln: 1864 + + XII. THE END + + BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE + + CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE + + INDEX + + + + +ABRAHAM LINCOLN + + +CHAPTER I + +BOYHOOD OF LINCOLN + +The subject of this memoir is revered by multitudes of his countrymen +as the preserver of their commonwealth. This reverence has grown with +the lapse of time and the accumulation of evidence. It is blended with +a peculiar affection, seldom bestowed upon the memory of statesmen. It +is shared to-day by many who remember with no less affection how their +own fathers fought against him. He died with every circumstance of +tragedy, yet it is not the accident of his death but the purpose of his +life that is remembered. + +Readers of history in another country cannot doubt that the praise so +given is rightly given; yet any bare record of the American Civil War +may leave them wondering why it has been so unquestioningly accorded. +The position and task of the American President in that crisis cannot +be understood from those of other historic rulers or historic leaders +of a people; and it may seem as if, after that tremendous conflict in +which there was no lack of heroes, some perverse whim had made men +single out for glory the puzzled civil magistrate who sat by. Thus +when an English writer tells again this tale, which has been well told +already and in which there can remain no important new facts to +disclose, he must endeavour to make clear to Englishmen circumstances +and conditions which are familiar to Americans. He will incur the +certainty that here and there his own perspective of American affairs +and persons will be false, or his own touch unsympathetic. He had +better do this than chronicle sayings and doings which to him and to +those for whom he writes have no significance. Nor should the writer +shrink too timidly from the display of a partisanship which, on one +side or the other, it would be insensate not to feel. The true +obligation of impartiality is that he should conceal no fact which, in +his own mind, tells against his views. + +Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth President of the United States of America, +was born on February 12, 1809, in a log cabin on a barren farm in the +backwoods of Kentucky, about three miles west of a place called +Hodgensville in what is now La Rue County. + +Fifty years later when he had been nominated for the Presidency he was +asked for material for an account of his early life. "Why," he said, +"it is a great folly to attempt to make anything out of me or my early +life. It can all be condensed into a single sentence; and that +sentence you will find in Gray's 'Elegy':-- + + "'The short and simple annals of the poor.' + +That's my life, and that's all you or anyone else can make out of it." +His other references to early days were rare. He would repeat queer +reminiscences of the backwoods to illustrate questions of state; but of +his own part in that old life he spoke reluctantly and sadly. +Nevertheless there was once extracted from him an awkward +autobiographical fragment, and his friends have collected and recorded +concerning his earlier years quite as much as is common in great men's +biographies or can as a rule be reproduced with its true associations. +Thus there are tales enough of the untaught student's perseverance, and +of the boy giant's gentleness and prowess; tales, too, more than enough +in proportion, of the fun which varied but did not pervade his +existence, and of the young rustic's occasional and somewhat oafish +pranks. But, in any conception we may form as to the growth of his +mind and character, this fact must have its place, that to the man +himself the thought of his early life was unattractive, void of +self-content over the difficulties which he had conquered, and void of +romantic fondness for vanished joys of youth. + +Much the same may be said of his ancestry and family connections. +Contempt for lowly beginnings, abhorrent as it is to any honest mind, +would to Lincoln's mind have probably been inconceivable, but he lacked +that interest in ancestry which is generally marked in his countrymen, +and from talk of his nearer progenitors he seems to have shrunk with a +positive sadness of which some causes will soon be apparent. Since his +death it has been ascertained that in 1638 one Samuel Lincoln of +Norwich emigrated to Massachusetts. Descent from him could be claimed +by a prosperous family in Virginia, several of whom fought on the +Southern side in the Civil War. One Abraham Lincoln, grandfather of +the President and apparently a grandson of Samuel, crossed the +mountains from Virginia in 1780 and settled his family in Kentucky, of +which the nearer portions had recently been explored. One morning four +years later he was at work near his cabin with Mordecai, Josiah, and +Thomas, his sons, when a shot from the bushes near by brought him down. +Mordecai ran to the house, Josiah to a fort, which was close to them. +Thomas, aged six, stayed by his father's body. Mordecai seized a gun +and, looking through the window, saw an Indian in war paint stooping to +pick up Thomas. He fired and killed the savage, and, when Thomas had +run into the cabin, continued firing at others who appeared among the +bushes. Shortly Josiah returned with soldiers from the fort, and the +Indians ran off, leaving Abraham the elder dead. Mordecai, his +heir-at-law, prospered. We hear of him long after as an old man of +substance and repute in Western Illinois. He had decided views about +Indians. The sight of a redskin would move him to strange excitement; +he would disappear into the bushes with his gun, and his conscience as +a son and a sportsman would not be satisfied till he had stalked and +shot him. We are further informed that he was a "good old man." +Josiah also moved to Illinois, and it is pleasant to learn that he also +was a good old man, and, as became a good old man, prospered pretty +well. But President Lincoln and his sister knew neither these +excellent elders nor any other of their father's kin. + +And those with whom the story of his own first twenty-one years is +bound up invite almost as summary treatment. Thomas Lincoln never +prospered like Mordecai and Josiah, and never seems to have left the +impress of his goodness or of anything else on any man. But, while +learning to carpenter under one Joseph Hanks, he married his employer's +niece Nancy, and by her became the father first of a daughter Sarah, +and four years later, at the farm near Hodgensville aforesaid, of +Abraham, the future President. In 1816, after several migrations, he +transported his household down the Ohio to a spot on the Indiana shore, +near which the village of Gentryville soon sprang up. There he abode +till Abraham was nearly twenty-one. When the boy was eight his mother +died, leaving him in his sister's care; but after a year or so Thomas +went back alone to Kentucky and, after brief wooing, brought back a +wife, Sarah, the widow of one Mr. Johnston, whom he had courted vainly +before her first marriage. He brought with her some useful additions +to his household gear, and her rather useless son John Johnston. +Relatives of Abraham's mother and other old neighbours--in particular +John and Dennis Hanks--accompanied all the family's migrations. +Ultimately, in 1830, they all moved further west into Illinois. +Meanwhile Abraham from an early age did such various tasks for his +father or for neighbouring farmers as from time to time suited the +father. When an older lad he was put for a while in charge of a ferry +boat, and this led to the two great adventures of his early days, +voyages with a cargo boat; and two mates down by river to New Orleans. +The second and more memorable of these voyages was just after the +migration to Illinois. He returned from it to a place called New +Salem, in Illinois, some distance from his father's new farm, in +expectation of work in a store which was about to be opened. Abraham, +by this time, was of age, and in accordance with custom had been set +free to shift for himself. + +Each of these migrations was effected with great labour in +transportation of baggage (sometimes in home-made boats), clearing of +timber, and building; and Thomas Lincoln cannot have been wanting in +the capacity for great exertions. But historians have been inclined to +be hard on him. He seems to have been without sustained industry; in +any case he had not much money sense and could not turn his industry to +much account. Some hint that he drank, but it is admitted that most +Kentucky men drank more. There are indications that he was a dutiful +but ineffective father, chastising not too often or too much, but +generally on the wrong occasion. He was no scholar and did not +encourage his son that way; but he had a great liking for stories. He +was of a peaceable and inoffensive temper, but on great provocation +would turn on a bully with surprising and dire consequences. Old +Thomas, after Abraham was turned loose, continued a migrant, always +towards a supposed better farm further west, always with a mortgage on +him. Abraham, when he was a struggling professional man, helped him +with money as well as he could. We have his letter to the old man on +his death-bed, a letter of genuine but mild affection with due words of +piety. He explains that illness in his own household makes it +impossible for him to pay a last visit to his father, and then, with +that curious directness which is common in the families of the poor and +has as a rule no sting, he remarks that an interview, if it had been +possible, might have given more pain than pleasure to both. Everybody +has insisted from the first how little Abraham took after his father, +but more than one of the traits attributed to Thomas will certainly +reappear. + +Abraham, as a man, when for once he spoke of his mother, whom he very +seldom mentioned, spoke with intense feeling for her motherly care. "I +owe," he said, "everything that I am to her." It pleased him in this +talk to explain by inheritance from her the mental qualities which +distinguished him from the house of Lincoln, and from others of the +house of Hanks. She was, he said, the illegitimate daughter of a +Virginian gentleman, whose name he did not know, but from whom as he +guessed the peculiar gifts, of which he could not fail to be conscious, +were derived. + +Sarah his sister was married at Gentryville to one Mr. Grigsby. The +Grigsbys were rather great people, as people went in Gentryville. It +is said to have become fixed in the boy's mind that the Grigsbys had +not treated Sarah well; and this was the beginning of certain woes. + +Sarah Bush Lincoln, his stepmother, was good to him and he to her. +Above all she encouraged him in his early studies, to which a fretful +housewife could have opposed such terrible obstacles. She lived to +hope that he might not be elected President for fear that enemies +should kill him, and she lived to have her fear fulfilled. His +affectionate care over her continued to the end. She lived latterly +with her son John Johnston. Abraham's later letters to this companion +of his youth deserve to be looked up in the eight large volumes called +his Works, for it is hard to see how a man could speak or act better to +an impecunious friend who would not face his own troubles squarely. It +is sad that the "ever your affectionate brother" of the earlier letters +declines to "yours sincerely" in the last; but it is an honest decline +of affection, for the man had proved to be cheating his mother, and +Abraham had had to stop it. + +Two of the cousinhood, Dennis Hanks, a character of comedy, and John +Hanks, the serious and steady character of the connection, deserve +mention. They and John Johnston make momentary reappearances again. +Otherwise the whole of Abraham Lincoln's kindred are now out of the +story. They have been disposed of thus hastily at the outset, not +because they were discreditable or slight people, but because Lincoln +himself when he began to find his footing in the world seems to have +felt sadly that his family was just so much to him and no more. The +dearest of his recollections attached to premature death; the next to +chronic failure. Rightly or wrongly (and we know enough about heredity +now to expect any guess as to its working in a particular case to be +wrong) he attributed the best that he had inherited to a licentious +connection and a nameless progenitor. Quite early he must have been +intensely ambitious, and discovered in himself intellectual power; but +from his twelfth year to his twenty-first there was hardly a soul to +comprehend that side of him. This chill upon his memory unmistakably +influenced the particular complexion of his melancholy. Unmistakably +too he early learnt to think that he was odd, that his oddity was +connected with his strength, that he might be destined to stand alone +and capable of so standing. + +The life of the farming pioneer in what was then the Far West afforded +a fair prospect of laborious independence. But at least till Lincoln +was grown up, when a time of rapid growth and change set in, it offered +no hope of quickly gotten wealth, and it imposed severe hardship on +all. The country was thickly wooded; the settler had before him at the +outset heavy toil in clearing the ground and in building some rude +shelter,--a house or just a "half-faced camp," that is, a shed with one +side open to the weather such as that in which the Lincoln family +passed their first winter near Gentryville. The site once chosen and +the clearing once made, there was no such ease of cultivation or such +certain fertility as later settlers found yet further west when the +development of railways, of agricultural machinery, and of Eastern or +European markets had opened out to cultivation the enormous stretches +of level grass plain beyond the Mississippi. + +Till population had grown a good deal, pioneer families were largely +occupied in producing for themselves with their own hands what, in +their hardy if not always frugal view, were the necessities and +comforts of life. They had no Eastern market for their produce, for +railways did not begin to be made till 1840, and it was many years +before they crossed the Eastern mountains. An occasional cargo was +taken on a flat-bottomed boat down the nearest creek, as a stream is +called in America, into the Ohio and so by the innumerable windings of +the Mississippi to New Orleans; but no return cargo could be brought up +stream. Knives and axes were the most precious objects to be gained by +trade; woollen fabrics were rare in the West, when Lincoln was born, +and the white man and woman, like the red whom they had displaced, were +chiefly dressed in deer skins. The woods abounded in game, and in the +early stages of the development of the West a man could largely support +himself by his gun. The cold of every winter is there great, and an +occasional winter made itself long remembered, like the "winter of the +deep snow" in Illinois, by the havoc of its sudden onset and the +suffering of its long duration. The settling of a forest country was +accompanied here as elsewhere by the occasional ravages of strange and +destructive pestilences and the constant presence of malaria. +Population was soon thick enough for occasional gatherings, convivial +or religious, and in either case apt to be wild, but for long it was +not thick enough for the life of most settlers to be other than lonely +as well as hard. + +Abraham Lincoln in his teens grew very fast, and by nineteen he was +nearly six foot four. His weight was never quite proportionate to +this. His ungainly figure, with long arms and large hands and +relatively small development of chest, and the strange deep-cut +lineaments of his face were perhaps the evidence of unfit (sometimes +insufficient) food in these years of growth. But his muscular strength +was great, and startling statistical tales are told of the weight he +could lift and the force of his blows with a mallet or an axe. To a +gentle and thoughtful boy with secret ambition in him such strength is +a great gift, and in such surroundings most obviously so. Lincoln as a +lad was a valuable workman at the varied tasks that came his way, +without needing that intense application to manual pursuits which the +bent of his mind made irksome to him. And he was a person of high +consideration among the lads of his age and company. The manners of +the people then settling in Indiana and Illinois had not the extreme +ferocity for which Kentucky had earlier been famous, and which crops up +here and there in frontier life elsewhere. All the same, as might +naturally be supposed, they shared Plato's opinion that youths and men +in the prime of life should settle their differences with their fists. +Young Lincoln's few serious combats were satisfactorily decisive, and +neither they nor his friendly wrestling bouts ended in the quarrels +which were too common among his neighbours. Thus, for all his +originality and oddity, he early grew accustomed to mix in the sort of +company he was likely to meet, without either inward shrinking or the +need of conscious self-assertion. + +In one thing he stood aloof from the sports of his fellows. Most +backwoodsmen were bred to the gun; he has told us that he shot a turkey +when he was eight and never afterwards shot at all. There is an early +tale of his protests against an aimless slaughter of mud turtles; and +it may be guessed that the dislike of all killing, which gave him sore +trouble later, began when he was young. Tales survive of his kindness +to helpless men and animals. It marks the real hardness of his +surroundings, and their hardening effect on many, that his exertions in +saving a drunken man from death in the snow are related with apparent +surprise. Some tales of his helping a pig stuck in a bog or a dog on +an ice floe and the like seem to indicate a curious and lasting trait. +These things seem not to have been done spontaneously, but on mature +reflection after he had passed unheeding by. He grew to be a man of +prompt action in circumstances of certain kinds; but generally his +impulse was slow and not very sure. Taste and the minor sensibilities +were a little deficient in him. As a lady once candidly explained to +him, he was not ready with little gracious acts. But rare occasions, +such as can arouse a passionate sense of justice, would kindle his +slow, kind nature with a sudden fire. + +The total amount of his schooling, at the several brief periods for +which there happened to have been a school accessible and facility to +get to it, was afterwards computed by himself at something under twelve +months. With this slight help distributed over the years from his +eighth to his fifteenth birthday he taught himself to read, write, and +do sums. The stories of the effort and painful shifts, by which great +men accomplish this initial labour almost unhelped, have in all cases +the same pathos, and have a certain sameness in detail. Having learnt +to read he had the following books within his reach: the Bible, +"Aesop's Fables," "Robinson Crusoe," the "Pilgrim's Progress," a +"History of the United States," and Weems' "Life of Washington." Later +on the fancy took him to learn the laws of his State, and he obtained +the "Laws of Indiana." These books he did read, and read again, and +pondered, not with any dreamy or purely intellectual interest, but like +one who desires the weapon of learning for practical ends, and desires +also to have patterns of what life should be. As already said, his +service as a labourer could be considerable, and when something stirred +his ambition to do a task quickly his energy could be prodigious. But +"bone idle is what I called him," was the verdict long after of one, +perhaps too critical, employer. "I found him," he said, "cocked up on +a haystack with a book. 'What are you reading?' I said. 'I'm not +reading, I'm studying,' says he. 'What are you studying?' says I. +'Law,' says he, as proud as Cicero. 'Great God Almighty!' said I." +The boy's correction, "studying" for "reading," was impertinent, but +probably sound. To be equally sound, we must reckon among his +educational facilities the abundant stories which came his way in a +community which, however unlettered, was certainly not dull-spirited; +the occasional newspaper; the rare lectures or political meetings; the +much more frequent religious meetings, with preachers who taught a grim +doctrine, but who preached with vigour and sometimes with the deepest +sincerity; the hymns often of great emotional power over a simple +congregation--Cowper's "There is a fountain filled with blood," is one +recorded favourite among them; the songs, far other than hymns, which +Dennis Hanks and his other mates would pick up or compose; and the +practice in rhetoric and the art of exposition, which he unblushingly +afforded himself before audiences of fellow labourers who welcomed the +jest and the excuse for stopping work. The achievement of the +self-taught man remains wonderful, but, if he surmounts his +difficulties at all, some of his limitations may turn to sheer +advantage. There is some advantage merely in being driven to make the +most of few books; great advantage in having one's choice restricted by +circumstances to good books; great advantage too in the consciousness +of untrained faculty which leaves a man capable in mature life of +deliberately undertaking mental discipline. + +Along with the legends and authentic records of his self-training, +signs of an ambition which showed itself early and which was from the +first a clean and a high ambition, there are also other legends showing +Lincoln as a naughty boy among naughty boys. The selection here made +from these lacks refinement, and the reader must note that this was +literally a big, naughty boy, not a man who had grown stiff in +coarseness and ill-nature. First it must be recalled that Abraham bore +a grudge against the Grigsbys, an honourable grudge in its origin and +perhaps the only grudge he ever bore. There had arisen from this a +combat, of which the details might displease the fastidious, but which +was noble in so far that Abraham rescued a weaker combatant who was +over-matched. But there ensued something more displeasing, a series of +lampoons by Abraham, in prose and a kind of verse. These were gross +and silly enough, though probably to the taste of the public which he +then addressed, but it is the sequel that matters. In a work called +"The First Chronicles of Reuben," it is related how Reuben and Josiah, +the sons of Reuben Grigsby the elder, took to themselves wives on the +same day. By local custom the bridal feast took place and the two +young couples began their married careers under the roof of the +bridegrooms' father. Moreover, it was the custom that, at a certain +stage in the celebrations, the brides should be escorted to their +chambers by hired attendants who shortly after conducted the +bridegrooms thither. On this occasion some sense of mischief afoot +disturbed the heart of Mrs. Reuben Grigsby the elder, and, hastening +upstairs, just after the attendants had returned, she cried out in a +loud voice and to the great consternation of all concerned, "Why, +Reuben, you're in bed with the wrong wife!" The historian who, to the +manifest annoyance of Lincoln's other biographers, has preserved this +and much other priceless information, infers that Abraham, who was not +invited to the feast, had plotted this domestic catastrophe and won +over the attendants to his evil purpose. This is not a certain +inference, nor is it absolutely beyond doubt that the event recorded in +"The First Chronicles of Reuben" ever happened at all. What is certain +is that these Chronicles themselves, composed in what purports to be +the style of Scripture, were circulated for the joint edification of +the proud race of Grigsby and of their envious neighbours in the +handwriting of Abraham Lincoln, then between seventeen and eighteen. +Not without reason does an earlier manuscript of the same author +conclude, after several correct exercises in compound subtraction, with +the distich:-- + + "Abraham Lincoln, his hand and pen, + He will be good, but God knows when." + + +Not to be too solemn about a tale which has here been told for the +whimsical fancy of its unseemliness and because it is probably the +worst that there is to tell, we may here look forward and face the +well-known fact that the unseemliness in talk of rough, rustic boys +flavoured the great President's conversation through life. It is well +to be plain about this. Lincoln was quite without any elegant and +sentimental dissoluteness, such as can be attractively portrayed. His +life was austere and seems to have been so from the start. He had that +shy reverence for womanhood which is sometimes acquired as easily in +rough as in polished surroundings and often quite as steadily +maintained. The testimony of his early companions, along with some +fragments of the boy's feeble but sincere attempts at verse, shows that +he acquired it young. But a large part of the stories and pithy +sayings for which he was famous wherever he went, but of which when +their setting is lost it is impossible to recover the enjoyment, were +undeniably coarse, and naturally enough this fact was jarring to some +of those in America who most revered him. It should not really be +hard, in any comprehensive view of his character and the circumstances +in which it unfolded itself, to trace in this bent of his humour +something not discordant with the widening sympathy and deepening +tenderness of his nature. The words of his political associate in +Illinois, Mr. Leonard Swett, afterwards Attorney-General of the United +States, may suffice. He writes: "Almost any man, who will tell a very +vulgar story, has, in a degree, a vulgar mind. But it was not so with +him; with all his purity of character and exalted morality and +sensibility, which no man can doubt, when hunting for wit he had no +ability to discriminate between the vulgar and refined substances from +which he extracted it. It was the wit he was after, the pure jewel, +and he would pick it up out of the mud or dirt just as readily as from +a parlour table." In any case his best remembered utterances of this +order, when least fit for print, were both wise and incomparably witty, +and in any case they did not prevent grave gentlemen, who marvelled at +them rather uncomfortably, from receiving the deep impression of what +they called his pure-mindedness. + +One last recollection of Lincoln's boyhood has appealed, beyond any +other, to some of his friends as prophetic of things to come. Mention +has already been made of his two long trips down the Mississippi. With +the novel responsibilities which they threw on him, and the novel +sights and company which he met all the way to the strange, distant +city of New Orleans, they must have been great experiences. Only two +incidents of them are recorded. In the first voyage he and his mates +had been disturbed at night by a band of negro marauders and had had a +sharp fight in repelling them, but in the second voyage he met with the +negro in a way that to him was more memorable. He and the young +fellows with him saw, among the sights of New Orleans, negroes chained, +maltreated, whipped and scourged; they came in their rambles upon a +slave auction where a fine mulatto girl was being pinched and prodded +and trotted up and down the room like a horse to show how she moved, +that "bidders might satisfy themselves," as the auctioneer said, of the +soundness of the article to be sold. John Johnston and John Hanks and +Abraham Lincoln saw these sights with the unsophisticated eyes of +honest country lads from a free State. In their home circle it seems +that slavery was always spoken of with horror. One of them had a +tenacious memory and a tenacious will. "Lincoln saw it," John Hanks +said long after, and other men's recollections of Lincoln's talk +confirmed him--"Lincoln saw it; his heart bled; said nothing much, was +silent. I can say, knowing it, that it was on this trip that he formed +his opinion of slavery. It ran its iron into him then and there, May, +1831. I have heard him say so often." Perhaps in other talks old John +Hanks dramatised his early remembrances a little; he related how at the +slave auction Lincoln said, "By God, boys, let's get away from this. +If ever I get a chance to hit that thing, I'll hit it hard." + +The youth, who probably did not express his indignation in these +prophetic words, was in fact chosen to deal "that thing" a blow from +which it seems unlikely to recover as a permitted institution among +civilised men, and it is certain that from this early time the thought +of slavery never ceased to be hateful to him. Yet it is not in the +light of a crusader against this special evil that we are to regard +him. When he came back from this voyage to his new home in Illinois he +was simply a youth ambitious of an honourable part in the life of the +young country of which he was proud. We may regard, and he himself +regarded, the liberation of the slaves, which will always be associated +with his name, as a part of a larger work, the restoration of his +country to its earliest and noblest tradition, which alone gave +permanence or worth to its existence as a nation. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE GROWTH OF THE AMERICAN NATION + +1. _The Formation of a National Government_. + +It is of course impossible to understand the life of a politician in +another country without study of its conditions and its past. In the +case of America this study is especially necessary, not only because the +many points of comparison between that country and our own are apt to +conceal profound differences of customs and institutions, but because the +broader difference between a new country and an old is in many respects +more important than we conceive. But in the case of Lincoln there is +peculiar reason for carrying such a study far back. He himself appealed +unceasingly to a tradition of the past. In tracing the causes which up +to his time had tended to conjoin the United States more closely and the +cause which more recently had begun to threaten them with disruption, we +shall be examining the elements of the problem with which it was his work +in life to deal. + +The "Thirteen United States of America" which in 1776 declared their +independence of Great Britain were so many distinct Colonies distributed +unevenly along 1,300 miles of the Atlantic coast. These thirteen +Colonies can easily be identified on the map when it is explained that +Maine in the extreme north was then an unsettled forest tract claimed by +the Colony of Massachusetts, that Florida in the extreme south belonged +to Spain, and that Vermont, which soon after asserted its separate +existence, was a part of the State of New York. Almost every one of +these Colonies had its marked peculiarities and its points of antagonism +as against its nearest neighbours; but they fell into three groups. We +may broadly contrast the five southernmost, which included those which +were the richest and of which in many ways the leading State was +Virginia, with the four (or later six) northernmost States known +collectively as New England. Both groups had at first been colonised by +the same class, the smaller landed gentry of England with a sprinkling of +well-to-do traders, though the South received later a larger number of +poor and shiftless immigrants than the North, and the North attracted a +larger number of artisans. The physical conditions of the South led to +the growth of large farms, or "plantations" as they were called, and of a +class of large proprietors; negro slaves thrived there and were useful in +the cultivation of tobacco, indigo, rice, and later of cotton. The North +continued to be a country of small farms, but its people turned also to +fishery and to commerce, and the sea carrying trade became early its +predominant interest, yielding place later on to manufacturing +industries. The South was attached in the main, though by no means +altogether, to the Church of England; New England owed its origin to +successive immigrations of Puritans often belonging to the Congregational +or Independent body; with the honourable exception of Rhode Island these +communities showed none of the liberal and tolerant Spirit which the +Independents of the old country often developed; they manifested, +however, the frequent virtues as well as the occasional defects of the +Puritan character. The middle group of Colonies were of more mixed +origin; New York and New Jersey had been Dutch possessions, Delaware was +partly Swedish, Pennsylvania had begun as a Quaker settlement but +included many different elements; in physical and economic conditions +they resembled on the whole New England, but they lacked, some of them +conspicuously, the Puritan discipline, and had a certain cosmopolitan +character. Though there were sharp antagonisms among the northern +settlements, and the southern settlements were kept distinct by the great +distances between them, the tendency of events was to soften these minor +differences. But it greatly intensified one broad distinction which +marked off the southern group from the middle and the northern groups +equally. + +Nevertheless, before independence was thought of there were common +characteristics distinguishing Americans from English people. They are +the better worth an attempt to note them because, as a historian of +America wrote some years ago, "the typical American of 1900 is on the +whole more like his ancestor of 1775 than is the typical Englishman." In +all the Colonies alike the conditions of life encouraged personal +independence. In all alike they also encouraged a special kind of +ability which may be called practical rather than thorough--that of a +workman who must be competent at many tasks and has neither opportunity +nor inducement to become perfect at one; that of the scientific man +irresistibly drawn to inventions which shall make life less hard; that of +the scholar or philosopher who must supply the new community's need of +lawyers and politicians. + +On the other hand, many of the colonists' forefathers had come to their +new home with distinct aspirations for a better ordering of human life +than the old world allowed, and it has frequently been noticed that +Americans from the first have been more prone than their kinsmen in +England to pay homage to large ideal conceptions. This is a disposition +not entirely favourable to painstaking and sure-footed reform. The +idealist American is perhaps too ready to pay himself with fine words, +which the subtler and shyer Englishman avoids and rather too readily sets +down as insincere in others. Moreover, this tendency is quite consistent +with the peculiar conservatism characteristic of America. New conditions +in which tradition gave no guidance called forth great inventive powers +and bred a certain pride in novelty. An American economist has written +in a sanguine humour, "The process of transplanting removes many of the +shackles of custom and tradition which retard the progress of older +countries. In a new country things cannot be done in the old way, and +therefore they are probably done in the best way." But a new country is +always apt to cling with tenacity to those old things for which it still +has use; and a remote and undeveloped country does not fully share the +continual commerce in ideas which brings about change (and, in the main, +advance) in the old world. The conservatism which these causes tend to +produce has in any case been marked in America. Thus, as readers of +Lowell are aware, in spite of the ceaseless efflorescence of the modern +slang of America, the language of America is in many respects that of an +older England than ours, and the like has all along been true of +important literature, and still more of oratory, in America. Moreover, +as the sentences which have just been quoted may suggest, the maxim that +has once hit the occasion, or the new practice or expedient once +necessitated by the conditions of the moment, has been readily hallowed +as expressing the wisdom of the ages. An Englishman will quote Burke as +he would quote Demosthenes or Plato, but Americans have been apt to quote +their elder statesmen as they would quote the Bible. In like manner +political practices of accidental origin--for instance, that a +representative should be an inhabitant of the place he +represents--acquire in America something like the force of constitutional +law. + +In this connection we must recall the period at which the earliest +settlers came from England, and the political heritage which they +consequently brought with them. This heritage included a certain +aptitude for local government, which was fostered in the south by the +rise of a class of large landowners and in the north by the +Congregational Church system. It included also a great tenacity of the +subject's rights as against the State--the spirit of Hampden refusing +payment of ship-money--and a disposition to look on the law and the +Courts as the bulwarks of such rights against Government. But it did not +include--and this explains the real meaning of the War of +Independence--any sort of feeling of allegiance to a Parliament which +represented Great Britain only, and which had gained its position even in +Great Britain since the fathers of Virginia and Massachusetts left home. +Nor did it include--and this was of great importance in its influence on +the form of the Constitution--any real understanding of or any aptitude +for the English Parliamentary Government, under which the leaders of the +legislative body and the advisers of the Crown in its executive functions +are the same men, and under which the elected persons, presumed for the +moment to represent the people, are allowed for that moment an almost +unfettered supremacy. + +Thus there was much that made it easy for the Colonies to combine in the +single act of repudiating British sovereignty, yet the characteristics +which may be ascribed to them in common were not such as inclined them or +fitted them to build up a great new unity. + +The Colonies, however, backed up by the British Government with the +vigour which Chatham imparted to it, had acted together against a common +danger from the French. When the States, as we must now call them, acted +together against the British Government they did so in name as "United +States," and they shortly proceeded to draw up "Articles of Confederation +and Perpetual Union." But it was union of a feeble kind. The separate +government of each State, in its internal affairs, was easy to provide +for; representative institutions always existed, and no more change was +needed than to substitute elected officers for the Governors and +Councillors formerly appointed by the Crown. For the Union a Congress +was provided which was to represent all the States in dealings with the +outside world, but it was a Government with no effective powers except +such as each separate State might independently choose to lend it. It +might wage war with England, but it could not effectually control or +regularly pay the military service of its own citizens; it might make a +treaty of peace with England, but it could not enforce on its citizens +distasteful obligations of that treaty. Such an ill-devised machine +would have worked well enough for a time, if the Union Government could +have attached to itself popular sentiments of honour and loyalty. But +the sentiments were not there; and it worked badly. + +When once we were reconciled to a defeat which proved good for us, it +became a tradition among English writers to venerate the American +Revolution. Later English historians have revolted from this +indiscriminate veneration. They insist on another side of the facts: on +the hopelessness of the American cause but for the commanding genius of +Washington and his moral authority, and for the command which France and +Spain obtained of the seas; on the petty quarrelsomeness with which the +rights of the Colonists were urged, and the meanly skilful agitation +which forced on the final rupture; on the lack of sustained patriotic +effort during the war; on the base cruelty and dishonesty with which the +loyal minority were persecuted and the private rights guaranteed by the +peace ignored. It does not concern us to ascertain the precise justice +in this displeasing picture; no man now regrets the main result of the +Revolution, and we know that a new country is a new country, and that +there was much in the circumstances of the war to encourage indiscipline +and ferocity. But the fact that there is cause for such an indictment +bears in two ways upon our present subject. + +In the first place, there has been a tendency both in England and in +America to look at this history upside down. The epoch of the Revolution +and the Constitution has been regarded as a heroic age--wherein lived the +elder Brutus, Mucius Scaevola, Claelia and the rest--to be followed by +almost continuous disappointment, disillusionment and decline. A more +pleasing and more bracing view is nearer to the historic truth. The +faults of a later time were largely survivals, and the later history is +largely that of growth though in the face of terrific obstacles and many +influences that favoured decay. The nobility of the Revolution in the +eighteenth century may be rated higher or lower, but in the Civil War, in +which the elder brothers of so many men now living bore their part, the +people of the North and of the South alike displayed far more heroic +qualities. + +In the second place, the War of Independence and of the Revolution lacked +some of the characteristics of other national uprisings. It was not a +revolt against grievous oppression or against a wholly foreign +domination, but against a political system which the people mildly +resented and which only statesmen felt to be pernicious and found to be +past cure. The cause appealed to far-seeing political aspiration and +appealed also to turbulent and ambitious spirits and to whatever was +present of a merely revolutionary temper, but the ordinary law-abiding +man who minded his own business was not greatly moved one way or the +other in his heart. + +The subsequent movement which, in a few years after independence was +secured, gave the United States a national and a working Constitution was +altogether the work of a few, to which popular movement contributed +nothing. Of popular aspiration for unity there was none. Statesmen knew +that the new nation or group of nations lay helpless between pressing +dangers from abroad and its own financial difficulties. They saw clearly +that they must create a Government of the Union which could exercise +directly upon the individual American citizen an authority like that of +the Government of his own State. They did this, but with a reluctant and +half-convinced public opinion behind them. + +The makers of the Constitution earned in a manner the full praise that +has ever since been bestowed on them. But they did not, as it has often +been suggested they did, create a sort of archetype and pattern for all +Governments that may hereafter partake of a federal character. Nor has +the curious machine which they devised--with its balanced opposition +between two legislative chambers, between the whole Legislature and the +independent executive power of the President, between the governing power +of the moment and the permanent expression of the people's will embodied +in certain almost unalterable laws--worked conspicuously better than +other political constitutions. The American Constitution owes its +peculiarities partly to the form which the State Governments had +naturally taken, and partly to sheer misunderstanding of the British +Constitution, but much more to the want at the time of any strong sense +of national unity and to the existence of a good deal of dislike to all +government whatsoever. The sufficient merit of its founders was that of +patient and skilful diplomatists, who, undeterred by difficulties, found +out the most satisfactory settlement that had a chance of being accepted +by the States. + +So the Colonies, which in 1776 had declared their independence of Great +Britain under the name of the United States of America, entered in 1789 +into the possession of machinery of government under which their unity +and independence could be maintained. + +It will be well at once to describe those features of the Constitution +which it will be necessary for us later to bear in mind. It is generally +known that the President of the United States is an elected +officer--elected by what operates, though intended to act otherwise, as a +popular vote. During the four years of his office he might roughly be +said to combine the functions of the King in this country and those of a +Prime Minister whose cabinet is in due subjection to him. But that +description needs one very important qualification. He wields, with +certain slight restrictions, the whole executive power of government, but +neither he nor any of his ministers can, like the ministers of our King, +sit or speak in the Legislature, nor can he, like our King, dissolve that +Legislature. He has indeed a veto on Acts of Congress, which can only be +overridden by a large majority in both Houses. But the executive and the +legislative powers in America were purposely so constituted as to be +independent of each other to a degree which is unknown in this country. + +It is perhaps not very commonly understood that President and Congress +alike are as strictly fettered in their action by the Constitution as a +limited liability company is by its Memorandum of Association. This +Constitution, which defines both the form of government and certain +liberties of the subject, is not unalterable, but it can be altered only +by a process which requires both the consent of a great majority in +Congress or alternatively of a great majority of the legislatures of the +distinct States composing the Union, and also ratification of amendments +by three-fourths of the several States. Thus we shall have to notice +later that a "Constitutional Amendment" abolishing slavery became a +terror of the future to many people in the slave States, but remained all +the time an impossibility in the view of most people in the free States. + +We have, above all things, to dismiss from our minds any idea that the +Legislature of a State is subordinate to the Congress of the United +States, or that a State Governor is an officer under the President. The +Constitution of the Union was the product of a half-developed sense of +nationality. Under it the State authority (in the American sense of +"State") and the Union or Federal authority go on side by side working in +separate spheres, each subject to Constitutional restrictions, but each +in its own sphere supreme. Thus the State authority is powerless to make +peace or war or to impose customs duties, for those are Federal matters. +But the Union authority is equally powerless, wherever a State authority +has been constituted, to punish ordinary crime, to promote education, or +to regulate factories. In particular, by the Constitution as it stood +till after the Civil War, the Union authority was able to prohibit the +importation of slaves from abroad after the end of 1807, but had no power +to abolish slavery itself in any of the States. + +Further, Congress had to be constituted in such a manner as to be +agreeable to the smaller States which did not wish to enter into a Union +in which their influence would be swamped by their more populous +neighbours. Their interest was secured by providing that in the Senate +each State should have two members and no more, while in the House of +Representatives the people of the whole Union are represented according +to population. Thus legislation through Congress requires the +concurrence of two forces which may easily be opposed, that of the +majority of American citizens and that of the majority of the several +States. Of the two chambers, the Senate, whose members are elected for +six years, and to secure continuity do not all retire at the same time, +became as time went on, though not at first, attractive to statesmen of +position, and acquired therefore additional influence. + +Lastly, the Union was and is still the possessor of Territories not +included in any State, and in the Territories, whatever subordinate +self-government they might be allowed, the Federal authority has always +been supreme and uncontrolled in all matters. But as these Territories +have become more settled and more populated, portions of them have +steadily from the first been organised as States and admitted to the +Union. It is for Congress to settle the time of their admission and to +make any conditions in regard to their Constitutions as States. But when +once admitted as States they have thenceforward the full rights of the +original States. Within all the Territories, while they remained under +its jurisdiction it lay with Congress to determine whether slavery should +be lawful or not, and, when any portion of them was ripe for admission to +the Union as a State, Congress could insist that the new State's +Constitution should or should not prohibit slavery. When the +Constitution of the Union was being settled, slavery was the subject of +most careful compromise; but in any union formed between slave States and +free, a bitter root of controversy must have remained, and the opening +through which controversy actually returned was provided by the +Territories. + +On all other matters the makers of the Constitution had in the highest +temper of statesmanship found a way round seemingly insuperable +difficulties. The whole attitude of "the fathers" towards slavery is a +question of some consequence to a biographer of Lincoln, and we shall +return to it in a little while. + + +2. _Territorial Expansion_. + +A machine of government had been created, and we are shortly to consider +how it was got to work. But the large dominion to be governed had to be +settled, and its area was about to undergo an enormous expansion. It +will be convenient at this point to mark the stages of this development. + +The thirteen Colonies had, when they first revolted, definite western +boundaries, the westernmost of them reaching back from the sea-board to a +frontier in the Alleghany Mountains. But at the close of the war Great +Britain ceded to the United States the whole of the inland country up to +the Mississippi River. Virginia had in the meantime effectively +colonised Kentucky to the west of her, and for a time this was treated as +within her borders. In a similar way Tennessee had been settled from +North and South Carolina and was treated as part of the former. Virginia +had also established claims by conquest north of the Ohio River in what +was called the North-West Territory, but these claims and all similar +claims of particular States in unsettled or half-settled territory were +shortly before or shortly after the adoption of the Constitution ceded to +the Union Government. But the dominions of that Government soon received +a vast accession. In 1803, by a brave exercise of the Constitutional +powers which he was otherwise disposed to restrict jealously, President +Jefferson bought from Napoleon I. the great expanse of country west of +the Mississippi called Louisiana. This region in the extreme south was +no wider than the present State of Louisiana, but further north it +widened out so as to take in the whole watershed of the Missouri and its +tributaries, including in the extreme north nearly all the present State +of Montana. In 1819 Florida was purchased from Spain, and that country +at the same time abandoned its claims to a strip of coastland which now +forms the sea-board of Alabama and Mississippi. + +Such was the extent of the United States when Lincoln began his political +life. In the movement of population by which this domain was being +settled up, different streams may be roughly distinguished. First, there +was from 1780 onwards a constant movement of the poorer class and of +younger sons of rich men from the great State of Virginia and to some +extent from the Carolinas into Kentucky and Tennessee, whence they often +shifted further north into Indiana and Illinois, or sometimes further +west into Missouri. It was mainly a movement of single families or +groups of families of adventurous pioneers, very sturdy, and very +turbulent. Then there came the expansion of the great plantation +interest in the further South, carrying with it as it spread, not +occasional slaves as in Kentucky and Tennessee, but the whole plantation +system. This movement went not only directly westward, but still more by +the Gulf of Mexico and up the Mississippi, into the State of Louisiana, +where a considerable French population had settled, the State of +Mississippi, and later into Missouri. Later still came the westward +movement from the Northern States. The energies of the people in these +States had at first been to great extent absorbed by sea-going pursuits +and the subjugation of their own rugged soil, so that they reached +western regions like Illinois rather later than did the settlers from +States further south. Ultimately, as their manufactures grew, +immigration from Europe began its steady flow to these States, and the +great westward stream, which continuing in our days has filled up the +rich lands of the far North-West, grew in volume. But want of natural +timber and other causes hindered the development of the fertile prairie +soil in the regions beyond the upper Mississippi, till the period of +railway development, which began about 1840, was far advanced. Illinois +was Far West in 1830, Iowa and Minnesota continued to be so in 1860. The +Northerners, when they began to move westward, came in comparatively +large numbers, bringing comparatively ordered habits and the full +machinery of outward civilisation with them. Thus a great social change +followed upon their arrival in the regions to which only scattered +pioneers such as the Lincolns had previously penetrated. In Illinois, +with which so much of our story is bound up, the rapidity of that change +may be estimated from the fact that the population of that State +multiplied sevenfold between the time when Lincoln settled there and the +day when he left it as President. + +The concluding stages by which the dominions of the United States came to +be as we know them were: the annexation by agreement in 1846 of the +Republic of Texas, which had separated itself from Mexico and which +claimed besides the great State of Texas a considerable territory +reaching north-west to the upper portions of the Arkansas River; the +apportionment to the Union by a delimitation treaty with Great Britain in +1846 of the Oregon Territory, including roughly the State of that name +and the rest of the basin of the Columbia River up to the present +frontier--British Columbia being at the same time apportioned to Great +Britain; the conquest from Mexico in 1848 of California and a vast +mountainous tract at the back of it; the purchase from Mexico of a small +frontier strip in 1853; and the acquisition at several later times of +various outlying dependencies which will in no way concern us. + + +3. _The Growth of the Practice and Traditions of the Union Government_. + +We must turn back to the internal growth of the new united nation. When +the Constitution had been formed and the question of its acceptance by +the States had been at last settled, and when Washington had been +inaugurated as the first President under it, a wholly new conflict arose +between two parties, led by two Ministers in the President's Cabinet, +Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. Both were potent and remarkable +men, Hamilton in all senses a great man. These two men, for all their +antagonism, did services to their country, without which the vigorous +growth of the new nation would not have been possible. + +The figure of Alexander Hamilton, then Secretary of the Treasury (ranked +by Talleyrand with Fox and Napoleon as one of the three great men he had +known), must fascinate any English student of the period. If his name is +not celebrated in the same way in the country which he so eminently +served, it is perhaps because in his ideas, as in his origin, he was not +strictly American. As a boy, half Scotch, half French Huguenot, from the +English West Indian island of Nevis, he had been at school in New York +when his speeches had some real effect in attaching that city to the +cause of Independence. He had served brilliantly in the war, on +Washington's staff and with his regiment. He had chivalrously defended, +as an advocate and in other ways, the Englishmen and loyalists against +whose cause he fought. He had induced the great central State of New +York to accept the Constitution, when the strongest local party would +have rejected it and made the Union impossible. As Washington's +Secretary of the Treasury he organised the machinery of government, +helped his chief to preserve a strong, upright and cautious foreign +policy at the critical point of the young Republic's infancy, and +performed perhaps the greatest and most difficult service of all in +setting the disordered finances of the country upon a sound footing. In +early middle age he ended a life, not flawless but admirable and lovable, +in a duel, murderously forced upon him by one Aaron Burr. This man, who +was an elegant profligate, with many graces but no public principle, was +a claimant to the Presidency in opposition to Hamilton's greatest +opponent, Jefferson; Hamilton knowingly incurred a feud which must at the +best have been dangerous to him, by unhesitatingly throwing his weight +upon the side of Jefferson, his own ungenerous rival. The details of his +policy do not concern us, but the United States could hardly have endured +for many years without the passionate sense of the need of government and +the genius for actual administration with which Hamilton set the new +nation on its way. Nevertheless--so do gifts differ--the general spirit +which has on the whole informed the American nation and held it together +was neither respected nor understood by him. His party, called the +Federalists, because they claimed to stand for a strong and an efficient +Federal Government, did not survive him long. It is of interest to us +here only because, with its early disappearance, there ceased for ever to +be in America any party whatsoever which in any sense represented +aristocratic principles or leanings. + +The fate of Jefferson's party (at first called Republican but by no means +to be confused with the Republican party which will concern us later) was +far different, for the Democratic party, represented by the President of +the United States at this moment, claims to descend from it in unbroken +apostolic succession. But we need not pause to trace the connecting +thread between them, real as it is, for parties are not to be regarded as +individuals. Indeed the personality of Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of +State in Washington's Cabinet, impressed itself, during his life and long +after, upon all America more than that of any other man. Democrats +to-day have described Lincoln, who by no means belonged to their party, +as Jefferson's spiritual heir; and Lincoln would have welcomed the +description. + +No biographer has achieved an understanding presentment of Jefferson's +curious character, which as presented by unfriendly critics is an +unpleasing combination of contrasting elements. A tall and active +fellow, a good horseman and a good shot, living through seven years of +civil war, which he had himself heralded in, without the inclination to +strike a blow; a scholar, musician, and mathematician, without delicacy, +elevation, or precision of thought or language; a man of intense +ambition, without either administrative capacity or the courage to assert +himself in counsel or in debate; a dealer in philanthropic sentiment, +privately malignant and vindictive. This is not as a whole a credible +portrait; it cannot stand for the man as his friends knew him; but there +is evidence for each feature of it, and it remains impossible for a +foreigner to think of Jefferson and not compare him to his disadvantage +with the antagonist whom he eclipsed. By pertinacious industry, however, +working chiefly through private correspondence, he constructed a great +party, dominated a nation, and dominated it mainly for good. For the +rapid and complete triumph of Jefferson's party over its opponents +signifies a very definite and lasting conversion of the main stream of +American public opinion to what may be called the sane element in the +principles of the French Revolution. At the time when he set himself to +counterwork Hamilton, American statesmanship was likely to be directed +only to making Government strong and to ensuring the stability of the +business world; for reaction against the bloody absurdities that had +happened in France was strong in America, and in English thought, which +still had influence in America, it was all-powerful. Against this he +asserted an intense belief in the value of freedom, in the equal claim of +men of all conditions to the consideration of government, and in the +supreme importance to government of the consenting mind of the governed. +And he made this sense so definitely a part of the national stock of +ideas that, while the older-established principles of strong and sound +government were not lost to sight, they were consciously rated as +subordinate to the principles of liberty. + +It must not be supposed that the ascendency thus early acquired by what +may be called liberal opinions in America was a matter merely of setting +some fine phrases in circulation, or of adopting, as was early done in +most States, a wide franchise and other external marks of democracy. We +may dwell a little longer on the unusual but curiously popular figure of +Jefferson, for it illustrates the spirit with which the commonwealth +became imbued under his leadership. He has sometimes been presented as a +man of flabby character whose historical part was that of intermediary +between impracticable French "philosophes" and the ruffians and swindlers +that Martin Chuzzlewit encountered, who were all "children of liberty," +and whose "boastful answer to the Despot and the Tyrant was that their +bright home was in the Settin' Sun." He was nothing of the kind. His +judgment was probably unsound on the questions of foreign policy on which +as Secretary of State he differed from Washington, and he leaned, no +doubt, to a jealous and too narrow insistence upon the limits set by the +Constitution to the Government's power. But he and his party were +emphatically right in the resistance which they offered to certain +needless measures of coercion. As President, though he was not a great +President, he suffered the sensible course of administration originated +by his opponent to continue undisturbed, and America owed to one bold and +far-seeing act of his the greatest of the steps by which her territory +was enlarged. It is, however, in the field of domestic policy, which +rested with the States and with which a President has often little to do, +that the results of his principles must be sought. Jefferson was a man +who had worked unwearyingly in Virginia at sound, and what we should now +call conservative, reforms, establishing religious toleration, reforming +a preposterous land law, seeking to provide education for the poor, +striving unsuccessfully for a sensible scheme of gradual emancipation of +the slaves. In like manner his disciples after him, in their several +States, devoted themselves to the kind of work in removing manifest +abuses and providing for manifest new social needs in which English +reformers like Romilly and Bentham, and the leaders of the first reformed +Parliament, were to be successful somewhat later. The Americans who so +exasperated Dickens vainly supposed themselves to be far ahead of England +in much that we now consider essential to a well-ordered nation. But +there could have been no answer to Americans of Jefferson's generation if +they had made the same claim. + +It is with this fact in mind that we should approach the famous words of +Jefferson which echoed so long with triumphant or reproachful sound in +the ears of Americans and to which long after Lincoln was to make a +memorable appeal. The propaganda which he carried on when the +Constitution had been adopted was on behalf of a principle which he had +enunciated as a younger man when he drafted the Declaration of +Independence. That document is mainly a rehearsal of the colonists' +grievances, and is as strictly lawyerlike and about as fair or unfair as +the arguments of a Parliamentarian under Charles I. But the +argumentation is prefaced with these sounding words: "We hold these +truths to be self-evident:--that all men are created equal; that they are +endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among +these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure +these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just +powers from the consent of the governed." Few propositions outside the +Bible have offered so easy a mark to the shafts of unintelligently clever +criticism. + +Jefferson, when he said that "all men are created equal," and the Tory +Dr. Johnson, when he spoke of "the natural equality of man," used a +curious eighteenth century phrase, of which a Greek scholar can see the +origin; but it did not mean anything absurd, nor, on the other hand, did +it convey a mere platitude. It should not be necessary to explain, as +Lincoln did long after, that Jefferson did not suppose all men to be of +equal height or weight or equally wise or equally good. He did, however, +contend for a principle of which one elementary application is the law +which makes murder the same crime whatever be the relative positions of +the murderer and the murdered man. Such a law was indeed firmly rooted +in England before Jefferson talked of equality, but it amazed the rest of +Europe when the House of Lords hanged a peer for the murder of his +servant. There are indefinitely many further ways in which men who are +utterly unequal had best be treated as creatures equally entitled to the +consideration of government and of their neighbours. It is safer to +carry this principle too far than not to carry it far enough. If +Jefferson had expressed this and his cognate principle of liberty with +scientific precision, or with the full personal sincerity with which a +greater man like Lincoln expressed it, he would have said little from +which any Englishman to-day would dissent. None the less he would have +enunciated a doctrine which most Governments then existing set at naught +or proscribed, and for which Hamilton and the prosperous champions of +independence who supported him had no use. + +The Declaration of Independence was not a very candid State paper, and +the popularity Jefferson afterwards created for its sentiments was not +wholly free from humbug. Many men were more ready to think themselves +the equals of Washington or Hamilton in the respects in which they were +not so, than to think a negro their own equal in the respects in which he +was. The boundless space and untrammelled conditions of the new world +made liberty and equality in some directions highly attainable ideals, so +much so that they seemed to demand little effort or discipline. The +patriotic orators under whom Lincoln sat in his youth would ascribe to +the political wisdom of their great democracy what was really the result +of geography. They would regard the extent of forest and prairie as +creditable to themselves, just as some few Englishmen have regarded our +location upon an island. + +This does not, however, do away with the value of that tradition of the +new world which in its purest and sincerest form became part and parcel +of Lincoln's mind. Jefferson was a great American patriot. In his case +insistence on the rights of the several States sprang from no +half-hearted desire for a great American nation; he regarded these +provincial organisations as machinery by which government and the people +could be brought nearer together; and he contributed that which was most +needed for the evolution of a vigorous national life. He imparted to the +very recent historical origin of his country, and his followers imparted +to its material conditions, a certain element of poetry and the felt +presence of a wholesome national ideal. The patriotism of an older +country derives its glory and its pride from influences deep rooted in +the past, creating a tradition of public and private action which needs +no definite formula. The man who did more than any other to supply this +lack in a new country, by imbuing its national consciousness--even its +national cant--with high aspiration, did--it may well be--more than any +strong administrator or constructive statesman to create a Union which +should thereafter seem worth preserving. + + +4. _The Missouri Compromise_. + +No sober critic, applying to the American statesmen of the first +generation the standards which he would apply to their English +contemporaries, can blame them in the least because they framed their +Constitution as best they could and were not deterred by the scruples +which they felt about slavery from effecting a Union between States +which, on all other grounds except their latent difference upon slavery, +seemed meant to be one. But many of these men had set their hands in the +Declaration of Independence to the most unqualified claim of liberty and +equality for all men and proceeded, in the Constitution, to give nineteen +years' grace to "that most detestable sum of all villainies," as Wesley +called it, the African slave trade, and to impose on the States which +thought slavery wrong the dirty work of restoring escaped slaves to +captivity. "Why," Dr. Johnson had asked, "do the loudest yelps for +liberty come from the drivers of slaves?" We are forced to recognise, +upon any study of the facts, that they could not really have made the +Union otherwise than as they did; yet a doubt presents itself as to the +general soundness and sincerity of their boasted notions of liberty. +Now, later on we shall have to understand the policy as to slavery on +behalf of which Lincoln stepped forward as a leader. In his own +constantly reiterated words it was a return to the position of "the +fathers," and, though he was not a professional historian, it concerns us +to know that there was sincerity at least in his intensely historical +view of politics. We have, then, to see first how "the fathers"--that +is, the most considerable men among those who won Independence and made +the Constitution--set out with a very honest view on the subject of +slavery, but with a too comfortable hope of its approaching end, which +one or two lived to see frustrated; secondly, how the men who succeeded +them were led to abandon such hopes and content themselves with a +compromise as to slavery which they trusted would at least keep the +American nation in being. + +Among those who signed the Declaration of Independence there were +presumably some of Dr. Johnson's "yelpers." It mattered more that there +were sturdy people who had no idea of giving up slavery and probably did +not relish having to join in protestations about equality. Men like +Jefferson ought to have known well that their associates in South +Carolina and Georgia in particular did not share their aspirations--the +people of Georgia indeed were recent and ardent converts to the slave +system. But these sincere and insincere believers in slavery were the +exceptions; their views did not then seem to prevail even in the greatest +of the slave States, Virginia. Broadly speaking, the American opinion on +this matter in 1775 or in 1789 had gone as far ahead of English opinion, +as English opinion had in turn gone ahead of American, when, in 1833, the +year after the first Reform Bill, the English people put its hand into +its pocket and bought out its own slave owners in the West Indies. The +British Government had forced several of the American Colonies to permit +slavery against their will, and only in 1769 it had vetoed, in the +interest of British trade, a Colonial enactment for suppressing the slave +trade. This was sincerely felt as a part, though a minor part, of the +grievance against the mother country. So far did such views prevail on +the surface that a Convention of all the Colonies in 1774 unanimously +voted that "the abolition of domestic slavery is the greatest object of +desire in those Colonies where it was unhappily introduced in their +infant state. But previous to the enfranchisement of the slaves in law, +it is necessary to exclude all further importation from Africa." It was +therefore very commonly assumed when, after an interval of war which +suspended such reforms, Independence was achieved, that slavery was a +doomed institution. + +Those among the "fathers" whose names are best known in England, +Washington, John Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, and Hamilton, were +all opponents of slavery. These include the first four Presidents, and +the leaders of very different schools of thought. Some of them, +Washington and Jefferson at least, had a few slaves of their own. +Washington's attitude to his slaves is illustrated by a letter which he +wrote to secure the return of a black attendant of Mrs. Washington's who +had run away (a thing which he had boasted could never occur in his +household); the runaway was to be brought back if she could be persuaded +to return; her master's legal power to compel her was not to be used. +She was in fact free, but had foolishly left a good place; and there is +no reason to suppose that it was otherwise with Jefferson's slaves. +Jefferson's theory was vehemently against slavery. In old age he gave up +hope in the matter and was more solicitous for union than for liberty, +but this was after the disappointment of many efforts. In these efforts +he had no illusory notion of equality; he wrote in 1791, when he had been +defeated in the attempt to carry a measure of gradual emancipation in +Virginia: "Nobody wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you +exhibit, that Nature has given to our black brothers talents equal to +those of the other colours of men, and that the appearance of a want of +them is owing mainly to the degraded condition of their existence, both +in Africa and America. I can add with truth, that nobody wishes more +ardently to see a good system commenced for raising the condition both of +their body and mind to what it ought to be, as fast as the imbecility of +their present existence and other circumstances, which cannot be +neglected, will permit." + +When he felt at last that freedom was not making way, his letters, by +which his influence was chiefly exercised, abounded in passionate +regrets. "I tremble for my country," he wrote, "when I think of the +negro and remember that God is just." But if he is judged not by his +sentiments, or even by his efforts, but by what he accomplished, this +rhetorical champion of freedom did accomplish one great act, the first +link as it proved in the chain of events by which slavery was ultimately +abolished. In 1784 the North-West Territory, as it was called, was ceded +by Virginia to the old Congress of the days before the Union. Jefferson +then endeavoured to pass an Ordinance by which slavery should be excluded +from all territory that might ever belong to Congress. In this indeed he +failed, for in part of the territory likely to be acquired slavery was +already established, but the result was a famous Ordinance of 1787, by +which slavery was for ever excluded from the soil of the North-West +Territory itself, and thus, when they came into being, the States of +Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin found themselves +congenitally incapable of becoming slave States. + +The further achievements of that generation in this matter were +considerable. It must of course be understood that the holding of slaves +and the slave trade from Africa were regarded as two distinct questions. +The new Congress abolished the slave trade on the first day on which the +Constitution allowed it to do so, that is, on January 1, 1808. The +mother country abolished it just about the same time. But already all +but three of the States had for themselves abolished the slave trade in +their own borders. As to slavery itself, seven of the original thirteen +States and Vermont, the first of the added States, had abolished that +before 1805. These indeed were Northern States, where slavery was not of +importance, but in Virginia there was, or had been till lately, a growing +opinion that slavery was not economical, and, with the ignorance common +in one part of a country of the true conditions in another part, it was +natural to look upon emancipation as a policy which would spread of +itself. At any rate it is certain fact that the chief among the men who +had made the Constitution had at that time so regarded it, and continued +to do so. Under this belief and in the presence of many pressing +subjects of interest the early movement for emancipation in America died +down with its work half finished. + +But before this happy belief expired an economic event had happened which +riveted slavery upon the South. In 1793 Eli Whitney, a Yale student upon +a holiday in the South, invented the first machine for cleaning cotton of +its seeds. The export of cotton jumped from 192,000 lbs. in 1791 to +6,000,000 lbs. in 1795. Slave labour had been found, or was believed, to +be especially economical in cotton growing. Slavery therefore rapidly +became the mainstay of wealth and of the social system in South Carolina +and throughout the far South; and in a little while the baser sort of +planters in Virginia discovered that breeding slaves to sell down South +was a very profitable form of stock-raising. + +We may pass to the year 1820, when an enactment was passed by Congress +which for thirty-four years thereafter might be regarded as hardly less +fundamental than the Constitution itself. Up till then nine new States +had been added to the original thirteen. It was repugnant to principles +still strong in the North that these States should be admitted to the +Union with State Constitutions which permitted slavery. On the other +hand, it was for two reasons important to the chief slave States, that +they should be. They would otherwise be closed to Southern planters who +wished to migrate to unexhausted soil carrying with them the methods of +industry and the ways of life which they understood. Furthermore, the +North was bound to have before long a great preponderance of population, +and if this were not neutralised by keeping the number of States on one +side and the other equal there would be a future political danger to +slavery. Up to a certain point the North could with good conscience +yield to the South in this matter, for the soil of four of the new slave +States had been ceded to the Union by old slave States and slave-holders +had settled freely upon it; and in a fifth, Louisiana, slavery had been +safeguarded by the express stipulations of the treaty with France, which +applied to that portion, though no other, of the territory then ceded. +Naturally, then, it had happened, though without any definite agreement, +that for years past slave States and free States had been admitted to the +Union in pairs. Now arose the question of a further portion of the old +French territory, the present State of Missouri. A few slave-holders +with their slaves had in fact settled there, but no distinct claims on +behalf of slavery could be alleged. The Northern Senators and members of +Congress demanded therefore that the Constitution of Missouri should +provide for the gradual extinction of slavery there. Naturally there +arose a controversy which sounded to the aged Jefferson like "a fire-bell +in the night" and revealed for the first time to all America a deep rift +in the Union. The Representatives of the South eventually carried their +main point with the votes of several Northern men, known to history as +the "Dough-faces," who all lost their seats at the next election. +Missouri was admitted as a slave State, Maine about the same time as a +free State; and it was enacted that thereafter in the remainder of the +territory that had been bought from France slavery should be unlawful +north of latitude 36 degrees 30 minutes, while by tacit agreement +permitted south of it. + +This was the Missouri Compromise. The North regarded it at first as a +humiliation, but learnt to point to it later as a sort of Magna Carta for +the Northern territories. The adoption of it marks a point from which it +became for thirty-four years the express ambition of the principal +American statesmen and the tacit object, of every party manager to keep +the slavery question from ever becoming again a burning issue in +politics. The collapse of it in 1854 was to prove the decisive event in +the career of Abraham Lincoln, aged 11 when it was passed. + + +5. _Leaders, Parties, and Tendencies in Lincoln's Youth_. + +Just about the year 1830, when Lincoln started life in Illinois, several +distinct movements in national life began or culminated. They link +themselves with several famous names. + +The two leaders to whom, as a young politician, Lincoln owed some sort of +allegiance were Webster and Clay, and they continued throughout his long +political apprenticeship to be recognised in most of America as the great +men of their time. Daniel Webster must have been nearly a great man. He +was always passed over for the Presidency. That was not so much because +of the private failings which marked his robust and generous character, +as because in days of artificial party issues, when vital questions are +dealt with by mere compromise, high office seems to belong of right to +men of less originality. If he was never quite so great as all America +took him to be, it was not for want of brains or of honesty, but because +his consuming passion for the Union at all costs led him into the path of +least apparent risk to it. Twice as Secretary of State (that is, +chiefly, Foreign Minister) he showed himself a statesman, but above all +he was an orator and one of those rare orators who accomplish a definite +task by their oratory. In his style he carried on the tradition of +English Parliamentary speaking, and developed its vices yet further; but +the massive force of argument behind gave him his real power. That power +he devoted to the education of the people in a feeling for the nation and +for its greatness. As an advocate he had appeared in great cases in the +Supreme Court. John Marshall, the Chief Justice from 1801 to 1835, +brought a great legal mind of the higher type to the settlement of +doubtful points in the Constitution, and his statesmanlike judgments did +much both to strengthen the United States Government and to gain public +confidence for it. It was a memorable work, for the power of the Union +Government, under its new Constitution, lay in the grip of the Courts. +The pleading of the young Webster contributed much to this. Later on +Webster, and a school of followers, of whom perhaps we may take "our +Elijah Pogram" to have been one, used ceremonial occasions, on which +Englishmen only suffer the speakers, for the purpose of inculcating their +patriotic doctrine, and Webster at least was doing good. His greatest +speech, upon an occasion to which we shall shortly come, was itself an +event. Lincoln found in it as inspiring a political treatise as many +Englishmen have discovered in the speeches and writings of Burke. + +Henry Clay was a slighter but more attractive person. He was apparently +the first American public man whom his countrymen styled "magnetic," but +a sort of scheming instability caused him after one or two trials to be +set down as an "impossible" candidate for the Presidency. As a dashing +young man from the West he had the chief hand in forcing on the second +war with Great Britain, from 1812 to 1814, which arose out of perhaps +insufficient causes and ended in no clear result, but which, it is +probable, marked a stage in the growth of loyalty to America. As an +older man he was famed as an "architect of compromises," for though he +strove for emancipation in his own State, Kentucky, and dreamed of a +great scheme for colonising the slaves in Africa, he was supremely +anxious to avert collision between North and South, and in this respect +was typical of his generation. But about 1830 he was chiefly known as +the apostle of what was called the "American policy." This was a policy +which aimed at using the powers of the national Government for the +development of the boundless resources of the country. Its methods +comprised a national banking system, the use of the money of the Union on +great public works, and a protective tariff, which it was hoped might +chiefly operate to encourage promising but "infant" industries and to tax +the luxuries of the rich. Whatever may have been the merits of this +policy, which made some commotion for a few years, we can easily +understand that it appealed to the imagination of young Lincoln at a time +of keen political energy on his part of which we have but meagre details. + +A third celebrity of this period, in his own locality a still more +powerful man, was John Caldwell Calhoun, of South Carolina. He enjoyed +beyond all his contemporaries the fame of an intellectual person. +Lincoln conceded high admiration to his concise and penetrating phrases. +An Englishwoman, Harriet Martineau, who knew him, has described him as +"embodied intellect." He had undoubtedly in full measure those negative +tides to respect which have gone far in America to ensure praise from the +public and the historians; for he was correct and austere, and, which is +more, kindly among his family and his slaves. He is credited, too, with +an observance of high principle in public life, which it might be +difficult to illustrate from his recorded actions. But the +warmer-blooded Andrew Jackson set him down as "heartless, selfish, and a +physical coward," and Jackson could speak generously of an opponent whom +he really knew. His intellect must have been powerful enough, but it was +that of a man who delights in arguing, and delights in elaborate +deductions from principles which he is too proud to revise; a man, too, +who is fearless in accepting conclusions which startle or repel the +vulgar mind; who is undisturbed in his logical processes by good sense, +healthy sentiment, or any vigorous appetite for truth. Such men have +disciples who reap the disgrace which their masters are apt somehow to +avoid; they give the prestige of wisdom and high thought to causes which +could not otherwise earn them. A Northern soldier came back wounded in +1865 and described to the next soldier in the hospital Calhoun's monument +at Charleston. The other said: "What you saw is not the real monument, +but I have seen it. It is the desolated, ruined South. . . . That is +Calhoun's real monument." + +This man was a Radical, and known as the successor of Jefferson, but his +Radicalism showed itself in drawing inspiration solely from the popular +catchwords of his own locality. He adored the Union, but it was to be a +Union directed by distinguished politicians from the South in a sectional +Southern interest. He did not originate, but he secured the strength of +orthodoxy and fashion to a tone of sentiment and opinion which for a +generation held undisputed supremacy in the heart of the South. +Americans might have seemed at this time to be united in a curiously +exultant national self-consciousness, but though there was no sharp +division of sections, the boasted glory of the one America meant to many +planters in the South the glory of their own settled and free life with +their dignified equals round them and their often contented dependents +under them. Plain men among them doubtless took things as they were, +and, without any particular wish to change them, did not pretend they +were perfect. But it is evident that in a widening circle of clever +young men in the South the claim of some peculiar virtue for Southern +institutions became habitual in the first half of the nineteenth century. +Their way of life was beautiful in their eyes. It rested upon slavery. +Therefore slavery was a good thing. It was wicked even to criticise it, +and it was weak to apologise for it or to pretend that it needed +reformation. It was easy and it became apparently universal for the +different Churches of the South to prostitute the Word of God in this +cause. Later on crude notions of evolution began to get about in a few +circles of advanced thought, and these lent themselves as easily to the +same purpose. Loose, floating thoughts of this kind might have mattered +little. Calhoun, as the recognised wise man of the old South, +concentrated them and fastened them upon its people as a creed. +Glorification of "our institution at the South" became the main principle +of Southern politicians, and any conception that there may ever have been +of a task for constructive statesmanship, in solving the negro problem, +passed into oblivion under the influence of his revered reasoning faculty. + +But, of his dark and dangerous sort, Calhoun was an able man. He foresaw +early that the best weapon of the common interest of the slave States lay +in the rights which might be claimed for each individual State against +the Union. The idea that a discontented State might secede from the +Union was not novel--it had been mooted in New England, during the last +war against Great Britain, and, curiously enough, among the rump of the +old Federalist party, but it was generally discounted. Calhoun first +brought it into prominence, veiled in an elaborate form which some +previous South Carolinian had devised. The occasion had nothing to do +with slavery. It concerned Free Trade, a very respectable issue, but so +clearly a minor issue that to break up a great country upon it would have +gone beyond the limit of solemn frivolity, and Calhoun must be taken to +have been forging an implement with which his own section of the States +could claim and extort concessions from the Union. A protective tariff +had been passed in 1828. The Southern States, which would have to pay +the protective duties but did not profit by them, disliked it. Calhoun +and others took the intelligible but too refined point, that the powers +of Congress under the Constitution authorised a tariff for revenue but +not a tariff for a protective purpose. Every State, Calhoun declared, +must have the Constitutional right to protect itself against an Act of +Congress which it deemed unconstitutional. Let such a State, in special +Convention, "nullify" the Act of Congress. Let Congress then, unless it +compromised the matter, submit its Act to the people in the form of an +Amendment to the Constitution. It would then require a three-fourths +majority of all the States to pass the obnoxious Act. Last but not +least, if the Act was passed, the protesting State had, Calhoun claimed, +the right to secede from the Union. + +Controversy over this tariff raged for fully four years, and had a +memorable issue. In the course of 1830 the doctrine of "nullification" +and "secession" was discussed in the Senate, and the view of Calhoun was +expounded by one Senator Hayne. Webster answered him in a speech which +he meant should become a popular classic, and which did become so. He +set forth his own doctrine of the Union and appealed to national against +State loyalty in the most influential oration that was perhaps ever made. +"His utterance," writes President Wilson, "sent a thrill through all the +East and North which was unmistakably a thrill of triumph. Men were glad +because of what he had said. He had touched the national +self-consciousness, awakened it, and pleased it with a morning vision of +its great tasks and certain destiny." Later there came in the President, +the redoubtable Andrew Jackson, the most memorable President between +Jefferson and Lincoln. He said very little--only, on Jefferson's +birthday he gave the toast, "Our Federal Union; it must be preserved." +But when in 1832, in spite of concessions by Congress, a Convention was +summoned in South Carolina to "nullify" the tariff, he issued the +appropriate orders to the United States Army, in case such action was +carried out, and it is understood that he sent Calhoun private word that +he would be the first man to be hanged for treason. Nullification +quietly collapsed. The North was thrilled still more than by Webster's +oratory, and as not a single other State showed signs of backing South +Carolina, it became thenceforth the fixed belief of the North that the +Union was recognised as in law indissoluble, as Webster contended it was. +None the less the idea of secession had been planted, and planted in a +fertile soil. + +General Andrew Jackson, whose other great achievements must now be told, +was not an intellectual person, but his ferocious and, in the literal +sense, shocking character is refreshing to the student of this period. +He had been in his day the typical product of the West--a far wilder West +than that from which Lincoln later came. Originally a lawyer, he had won +martial fame in fights with Indians and in the celebrated victory over +the British forces at New Orleans. He was a sincere Puritan; and he had +a courtly dignity of manner; but he was of arbitrary and passionate +temper, and he was a sanguinary duellist. His most savage duels, it +should be added, concerned the honour of a lady whom he married +chivalrously, and loved devotedly to the end. The case that can be made +for his many arbitrary acts shows them in some instances to have been +justifiable, and shows him in general to have been honest. + +When in 1824 Jackson had expected to become President, and, owing to +proceedings which do not now matter, John Quincy Adams, son of a former +President, and himself a remarkable man, was made President instead of +him, Jackson resolved to overthrow the ruling class of Virginian country +gentlemen and Boston city magnates which seemed to him to control +Government, and to call into life a real democracy. To this end he +created a new party, against which of course an opposition party arose. + +Neither of the new parties was in any sense either aristocratic or +democratic. "The Democracy," or Democratic party, has continued in +existence ever since, and through most of Lincoln's life ruled America. +In trying to fix the character of a party in a foreign country we cannot +hope to be exact in our portraiture. At the first start, however, this +party was engaged in combating certain tendencies to Government +interference in business. It was more especially hostile to a National +Bank, which Jackson himself regarded as a most dangerous form of alliance +between the administration and the richest class. Of the growth of what +may be called the money power in American politics he had an intense, +indeed prophetic, dread. Martin Van Buren, his friend and successor, +whatever else he may have been, was a sound economist of what is now +called the old school, and on a financial issue he did what few men in +his office have done, he deliberately sacrificed his popularity to his +principles. Beyond this the party was and has continued prone, in a +manner which we had better not too clearly define, to insist upon the +restrictions of the Constitution, whether in the interest of individual +liberty or of State rights. This tendency was disguised at the first by +the arbitrary action of Jackson's own proceedings, for Jackson alone +among Presidents displayed the sentiments of what may be called a popular +despot. Its insistence upon State rights, aided perhaps by its dislike +of Protection, attracted to it the leading politicians of the South, who +in the main dominated its counsels, though later on they liked to do it +through Northern instruments. But it must not in the least be imagined +that either party was Northern or Southern; for there were many Whigs in +the South, and very many Democrats in the North. Moreover, it should be +clearly grasped, though it is hard, that among Northern Democrats +insistence on State rights did not involve the faintest leaning towards +the doctrine of secession; on the contrary a typical Democrat would +believe that these limitations to the power of the Union were the very +things that gave it endurance and strength. Slavery, moreover, had +friends and foes in both parties. If we boldly attempted to define the +prevailing tone of the Democrats we might say that, while they and their +opponents expressed loyalty to the Union and the Constitution, the +Democrats would be prone to lay the emphasis upon the Constitution. +Whatever might be the case with an average Whig, a man like Lincoln would +be stirred in his heart by the general spirit of the country's +institutions, while the typical Democrat of that time would dwell +affectionately on the legal instruments and formal maxims in which that +spirit was embodied. + +Of the Whigs it is a little harder to speak definitely, nor is it very +necessary, for in two only out of seven Presidential elections did they +elect their candidate, and in each case that candidate then died, and in +1854 they perished as a party utterly and for ever. Just for a time they +were identified with the "American policy" of Clay. When that passed out +of favour they never really attempted to formulate any platform, or to +take permanently any very definite stand. They nevertheless had the +adherence of the ablest men of the country, and, as an opposition party +to a party in power which furnished much ground for criticism, they +possessed an attraction for generous youth. + +The Democrats at once, and the Whigs not long after them, created +elaborate party machines, on the need of which Jackson insisted as the +only means of really giving influence to the common people. The +prevailing system and habit of local self-government made such +organisation easy. Men of one party in a township or in a county +assembled, formulated their opinions, and sent delegates with +instructions, more or less precise, to party conventions for larger +areas, these would send delegates to the State Convention and these in +turn to the National Convention of the Party. The party candidates for +the Presidency, as well as for all other elective positions, were and are +thus chosen, and the party "platform" or declaration of policy was and is +thus formulated. Such machinery, which in England is likely always to +play a less important part, has acquired an evil name. At the best there +has always been a risk that a "platform" designed to detach voters from +the opposite party will be an insincere and eviscerated document, by +which active public opinion is rather muzzled than expressed. There has +been a risk too that the "available" candidate should be some blameless +nonentity, to whom no one objects, and whom therefore no one really +wants. But it must be observed that the rapidity with which such +organisation was taken up betokened the prevalence of a widespread and +keen interest in political affairs. + +The days of really great moneyed interests and of corruption of the +gravest sort were as yet far distant, but one demoralising influence was +imposed upon the new party system by its author at its birth. Jackson, +in his perpetual fury, believed that office holders under the more or +less imaginary ruling clique that had held sway were a corrupt gang, and +he began to turn them out. He was encouraged to extend to the whole +country a system which had prevailed in New York and with which Van Buren +was too familiar. "To the victors belong the spoils," exclaimed a +certain respectable Mr. Marcy. A wholesale dismissal of office holders +large and small, and replacement of them by sound Democrats, soon took +place. Once started, the "spoils system" could hardly be stopped. +Thenceforward there was a standing danger that the party machine would be +in the hands of a crew of jobbers and dingy hunters after petty offices. +England, of course, has had and now has practices theoretically as +indefensible, but none possessing any such sinister importance. It is +hard, therefore, for us to conceive how little of really vicious intent +was necessary to set this disastrous influence going. There was no +trained Civil Service with its unpartisan traditions. In the case of +offices corresponding to those of our permanent heads of departments it +seemed reasonable that the official should, like his chief the Minister +concerned, be a person in harmony with the President. As to the smaller +offices--the thousands of village postmasterships and so forth--one man +was likely to do the work as well as another; the dispossessed official +could, in the then condition of the country, easily find another equally +lucrative employment; "turn and turn about" seemed to be the rule of fair +play. + +There were now few genuine issues in politics. Compromise on vital +questions was understood to be the highest statesmanship. The +Constitution itself, with its curious system of checks and balances, +rendered it difficult to bring anything to pass. Added to this was a +party system with obvious natural weaknesses, infected from the first +with a dangerous malady. The political life, which lay on the surface of +the national life of America, thus began to assume an air of futility, +and, it must be added, of squalor. Only, Englishmen, recollecting the +feebleness and corruption which marked their aristocratic government +through a great part of the eighteenth century, must not enlarge their +phylacteries at the expense of American democracy. And it is yet more +important to remember that the fittest machinery for popular government, +the machinery through which the real judgment of the people will prevail, +can only by degrees and after many failures be devised. Popular +government was then young, and it is young still. + +So much for the great world of politics in those days. But in or about +1830 a Quaker named Lundy had, as Quakers used to say, "a concern" to +walk 125 miles through the snow of a New England winter and speak his +mind to William Lloyd Garrison. Garrison was a poor man who, like +Franklin, had raised himself as a working printer, and was now occupied +in philanthropy. Stirred up by Lundy, he succeeded after many painful +experiences, in gaol and among mobs, in publishing in Boston on January +1, 1831, the first number of the Liberator. In it he said: "I shall +strenuously contend for the immediate enfranchisement of our slave +population. I will be as hard as truth and as uncompromising as justice. +I will not equivocate; I will not excuse; I will not retreat a single +inch; and I will be heard." This was the beginning of the new +Abolitionist movement. The Abolitionists, in the main, were +impracticable people; Garrison in the end proved otherwise. Under the +existing Constitution, they had nothing to propose but that the free +States should withdraw from "their covenant with death and agreement with +hell"--in other words, from the Union,--whereby they would not have +liberated one slave. They included possibly too many of that sort who +would seek salvation by repenting of other men's sins. But even these +did not indulge this propensity at their ease, for by this time the +politicians, the polite world, the mass of the people, the churches (even +in Boston), not merely avoided the dangerous topic; they angrily +proscribed it. The Abolitionists took their lives in their hands, and +sometimes lost them. Only two men of standing helped them: Channing, the +great preacher, who sacrificed thereby a fashionable congregation; and +Adams, the sour, upright, able ex-President, the only ex-President who +ever made for himself an after-career in Congress. In 1852 a still more +potent ally came to their help, a poor lady, Mrs. Beecher Stowe, who in +that year published "Uncle Tom's Cabin," often said to have influenced +opinion more than any other book of modern times. Broadly speaking, they +accomplished two things. If they did not gain love in quarters where +they might have looked for it, they gained the very valuable hatred of +their enemies; for they goaded Southern politicians to fury and madness, +of which the first symptom was their effort to suppress Abolitionist +petitions to Congress. But above all they educated in their labour of +thirty years a school of opinion, not entirely in agreement with them but +ready one day to revolt with decision from continued complicity in wrong. + + +6. _Slavery and Southern Society_. + +In the midst of this growing America, a portion, by no means sharply +marked off, and accustomed to the end to think itself intensely American, +was distinguished by a peculiar institution. What was the character of +that institution as it presented itself in 1830 and onwards? + +Granting, as many slave holders did, though their leaders always denied +it, that slavery originated in foul wrongs and rested legally upon a vile +principle, what did it look like in its practical working? Most of us +have received from two different sources two broad but vivid general +impressions on this subject, which seem hard to reconcile but which are +both in the main true. On the one hand, a visitor from England or the +North, coming on a visit to the South, or in earlier days to the British +West Indies, expecting perhaps to see all the horror of slavery at a +glance, would be, as a young British officer once wrote home, "most +agreeably undeceived as to the situation of these poor people." He would +discern at once that a Southern gentleman had no more notion of using his +legal privilege to be cruel to his slave than he himself had of +overdriving his old horse. He might easily on the contrary find quite +ordinary slave owners who had a very decided sense of responsibility in +regard to their human chattels. Around his host's house, where the +owner's children, petted by a black nurse, played with the little black +children or with some beloved old negro, he might see that pretty aspect +of "our institution at the South," which undoubtedly created in many +young Southerners as they grew up a certain amount of genuine sentiment +in favour of slavery. Riding wider afield he might be struck, as General +Sherman was, with the contentment of the negroes whom he met on the +plantations. On enquiry he would learn that the slave in old age was +sure of food and shelter and free from work, and that as he approached +old age his task was systematically diminished. As to excessive toil at +any time of life, he would perhaps conclude that it was no easy thing to +drive a gang of Africans really hard. He would be assured, quite +incorrectly, that the slave's food and comfort generally were greater +than those of factory workers in the North, and, perhaps only too truly, +that his privations were less than those of the English agricultural +labourer at that time. A wide and careful survey of the subject was made +by Frederick Law Olmsted, a New York farmer, who wrote what but for their +gloomy subject would be among the best books of travel. He presents to +us the picture of a prevailingly sullen, sapless, brutish life, but +certainly not of acute misery or habitual oppression. A Southerner old +enough to remember slavery would probably not question the accuracy of +his details, but would insist, very likely with truth, that there was +more human happiness there than an investigator on such a quest would +readily discover. Even on large plantations in the extreme South, where +the owner only lived part of the year, and most things had to be left to +an almost always unsatisfactory overseer, the verdict of the observer was +apt to be "not so bad as I expected." + +On the other hand, many of us know Longfellow's grim poem of the Hunted +Negro. It is a true picture of the life led in the Dismal Swamps of +Virginia by numbers of skulking fugitives, till the industry of +negro-hunting, conducted with hounds of considerable value, ultimately +made their lairs untenable. The scenes in the auction room where, +perhaps on the death or failure of their owner, husbands and wives, +parents and children, were constantly being severed, and negresses were +habitually puffed as brood mares; the gentleman who had lately sold his +half-brother, to be sent far south, because he was impudent; the devilish +cruelty with which almost the only recorded slave insurrection was +stamped out; the chase and capture and return in fetters of slaves who +had escaped north, or, it might be, of free negroes in their place; the +advertisements for such runaways, which Dickens collected, and which +described each by his scars or mutilations; the systematic slave +breeding, for the supply of the cotton States, which had become a staple +industry of the once glorious Virginia; the demand arising for the +restoration of the African slave trade--all these were realities. The +Southern people, in the phrase of President Wilson, "knew that their +lives were honourable, their relations with their slaves humane, their +responsibility for the existence of slavery amongst them remote"; they +burned with indignation when the whole South was held responsible for the +occasional abuses of slavery. But the harsh philanthropist, who +denounced them indiscriminately, merely dwelt on those aspects of slavery +which came to his knowledge or which he actually saw on the border line. +And the occasional abuses, however occasional, were made by the +deliberate choice of Southern statesmanship an essential part of the +institution. Honourable and humane men in the South scorned exceedingly +the slave hunter and the slave dealer. A candid slave owner, discussing +"Uncle Tom's Cabin," found one detail flagrantly unfair; the ruined +master would have had to sell his slaves to the brute, Legree, but for +the world he would not have shaken hands with him. "Your children," +exclaimed Lincoln, "may play with the little black children, but they +must not play with his"--the slave dealer's, or the slave driver's, or +the slave hunter's. By that fact alone, as he bitingly but unanswerably +insisted, the whole decent society of the South condemned the foundation +on which it rested. + +It is needless to discuss just how dark or how fair American slavery in +its working should be painted. The moderate conclusions which are quite +sufficient for our purpose are uncontested. First, this much must +certainly be conceded to those who would defend the slave system, that in +the case of the average slave it was very doubtful whether his happiness +(apart from that of future generations) could be increased by suddenly +turning him into a free man working for a wage; justice would certainly +have demanded that the change should be accompanied by other provisions +for his benefit. But, secondly, on the refractory negro, more vicious, +or sometimes, one may suspect, more manly than his fellows, the system +was likely to act barbarously. Thirdly, every slave family was exposed +to the risk, on such occasions as the death or great impoverishment of +its owner, of being ruthlessly torn asunder, and the fact that negroes +often rebounded or seemed to rebound from sorrows of this sort with +surprising levity does not much lessen the horror of it. Fourthly, it is +inherent in slavery that its burden should be most felt precisely by the +best minds and strongest characters among the slaves. And, though the +capacity of the negroes for advancement could not then and cannot yet be +truly measured, yet it existed, and the policy of the South shut the door +upon it. Lastly, the system abounded in brutalising influences upon a +large number of white people who were accessory to it, and notoriously it +degraded the poor or "mean whites," for whom it left no industrial +opening, and among whom it caused work to be despised. + +There is thus no escape from Lincoln's judgment: "If slavery is not +wrong, nothing is wrong." It does not follow that the way to right the +wrong was simple, or that instant and unmitigated emancipation was the +best way. But it does follow that, failing this, it was for the +statesmen of the South to devise a policy by which the most flagrant +evils should be stopped, and, however cautiously and experimentally, the +raising of the status of the slave should be proceeded with. It does not +follow that the people who, on one pretext or another, shut their eyes to +the evil of the system, while they tried to keep their personal dealing +humane, can be sweepingly condemned by any man. But it does follow that +a deliberate and sustained policy which, neglecting all reform, strove at +all costs to perpetuate the system and extend it to wider regions, was as +criminal a policy as ever lay at the door of any statesmen. And this, in +fact, became the policy of the South. + +"The South" meant, for political purposes, the owners of land and slaves +in the greater part of the States in which slavery was lawful. The poor +whites never acquired the political importance of the working classes in +the North, and count for little in the story. Some of the more northerly +slave States partook in a greater degree of the conditions and ideas of +the North and were doubtfully to be reckoned with the South. Moreover, +there is a tract of mountainous country, lying between the Atlantic +sea-board and the basin of the Mississippi and extending southwards to +the borders of Georgia and Alabama, of which the very vigorous and +independent inhabitants were and are in many ways a people apart, often +cherishing to this day family feuds which are prosecuted in the true +spirit of the Icelandic Sagas. + +The South, excluding these districts, was predominantly Democratic in +politics, and its leaders owed some allegiance to the tradition of +Radicals like Jefferson. But it was none the less proud of its +aristocracy and of the permeating influence of aristocratic manners and +traditions. A very large number of Southerners felt themselves to be +ladies and gentlemen, and felt further that there were few or none like +them among the "Yankee" traders of the North. A claim of that sort is +likely to be aggressively made by those who have least title to make it, +and, as strife between North and South grew hotter, the gentility of the +latter infected with additional vulgarity the political controversy of +private life and even of Congress. But, as observant Northerners were +quite aware, these pretensions had a foundation of fact. An Englishman, +then or now, in chance meetings with Americans of either section, would +at once be aware of something indefinable in their bearing to which he +was a stranger; but in the case of the Southerner the strangeness would +often have a positive charm, such as may be found also among people of +the Old World under southern latitudes and relatively primitive +conditions. Newly-gotten and ill-carried wealth was in those days (Mr. +Olmsted, of New York State, assures us) as offensive in the more recently +developed and more prosperous parts of the South as in New York City +itself; and throughout the South sound instruction and intellectual +activity were markedly lacking--indeed, there is no serious Southern +literature by which we can check these impressions of his. Comparing the +masses of moderately well-to-do and educated people with whom he +associated in the North and in the South, he finds them both free from +the peculiar vulgarity which, we may be pained to know, he had discovered +among us in England; he finds honesty and dishonesty in serious matters +of conduct as prevalent in one section as in the other; he finds the +Northerner better taught and more alert in mind; but he ascribes to him +an objectionable quality of "smartness," a determination to show you that +he is a stirring and pushing fellow, from which the Southerner is wholly +free; and he finds that the Southerner has derived from home influences +and from boarding schools in which the influence of many similar homes is +concentrated, not indeed any great refinement, but a manner which is +"more true, more quiet, more modestly self-assured, more dignified." This +advantage, we are to understand, is diffused over a comparatively larger +class than in England. Beyond this he discerns in a few parts of the +South and notably in South Carolina a somewhat inaccessible, select +society, of which the nucleus is formed by a few (incredibly few) old +Colonial families which have not gone under, and which altogether is so +small that some old gentlewomen can enumerate all the members of it. Few +as they are, these form "unquestionably a wealthy and remarkably +generous, refined, and accomplished first class, clinging with some +pertinacity, although with too evident an effort, to the traditional +manners and customs of an established gentry." + +No doubt the sense of high breeding, which was common in the South, went +beyond mere manners; it played its part in making the struggle of the +Southern population, including the "mean whites," in the Civil War one of +the most heroic, if one of the most mistaken, in which a whole population +has ever been engaged; it went along with integrity and a high average of +governing capacity among public men; and it fitted the gentry of the +South to contribute, when they should choose, an element of great value +to the common life of America. As it was, the South suffered to the full +the political degeneration which threatens every powerful class which, +with a distinct class interest of its own, is secluded from real contact +with competing classes with other interests and other ideas. It is not +to be assumed that all individual Southerners liked the policy which they +learnt to support in docile masses. But their very qualities of loyalty +made them the more ready, under accepted and respected leaders, to adopt +political aims and methods which no man now recalls without regret. + +The connection between slavery and politics was this; as population +slowly grew in the South, and as the land in the older States became to +some extent exhausted, the desire for fresh territory in which +cultivation by slaves could flourish became stronger and stronger. This +was the reason for which the South became increasingly aware of a +sectional interest in politics. In all other respects the community of +public interests, of business dealings, and of general intercourse was as +great between North and South as between East and West. It is certain +that throughout the South, with the doubtful exception of South Carolina, +political instinct and patriotic pride would have made the idea of +separation intolerable upon any ground except that of slavery. In regard +to this matter of dispute a peculiar phenomenon is to be observed. The +quarrel grew not out of any steady opposition between North and South, +but out of the habitual domination of the country by the South and the +long-continued submission of the North to that domination. + +For the North had its full share of blame for the long course of +proceedings which prepared the coming tragedy, and the most impassioned +writers on the side of the Union during the Civil War have put that blame +highest. The South became arrogant and wrong-headed, and no defence is +possible for the chief acts of Southern policy which will be recorded +later; but the North was abject. To its own best sons it seemed to have +lost both its conscience and its manhood, and to be stifled in the coils +of its own miserable political apparatus. Certainly the prevailing +attitude of the Northern to the Southern politicians was that of +truckling. And Southerners who went to Washington had a further reason +for acquiring a fatal sense of superiority to the North. The tradition +of popular government which maintained itself in the South caused men who +were respected, in private life, and were up to a point capable leaders, +who were, in short, representative, to be sent to Congress and to be kept +there. The childish perversion of popular government which took hold of +the newer and more unsettled population in the North led them to send to +Congress an ever-changing succession of unmeritable and sometimes shady +people. The eventual stirring of the mind of the North which so closely +concerns this biography was a thing hard to bring about, and to the South +it brought a great shock of surprise. + + +7. _Intellectual Development_. + +No survey of the political movements of this period should conclude +without directing attention to something more important, which cannot be +examined here. In the years from 1830 till some time after the death of +Lincoln, America made those contributions to the literature of our common +language which, though neither her first nor her last, seemed likely to +be most permanently valued. The learning and literature of America at +that time centred round Boston and Harvard University in the adjacent +city of Cambridge, and no invidious comparison is intended or will be +felt if they, with their poets and historians and men of letters at that +time, with their peculiar atmosphere, instinct then and now with a life +athletic, learned, business-like and religious, are taken to show the +dawning capacities of the new nation. No places in the United States +exhibit more visibly the kinship of America with England, yet in none +certainly can a stranger see more readily that America is independent of +the Old World in something more than politics. Many of their streets and +buildings would in England seem redolent of the past, yet no cities of +the Eastern States played so large a part in the development, material +and mental, of the raw and vigorous West. The limitations of their +greatest writers are in a manner the sign of their achievement. It would +have been contrary to all human analogy if a country, in such an early +stage of creation out of such a chaos, had put forth books marked +strongly as its own and yet as the products of a mature national mind. +It would also have been surprising if since the Civil War the rush of +still more appalling and more complex practical problems had not +obstructed for a while the flow of imaginative or scientific production. +But the growth of those relatively early years was great. Boston had +been the home of a loveless Christianity; its insurrection in the War of +Independence had been soiled by shifty dealing and mere acidity; but +Boston from the days of Emerson to those of Phillips Brooks radiated a +temper and a mental force that was manly, tender, and clean. The man +among these writers about whose exact rank, neither low nor very high +among poets, there can be least dispute was Longfellow. He might seem +from his favourite subjects to be hardly American; it was his +deliberately chosen task to bring to the new country some savour of +things gentle and mellow caught from the literature of Europe. But, in +the first place, no writer could in the detail of his work have been more +racy of that New England countryside which lay round his home; and, in +the second place, no writer could have spoken more unerringly to the ear +of the whole wide America of which his home was a little part. It seems +strange to couple the name of this mild and scholarly man with the +thought of that crude Western world to which we must in a moment pass. +But the connection is real and vital. It is well shown in the +appreciation written of him and his fellows by the American writer who +most violently contrasts with him, Walt Whitman. + +A student of American history may feel something like the experience +which is common among travellers in America. When they come home they +cannot tell their friends what really interested them. Ugly things and +very dull things are prominent in their story, as in the tales of +American humorists. The general impression they convey is of something +tiresomely extensive, distractingly miscellaneous, and yet insufferably +monotonous. But that is not what they mean. They had better not seek to +express themselves by too definite instances. They will be understood +and believed when they say that to them America, with its vast spaces +from ocean to ocean, does present itself as one country, not less worthy +than any other of the love which it has actually inspired; a country +which is the home of distinctive types of manhood and womanhood, bringing +their own addition to the varying forms in which kindness and courage and +truth make themselves admirable to mankind. The soul of a single people +seems to be somewhere present in that great mass, no less than in some +tiny city State of antiquity. Only it has to struggle, submerged +evermore by a flood of newcomers, and defeated evermore by difficulties +quite unlike those of other lands; and it struggles seemingly with +undaunted and with rational hope. + +Americans are fond of discussing Americanism. Very often they select as +a pattern of it Abraham Lincoln, the man who kept the North together but +has been pronounced to have been a Southerner in his inherited character. +Whether he was so typical or not, it is the central fact of this +biography that no man ever pondered more deeply in his own way, or +answered more firmly the question whether there was indeed an American +nationality worth preserving. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +LINCOLN'S EARLY CAREER + +1. _Life at New Salem_. + +From this talk of large political movements we have to recall ourselves +to a young labouring man with hardly any schooling, naturally and +incurably uncouth, but with a curious, quite modest, impulse to assert +a kindly ascendency over the companions whom chance threw in his way, +and with something of the gift, which odd, shy people often possess, +for using their very oddity as a weapon in their struggles. In the +conditions of real equality which still prevailed in a newly settled +country it is not wonderful that he made his way into political life +when he was twenty-five, but it was not till twenty years later that he +played an important part in events of enduring significance. + +Thus the many years of public activity with which we are concerned in +this and the following chapter belong rather to his apprenticeship than +to his life's work; and this apprenticeship at first sight contrasts +more strongly with his fame afterwards than does his boyhood of poverty +and comparatively romantic hardship. For many poor boys have lived to +make a great mark on history, but as a rule they have entered early on +a life either of learning or of adventure or of large business. But +the affairs in which Lincoln early became immersed have an air of +pettiness, and from the point of view of most educated men and women in +the Eastern States or in Europe, many of the associates and competitors +of his early manhood, to whom he had to look up as his superiors in +knowledge, would certainly have seemed crude people with a narrow +horizon. Indeed, till he was called upon to take supreme control of +very great matters, Lincoln must have had singularly little intercourse +either with men versed in great affairs or with men of approved +intellectual distinction. But a mind too original to be subdued to its +surroundings found much that was stimulating in this time when Illinois +was beginning rapidly to fill up. There were plenty of men with shrewd +wits and robust character to be met with, and the mental atmosphere +which surrounded him was one of keen interest in life. Lincoln +eventually stands out as a surprising figure from among the other +lawyers and little politicians of Illinois, as any great man does from +any crowd, but some tribute is due to the undistinguished and +historically uninteresting men whose generous appreciation gave rapid +way to the poor, queer youth, and ultimately pushed him into a greater +arena as their selected champion. + +In 1831, at the age of twenty-two, Lincoln, returning from his New +Orleans voyage, settled in New Salem to await the arrival of his +patron, Denton Offutt, with the goods for a new store in which Lincoln +was to be his assistant. The village itself was three years old. It +never got much beyond a population of one hundred, and like many +similar little towns of the West it has long since perished off the +earth. But it was a busy place for a while, and, contrary to what its +name might suggest, it aspired to be rather fast. It was a +cock-fighting and whisky-drinking society into which Lincoln was +launched. He managed to combine strict abstinence from liquor with +keen participation in all its other diversions. One departure from +total abstinence stands alleged among the feats of strength for which +he became noted. He hoisted a whisky barrel, of unspecified but +evidently considerable content, on to his knees in a squatting posture +and drank from the bunghole. But this very arduous potation stood +alone. Offutt was some time before he arrived with his goods, and +Lincoln lived by odd jobs. At the very beginning one Mentor Graham, a +schoolmaster officiating in some election, employed him as a clerk, and +the clerk seized the occasion to make himself well known to New Salem +as a story-teller. Then there was a heavy job at rail-splitting, and +another job in navigating the Sangamon River. Offutt's store was at +last set up, and for about a year the assistant in this important +establishment had valuable opportunities of conversation with all New +Salem. He had also leisure for study. He had mentioned to the +aforesaid Mentor Graham his "notion to study English grammar," and had +been introduced to a work called "Kirkham's Grammar," which by a walk +of some miles he could borrow from a neighbour. This he would read, +lying full length on the counter with his head on a parcel of calico. +At other odd times he would work away at arithmetic. Offutt's kindly +interest procured him distinction in another field. At Clary's Grove, +near New Salem, lived a formidable set of young ruffians, over whose +somewhat disguised chivalry of temper the staid historian of Lincoln's +youth becomes rapturous. They were given to wrecking the store of any +New Salem tradesman who offended them; so it shows some spirit in Mr. +Denton Offutt that he backed his Abraham Lincoln to beat their Jack +Armstrong in a wrestling match. He did beat him; moreover, some charm +in the way he bore himself made him thenceforth not hated but beloved +of Clary's Grove in general, and the Armstrongs in particular. Hannah +Armstrong, Jack's wife, thereafter mended and patched his clothes for +him, and, years later, he had the satisfaction, as their unfeed +advocate, of securing the acquittal of their son from a charge of +murder, of which there is some reason to hope he may not have been +guilty. It is, by the way, a relief to tell that there once was a +noted wrestling match in which Lincoln was beaten; it is characteristic +of the country that his friends were sure there was foul play, and +characteristic of him that he indignantly denied it. + +Within a year Offutt's store, in the phrase of the time, "petered out," +leaving Lincoln shiftless. But the victor of Clary's Grove, with his +added mastery of "Kirkham's Grammar," was now ripe for public life. +Moreover, his experience as a waterman gave him ideas on the question, +which then agitated his neighbours, whether the Sangamon River could be +made navigable. He had a scheme of his own for doing this; and in the +spring of 1832 he wrote to the local paper a boyish but modest and +sensible statement of his views and ambitions, announcing that he would +be a candidate in the autumn elections for the State Legislature. + +Meanwhile he had his one experience of soldiering. The Indian chief, +Black Hawk, who had agreed to abide west of the Mississippi, broke the +treaty and led his warriors back into their former haunts in Northern +Illinois. The Governor of the State called for volunteers, and Lincoln +became one. He obtained the elective rank of captain of his company, +and contrived to maintain some sort of order in that, doubtless brave, +but undisciplined body. He saw no fighting, but he could earn his +living for some months, and stored up material for effective chaff in +Congress long afterwards about the military glory which General Cass's +supporters for the Presidency wished to attach to their candidate. His +most glorious exploit consisted in saving from his own men a poor old +friendly Indian who had fallen among them. A letter of credentials, +which the helpless creature produced, was pronounced a forgery and he +was about to be hanged as a spy, when Lincoln appeared on the scene, +"swarthy with resolution and rage," and somehow terrified his +disorderly company into dropping their prey. + +The war ended in time for a brief candidature, and a supporter of his +at the time preserved a record of one of his speeches. His last +important speech will hereafter be given in full for other reasons; +this may be so given too, for it is not a hundred words long: "Fellow +Citizens, I presume you all know who I am. I am humble Abraham +Lincoln. I have been solicited by many friends to become a candidate +for the Legislature. My politics are short and sweet like the old +woman's dance. I am in favour of a national bank. I am in favour of +the internal improvement system and a high protective tariff. These +are my sentiments and political principles. If elected, I shall be +thankful; if not, it will be all the same." + +To this succinct declaration of policy may be added from his earlier +letter that he advocated a law against usury, and laws for the +improvement of education. The principles of the speech are those which +the new Whig party was upholding against the Democrats under Jackson +(the President) and Van Buren. Lincoln's neighbours, like the people +of Illinois generally, were almost entirely on the side of the +Democrats. It is interesting that however he came by his views, they +were early and permanently fixed on the side then unpopular in +Illinois; and it is interesting that though, naturally, not elected, he +secured very nearly the whole of the votes of his immediate +neighbourhood. + +The penniless Lincoln was now hankering to become a lawyer, though with +some thoughts of the more practicable career of a blacksmith. +Unexpectedly, however, he was tempted into his one venture, singularly +unsuccessful, in business. Two gentlemen named Herndon, cousins of a +biographer of Lincoln's, started a store in New Salem and got tired of +it. One sold his share to a Mr. Berry, the other sold his to Lincoln. +The latter sale was entirely on credit--no money passed at the time, +because there was no money. The vendor explained afterwards that he +relied solely on Lincoln's honesty. He had to wait a long while for +full payment, but what is known of storekeeping in New Salem shows that +he did very well for himself in getting out of his venture as he did. +Messrs. Berry and Lincoln next acquired, likewise for credit, the stock +and goodwill of two other storekeepers, one of them the victim of a +raid from Clary's Grove. The senior partner then applied himself +diligently to personal consumption of the firm's liquid goods; the +junior member of the firm was devoted in part to intellectual and +humorous converse with the male customers, but a fatal shyness +prevented him from talking to the ladles. For the rest, he walked long +distances to borrow books, got through Gibbon and through Rollin's +"History of the World," began his study of Blackstone, and acquired a +settled habit of reading novels. So business languished. Early in +1833 Berry and Lincoln sold out to another adventurer. This also was a +credit transaction. The purchaser without avoidable delay failed and +disappeared. Berry then died of drink, leaving to Lincoln the sole +responsibility for the debts of the partnership. Lincoln could with no +difficulty and not much reproach have freed himself by bankruptcy. As +a matter of fact, he ultimately paid everything, but it took him about +fifteen years of striving and pinching himself. + +Lincoln is one of the many public characters to whom the standing +epithet "honest" became attached; in his case the claim to this rested +originally on the only conclusive authority, that of his creditors. +But there is equally good authority, that of his biographer, William +Herndon, for many years his partner as a lawyer, that "he had no money +sense." This must be understood with the large qualification that he +meant to pay his way and, unlike the great statesmen of the eighteenth +century in England, did pay it. But, though with much experience of +poverty in his early career, he never developed even a reasonable +desire to be rich. Wealth remained in his view "a superfluity of the +things one does not want." He was always interested in mathematics, +but mainly as a discipline in thinking, and partly, perhaps, in +association with mechanical problems of which he was fond enough to +have once in his life patented an invention. The interest never led +him to take to accounts or to long-sighted financial provisions. In +later days, when he received a payment for his fees, his partner's +share would be paid then and there; and perhaps the rent would be paid, +and the balance would be spent at once in groceries and other goods +likely to be soon wanted, including at long intervals, when the need +was very urgent, a new hat. + +These are amiable personal traits, but they mark the limitations of his +capacity as a statesman. The chief questions which agitated the +Illinois Legislature were economic, and so at first were the issues +between Whigs and Democrats in Federal policy. Lincoln, though he +threw himself into these affairs with youthful fervour, would appear +never to have had much grasp of such matters. "In this respect alone," +writes an admirer, "I have always considered Mr. Lincoln a weak man." +It is only when (rarely, at first) constitutional or moral issues +emerge that his politics become interesting. We can guess the causes +which attached him to the Whigs. As the party out of power, and in +Illinois quite out of favour, they had doubtless some advantage in +character. As we have seen, the greatest minds among American +statesmen of that day, Webster and Clay, were Whigs. Lincoln's simple +and quite reasonable, if inconclusive, argument for Protection, can be +found among his speeches of some years later. And schemes of internal +development certainly fired his imagination. + +After his failure in business Lincoln subsisted for a while on odd jobs +for farmers, but was soon employed as assistant surveyor by John +Calhoun, then surveyor of the county. This gentleman, who had been +educated as a lawyer but "taught school in preference," was a keen +Democrat, and had to assure Lincoln that office as his assistant would +not necessitate his desertion of his principles. He was a clever man, +and Lincoln remembered him long after as the most formidable antagonist +he ever met in debate. With the help, again, of Mentor Graham, Lincoln +soon learned the surveyor's business. He continued at this work till +he was able to start as a lawyer, and there is evidence that his +surveys of property were done with extreme accuracy. Soon he further +obtained the local Postmastership. This, the only position except the +Presidency itself which he ever held in the Federal Government, was not +onerous, for the mails were infrequent; he "carried the office around +in his hat"; we are glad to be told that "his administration gave +satisfaction." Once calamity threatened him; a creditor distrained on +the horse and the instruments necessary to his surveyorship; but +Lincoln was reputed to be a helpful fellow, and friends were ready to +help him; they bought the horse and instruments back for him. To this +time belongs his first acquaintance with some writers of unsettling +tendency, Tom Paine, Voltaire, and Volney, who was then recognised as +one of the dangerous authors. Cock-fights, strange feats of strength, +or of usefulness with axe or hammer or scythe, and a passion for +mimicry continue. In 1834 he became a candidate again. "Can't the +party raise any better material than that?" asked a bystander before a +speech of his; after it, he exclaimed that the speaker knew more than +all the other candidates put together. This time he was elected, being +then twenty-five, and thereafter he was returned for three further +terms of two years. Shortly before his second election in 1836 the +State capital was removed to Springfield, in his own county. There in +1837 Lincoln fixed his home. He had long been reading law in his +curious, spasmodically concentrated way, and he had practised a little +as a "pettifogger," that is, an unlicensed practitioner in the inferior +courts. He had now obtained his license and was very shortly taken +into partnership by an old friend in Springfield. + + +2. _In the Illinois Legislature_. + +Here his youth may be said to end. Springfield was a different place +from New Salem. There were carriages in it, and ladles who studied +poetry and the fashions. There were families from Virginia and +Kentucky who were conscious of ancestry, while graver, possibly more +pushing, people from the North-eastern States, soon to outnumber them, +were a little inclined to ridicule what they called their "illusory +ascendency." There was a brisk competition of churches, and mutual +improvement societies such as the "Young Men's Lyceum" had a rival +claim to attention with races and cock-fights. + +And it was an altered Abraham Lincoln that came to inhabit Springfield. +Arriving a day or two before his first law partnership was settled he +came into the shop of a thriving young tradesman, Mr. Joshua Speed, to +ask about the price of the cheapest bedding and other necessary +articles. The sum for which Lincoln, who had not one cent, would have +had to ask, and would have been readily allowed, credit, was only +seventeen dollars. But this huge prospect of debt so visibly depressed +him that Speed instantly proposed an arrangement which involved no +money debt. He took him upstairs and installed him--Western domestic +arrangements were and are still simple--as the joint occupant of his +own large bed. "Well, Speed, I'm moved," was the terse acknowledgment. +Speed was to move him later by more precious charity. We are concerned +for the moment with what moved Speed. "I looked up at him," said he, +long after, "and I thought then, as I think now, that I never saw so +gloomy and melancholy a face in my life." The struggle of ambition and +poverty may well have been telling on Lincoln; but besides that a +tragical love story (shortly to be told) had left a deep and permanent +mark; but these influences worked, we may suppose, upon a disposition +quite as prone to sadness as to mirth. His exceedingly gregarious +habit, drawing him to almost any assembly of his own sex, continued all +his life; but it alternated from the first with a habit of solitude or +abstraction, the abstraction of a man who, when he does wish to read, +will read intently in the midst of crowd or noise, or walking along the +street. He was what might unkindly be called almost a professional +humorist, the master of a thousand startling stories, delightful to the +hearer, but possibly tiresome in written reminiscences, but we know too +well that gifts of this kind are as compatible with sadness as they +certainly are with deadly seriousness. + +The Legislature of Illinois in the eight years from 1834 to 1842, in +which Lincoln belonged to it, was, though not a wise, a vigorous body. +In the conditions which then existed it was not likely to have been +captured as the Legislatures of wilder and more thinly-peopled States +have sometimes been by a disreputable element in the community, nor to +have subsided into the hands of the dull mechanical class of +professional politicians with which, rightly or wrongly, we have now +been led to associate American State Government. The fact of Lincoln's +own election suggests that dishonest adventurers might easily have got +there, but equally suggests that a very different type of men +prevailed. "The Legislature," we are told, "contained the youth and +blood and fire of the frontier." Among the Democrats in the +Legislature was Stephen Douglas, who was to become one of the most +powerful men in the United States while Lincoln was still unknown; and +several of Lincoln's Whig colleagues were afterwards to play +distinguished or honourable parts in politics or war. We need not +linger over them, but what we know of those with whom he had any +special intimacy makes it entirely pleasant to associate him with them. +After a short time in which, like any sensible young member of an +assembly, he watched and hardly ever spoke, Lincoln soon made his way +among these men, and in 1838 and 1840 the Whig members--though, being +in a minority, they could not elect him--gave him their unanimous votes +for the Speakership of the Assembly. The business which engrossed the +Legislature, at least up to 1838, was the development of the natural +resources of the State. These were great. It was natural that +railways, canals and other public works to develop them should be +pushed forward at the public cost. Other new countries since, with +less excuse because with greater warning from experience, have plunged +in this matter, and, though the Governor protested, the Illinois +Legislature, Whigs and Democrats, Lincoln and every one else, plunged +gaily, so that, during the collapse which followed, Illinois, though, +like Lincoln himself, it paid its debts in the end, was driven in 1840 +to suspend interest payments for several years. + +Very little is recorded of Lincoln's legislative doings. What is +related chiefly exhibits his delight in the game of negotiation and +combination by which he and the other members for his county, together +known as "the Long Nine," advanced the particular projects which +pleased their constituents or struck their own fancy. Thus he early +had a hand in the removal of the capital from Vandalia to Springfield +in his own county. The map of Illinois suggests that Springfield was a +better site for the purpose than Vandalia and at least as good as +Jacksonville or Peoria or any of its other competitors. Of his few +recorded speeches one concerns a proposed inquiry into some alleged +impropriety in the allotment of shares in the State Bank. It is +certainly the speech of a bold man; it argues with remarkable +directness that whereas a committee of prominent citizens which had +already inquired into this matter consisted of men of known honesty, +the proposed committee of the Legislators, whom he was addressing, +would consist of men who, for all he knew, might be honest, and, for +all he knew, might not. + +The Federal politics of this time, though Lincoln played an active +local part in the campaigns of the Whig party, concern us little. The +Whigs, to whom he did subordinate service, were, as has been said, an +unlucky party. In 1840, in the reaction which extreme commercial +depression created against the previously omnipotent Democrats, the +Whig candidate for the Presidency was successful. This was General +Harrison, a respected soldier of the last war, who was glorified as a +sort of Cincinnatus and elected after an outburst of enthusiastic +tomfoolery such as never before or since rejoiced the American people. +But President Harrison had hardly been in office a month when he died. +Some say he was worried to death by office seekers, but a more prosaic +cause, pneumonia, can also be alleged. It is satisfactory that this +good man's grandson worthily filled his office forty-eight years after, +but his immediate successor was of course the Vice-President, Tyler, +chosen as an influential opponent of the last Democrat Presidents, but +not because he agreed with the Whigs. Cultivated but narrow-minded, +highly independent and wholly perverse, he satisfied no aspiration of +the Whigs and paved the way effectually for the Democrat who succeeded +him. + +Throughout these years Lincoln was of course working at law, which +became, with the development of the country, a more arduous and a more +learned profession. Sessions of the Legislature did not last long, and +political canvasses were only occasional. If Lincoln was active in +these matters he was in many other directions, too, a keen participator +in the keen life of the society round him. Nevertheless politics as +such, and apart from any large purpose to be achieved through them, had +for many years a special fascination for him. For one thing he was +argumentative in the best sense, with a passion for what the Greeks +sometimes called "dialectic"; his rare capacity for solitary thought, +the most marked and the greatest of his powers, went absolutely hand in +hand with the desire to reduce his thoughts to a form which would carry +logical conviction to others. Further, there can be no doubt--and such +a combination of tastes, though it seems to be uncommon, is quite +intelligible--that the somewhat unholy business of party management was +at first attractive to him. To the end he showed no intuitive +comprehension of individual men. His sincere friendly intention, the +unanswerable force of an argument, the convincing analogy veiled in an +unseemly story, must take their chance of suiting the particular taste +of Senator Sherman or General McClellan; but any question of managing +men in the mass--will a given candidate's influence with this section +of people count for more than his unpopularity with that section? and +so on--involved an element of subtle and long-sighted calculation which +was vastly congenial to him. We are to see him hereafter applying this +sort of science on a grand scale and for a great end. His early +discipline in it is a dull subject, interesting only where it displays, +as it sometimes does, the perfect fairness with which this ambitious +man could treat his own claims as against those of a colleague and +competitor. + +In forming any judgment of Lincoln's career it must, further, be +realised that, while he was growing up as a statesman, the prevailing +conception of popular government was all the time becoming more +unfavourable to leadership and to robust individuality. The new party +machinery adopted by the Democrats under Jackson, as the proper mode of +securing government by the people, induced a deadly uniformity of +utterance; breach of that uniformity was not only rash, but improper. +Once in early days it was demanded in a newspaper that "all candidates +should show their hands." "Agreed," writes Lincoln, "here's mine"; and +then follows a young man's avowal of advanced opinions; he would give +the suffrage to "all whites who pay taxes or bear arms, by no means +excluding females." Disraeli, who was Lincoln's contemporary, throve +by exuberances quite as startling as this, nor has any English +politician found it damaging to be bold. On this occasion indeed (in +1836) Lincoln was far from damaging himself; the Whigs had not till a +few years later been induced, for self-preservation, to copy the +Democratic machine. But it is striking that the admiring friend who +reports this declaration, "too audacious and emphatic for the statesmen +of a later day," must carefully explain how it could possibly suit the +temper of a time which in a few years passed away. Very soon the +question whether a proposal or even a sentiment was timely or premature +came to bulk too large in the deliberations of Lincoln's friends. The +reader will perhaps wonder later whether such considerations did not +bulk too largely in Lincoln's own mind. Was there in his +statesmanship, even in later days when he had great work to do, an +element of that opportunism which, if not actually base, is at least +cheap? Or did he come as near as a man with many human weaknesses +could come to the wise and nobly calculated opportunism which is not +merely the most beneficent statesmanship, but demands a heroic +self-mastery? + +The main interest of his doings in Illinois politics and in Congress is +the help they may give in penetrating his later mind. On the one hand, +it is certain that Lincoln trained himself to be a great student of the +fitting opportunity. He evidently paid very serious attention to the +counsels of friends who would check his rasher impulses. One of his +closest associates insists that his impulsive judgment was bad, and he +probably thought so himself. It will be seen later that the most +momentous utterance he ever made was kept back through the whole space +of two years of crisis at the instance of timid friends. It required +not less courage and was certainly more effective when at last it did +come out. The same great capacity for waiting marks any steps that he +took for his own advancement. Indeed it was a happy thing for him and +for his country that his character and the whole cast of his ideas and +sympathies were of a kind to which the restraint imposed on an American +politician was most congenial and to which therefore it could do least +harm. He was to prove himself a patient man in other ways as well as +this. On many things, perhaps on most, the thoughts he worked out in +his own mind diverged very widely from those of his neighbours, but he +was not in the least anxious either to conceal or to obtrude them. His +social philosophy as he expressed it to his friends in these days was +one which contemplated great future reforms--abolition of slavery and a +strict temperance policy were among them. But he looked for them with +a sort of fatalistic confidence in the ultimate victory of reason, and +saw no use and a good deal of harm in premature political agitation for +them. "All such questions," he is reported to have said, "must find +lodgment with the most enlightened souls who stamp them with their +approval. In God's own time they will be organised into law and thus +woven into the fabric of our institutions." This seems a little +cold-blooded, but perhaps we can already begin to recognise the man +who, when the time had fully come, would be on the right side, and in +whom the evil which he had deeply but restrainedly hated would find an +appallingly wary foe. + +But there were crucial instances which test sufficiently whether this +wary politician was a true man or not. The soil of Illinois was free +soil by the Ordinance of 1787, and Congress would only admit it to the +Union as a free State. But it had been largely peopled from the South. +There had been much agitation against this restriction; prevailing +sentiment to a late date strongly approved of slavery; it was at Alton +in Illinois that, in 1836, Elijah Lovejoy, an Abolitionist publisher, +had been martyred by the mob which had failed to intimidate him. In +1837, when the bold agitation of the Abolitionists was exciting much +disapproval, the Illinois Legislature passed resolutions condemning +that agitation and declaring in soothing tones the constitutional +powerlessness of Congress to interfere with slavery in the Southern +States. Now Lincoln himself--whether for good reasons or bad must be +considered later--thoroughly disapproved of the actual agitation of the +Abolitionists; and the resolutions in question, but for one merely +theoretical point of law and for an unctuous misuse of the adjective +"sacred," contained nothing which he could not literally have accepted. +The objection to them lay in the motive which made it worth while to +pass them. Lincoln drew up and placed on the records of the House a +protest against these resolutions. He defines in it his own quite +conservative opinions; he deprecates the promulgation of Abolition +doctrines; but he does so because it "tends rather to increase than +abate the evils" of slavery; and he lays down "that the institution of +slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy." One man alone +could he induce to sign this protest with him, and that man was not +seeking re-election. + +By 1842 Lincoln had grown sensibly older, and a little less ready, we +may take it, to provoke unnecessary antagonism. Probably very old +members of Free Churches are the people best able to appreciate the +daring of the following utterance. Speaking on Washington's birthday +in a Presbyterian church to a temperance society formed among the +rougher people of the town and including former drunkards who desired +to reform themselves, he broke out in protest against the doctrine that +respectable persons should shun the company of people tempted to +intemperance. "If," he said, "they believe as they profess that +Omnipotence condescended to take upon Himself the form of sinful man, +and as such die an ignominious death, surely they will not refuse +submission to the infinitely lesser condescension, for the temporal and +perhaps eternal salvation of a large, erring, and unfortunate class of +their fellow creatures! Nor is the condescension very great. In my +judgment such of us as have never fallen victims have been spared more +from the absence of appetite than from any mental or moral superiority +over those who have. Indeed, I believe, if we take habitual drunkards +as a class, that their heads and their hearts will bear an advantageous +comparison with those of any other class." It proved, at a later day, +very lucky for America that the virtuous Lincoln, who did not drink +strong drink--nor, it is sad to say, smoke, nor, which is all to the +good, chew--did feel like that about drunkenness; But there was great +and loud wrath. "It's a shame," said one, "that he should be permitted +to abuse us so in the house of the Lord." It is certain that in this +sort of way he did himself a good deal of injury as an aspiring +politician. It is also the fact that he continued none the less +persistently in a missionary work conceived in a spirit none the less +Christian because it shocked many pious people. + + +3. _Marriage_. + +The private life of Lincoln continued, and for many years increasingly, +to be equally marked by indiscriminate sociability and brooding +loneliness. Comfort and the various influences which may be associated +with the old-fashioned American word "elegance" seem never to enter +into it. What is more, little can be discerned of positive happiness +in the background of his life, as the freakish elasticity of his youth +disappeared and, after a certain measure of marked success, the further +objects of his ambition though not dropped became unlikely of +attainment and seemed, we may guess, of doubtful value. All along he +was being moulded for endurance rather than for enjoyment. + +Nor, though his children evidently brought him happiness, does what we +know of his domesticities and dearest affections weaken this general +impression. When he married he had gone through a saddening +experience. He started on manhood with a sound and chivalrous outlook +on women in general, and a nervous terror of actual women when he met +them. In New Salem days he absented himself from meals for the whole +time that some ladies were staying at his boarding house. His clothes +and his lack of upbringing must have weighed with him, besides his +natural disposition. None the less, of course he fell in love. Miss +Ann Rutledge, the daughter of a store and tavern keeper from Kentucky +with whom Lincoln was boarding in 1833, has been described as of +exquisite beauty; some say this is over-stated, but speak strongly of +her grace and charm. A lady who knew her gives these curiously +collocated particulars: "Miss Rutledge had auburn hair, blue eyes, fair +complexion. She was pretty, slightly slender, but in everything a +good-hearted young woman. She was about five feet two inches high, and +weighed in the neighbourhood of a hundred and twenty pounds. She was +beloved by all who knew her. She died as it were of grief. In +speaking of her death and her grave Lincoln once said to me, 'My heart +lies buried there.'" The poor girl, when Lincoln first came courting +to her, had passed through a grievous agitation. She had been engaged +to a young man, who suddenly returned to his home in the Eastern +States, after revealing to her, with some explanation which was more +convincing to her than to her friends, that he had been passing under +an assumed name. It seems that his absence was strangely prolonged, +that for a long time she did not hear from him, that his letters when +they did come puzzled her, that she clung to him long, but yielded at +last to her friends, who urged their very natural suspicions upon her. +It is further suggested that there was some good explanation of his +conduct all the while, and that she learnt this too late when actually +engaged to Lincoln. However that may be, shortly after her engagement +to Lincoln she fell seriously ill, insisted, as she lay ill, on a long +interview with Lincoln alone, and a day or two later died. This was in +1835, when he was twenty-six. It is perhaps right to say that one +biographer throws doubt on the significance of this story in Lincoln's +life. The details as to Ann Rutledge's earlier lover are vague and +uncertain. The main facts of Lincoln's first engagement and almost +immediate loss of his betrothed are quite certain; the blow would have +been staggering enough to any ordinary young lover and we know nothing +of Lincoln which would discredit Mr. Herndon's judgment that its effect +on him was both acute and permanent. There can be no real doubt that +his spells of melancholy were ever afterwards more intense, and politer +biographers should not have suppressed the testimony that for a time +that melancholy seemed to his friends to verge upon insanity. He +always found good friends, and, as was to happen again later, one of +them, Mr. Bowline Greene, carried him off to his own secluded home and +watched him carefully. He said "the thought that the snows and rains +fell upon her grave filled him with indescribable grief." Two years +later he told a fellow-legislator that "although he seemed to others to +enjoy life rapturously, yet when alone he was so overcome by mental +depression, he never dared to carry a pocket-knife." Later still +Greene, who had helped him, died, and Lincoln was to speak over his +grave. For once in his life he broke down entirely; "the tears ran +down his yellow and shrivelled cheeks. . . . After repeated efforts he +found it impossible to speak and strode away sobbing." + +The man whom a grief of this kind has affected not only intensely, but +morbidly, is almost sure, before its influence has faded, to make love +again, and is very likely to do so foolishly. Miss Mary Owens was +slightly older than Lincoln. She was a handsome woman; commanding, but +comfortable. In the tales of Lincoln's love stories, much else is +doubtfully related, but the lady's weight is in each case stated with +assurance, and when she visited her sister in New Salem in 1836 Mary +Owens weighed one hundred and fifty pounds. There is nothing sad in +her story; she was before long happily married--not to Lincoln--and she +long outlived him. But Lincoln, who had seen her on a previous visit +and partly remembered her, had been asked, perhaps in jest, by her +sister to marry her if she returned, and had rashly announced half in +jest that he would. Her sister promptly fetched her, and he lingered +for some time in a half-engaged condition, writing her reasonable, +conscientious, feeble letters, in which he put before her +dispassionately the question whether she could patiently bear "to see +without sharing . . . a lot of flourishing about in carriages, . . . to +be poor without the means of hiding your poverty," and assuring her +that "I should be much happier with you than the way I am, provided I +saw no signs of discontent in you." Whether he rather wished to marry +her but felt bound to hold her free, or distinctly wished not to marry +her but felt bound not to hold himself free, he probably was never +sure. The lady very wisely decided that he could not make her happy, +and returned to Kentucky. She said he was deficient in the little +courteous attentions which a woman's happiness requires of her husband. +She gave instances long after to prove her point; but she always spoke +of him with friendship and respect as "a man with a heart full of human +kindness and a head full of common sense." + +Rather unluckily, Lincoln, upon his rejection or release, relieved his +feelings in a letter about Miss Owens to one of the somewhat older +married ladies who were kind to him, the wife of one of his colleagues. +She ought to have burnt his letter, but she preserved it to kindle mild +gossip after his death. It is a burlesque account of his whole +adventure, describing, with touches of very bad taste, his +disillusionment with the now maturer charms of Miss Owens when her +sister brought her back to New Salem, and making comedy of his own +honest bewilderment and his mingled relief and mortification when she +at last refused him. We may take it as evidence of the natural want of +perception and right instinctive judgment in minor matters which some +who knew and loved him attribute to him. But, besides that, the man +who found relief in this ill-conceived exercise of humour was one in +whom the prospect of marriage caused some strange and pitiful +perturbation of mind. + +This was in 1838, and a year later Mary Todd came from Kentucky to stay +at Springfield with her brother-in-law Ninian Edwards, a legislator of +Illinois and a close ally of Lincoln's. She was aged twenty-one, and +her weight was one hundred and thirty pounds. She was well educated, +and had family connections which were highly esteemed. She was +pleasant in company, but somewhat imperious, and she was a vivacious +talker. When among the young men who now became attentive in calling +on the Edwards's Lincoln came and sat awkwardly gazing on Miss Todd, +Mrs. Edwards appears to have remarked that the two were not suited to +each other. But an engagement took place all the same. As to the +details of what followed, whether he or she was the first to have +doubts, and whether, as some say, the great Stephen Douglas appeared on +the scene as a rival and withdrew rather generously but too late, is +uncertain. But Lincoln composed a letter to break off his engagement. +He showed it to Joshua Speed, who told him that if he had the courage +of a man he would not write to her, but see her and speak. He did so. +She cried. He kissed and tried to comfort her. After this Speed had +to point out to him that he had really renewed his engagement. Again +there may be some uncertainty whether on January 1, 1841, the bridal +party had actually assembled and the bridegroom after long search was +found by his friends wandering about in a state which made them watch +day and night and keep knives from him. But it is quite certain from +his letters that in some such way on "the fatal 1st of January, 1841," +he broke down terribly. Some weeks later he wrote to his partner: +"Whether I shall ever be better I cannot tell; I awfully forebode I +shall not. To remain as I am is impossible. I must die or be better, +as it appears to me." After a while Speed was able to remove him to +his own parents' home in Kentucky, where he and his mother nursed him +back to mental life. + +Then in the course of 1841 Speed himself began to contemplate marriage, +and Speed himself had painful searchings of heart, and Lincoln's turn +came to show a sureness of perception in his friend's case that he +wholly lacked in his own. "I know," he writes, "what the painful point +with you is . . . it is an apprehension that you do not love her as you +should. What nonsense! How came you to court her? But you say you +reasoned yourself into it. What do you mean by that? Was it not that +you found yourself unable to reason yourself out of it? Did you not +think, and partly form the purpose, of courting her the first time you +ever saw or heard of her? What had reason to do with it at that early +stage?" A little later the lady of Speed's love falls ill. Lincoln +writes: "I hope and believe that your present anxiety about her health +and her life must and will for ever banish those horrid doubts which I +know you sometimes felt as to the truth of your affection for +her. . . . Perhaps this point is no longer a question with you, and my +pertinacious dwelling upon it is a rude intrusion upon your feelings. +If so, you must pardon me. You know the hell I have suffered upon that +point, and how tender I am upon it." When he writes thus it is no +surprise to hear from him that he has lost his hypochondria, but it may +be that the keen recollection of it gives him excessive anxieties for +Speed. On the eve of the wedding he writes: "You will always hereafter +be on ground that I have never occupied, and consequently, if advice +were needed, I might advise wrong. I do fondly hope, however, that you +will never need comfort from abroad. I incline to think it probable +that your nerves will occasionally fail you for a while; but once you +get them firmly graded now, that trouble is over for ever. If you went +through the ceremony calmly or even with sufficient composure not to +excite alarm in any present, you are safe beyond question, and in two +or three months, to say the most, will be the happiest of men." Soon +he is reassured and can "feel somewhat jealous of both of you now. You +will be so exclusively concerned with one another that I shall be +forgotten entirely. I shall feel very lonesome without you." And a +little later: "It cannot be told how it thrills me with joy to hear you +say you are far happier than you ever expected to be. I know you too +well to suppose your expectations were not at least sometimes +extravagant, and if the reality exceeds them all, I say, 'Enough, dear +Lord.'" And here follows what might perhaps have been foreseen: "Your +last letter gave me more pleasure than the total sum of all that I have +received since the fatal 1st of January, 1841. Since then it seems to +me I should have been entirely happy but for the never absent idea that +there is still one unhappy whom I have contributed to make so. That +kills my soul. I cannot but reproach myself for even wishing to be +happy while she is otherwise." Very significantly he has inquired of +friends how that one enjoyed a trip on the new railway cars to +Jacksonville, and--not being like Falkland in "The Rivals"--praises God +that she has enjoyed it exceedingly. + +This was in the spring of 1842. Some three months later he writes +again to Speed: "I must gain confidence in my own ability to keep my +resolves when they are made. In that ability I once prided myself as +the only chief gem of my character. That gem I lost how and where you +know too well. I have not regained it, and until I do I cannot trust +myself in any matter of much importance. I believe now that, had you +understood my case at the time as well as I understood yours +afterwards, by the aid you would have given me I should have sailed +through clear. . . . I always was superstitious. I believe God made +me one of the instruments of bringing Fanny and you together, which +union I have no doubt He had fore-ordained. Whatever He designs for me +He will do. 'Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord,' is my +text just now. If, as you say, you have told Fanny all, I should have +no objection to her seeing this letter. I do not think I can come to +Kentucky this season. I am so poor and make so little headway in the +world that I drop back in a month of idleness as much as I gain in a +year's sowing." At last in the autumn of that year Lincoln addresses +to Speed a question at once so shrewd and so daringly intimate as +perhaps no other man ever asked of his friend. "The immense sufferings +you endured from the first days of September till the middle of +February" (the date of Speed's wedding) "you never tried to conceal +from me, and I well understood. You have now been the husband of a +lovely woman nearly eight months. That you are happier now than the +day you married her I well know. . . . But I want to ask a close +question! 'Are you in _feeling_ as well as in _judgment_ glad you are +married as you are?' From anybody but me this would be an impudent +question, not to be tolerated, but I know you will pardon it in me. +Please answer it quickly, as I am impatient to know." + +Speed remained in Kentucky; Lincoln was too poor for visits of +pleasure; and Speed was not a man who cared for political life; but the +memorials, from which the above quotations have been taken, of +Lincoln's lasting friendship with Speed and his kind mother, who gave +Lincoln a treasured Bible, and his kind young wife, who made her +husband's friend her own, and whose violet, dropped into her husband's +letter to him just as he was sealing it, was among the few flowers that +Lincoln ever appreciated, throw the clearest light that we can anywhere +obtain on the inner mind of Lincoln. + +As may have been foreseen, Mary Todd and he had met again on a friendly +footing. A managing lady is credited with having brought about a +meeting between them, but evidently she did not do it till Lincoln was +at least getting desirous to be managed. He was much absorbed at this +time in law business, to which since his breakdown he had applied +himself more seriously. It was at this period too that his notable +address on temperance was given. Soon after his meetings with Miss +Todd began again he involved himself in a complication of a different +kind. He had written, partly, it seems, for the young lady's +amusement, some innocent if uninteresting political skits relating to +some question about taxes. This brought on him an unexpected challenge +from a fiery but diminutive revenue official, one Colonel Shields, a +prominent Democratic politician. Lincoln availed himself of the right +of the challenged to impose ridiculous conditions of combat, partly no +doubt in fun, but with the sensible object also of making sure that he +could disarm his antagonist with no risk of harm to the little man. +The tangled controversy which ensued as to how and by whose fault the +duel eventually fell through has nothing in it now, but the whole +undignified business seems to have given Lincoln lasting chagrin, and +worried him greatly at a time when it would have been well that he +should be cheerful. At last on November 4, 1842, when Lincoln was +nearly thirty-three, he was safely married. The wedding, held, +according to the prevailing custom, in a private house, was an +important function, for it was the first Episcopalian wedding that good +society in Springfield had witnessed. Malicious fortune brought in a +ludicrous incident at the last moment, for when in the lawyerlike +verbiage of the then American Prayer-Book the bridegroom said, "With +this ring I thee endow with all my goods, chattels, lands and +tenements," old Judge Brown of the Illinois Supreme Court, who had +never heard the like, impatiently broke in, "God Almighty, Lincoln! +The statute fixes all that." + +There is more than the conventional reason for apology for pressing the +subject a little further. Nothing very illuminating can be said as to +the course of Lincoln's married life, but much has already been made +public about it which, though it cannot be taken as reaching to the +heart of the matter, is not properly to be dismissed as mere gossip. +Mrs. Lincoln, it is clear, had a high temper--the fact that, poor +woman! after her husband had been murdered by her side, she developed +clear symptoms of insanity, may or may not, for all we are entitled to +know, be relevant in this regard. She was much younger than her +husband, and had gone through a cruel experience for him. Moreover, +she had proper ambitions and was accustomed to proper conventional +refinements; so her husband's exterior roughness tried her sorely, not +the less we may be sure because of her real pride in him. Wife and +tailor combined could not, with any amount of money, have dressed him +well. Once, though they kept a servant then, Lincoln thought it +friendly to open the door himself in his shirt sleeves when two most +elegant ladies came to call. On such occasions, and doubtless on other +occasions of less provocation, Mrs. Lincoln's high temper was let +loose. It seems pretty certain, too, that he met her with mere +forbearance, sad patience, and avoidance of conflict. His fellow +lawyers came to notice that he stayed away from home on circuit when +all the rest of them could go home for a day or two. Fifteen years +after his wedding he himself confessed to his trouble, not disloyally, +but in a rather moving remonstrance with some one who had felt +intolerably provoked by Mrs. Lincoln. There are slight indications +that occasions of difficulty and pain to Lincoln happened up to the end +of his life. On the other hand, there are slight indications that +common love for their children helped to make the two happier, and +there are no indications at all of any approach to a serious quarrel. +All that is told us may be perfectly true and not by any means have +justified the pity that some of Lincoln's friends were ready to feel +for him. It is difficult to avoid suspecting that Lincoln's wife did +not duly like his partner and biographer, Mr. Herndon, who felt it his +duty to record so many painful facts and his own possibly too painful +impression from them. On the other side, Mr. Herndon makes it clear +that in some respects Mrs. Lincoln was an admirable wife for her +husband. She faced the difficulties of their poverty with spirit and +resolution. Testimony from other sources to her graceful hospitality +abounds. More than this, from the very first she believed in his +powers. It seems she had the discernment to know, when few others can +have done so, how far greater he was than his rival Douglas. It was +Herndon's belief, in days when he and Mrs. Lincoln were the two persons +who saw most of him, that she sustained his just ambition, and that at +the most critical moment of his personal career she had the courage to +make him refuse an attractive appointment which must have ruined it. +The worst that we are told with any certainty amounts to this, that +like the very happily married writer of "Virginibus Puerisque," Lincoln +discovered that marriage is "a field of battle and not a bed of +roses"--a battle in which we are forced to suspect that he did not play +his full part. + +We should perhaps be right in associating his curious record, of right +and high regard for women and inefficiency where a particular woman's +happiness depended on him, with the belief in Woman Suffrage, which he +early adopted and probably retained. Be that as it may, this part of +his story points to something which runs through his whole character, +something which perhaps may be expressed by saying that the natural +bias of his qualities was towards the negative side. We hear, no +doubt, of occasions when his vigour was instant and terrible--like that +of Hamlet on the ship for England; but these were occasions when the +right or the necessity of the case was obvious. We have seen him also +firm and absolutely independent where his conviction had already been +thought out. Where there was room for further reflection, for +patiently waiting on events, or for taking counsel of wise friends, +manly decision had not come easily to him. He had let a third person +almost engage him to Miss Owens. Once in this relation to her, he had +let it be the woman's part and not the man's to have decision enough +for the two. Speed had to tell him that he must face Miss Todd and +speak to her, and Speed again had to make clear to him what the effect +of his speaking had been. In time he decided what he thought his own +feelings were, but it was by inference from the feelings of Speed. +Lastly, it seems, the troubles of his married life were met by mere +patience and avoidance. All this, of course, concerned a side of +life's affairs in regard to which his mind had suffered painful shocks; +but it shows the direction of his possible weakness and his possible +strength in other things. It falls in with a trait which he himself +noted in one of the letters to Speed: "I have no doubt," he writes, "it +is the peculiar misfortune of both you and me to dream dreams of +Elysium far exceeding all that anything earthly can realise." All such +men have to go through deep waters; but they do not necessarily miss +either success or happiness in the end. Lincoln's life may be said to +have tested him by the test which Mr. Kipling states in his lines about +Washington:-- + + "If you can dream--and not make dreams your master; + If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim." + +He was to prove that he could do this; it is for the following pages to +show in how high a degree. Meanwhile one thing should already be clear +about him. No shrewd judge of men could read his letters to Speed with +care and not feel that, whatever mistakes this man might commit, +fundamentally he was worthy of entire trust. That, as a matter of +fact, is what, to the end of his life, Speed and all the men who knew +him and an ever widening circle of men who had to judge by more casual +impressions did feel about Lincoln. Whatever was questionable in his +private or public acts, his own explanation, if he happened to give +one, would be taken by them as the full and naked truth, and, if there +was no known explanation, it remained to them an irrebuttable +presumption that his main intention was right. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +LINCOLN IN CONGRESS AND IN RETIREMENT + +1. _The Mexican War and Lincoln's Work in Congress_. + +Lincoln had ceased before his marriage to sit in the Illinois +Legislature. He had won sufficient standing for his ambition to aim +higher; a former law partner of his was now in Congress, and he wished +to follow. But he had to submit to a few years' delay of which the +story is curious and honourable. His rivals for the representation of +his own constituency were two fellow Whigs, Baker and Hardin, both of +whom afterwards bore distinguished parts in the Mexican war and with +both of whom he was friendly. Somewhat to his disgust at a party +gathering in his own county in 1843, Baker was preferred to him. A +letter of his gives a shrewd account of the manoeuvres among members of +various Churches which brought this about; it is curiously careful not +to overstate the effect of these influences and characteristically +denies that Baker had part in them. To make the thing harder, he was +sent from this meeting to a convention, for the whole constituency, +with which the nomination lay, and his duty, of course, was to work for +Baker. Here it became obvious that Hardin would be chosen; nothing +could be done for Baker at that time, but Lincoln, being against his +will there in Baker's interests, took an opportunity in the bargaining +that took place to advance Baker's claim, to the detriment of his own, +to be Hardin's successor two years later. + +By some perverse accident notes about details of party management fill +a disproportionate space among those letters of Lincoln's which have +been preserved, but these reveal that, with all his business-like +attention to the affairs of his very proper ambition, he was able +throughout to illuminate dull matters of this order with action of +singular disinterestedness. After being a second time postponed, no +doubt to the advantage of his law business, he took his seat in the +House of Representatives at Washington for two years in the spring of +1847. Two short sessions can hardly suffice for mastering the very +complicated business of that body. He made hardly any mark. He +probably learned much and was able to study at leisure the characters +of his brother politicians. He earned the valuable esteem of some, and +seems to have passed as a very pleasant, honest, plain specimen of the +rough West. Like others of the younger Congressmen, he had the +privilege of breakfasting with Webster. His brief career in the House +seems to have disappointed him, and it certainly dissatisfied his +constituents. The part that he played may impress us more favourably +than it did them, but, slight as it was, it requires a historical +explanation. + +Mexico had detached itself from Spain in 1826, and in 1833 the province +of Texas detached itself from Mexico. Texas was largely peopled by +immigrants from the States, and these had grievances. One of them was +that Mexico abolished slavery, but there was real misgovernment as +well, and, among other cruel incidents of the rebellion which followed, +the massacre of rebels at the Alamo stamped itself on American memory. +The Republic of Texas began to seek annexation to the United States in +1839, but there was opposition in the States and there were +difficulties with Mexico and other Governments. At last in 1845, at +the very close of his term of office, President Tyler got the +annexation pushed through in defiance of the Whigs who made him +President. Mexico broke off diplomatic relations, but peace could no +doubt have been preserved if peace had been any object with the new +President Polk or with the Southern leaders whose views he represented. +They had set their eyes upon a further acquisition, larger even than +Texas--California, and the whole of the territories, still belonging to +Mexico, to the east of it. It is not contested, and would not have +been contested then, that the motive of their policy was the Southern +desire to win further soil for cultivation by slaves. But there was no +great difficulty in gaining some popularity for their designs in the +North. Talk about "our manifest destiny" to reach the Pacific may have +been justly described by Parson Wilbur as "half on it ign'ance and +t'other half rum," but it is easy to see how readily it might be taken +up, and indeed many Northerners at that moment had a fancy of their own +for expansion in the North-West and were not over-well pleased with +Polk when, in 1846, he set the final seal upon the settlement with +Great Britain of the Oregon frontier. + +When he did this Polk had already brought about his own war. The +judgment on that war expressed at the time in the first "Biglow Papers" +has seldom been questioned since, and there seldom can have been a war +so sternly condemned by soldiers--Grant amongst others--who fought in +it gallantly. The facts seem to have been just as Lincoln afterwards +recited them in Congress. The Rio Grande, which looks a reasonable +frontier on a map, was claimed by the United States as the frontier of +Texas. The territory occupied by the American settlers of Texas +reached admittedly up to and beyond the River Nueces, east of the Rio +Grande. But in a sparsely settled country, where water is not +abundant, the actual border line, if there be any clear line, between +settlement from one side and settlement from the other will not for the +convenience of treaty-makers run along a river, but rather for the +convenience of the settlers along the water-parting between two rivers. +So Mexico claimed both banks of the Rio Grande and Spanish settlers +inhabited both sides. Polk ordered General Zachary Taylor, who was +allowed no discretion in the matter, to march troops right up to the +Rio Grande and occupy a position commanding the encampment of the +Mexican soldiers there. The Mexican commander, thus threatened, +attacked. The Mexicans had thus begun the war. Polk could thus allege +his duty to prosecute it. When the whole transaction was afterwards +assailed his critics might be tempted to go, or represented as going, +upon the false ground that only Congress can constitutionally declare +war--that is, of course, sanction purely offensive operations. Long, +however, before the dispute could come to a head, the brilliant +successes of General Taylor and still more of General Scott, with a few +trained troops against large undisciplined numbers, put all criticism +at a disadvantage. The City of Mexico was occupied by Scott in +September, 1847, and peace, with the cession of the vast domain that +had been coveted, was concluded in May, 1848. + +War having begun, the line of the Whig opposition was to vote supplies +and protest as best they might against the language endorsing Polk's +policy which, in the pettiest spirit of political manoeuvre, was +sometimes incorporated in the votes. In this Lincoln steadily +supported them. One of his only two speeches of any length in Congress +was made on the occasion of a vote of this kind in 1848. The subject +was by that time so stale that his speech could hardly make much +impression, but it appears to-day an extraordinarily clear, strong, +upright presentment of the complex and unpopular case against the war. +His other long speech is elevated above buffoonery by a brief, cogent, +and earnest passage on the same theme, but it was a frank piece of +clowning on a licensed occasion. It was the fashion for the House when +its own dissolution and a Presidential election were both imminent to +have a sort of rhetorical scrimmage in which members on both sides +spoke for the edification of their own constituencies and that of +Buncombe. The Whigs were now happy in having "diverted the war-thunder +against the Democrats" by running for the Presidency General Taylor, a +good soldier who did not know whether he was a Whig or a Democrat, but +who, besides being a hero of the war, was inoffensive to the South, for +he lived in Louisiana and had slaves of his own. It is characteristic +of the time that the Democrats, in whose counsels the Southern men +prevailed, now began a practice of choosing Northern candidates, and +nominated General Cass of Michigan, whose distinction had not been won +in war. The Democratic Congressmen in this debate made game of the +Whigs, with their war-hero, and seem to have carried a crude manner of +pleasantry pretty far when Lincoln determined to show them that they +could be beaten at that game. He seems to have succeeded admirably, +with a burlesque comparison, too long to quote, of General Cass's +martial exploits with his own, and other such-like matter enhanced by +the most extravagant Western manner and delivery. + +Anyone who reads much of the always grave and sometimes most moving +orations of Lincoln's later years may do well to turn back to this +agreeable piece of debating-society horse-play. But he should then +turn a few pages further back to Lincoln's little Bill for the gradual +and compensated extinction of slavery in the District of Columbia, +where Washington stands. He introduced this of his own motion, without +encouragement from Abolitionist or Non-Abolitionist, accompanying it +with a brief statement that he had carefully ascertained that the +representative people of the district privately approved of it, but had +no right to commit them to public support of it. It perished, of +course. With the views which he had long formed and continued to hold +about slavery, very few opportunities could in these years come to him +of proper and useful action against it. He seized upon these +opportunities not less because in doing so he had to stand alone. + +His career as a Congressman was soon over. There was no movement to +re-elect him, and the Whigs now lost his constituency. His speeches +and his votes against the Mexican war offended his friends. Even his +partner, the Abolitionist, Mr. Herndon, whose further acquaintance we +have to make, was too much infected with the popularity of a successful +war to understand Lincoln's plain position or to approve of his giving +votes which might seem unpatriotic. Lincoln wrote back to him firmly +but sadly. Persuaded as he was that political action in advance of +public sentiment was idle, resigned and hardened as we might easily +think him to many of the necessities of party discipline, it evidently +caused him naive surprise that, when he was called upon for a definite +opinion, anybody should expect him, as he candidly puts it, to "tell a +lie." + +As a retiring Congressman he was invited to speak in several places in +the East on behalf of Taylor's candidature; and after Taylor's election +claimed his right as the proper person to be consulted, with certain +others, about Government appointments in Illinois. Taylor carried out +the "spoils system" with conscientious thoroughness; as he touchingly +said, he had thought over the question from a soldier's point of view, +and could not bear the thought that, while he as their chief enjoyed +the Presidency, the private soldiers in the Whig ranks should not get +whatever was going. Lincoln's attitude in the matter may be of +interest. To take an example, he writes to the President, about the +postmastership in some place, that he does not know whether the +President desires to change the tenure of such offices on party +grounds, and offers no advice; that A is a Whig whose appointment is +much desired by the local Whigs, and a most respectable man; that B, +also a Whig, would in Lincoln's judgment be a somewhat better but not +so popular subject for appointment; that C, the present postmaster, is +a Democrat, but is on every ground, save his political party, a proper +person for the office. There was an office which he himself desired, +it was that of "Commissioner of the General Land Office," a new office +in Washington dealing with settlement on Government lands in the West. +He was probably well suited to it; but his application was delayed by +the fact that friends in Illinois wanted the post too; a certain Mr. +Butterfield (a lawyer renowned for his jokes, which showed, it is said, +"at least a well-marked humorous intention") got it; and then it fell +to the lot of the disappointed Lincoln to have to defend Butterfield +against some unfair attack. But a tempting offer was made him, that of +the Governorship of Oregon Territory, and he wavered before refusing to +take work which would, as it happened, have kept him far away when the +opportunity of his life came. It was Mrs. Lincoln who would not let +him cut himself off so completely from politics. As for himself, it is +hard to resist the impression that he was at this time a tired man, +disappointed as to the progress of his career and probably also +disappointed and somewhat despondent about politics and the +possibilities of good service that lay open to politicians. It may be +that this was partly the reason why he was not at all aroused by the +crisis in American politics which must now be related. + + +2. _California and the Compromise of 1850_. + +It has been said that the motive for the conquests from Mexico was the +desire for slave territory. The attractive part of the new dominion +was of course California. Arizona and New Mexico are arid regions, and +the mineral wealth of Nevada was unknown. The peacefully acquired +region of Oregon, far north, need not concern us, but Oregon became a +free State in 1859. Early in the war a struggle began between +Northerners and Southerners (to a large extent independent of party) in +the Senate and the House as to whether slavery should be allowed in the +conquered land or not. David Wilmot, a Northern Democratic +Congressman, proposed a proviso to the very first money grant connected +with the war, that slavery should be forbidden in any territory to be +annexed. The "Wilmot Proviso" was proposed again on every possible +occasion; Lincoln, by the way, sturdily supported it while in Congress; +it was always voted down. Cass proposed as a solution of all +difficulties that the question of slavery should be left to the people +of the new Territories or States themselves. The American public, apt +as condensing an argument into a phrase, dismissed Cass's principle for +the time being with the epithet "squatter sovereignty." Calhoun and +his friends said it was contrary to the Constitution that an American +citizen should not be free to move with his property, including his +slaves, into territory won by the Union. The annexation was carried +out, and the question of slavery was unsettled. Then events took a +surprising turn. + +In the winter of 1848 gold was discovered in California. Throughout +1849 gold-seekers came pouring in from every part of the world. This +miscellaneous new people, whose rough ways have been more celebrated in +literature than those of any similar crowd, lived at first in +considerable anarchy, but they determined without delay to set up some +regular system of government. In the course of 1849 they elected a +Convention to draw up a State Constitution, and to the astonishment of +all the States the Convention unanimously made the prohibition of +slavery part of that Constitution. There was no likelihood that, with +a further influx of settlers of the same sort, this decision of +California would alter. Was California to be admitted as a State with +this Constitution of its own choice, which the bulk of the people of +America approved? + +To politicians of the school now fully developed in the South there +seemed nothing outrageous in saying that it should be refused +admission. To them Calhoun's argument, which regarded a citizen's +slave as his chattel in the same sense as his hat or walking-stick, +seemed the ripe fruit of logic. It did not shock them in the least +that they were forcing the slave system on an unwilling community, for +were not the Northerners prepared to force the free system? A +prominent Southern Senator, talking with a Northern colleague a little +later, said triumphantly: "I see how it is. You may force freedom as +much as you like, but we are to beware how we force slavery," and was +surprised that the Northerner cheerfully accepted this position. It is +necessary to remember throughout the following years that, whatever +ordinary Southerners thought in private, their whole political action +was now based on the assumption that slavery, as it was, was an +institution which no reasonable man could think wrong. + +Zachary Taylor, unlike Harrison, the previous hero of the Whigs, +survived his inauguration by sixteen months. He was no politician at +all, but placed in the position of President, for which fairness and +firmness were really the greatest qualifications, he was man enough to +rely on his own good sense. He had come to Washington under the +impression that the disputes which raged there were due to the +aggressiveness of the North; a very little time there convinced him of +the contrary. Slave-owner as he was, the claim of the South to force +slavery on California struck him as an arrogant pretension, and so far +as matters rested with him, he was simply not to be moved by it. He +sent a message to Congress advising the admission of California with +the constitution of its own choice. When, as we shall shortly see, the +great men of the Senate thought the case demanded conciliation and a +great scheme of compromise, he resolutely disagreed; he used the whole +of his influence against their compromise, and it is believed with good +reason that he would have put his veto as President on the chief +measure in which the compromise issued. If he had lived to carry out +his policy, it seems possible that there would have been an attempt to +execute the threats of secession which were muttered--this time in +Virginia. But it is almost certain that at that time, and with the +position which he occupied, he would have been able to quell the +movement at once. There is nothing to suggest that Taylor was a man of +any unusual gifts of intellect, but he had what we may call character, +and it was the one thing wanting in political life at the time. The +greatest minds in American politics, as we shall see, viewed the +occasion otherwise, but, in the light of what followed, it seems a +signal and irreparable error that, when the spirit of aggression rising +in the South had taken definite shape in a demand which was manifestly +wrongful, it was bought off and not met with a straightforward refusal. +Taylor died in the course of 1850 and Vice-President Millard Fillmore, +of New York, succeeded him. Fillmore had an appearance of grave and +benign wisdom which led a Frenchman to describe him as the ideal ruler +of a Republic, but he was a pattern of that outwardly dignified, yet +nerveless and heartless respectability, which was more dangerous to +America at that period than political recklessness or want of scruple. + +The actual issue of the crisis was that the admission of California was +bought from the South by large concessions in other directions. This +was the proposal of Henry Clay, who was now an old man anxious for the +Union, but had been a lover of such compromises ever since he promoted +the Missouri Compromise thirty years ago; but, to the savage +indignation of some of his Boston admirers, Webster used the whole +force of his influence and debating power in support of Clay. The +chief concessions made to the South were two. In the first place +Territorial Governments were set up in New Mexico and Utah (since then +the home of the Mormons) without any restriction on slavery. This +concession was defended in the North on the ground that it was a sham, +because the physical character of those regions made successful slave +plantations impossible there. But it was, of course, a surrender of +the principle which had been struggled for in the Wilmot Proviso during +the last four years; and the Southern leaders showed the clearness of +their limited vision by valuing it just upon that ground. There had +been reason for the territorial concessions to slavery in the past +generation because it was established in the territories concerned; but +there was no such reason now. The second concession was that of a new +Federal law to ensure the return of fugitive slaves from the free +States. The demand for this was partly factitious, for the States in +the far South, which were not exposed to loss of slaves, were the most +insistent on it, and it would appear that the Southern leaders felt it +politic to force the acceptance of the measure in a form which would +humiliate their opponents. There is no escape from the contention, +which Lincoln especially admitted without reserve, that the enactment +of an effective Act of this sort was, if demanded, due under the +provisions of the Constitution; but the measure actually passed was +manifestly defiant of all principles of justice. It was so framed as +almost to destroy the chance which a lawfully free negro might have of +proving his freedom, if arrested by the professional slave-hunters as a +runaway. It was the sort of Act which a President should have vetoed +as a fraud upon the Constitution. Thus over and above the objection, +now plain, to any compromise, the actual compromise proposed was marked +by flagrant wrong. But it was put through by the weight of Webster and +Clay. + +This event marks the close of a period. It was the last achievement of +Webster and Clay, both of whom passed away in 1852 in the hope that +they had permanently pacified the Union. Calhoun, their great +contemporary, had already died in 1850, gloomily presaging and +lamenting the coming danger to the Union which was so largely his own +creation. For a while the cheerful view of Webster and Clay seemed +better justified. There had been angry protest in the North against +the Fugitive Slave Law; there was some forcible resistance to arrests +of negroes; and some States passed Protection of Liberty Acts of their +own to impede the Federal law in its working. But the excitement, +which had flared up suddenly, died down as suddenly. In the +Presidential election of 1852 Northerners generally reflected that they +wanted quiet and had an instinct, curiously falsified, that the +Democratic party was the more likely to give it them. The Whigs again +proposed a hero, General Scott, a greater soldier than Taylor, but a +vainer man, who mistakenly broke with all precedent and went upon the +stump for himself. The President who was elected, Franklin Pierce of +New Hampshire, a friend of Hawthorne, might perhaps claim the palm +among the Presidents of those days, for sheer, deleterious +insignificance. The favourite observation of his contemporaries upon +him was that he was a gentleman, but his convivial nature made the +social attractiveness of Southern circles in Washington overpowering to +any brain or character that he may have possessed. A new generation of +political personages now came to the front. Jefferson Davis of +Mississippi, a man of force and considerable dignity, began to take the +leading part in the powerful group of Southern Senators; Stephen +Douglas, of Illinois, rapidly became the foremost man of the Democratic +party generally; William Seward, late Governor of New York, and Salmon +Chase, a Democrat, late Governor of Ohio, had played a manful part in +the Senate in opposition to Webster and Clay and their compromise. +From this time on we must look on these two, joined a little later by +Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts, as the obvious leaders in the +struggle against slavery which was shortly to be renewed, and in which +Lincoln's part seemed likely to remain a humble one. + + +3. _Lincoln in Retirement_. + +Whether Seward and Chase and the other opponents of the Compromise were +right, as it now seems they were, or not, Lincoln was not the man who +in the unlooked-for crisis of 1850 would have been likely to make an +insurrectionary stand against his old party-leader Clay, and the +revered constitutional authority of Webster. He had indeed little +opportunity to do so in Illinois, but his one recorded speech of this +period, an oration to a meeting of both parties on the death of Clay in +1852, expresses approval of the Compromise. This speech, which is +significant of the trend of his thoughts at this time, does not lend +itself to brief extracts because it is wanting in the frankness of his +speeches before and after. A harsh reference to Abolitionists serves +to disguise the fact that the whole speech is animated by antagonism to +slavery. The occasion and the subject are used with rather +disagreeable subtlety to insinuate opposition to slavery into the minds +of a cautious audience. The speaker himself seems satisfied with the +mood of mere compromise which had governed Clay in this matter, or +rather perhaps he is twisting Clay's attitude into one of more +consistent opposition to slavery than he really showed. In any case we +can be quite sure that the moderate and subtle but intensely firm +opinion with which a little later Lincoln returned to political strife +was the product of long and deep and anxious thought during the years +from 1849 to 1854. On the surface it did not go far beyond the +condemnation of slavery and acceptance of the Constitution which had +guided him earlier, nor did it seem to differ from the wide-spread +public opinion which in 1854 created a new party; but there was this +difference that Lincoln had by then looked at the matter in all its +bearings, and prepared his mind for all eventualities. We shall find, +and need not be surprised to find, that he who now hung back a little, +and who later moved when public opinion moved, later still continued to +move when public opinion had receded. + +What we know of these years of private life is mainly due to Mr. +William Herndon, the young lawyer already quoted, whom he took into +partnership in 1845, and who kept on the business of the firm in +Springfield till Lincoln's death. This gentleman was, like Boswell, of +opinion that a great man is not best portrayed as a figure in a +stained-glass window. He had lived with Lincoln, groaned under his odd +ways, and loved them, for sixteen years before his Presidency, and +after his death he devoted much research, in his own memory and those +of many others, to the task of substituting for Lincoln's aureole the +battered tall hat, with valuable papers stuck in its lining, which he +had long contemplated with reverent irritation. Mr. Herndon was not +endowed with Boswell's artistic gift for putting his materials +together, perhaps because he lacked that delicacy and sureness of moral +perception which more than redeemed Boswell's absurdities. He +succeeded on the whole in his aim, for the figure that more or less +distinctly emerges from the litter of his workshop is lovable; but in +spite of all Lincoln's melancholy, the dreariness of his life, sitting +with his feet on the table in his unswept and untidy office at +Illinois, or riding on circuit or staying at ramshackle western inns +with the Illinois bar, cannot have been so unrelieved as it is in Mr. +Herndon's presentation. And Herndon overdid his part. He ferreted out +petty incidents which he thought might display the acute Lincoln as +slightly too acute, when for all that can be seen Lincoln acted just as +any sensible man would have acted. But the result is that, in this +part of his life especially, Lincoln's way of living was subjected to +so close a scrutiny as few men have undergone. + +Herndon's scrutiny does not reveal the current of his thoughts either +on life generally or on the political problem which hereafter was to +absorb him. It shows on the contrary, and the recollections of his +Presidency confirm it, that his thought on any important topic though +it might flash out without disguise in rare moments of intimacy, +usually remained long unexpressed. His great sociability had perhaps +even then a rather formidable side to it. He was not merely amusing +himself and other people, when he chatted and exchanged anecdotes far +into the night; there was an element, not ungenial, of purposeful study +in it all. He was building up his knowledge of ordinary human nature, +his insight into popular feeling, his rather slow but sure +comprehension of the individual men whom he did know. It astonished +the self-improving young Herndon that the serious books he read were +few and that he seldom seemed to read the whole of them--though with +the Bible, Shakespeare, and to a less extent Burns, he saturated his +mind. The few books and the great many men were part of one study. In +so far as his thought and study turned upon politics it seems to have +led him soon to the conclusion that he had for the present no part to +play that was worth playing. By 1854, as he said himself, "his +profession as a lawyer had almost superseded the thought of politics in +his mind." But it does not seem that the melancholy sense of some +great purpose unachieved or some great destiny awaiting him ever quite +left him. He must have felt that his chance of political fame was in +all appearance gone, and would have liked to win himself a considerable +position and a little (very little) money as a lawyer; but the study, +in the broadest sense, of which these years were full, evidently +contemplated a larger education of himself as a man than professional +keenness, or any such interest as he had in law, will explain. +Middle-aged and from his own point of view a failure, he was set upon +making himself a bigger man. + +In some respects he let himself be. His exterior oddities never seem +to have toned down much; he could not be taught to introduce tidiness +or method into his office; nor did he make himself an exact lawyer; a +rough and ready familiarity with practice and a firm grasp of larger +principles of law contented him without any great apparatus of +learning. His method of study was as odd as anything else about him; +he could read hard and commit things to memory in the midst of bustle +and noise; on the other hand, since reading aloud was his chosen way of +impressing what he read on his own mind, he would do it at all sorts of +times to the sore distraction of his partner. When his studies are +spoken of, observation and thought on some plan concealed in his own +mind must be taken to have formed the largest element in these studies. +There was, however, one methodic discipline, highly commended of old +but seldom perhaps seriously pursued with the like object by men of +forty, even self-taught men, which he did pursue. Some time during +these years he mastered the first six Books of Euclid. It would +probably be no mere fancy if we were to trace certain definite effects +of this discipline upon his mind and character. The faculty which he +had before shown of reducing his thought on any subject to the simplest +and plainest terms possible, now grew so strong that few men can be +compared with him in this. He was gaining, too, from some source, what +the ancient geometers would themselves have claimed as partly the +product of their study: the plain fact and its plain consequences were +not only clear in calm hours of thought, but remained present to him, +felt and instinctive, through seasons of confusion, passion, and +dismay. His life in one sense was very full of companionship, but it +is probable that in his real intellectual interests he was lonely. To +Herndon, intelligently interested in many things, his master's mind, +much as he held it in awe, seemed chillingly unpoetic--which is a +curious view of a mind steeped in Shakespeare and Burns. The two +partners had been separately to Niagara. Herndon was anxious to know +what had been Lincoln's chief impression, and was pained by the reply, +"I wondered where all that water came from," which he felt showed +materialism and insensibility. Lincoln's thought had, very obviously, +a sort of poetry of its own, but of a vast and rather awful kind. He +had occasionally written verses of his own a little before this time; +sad verses about a friend who had become a lunatic, wondering that he +should be allowed to outlive his mind while happy young lives passed +away, and sad verses about a visit to old familiar fields in Indiana, +where he wandered brooding, as he says, + + "Till every sound appears a knell, + And every spot a grave." + +They are not great poetry; but they show a correct ear for verse, and +they are not the verses of a man to whom any of the familiar forms of +poetic association were unusual. They are those of a man in whom the +habitual undercurrent of thought was melancholy. + +Apart from these signs and the deep, humorous delight which he +evidently took in his children, there may be something slightly +forbidding in this figure of a gaunt man, disappointed in ambition and +not even happy at home, rubbing along through a rather rough crowd, +with uniform rough geniality and perpetual jest; all the while in +secret forging his own mind into an instrument for some vaguely +foreshadowed end. But there are two or three facts which stand out +certain and have to be taken account of in any image we may be tempted +to form of him. In the first place, his was no forbidding figure at +the time to those who knew him; a queer and a comic figure evidently, +but liked, trusted, and by some loved; reputed for honest dealing and +for kindly and gentle dealing; remarked too by some at that time, as +before and ever after, for the melancholy of his face in repose; known +by us beyond doubt to have gone through great pain; known lastly among +his fellows in his profession for a fire of anger that flashed out only +in the presence of cruelty and wrong. + +His law practice, which he pursued with energy, and on which he was +now, it seems, prepared to look as his sole business in life, fitted in +none the less well with his deliberately adopted schemes of +self-education. A great American lawyer, Mr. Choate, assures us that +at the Illinois bar in those days Lincoln had to measure himself +against very considerable men in suits of a class that required some +intellect and training. And in his own way he held his own among these +men. A layman may humbly conjecture that the combination in one person +of the advocate and the solicitor must give opportunities of far truer +intellectual training than the mere advocate can easily enjoy. The +Illinois advocate was not all the time pleading the cause which he was +employed to plead, and which if it was once offered to him it was his +duty to accept; he was the personal adviser of the client whose cause +he pleaded, and within certain limits he could determine whether the +cause was brought at all, and if so whether he should take it up +himself or leave it to another man. The rule in such matters was +elastic and practice varied. Lincoln's practice went to the very limit +of what is permissible in refusing legal aid to a cause he disapproved. +Coming into court he discovered suddenly some fact about his case which +was new to him but which would probably not have justified an English +barrister in throwing up his brief. The case was called; he was +absent; the judge sent to his hotel and got back a message: "Tell the +judge I'm washing my hands." One client received advice much to this +effect: "I can win your case; I can get you $600. I can also make an +honest family miserable. But I shall not take your case, and I shall +not take your fee. One piece of advice I will give you gratis: Go home +and think seriously whether you cannot make $600 in some honest way." +And this habit of mind was beyond his control. Colleagues whom he was +engaged to assist in cases agreed that if a case lost his sympathy he +became helpless and useless in it. This, of course, was not the way to +make money; but he got along and won a considerable local position at +the bar, for his perfect honesty in argument and in statement of fact +was known to have won the confidence of the judges, and a difficult +case which he thought was right elicited the full and curious powers of +his mind. His invective upon occasion was by all accounts terrific. +An advocate glanced at Lincoln's notes for his speech, when he was +appearing against a very heartless swindler and saw that they concluded +with the ominous words, "Skin Defendant." The vitriolic outburst which +occurred at the point thus indicated seems to have been long remembered +by the Illinois bar. To a young man who wished to be a lawyer yet +shrunk from the profession lest it should necessarily involve some +dishonesty Lincoln wrote earnestly and wisely, showing him how false +his impression of the law was, but concluding with earnest entreaty +that he would not enter the profession if he still had any fear of +being led by it to become a knave. + +One of his cases is interesting for its own sake, not for his part in +it. He defended without fee the son of his old foe and friend Jack +Armstrong, and of Hannah, who mended his breeches, on a charge of +murder. Six witnesses swore that they had seen him do the deed about +11 P.M. on such and such a night. Cross-examined: They saw it all +quite clearly; they saw it so clearly because of the moonlight. The +only evidence for the defence was an almanac. There had been no moon +that night. Another case is interesting for his sake. Two young men +set up in a farm together, bought a waggon and team from a poor old +farmer, Lincoln's client, did not pay him, and were sued. They had +both been just under twenty-one when they contracted the debt, and they +were advised to plead infancy. A stranger who was present in Court +described afterwards his own indignation as the rascally tale was +unfolded, and his greater indignation as he watched the locally famous +Mr. Lincoln, lying back in his seat, nodding complacently and saying, +"I reckon that's so," as each of the relevant facts was produced, and +the relevant Statute read and expounded. At last, as the onlooker +proceeded to relate, the time came for Lincoln to address the jury, +with whom, by Illinois law, the issue still rested. Slowly he +disengaged his long, lean form from his seat, and before he had got it +drawn out to its height he had fixed a gaze of extraordinary +benevolence on the two disgraceful young defendants and begun in this +strain: "Gentlemen of the Jury, are you prepared that these two young +men shall enter upon life and go through life with the stain of a +dishonourable transaction for ever affixed to them," and so forth at +just sufficient length and with just enough of Shakespearean padding +about honour. The result with that emotional and probably irregular +Western court is obvious, and the story concludes with the quite +credible assertion that the defendants themselves were relieved. Any +good jury would, of course, have been steeled against the appeal, which +might have been expected, to their compassion for a poor and honest old +man. A kind of innocent and benign cunning has been the most engaging +quality in not a few great characters. It is tempting, though at the +risk of undue solemnity, to look for the secret of Lincoln's cunning in +this instance. We know from copybooks and other sources that these two +young men, starting on the down grade with the help of their +blackguardly legal adviser, were objects for pity, more so than the man +who was about to lose a certain number of dollars. Lincoln, as few +other men would have done, felt a certain actual regret for them then +and there; he felt it so naturally that he knew the same sympathy could +be aroused, at least in twelve honest men who already wished they could +find for the plaintiff. It has often been remarked that the cause of +his later power was a knowledge of the people's mind which was +curiously but vitally bound up with his own rectitude. + +Any attempt that we may make to analyse a subtle character and in some +respects to trace its growth is certain to miss the exact mark. But it +is in any case plain that Abraham Lincoln left political life in 1849, +a praiseworthy self-made man with good sound views but with nothing +much to distinguish him above many other such, and at a sudden call +returned to political life in 1854 with a touch of something quite +uncommon added to those good sound views. + + +4. _The Repeal of the Missouri Compromise_. + +The South had become captive to politicians, personally reputable and +of some executive capacity, who had converted its natural prejudice +into a definite doctrine which was paradoxical and almost inconceivably +narrow, and who, as is common in such instances of perversion and +fanaticism, knew hardly any scruple in the practical enforcement of +their doctrine. In the North, on the other hand, though there were +some few politicians who were clever and well-intentioned, public +opinion had no very definite character, and public men generally +speaking were flabby. At such a time the sheer adventurer has an +excellent field before him and perhaps has his appointed use. + +Stephen Douglas, who was four years younger than Lincoln, had come to +Illinois from the Eastern States just about the time when Lincoln +entered the Legislature. He had neither money nor friends to start +with, but almost immediately secured, by his extraordinary address in +pushing himself, a clerkship in the Assembly. He soon became, like +Lincoln, a lawyer and a legislator, but was on the Democratic side. He +rapidly soared into regions beyond the reach of Lincoln, and in 1847 +became a Senator for Illinois, where he later became Chairman of the +Committee on Territories, and as such had to consider the question of +providing for the government of the districts called Kansas and +Nebraska, which lay west and north-west of Missouri, and from which +slavery was excluded by the Missouri Compromise. He was what in +England is called a "Jingo," and was at one time eager to fight this +country for the possession of what is now British Columbia. His short +figure gave an impression of abounding strength and energy which +obtained him the nickname of "the little Giant." With no assignable +higher quality, and with the blustering, declamatory, shamelessly +fallacious and evasive oratory of a common demagogue, he was +nevertheless an accomplished Parliamentarian, and imposed himself as +effectively upon the Senate as he did upon the people of Illinois and +the North generally. He was, no doubt, a remarkable man, with the gift +of attracting many people. A political opponent has described vividly +how at first sight he was instantly repelled by the sinister and +dangerous air of Douglas' scowl; a still stronger opponent, but a +woman, Mrs. Beecher Stowe, seems on the contrary to have found it +impossible to hate him. What he now did displayed at any rate a +sporting quality. + +In the course of 1854 Stephen Douglas while in charge of an inoffensive +Bill dealing with the government of Kansas and Nebraska converted it +into a form in which it empowered the people of Kansas at any time to +decide for themselves whether they would permit slavery or not, and in +express terms repealed the Missouri Compromise. With the easy +connivance of President Pierce and the enthusiastic support of the +Southerners, and by some extraordinary exercise of his art as demagogue +and Parliamentarian, he triumphantly ran this measure through. + +Just how it came about seems to be rather obscure, but it is easy to +conjecture his motives. Trained in a school in which scruple or +principle were unknown and the man who arrives is the great man, +Douglas, like other such adventurers, was accessible to visions of a +sort. He cared nothing whether negroes were slaves or not, and +doubtless despised Northern and Southern sentiment on that subject +equally; as he frankly said once, on any question between white men and +negroes he was on the side of the white men, and on any question +between negroes and crocodiles he would be on the side of the negroes. +But he did care for the development of the great national heritage in +the West, that subject of an easy but perfectly wholesome patriotic +pride with which we are familiar. It must have been a satisfaction to +him to feel that North and South would now have an equal chance in that +heritage, and also that the white settlers in the West would be +relieved of any restriction on their freedom. None the less his action +was to the last degree reckless. The North had shown itself ready in +1850 to put up with a great deal of quiet invasion of its former +principle, but to lay hands upon the sacred letter of the Act in which +that principle was enshrined was to invite exciting consequences. + +The immediate consequences were two-fold. In the first place Southern +settlers came pouring into Kansas and Northern settlers in still larger +numbers (rendered larger still by the help of an emigration society +formed in the North-East for that purpose) came pouring in too. It was +at first a race to win Kansas for slavery or for freedom. When it +became apparent that freedom was winning easily, the race turned into a +civil war between these two classes of immigrants for the possession of +the Territorial government, and this kept on its scandalous and bloody +course for three or four years. + +In the second place there was a revolution in the party system. The +old Whig party, which, whatever its tendencies, had avoided having any +principle in regard to slavery, now abruptly and opportunely expired. +There had been an attempt once before, and that time mainly among the +Democrats, to create a new "Free-soil Party," but it had come to very +little. This time a permanent fusion was accomplished between the +majority of the former Whigs in the North and a numerous secession from +among the Northern Democrats. They created the great Republican party, +of which the name and organisation have continued to this day, but of +which the original principle was simply and solely that there should be +no further extension of slavery upon territory present or future of the +United States. It naturally consisted of Northerners only. This was +of course an ominous fact, and caused people, who were too timid either +to join the Republicans or turn Democrat, to take refuge in another +strange party, formed about this time, which had no views about +slavery. This was the "American" party, commonly called the +"Know-Nothing" party from its ridiculous and objectionable secret +organisation. Its principle was dislike of foreign immigrants, +especially such as were Roman Catholics. To them ex-President +Fillmore, protesting against "the madness of the times" when men +ventured to say yes or no on a question relating to slavery, fled for +comfort, and became their candidate for the Presidency at the next +election. + +It was in 1854 that Lincoln returned to political life as one of the +founders of the Republican party. But it will be better at once to +deal with one or two later events with which he was not specially +concerned. The Republicans chose as their Presidential candidate in +1856 an attractive figure, John Fremont, a Southerner of French origin, +who had conducted daring and successful explorations in Oregon, had +some hand (perhaps a very important hand) in conquering California from +Mexico, and played a prominent part in securing California for freedom. +The Southern Democrats again secured a Northern instrument in James +Buchanan of Pennsylvania, an elderly and very respectable man, who was +understood to be well versed in diplomatic and official life. He was a +more memorable personage than Pierce. A great chorus of friendly +witnesses to his character has united in ascribing all his actions to +weakness. + +Buchanan was elected; but for a brand-new party the Republicans had put +up a very good fight, and they were in the highest of spirits when, +shortly after Buchanan's Inauguration in 1857, a staggering blow fell +upon them from an unexpected quarter. This was nothing less than a +pronouncement by the Chief Justice and a majority of Justices in the +Supreme Court of the United States, that the exclusion of slavery from +any portion of the Territories, and therefore, of course, the whole aim +and object of the Republicans, was, as Calhoun had contended eight or +ten years before, unconstitutional. + +Dred Scott was a Missouri slave whose misfortunes it is needless to +compassionate, since, after giving his name to one of the most famous +law cases in history, he was emancipated with his family by a new +master into whose hands he had passed. Some time before the Missouri +Compromise was repealed he had been taken by his master into Minnesota, +as a result of which he claimed that he became, by virtue of the +Missouri Compromise, a free man. His right to sue his master in a +Federal Court rested on the allegation that he was now a citizen of +Missouri, while his master was a citizen of another State. There was +thus a preliminary question to be decided, Was he really a citizen, +before the question, Was he a freeman, could arise at all. If the +Supreme Court followed its established practice, and if it decided +against his citizenship, it would not consider the question which +interested the public, that of his freedom. + +Chief Justice Roger Taney may be seen from the refined features of his +portrait and the clear-cut literary style of his famous judgment to +have been a remarkable man. He was now eighty-three, but in unimpaired +intellectual vigour. In a judgment, with which five of his colleagues +entirely concurred and from which only two dissented, he decided that +Dred Scott was not a citizen, and went on, contrary to practice, to +pronounce, in what was probably to be considered as a mere _obiter +dictum_, that Dred Scott was not free, because the Missouri Compromise +had all along been unconstitutional and void. Justices McLean and +Curtis, especially the latter, answered Taney's arguments in cogent +judgments, which it seems generally to be thought were right. Many +lawyers thought so then, and so did the prudent Fillmore. This is one +of the rare cases where a layman may have an opinion on a point of law, +for the argument of Taney was entirely historical and rested upon the +opinion as to negroes and slavery which he ascribed to the makers of +the Constitution and the authors of the Declaration of Independence. +On the question of Scott's citizenship he laid down that these men had +hardly counted Africans as human at all, and used words such as "men," +"persons," "citizens" in a sense which necessarily excluded the negro. +We have seen already that he was wrong--the Southern politician who +called the words of the Declaration of Independence "a self-evident +lie" was a sounder historian than Taney; but an amazing fact is to be +added: the Constitution, whose authors, according to Taney, could not +conceive of a negro as a citizen, was actually the act of a number of +States in several of which negroes were exercising the full rights of +citizens at the time. It would be easy to bring almost equally plain +considerations to bear against the more elaborate argument of Taney +that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, but it is enough to +say this much: the first four Presidents--that is, all the Presidents +who were in public life when the Constitution was made--had all acted +unhesitatingly upon the belief that Congress had the power to allow or +forbid slavery in the Territories. The fifth, John Quincy Adams, when +he set his hand to Acts involving this principle, had consulted before +doing so the whole of his Cabinet on this constitutional point and had +signed such legislation with the full concurrence of them all. Even +Polk had acted later upon the same view. The Dred Scott judgment would +thus appear to show the penetrating power at that time of an altogether +fantastic opinion. + +The hope, which Taney is known to have entertained, that his judgment +would compose excited public opinion, was by no means fulfilled. It +raised fierce excitement. What practical effect would hereafter be +given to the opinion of six out of the nine judges in that Court might +depend on many things. But to the Republicans, who appealed much to +antiquity, it was maddening to be thus assured that their whole +"platform" was unconstitutional. In the long run, there seems to be no +doubt that Taney helped the cause of freedom. He had tried to make +evident the personal sense of compassion for "these unfortunate people" +with which he contemplated the opinion that he ascribed to a past +generation; but he failed to do this, and instead he succeeded in +imparting to the supposed Constitutional view of the slave, as nothing +but a chattel, a horror which went home to many thousands of the +warm-hearted men and women of his country. + +For the time, however, the Republicans were deeply depressed, and a +further perplexity shortly befell them. An attempt, to which we must +shortly return, was made to impose the slave system on Kansas against +the now unmistakable will of the majority there. Against this attempt +Douglas, in opposition to whom the Republican party had been formed, +revolted to his lasting honour, and he now stood out for the occasion +as the champion of freedom. It was at this late period of bewilderment +and confusion that the life-story of Abraham Lincoln became one with +the life-story of the American people. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE RISE OF LINCOLN + +1. _Lincoln's Return to Public Life_. + +We possess a single familiar letter in which Lincoln opened his heart +about politics. It was written while old political ties were not yet +quite broken and new ties not quite knit, and it was written to an old +and a dear friend who was not his political associate. We may +fittingly place it here, as a record of the strong and conflicting +feelings out of which his consistent purpose in this crisis was formed. + + +"_24 August, 1855_. + +"To JOSHUA SPEED. + +"You know what a poor correspondent I am. Ever since I received your +very agreeable letter of the 22nd I have been intending to write you an +answer to it. You suggest that in political action, now, you and I +would differ. I suppose we would; not quite so much, however, as you +may think. You know I dislike slavery, and you fully admit the +abstract wrong of it. So far there is no cause of difference. But you +say that sooner than yield your legal right to the slave, especially at +the bidding of those who are not themselves interested, you would see +the Union dissolved. I am not aware that any one is bidding you yield +that right; very certainly I am not. I leave that matter entirely to +yourself. I also acknowledge your rights and my obligations under the +Constitution in regard to your slaves. I confess I hate to see the +poor creatures hunted down and caught and carried back to their stripes +and unrequited toil; but I bite my lips and keep quiet. In 1841 you +and I had together a tedious low-water trip on a steamboat from +Louisville to St. Louis. You may remember, as I well do, that from +Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio there were on board ten or a dozen +slaves shackled together with irons. That sight was a continual +torment to me, and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio +or any other slave border. It is not fair for you to assume that I +have no interest in a thing which has, and continually exercises, the +power to make me miserable. You ought rather to appreciate how much +the great body of the Northern people do crucify their feelings, in +order to maintain their loyalty to the Constitution and the Union. I +do oppose the extension of slavery because my judgment and feelings so +prompt me, and I am under no obligations to the contrary. If for this +you and I must differ, differ we must. . . . + +"You say that if Kansas fairly votes herself a free State, as a +Christian you will rejoice at it. All decent slave holders talk that +way and I do not doubt their candour. But they never vote that way. +Although in a private letter or conversation you will express your +preference that Kansas shall be free, you will vote for no man for +Congress who would say the same thing publicly. No such man could be +elected from any district in a slave State. . . . The slave breeders +and slave traders are a small, odious and detested class among you; and +yet in politics they dictate the course of all of you, and are as +completely your masters as you are the masters of your own negroes. + +"You inquire where I now stand. That is a disputed point. I think I +am a Whig; but others say there are no Whigs, and that I am an +Abolitionist. When I was at Washington I voted for the Wilmot Proviso +as good as forty times; and I never heard of any one attempting to +un-Whig me for that. I now do no more than oppose the extension of +slavery. I am not a Know-Nothing, that is certain. How could I be? +How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes be in favour of +degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears +to me pretty rapid. As a nation we began by declaring that 'all men +are created equal.' We now practically read it, 'all men are created +equal, except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will +read, 'all men are created equal, except negroes and foreigners and +Catholics.' When it comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some +country where they make no pretence of loving liberty--to Russia, for +instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy +of hypocrisy. + +"Mary will probably pass a day or two in Louisville in October. My +kindest regards to Mrs. Speed. On the leading subject of this letter I +have more of her sympathy than I have of yours; and yet let me say I am + +"Your friend forever, + +"A. LINCOLN." + + +The shade of doubt which this letter suggests related really to the +composition of political parties and the grouping of political forces, +not in the least to the principles by which Lincoln's own actions would +be guided. He has himself recorded that the repeal of the Missouri +Compromise meant for him the sudden revival in a far stronger form of +his interest in politics, and, we may add, of his political ambition. +The opinions which he cherished most deeply demanded no longer patience +but vehement action. The faculties of political organisation and of +popular debate, of which he enjoyed the exercise, could now be used for +a purpose which satisfied his understanding and his heart. + +From 1854 onwards we find Lincoln almost incessantly occupied, at +conventions, at public meetings, in correspondence, in secret +consultation with those who looked to him for counsel, for the one +object of strengthening the new Republican movement in his own State of +Illinois, and, so far as opportunity offered, in the neighbouring +States. Some of the best of his reported and the most effective of his +unreported speeches were delivered between 1854 and 1858. Yet as large +a part of his work in these years was done quietly in the background, +and it continued to be his fate to be called upon to efface himself. + +It is unnecessary to follow in any detail the labours by which he +became a great leader in Illinois. It may suffice to pick out two +instances that illustrate the ways of this astute, unselfish man. The +first is very trifling and shows him merely astute. A Springfield +newspaper called the _Conservative_ was acquiring too much influence as +the organ of moderate and decent opinion that acquiesced in the +extension of negro slavery. The Abolitionist, Mr. Herndon, was a +friend of the editor. One day he showed Lincoln an article in a +Southern paper which most boldly justified slavery whether the slaves +were black or white. Lincoln observed what a good thing it would be if +the pro-slavery papers of Illinois could be led to go this length. +Herndon ingeniously used his acquaintance with the editor to procure +that he should reprint this article with approval. Of course that +promising journalistic venture, the _Conservative_, was at once ruined +by so gross an indiscretion. This was hard on its confiding editor, +and it is not to Lincoln's credit that he suggested or connived at this +trick. But this trumpery tale happens to be a fair illustration of two +things. In the first place a large part of Lincoln's activity went in +the industrious and watchful performance of services to his cause, very +seldom as questionable but constantly as minute as this, and in making +himself as in this case confidant and adviser to a number of less +notable workers. In the second place a biographer must set forth if he +can the materials for the severest judgment on his subject, and in the +case of a man whose fame was built on his honesty, but who certainly +had an aptitude for ingenious tricks and took a humorous delight in +them, this duty might involve a tedious examination of many unimportant +incidents. It may save such discussion hereafter to say, as can safely +be said upon a study of all the transactions in his life of which the +circumstances are known, that this trick on the editor of the +_Conservative_ marks the limit of Lincoln's deviation from the straight +path. Most of us might be very glad if we had really never done +anything much more dishonest. + +Our second tale of this period is much more memorable. In 1856 the +term of office of one of the Senators for Illinois came to an end; and +there was a chance of electing an opponent of Douglas. Those of the +Republicans of Illinois who were former Whigs desired the election of +Lincoln, but could only secure it by the adhesion of a sufficient +number of former Democrats and waverers. United States Senators were +elected by the Legislatures of their own States through a procedure +similar to that of the Conclave of Cardinals which elects a Pope; if +there were several candidates and no one of them had an absolute +majority of the votes first cast, the candidate with most votes was not +elected; the voting was repeated, perhaps many times, till some one had +an absolute majority; the final result was brought about by a transfer +of votes from one candidate to another in which the prompt and cunning +wire-puller had sometimes a magnificent opportunity for his skill. In +this particular contest there were many ballots, and Lincoln at first +led. His supporters were full of eager hope. Lincoln, looking on, +discerned before any of them the setting in of an under-current likely +to result in the election of a supporter of Douglas. He discerned, +too, that the surest way to prevent this was for the whole of his +friends immediately to go over to the Democrat, Lyman Trumbull, who was +a sound opponent of slavery. He sacrificed his own chance instantly by +persuading his supporters to do this. They were very reluctant, but he +overbore them; one, a very old friend, records that he never saw him +more earnest and decided. The same friend records, what is necessary +to the appreciation of Lincoln's conduct, that his personal +disappointment and mortification at his failure were great. Lincoln, +it will be remembered, had acted just in this way when he sought +election to the House of Representatives; he was to repeat this line of +conduct in a manner at least as striking in the following year. Minute +criticism of his action in many matters becomes pointless when we +observe that his managing shrewdness was never more signally displayed +than it was three times over in the sacrifice of his own personal +chances. + +For four years, it is to be remembered, the activity and influence of +which we are speaking were of little importance beyond the boundaries +of Illinois. It is true that at the Republican Convention in 1856 +which chose Fremont as its candidate for the Presidency, Lincoln was +exposed for a moment to the risk (for so it was to be regarded) of +being nominated for the Vice-Presidency; but even his greatest speech +was not noticed outside Illinois, and in the greater part of the +Northern States his name was known to comparatively few and to them +only as a local notability of the West. But in the course of 1858 he +challenged the attention of the whole country. There was again a +vacancy for a Senator for Illinois. Douglas was the sole and obvious +candidate of the Democrats. Lincoln came forward as his opponent. The +elections then pending of the State Legislature, which in its turn +would elect a Senator, became a contest between Lincoln and Douglas. +In the autumn of that year these rival champions held seven joint +debates before mass meetings in the open air at important towns of +Illinois, taking turns in the right of opening the debate and replying +at its close; in addition each was speaking at meetings of his own at +least once a day for three months. At the end of it all Douglas had +won his seat in the Senate, and Lincoln had not yet gained recognition +among the Republican leaders as one of themselves. Nevertheless the +contest between Lincoln and Douglas was one of the decisive events in +American history, partly from the mere fact that at that particular +moment any one opposed Douglas at all; partly from the manner in which, +in the hearing of all America, Lincoln formulated the issue between +them; partly from the singular stroke by which he deliberately ensured +his own defeat and certain further consequences. + + +2. _The Principles and the Oratory of Lincoln_. + +We can best understand the causes which suddenly made him a man of +national consequence by a somewhat close examination of the principles +and the spirit which governed all his public activity from the moment +of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The new Republican party +which then began to form itself stood for what might seem a simple +creed; slavery must be tolerated where it existed because the +Constitution and the maintenance of the Union required it, but it must +not be allowed to extend beyond its present limits because it was +fundamentally wrong. This was what most Whigs and many Democrats in +the North had always held, but the formulation of it as the platform of +a party, and a party which must draw its members almost entirely from +the North, was bound to raise in an acute form questions on which very +few men had searched their hearts. Men who hated slavery were likely +to falter and find excuses for yielding when confronted with the danger +to the Union which would arise. Men who loved the Union might in the +last resort be ready to sacrifice it if they could thereby be rid of +complicity with slavery, or might be unwilling to maintain it at the +cost of fratricidal war. The stress of conflicting emotions and the +complications of the political situation were certain to try to the +uttermost the faith of any Republican who was not very sure just how +much he cared for the Union and how much for freedom, and what loyalty +to either principle involved. It was the distinction of Lincoln--a man +lacking in much of the knowledge which statesmen are supposed to +possess, and capable of blundering and hesitation about details--first, +that upon questions like these he was free from ambiguity of thought or +faltering of will, and further, that upon his difficult path, amid +bewildering and terrifying circumstances, he was able to take with him +the minds of very many very ordinary men. + +In a slightly conventional memorial oration upon Clay, Lincoln had said +of him that "he loved his country, partly because it was his own +country, and mostly because it was a free country." He might truly +have said the like of himself. To him the national unity of America, +with the Constitution which symbolised it, was the subject of pride and +of devotion just in so far as it had embodied and could hereafter more +fully embody certain principles of permanent value to mankind. On this +he fully knew his own inner mind. For the preservation of an America +which he could value more, say, than men value the Argentine Republic, +he was to show himself better prepared than any other man to pay any +possible price. But he definitely refused to preserve the Union by +what in his estimation would have been the real surrender of the +principles which had made Americans a distinct and self-respecting +nation. + +Those principles he found in the Declaration of Independence. Its +rhetorical inexactitude gave him no trouble, and must not, now that its +language is out of fashion, blind us to the fact that the founders of +the United States did deliberately aspire to found a commonwealth in +which common men and women should count for more than elsewhere, and in +which, as we might now phrase it, all authority must defer somewhat to +the interests and to the sentiments of the under dog. "Public opinion +on any subject," he said, "always has a 'central idea' from which all +its minor thoughts radiate. The 'central idea' in our public opinion +at the beginning was, and till recently has continued to be, 'the +equality of man'; and, although it has always submitted patiently to +whatever inequality seemed to be a matter of actual necessity, its +constant working has been a steady and progressive effort towards the +practical equality of all men." The fathers, he said again, had never +intended any such obvious untruth as that equality actually existed, or +that any action of theirs could immediately create it; but they had set +up a standard to which continual approximation could be made. + +So far as white men were concerned such approximation had actually +taken place; the audiences Lincoln addressed were fully conscious that +very many thousands had found in the United States a scope to lead +their own lives which the traditions and institutions no less than the +physical conditions of their former countries had denied them. There +was no need for him to enlarge on this fact; but there are repeated +indications of the distaste and alarm with which he witnessed a demand +that newcomers from Europe, or some classes of them, should be accorded +lesser privileges than they had enjoyed. + +But notions of freedom and equality as applied to the negroes presented +a real difficulty. "There is," said Lincoln, "a natural disgust in the +minds of nearly all white people at the idea of an indiscriminate +amalgamation of the white and black men." (We might perhaps add that +as the inferior race becomes educated and rises in status it is likely +itself to share the same disgust.) Lincoln himself disliked the +thought of intermarriage between the races. He by no means took it for +granted that equality in political power must necessarily and properly +follow upon emancipation. Schemes for colonial settlement of the +negroes in Africa, or for gradual emancipation accompanied by +educational measures, appealed to his sympathy. It was not given him +to take a part in the settlement after the war, and it is impossible to +guess what he would have achieved as a constructive statesman; but it +is certain that he would have proceeded with caution and with the +patience of sure faith; and he had that human sympathy with the white +people of the South, and no less with the slaves themselves, which +taught him the difficulty of the problem. But difficult as the problem +was, one solution was certainly wrong, and that was the permanent +acquiescence in slavery. If we may judge from reiteration in his +speeches, no sophism angered him quite so much as the very popular +sophism which defended slavery by presenting a literal equality as the +real alternative to it. "I protest against the counterfeit logic which +says that since I do not want a negro woman for my slave I must +necessarily want her for my wife. I may want her for neither. I may +simply let her alone. In some respects she is certainly not my equal. +But in her natural right to eat the bread which she has earned by the +sweat of her brow, she is my equal and the equal of any man." + +The men who had made the Union had, as Lincoln contended, and in regard +to most of them contended justly, been true to principle in their +dealing with slavery. "They yielded to slavery," he insists, "what the +necessity of the case required, and they yielded nothing more." It +was, as we know, impossible for them in federating America, however +much they might hope to inspire the new nation with just ideas, to take +the power of legislating as to slavery within each existing State out +of the hands of that State. Such power as they actually possessed of +striking at slavery they used, as we have seen and as Lincoln recounted +in detail, with all promptitude and almost to its fullest extent. They +reasonably believed, though wrongly, that the natural tendency of +opinion throughout the now freed Colonies with principles of freedom in +the air would work steadily towards emancipation. "The fathers," +Lincoln could fairly say, "place slavery, where the public mind could +rest in the belief that it was in the course of ultimate extinction." +The task for statesmen now was "to put slavery back where the fathers +placed it." + +Now this by no means implied that slavery in the States which now +adhered to it should be exposed to attack from outside, or the slave +owner be denied any right which he could claim under the Constitution, +however odious and painful it might be, as in the case of the rendition +of fugitive slaves, to yield him his rights. "We allow," says Lincoln, +"slavery to exist in the slave States, not because it is right, but +from the necessities of the Union. We grant a fugitive slave law +because it is so 'nominated in the bond'; because our fathers so +stipulated--had to--and we are bound to carry out this agreement." And +the obligations to the slave owners and the slave States, which this +original agreement and the fundamental necessities of the Union +involved, must be fulfilled unswervingly, in spirit as well as in the +letter. Lincoln was ready to give the slave States any possible +guarantee that the Constitution should not be altered so as to take +away their existing right of self-government in the matter of slavery. +He had remained in the past coldly aloof from the Abolitionist +propaganda when Herndon and other friends tried to interest him in it, +feeling, it seems, that agitation in the free States against laws which +existed constitutionally in the slave States was not only futile but +improper. With all his power he dissuaded his more impulsive friends +from lending any aid to forcible and unlawful proceedings in defence of +freedom in Kansas. "The battle of freedom," he exclaims in a vehement +plea for what may be called moderate as against radical policy, "is to +be fought out on principle. Slavery is violation of eternal right. We +have temporised with it from the necessities of our condition; but as +sure as God reigns and school children read, that black foul lie can +never be consecrated into God's hallowed truth." In other words, the +sure way and the only way to combat slavery lay in the firm and the +scrupulous assertion of principles which would carry the reason and the +conscience of the people with them; the repeal of the prohibition of +slavery in the Territories was a defiance of such principles, but so +too in its way was the disregard by Abolitionists of the rights +covenanted to the slave States. This side of Lincoln's doctrine is apt +to jar upon us. We feel with a great American historian that the North +would have been depraved indeed if it had not bred Abolitionists, and +it requires an effort to sympathise with Lincoln's rigidly correct +feeling--sometimes harshly expressed and sometimes apparently cold. It +is not possible to us, as it was to him a little later, to look on John +Brown's adventure merely as a crime. Nor can we wonder that, when he +was President and Civil War was raging, many good men in the North +mistook him and thought him half-hearted, because he persisted in his +respect for the rights of the Slave States so long as there seemed to +be a chance of saving the Union in that way. It was his primary +business, he then said, to save the Union if he could; "if I could save +the Union by emancipating all the slaves I would do so; if I could save +it by emancipating none of them, I would do it; if I could save it by +emancipating some and not others, I would do that too." But, as in the +letter at the beginning of this chapter he called Speed to witness, his +forbearance with slavery cost him real pain, and we shall misread both +his policy as President and his character as a man if we fail to see +that in the bottom of his mind he felt this forbearance to be required +by the very same principles which roused him against the extension of +the evil. Years before, he had written to an Abolitionist +correspondent that respect for the rights of the slave States was due +not only to the Constitution but, "as it seems to me, in a sense to +freedom itself." Negro slavery was not the only important issue, nor +was it an isolated issue. What really was in issue was the continuance +of the nation "dedicated," as he said on a great occasion, "to the +proposition that all men are equal," a nation founded by the Union of +self-governing communities, some of which lagged far behind the others +in applying in their own midst the elementary principles of freedom, +but yet a nation actuated from its very foundation in some important +respects by the acknowledgment of human rights. + +The practical policy, then, on which his whole efforts were +concentrated consisted in this single point--the express recognition of +the essential evil of slavery by the enactment that it should not +spread further in the Territories subject to the Union. If slavery +were thus shut up within a ring fence and marked as a wrong thing which +the Union as a whole might tolerate but would not be a party to, +emancipation in the slave States would follow in course of time. It +would come about, Lincoln certainly thought, in a way far better for +the slaves as well as for their masters, than any forced liberation. +He was content to wait for it. "I do not mean that when it takes a +turn towards ultimate extinction, it will be in a day, nor in a year, +nor in two years. I do not suppose that in the most peaceful way +ultimate extinction would occur in less than a hundred years at least, +but that it will occur in the best way for both races in God's own good +time I have no doubt." If we wonder whether this policy, if soon +enough adopted by the Union as a whole, would really have brought on +emancipation in the South, the best answer is that, when the policy did +receive national sanction by the election of Lincoln, the principal +slave States themselves instinctively recognised it as fatal to slavery. + +For the extinction of slavery he would wait; for a decision on the +principle of slavery he would not. It was idle to protest against +agitation of the question. If politicians would be silent that would +not get rid of "this same mighty deep-seated power that somehow +operates on the minds of men, exciting them and stirring them up in +every avenue of society--in politics, in religion, in literature, in +morals, in all the manifold relations of life." The stand, temperate +as it was, that he advocated against slavery should be taken at once +and finally. The difference, of which people grown accustomed to +slavery among their neighbours thought little, between letting it be in +Missouri, which they could not help, and letting it cross the border +into Kansas, which they could help, appeared to Lincoln the whole +tremendous gulf between right and wrong, between a wise people's +patience with ills they could not cure and a profligate people's +acceptance of evil as their good. And here there was a distinction +between Lincoln and many Republicans, which again may seem subtle, but +which was really far wider than that which separated him from the +Abolitionists. Slavery must be stopped from spreading into Kansas not +because, as it turned out, the immigrants into Kansas mostly did not +want it, but because it was wrong, and the United States, where they +were free to act, would not have it. The greatest evil in the repeal +of the Missouri Compromise was the laxity of public tone which had made +it possible. "Little by little, but steadily as man's march to the +grave, we have been giving up the old faith for the new faith." +Formerly some deference to the "central idea" of equality was general +and in some sort of abstract sense slavery was admitted to be wrong. +Now it was boldly claimed by the South that "slavery in the abstract +was right." All the most powerful influences in the country, "Mammon" +(for "the slave property is worth a billion dollars"), "fashion, +philosophy," and even "the theology of the day," were enlisted in +favour of this opinion. And it met with no resistance. "You yourself +may detest slavery; but your neighbour has five or six slaves, and he +is an excellent neighbour, or your son has married his daughter, and +they beg you to help save their property, and you vote against your +interests and principle to oblige a neighbour, hoping your vote will be +on the losing side." And again "the party lash and the fear of +ridicule will overawe justice and liberty; for it is a singular fact, +but none the less a fact and well known by the most common experience, +that men will do things under the terror of the party lash that they +would not on any account or for any consideration do otherwise; while +men, who will march up to the mouth of a loaded cannon without +shrinking, will run from the terrible name of 'Abolitionist,' even when +pronounced by a worthless creature whom they with good reason despise." +And so people in the North, who could hardly stomach the doctrine that +slavery was good, yet lapsed into the feeling that it was a thing +indifferent, a thing for which they might rightly shuffle off their +responsibility on to the immigrants into Kansas. This feeling that it +was indifferent Lincoln pursued and chastised with special scorn. But +the principle of freedom that they were surrendering was the principle +of freedom for themselves as well as for the negro. The sense of the +negro's rights had been allowed to go back till the prospect of +emancipation for him looked immeasurably worse than it had a generation +before. They must recognise that when, by their connivance, they had +barred and bolted the door upon the negro, the spirit of tyranny which +they had evoked would then "turn and rend them." The "central idea" +which had now established itself in the intellect of the Southern was +one which favoured the enslavement of man by man "apart from colour." +A definite choice had to be made between the principle of the fathers, +which asserted certain rights for all men, and that other principle +against which the fathers had rebelled and of which the "divine right +of kings" furnished Lincoln with his example. In what particular +manner the white people would be made to feel the principle of tyranny +when they had definitely "denied freedom to others" and ceased to +"deserve it for themselves" Lincoln did not attempt to say, and perhaps +only dimly imagined. But he was as convinced as any prophet that +America stood at the parting of the ways and must choose now the right +principle or the wrong with all its consequences. + +The principle of tyranny presented itself for their choice in a +specious form in Douglas' "great patent, everlasting principle of +'popular sovereignty.'" This alleged principle was likely, so to say, +to take upon their blind side men who were sympathetic to the +impatience of control of any crowd resembling themselves but not +sympathetic to humanity of another race and colour. The claim to some +divine and indefeasible right of sovereignty overriding all other +considerations of the general good, on the part of a majority greater +or smaller at any given time in any given area, is one which can +generally be made to bear a liberal semblance, though it certainly has +no necessary validity. Americans had never before thought of granting +it in the case of their outlying and unsettled dominions; they would +never, for instance, as Lincoln remarked, have admitted the claim of +settlers like the Mormons to make polygamy lawful in the territory they +occupied. In the manner in which it was now employed the proposed +principle could, as Lincoln contended, be reduced to this simple form +"that, if one man chooses to enslave another, no third man shall have +the right to object." + +It is impossible to estimate how far Lincoln foresaw the strain to +which a firm stand against slavery would subject the Union. It is +likely enough that those worst forebodings for the Union, which events +proved to be very true, were confined to timid men who made a practice +of yielding to threats. Lincoln appreciated better than many of his +fellows the sentiment of the South, but it is often hard for men, not +in immediate contact with a school of thought which seems to them +thoroughly perverse, to appreciate its pervasive power, and Lincoln was +inclined to stake much upon the hope that reason will prevail. +Moreover, he had a confidence in the strength of the Union which might +have been justified if his predecessor in office had been a man of +ordinary firmness. But it is not to be supposed that any undue +hopefulness, if he felt it, influenced his judgment. He was of a +temper which does not seek to forecast what the future has to show, and +his melancholy prepared him well for any evil that might come. Two +things we can say with certainty of his aim and purpose. On the one +hand, as has already been said, whatever view he had taken of the peril +to the Union he would never have sought to avoid the peril by what +appeared to him a surrender of the principle which gave the Union its +worth. On the other hand, he must always have been prepared to uphold +the Union at whatever the cost might prove to be. To a man of deep and +gentle nature war will always be hateful, but it can never, any more +than an individual death, appear the worst of evils. And the claim of +the Southern States to separate from a community which to him was +venerable and to form a new nation, based on slavery and bound to live +in discord with its neighbors, did not appeal to him at all, though in +a certain literal sense it was a claim to liberty. His attitude to any +possible movement for secession was defined four years at least before +secession came, in words such as it was not his habit to use without +full sense of their possible effect or without much previous thought. +They were quite simple: "We won't break up the Union, and you shan't." + +Such were the main thoughts which would be found to animate the whole +of Lincoln's notable campaign, beginning with his first encounter with +Douglas in 1855 and culminating in his prolonged duel with him in the +autumn of 1858. It is unnecessary here to follow the complexities, +especially in regard to the Dred Scott judgments, through which the +discussion wandered. It is now worth few men's while to do more than +glance at two or three of his speeches at that period; his speeches in +the formal Lincoln-Douglas debates, except the first, are not the best +of them. A scientific student of rhetoric, as the art by which man do +actually persuade crowds, might indeed do well to watch closely the use +by Douglas and Lincoln of their respective weapons, but for most of us +it is an unprofitable business to read reiterated argument, even though +in beautiful language, upon points of doubt that no longer trouble us. +Lincoln does not always show to advantage; later readers have found him +inferior in urbanity to Douglas, of whom he disapproved, while Douglas +probably disapproved of no man; his speeches are, of course, not free +either from unsound arguments or from the rough and tumble of popular +debate; occasionally he uses hackneyed phrases; but it is remarkable +that a hackneyed or a falsely sentimental phrase in Lincoln comes +always as a lapse and a surprise. Passages abound in these speeches +which to almost any literate taste are arresting for the simple beauty +of their English, a beauty characteristic of one who had learned to +reason with Euclid and learned to feel and to speak with the authors of +the Bible. And in their own kind they were a classic and probably +unsurpassed achievement. Though Lincoln had to deal with a single +issue demanding no great width of knowledge, it must be evident that +the passions aroused by it and the confused and shifting state of +public sentiment made his problem very subtle, and it was a rare +profundity and sincerity of thought which solved it in his own mind. +In expressing the result of thought so far deeper than that of most +men, he achieved a clearness of expression which very few writers, and +those among the greatest, have excelled. He once during the +Presidential election of 1856 wrote to a supporter of Fillmore to +persuade him of a proposition which must seem paradoxical to anyone not +deeply versed in American institutions, namely, that it was actually +against Fillmore's interest to gain votes from Fremont in Illinois. He +demonstrated his point, but he was not always judicious in his way of +addressing solemn strangers, and in his rural manner he concludes his +letter, "the whole thing is as simple as figuring out the weight of +three small hogs," and this inelegant sentence conveys with little +exaggeration one especial merit of his often austerely graceful +language. Grave difficulties are handled in a style which could arouse +all the interest of a boy and penetrate the understanding of a +case-hardened party man. + +But if in comparison with the acknowledged masterpieces of our prose we +rank many passages in these speeches very high--and in fact the men who +have appreciated them most highly have been fastidious scholars--we +shall not yet have measured Lincoln's effort and performance. For +these are not the compositions of a cloistered man of letters, they are +the outpourings of an agitator upon the stump. The men who think hard +are few; few of them can clothe their thought in apt and simple words; +very, very few are those who in doing this could hold the attention of +a miscellaneous and large crowd. Popular government owes that +comparative failure, of which in recent times we have taken perhaps +exaggerated notice, partly to the blindness of the polite world to the +true difficulty and true value of work of this kind; and the importance +which Roman education under the Empire gave to rhetoric was the mark +not of deadness, but of the survival of a manly public spirit. +Lincoln's wisdom had to utter itself in a voice which would reach the +outskirts of a large and sometimes excited crowd in the open air. It +was uttered in strenuous conflict with a man whose reputation quite +overshadowed his; a person whose extraordinary and good-humoured +vitality armed him with an external charm even for people who, like +Mrs. Beecher Stowe, detested his principles; an orator whose mastery of +popular appeal and of resourceful and evasive debate was quite +unhampered by any weakness for the truth. The utterance had to be kept +up day after day and night after night for a quarter of a year, by a +man too poor to afford little comforts, travelling from one crowded inn +to another, by slow trains on a railway whose officials paid little +attention to him, while his more prosperous and distinguished rival +could travel in comfort and comparative magnificence. The physical +strain of electioneering, which is always considerable, its alternation +of feverish excitement with a lassitude that, after a while, becomes +prevailing and intense, were in this case far greater and more +prolonged than in any other instance recorded of English or probably of +American statesmen. If, upon his sudden elevation shortly afterwards, +Lincoln was in a sense an obscure man raised up by chance, he was +nevertheless a man who had accomplished a heroic labour. + +On the whole the earthen vessel in which he carried his treasure of +clear thought and clean feelings appears to have enhanced its flavour. +There was at any rate nothing outward about him that aroused the +passion of envy. A few peculiarly observant men were immediately +impressed with his distinction, but there is no doubt that to the +ordinary stranger he appeared as a very odd fish. "No portraits that I +have ever seen," writes one, "do justice to the awkwardness and +ungainliness of his figure." Its movements when he began to speak +rather added to its ungainliness, and, though to a trained actor his +elocution seemed perfect, his voice when he first opened his mouth +surprised and jarred upon the hearers with a harsh note of curiously +high pitch. But it was the sort of oddity that arrests attention, and +people's attention once caught was apt to be held by the man's +transparent earnestness. Soon, as he lost thought of himself in his +subject, his voice and manner changed; deeper notes, of which friends +record the beauty, rang out, the sad eyes kindled, and the tall, gaunt +figure, with the strange gesture of the long, uplifted arms, acquired +even a certain majesty. Hearers recalled afterwards with evident +sincerity the deep and instantaneous impression of some appeal to +simple conscience, as when, "reaching his hands towards the stars of +that still night," he proclaimed, "in some things she is certainly not +my equal, but in her natural right to eat the bread that she has earned +with the sweat of her brow, she is my equal, and the equal of Judge +Douglas, and the equal of any man." Indeed, upon a sympathetic +audience, already excited by the occasion, he could produce an effect +which the reader of his recorded speeches would hardly believe. Of his +speech at an early state convention of the Republican party there is no +report except that after a few sentences every reporter laid down his +pen for the opposite of the usual reason, and, as he proceeded, "the +audience arose from their chairs and with pale faces and quivering lips +pressed unconsciously towards him." And of his speech on another +similar occasion several witnesses seem to have left descriptions +hardly less incongruous with English experience of public meetings. If +we credit him with these occasional manifestations of electric +oratory--as to which it is certain that his quiet temperament did at +times blaze out in a surprising fashion--it is not to be thought that +he was ordinarily what could be called eloquent; some of his speeches +are commonplace enough, and much of his debating with Douglas is of a +drily argumentative kind that does honour to the mass meetings which +heard it gladly. But the greatest gift of the orator he did possess; +the personality behind the words was felt. "Beyond and above all +skill," says the editor of a great paper who heard him at Peoria, "was +the overwhelming conviction imposed upon the audience that the speaker +himself was charged with an irresistible and inspiring duty to his +fellow men." + +One fact about the method of his speaking is easily detected. In +debate, at least, he had no use for perorations, and the reader who +looks for them will often find that Lincoln just used up the last few +minutes in clearing up some unimportant point which he wanted to +explain only if there was time for it. We associate our older +Parliamentary oratory with an art which keeps the hearer pleasedly +expectant rather than dangerously attentive, through an argument which +if dwelt upon might prove unsubstantial, secure that it all leads in +the end to some great cadence of noble sound. But in Lincoln's +argumentative speeches the employment of beautiful words is least +sparing at the beginning or when he passes to a new subject. It seems +as if he deliberately used up his rhetorical effects at the outset to +put his audience in the temper in which they would earnestly follow him +and to challenge their full attention to reasoning which was to satisfy +their calmer judgment. He put himself in a position in which if his +argument were not sound nothing could save his speech from failure as a +speech. Perhaps no standing epithet of praise hangs with such a weight +on a man's reputation as the epithet "honest." When the man is proved +not to be a fraud, it suggests a very mediocre virtue. But the method +by which Lincoln actually confirmed his early won and dangerous +reputation of honesty was a positive and potent performance of rare +distinction. It is no mean intellectual and spiritual achievement to +be as honest in speech with a crowd as in the dearest intercourse of +life. It is not, of course, pretended that he never used a fallacious +argument or made an unfair score--he was entirely human. But this is +the testimony of an Illinois political wire-puller to Lincoln: "He was +one of the shrewdest politicians in the State. Nobody had more +experience in that way. Nobody knew better what was passing in the +minds of the people. Nobody knew better how to turn things to +advantage politically." And then he goes on--and this is really the +sum of what is to be said of his oratory: "He could not cheat people +out of their votes any more than he could out of their money." + + +3. _Lincoln against Douglas_. + +It has now to be told how the contest with Douglas which concluded +Lincoln's labours in Illinois affected the broad stream of political +events in America as a whole. Lincoln, as we know, was still only a +local personage; Illinois is a State bigger than Ireland, but it is +only a little part and was still a rather raw and provincial part of +the United States; but Douglas had for years been a national personage, +for a time the greatest man among the Democrats, and now, for a reason +which did him honour, he was in disgrace with many of his party and on +the point of becoming the hero of all moderate Republicans. + +We need not follow in much detail the events of the great political +world. The repeal of the Missouri Compromise threw it into a ferment, +which the continuing disorders in Kansas were in themselves sufficient +to keep up. New great names were being made in debate in the Senate; +Seward, the most powerful opponent of the repeal of the Missouri +Compromise, kept his place as the foremost man in the Republican party +not by consistency in the stand that he made, but by his mastery of New +York political machinery; Sumner of Massachusetts, the friend of John +Bright, kept up a continual protest for freedom in turgid, scholarly +harangues, which caught the spirit of Cicero's Philippics most +successfully in their personal offensiveness. Powerful voices in +literature and the Press were heard upon the same side--the _New York +Tribune_, edited by Horace Greeley, acquired, as far as a paper in so +large a country can, a national importance. Broadly it may be said +that the stirring intellect of America old and young was with the +Republicans--it is a pleasant trifle to note that Longfellow gave up a +visit to Europe to vote for Fremont as President, and we know the views +of Motley and of Lowell and of Darwin's fellow labourer Asa Gray. But +fashion and that better and quite different influence, the tone of +opinion prevailing in the pleasantest society, inclined always to the +Southern view of every question, and these influences were nowhere more +felt than among Washington politicians. A strong and respectable group +of Southern Senators, of whom Jefferson Davis was the strongest, were +the real driving power of the administration. Convivial President +Pierce and doting President Buchanan after him were complaisant to +their least scrupulous suggestions in a degree hardly credible of +honourable men who were not themselves Southerners. + +One famous incident of life in Congress must be told to explain the +temper of the times. In 1856, during one of the many debates that +arose out of Kansas, Sumner recited in the Senate a speech +conscientiously calculated to sting the slave-owning Senators to +madness. Sumner was a man with brains and with courage and rectitude +beyond praise, set off by a powerful and noble frame, but he lacked +every minor quality of greatness. He would not call his opponent in +debate a skunk, but he would expend great verbal ingenuity in coupling +his name with repeated references to that animal's attributes. On this +occasion he used to the full both the finer and the most exquisitely +tasteless qualities of his eloquence. This sort of thing passed the +censorship of many excellent Northern men who would lament Lincoln's +lack of refinement; and though from first to last the serious +provocation in their disputes lay in the set policy of the Southern +leaders, it ought to be realised that they, men who for the most part +were quite kind to their slaves and had long ago argued themselves out +of any compunction about slavery, were often exposed to intense verbal +provocation. Nevertheless, what followed on Sumner's speech is +terribly significant of the depravation of Southern honour. + +Congressman Preston Brooks, of South Carolina, had an uncle in the +Senate; South Carolina, and this Senator in particular, had been +specially favoured with self-righteous insolence in Sumner's speech. A +day or so later the Senate had just risen and Sumner sat writing at his +desk in the Senate chamber in a position in which he could not quickly +rise. Brooks walked in, burning with piety towards his State and his +uncle, and in the presence, it seems, of Southern Senators who could +have stopped him, beat Sumner on the head with a stick with all his +might. Sumner was incapacitated by injuries to his spine for nearly +five years. Brooks, with a virtuous air, explained in Congress that he +had caught Sumner in a helpless attitude because if Sumner had been +free to use his superior strength he, Brooks, would have had to shoot +him with his revolver. It seems to be hardly an exaggeration to say +that the whole South applauded Brooks and exulted. Exuberant +Southerners took to challenging Northern men, knowing well that their +principles compelled them to refuse duels, but that the refusal would +still be humiliating to the North. Brooks himself challenged +Burlingame, a distinguished Congressman afterwards sent by Lincoln as +Minister to China, who had denounced him. Burlingame accepted, and his +second arranged for a rifle duel at a wild spot across the frontier at +Niagara. Brooks then drew back; he alleged, perhaps sincerely, that he +would have been murdered on his way through the Northern States, but +Northern people were a little solaced. The whole disgusting story +contains only one pleasant incident. Preston Brooks, who, after +numbers of congratulations, testimonials, and presentations, died +within a year of his famous exploit, had first confessed himself tired +of being a hero to every vulgar bully in the South! + +Now, though this dangerous temper burned steadily in the South, and +there were always sturdy Republicans ready to provoke it, and questions +arising out of slavery would constantly recur to disturb high political +circles, it is not to be imagined that opinion in the North, the +growing and bustling portion of the States, would remain for years +excited about the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. In 1857 men's +minds were agitated by a great commercial depression and collapse of +credit, and in 1858 there took place one of the most curious (for it +would seem to have deserved this cold description) of evanescent +religious revivals. Meanwhile, by 1857 the actual bloodshed in Kansas +had come to an end under the administration of an able Governor; the +enormous majority of settlers in Kansas were now known to be against +slavery and it was probably assumed that the legalisation of slavery +could not be forced upon them. Prohibition of slavery there by +Congress thus began to seem needless, and the Dred Scott judgments +raised at least a grave doubt as to whether it was possible. Thus +enthusiasm for the original platform of the Republicans was cooling +down, and to the further embarrassment of that party, when towards the +end of 1857 the Southern leaders attempted a legislative outrage, the +great champion of the Northern protest was not a Republican, but +Douglas himself. + +A Convention had been elected in Kansas to frame a State Constitution. +It represented only a fraction of the people, since, for some reason +good or bad, the opponents of slavery did not vote in the election. +But it was understood that whatever Constitution was framed would be +submitted to the popular vote. The Convention framed a Constitution +legalising slavery, and its proposals came before Congress backed by +the influence of Buchanan. Under them the people of Kansas were to +vote whether they would have this Constitution as it stood, or have it +with the legalisation of slavery restricted to the slaves who had then +been brought into the territory. No opportunity was to be given them +of rejecting the Constitution altogether, though Governor Walker, +himself in favor of slavery, assured the President that they wished to +do so. Ultimately, by way of concession to vehement resistance, the +majority in Congress passed an Act under which the people in Kansas +were to vote simply for or against the slavery Constitution as it +stood, only--if they voted for it, they as a State were to be rewarded +with a large grant of public lands belonging to the Union in their +territory. Eventually the Kansas people, unmoved by this bribe, +rejected the Constitution by a majority of more than 11,000 to 1,800. +Now, the Southern leaders, three years before, had eagerly joined with +Douglas to claim a right of free choice for the Kansas people. The +shamelessness of this attempt to trick them out of it is more +significant even than the tale of Preston Brooks. There was no hot +blood there; the affair was quietly plotted by respected leaders of the +South. They were men in many ways of character and honour, understood +by weak men like Buchanan to represent the best traditions of American +public life. But, as they showed also in other instances that cannot +be related here, slavery had become for them a sacred cause which +hallowed almost any means. It is essential to remember this in trying +to understand the then political situation. + +Douglas here behaved very honourably. He, with his cause of popular +sovereignty, could not have afforded to identify himself with the fraud +on Kansas, but he was a good enough trickster to have made his protest +safely if he had cared to do so. As it was he braved the hatred of +Buchanan and the fury of his Southern friends by instant, manly, +courageous, and continued opposition. It may therefore seem an +ungracious thing that, immediately after this, Lincoln should have +accepted the invitation of his friends to oppose Douglas' re-election. +To most of the leading Republicans out of Illinois it seemed altogether +unwise and undesirable that their party, which had seemed to be losing +ground, should do anything but welcome Douglas as an ally. Of these +Seward indeed went too far for his friends, and in his sanguine hope +that it would work for freedom was ready to submit to the doctrine of +"popular sovereignty"; but, except the austere Chase, now Governor of +Ohio, who this once, but unfortunately not again, was whole-heartedly +with Lincoln, the Republican leaders in the East, and great Republican +journals, like the Tribune, declared their wish that Douglas should be +re-elected. Why, then, did Lincoln stand against him? + +It has often been suggested that his personal feelings towards Douglas +played some part in the matter, though no one thinks they played the +chief part. Probably they did play a part, and it is a relief to think +that Lincoln thoroughly gratified some minor feelings in this contest. +Lincoln no doubt enjoyed measuring himself against other men; and it +was galling to his ambition to have been so completely outstripped by a +man inferior to him in every power except that of rapid success. He +had also the deepest distrust for Douglas as a politician, thinking +that he had neither principle nor scruple, though Herndon, who knew, +declares he neither distrusted nor had cause to distrust Douglas in his +professional dealings as a lawyer. He had, by the way, one definite, +if trifling, score to wipe off. After their joint debate at Peoria in +1855 Douglas, finding him hard to tackle, suggested to Lincoln that +they should both undertake to make no more speeches for the present. +Lincoln oddly assented at once, perhaps for no better reason than a +ridiculous difficulty, to which he once confessed, in refusing any +request whatever. Lincoln of course had kept this agreement strictly, +while Douglas had availed himself of the first temptation to break it. +Thus on all grounds we may be sure that Lincoln took pleasure in now +opposing Douglas. But to go further and say that the two men cordially +hated each other is probably to misread both. There is no necessary +connection between a keen desire to beat a man and any sort of +malignity towards him. That much at least may be learned in English +schools, and the whole history of his dealing with men shows that in +some school or other Lincoln had learned it very thoroughly. Douglas, +too, though an unscrupulous, was not, we may guess, an ungenerous man. + +But the main fact of the matter is that Lincoln would have turned +traitor to his rooted convictions if he had not stood up and fought +Douglas even at this moment when Douglas was deserving of some +sympathy. Douglas, it must be observed, had simply acted on his +principle that the question between slavery and freedom was to be +settled by local, popular choice; he claimed for the white men of +Kansas the fair opportunity of voting; given that, he persistently +declared, "I do not care whether slavery be voted up or voted down." +In Lincoln's settled opinion this moral attitude of indifference to the +wrongfulness of slavery, so long as respect was had to the liberties of +the privileged race, was, so to say, treason to the basic principle of +the American Commonwealth, a treason which had steadily been becoming +rife and upon which it was time to stamp. + +There can be no doubt of his earnestness about this. But the +Republican leaders, honourably enough, regarded this as an unpractical +line to take, and indeed to the political historian this is the most +crucial question in American history. Nobody can say that civil war +would or would not have occurred if this or that had been done a little +differently, but Abraham Lincoln, at this crisis of his life, did, in +pursuance of his peculiarly cherished principle, forge at least a link +in the chain of events which actually precipitated the war. And he did +it knowing better than any other man that he was doing something of +great national importance, involving at least great national risk. Was +he pursuing his principles, moderate as they were in the original +conception, with fanaticism, or at the best preferring a solemn +consistency of theory to the conscientious handling of facts not +reducible to theory? As a question of practical statesmanship in the +largest sense, how did matters really stand in regard to slavery and to +the relations between South and North, and what was Lincoln's idea of +"putting slavery back where the fathers placed it" really worth? + +Herndon in these days went East to try to enlist the support of the +great men for Lincoln. He found them friendly but immovable. Editor +Horace Greeley said to him: "The Republican standard is too high; we +want something practical." This, we may be pretty sure, stiffened +Lincoln's back, as a man with a cause that he cared for, and, for that +matter, as a really shrewd manager in a party which he thought stood +for something. It reveals the flabbiness which the Northerners were in +danger of making a governing tradition of policy. The wrongfulness of +any extension of slavery might be loudly asserted in 1854, but in 1858, +when it no longer looked as if so great an extension of it was really +imminent, there was no harm in shifting towards some less provocative +principle on which more people at the moment might agree. Confronted +with Northern politicians who would reason in this fashion stood a +united South whose leaders were by now accustomed to make the Union +Government go which way they chose and had no sort of disposition to +compromise their principle in the least. "What," as Lincoln put it in +an address given, not long after his contest with Douglas, at the +Cooper Institute in New York, "what do you think will content the +South?" "Nothing," he answered, "but an acknowledgment that slavery is +right." "Holding as they do that slavery is morally right and socially +elevating, they cannot cease to demand a full national recognition of +it, as a legal right and a social blessing. Nor can we justifiably +withhold this on any ground save our conviction that slavery is wrong." +That being so, there was no use, he said, in "groping about for some +middle ground between right and wrong," or in "a policy of 'don't care' +on a question about which all true men do care." And there is ample +evidence that he understood rightly the policy of the South. It is +very doubtful whether any large extension of cultivation by slave +labour was economically possible in Kansas or in regions yet further +North, but we have seen to what lengths the Southern leaders would go +in the attempt to secure even a limited recognition of slavery as +lawful in a new State. They were not succeeding in the business of the +Kansas Constitution. But they had a very good prospect of a far more +important success. The celebrated dicta of Chief Justice Taney and +other judges in the Dred Scott case had not amounted to an actual +decision, nor if they had would a single decision have been +irreversible. Whether the principle of them should become fixed in +American Constitutional law depended (though this could not be openly +said) on whether future appointments to the Supreme Court were to be +made by a President who shared Taney's views; whether the executive +action of the President was governed by the same views; and on the +subtle pressure which outside opinion does exercise, and in this case +had surely exercised, upon judicial minds. If the simple principle +that the right to a slave is just one form of the ordinary right to +property once became firmly fixed in American jurisprudence it is hard +to see how any laws prohibiting slavery could have continued to be held +constitutional except in States which were free States when the +Constitution was adopted. Of course, a State like New York where +slaves were industrially useless would not therefore have been filled +with slave plantations, but, among a loyally minded people, the +tradition which reprobated slavery would have been greatly weakened. +The South would have been freed from the sense that slavery was a +doomed institution. If attempts to plant slavery further in the West +with profit failed, there was Cuba and there was Central America, on +which filibustering raids already found favour in the South, and in +which the national Government might be led to adopt schemes of conquest +or annexation. Moreover, it was avowed by leaders like Jefferson Davis +that though it might be impracticable to hope for the repeal of the +prohibition of the slave trade, at least some relaxation of its +severity ought to be striven for, in the interest of Texas and New +Mexico and of possible future Territories where there might be room for +more slaves. Such were the views of the leaders whose influence +preponderated with the present President and in the main with the +present Congress. When Lincoln judged that a determined stand against +their policy was required, and further that no such stand could be +possible to a party which had embraced Douglas with his principle, "I +care not whether slavery be voted up or voted down," there is no doubt +now that he was right and the great body of Republican authority +opposed to him wrong. + +When Lincoln and his friends in Illinois determined to fight Douglas, +it became impossible for the Republican party as a whole to fall far +behind them. This was in itself at that crisis an important thing. +Lincoln added greatly to its importance by the opening words in the +first speech of his campaign. They were the most carefully prepared +words that he had yet spoken, and the most momentous that he had spoken +till now or perhaps ever spoke. There is nothing in them for which +what has been said of the situation and of his views will not have +prepared us, and nothing which thousands of men might not have said to +one another in private for a year or two before. But the first public +avowal by a responsible man in trenchant phrase, that a grave issue has +been joined upon which one party or the other must accept entire +defeat, may be an event of great and perilous consequence. + +He said: "If we could first know where we are and whither we are +tending, we could better judge what to do and how to do it. We are now +far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed +object, and confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation. +Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not +ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion it will not cease +until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. 'A house divided +against itself cannot stand.' I believe this Government cannot endure +permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be +dissolved--I do not expect the house to fall--but I do expect that it +will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the +other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread +of it and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that +it is in course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it +forward till it shall become lawful alike in all the States, old as +well as new--North as well as South." + +It may perhaps be said that American public opinion has in the past +been very timid in facing clear-cut issues. But, as has already been +observed, an apt phrase crystallising the unspoken thought of many is +even more readily caught up in America than anywhere else; so, though +but few people in States at a distance paid much attention to the rest +of the debates, or for a while again to Lincoln, the comparison of the +house divided against itself produced an effect in the country which +did not wear out. In this whole passage, moreover, Lincoln had +certainly formulated the question before the nation more boldly, more +clearly, more truly than any one before. It is impossible to estimate +such influences precisely, but this was among the speeches that rank as +important actions, and the story, most characteristic of the speaker, +which lay behind it, is worth relating in detail. Lincoln had actually +in a speech in 1856 declared that the United States could not long +endure half slave and half free. "What in God's name," said some +friend after the meeting, "could induce you to promulgate such an +opinion?" "Upon my soul," he said, "I think it is true," and he could +not be argued out of this opinion. Finally the friend protested that, +true or not, no good could come of spreading this opinion abroad, and +after grave reflection Lincoln promised not to utter it again for the +present. Now, in 1858, having prepared his speech he read it to +Herndon. Herndon questioned whether the passage on the divided house +was politic. Lincoln said: "I would rather be defeated with this +expression in my speech, and uphold and discuss it before the people, +than be victorious without it." Once more, just before he delivered +it, he read it over to a dozen or so of his closest supporters, for it +was his way to discuss his intentions fully with friends, sometimes +accepting their advice most submissively and sometimes disregarding it +wholly. One said it was "ahead of its time," another that it was a +"damned fool utterance." All more or less strongly condemned it, +except this time Herndon, who, according to his recollection, said, "It +will make you President." He listened to all and then addressed them, +we are told, substantially as follows: "Friends, this thing has been +retarded long enough. The time has come when these sentiments should +be uttered; and if it is decreed that I should go down because of this +speech, then let me go down linked to the truth--let me die in the +advocacy of what is just and right." Rather a memorable pronouncement +of a candidate to his committee; and the man who records it is +insistent upon every little illustration he can find both of Lincoln's +cunning and of his ambition. + +Lincoln did go down in this particular contest. Many friends wrote and +reproved him after this "damned fool utterance," but his defeat was +not, after all, attributed to that. All the same he did himself assure +his defeat, and he did it with extraordinary skill, for the purpose of +ensuring that the next President should be a Republican President, +though it is impossible he should at that time have counted upon being +himself that Republican. Each candidate had undertaken to answer set +questions which his opponent might propound to him. And great public +attention was paid to the answers to these interrogatories. The Dred +Scott judgments created a great difficulty for Douglas; he was bound to +treat them as right; but if they were right and Congress had no power +to prohibit slavery in a Territory, neither could a Territorial +Legislature with authority delegated by Congress have that power; and, +if this were made clear, it would seem there was an end of that free +choice of the people in the Territories of which Douglas had been the +great advocate. Douglas would use all his evasive skill in keeping +away from this difficult point. If, however, he could be forced to +face it Lincoln knew what he would say. He would say that slavery +would not be actually unlawful in a Territory, but would never actually +exist in it if the Territorial Legislature chose to abstain, as it +could, from passing any of the laws which would in practice be +necessary to protect slave property. By advocating this view Douglas +would fully reassure those of his former supporters in Illinois who +puzzled themselves on the Dred Scott case, but he would infuriate the +South. Lincoln determined to force Douglas into this position by the +questions which he challenged him to answer. When he told his friends +of his ambition, they all told him he would lose his election. +"Gentlemen," said Lincoln, "I am killing larger game; if Douglas +answers, he can never be President, and the battle of 1860 is worth a +hundred of this." The South was already angry with Douglas for his +action over the Kansas Constitution, but he would have been an +invincible candidate for the South to support in 1860, and it must have +told in his favour that his offence then had been one of plain honesty. +But in this fresh offence the Southern leaders had some cause to accuse +him of double dealing, and they swore he should not be President. + +A majority of the new Illinois Legislature returned Douglas to the +Senate. Lincoln, however, had an actual majority of the votes of the +whole State. Probably also he had gained a hold on Illinois for the +future out of all proportion to the actual number of votes then given +against the popular Douglas, and above all he had gathered to him a +band of supporters who had unbounded belief in him. But his fall for +the moment was little noticed or regretted outside Illinois, or at any +rate in the great Eastern States, to which Illinois was, so to speak, +the provinces and he a provincial attorney. His first words in the +campaign had made a stir, but the rest of his speeches in these long +debates could not be much noticed at a distance. Douglas had won, and +the presumption was that he had proved himself the better man. Lincoln +had performed what, apart from results, was a work of intellectual +merit beyond the compass of any American statesman since Hamilton; +moreover, as can now be seen, there had been great results; for, first, +the young Republican party had not capitulated and collapsed, and, +then, the great Democratic party, established in power, in +indifference, and in complicity with wrong, was split clean in two. +But these were not results that could be read yet awhile in election +figures. Meanwhile the exhausted Lincoln reconciled himself for the +moment to failure. As a private man he was thoroughly content that he +could soon work off his debt for his election expenses, could earn +about 500 pounds a year, and be secure in the possession of the little +house and the 2,000 pounds capital which was "as much as any man ought +to have." As a public man he was sadly proud that he had at least +"said some words which may bear fruit after I am forgotten." +Persistent melancholy and incurable elasticity can go together, and +they make a very strong combination. The tone of resignation had not +passed away from his comparatively intimate letters when he was writing +little notes to one political acquaintance and another inciting them to +look forward to the fun of the next fight. + + +4. _John Brown_. + +For the next few months the excitements of the great political world +concern this biography little. There was strife between Davis and +Douglas in the Senate. At a meeting strong against slavery, Seward +regained courage from the occasion and roused the North with grave and +earnest words about the "irrepressible conflict." The "underground +railway," or chain of friendly houses by which fugitive slaves were +stealthily passed on to Canada, became famous. Methodist professors +riotously attempted to rescue an arrested fugitive at Oberlin. A +Southern grand jury threw out the bill of indictment against a +slave-trading crew caught red-handed. In California Democrats +belonging to what was nicknamed "the chivalry" forced upon Senator +Broderick, a literally democratic Irishman and the bravest of the +Democrats who stood out for fair treatment to Kansas, a duel in which +he might fairly be said to have been murdered. The one event which +demands more than allusion was the raid and the death of John Brown. + +John Brown, in whom Puritan religion, as strict as that of his +ancestors on the _Mayflower_, put forth gentler beauties of character +than his sanguinary mission may suggest, had been somewhat of a failure +as a scientific farmer, but as a leader of fighting men in desperate +adventure only such men as Drake or Garibaldi seem to have excelled +him. More particularly in the commotions in Kansas he had led forays, +slain ruthlessly, witnesses dry-eyed the deaths of several of his tall, +strong sons, and as a rule earned success by cool judgment--all, as he +was absolutely sure, at the clear call of God. In October, 1859--how +and with whose help the stroke was prepared seems to be a question of +some mystery--John Brown, gathering a little band of Abolitionists and +negroes, invaded the slave States and seized the United States arsenal +at Harper's Ferry in Virginia. In the details, which do not matter, of +this tiny campaign, John Brown seems, for the first time in his life, +to have blundered badly. This was the only thing that lay upon his +conscience towards the last. What manner of success he can have +expected does not appear; most likely he had neither care nor definite +expectation as to the result. The United States troops under Robert +Lee, soon to be famous, of course overcame him quickly. One of his +prisoners describes how he held out to the last; a dead son beside him; +one hand on the pulse of a dying son, his rifle in the other. He was +captured, desperately wounded. Southerners could not believe the fact +that Brown had not contemplated some hideous uprising of slaves against +their wives and children, but he only wished to conquer them with the +sword of the Lord and of Gideon, quietly freeing slaves as he went. So +naturally there was talk of lynching, but the Virginian gentlemen +concerned would not have that. Governor Wise, of Virginia, had some +talk with him and justified his own high character rather than Brown's +by the estimate he gave of him in a speech at Richmond. Brown was +hanged. "Stonewall" Jackson, a brother fanatic, if that is the word, +felt the spectacle "awful," as he never felt slaughter in battle, and +"put up a prayer that if possible Brown might be saved." "So perish +all foes of the human race," said the officer commanding on the +occasion, and the South generally felt the like. + +A little before his death Brown was asked: "How do you justify your +acts?" He said: "I think, my friend, you are guilty of a great wrong +against God and humanity--I say it without wishing to be offensive--and +it would be perfectly right for any one to interfere with you so far as +to free those you wilfully and wickedly hold in bondage. I think I did +right, and that others will do right who interfere with you at any time +and at all times." In a conversation still later, he is reported to +have concluded: "I wish to say furthermore that you had better--all you +people at the South--prepare yourselves for a settlement of this +question, that must come up for settlement sooner than you are prepared +for it. You may dispose of me very easily. I am nearly disposed of +now. But this question is still to be settled--this negro question I +mean. The end of that is not yet." To a friend he wrote that he +rejoiced like Paul because he knew like Paul that "if they killed him, +it would greatly advance the cause of Christ." + +Lincoln, who regarded lawlessness and slavery as twin evils, could only +say of John Brown's raid: "That affair, in its philosophy, corresponds +with the many attempts related in history at the assassination of kings +and emperors. An enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people +till he fancies himself commissioned by Heaven to liberate them. He +ventures the attempt, which ends in little else than his own execution. +Orsini's attempt on Louis Napoleon and John Brown's attempt at Harper's +Ferry were, in their philosophy, precisely the same." Seward, it must +be recorded, spoke far more sympathetically of him than Lincoln; and +far more justly, for there is a flaw somewhere in this example, as his +chief biographer regards it, of "Mr. Lincoln's common-sense judgment." +John Brown had at least left to every healthy-minded Northern boy a +memory worth much in the coming years of war and, one hopes, ever +after. He had well deserved to be the subject of a song which, +whatever may be its technical merits as literature, does stir. Emerson +took the same view of him as the song writer, and Victor Hugo suggested +as an epitaph for him: "Pro Christo sicut Christus." A calmer poet, +Longfellow, wrote in his diary on Friday, December 2, 1859, the day +when Brown was hanged: "This will be a great day in our history, the +date of a new revolution, quite as much needed as the old one. Even +now, as I write, they are leading old John Brown to execution in +Virginia for attempting to rescue slaves. This is sowing the wind to +reap the whirlwind, which will soon come." + +Any one who is interested in Lincoln is almost forced to linger over +the contrasting though slighter character who crossed the stage just +before he suddenly took the principal part upon it. Men like John +Brown may be fitly ranked with the equally rare men who, steering a +very different course, have consistently acted out the principles of +the Quakers, constraining no man whether by violence or by law, yet +going into the thick of life prepared at all times to risk all. All +such men are abnormal in the sense that most men literally could not +put life through on any similar plan and would be wrong and foolish to +try. The reason is that most men have a wider range of sympathy and of +intellect than they. But the common sense of most of us revolts from +any attitude of condemnation or condescension towards them; for they +are more disinterested than most of us, more single-minded, and in +their own field often more successful. With a very clear conscience we +refuse to take example from these men whose very defects have operated +in them as a special call; but undoubtedly most of us regard them with +a warmth of sympathy which we are slow to accord to safer guides. We +turn now from John Brown, who saw in slavery a great oppression, and +was very angry, and went ahead slaying the nearest oppressor and +liberating--for some days at least--the nearest slave, to a patient +being, who, long ago in his youth, had boiled with anger against +slavery, but whose whole soul now expressed itself in a policy of +deadly moderation towards it: "Let us put back slavery where the +fathers placed it, and there let it rest in peace." We are to study +how he acted when in power. In almost every department of policy we +shall see him watching and waiting while blood flows, suspending +judgment, temporising, making trial of this expedient and of that, +adopting in the end, quite unthanked, the measure of which most men +will say, when it succeeds, "That is what we always said should be +done." Above all, in that point of policy which most interests us, we +shall witness the long postponement of the blow that killed negro +slavery, the steady subordination of this particular issue to what will +not at once appeal to us as a larger and a higher issue. All this +provoked at the time in many excellent and clever men dissatisfaction +and deep suspicion; they longed for a leader whose heart visibly glowed +with a sacred passion; they attributed his patience, the one quality of +greatness which after a while everybody might have discerned in him, +not to a self-mastery which almost passed belief, but to a tepid +disposition and a mediocre if not a low level of desire. We who read +of him to-day shall not escape our moments of lively sympathy with +these grumblers of the time; we shall wish that this man could ever +plunge, that he could ever see red, ever commit some passionate +injustice; we shall suspect him of being, in the phrase of a great +philosopher, "a disgustingly well-regulated person," lacking that +indefinable quality akin to the honest passions of us ordinary men, but +deeper and stronger, which alone could compel and could reward any true +reverence for his memory. These moments will recur but they cannot +last. A thousand little things, apparent on the surface but deeply +significant; almost every trivial anecdote of his boyhood, his prime, +or his closing years; his few recorded confidences; his equally few +speeches made under strong emotion; the lineaments of his face +described by observers whom photography corroborated; all these +absolutely forbid any conception of Abraham Lincoln as a worthy +commonplace person fortunately fitted to the requirements of his office +at the moment, or as merely a "good man" in the negative and +disparaging sense to which that term is often wrested. It is really +evident that there were no frigid perfections about him at all; indeed +the weakness of some parts of his conduct is so unlike what seems to be +required of a successful ruler that it is certain some almost +unexampled quality of heart and mind went to the doing of what he did. +There is no need to define that quality. The general wisdom of his +statesmanship will perhaps appear greater and its not infrequent errors +less the more fully the circumstances are appreciated. As to the man, +perhaps the sense will grow upon us that this balanced and calculating +person, with his finger on the pulse of the electorate while he cracked +his uncensored jests with all comers, did of set purpose drink and +refill and drink again as full and fiery a cup of sacrifice as ever was +pressed to the lips of hero or of saint. + + +5. _The Election of Lincoln_. + +Unlooked-for events were now raising Lincoln to the highest place which +his ambition could contemplate. His own action in the months that +followed his defeat by Douglas cannot have contributed much to his +surprising elevation, yet it illustrates well his strength and his +weakness, his real fitness, now and then startlingly revealed, for the +highest position, and the superficial unfitness which long hid his +capacity from many acute contemporaries. + +In December, 1859, he made a number of speeches in Kansas and elsewhere +in the West, and in February, 1860, he gave a memorable address in the +Cooper Institute in New York before as consciously intellectual an +audience as could be collected in that city, proceeding afterwards to +speak in several cities of New England. His appearance at the Cooper +Institute, in particular, was a critical venture, and he knew it. +There was natural curiosity about this untutored man from the West. An +exaggerated report of his wit prepared the way for probable +disappointment. The surprise which awaited his hearers was of a +different kind; they were prepared for a florid Western eloquence +offensive to ears which were used to a less spontaneous turgidity; they +heard instead a speech with no ornament at all, whose only beauty was +that it was true and that the speaker felt it. The single flaw in the +Cooper Institute speech has already been cited, the narrow view of +Western respectability as to John Brown. For the rest, this speech, +dry enough in a sense, is an incomparably masterly statement of the +then political situation, reaching from its far back origin to the +precise and definite question requiring decision at that moment. Mr. +Choate, who as a young man was present, set down of late years his +vivid recollection of that evening. "He appeared in every sense of the +word like one of the plain people among whom he loved to be counted. +At first sight there was nothing impressive or imposing about him; his +clothes hung awkwardly on his giant frame; his face was of a dark +pallor without the slightest tinge of colour; his seamed and rugged +features bore the furrows of hardship and struggle; his deep-set eyes +looked sad and anxious; his countenance in repose gave little evidence +of the brilliant power which raised him from the lowest to the highest +station among his countrymen; as he talked to me before the meeting he +seemed ill at ease." We know, as a fact, that among his causes of +apprehension, he was for the first time painfully conscious of those +clothes. "When he spoke," proceeds Mr. Choate, "he was transformed; +his eye kindled, his voice rang, his face shone and seemed to light up +the whole assembly. For an hour and a half he held his audience in the +hollow of his hand. His style of speech and manner of delivery were +severely simple. What Lowell called 'the grand simplicities of the +Bible,' with which he was so familiar, were reflected in his discourse. +. . . It was marvellous to see how this untutored man, by mere +self-discipline and the chastening of his own spirit, had outgrown all +meretricious arts, and found his way to the grandeur and strength of +absolute simplicity." + +The newspapers of the day after this speech confirm these reverent +reminiscences. On this, his first introduction to the cultivated world +of the East, Lincoln's audience were at the moment and for the moment +conscious of the power which he revealed. The Cooper Institute speech +takes the plain principle that slavery is wrong, and draws the plain +inference that it is idle to seek for common ground with men who say it +is right. Strange but tragically frequent examples show how rare it is +for statesmen in times of crisis to grasp the essential truth so +simply. It is creditable to the leading men of New York that they +recognised a speech which just at that time urged this plain thing in +sufficiently plain language as a very great speech, and had an inkling +of great and simple qualities in the man who made it. It is not +specially discreditable that very soon and for a long while part of +them, or of those who were influenced by their report, reverted to +their former prejudices in regard to Lincoln. When they saw him thrust +by election managers into the Presidency, very few indeed of what might +be called the better sort believed, or could easily learn, that his +great qualities were great enough to compensate easily for the many +things he lacked. This specially grotesque specimen of the wild West +was soon seen not to be of the charlatan type; as a natural alternative +he was assumed to be something of a simpleton. Many intelligent men +retained this view of him throughout the years of his trial, and, only +when his triumph and tragic death set going a sort of Lincoln myth, +began to recollect that "I came to love and trust him even before I +knew him," or the like. A single speech like this at the Cooper +Institute might be enough to show a later time that Lincoln was a man +of great intellect, but it could really do little to prepare men in the +East for what they next heard of him. + +Already a movement was afoot among his friends in Illinois to secure +his nomination for the Presidency at the Convention of the Republican +party which was to be held in Chicago in May. Before that Convention +could assemble it had become fairly certain that whoever might be +chosen as the Republican candidate would be President of the United +States, and signs were not wanting that he would be faced with grave +peril to the Union. For the Democratic party, which had met in +Convention at Charleston in April, had proceeded to split into two +sections, Northern and Southern. This memorable Convention was a +dignified assembly gathered in a serious mood in a city of some +antiquity and social charm. From the first, however, a latent +antipathy between the Northern and the Southern delegates made itself +felt. The Northerners, predisposed to a certain deference towards the +South and prepared to appreciate its graceful hospitality, experienced +an uneasy sense that they were regarded as social inferiors. Worse +trouble than this appeared when the Convention met for its first +business, the framing of the party platform. Whether the position +which Lincoln had forced Douglas to take up had precipitated this +result or not, dissension between Northern and Southern Democrats on +the subject of slavery had already manifested itself in Congress, and +in the party Convention the division became irreparable. Douglas, it +will be remembered, had started with the principle that slavery in the +Territories formed a question for the people of each territory to +decide; he had felt bound to accept the doctrine underlying the Dred +Scott judgments, according to which slavery was by the Constitution +lawful in all territories; pressed by Lincoln, he had tried to +reconcile his original position with this doctrine by maintaining that +while slavery was by the Constitution lawful in every Territory it was +nevertheless lawful for a Territorial Legislature to make slave-owning +practically impossible. In framing a declaration of the party +principles as to slavery the Southern delegates in the Democratic +Convention aimed at meeting this evasion. With considerable show of +logic they asserted, in the party platform which they proposed, not +merely the abstract rightfulness and lawfulness of slavery, but the +duty of Congress itself to make any provision that might be necessary +to protect it in the Territories. To this the Northern majority of the +delegates could not consent; they carried an amendment declaring merely +that they would abide by any decision of the Supreme Court as to +slavery. Thereupon the delegates, not indeed of the whole South but of +all the cotton-growing States except Georgia, withdrew from the +Convention. The remaining delegates were, under the rules of the +Convention, too few to select a candidate for the Presidency, and the +Convention adjourned, to re-assemble at Baltimore in June. Eventually, +after attempts at reunion and further dissensions, two separate +Democratic Conventions at Baltimore, a Northern and a Southern, +nominated, as their respective candidates, Stephen Douglas, the obvious +choice with whom, if the Southerners had cared to temporise further, a +united Democratic party could have swept the polls, and John C. +Breckinridge of Kentucky, a gentleman not otherwise known than as the +standard bearer on this great occasion of the undisguised and +unmitigated claims of the slave owners. + +Thus it was that the American Democratic party forfeited power for +twenty-four years, divided between the consistent maintenance of a +paradox and the adroit maintenance of inconsistency. Another party in +this election demands a moment's notice. A Convention of delegates, +claiming to represent the old Whigs, met also at Baltimore and declared +merely that it stood for "the Constitution of the country, the union of +the States, and the enforcement of the laws." They nominated for the +Presidency John Bell of Tennessee, and for the Vice-Presidency Edward +Everett. This latter gentleman was afterwards chosen as the orator of +the day at the ceremony on the battlefield of Gettysburg when Lincoln's +most famous speech was spoken. He was a travelled man and a scholar; +he was Secretary of State for a little while under Fillmore, and dealt +honestly and firmly with the then troublous question of Cuba. His +orations deserve to be looked at, for they are favourable examples of +the eloquence which American taste applauded, and as such they help to +show how original Lincoln was in the simpler beauty of his own simpler +diction. In justice to the Whigs, let it be noted that they declared +for the maintenance of the Union, committing themselves with decision +on the question of the morrow; but it was a singular platform that +resolutely and totally ignored the only issue of the day. Few +politicians can really afford to despise either this conspicuously +foolish attempt to overcome a difficulty by shutting one's eyes to it, +or the more plausible proposal of the Northern Democrats to continue +temporising with a movement for slavery in which they were neither bold +enough nor corrupted enough to join. The consequences, now known to +us, of a determined stand against the advance of slavery were +instinctively foreseen by these men, and they cannot be blamed for +shrinking from them. Yet the historian now, knowing that those +consequences exceeded in terror all that could have been foreseen, can +only agree with the judgment expressed by Lincoln in one of his Kansas +speeches: "We want and must have a national policy as to slavery which +deals with it as being a wrong. Whoever would prevent slavery becoming +national and perpetual yields all when he yields to a policy which +treats it either as being right, or as being a matter of indifference." +The Republican party had been founded upon just this opinion. +Electoral victory was now being prepared for it, not because a majority +was likely yet to take so resolute a view, but because its effective +opponents were divided between those who had gone the length of calling +slavery right and those who strove to treat it as indifferent. The +fate of America may be said to have depended in the early months of +1860 on whether the nominee of the Republican party was a man who would +maintain its principles with irresolution, or with obstinacy, or with +firm moderation. + +When it had first been suggested to Lincoln in the course of 1859 that +he might be that nominee he said, "I do not think myself fit for the +Presidency." This was probably his sincere opinion at the moment, +though perhaps the moment was one of dejection. In any case his +opinion soon changed, and though it is not clear whether he encouraged +his friends to bring his name forward, we know in a general way that +when they decided to do so he used every effort of his own to help +them. We must accept without reserve Herndon's reiterated assertion +that Lincoln was intensely ambitious; and, if ambition means the eager +desire for great opportunities, the depreciation of it, which has long +been a commonplace of literature, and which may be traced back to the +Epicureans, is a piece of cant which ought to be withdrawn from +currency, and ambition, commensurate with the powers which each man can +discover in himself, should be frankly recognised as a part of +Christian duty. In judging him to be the best man for the Presidency, +Lincoln's Illinois friends and he himself formed a very sensible +judgment, but they did so in flagrant contradiction to many superficial +appearances. This candidate for the chief magistracy at a critical +time of one of the great nations of the world had never administered +any concern much larger than that post office that he once "carried +around in his hat." Of the several other gentlemen whose names were +before the party there was none who might not seem greatly to surpass +him in experience of affairs. To one of them, Seward, the nomination +seemed to belong almost of right. Chase and Seward both were known and +dignified figures in that great assembly the Senate. Chase was of +proved rectitude and courage, Seward of proved and very considerable +ability. Chase had been Governor of Ohio, Seward of New York State; +and the position of Governor in a State--a State it must be remembered +is independent in almost the whole of what we call domestic +politics--is strictly analogous to the position of President in the +Union, and, especially in a great State, is the best training ground +for the Presidency. But beyond this, Seward, between whom and Lincoln +the real contest lay, had for some time filled a recognised though +unofficial position as the leader of his party. He had failed, as has +been seen in his dealings with Douglas, in stern insistence upon +principle, but the failure was due rather to his sanguine and hopeful +temper than to lack of courage. On the whole from the time when he +first stood up against Webster in the discussions of 1850, when Lincoln +was both silent and obscure, he had earned his position well. +Hereafter, as Lincoln's subordinate, he was to do his country +first-rate service, and to earn a pure fame as the most generously +loyal subordinate to a chief whom he had thought himself fit to +command. We happen to have ample means of estimating now all Lincoln's +Republican competitors; we know that none of the rest were equal to +Seward; and we know that Seward himself, if he had had his way, would +have brought the common cause to ruin. Looking back now at the +comparison which Lincoln, when he entered into the contest, must have +drawn between himself and Seward--for of the rest we need not take +account--we can see that to himself at least and some few in Illinois +he had now proved his capacities, and that in Seward's public record, +more especially in his attitude towards Douglas, he had the means of +measuring Seward. In spite of the far greater experience of the latter +he may have thought himself to be his superior in that indefinable +thing--the sheer strength of a man. Not only may he have thought this; +he must have known it. He had shown his grasp of the essential facts +when he forced the Republican party to do battle with Douglas and the +party of indifference; he showed the same now when, after long years of +patience and self-discipline, he pushed himself into Seward's place as +the Republican leader. + +All the same, what little we know of the methods by which he now helped +his own promotion suggests that the people who then and long after set +him down as a second-rate person may have had a good deal to go upon. +A kind friend has produced a letter which he wrote in March, 1860, to a +Kansas gentleman who desired to be a delegate to the Republican +Convention, and who offered, upon condition, to persuade his fellow +delegates from Kansas to support Lincoln. Here is the letter: "As to +your kind wishes for myself, allow me to say I cannot enter the ring on +the money basis--first because in the main it is wrong; and secondly I +have not and cannot get the money. I say in the main the use of money +is wrong; but for certain objects in a political contest the use of +some is both right and indispensable. With me, as with yourself, this +long struggle has been one of great pecuniary loss. I now distinctly +say this: If you shall be appointed a delegate to Chicago I will +furnish one hundred dollars to bear the expenses of the trip." The +Kansas gentleman failed to obtain the support of the Kansas delegates +as a body for Lincoln. Lincoln none the less held to his promise of a +hundred dollars if the man came to Chicago; and, having, we are +assured, much confidence in him, took the earliest opportunity of +appointing him to a lucrative office, besides consulting him as to +other appointments in Kansas. This is all that we know of the affair, +but our informant presents it as one of a number of instances in which +Lincoln good-naturedly trusted a man too soon, and obstinately clung to +his mistake. As to the appointment, the man had evidently begun by +soliciting money in a way which would have marked him to most of us as +a somewhat unsuitable candidate for any important post; and the payment +of the hundred dollars plainly transgresses a code both of honour and +of prudence which most politicians will recognise and which should not +need definition. To say, as Lincoln probably said to himself, that +there is nothing intrinsically wrong in a moderate payment for expenses +to a fellow worker in a public cause, whom you believe to have +sacrificed much, is to ignore the point, indeed several points. +Lincoln, hungry now for some success in his own unrewarded career, was +tempted to a small manoeuvre by which he might pick up a little +support; he was at the same time tempted, no less, to act generously +(according to his means) towards a man who, he readily believed, had +made sacrifices like his own. He was not the man to stand against this +double temptation. + +Petty lapses of this order, especially when the delinquent may be seen +to hesitate and excuse himself, are more irritating than many larger +and more brazen offences, for they give us the sense of not knowing +where we are. When they are committed by a man of seemingly strong and +high character, it is well to ask just what they signify. Some of the +shrewdest observers of Lincoln, friendly and unfriendly, concur in +their description of the weaknesses of which this incident may serve as +the example, weaknesses partly belonging to his temperament, but partly +such as a man risen from poverty, with little variety of experience and +with no background of home training, stands small chance of escaping. +For one thing his judgment of men and how to treat them was as bad in +some ways as it was good in others. His own sure grasp of the largest +and commonest things in life, and his sober and measured trust in human +nature as a whole, gave him a rare knowledge of the mind of the people +in the mass. So, too, when he had known a man long, or been with him +or against him in important transactions, he sometimes developed great +insight and sureness of touch; and, when the man was at bottom +trustworthy, his robust confidence in him was sometimes of great public +service. But he had no gift of rapid perception and no instinctive +tact or prudence in regard to the very numerous and very various men +with whom he had slight dealings on which he could bestow no thought. +This is common with men who have risen from poverty; if they have not +become hard and suspicious, they are generally obtuse to the minor +indications by which shrewd men of education know the impostor, and +they are perversely indulgent to little meannesses in their fellows +which they are incapable of committing themselves. In Lincoln this was +aggravated by an immense good-nature--as he confessed, he could hardly +say "no";--it was an obstinate good-nature, which found a naughty +pleasure in refusing to be corrected; and if it should happen that the +object of his weak benevolence had given him personal cause of offence, +the good-nature became more incorrigible than ever. Moreover, +Lincoln's strength was a slow strength, shown most in matters in which +elementary principles of right or the concentration of intense thought +guided him. Where minor and more subtle principles of conduct should +have come in, on questions which had not come within the range of his +reflection so far and to which, amidst his heavy duties, he could not +spare much cogitation, he would not always show acute perception, and, +which is far worse, he would often show weakness of will. The present +instance may be ever so trifling, yet it does relate to the indistinct +and dangerous borderland of political corruption. It need arouse no +very serious suspicions. Mr. Herndon, whose pertinacious researches +unearthed that Kansas gentleman's correspondence, and who is keenly +censorious of Lincoln's fault, in the upshot trusts and reveres +Lincoln. And the massive testimony of his keenest critics to his +honesty quite decides the matter. But Lincoln had lived in a simple +Western town, not in one of the already polluted great cities; he was a +poor man himself and took the fact that wealth was used against him as +a part of the inevitable drawbacks of his lot; and it is certain that +he did not clearly take account of the whole business of corruption and +jobbery as a hideous and growing peril to America. It is certain too +that he lacked the delicate perception of propriety in such matters, or +the strict resolution in adhering to it on small occasions, which might +have been possessed by a far less honest man. The severest criticisms +which Lincoln afterwards incurred were directed to the appointments +which he made; we shall see hereafter that he had very solid reasons +for his general conduct in such matters; but it cannot be said with +conviction that he had that horror of appointment on other grounds than +merit which enlightens, though it does not always govern, more educated +statesmen. His administration would have been more successful, and the +legacy he left to American public life more bountiful, if his +traditions, or the length of his day's work, had allowed him to be more +careful in these things. As it is he was not commended to the people +of America and must not be commended to us by the absence of defects as +a ruler or as a man, but by the qualities to which his defects +belonged. An acute literary man wrote of Lincoln, when he had been +three years in office, these remarkable words: "You can't help feeling +an interest in him, a sympathy and a kind of pity; feeling, too, that +he has some qualities of great value, yet fearing that his weak points +may wreck him or may wreck something. His life seems a series of wise, +sound conclusions, slowly reached, oddly worked out, on great questions +with constant failures in administration of detail and dealings with +individuals." It was evidently a clever man who wrote this; he would +have been a wise man if he had known that the praise he was bestowing +on Lincoln was immeasurably greater than the blame. + +So the natural prejudice of those who welcomed Lincoln as a prophet in +the Cooper Institute but found his candidature for the Presidency +ridiculous, was not wholly without justification. His partisans, +however--also not unjustly--used his humble origin for all it was +worth. The Republicans of Illinois were assembled at Decatur in +preparation for the Chicago Convention, when, amid tumultuous cheers, +there marched in old John Hanks and another pioneer bearing on their +shoulders two long fence rails labelled: "Two rails from a lot made by +Abraham Lincoln and John Hanks in the Sangamon Bottom in the year +1830." "Gentlemen," said Lincoln, in response to loud calls, "I +suppose you want to know something about those things. Well, the truth +is, John Hanks and I did make rails in the Sangamon Bottom. I don't +know whether we made those rails or not; fact is, I don't think they +are a credit to the makers. But I do know this: I made rails then, and +I think I could make better ones than these now." It is unnecessary to +tell of the part those rails were to play in the coming campaign. It +is a contemptible trait in books like that able novel "Democracy," that +they treat the sentiment which attached to the "Rail-splitter" as +anything but honourable. + +The Republican Convention met at Chicago in circumstances of far less +dignity than the Democratic Convention at Charleston. Processions and +brass bands, rough fellows collected by Lincoln's managers, rowdies +imported from New York by Seward's, filled the streets with noise; and +the saloon keepers did good business. Yet the actual Convention +consisted of grave men in an earnest mood. Besides Seward and Chase +and Lincoln, Messrs. Cameron of Pennsylvania and Bates of Missouri, of +whom we shall hear later, were proposed for the Presidency. So also +were Messrs. Dayton and Collamer, politicians of some repute; and +McLean, of the Supreme Court, had some supporters. The prevalent +expectation in the States was that Seward would easily secure the +nomination, but it very soon appeared in the Convention that his +opponents were too strong for that. Several ballots took place; there +were the usual conferences and bargainings, which probably affected the +result but little; Lincoln's managers, especially Judge David Davis, +afterwards of the Supreme Court, were shrewd people; Lincoln had +written to them expressly that they could make no bargain binding on +him, but when Cameron was clearly out of the running they did promise +Cameron's supporters a place in Lincoln's Cabinet, and a similar +promise was made for one Caleb Smith. The delegates from Pennsylvania +went on to Lincoln; then those of Ohio; and before long his victory was +assured. A Committee of the Convention, some of them sick at heart, +was sent to bear the invitation to Lincoln. He received them in his +little house with a simple dignity which one of them has recorded; and +as they came away one said, "Well, we might have chosen a handsomer +article, but I doubt whether a better." + +On the whole, if we can put aside the illusion which besets us, who +read the preceding history if at all in the light of Lincoln's +speeches, and to whom his competitors are mere names, this was the most +surprising nomination ever made in America. Other Presidential +candidates have been born in poverty, but none ever wore the scars of +poverty so plainly; others have been intrinsically more obscure, but +these have usually been chosen as bearing the hall-mark of eminent +prosperity or gentility. Lincoln had indeed at this time displayed +brilliant ability in the debates with Douglas, and he had really shown +a statesman's grasp of the situation more than any other Republican +leader. The friends in Illinois who put him forward--men like David +Davis, who was a man of distinction himself--did so from a true +appreciation of his powers. But this does not seem to have been the +case with the bulk of the delegates from other States. The explanation +given us of their action is curious. The choice was not the result of +merit; on the other hand, it was not the work of the ordinary wicked +wire-puller, for what may be called the machine was working for Seward. +The choice was made by plain representative Americans who set to +themselves this question: "With what candidate can we beat Douglas?" +and who found the answer in the prevalence of a popular impression, +concerning Lincoln and Seward, which was in fact wholly mistaken. +There was, it happens, earnest opposition to Seward among some Eastern +Republicans on the good ground that he was a clean man but with +doubtful associates. This opposition could not by itself have defeated +him. What did defeat him was his reputation at the moment as a very +advanced Republican who would scare away the support of the weaker +brethren. He was, for instance, the author of the alarming phrase +about "irrepressible conflict," and he had spoken once, in a phrase +that was misinterpreted, about "a higher law than the Constitution." +Lincoln had in action taken a far stronger line than Seward; he was +also the author of the phrase about the house divided against itself; +but then, besides the fact that Lincoln was well regarded just where +Douglas was most popular, Lincoln was a less noted man than Seward and +his stronger words occasioned less wide alarm. So, to please those who +liked compromise, the Convention rejected a man who would certainly +have compromised, and chose one who would give all that moderation +demanded and die before he yielded one further inch. Many Americans +have been disposed to trace in the raising up of Lincoln the hand of a +Providence protecting their country in its worst need. It would be +affectation to set their idea altogether aside; it is, at any rate, a +memorable incident in the history of a democracy, permeated with +excellent intentions but often hopelessly subject to inferior +influences, that at this critical moment the fit man was chosen on the +very ground of his supposed unfitness. + +The result of the contest between the four Presidential candidates was +rendered almost a foregone conclusion by the decision of the Democrats. +Lincoln in deference to the usual and seemly procedure took no part in +the campaign, nor do his doings in the next months concern us. Seward, +to his great honour, after privately expressing his bitter chagrin at +the bestowal of what was his due upon "a little Illinois attorney," +threw himself whole-heartedly into the contest, and went about making +admirable speeches. On the night of November 6, Lincoln sat alone with +the operator in the telegraph box at Springfield, receiving as they +came in the results of the elections of Presidential electors in the +various States. Long before the returns were complete his knowledge of +such matters made him sure of his return, and before he left that box +he had solved in principle, as he afterwards declared, the first and by +no means least important problem of his Presidency, the choice of a +Cabinet. + +The victory was in one aspect far from complete. If we look not at the +votes in the Electoral College with which the formal choice of +President lay, but at the popular votes by which the electors were +returned, we shall see that the new President was elected by a minority +of the American people. He had a large majority over Douglas, but if +Douglas had received the votes which were given for the Southern +Democrat, Breckinridge, he would have had a considerable majority over +Lincoln, though the odd machinery of the Electoral College would still +have kept him out of the Presidency. In another aspect it was a +fatally significant victory. Lincoln's votes were drawn only from the +Northern States; he carried almost all the free States and he carried +no others. For the first time in American history, the united North +had used its superior numbers to outvote the South. This would in any +case have caused great vexation, and the personality of the man chosen +by the North aggravated it. The election of Lincoln was greeted +throughout the South with a howl of derision. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +SECESSION + +1. _The Case of the South against the Union_. + + +The Republicans of the North had given their votes upon a very clear +issue, but probably few of them had fully realised how grave a result +would follow. Within a few days of the election of Lincoln the first +step in the movement of Secession had been taken, and before the new +President entered upon his duties it was plain that either the +dissatisfied States must be allowed to leave the Union or the Union must +be maintained by war. + +Englishmen at that time and since have found a difficulty in grasping the +precise cause of the war that followed. Of those who were inclined to +sympathise with the North, some regarded the war as being simply about +slavery, and, while unhesitatingly opposed to slavery, wondered whether +it was right to make war upon it; others, regarding it as a war for the +Union and not against slavery at all, wondered whether it was right to +make war for a Union that could not be peaceably maintained. Now it is +seldom possible to state the cause of a war quite candidly in a single +sentence, because as a rule there are on each side people who concur in +the final rupture for somewhat different reasons. But, in this case, +forecasting a conclusion which must be examined in some detail, we can +state the cause of war in a very few sentences. If we ask first what the +South fought for, the answer is: the leaders of the South and the great +mass of the Southern people had a single supreme and all-embracing object +in view, namely, to ensure the permanence and, if need be, the extension +of the slave system; they carried with them, however, a certain number of +Southerners who were opposed or at least averse to slavery, but who +thought that the right of their States to leave the Union or remain in it +as they chose must be maintained. If we ask what the North fought for, +the answer is: A majority, by no means overwhelming, of the Northern +people refused to purchase the adhesion of the South by conniving at any +further extension of slavery, and an overwhelming majority refused to let +the South dissolve the Union for slavery or for any other cause. + +The issue about slavery, then, became merged in another issue, concerning +the Union, which had so far remained in the background. + +The first thing that must be grasped about it is the total difference of +view which now existed between North and South in regard to the very +nature of their connection. The divergence had taken place so completely +and in the main so quietly that each side now realised with surprise and +indignation that the other held an opposite opinion. In the North the +Union was regarded as constituting a permanent and unquestionable +national unity from which it was flat rebellion for a State or any other +combination of persons to secede. In the South the Union appeared merely +as a peculiarly venerable treaty of alliance, of which the dissolution +would be very painful, but which left each State a sovereign body with an +indefeasible right to secede if in the last resort it judged that the +painful necessity had come. In a few border States there was division +and doubt on this subject, a fact which must have helped to hide from +each side the true strength of opinion on the other. But, setting aside +these border States, there were in the North some who doubted whether it +was expedient to fight for the Union, but none of any consequence who +doubted that it was constitutionally correct; and there were in the South +men who insisted that no occasion to secede had arisen, but these very +men, when outvoted in their States, maintained most passionately the +absolute right of secession. + +The two sides contended for two contrary doctrines of constitutional law. +It is natural when parties are disputing over a question of political +wisdom and of moral right that each should claim for its contention if +possible the sanction of acknowledged legal principle. So it was with +the parties to the English Civil War, and the tendency to regard matters +from a legal point of view is to this day deeply engrained in the mental +habits of America. But North and South were really divided by something +other than legal opinion, a difference in the objects to which their +feelings of loyalty and patriotism were directed. This difference found +apt expression in the Cabinet of President Buchanan, who of course +remained in office between the election of Lincoln in November and his +inauguration in March. General Cass of Michigan had formerly stood for +the Presidency with the support of the South, and he held Cabinet office +now as a sympathiser with the South upon slavery, but he was a +Northerner. "I see how it is," he said to two of his colleagues; "you +are a Virginian, and you are a South Carolinian; I am not a Michigander, +I am an American." + +In a former chapter the creation of the Union and the beginnings of a +common national life have been traced in outline. Obstacles to the Union +had existed both in the North and in the South, and, after it had been +carried, the tendency to threaten disruption upon some slight conflict of +interest had shown itself in each. But a proud sense of single +nationality had soon become prevalent in both, and in the North nothing +whatever had happened to set back this growth, for the idea which Lowell +had once attributed to his Hosea Biglow of abjuring Union with slave +owners was a negligible force. Undivided allegiance to the Union was the +natural sentiment of citizens of Ohio or Wisconsin, States created by the +authority of the Union out of the common dominion of the Union. It had +become, if anything, more deeply engrained in the original States of the +North, for their predominant occupation in commerce would tend in this +particular to give them larger views. The pride of a Boston man in the +Commonwealth of Massachusetts was of the same order as his pride in the +city of Boston; both were largely pride in the part which Boston and +Massachusetts had taken in making the United States of America. Such a +man knew well that South Carolina had once threatened secession, but, for +that matter, the so-called Federalists of New England had once threatened +it. The argument of Webster in the case of South Carolina was a classic, +and was taken as conclusive on the question of legal right. The terser +and more resonant declaration of President Jackson, a Southerner, and the +response to it which thrilled all States, South or North, outside South +Carolina, had set the seal to Webster's doctrines. There had been loud +and ominous talk of secession lately; it was certainly not mere bluster; +Northerners in the main were cautious politicians and had been tempted to +go far to conciliate it. But if the claim of Southern States were put in +practice, the whole North would now regard it not as a respectable claim, +but as an outrage. + +It is important to notice that the disposition to take this view did not +depend upon advanced opinions against slavery. Some of the most violent +opponents of slavery would care relatively little about the Constitution +or the Union; they would at first hesitate as to whether a peaceful +separation between States which felt so differently on a moral question +like slavery was not a more Christian solution of their difference than a +fratricidal war. On the other hand, men who cared little about slavery, +and would gladly have sacrificed any convictions they had upon that +matter for the sake of the Union, were at first none the less vehement in +their anger at an attack upon the Union. There is, moreover, a more +subtle but still important point to be observed in this connection. +Democrats in the North inclined as a party to stringent and perhaps +pedantically legal views of State rights as against the rights of the +Union; but this by no means necessarily meant that they sympathised more +than Republicans with the claim to dissolve the Union. They laid +emphasis on State rights merely because they believed that these would be +a bulwark against any sort of government tyranny, and that the large +power which was reserved to the local or provincial authorities of the +States made the government of the nation as a whole more truly expressive +of the will of the whole people. They now found themselves entangled (as +we shall see) in curious doubts as to what the Federal Government might +do to maintain the Union, but they had not the faintest doubt that the +Union was meant to be maintained. The point which is now being +emphasised must not be misapprehended; differences of sentiment in regard +to slavery, in regard to State rights, in regard to the authority of +Government, did, as the war went on and the price was paid, gravely +embarrass the North; but it was a solid and unhesitating North which said +that the South had no right to secede. + +Up to a certain point the sense of patriotic pride in the Union had grown +also in the South. It was fostered at first by the predominant part +which the South played in the political life of the country. But for a +generation past the sense of a separate interest of the South had been +growing still more vigorously. The political predominance of the South +had continued, but under a standing menace of downfall as the North grew +more populous and the patriotism which it at first encouraged had become +perverted into an arrogantly unconscious feeling that the Union was an +excellent thing on condition that it was subservient to the South. The +common interest of the Southern States was slavery; and, when the +Northerners had become a majority which might one day dominate the +Federal Government, this common interest of the slave States found a +weapon at hand in the doctrine of the inherent sovereignty of each +individual State. This doctrine of State sovereignty had come to be held +as universally in the South as the strict Unionist doctrine in the North, +and held with as quiet and unshakable a confidence that it could not be +questioned. It does not seem at all strange that the State, as against +the Union, should have remained the supreme object of loyalty in old +communities like those of South Carolina and Virginia, abounding as they +did in conservative influences which were lacking in the North. But this +provincial loyalty was not in the same sense a natural growth in States +like Alabama or Mississippi. These, no less than Indiana and Illinois, +were the creatures of the Federal Congress, set up within the memory of +living men, with arbitrary boundaries that cut across any old lines of +division. There was, in fact, no spontaneous feeling of allegiance +attaching to these political units, and the doctrine of their sovereignty +had no use except as a screen for the interest in slavery which the +Southern States had in common. But Calhoun, in a manner characteristic +of his peculiar and dangerous type of intellect, had early seen in a view +of State sovereignty, which would otherwise have been obsolete, the most +serviceable weapon for the joint interests of the Southern States. In a +society where intellectual life was restricted, his ascendency had been +great, though his disciples had, reasonably enough, thrown aside the +qualifications which his subtle mind had attached to the right of +secession. Thus in the Southern States generally, even among men most +strongly opposed to the actual proposal to secede, the real or alleged +constitutional right of a State to secede if it chose now passed +unquestioned and was even regarded as a precious liberty. + +It is impossible to avoid asking whether on this question of +constitutional law the Northern opinion or the Southern opinion was +correct. (The question was indeed an important question in determining +the proper course of procedure for a President when confronted with +secession, but it must be protested that the moral right and political +wisdom of neither party in the war depended mainly, if at all, upon this +legal point. It was a question of the construction which a court of law +should put upon a document which was not drawn up with any view to +determining this point.) If we go behind the Constitution, which was +then and is now in force, to the original document of which it took the +place, we shall find it entitled "Articles of Confederation and Perpetual +Union," but we shall not find any such provisions as men desirous of +creating a stable and permanent federal government might have been +expected to frame. If we read the actual Constitution we shall find no +word distinctly implying that a State could or could not secede. As to +the real intention of its chief authors, there can be no doubt that they +hoped and trusted the Union would prove indissoluble, and equally little +doubt that they did not wish to obtrude upon those whom they asked to +enter into it the thought that this step would be irrevocable. For the +view taken in the South there is one really powerful argument, on which +Jefferson Davis insisted passionately in the argumentative memoirs with +which he solaced himself in old age. It is that in several of the +States, when the Constitution was accepted, public declarations were made +to the citizens of those States by their own representatives that a State +might withdraw from the Union. But this is far from conclusive. No man +gets rid of the obligation of a bond by telling a witness that he does +not mean to be bound; the question is not what he means, but what the +party with whom he deals must naturally take him to mean. Now the +Constitution of the United States upon the face of it purports to create +a government able to take its place among the other governments of the +world, able if it declares war to wield the whole force of its country in +that war, and able if it makes peace to impose that peace upon all its +subjects. This seems to imply that the authority of that government over +part of the country should be legally indefeasible. It would have been +ridiculous if, during a war with Great Britain, States on the Canadian +border should have had the legal right to secede, and set up a neutral +government with a view to subsequent reunion with Great Britain. The +sound legal view of this matter would seem to be: that the doctrine of +secession is so repugnant to the primary intention with which the +national instrument of government was framed that it could only have been +supported by an express reservation of the right to secede in the +Constitution itself. + +The Duke of Argyll, one of the few British statesmen of the time who +followed this struggle with intelligent interest, briefly summed up the +question thus: "I know of no government in the world that could possibly +have admitted the right of secession from its own allegiance." Oddly +enough, President Buchanan, in his Message to Congress on December 4, put +the same point not less forcibly. + +But to say--as in a legal sense we may--that the Southern States rebelled +is not necessarily to say that they were wrong. The deliberate endeavour +of a people to separate themselves from the political sovereignty under +which they live and set up a new political community, in which their +national life shall develop itself more fully or more securely, must +always command a certain respect. Whether it is entitled further to the +full sympathy and to the support or at least acquiescence of others is a +question which in particular cases involves considerations such as cannot +be foreseen in any abstract discussion of political theory. But, +speaking very generally, it is a question in the main of the worth which +we attribute on the one hand to the common life to which it is sought to +give freer scope, and on the other hand to the common life which may +thereby be weakened or broken up. It sometimes seems to be held that +when a decided majority of the people whose voices can be heard, in a +more or less defined area, elect to live for the future under a +particular government, all enlightened men elsewhere would wish them to +have their way. If any such principle could be accepted without +qualification, few movements for independence would ever have been more +completely justified than the secession of the Southern States. If we +set aside the highland region of which mention has already been made, in +the six cotton-growing States which first seceded, and in several of +those which followed as soon as it was clear that secession would be +resisted, the preponderance of opinion in favour of the movement was +overwhelming. This was not only so among the educated and governing +portions of society, which were interested in slavery. While the negroes +themselves were unorganised and dumb and made no stir for freedom, the +poorer class of white people, to whom the institution of slavery was in +reality oppressive, were quite unconscious of this; the enslavement of +the negro appeared to them a tribute to their own dignity, and their +indiscriminating spirit of independence responded enthusiastically to the +appeal that they should assert themselves against the real or fancied +pretensions of the North. So large a statement would require some +qualification if we were here concerned with the life of a Southern +leader; and there was of course a brief space, to be dealt with in this +chapter, in which the question of secession hung in the balance, and it +is true in this, as in every case, that the men who gave the initial push +were few. But, broadly speaking, it is certain that the movement for +secession was begun with at least as general an enthusiasm and maintained +with at least as loyal a devotion as any national movement with which it +can be compared. And yet to-day, just fifty-one years after the +consummation of its failure, it may be doubted whether one soul among the +people concerned regrets that it failed. + +English people from that time to this have found the statement +incredible; but the fact is that this imposing movement, in which rich +and poor, gentle and simple, astute men of state and pious clergymen, +went hand in hand to the verge of ruin and beyond, was undertaken simply +and solely in behalf of slavery. Northern writers of the time found it +so surprising that they took refuge in the theory of conspiracy, alleging +that a handful of schemers succeeded, by the help of fictitious popular +clamour and intimidation of their opponents, in launching the South upon +a course to which the real mind of the people was averse. Later and +calmer historical survey of the facts has completely dispelled this view; +and the English suspicion, that there must have been some cause beyond +and above slavery for desiring independence, never had any facts to +support it. Since 1830 no exponent of Southern views had ever hinted at +secession on any other ground than slavery; every Southern leader +declared with undoubted truth that on every other ground he prized the +Union; outside South Carolina every Southern leader made an earnest +attempt before he surrendered the Union cause to secure the guarantees he +thought sufficient for slavery within the Union. The Southern statesman +(for the soldiers were not statesmen) whose character most attracts +sympathy now was Alexander Stephens, the Vice-President of the Southern +Confederacy, and though he was the man who persisted longest in the view +that slavery could be adequately secured without secession, he was none +the less entitled to speak for the South in his remarkable words on the +Constitution adopted by the Southern Confederacy: "The new Constitution +has put at rest for ever all the agitating questions relating to our +peculiar institution, African slavery. This was the immediate cause of +the late rupture and present revolution. The prevailing ideas +entertained by Jefferson and most of the leading statesmen at the time of +the old Constitution were that the enslavement of the African was wrong +in principle socially, morally, and politically. Our new government is +founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its +corner stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not the equal +of the white man; that slavery--subordination to the white man--is his +natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first in +the history of the world based upon this great physical, philosophical, +and moral truth. The great objects of humanity are best attained when +there is conformity to the Creator's laws and decrees." Equally explicit +and void of shame was the Convention of the State of Mississippi. "Our +position," they declared, "is thoroughly identified with slavery." + +It is common to reproach the Southern leaders with reckless folly. They +tried to destroy the Union, which they really valued, for the sake of +slavery, which they valued more; they in fact destroyed slavery; and they +did this, it is said, in alarm at an imaginary danger. This is not a +true ground of reproach to them. It is true that the danger to slavery +from the election of Lincoln was not immediately pressing. He neither +would have done nor could have done more than to prevent during his four +years of office any new acquisition of territory in the slave-holding +interest, and to impose his veto on any Bill extending slavery within the +existing territory of the Union. His successor after four years might or +might not have been like-minded. He did not seem to stand for any +overwhelming force in American politics; there was a majority opposed to +him in both Houses of Congress; a great majority of the Supreme Court, +which might have an important part to play, held views of the +Constitution opposed to his; he had been elected by a minority only of +the whole American people. Why could not the Southern States have sat +still, secure that no great harm would happen to their institution for +the present, and hoping that their former ascendency would come back to +them with the changing fortunes of party strife? This is an argument +which might be expected to have weighed with Southern statesmen if each +of them had been anxious merely to keep up the value of his own slave +property for his own lifetime, but this was far from being their case. +It is hard for us to put ourselves at the point of view of men who could +sincerely speak of their property in negroes as theirs by the "decree of +the Creator"; but it is certain that within the last two generations +trouble of mind as to the rightfulness of slavery had died out in a large +part of the South; the typical Southern leader valued the peculiar form +of society under which he lived and wished to hand it on intact to his +children's children. If their preposterous principle be granted, the +most extreme among them deserve the credit of statesmanlike insight for +having seen, the moment that Lincoln was elected, that they must strike +for their institution now if they wished it to endure. The Convention of +South Carolina justly observed that the majority in the North had voted +that slavery was sinful; they had done little more than express this +abstract opinion, but they had done all that. Lincoln's administration +might have done apparently little, and after it the pendulum would +probably have swung back. But the much-talked-of swing of the pendulum +is the most delusive of political phenomena; America was never going to +return to where it was before this first explicit national assertion of +the wrongfulness of slavery had been made. It would have been hard to +forecast how the end would come, or how soon; but the end was certain if +the Southern States had elected to remain the countrymen of a people who +were coming to regard their fundamental institution with growing +reprobation. Lincoln had said, "This government cannot endure +permanently, half slave and half free." Lincoln was right, and so from +their own point of view, that of men not brave or wise enough to take in +hand a difficult social reform, were the leaders who declared immediately +for secession. + +In no other contest of history are those elements in human affairs on +which tragic dramatists are prone to dwell so clearly marked as in the +American Civil War. No unsophisticated person now, except in ignorance +as to the cause of the war, can hesitate as to which side enlists his +sympathy, or can regard the victory of the North otherwise than as the +costly and imperfect triumph of the right. But the wrong +side--emphatically wrong--is not lacking in dignity or human worth; the +long-drawn agony of the struggle is not purely horrible to contemplate; +there is nothing that in this case makes us reluctant to acknowledge the +merits of the men who took arms in the evil cause. The experience as to +the relations between superior and inferior races, which is now at the +command of every intelligent Englishman, forbids us to think that the +inferiority of the negro justified slavery, but it also forbids us to +fancy that men to whom the relation of owner to slave had become natural +must themselves have been altogether degraded. The men upon the Southern +side who can claim any special admiration were simple soldiers who had no +share in causing the war; among the political leaders whom they served, +there was none who stands out now as a very interesting personality, and +their chosen chief is an unattractive figure; but we are not to think of +these authors of the war as a gang of hardened, unscrupulous, corrupted +men. As a class they were reputable, public-spirited, and religious men; +they served their cause with devotion and were not wholly to blame that +they chose it so ill. The responsibility for the actual secession does +not rest in an especial degree on any individual leader. Secession began +rather with the spontaneous movement of the whole community of South +Carolina, and in the States which followed leading politicians expressed +rather than inspired the general will. The guilt which any of us can +venture to attribute for this action of a whole deluded society must rest +on men like Calhoun, who in a previous generation, while opinion in the +South was still to some extent unformed, stifled all thought of reform +and gave the semblance of moral and intellectual justification to a +system only susceptible of a historical excuse. + +The South was neither base nor senseless, but it was wrong. To some +minds it may not seem to follow that it was well to resist it by war, and +indeed at the time, as often happens, people took up arms with greater +searchings of heart upon the right side than upon the wrong. If the +slave States had been suffered to depart in peace they would have set up +a new and peculiar political society, more truly held together than the +original Union by a single avowed principle; a nation dedicated to the +inequality of men. It is not really possible to think of the free +national life which they could thus have initiated as a thing to be +respected and preserved. Nor is it true that their choice for themselves +of this dingy freedom was no concern of their neighbours. We have seen +how the slave interest hankered for enlarged dominion; and it is certain +that the Southern Confederacy, once firmly established, would have been +an aggressive and disturbing power upon the continent of America. The +questions of territorial and other rights between it and the old Union +might have been capable of satisfactory settlement for the moment, or +they might have proved as insoluble as Lincoln thought they were. But, +at the best, if the States which adhered to the old Union had admitted +the claim of the first seceding States to go, they could only have +retained for themselves an insecure existence as a nation, threatened at +each fresh conflict of interest or sentiment with a further disruption +which could not upon any principle have been resisted. The preceding +chapters have dwelt with iteration upon the sentiments which had operated +to make Americans a people, and on the form and the degree in which those +sentiments animated the mind of Lincoln. Only so perhaps can we fully +appreciate for what the people of the North fought. It is inaccurate, +though not gravely misleading, to say that they fought against slavery. +It would be wholly false to say that they fought for mere dominion. They +fought to preserve and complete a political unity nobly conceived by +those who had done most to create it, and capable, as the sequel showed, +of a permanent and a healthy continuance. + +And it must never be forgotten, if we wish to enter into the spirit which +sustained the North in its struggle, that loyalty for Union had a larger +aspect than that of mere allegiance to a particular authority. Vividly +present to the mind of some few, vaguely but honestly present to the mind +of a great multitude, was the sense that even had slavery not entered +into the question a larger cause than that of their recent Union was +bound up with the issues of the war. The Government of the United States +had been the first and most famous attempt in a great modern country to +secure government by the will of the mass of the people. If in this +crucial instance such a Government were seen to be intolerably weak, if +it was found to be at the mercy of the first powerful minority which +seized a worked-up occasion to rebel, what they had learnt to think the +most hopeful agency for the uplifting of man everywhere would for ages to +come have proved a failure. This feeling could not be stronger in any +American than it was in Lincoln himself. "It has long been a question," +he said, "whether any Government which is not too strong for the +liberties of the people can be strong enough to maintain itself." There +is one marked feature of his patriotism, which could be illustrated by +abundance of phrases from his speeches and letters, and which the people +of several countries of Europe can appreciate to-day. His affection for +his own country and its institutions is curiously dependent upon a wider +cause of human good, and is not a whit the less intense for that. There +is perhaps no better expression of this widespread feeling in the North +than the unprepared speech which he delivered on his way to become +President, in the Hall of Independence at Philadelphia, in which the +Declaration of Independence had been signed. "I have never," he said, +"had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments +embodied in the Declaration of Independence. I have often pondered over +the dangers which were incurred by the men who assembled here and framed +and adopted that Declaration of Independence. I have pondered over the +toils that were endured by the officers and soldiers of the army who +achieved that independence. I have often inquired of myself what great +principle or idea it was that kept the Confederacy so long together. It +was not the mere matter of separation of the colonies from the +motherland, it was the sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which +gave liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but I hope to the +world, for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due +time the weight would be lifted from the shoulders of all men." + + +2. _The Progress of Secession_. + +So much for the broad causes without which there could have been no Civil +War in America. We have now to sketch the process by which the fuel was +kindled. It will be remembered that the President elected in November +does not enter upon his office for nearly four months. For that time, +therefore, the conduct of government lay in the hands of President +Buchanan, who, for all his past subserviency to Southern interests, +believed and said that secession was absolutely unlawful. Several +members of his Cabinet were Southerners who favoured secession; but the +only considerable man among them, Cobb of Georgia, soon declared that his +loyalty to his own State was not compatible with his office and resigned; +and, though others, including the Secretary for War, hung on to their +position, it does not appear that they influenced Buchanan much, or that +their somewhat dubious conduct while they remained was of great +importance. Black, the Attorney-General, and Cass, the Secretary of +State, who, however, resigned when his advice was disregarded, were not +only loyal to the Union, but anxious that the Government should do +everything that seemed necessary in its defence. Thus this +administration, hitherto Southern in its sympathies, must be regarded for +its remaining months as standing for the Union, so far as it stood for +anything. Lincoln meanwhile had little that he could do but to watch +events and prepare. There was, nevertheless, a point in the negotiations +which took place between parties at which he took on himself a tremendous +responsibility and at which his action was probably decisive of all that +followed. + +The Presidential election took place on November 6, 1860. On November 10 +the Legislature of South Carolina, which had remained in session for this +purpose, convened a specially elected Convention of the State to decide +upon the question of secession. Slave owners and poor whites, young and +old, street rabble, persons of fashion, politicians and clergy, the whole +people of this peculiar State, distinguished in some marked respects even +from its nearest neighbours, received the action of the Legislature with +enthusiastic but grave approval. It was not till December 20 that the +Convention could pass its formal "Ordinance of Secession," but there was +never for a moment any doubt as to what it would do. The question was +what other States would follow the example of South Carolina. There +ensued in all the Southern States earnest discussion as to whether to +secede or not, and in the North, on which the action of South Carolina, +however easily it might have been foretold, came as a shock, great +bewilderment as to what was to be done. As has been said, there was in +the South generally no disposition to give up Southern claims, no doubt +as to the right of secession, and no fundamental and overriding loyalty +to the Union, but there was a considerable reluctance to give up the +Union and much doubt as to whether secession was really wise; there was +in the North among those who then made themselves heard no doubt whatever +as to the loyalty due to the Union, but there was, apart from previous +differences about slavery, every possible variety and fluctuation of +opinion as to the right way of dealing with States which should secede or +rebel. In certain border States, few in number but likely to play an +important part in civil war, Northern and Southern elements were mingled. +Amid loud and distracted discussion, public and private, leaders of the +several parties and of the two sections of the country conducted earnest +negotiations in the hope of finding a peaceable settlement, and when +Congress met, early in December, their debates took a formal shape in +committees appointed by the Senate and by the House. + +Meanwhile the President was called upon to deal with the problem +presented for the Executive Government of the Union by the action of +South Carolina. It may be observed that if he had given his mind to the +military measures required to meet the possible future, the North, which +in the end had his entire sympathy, would have begun the war with that +advantage in preparation which, as it was, was gained by the South. In +this respect he did nothing. But, apart from this, if he had taken up a +clear and comprehensible attitude towards South Carolina and had given a +lead to Unionist sympathy, he would have consolidated public opinion in +the North, and he would have greatly strengthened those in the South who +remained averse to secession. There would have been a considerable +further secession, but in all likelihood it would not have become so +formidable as it did. As it was, the movement for secession proceeded +with all the proud confidence that can be felt in a right which is not +challenged, and the people of the South were not aware, though shrewd +leaders like Jefferson Davis knew it well, of the risk they would +encounter till they had committed themselves to defying it. + +The problem before Buchanan was the same which, aggravated by his failure +to deal with it, confronted Lincoln when he came into office, and it must +be clearly understood. The secession of South Carolina was not a +movement which could at once be quelled by prompt measures of repression. +Even if sufficient military force and apt forms of law had existed for +taking such measures they would have united the South in support of South +Carolina, and alienated the North, which was anxious for conciliation. +Yet it was possible for the Government of the Union, while patiently +abstaining from violent or provocative action, to make plain that in the +last resort it would maintain its rights in South Carolina with its full +strength. The main dealings of the Union authorities with the people of +a State came under a very few heads. There were local Federal Courts to +try certain limited classes of issues; jurors, of course, could not be +compelled to serve in these nor parties to appear. There was the postal +service; the people of South Carolina did not at present interfere with +this source of convenience to themselves and of revenue to the Union. +There were customs duties to be collected at the ports, and there were +forts at the entrance of the harbour in Charleston, South Carolina, as +well as forts, dockyards and arsenals of the United States at a number of +points in the Southern States; the Government should quietly but openly +have taken steps to ensure that the collection should go on unmolested, +and that the forts and the like should be made safe from attack, in South +Carolina and everywhere else where they were likely to be threatened. +Measures of this sort were early urged upon Buchanan by Scott, the +Lieutenant-General (that is, Second in Command under the President) of +the Army, who had been the officer that carried out Jackson's military +dispositions when secession was threatened in South Carolina thirty years +before, and by other officers concerned, particularly by Major Anderson, +a keen Southerner, but a keen soldier, commanding the forts at +Charleston, and by Cass and Black in his Cabinet. Public opinion in the +North demanded such measures. + +If further action than the proper manning and supply of certain forts had +been in contemplation, an embarrassing legal question would have arisen. +In the opinion of the Attorney-General, of leading Democrats like Cass +and Douglas, and apparently of most legal authorities of every party, +there was an important distinction, puzzling to an English lawyer even if +he is versed in the American Constitution, between the steps which the +Government might justly take in self-protection, and measures which could +be regarded as coercion of the State of South Carolina as such. These +latter would be unlawful. Buchanan, instead of acting on or declaring +his intentions, entertained Congress, which met early in December, with a +Message, laying down very clearly the illegality of secession, but +discussing at large this abstract question of the precise powers of the +Executive in resisting secession. The legal question will not further +concern us because the distinction which it was really intended to draw +between lawful and unlawful measures against secession quite coincided, +in its practical application, with what common sense and just feeling +would in these peculiar circumstances have dictated. But, as a natural +consequence of such discussion, an impression was spread abroad of the +illegality of something vaguely called coercion, and of the shadowy +nature of any power which the Government claimed. + +Up to Lincoln's inauguration the story of the Charleston forts, of which +one, lying on an island in the mouth of the harbour, was the famous Fort +Sumter, is briefly this. Buchanan was early informed that if the Union +Government desired to hold them, troops and ships of war should instantly +be sent. Congressmen from South Carolina remaining in Washington came to +him and represented that their State regarded these forts upon its soil +as their own; they gave assurances that there would be no attack on the +forts if the existing military situation was not altered, and they tried +to get a promise that the forts should not be reinforced. Buchanan would +give them no promise, but he equally refused the entreaties of Scott and +his own principal ministers that he should reinforce the forts, because +he declared that this would precipitate a conflict. Towards the end of +the year Major Anderson, not having men enough to hold all the forts if, +as he expected, they were attacked, withdrew his whole force to Fort +Sumter, which he thought the most defensible, dismantling the principal +other fort. The Governor of South Carolina protested against this as a +violation of a supposed understanding with the President, and seized upon +the United States arsenal and the custom house, taking the revenue +officers into State service. Commissioners had previously gone from +South Carolina to Washington to request the surrender of the forts, upon +terms of payment for property; they now declared that Anderson's +withdrawal, as putting him in a better position for defence, was an act +of war, and demanded that he should be ordered to retire to the mainland. +Buchanan wavered; decided to yield to them on this last point; +ultimately, on the last day of 1860, yielded instead to severe pressure +from Black, and decided to reinforce Anderson on Fort Sumter. The actual +attempt to reinforce him was bungled; a transport sent for this purpose +was fired upon by the South Carolina forces, and returned idle. This +first act of war, for some curious reason, caused no excitement. The +people of the North were intensely relieved that Buchanan had not yielded +to whatever South Carolina might demand, and, being prone to forgive and +to applaud, seem for a time to have experienced a thrill of glory in the +thought that the national administration had a mind. Dix, the Secretary +of the Treasury, elated them yet further by telegraphing to a Treasury +official at New Orleans, "If any one attempts to haul down the American +flag, shoot him on the spot." But Anderson remained without +reinforcements or further provisions when Lincoln entered office; and +troops in the service first of South Carolina and afterwards of the +Southern Confederacy, which was formed in February, erected batteries and +prepared to bombard Fort Sumter. + +No possible plea for President Buchanan can make him rank among those who +have held high office with any credit at all, but he must at once be +acquitted of any intentional treachery to the Union. It is agreed that +he was a truthful and sincere man, and there is something pleasant in the +simple avowal he made to a Southern negotiator who was pressing him for +some instant concession, that he always said his prayers before deciding +any important matter of State. His previous dealings with Kansas would +suggest to us robust unscrupulousness, but it seems that he had quite +given his judgment over into the keeping of a little group of Southern +Senators. Now that he was deprived of this help, he had only enough will +left to be obstinate against other advice. It is suggested that he had +now but one motive, the desire that the struggle should break out in his +successor's time rather than his own. Even this is perhaps to judge +Buchanan's notorious and calamitous laches unfairly. Any action that he +took must to a certain extent have been provocative, and he knew it, and +he may have clung to the hope that by sheer inaction he would give time +for some possible forces of reason and conciliation to work. If so, he +was wrong, but similar and about as foolish hopes paralysed Lincoln's +Cabinet (and to a less but still very dangerous degree Lincoln himself) +when they took up the problem which Buchanan's neglect had made more +urgent. Buchanan had in this instance the advantage of far better +advice, but this silly old man must not be gibbeted and Lincoln left free +from criticism for his part in the same transaction. Both Presidents +hesitated where to us who look back the case seems clear. The +circumstances had altered in some respects when Lincoln came in, but it +is only upon a somewhat broad survey of the governing tendencies of +Lincoln's administration and of its mighty result in the mass that we +discover what really distinguishes his slowness of action in such cases +as this from the hesitation of a man like Buchanan. Buchanan waited in +the hope of avoiding action, Lincoln with the firm intention to see his +path in the fullest light he could get. + +From an early date in November, 1860, every effort was made, by men too +numerous to mention, to devise if possible such a settlement of what were +now called the grievances of the South as would prevent any other State +from following the example of South Carolina. Apart from the intangible +difference presented by much disapprobation of slavery in the North and +growing resentment in the South as this disapprobation grew louder, the +solid ground of dispute concerned the position of slavery in the existing +Territories and future acquisitions of the United States Government; the +quarrel arose from the election of a President pledged to use whatever +power he had, though indeed that might prove little, to prevent the +further extension of slavery; and we may almost confine our attention to +this point. Other points came into discussion. Several of the Northern +States had "Personal Liberty Laws" expressly devised to impede the +execution of the Federal law of 1850 as to fugitive slaves. Some +attention was devoted to these, especially by Alexander Stephens, who, as +the Southern leader most opposed to immediate secession, wished to direct +men's minds to a grievance that could be remedied. Lincoln, who had +always said that, though the Fugitive Slave Law should be made just and +seemly, it ought in substance to be enforced, made clear again that he +thought such "Personal Liberty Laws" should be amended, though he +protested that it was not for him as President-elect to advise the State +Legislatures on their own business. The Republicans generally agreed. +Some of the States concerned actually began amending their laws. Thus, +if the disquiet of the South had depended on this grievance, the cause of +disquiet would no doubt have been removed. Again the Republican leaders, +including Lincoln in particular, let there be no ground for thinking that +an attack was intended upon slavery in the States where it was +established; they offered eventually to give the most solemn pledge +possible in this matter by passing an Amendment of the Constitution +declaring that it should never be altered so as to take away the +independence of the existing slave States as to this portion of their +democratic institutions. Lincoln indeed refused on several occasions to +make any fresh public disclaimer of an intention to attack existing +institutions. His views were "open to all who will read." "For the good +men in the South," he writes privately, "--I regard the majority of them +as such--I have no objection to repeat them seventy times seven. But I +have bad men to deal with both North and South; men who are eager for +something new upon which to base new misrepresentations; men who would +like to frighten me, or at least fix upon me the character of timidity +and cowardice." Nevertheless he endeavoured constantly in private +correspondence to narrow and define the issue, which, as he insisted, +concerned only the territorial extension of slavery. + +The most serious of the negotiations that took place, and to which most +hope was attached, consisted in the deliberations of a committee of +thirteen appointed by the Senate in December, 1860, which took for its +guidance a detailed scheme of compromise put forward by Senator +Crittenden, of Kentucky. The efforts of this committee to come to an +agreement broke down at the outset upon the question of the Territories, +and the responsibility, for good or for evil, of bringing them to an end +must probably be attributed to the advice of Lincoln. Crittenden's first +proposal was that there should be a Constitutional Amendment declaring +that slavery should be prohibited "in all the territory of the United +States, now held or hereafter acquired, north of latitude 36 degrees 30 +minutes"--(the limit fixed in the Missouri Compromise, but restricted +then to the Louisiana purchase)--while in all territory, now held or +thereafter acquired south of that line, it should be permitted. +Crittenden also proposed that when a Territory on either side of the line +became a State, it should become free to decide the question for itself; +but the discussion never reached this point. On the proposal as to the +Territories there seemed at first to be a prospect that the Republicans +would agree, in which case the South might very likely have agreed too. +The desire for peace was intensely strong among the commercial men of New +York and other cities, and it affected the great political managers and +the statesmen who, like Seward himself, were in close touch with this +commercial influence. Tenacious adherence to declared principle may have +been as strong in country districts as the desire for accommodation was +in these cities, but it was at any rate far less vocal, and on the whole +it seems that compromise was then in the air. It seemed clear from the +expressed opinions of his closest allies that Seward would support this +compromise. Now Seward just at this time received Lincoln's offer of the +office of Secretary of State, a great office and one in which Seward +expected to rule Lincoln and the country, but in accepting which, as he +did, he made it incumbent on himself not to part company at once with the +man who would be nominally his chief. Then there occurred a visit paid +on Seward's behalf by his friend Thurlow Weed, an astute political +manager but also an able statesman, to Lincoln at Springfield. Weed +brought back a written statement of Lincoln's views. Seward's support +was not given to the compromise; nor naturally was that of the more +radical Republicans, to use a term which now became common; and the +Committee of Thirteen found itself unable to agree. + +It is unnecessary to repeat what Lincoln's conviction on this, to him the +one essential point of policy, was, or to quote from the numerous letters +in which from the time of his nomination he tried to keep the minds of +his friends firm on this single principle, and to show them that if there +were the slightest further yielding as to this, save indeed as to the +peculiar case of New Mexico, which did not matter, and which perhaps he +regarded as conceded already, the Southern policy of extending slavery +and of "filibustering" against neighbouring counties for that purpose +would revive in full force, and the whole labour of the Republican +movement would have to begin over again. Since his election he had been +writing also to Southern politicians who were personally friendly, to +Gilmer of North Carolina, to whom he offered Cabinet office, and to +Stephens, making absolutely plain that his difference with them lay in +this one point, but making it no less plain that on this point he was, +with entire respect to them, immovable. Now, on December 22, the _New +York Tribune_ was "enabled to state that Mr. Lincoln stands now as he +stood in May last, square upon the Republican platform." The writing +that Weed brought to Seward must have said, perhaps more elaborately, the +same. If Lincoln had not stood square upon that platform there were +others like Senator Wade of Ohio and Senator Grimes of Iowa who might +have done so and might have been able to wreck the compromise. Lincoln, +however, did wreck it, at a time when it seemed likely to succeed, and it +is most probable that thereby he caused the Civil War. It cannot be said +that he definitely expected the Civil War. Probably he avoided making +any definite forecast; but he expressed no alarm, and he privately told a +friend about this time that "he could not in his heart believe that the +South designed the overthrow of the Government." But, if he had in his +heart believed it, nothing in his life gives reason to think that he +would have been more anxious to conciliate the South; on the contrary, it +is in line with all we know of his feelings to suppose that he would have +thought firmness all the more imperative. We cannot recall the solemnity +of his long-considered speech about "a house divided against itself," +with which all his words and acts accorded, without seeing that, if +perhaps he speculated little about the risks, he was prepared to face +them whatever they were. Doubtless he took a heavy responsibility, but +it is painful to find honourable historians, who heartily dislike the +cause of slavery, capable to-day of wondering whether he was right to do +so. "If he had not stood square" in December upon the same "platform" on +which he had stood in May, if he had preferred to enroll himself among +those statesmen of all countries whose strongest words are uttered for +their own subsequent enjoyment in eating them, he might conceivably have +saved much bloodshed, but he would not have left the United States a +country of which any good man was proud to be a citizen. + +Thus, by the end of 1860, the bottom was really out of the policy of +compromise, and it is not worth while to examine the praiseworthy efforts +that were still made for it while State after State in the South was +deciding to secede. One interesting proposal, which was aired in +January, 1861, deserves notice, namely, that the terms of compromise +proposed by Crittenden should have been submitted to a vote of the whole +people. It was not passed. Seward, whom many people now thought likely +to catch at any and every proposal for a settlement, said afterwards with +justice that it was "unconstitutional and ineffectual." Ineffectual it +would have been in this sense: the compromise would in all probability +have been carried by a majority consisting of men in the border States +and of all those elsewhere who, though they feared war and desired good +feeling, had no further definite opinion upon the chief questions at +issue; but it would have left a local majority in many of the Southern +States and a local majority in many of the Northern States as +irreconcilable with each other as ever. It was opposed also to the +spirit of the Constitution. In a great country where the people with +infinitely varied interests and opinions can slowly make their +predominant wishes appear, but cannot really take counsel together and +give a firm decision upon any emergency, there may be exceptional cases +when a popular vote on a defined issue would be valuable, significant, +desired by the people themselves; but the machinery of representative +government, however faulty, is the only machinery by which the people can +in some sense govern itself, instead of making itself ungovernable. +Above all, in a serious crisis it is supremely repugnant to the spirit of +popular government that the men chosen by a people to govern it should +throw their responsibility back at the heads of the electors. It is well +to be clear as to the kind of proceeding which the authors of this +proposal were really advocating: a statesman has come before the ordinary +citizen with a definite statement of the principle on which he would act, +and an ordinary citizen has thereupon taken his part in entrusting him +with power; then comes the moment for the statesman to carry out his +principle, and the latent opposition becomes of necessity more alarming; +the statesman is therefore to say to the ordinary citizen, "This is a +more difficult matter than I thought; and if I am to act as I said I +would, take on yourself the responsibility which I recently put myself +forward to bear." The ordinary citizen will naturally as a rule decline +a responsibility thus offered him, but he will not be grateful for the +offer or glad to be a forced accomplice in this process of indecision. + +If we could determine the prevailing sentiment in the North at some +particular moment during the crisis, it would probably represent what +very few individual men continued to think for six months together. +Early in the crisis some strong opponents of slavery were for letting the +South go, declaring, as did Horace Greeley of the _New York Tribune_, +that "they would not be citizens of a Republic of which one part was +pinned to the other part with bayonets"; but this sentiment seems soon to +have given way when the same men began to consider, as Lincoln had +considered, whether an agreement to sever the Union between the States, +with the difficult adjustment of mutual interests which it would have +involved, could be so effected as to secure a lasting peace. A blind +rage on behalf of conciliation broke out later in prosperous business men +in great towns--even in Boston it is related that "Beacon Street +aristocrats" broke up a meeting to commemorate John Brown on the +anniversary of his death, and grave persons thought the meeting an +outrage. Waves of eager desire for compromise passed over the Northern +community. Observers at the time and historians after are easily +mistaken as to popular feeling; the acute fluctuations of opinion +inevitable among journalists, and in any sort of circle where men are +constantly meeting and talking politics, may leave the great mass of +quiet folk almost unaffected. We may be sure that there was a +considerable body of steady opinion very much in accord with Lincoln; +this should not be forgotten, but it must not be supposed that it +prevailed constantly. On the contrary, it was inherent in the nature of +the crisis that opinion wavered and swayed. We should miss the whole +significance of Lincoln's story if we did not think of the North now and +to the end of the war as exposed to disunion, hesitation, and quick +reaction. If at this time a sufficiently authoritative leader with +sufficiently determined timidity had inaugurated a policy of stampede, he +might have had a vast and tumultuous following. Only his following would +quickly, if too late, have repented. What was wanted, if the people of +the North were to have what most justly might be called their way, was a +leader who would not seem to hurry them along, nor yet be ever looking +round to see if they followed, but just go groping forward among the +innumerable obstacles, guided by such principles of good sense and of +right as would perhaps on the whole and in the long run be approved by +the maturer thought of most men; and Lincoln was such a leader. + +When we turn to the South, where, as has been said, the movement for +secession was making steady though not unopposed progress, we have indeed +to make exceptions to any sweeping statement, but we must recognise a far +more clearly defined and far more prevailing general opinion. We may set +aside for the moment the border slave States of Maryland, Virginia, +Kentucky, and Missouri, each of which has a distinct and an important +history. Delaware belonged in effect to the North. In Texas there were +peculiar conditions, and Texas had an interesting history of its own in +this matter, but may be treated as remote. There was also, as has been +said, a highland region covering the west of Virginia and the east of +Kentucky but reaching far south into the northern part of Alabama. +Looking at the pathetic spectacle of enduring heroism in a mistaken cause +which the South presented, many people have been ready to suppose that it +was manoeuvred and tricked into its folly by its politicians and might +have recovered itself from it if the North and the Government had +exercised greater patience and given it time. In support of this view +instances are cited of strong Unionist feeling in the South. Such +instances probably belong to the peculiar people of this highland +country, or else to the mixed and more or less neutral population that +might be found at New Orleans or trading along the Mississippi. There +remains a solid and far larger South in which indeed (except for South +Carolina) dominant Southern policy was briskly debated, but as a question +of time, degree, and expediency. Three mental forces worked for the same +end: the alarmed vested interest of the people of substance, aristocratic +and otherwise; the racial sentiment of the poor whites, a sentiment often +strongest in those who have no subject of worldly pride but their colour; +and the philosophy of the clergy and other professional men who +constituted what in some countries is called the intellectual class. +These influences resulted in a rare uniformity of opinion that slavery +was right and all attacks on it were monstrous, that the Southern States +were free to secede and form, if they chose, a new Confederacy, and that +they ought to do this if the moment should arrive when they could not +otherwise safeguard their interests. Doubtless there were leading men +who had thought over the matter in advance of the rest and taken counsel +together long before, but the fact seems to be that such leaders now +found their followers in advance of them. Jefferson Davis, by far the +most commanding man among them, now found himself--certainly it served +him right--anxiously counselling delay, and spending nights in prayer +before he made his farewell speech to the Senate in words of greater +dignity and good feeling than seem to comport with the fanatical +narrowness of his view and the progressive warping of his determined +character to which it condemned him. Whatever fundamental loyalty to the +Union existed in any man's heart there were months of debate in which it +found no organised and hardly any audible expression. The most notable +stand against actual secession was that which was made in Georgia by +Stephens; he was determined and outspoken, but he proceeded wholly upon +the ground that secession was premature. And this instance is +significant of something further. It has been said that discussion and +voting were not free, and it would be altogether unlikely that their +freedom should in no cases be infringed, but there is no evidence that +this charge was widely true. It is surely significant of the general +temper of the South, and most honourable to it, that Stephens, who thus +struggled against secession at that moment, was chosen Vice-President of +the Southern Confederacy. + +By February 4, 1861, the States of Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, +Georgia, and Louisiana had followed South Carolina by passing Ordinances +of Secession, and on that date representatives of these States met at +Montgomery in Alabama to found a new Confederacy. Texas, where +considerable resistance was offered by Governor Houston, the adventurous +leader under whom that State had separated from Mexico, was in process of +passing the like Ordinance. Virginia and North Carolina, which lie north +of the region where cotton prevails, and with them their western +neighbour Tennessee, and Arkansas, yet further west and separated from +Tennessee by the Mississippi River, did not secede till after Lincoln's +inauguration and the outbreak of war. But the position of Virginia +(except for its western districts) admitted of very little doubt, and +that of Tennessee and North Carolina was known to be much the same. +Virginia took a historic pride in the Union, and its interest in slavery +was not quite the same as that of the cotton States, yet its strongest +social ties were to the South. This State was now engaged in a last idle +attempt to keep itself and other border States in the Union, with some +hope also that the departed States might return; and on this same +February 6, a "Peace Convention," invited by Virginia and attended by +delegates from twenty-one States, met at Washington with ex-President +Tyler in the chair; but for Virginia it was all along a condition of any +terms of agreement that the right of any State to secede should be fully +acknowledged. + +The Congress of the seceding States, which met at Montgomery, was +described by Stephens as, "taken all in all, the noblest, soberest, most +intelligent, and most conservative body I was ever in." It has been +remarked that Southern politicians of the agitator type were not sent to +it. It adopted a provisional Constitution modelled largely upon that of +the United States. Jefferson Davis, who had retired to his farm, was +sent for to become President; Stephens, as already said, became +Vice-President. The delegates there were to continue in session for the +present as the regular Congress. Whether sobered by the thought that +they were acting in the eyes of the world, or in accordance with their +own prevailing sentiment, these men, some of whom had before urged the +revival of the slave trade, now placed in their Constitution a perpetual +prohibition of it, and when, as a regular legislature, they afterwards +passed a penal statute which carried out this intention inadequately, +President Davis conscientiously vetoed it and demanded a more +satisfactory measure. At his inauguration the Southern President +delivered an address, typical of that curious blending of propriety and +insincerity, of which the politics of that period in America had offered +many examples. It may seem incredible, but it contained no word of +slavery, but recited in dignified terms how the South had been driven to +separation by "wanton aggression on the part of others," and after it had +"vainly endeavoured to secure tranquillity." The new Southern Congress +now resolved to take over the forts and other property in the seceded +States that had belonged to the Union, and the first Confederate general, +Beauregard, was sent to Charleston to hover over Fort Sumter. + + +3. _The Inauguration of Lincoln_. + +The first necessary business of the President-elect, while he watched the +gathering of what Emerson named "the hurricane in which he was called to +the helm," was to construct a strong Cabinet, to which may be added the +seemingly unnecessary business forced upon him of dealing with a horde of +pilgrims who at once began visiting him to solicit some office or, in +rarer cases, to press their disinterested opinions. His Cabinet, +designed in principle, as has been said, while he was waiting in the +telegraph office for election returns, was actually constructed with some +delay and hesitation. Lincoln could not know personally all the men he +invited to join him, but he proceeded with the view of conjoining in his +administration representatives of the chief shades of opinion which in +this critical time it would be his supreme duty to hold together. Not +only different shades of opinion, but the local sentiment of different +districts had to be considered; he once complained that if the twelve +Apostles had to be chosen nowadays the principle of locality would have +to be regarded; but at this time there was very solid reason why +different States should be contented and why he should be advised as to +their feelings. His own chief rivals for the Presidency offered a good +choice from both these points of view. They were Seward of New York, +Chase of Ohio, Bates of Missouri, Cameron of Pennsylvania. Seward and +Chase were both able and outstanding men: the former was in a sense the +old Republican leader, but was more and more coming to be regarded as the +typical "Conservative," or cautious Republican; Chase on the other hand +was a leader of the "Radicals," who were "stern and unbending" in their +attitude towards slavery and towards the South. These two must be got +and kept together if possible. Bates was a good and capable man who +moreover came from Missouri, a border slave State, where his influence +was much to be desired. He became Attorney-General. Cameron, an +unfortunate choice as it turned out, was a very wealthy business man of +Pennsylvania, representative of the weighty Protectionist influence +there. After he had been offered office, which had been without +Lincoln's authority promised him in the Republican Convention, Lincoln +was dismayed by representations that he was "a bad, corrupted man"; he +wrote a curious letter asking Cameron to refuse his offer; Cameron +instead produced evidence of the desire of Pennsylvania for him; Lincoln +stuck to his offer; the old Whig element among Republicans, the +Protectionist element, and above all, the friends of the indispensable +Seward, would otherwise have been outweighted in the Cabinet. Cameron +eventually became for a time Secretary of War. To these Lincoln, upon +somebody's strong representations, tried, without much hope, to add some +distinctly Southern politician. The effort, of course, failed. +Ultimately the Cabinet was completed by the addition of Caleb Smith of +Indiana as Secretary of the Interior, Gideon Welles of Connecticut as +Secretary of the Navy, and Montgomery Blair of Maryland as +Postmaster-General. Welles, with the guidance of a brilliant +subordinate, Fox, served usefully, was very loyal to Lincoln, had an +antipathy to England which was dangerous, and kept very diligently a +diary for which we may be grateful now. Blair was a vehement, +irresponsible person with an influential connection, and, which was +important, his influence and that of his family lay in Maryland and other +border slave States. Of all these men, Seward, Secretary of State--that +is, Foreign Minister and something more--and Chase, Secretary of the +Treasury, most concern us. Lincoln's offer to Seward was made and +accepted in terms that did credit to both men, and Seward, still smarting +at his own defeat, was admirably loyal. But his friends, though they had +secured the appointment of Cameron to support them, thought increasingly +ill of the prospects of a Cabinet which included the Radical Chase. On +the very night before his inauguration Lincoln received from Seward, who +had just been helping to revise his Inaugural Address, a letter +withdrawing his acceptance of office. By some not clearly recorded +exercise of that great power over men, which, if with some failures, was +generally at his command, he forced Seward to see that the unconditional +withdrawal of this letter was his public duty. It must throughout what +follows be remembered that Lincoln's first and most constant duty was to +hold together the jarring elements in the North which these jarring +elements in his own Cabinet represented; and it was one of his great +achievements that he kept together, for as long as was needful, able but +discordant public servants who could never have combined together without +him. + +On February 11, 1861, Lincoln, standing on the gallery at the end of a +railway car, upon the instant of departure from the home to which he +never returned, said to his old neighbours (according to the version of +his speech which his private secretary got him to dictate immediately +after): "My friends, no one, not in my situation, can appreciate my +feeling of sadness at this parting. To this place, and the kindness of +these people, I owe everything. Here I have lived for a quarter of a +century, and have passed from a young to an old man. Here my children +have been born and one is buried. I now leave, not knowing when or +whether ever I may return, with a task before me greater than that which +rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being who +ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance, I cannot +fail. Trusting in Him who can go with me, and remain with you, and be +everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. +To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend +me, I bid you an affectionate farewell." + +He was, indeed, going to a task not less great than Washington's, but he +was going to it with a preparation in many respects far inferior to his. +For the last eight years he had laboured as a public speaker, and in a +measure as a party leader, and had displayed and developed comprehension, +perhaps unequalled, of some of the larger causes which mould public +affairs. But, except in sheer moral discipline, those years had done +nothing to supply the special training which he had previously lacked, +for high executive office. In such office at such a time ready decision +in an obscure and passing situation may often be a not less requisite +than philosophic grasp either of the popular mind or of eternal laws. +The powers which he had hitherto shown would still be needful to him, but +so too would other powers which he had never practised in any comparable +position, and which nature does not in a moment supply. Any attempt to +judge of Lincoln's Presidency--and it can only be judged at all when it +has gone on some way--must take account, not perhaps so much of his +inexperience, as of his own reasonable consciousness of it and his great +anxiety to use the advice of men who were in any way presumably more +competent. + +He deliberately delayed his arrival in Washington and availed himself of +official invitations to stay at four great towns and five State capitals +which he could conveniently pass on his way. The journey abounded in +small incidents and speeches, some of which exposed him to a little +ridicule in the press, though they probably created an undercurrent of +sympathy for him. Near one station where the train stopped lived a +little girl he knew, who had recently urged upon him to wear a beard or +whiskers. To this dreadful young person, and to that persistent good +nature of his which was now and then fatuous, was due the ill-designed +hairy ornamentation which during his Presidency hid the really beautiful +modelling of his jaw and chin. He enquired for her at the station, had +her fetched from the crowd, claimed her praise for this supposed +improvement, and kissed her in presence of the press. In New York he was +guilty of a more sinister and tragic misfeasance. In that city, where, +if it may be said with respect, there has existed from of old a +fashionable circle not convinced of its own gentility and insisting the +more rigorously on minor decorum, Lincoln went to the opera, and history +still deplores that this misguided man went there and sat there with his +large hands in black kid gloves. Here perhaps it is well to say that the +educated world of the Eastern States, including those who privately +deplored Lincoln's supposed unfitness, treated its untried chief +magistrate with that engrained good breeding to which it was utterly +indifferent how plain a man he might be. His lesser speeches as he went +were unstudied appeals to loyalty, with very simple avowals of inadequacy +to his task, and expressions of reliance on the people's support when he +tried to do his duty. To a man who can sometimes speak from the heart +and to the heart as Lincoln did it is perhaps not given to be uniformly +felicitous. Among these speeches was that delivered at Philadelphia, +which has already been quoted, but most of them were not considered +felicitous at the time. They were too unpretentious. Moreover, they +contained sentences which seemed to understate the gravity of the crisis +in a way which threw doubt on his own serious statesmanship. Whether +they were felicitous or not, the intention of these much-criticised +utterances was the best proof of his statesmanship. He would appeal to +the steady loyalty of the North, but he was not going to arouse its +passion. He assumed to the last that calm reflection might prevail in +the South, which was menaced by nothing but "an artificial crisis." He +referred to war as a possibility, but left no doubt of his own wish by +all means to avoid it. "There will," he said, "be no bloodshed unless it +be forced on the Government. The Government will not use force unless +force is used against it." + +Before he passed through Baltimore he received earnest communications +from Seward and from General Scott. Each had received trustworthy +information of a plot, which existed, to murder him in that city. Owing +to their warnings he went through Baltimore secretly at night, so that +his arrival in Washington, on February 23, was unexpected. This was his +obvious duty, and nobody who knew him was ever in doubt of his personal +intrepidity; but of course it helped to damp the effect of what many +people would have been glad to regard as a triumphal progress. + +On March 4, 1861, old Buchanan came in his carriage to escort his +successor to the inaugural ceremony, where it was the ironical fate of +Chief Justice Taney to administer the oath to a President who had already +gone far to undo his great work. Yet a third notable Democrat was there +to do a pleasant little act. Douglas, Lincoln's defeated rival, placed +himself with a fine ostentation by his side, and, observing that he was +embarrassed as to where to put his new tall hat and preposterous +gold-knobbed cane, took charge of these encumbrances before the moment +arrived for the most eagerly awaited of all his speeches. Lincoln had +submitted his draft of his "First Inaugural" to Seward, and this draft +with Seward's abundant suggestions of amendment has been preserved. It +has considerable literary interest, and, by the readiness with which most +of Seward's suggestions were adopted, and the decision with which some, +and those not the least important, were set aside by Lincoln, it +illustrates well the working relation which, after one short struggle, +was to be established between these two men. By Seward's advice Lincoln +added to an otherwise dry speech some concluding paragraphs of emotional +appeal. The last sentence of the speech, which alone is much remembered, +is Seward's in the first conception of it, Seward's in the slightly +hackneyed phrase with which it ends, Lincoln's alone in the touch of +haunting beauty which is on it. + +His "First Inaugural" was by general confession an able state paper, +setting forth simply and well a situation with which we are now familiar. +It sets out dispassionately the state of the controversy on slavery, lays +down with brief argument the position that the Union is indissoluble, and +proceeds to define the duty of the Government in face of an attempt to +dissolve it. "The power," he said, "confided to me will be used to hold, +occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government, +and to collect the duties on imports; but beyond what may be necessary +for these objects there will be no invasion, no using of force against or +among the people anywhere. The mails, unless repelled, will continue to +be furnished in all parts of the Union." He proceeded to set out what he +conceived to be the impossibility of real separation; the intimate +relations between the peoples of the several States must still continue; +they would still remain for adjustment after any length of warfare; they +could be far better adjusted in Union than in enmity. He concluded: "In +your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the +momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You +can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. I am loath +to close. We are not enemies but friends. We must not be enemies. +Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of +affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every +battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all +over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again +touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." + + +4. _The Outbreak of War_. + +Upon the newly-inaugurated President there now descended a swarm of +office-seekers. The Republican party had never been in power before, and +these patriotic people exceeded in number and voracity those that had +assailed any American President before. To be accessible to all such was +the normal duty of a President; it was perhaps additionally incumbent on +him at this time. When in the course of nature the number of +office-seekers abated, they were succeeded, as will be seen, by +supplicants of another kind, whose petitions were often really harrowing. +The horror of this enduring visitation has been described by Artemus Ward +in terms which Lincoln himself could not have improved upon. His +classical treatment of the subject is worth serious reference; for it +should be realised that Lincoln, who had both to learn his new trade of +statecraft and to exercise it in a terrible emergency, did so with a +large part of each day necessarily consumed by worrying and distasteful +tasks of a much paltrier kind. + +On the day after the Inauguration came word from Major Anderson at Fort +Sumter that he could only hold out a few weeks longer unless reinforced +and provisioned. With it came to Lincoln the opinion of General Scott, +that to relieve Fort Sumter now would require a force of 20,000 men, +which did not exist. The Cabinet was summoned with military and naval +advisers. The sailors thought they could throw men and provisions into +Fort Sumter; the soldiers said the ships would be destroyed by the +Confederate batteries. Lincoln asked his Cabinet whether, assuming it to +be feasible, it was politically advisable now to provision Fort Sumter. +Blair said yes emphatically; Chase said yes in a qualified way. The +other five members of the Cabinet said no; General Scott had given his +opinion, as on a military question, that the fort should now be +evacuated; they argued that the evacuation of this one fort would be +recognised by the country as merely a military necessity arising from the +neglect of the last administration. Lincoln reserved his decision. + +Let us conceive the effect of a decision to evacuate Fort Sumter. South +Carolina had for long claimed it as a due acknowledgment of its sovereign +and independent rights, and for no other end; the Confederacy now claimed +it and its first act had been to send Beauregard to threaten the fort. +Even Buchanan had ended by withstanding these claims. The assertion that +he would hold these forts had been the gist of Lincoln's Inaugural. This +was the one fort that was in the eyes of the Northern public or the +Southern public either; they probably never realised that there were +other forts, Fort Pickens, for example, on the Gulf of Mexico, which the +administration was prepared to defend. And now it was proposed that +Lincoln, who had put down his foot with a bang yesterday, should take it +up with a shuffle to-day. And Lincoln reserved his judgment; and, which +is much more, went on reserving it till the question nearly settled +itself to his disgrace. + +Lincoln lacked here, it would seem, not by any means the qualities of the +trained administrator, but just that rough perception and vigour which +untaught genius might be supposed to possess. The passionate Jackson +(who, by the way, was a far more educated man in the respects which +count) would not have acted so. Lincoln, it is true, had declared that +he would take no provocative step--"In your hands, my dissatisfied +fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war," +and the risk which he would have taken by over-ruling that day the +opinion of the bulk of his Cabinet based on that of his chief military +adviser is obvious, but it seems to have been a lesser risk than he did +take in delaying so long to overrule his Cabinet. It is precisely +characteristic of his strength and of his weakness that he did not at +once yield to his advisers; that he long continued weighing the matter +undisturbed by the danger of delay; that he decided as soon as and no +sooner than he felt sure as to the political results, which alone here +mattered, for the military consequences amounted to nothing. + +This story was entangled from the first with another difficult story. +Commissioners from the Southern Confederacy came to Washington and sought +interviews with Seward; they came to treat for the recognition of the +Confederacy and the peaceful surrender of forts and the like within its +borders. Meanwhile the action of Virginia was in the balance, and the +"Peace Convention," summoned by Virginia, still "threshing again," as +Lowell said, "the already twice-threshed straw of debate." The action of +Virginia and of other border States, about which Lincoln was intensely +solicitous, would certainly depend upon the action of the Government +towards the States that had already seceded. Might it not be well that +the Government should avoid immediate conflict with South Carolina about +Fort Sumter, though conflict with the Confederacy about Fort Pickens and +the rest would still impend? Was it not possible that conflict could be +staved off till an agreement could be reached with Virginia and the +border States, which would induce the seceded States to return? These +questions were clearly absurd, but they were as clearly natural, and they +greatly exercised Seward. Disappointed at not being President and +equally disturbed at the prospect of civil war, but still inclined to +large and sanguine hopes, he was rather anxious to take things out of +Lincoln's hands and very anxious to serve his country as the great +peacemaker. Indirect negotiations now took place between him and the +Southern Commissioners, who of course could not be officially recognised, +through the medium of two Supreme Court Judges, especially one Campbell, +who was then in Washington. Seward was quite loyal to Lincoln and told +him in a general way what he was doing; he was also candid with Campbell +and his friends, and explained to them his lack of authority, but he +talked freely and rashly of what he hoped to bring about. Lincoln gave +Seward some proper cautions and left him all proper freedom; but it is +possible that he once told Douglas that he intended, at that moment, to +evacuate Fort Sumter. The upshot of the matter is that the decision of +the Government was delayed by negotiations which, as it ought to have +known, could come to nothing, and that the Southern Government and the +Commissioners, after they had got home, thought they had been deceived in +these negotiations. + +Discussions were still proceeding as to Fort Sumter when a fresh +difficulty arose for Lincoln, but one which enabled him to become +henceforth master in his Cabinet. The strain of Seward's position upon a +man inclined to be vain and weak can easily be imagined, but the sudden +vagary in which it now resulted was surprising. Upon April 1 he sent to +Lincoln "Some Thoughts for the President's Consideration." In this +paper, after deploring what he described as the lack of any policy so +far, and defining, in a way that does not matter, his attitude as to the +forts in the South, he proceeded thus: "I would demand explanations from +Great Britain and Russia, and send agents into Canada, Mexico, and +Central America, to raise a vigorous spirit of independence on this +continent against European intervention, and if satisfactory explanations +are not received from Spain and France, would convene Congress and +declare war against them." In other words, Seward would seek to end all +domestic dissensions by suddenly creating out of nothing a dazzling +foreign policy. But this was not the only point, even if it was the main +point; he proceeded: "Either the President must do it" (that is the sole +conduct of this policy) "himself, or devolve it on some member of his +Cabinet. It is not my especial province. But I neither seek to evade +nor assume responsibility." In other words, Seward put himself forward +as the sole director of the Government. In his brief reply Lincoln made +no reference whatever to Seward's amazing programme. He pointed out that +the policy so far, as to which Seward had complained, was one in which +Seward had entirely concurred. As to the concluding demand that some one +man, and that man Seward, should control all policy, he wrote, "If this +must be done, I must do it. When a general line of policy is adopted, I +apprehend there is no danger of its being changed without good reason, or +continuing to be a subject of unnecessary debate; still, upon points +arising in its progress I wish, and suppose I am entitled to have, the +advice of all the Cabinet." Seward was not a fool, far from it; he was +one of the ablest men in America, only at that moment strained and +excited beyond the limits of his good sense. Lincoln's quiet answer +sobered him then and for ever after. He showed a generous mind; he wrote +to his wife soon after: "Executive force and vigour are rare qualities; +the President is the best of us." And Lincoln's generosity was no less; +his private secretary, Nicolay, saw these papers; but no other man knew +anything of Seward's abortive rebellion against Lincoln till after they +both were dead. The story needs no explanation, but the more attentively +all the circumstances are considered, the more Lincoln's handling of this +emergency, which threatened the ruin of his Government, throws into shade +the weakness he had hitherto shown. + +Lincoln was thus in a stronger position when he finally decided as to +Fort Sumter. It is unnecessary to follow the repeated consultations that +took place. There were preparations for possible expeditions both to +Fort Sumter and to Fort Pickens, and various blunders about them, and +Seward made some trouble by officious interference about them. An +announcement was sent to the Governor of South Carolina that provisions +would be sent to Fort Sumter and he was assured that if this was +unopposed no further steps would be taken. What chiefly concerns us is +that the eventual decision to send provisions but not troops to Fort +Sumter was Lincoln's decision; but that it was not taken till after +Senators and Congressmen had made clear to him that Northern opinion +would support him. It was the right decision, for it conspicuously +avoided the appearance of provocation, while it upheld the right of the +Union; but it was taken perilously late, and the delay exposed the +Government to the risk of a great humiliation. + +An Alabama gentleman had urged Jefferson Davis that the impending +struggle must not be delayed. "Unless," he said, "you sprinkle blood in +the face of the people of Alabama, they will be back in the old Union in +ten days." There is every reason to suppose that the gentleman's +statement as to the probable collapse of the South was mere rhetoric, but +it seems that his advice led to orders being sent to Beauregard to reduce +Fort Sumter. Beauregard sent a summons to Anderson; Anderson, now all +but starved out, replied that unless he received supplies or instructions +he would surrender on April 15. Whether by Beauregard's orders or +through some misunderstanding, the Confederate batteries opened fire on +Fort Sumter on April 12. Fort Sumter became untenable on the next day, +when the relief ships, which Anderson had been led to expect sooner, but +which could in no case really have helped him, were just appearing in the +offing. Anderson very properly capitulated. On Sunday, April 14, 1861, +he marched out with the honours of war. The Union flag had been fired +upon in earnest by the Confederates, and, leaving Virginia and the States +that went with it to join the Confederacy if they chose, the North sprang +to arms. + +In the events which had led up to the outbreak of war Abraham Lincoln had +played a part more admirable and more decisive in its effect than his +countrymen could have noted at the time or perhaps have appreciated +since. He was confronted now with duties requiring mental gifts of a +different kind from those which he had hitherto displayed, and with +temptations to which he had not yet been exposed. In a general sense the +greatness of mind and heart which he unfolded under fierce trial does not +need to be demonstrated to-day. Yet in detail hardly an action of his +Presidency is exempt from controversy; nor is his many-sided character +one of those which men readily flatter themselves that they understand. +There are always, moreover, those to whom it is a marvel how any great +man came by his name. The particular tribute, which in the pages that +follow it is desired to pay to him, consists in the careful examination +of just those actions and just those qualities of his upon which candid +detraction has in fact fastened, or on which candid admiration has +pronounced with hesitancy. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE CONDITIONS OF THE WAR + +In recounting the history of Lincoln's Presidency, it will be necessary +to mark the course of the Civil War stage by stage as we proceed. +There are, however, one or two general features of the contest with +which it may be well to deal by way of preface. + +It has seldom happened that a people entering upon a great war have +understood at the outset what the character of that war would be. When +the American Civil War broke out the North expected an easy victory, +but, as disappointment came soon and was long maintained, many clever +people adopted the opinion, which early prevailed in Europe, that there +was no possibility of their success at all. At the first the +difficulty of the task was unrecognised; under early and long-sustained +disappointment the strength by which those difficulties could be +overcome began to be despaired of without reason. + +The North, after several slave States, which were at first doubtful, +had adhered to it, had more than double the population of the South; of +the Southern population a very large part were slaves, who, though +industrially useful, could not be enlisted. In material resources the +superiority of the North was no less marked, and its material wealth +grew during the war to a greater extent than had perhaps ever happened +to any other belligerent power. These advantages were likely to be +decisive in the end, if the North could and would endure to the end. +But at the very beginning these advantages simply did not tell at all, +for the immediately available military force of the North was +insignificant, and that of the South clearly superior to it; and even +when they began to tell, it was bound to be very long before their full +weight could be brought to bear. And the object which was to be +obtained was supremely difficult of attainment. It was not a defeat of +the South which might result in the alteration of a frontier, the +cession of some Colonies, the payment of an indemnity, and such like +matters; it was a conquest of the South so complete that the Union +could be restored on a firmer basis than before. Any less result than +this would be failure in the war. And the country, to be thus +completely conquered by an unmilitary people of nineteen millions, was +of enormous extent: leaving out of account the huge outlying State of +Texas, which is larger than Germany, the remaining Southern States +which joined in the Confederacy have an area somewhat larger than that +of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Holland, and Belgium put together; and +this great region had no industrial centres or other points of such +great strategic importance that by the occupation of them the remaining +area could be dominated. The feat which the Northern people eventually +achieved has been said by the English historians of the war (perhaps +with some exaggeration) to have been "a greater one than that which +Napoleon attempted to his own undoing when he invaded Russia in 1812." + +On the other hand, the South was in some respects very favourably +placed for resisting invasion from the North. The Southern forces +during most of the war were, in the language of military writers, +operating on interior lines; that is, the different portions of them +lay nearer to one another than did the different portions of the +Northern forces, and could be more quickly brought to converge on the +same point; the country abounded in strong positions for defence which +could be held by a relatively small force, while in every invading +movement the invaders had to advance long distances from the base, thus +exposing their lines of communication to attack. The advantage of this +situation, if competent use were made of it, was bound to go very far +towards compensating for inferiority of numbers; the North could not +make its superior numbers on land tell in any rapidly decisive fashion +without exposing itself to dangerous counter-strokes. In naval +strength its superiority was asserted almost from the first, and by +cutting off foreign supplies caused the Southern armies to suffer +severe privations before the war was half through; but its full effect +could only be produced very slowly. Thus, if its people were brave and +its leaders capable, the South was by no means in so hopeless a case as +might at first have appeared; with good fortune it might hope to strike +its powerful antagonist some deadly blow before that antagonist could +bring its strength to bear; and even if this hope failed, a +sufficiently tenacious defence might well wear down the patience of the +North. + +As soldiers the Southerners started with a superiority which the +Northerners could only overtake slowly. If each people were taken in +the mass, the proportion of Southerners bred to an outdoor life was +higher. Generally speaking, if not exactly more frugal, they were far +less used to living comfortably. Above all, all classes of people +among them were still accustomed to think of fighting as a normal and +suitable occupation for a man; while the prevailing temper of the North +thought of man as meant for business, and its higher temper was apt to +think of fighting as odious and war out of date. This, like the other +advantages of the South, was transitory; before very long Northerners +who became soldiers at a sacrifice of inclination, from the highest +spirit of patriotism or in the methodic temper in which business has to +be done, would become man for man as good soldiers as the Southerners; +but the original superiority of the Southerners would continue to have +a moral effect in their own ranks and on the mind of the enemy, more +especially of the enemy's generals, even after its cause had ceased to +exist; and herein the military advantage of the South was undoubtedly, +through the first half of the war, considerable. + +In the matter of leadership the South had certain very real and certain +other apparent but probably delusive advantages. The United States had +no large number of trained military officers, still capable of active +service. The armies of the North and South alike had to be commanded +and staffed to a great extent by men who first studied their profession +in that war; and the lack of ripe military judgment was likely to be +felt most in the higher commands where the forces to be employed and +co-ordinated were largest. The South secured what may be called its +fair proportion of the comparatively few officers, but it was of +tremendous moment that, among the officers who, when the war began, +were recognised as competent, two, who sadly but in simple loyalty to +the State of Virginia took the Southern side, were men of genius. The +advantages of the South would have been no advantages without skill and +resolution to make use of them. The main conditions of the war--the +vast space, the difficulty in all parts of it of moving troops, the +generally low level of military knowledge--were all such as greatly +enhance the opportunities of the most gifted commander. Lee and +"Stonewall" Jackson thus became, the former throughout the war, the +latter till he was killed in the summer of 1863, factors of primary +importance in the struggle. Wolseley, who had, besides studying their +record, conversed both with Lee and with Moltke, thought Lee even +greater than Moltke, and the military writers of our day speak of him +as one of the great commanders of history. As to Jackson, Lee's belief +in him is sufficient testimony to his value. And the good fortune of +the South was not confined to these two signal instances. Most of the +Southern generals who appeared early in the war could be retained in +important commands to the end. + +The South might have seemed at first equally fortunate in the character +of the Administration at the back of the generals. An ascendency was +at once conceded to Jefferson Davis, a tried political leader, to which +Lincoln had to win his way, and the past experiences of the two men had +been very different. The operations of war in which Lincoln had taken +part were confined, according to his own romantic account in a speech +in Congress, to stealing ducks and onions from the civil population; +his Ministers were as ignorant in the matter as he; their military +adviser, Scott, was so infirm that he had soon to retire, and it proved +most difficult to replace him. Jefferson Davis, on the other hand, +started with knowledge of affairs, including military affairs; he had +been Secretary of War in Pierce's Cabinet and Chairman of the Senate +Committee on War since then; above all, he had been a soldier and had +commanded a regiment with some distinction in the Mexican War. It is +thought that he would have preferred a military command to the +Presidency of the Confederacy, and as his own experience of actual war +was as great as that of his generals, he can hardly be blamed for a +disposition to interfere with them at the beginning. But military +historians, while criticising (perhaps a little hastily) all Lincoln's +interventions in the affairs of war up to the time when he found +generals whom he trusted, insist that Davis' systematic interference +was far more harmful to his cause; and Wolseley, who watched events +closely from Canada and who visited the Southern Army in 1863, is most +emphatic in this opinion. He interfered with Lee to an extent which +nothing but Lee's devoted friendship and loyalty could have made +tolerable. He put himself into relations of dire hostility with Joseph +Johnston, and in 1864 suspended him in the most injudicious manner. +Above all, when the military position of the South had begun to be +acutely perilous, Jefferson Davis neither devised for himself, nor +allowed his generals to devise, any bold policy by which the chance +that still remained could be utilised. His energy of will showed +itself in the end in nothing but a resolution to protract bloodshed +after it had certainly become idle. + +If we turn to the political conditions, on which, in any but a short +war, so much depends, the South will appear to have had great +advantages. Its people were more richly endowed than the mixed and +crudely democratic multitude of the North, in the traditional aptitude +for commanding or obeying which enables people to pull together in a +crisis. And they were united in a cause such as would secure the +sustained loyalty of any ordinary people under any ordinary leader. +For, though it was nothing but slavery that led to their assertion of +independence, from the moment that they found themselves involved in +war, they were fighting for a freedom to which they felt themselves +entitled, and for nothing else whatever. A few successful encounters +at the start tempted the ordinary Southerner to think himself a better +man than the ordinary Northerner, even as the Southern Congressmen felt +themselves superior to the persons whom the mistaken democracy of the +North too frequently elected. This claim of independence soon acquired +something of the fierce pride that might have been felt by an ancient +nation. But it would have been impossible that the Northern people as +a whole should be similarly possessed by the cause in which they +fought. They did not seem to be fighting for their own liberty, and +they would have hated to think that they were fighting for conquest. +They were fighting for the maintenance of a national unity which they +held dear. The question how far it was worth fighting a formidable +enemy for the sake of eventual unity with him, was bound to present +itself. Thus, far from wondering that the cause of the Union aroused +no fuller devotion than it did in the whole lump of the Northern +people, we may wonder that it inspired with so lofty a patriotism men +and women in every rank of life who were able to leaven that lump. But +the political element in this war was of such importance as to lead to +a startling result; the North came nearest to yielding at a time when +in a military sense its success had become sure. To preserve a united +North was the greatest and one of the hardest of the duties of +President Lincoln. + +To a civilian reader the history of the war, in spite of the +picturesque incidents of many battles, may easily be made dreary. Till +far on in the lengthy process of subjecting the South, we might easily +become immersed in some futile story of how General X. was superseded +by General Y. in a command, for which neither discovered any purpose +but that of not co-operating with General Z. And this impression is +not merely due to our failure to understand the difficulties which +confronted these gallant officers. The dearth of trained military +faculty, which was felt at the outset, could only be made good by the +training which the war itself supplied. Such commanders as Grant and +Sherman and Sheridan not only could not have been recognised at the +beginning of the war; they were not then the soldiers that they +afterwards became. And the want was necessarily very serious in the +case of the higher commands which required the movement of large +forces, the control of subordinates each of whom must have a wide +discretion, and the energy of intellect and will necessary for +resolving the more complex problems of strategy. We are called upon to +admire upon both sides the devotion of forgotten thousands, and to +admire upon the side of the South the brilliant and daring operations +by which in so many battles Lee and Jackson defeated superior forces. +On the Northern side, later on, great generals came to view, but it is +in the main a different sort of achievement which we are called upon to +appreciate. An Administration appointed to direct a stupendous +operation of conquest was itself of necessity ill prepared for such a +task; behind it were a Legislature and a public opinion equally ill +prepared to support and to assist it. There were in its military +service many intelligent and many enterprising men, but none, at first, +so combining intelligence and enterprise that he could grapple with any +great responsibility or that the civil power would have been warranted +in reposing complete confidence in him. The history of the war has to +be recounted in this volume chiefly with a view to these difficulties +of the Administration. + +One of the most interesting features of the war would, in any military +study of it, be seen to be the character of the troops on both sides. +On both sides their individual quality was high; on both, circumstances +and the disposition of the people combined to make discipline weak. +This character, common to the two armies, was conspicuous in many +battles of the war, but a larger interest attaches to the policy of the +two administrations in raising and organising their civilian armies. +The Southern Government, if its proceedings were studied in detail, +would probably seem to have been better advised at the start on matters +of military organisation; for instance, it had early and long retained +a superiority in cavalry which was not a mere result of good fortune. +But here, too, there was an inherent advantage in the very fact that +the South had started upon a desperate venture. There can hardly be a +more difficult problem of detail for statesmen than the co-ordination +of military and civil requirements in the raising of an army. But in +the South all civil considerations merged themselves in the paramount +necessity of a military success for which all knew the utmost effort +was needed. The several States of the South, claiming as they did a +far larger independence than the Northern States, knew that they could +only make that claim good by being efficient members of the +Confederacy. Thus it was comparatively easy for the Confederate +Government to adopt and maintain a consecutive policy in this matter, +and though, from the conditions of a widely spread agricultural +population, voluntary enlistment produced poor results at the beginning +of the war, it appears to have been easy to introduce quite early an +entirely compulsory system of a stringent kind. + +The introduction of compulsory service in the North has its place in +our subsequent story. The system that preceded it need not be dwelt +upon here, because, full of instruction as a technical study of it +(such as has been made by Colonel Henderson) must be, no brief survey +by an amateur could be useful. It is necessary, however, to understand +the position in which Lincoln's Administration was placed, without much +experience In America, or perhaps elsewhere in the world, to guide it. +It must not be contended, for it cannot be known that the problem was +fully and duly envisaged by Lincoln on his Cabinet, but it would +probably in any case have been impossible for them to pursue from the +first a consecutive and well-thought-out policy for raising an army and +keeping up its strength. The position of the North differed +fundamentally from that of the South; the North experienced neither the +ardour nor the throes of a revolution; it was never in any fear of +being conquered, only of not conquering. There was nothing, therefore, +which at once bestowed on the Government a moral power over the country +vastly in excess of that which it exercised in normal times. This, +however, was really necessary to it if the problem of the Army was to +be handled in the way which was desirable from a military point of +view. Compulsory service could not at first be thought of. It was +never supposed that the tiny regular Army of the United States +Government could be raised to any very great size by voluntary +enlistment, and the limited increase of it which was attempted was not +altogether successful. The existing militia system of the several +States was almost immediately found faulty and was discarded. A great +Volunteer Force had to be raised which should be under the command of +the President, who by the Constitution is Commander-in-Chief of the +forces of the Union, but which must be raised in each State by the +State Governor (or, if he was utterly wanting, by leading local +citizens). Now State Governors are not--it must be recalled--officers +under the President, but independent potentates acting usually in as +much detachment from him as the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford or Cambridge +from the Board of Education or a Presbyterian minister from a bishop. +This group of men, for the most part able, patriotic, and determined, +were there to be used and had to be consulted. It follows that the +policy of the North in raising and organising its armies had at first +to be a policy evolved between numerous independent authorities which +never met and were held together by a somewhat ignorant public opinion, +sometimes much depressed and sometimes, which was worse, oversanguine. +It is impossible to judge exactly how ill or how well Lincoln, under +such circumstances, grappled with this particular problem, but many +anomalies which seem to us preposterous--the raising of raw new +regiments when fine seasoned regiments were short of half their +strength, and so forth--were in these circumstances inevitable. The +national system of recruiting, backed by compulsion, which was later +set up, still required for its success the co-operation of State and +local authorities of this wholly independent character. + +Northern and Southern armies alike had necessarily to be commanded to a +great extent by amateur officers; the number of officers, in the +service or retired, who had been trained at West Point, was +immeasurably too small for the needs of the armies. Amateurs had to be +called in, and not only so, but they had in some cases to be given very +important commands. The not altogether unwholesome tradition that a +self-reliant man can turn his hand to anything was of course very +strong in America, and the short military annals of the country had +been thought to have added some illustrious instances to the roll of +men of peace who have distinguished themselves in arms. So a political +leader, no matter whether he was Democrat or Republican, who was a man +of known general capacity, would sometimes at first seem suitable for +an important command rather than the trained but unknown professional +soldier who was the alternative. Moreover, it seemed foolish not to +appoint him, when, as sometimes happened, he could bring thousands of +recruits from his State. The Civil War turned out, however, to show +the superiority of the duly trained military mind in a marked degree. +Some West-Pointers of repute of course proved incapable, and a great +many amateur colonels and generals, both North and South, attained a +very fair level of competence in the service (the few conspicuous +failures seem to have been quite exceptional); but, all the same, of +the many clever and stirring men who then took up soldiering as novices +and served for four years, not one achieved brilliant success; of the +generals in the war whose names are remembered, some had indeed passed +years in civil life, but every one had received a thorough military +training in the years of his early manhood. It certainly does not +appear that the Administration was really neglectful of professional +merit; it hungered to find it; but many appointments must at first have +been made in a haphazard fashion, for there was no machinery for +sifting claims. A zealous but unknown West-Pointer put under an +outsider would be apt to write as Sherman did in early days: "Mr. +Lincoln meant to insult me and the Army"; and a considerable jealousy +evidently arose between West-Pointers and amateurs. It was aggravated +by the rivalry between officers of the Eastern army and those of the, +more largely amateur, Western army. The amateurs, too, had something +to say on their side; they were apt to accuse West-Pointers as a class +of a cringing belief that the South was invincible. There was nothing +unnatural or very serious in all this, but political influences which +arose later caused complaints of this nature to be made the most of, +and a general charge to be made against Lincoln's Administration of +appointing generals and removing them under improper political +influences. This general charge, however, rests upon a limited number +of alleged instances, and all of these which are of any importance will +necessarily be examined in later chapters. + +It may be useful to a reader who wishes to follow the main course of +the war carefully, if the chief ways in which geographical facts +affected it are here summarised--necessarily somewhat dryly. Minor +operations at outlying points on the coast or in the Far West will be +left out of account, so also will a serious political consideration, +which we shall later see caused doubt for a time as to the proper +strategy of the North. + +It must be noted first, startling as it may be to Englishmen who +remember the war partly by the exploits of the _Alabama_, that the +naval superiority of the North was overwhelming. In spite of many +gallant efforts by the Southern sailors, the North could blockade their +coasts and could capture most of the Southern ports long before its +superiority on land was established. Turning then to land, we may +treat the political frontier between the two powers, after a short +preliminary stage of war, as being marked by the southern boundaries of +Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri, just as they are seen +on the map to-day. In doing so, we must note that at the commencement +of large operations parts of Kentucky and Missouri were occupied by +Southern invading forces. This frontier is cut, not far from the +Atlantic, by the parallel mountain chains which make up the Alleghanies +or Appalachians. These in effect separated the field of operations +into a narrow Eastern theatre of war, and an almost boundless Western +theatre; and the operations in these two theatres were almost to the +end independent of each other. + +In the Eastern theatre of war lies Washington, the capital of the +Union, a place of great importance to the North for obvious reasons, +and especially because if it fell European powers would be likely to +recognise the Confederacy. It lies, on the Potomac, right upon the +frontier; and could be menaced also in the rear, for the broad and +fertile trough between the mountain chains formed by the valley of the +Shenandoah River, which flows northward to join the Potomac at a point +north-west of Washington, was in Confederate hands and formed a sort of +sally-port by which a force from Richmond could get almost behind +Washington. A hundred miles south of Washington lay Richmond, which +shortly became the capital of the Confederates, instead of Montgomery +in Alabama. As a brand-new capital it mattered little to the +Confederates, though at the very end of the war it became their last +remaining stronghold. The intervening country, which was in Southern +hands, was extraordinarily difficult. The reader may notice on the map +the rivers with broad estuaries which are its most marked features, and +with the names of which we shall become familiar. The rivers +themselves were obstacles to an invading Northern army; their +estuaries, on the other hand, soon afforded it safe communication by +sea. + +In the Western theatre of war we must remember first the enormous +length of frontier in proportion to the population on either side. +This necessarily made the progress of Northern invasion slow, and its +proper direction hard to determine, for diversions could be created by +a counter-invasion elsewhere along the frontier or a stroke at the +invaders' communications. The principal feature of the whole region is +the great waterways, on which the same advantages which gave the sea to +the North gave it also an immense superiority in the river warfare of +flotillas of gunboats. When the North with its gunboats could get +control of the Mississippi the South would be deprived of a +considerable part of its territory and resources, and cut off from its +last means of trading with Europe (save for the relief afforded by +blockade-runners) by being cut off from Mexico and its ports. Further, +when the North could control the tributaries of the Mississippi, +especially the Cumberland and the Tennessee which flow into the great +river through the Ohio, it would cut deep into the internal +communications of the South. Against this menace the South could only +contend by erecting powerful fortresses on the rivers, and the capture +of some of them was the great object of the earlier Northern operations. + +The railway system of the South must also be taken into account in +connection with their waterways. This, of course, cannot be seen on a +modern map. Perhaps the following may make the main points clear. The +Southern railway system touched the Mississippi and the world beyond it +at three points only: Memphis, Vicksburg, and New Orleans. A traveller +wishing to go, say, from Richmond by rail towards the West could have, +if distance were indifferent to him, a choice of three routes for part +of the way. He could go through Knoxville in Tennessee to Chattanooga +in that State, where he had a choice of routes further West, or he +could take one of two alternative lines south into Georgia and thence +go either to Atlanta or to Columbus in the west of that State. Arrived +at Atlanta or Columbus, he could proceed further West either by making +a detour northwards through Chattanooga or by making a detour +southwards through the seaport town of Mobile, crossing the harbour by +boat. Thus the capture of Chattanooga from the South would go far +towards cutting the whole Southern railway system in two, and the +capture of Mobile would complete it. Lastly, we may notice two lines +running north and south through the State of Mississippi, one through +Corinth and Meridian, and the other nearer the great river. From this +and the course of the rivers the strategic importance of some of the +towns mentioned may be partly appreciated. + +The subjugation of the South in fact began by a process, necessarily +slow and much interrupted, whereby having been blockaded by sea it was +surrounded by land, cut off from its Western territory, and deprived of +its main internal lines of communication. Richmond, against which the +North began to move within the first three months of the war, did not +fall till nearly four years later, when the process just described had +been completed, and when a Northern army had triumphantly progressed, +wasting the resources of the country as it went, from Chattanooga to +Atlanta, thence to the Atlantic coast of Georgia, and thence northward +through the two Carolinas till it was about to join hands with the army +assailing Richmond. Throughout this time the attention of a large part +of the Northern public and of all those who watched the war from Europe +was naturally fastened to a great extent upon the desperate fighting +which occurred in the region of Washington and of Richmond and upon the +ill success of the North in endeavours of unforeseen difficulty against +the latter city. We shall see, however, that the long and humiliating +failure of the North in this quarter was neither so unaccountable nor +nearly so important as it appeared. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE OPENING OF THE WAR AND LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION + +1. _Preliminary Stages_. + +On the morning after the bombardment of Fort Sumter there appeared a +Proclamation by the President calling upon the Militia of the several +States to furnish 75,000 men for the service of the United States in +the suppression of an "unlawful combination." Their service, however, +would expire by law thirty days after the next meeting of Congress, +and, in compliance with a further requirement of law upon this subject, +the President also summoned Congress to meet in extraordinary session +upon July 4. The Army already in the service of the United States +consisted of but 16,000 officers and men, and, though the men of this +force, being less affected by State ties than their officers, remained, +as did the men of the Navy, true almost without exception to their +allegiance, all but 3,000 of them were unavailable and scattered in +small frontier forts in the West. A few days later, when it became +plain that the struggle might long outlast the three months of the +Militia, the President called for Volunteers to enlist for three years' +service, and perhaps (for the statements are conflicting) some 300,000 +troops of one kind and another had been raised by June. + +The affair of Fort Sumter and the President's Proclamation at once +aroused and concentrated the whole public opinion of the free States in +the North and, in an opposite sense, of the States which had already +seceded. The border slave States had now to declare for the one side +or for the other. Virginia as a whole joined the Southern Confederacy +forthwith, but several Counties in the mountainous region of the west +of that State were strongly for the Union. These eventually succeeded +with the support of Northern troops in separating from Virginia and +forming the new State of West Virginia. Tennessee also joined the +South, though in Eastern Tennessee the bulk of the people held out for +the Union without such good fortune as their neighbours in West +Virginia. Arkansas beyond the Mississippi followed the same example, +though there were some doubt and division in all parts of that State. +In Delaware, where the slaves were very few, the Governor did not +formally comply with the President's Proclamation, but the people as a +whole responded to it. The attitude of Maryland, which almost +surrounds Washington, kept the Government at the capital in suspense +and alarm for a while, for both the city of Baltimore and the existing +State legislature were inclined to the South. In Kentucky and Missouri +the State authorities were also for the South, and it was only after a +struggle, and in Missouri much actual fighting, that the Unionist +majority of the people in each State had its way. The secession of +Virginia had consequences even more important than the loss to the +Union of a powerful State. General Robert E. Lee, a Virginian, then in +Washington, was esteemed by General Scott to be the ablest officer in +the service. Lincoln and his Secretary of War desired to confer on him +the command of the Army. Lee's decision was made with much reluctance +and, it seems, hesitation. He was not only opposed to the policy of +secession, but denied the right of a State to secede; yet he believed +that his absolute allegiance was due to Virginia. He resigned his +commission in the United States Army, went to Richmond, and, in +accordance with what Wolseley describes as the prevailing principle +that had influenced most of the soldiers he met in the South, placed +his sword at the disposal of his own State. The same loyalty to +Virginia governed another great soldier, Thomas J. Jackson, whose +historic nickname, "Stonewall," fails to convey the dashing celerity of +his movements. While they both lived these two men were to be linked +together in the closest comradeship and mutual trust. They sprang from +different social conditions and were of contrasting types. The epithet +Cavalier has been fitly enough applied to Lee, and Jackson, after +conversion from the wild courses of his youth, was an austere Puritan. +To quote again from a soldier's memoirs, Wolseley calls Lee "one of the +few men who ever seriously impressed and awed me with their natural, +their inherent, greatness"; he speaks of his "majesty," and of the +"beauty," of his character, and of the "sweetness of his smile and the +impressive dignity of the old-fashioned style of his address"; "his +greatness," he says, "made me humble." "There was nothing," he tells +us, "of these refined characteristics in Stonewall Jackson," a man with +"huge hands and feet." But he possessed "an assured self-confidence, +the outcome of his sure trust in God. How simple, how humble-minded a +man. As his impressive eyes met yours unflinchingly, you knew that his +was an honest heart." To this he adds touches less to be expected +concerning a Puritan warrior, whose Puritanism was in fact inclined to +ferocity--how Jackson's "remarkable eyes lit up for the moment with a +look of real enthusiasm as he recalled the architectural beauty of the +seven lancet windows in York Minster," how "intense" was the +"benignity" of his expression, and how in him it seemed that "great +strength of character and obstinate determination were united with +extreme gentleness of disposition and with absolute tenderness towards +all about him." Men such as these brought to the Southern cause +something besides their military capacity; but as to the greatness of +that capacity, applied in a war in which the scope was so great for +individual leaders of genius, there is no question. A civilian reader, +looking in the history of war chiefly for the evidences of personal +quality, can at least discern in these two famous soldiers the moral +daring which in doubtful circumstances never flinches from the +responsibility of a well-considered risk, and, in both their cases as +in those of some other great commanders, can recognise in this rare and +precious attribute the outcome of their personal piety. We shall +henceforth have to do with the Southern Confederacy and its armies, not +in their inner history but with sole regard to the task which they +imposed upon Lincoln and the North. But at this parting of the ways a +tribute is due to the two men, pre-eminent among many devoted people, +who, in their soldier-like and unreflecting loyalty to their cause, +gave to it a lustre in which, so far as they can be judged, neither its +statesmen nor its spiritual guides had a share. + +There were Virginian officers who did not thus go with their State. Of +these were Scott himself, and G. H. Thomas; and Farragut, the great +sailor, was from Tennessee. + +Throughout the free States of the North there took place a national +uprising of which none who remember it have spoken without feeling anew +its spontaneous ardour. Men flung off with delight the hesitancy of +the preceding months, and recruiting went on with speed and enthusiasm. +Party divisions for the moment disappeared. Old Buchanan made public +his adhesion to the Government. Douglas called upon Lincoln to ask how +best he could serve the public cause, and, at his request, went down to +Illinois to guide opinion and advance recruiting there; so employed, +the President's great rival, shortly after, fell ill and died, leaving +the leadership of the Democrats to be filled thereafter by more +scrupulous but less patriotic men. There was exultant confidence in +the power of the nation to put down rebellion, and those who realised +the peril in which for many days the capital and the administration +were placed were only the more indignantly determined. Perhaps the +most trustworthy record of popular emotions is to be found in popular +humorists. Shortly after these days Artemus Ward, the author who +almost vied with Shakespeare in Lincoln's affections, relates how the +confiscation of his show in the South led him to have an interview with +Jefferson Davis. "Even now," said Davis, in this pleasant fiction, "we +have many frens in the North." "J. Davis," is the reply, "there's your +grate mistaik. Many of us was your sincere frends, and thought certin +parties amung us was fussin' about you and meddlin' with your consarns +intirely too much. But, J. Davis, the minit you fire a gun at the +piece of dry goods called the Star-Spangled Banner, the North gits up +and rises en massy, in defence of that banner. Not agin you as +individooals--not agin the South even--but to save the flag. We should +indeed be weak in the knees, unsound in the heart, milk-white in the +liver, and soft in the hed, if we stood quietly by and saw this glorus +Govyment smashed to pieces, either by a furrin or a intestine foe. The +gentle-harted mother hates to take her naughty child across her knee, +but she knows it is her dooty to do it. So we shall hate to whip the +naughty South, but we must do it if you don't make back tracks at onct, +and we shall wallup you out of your boots!" In the days which +followed, when this prompt chastisement could not be effected and it +seemed indeed as if the South would do most of the whipping, the +discordant elements which mingled in this unanimity soon showed +themselves. The minority that opposed the war was for a time silent +and insignificant, but among the supporters of the war there were those +who loved the Union and the Constitution and who, partly for this very +reason, had hitherto cultivated the sympathies of the South. +These--adherents mainly of the Democratic party--would desire that +civil war should be waged with the least possible breach of the +Constitution, and be concluded with the least possible social change; +many of them would wish to fight not to a finish but to a compromise. +On the other hand, there were those who loved liberty and hated alike +the slave system of the South and the arrogance which it had +engendered. These--the people distinguished within the Republican +party as Radicals--would pay little heed to constitutional restraints +in repelling an attack on the Constitution, and they would wish from +the first to make avowed war upon that which caused the war--slavery. +In the border States there was of course more active sympathy with the +South, and in conflict with this the Radicalism of some of these States +became more stalwart and intractable. To such causes of dissension was +added as time went on sheer fatigue of the war, and strangely enough +this influence was as powerful with a few Radicals as it was with the +ingrained Democratic partisans. They despaired of the result when +success at last was imminent, and became sick of bloodshed when it +passed what they presumably regarded as a reasonable amount. + +It was the task of the Administration not only to conduct the war, but +to preserve the unity of the North in spite of differences and its +resolution in spite of disappointments. Lincoln was in more than one +way well fitted for this task. Old experience in Illinois and Kentucky +enabled him to understand very different points of view in regard to +the cause of the South. The new question that was now to arise about +slavery was but a particular form of the larger question of principle +to which he had long thought out an answer as firm and as definite as +it was moderate and in a sense subtle. He had, moreover, a quality of +heart which, as it seemed to those near him, the protraction of the +conflict, with its necessary strain upon him, only strengthened. In +him a tenacity, which scarcely could falter in the cause which he +judged to be right, was not merely pure from bitterness towards his +antagonists, it was actually bound up with a deep-seated kindliness +towards them. Whatever rank may be assigned to his services and to his +deserts, it is first and foremost in these directions, though not in +these directions alone, that the reader of his story must look for +them. Upon attentive study he will probably appear as the embodiment, +in a degree and manner which are alike rare, of the more constant and +the higher judgment of his people. It is plainer still that he +embodied the resolute purpose which underlay the fluctuations upon the +surface of their political life. The English military historians, Wood +and Edmonds, in their retrospect over the course of the war, well sum +up its dramatic aspect when they say: "Against the great military +genius of certain of the Southern leaders fate opposed the unbroken +resolution and passionate devotion to the Union, which he worshipped, +of the great Northern President. As long as he lived, and ruled the +people of the North, there could be no turning back." + +There are plenty of indications in the literature of the time that +Lincoln's determination soon began to be widely felt and to be +appreciated by common people. Literally, crowds of people from all +parts of the North saw him, exchanged a sentence or two, and carried +home their impressions; and those who were near him record the constant +fortitude of his bearing, noting as marked exceptions the unrestrained +words of impatience and half-humorous despondency which did on rare +occasions escape him. In a negative way, too, even the political world +bore its testimony to this; his administration was charged with almost +every other form of weakness, but there was never a suspicion that he +would give in. Nor again, in the severest criticisms upon him by +knowledgeable men that have been unearthed and collected, does the +suggestion of petty personal aims or of anything but unselfish devotion +ever find a place. The belief that he could be trusted spread itself +among plain people, and, given this belief, plain people liked him the +better because he was plain. But if at the distance at which we +contemplate him, and at which from the moment of his death all America +contemplated him, certain grand traits emerge, it is not for a moment +to be supposed that in his life he stood out in front of the people as +a great leader, or indeed as a leader at all, in the manner, say, of +Chatham or even of Palmerston. Lincoln came to Washington doubtless +with some deep thoughts which other men had not thought, doubtless also +with some important knowledge, for instance of the border States, which +many statesmen lacked, but he came there a man inexperienced in +affairs. It was a part of his strength that he knew this very well, +that he meant to learn, thought he could learn, did not mean to be +hurried where he had not the knowledge to decide, entirely appreciated +superior knowledge in others, and was entirely unawed by it. But +Senators and Representatives in Congress and journalists of high +standing, as a rule, perceived the inexperience and not the strength. +The deliberation with which he acted, patiently watching events, saying +little, listening to all sides, conversing with a naivete which was +genuine but not quite artless, seemingly obdurate to the pressure of +wise counsels on one side and on the other--all this struck many +anxious observers as sheer incompetence, and when there was just and +natural cause for their anxiety, there was no established presumption +of his wisdom to set against it. And this effect was enhanced by what +may be called his plainness, his awkwardness, and actual eccentricity +in many minor matters. To many intelligent people who met him they +were a grievous stumbling-block, and though some most cultivated men +were not at all struck by them, and were pleased instead by his +"seeming sincere, and honest, and steady," or the like, it is clear +that no one in Washington was greatly impressed by him at first +meeting. His oddities were real and incorrigible. Young John Hay, +whom Nicolay, his private secretary, introduced as his assistant, a +humorist like Lincoln himself, but with leanings to literary elegance +and a keen eye for social distinctions, loved him all along and came to +worship him, but irreverent amusement is to be traced in his recently +published letters, and the glimpses which he gives us of "the Ancient" +or "the Tycoon" when quite at home and quite at his ease fully justify +him. Lincoln had great dignity and tact for use when he wanted them, +but he did not always see the use of them. Senator Sherman was +presented to the new President. "So you're John Sherman?" said +Lincoln. "Let's see if you're as tall as I am. We'll measure." The +grave politician, who was made to stand back to back with him before +the company till this interesting question was settled, dimly perceived +that the intention was friendly, but felt that there was a lack of +ceremony. Lincoln's height was one of his subjects of harmless vanity; +many tall men had to measure themselves against him in this manner, and +probably felt like John Sherman. On all sorts of occasions and to all +sorts of people he would "tell a little story," which was often enough, +in Lord Lyons' phrase, an "extreme" story. This was the way in which +he had grown accustomed to be friendly in company; it served a purpose +when intrusive questions had to be evaded, or reproofs or refusals to +be given without offence. As his laborious and sorrowful task came to +weigh heavier upon him, his capacity for play of this sort became a +great resource to him. As his fame became established people +recognised him as a humorist; the inevitable "little story" became to +many an endearing form of eccentricity; but we may be sure it was not +so always or to everybody. + +"Those," says Carl Schurz, a political exile from Prussia, who did good +service, military and political, to the Northern cause--"those who +visited the White House--and the White House appeared to be open to +whosoever wished to enter--saw there a man of unconventional manners, +who, without the slightest effort to put on dignity, treated all men +alike, much like old neighbours; whose speech had not seldom a rustic +flavour about it; who always seemed to have time for a homely talk and +never to be in a hurry to press business; and who occasionally spoke +about important affairs of State with the same nonchalance--I might +almost say irreverence--with which he might have discussed an every-day +law case in his office at Springfield, Illinois." + +Thus Lincoln was very far from inspiring general confidence in anything +beyond his good intentions. He is remembered as a personality with a +"something" about him--the vague phrase is John Bright's--which widely +endeared him, but his was by no means that "magnetic" personality which +we might be led to believe was indispensable in America. Indeed, it is +remarkable that to some really good judges he remained always +unimpressive. Charles Francis Adams, who during the Civil War served +his country as well as Minister in London as his grandfather had done +after the War of Independence, lamented to the end that Seward, his +immediate chief, had to serve under an inferior man; and a more +sympathetic man, Lord Lyons, our representative at Washington, refers +to Lincoln with nothing more than an amused kindliness. No detail of +his policy has escaped fierce criticism, and the man himself while he +lived was the subject of so much depreciation and condescending +approval, that we are forced to ask who discovered his greatness till +his death inclined them to idealise him. The answer is that precisely +those Americans of trained intellect whose title to this description is +clearest outside America were the first who began to see beneath his +strange exterior. Lowell, watching the course of public events with +ceaseless scrutiny; Walt Whitman, sauntering in Washington in the +intervals of the labour among the wounded by which he broke down his +robust strength, and seeing things as they passed with the sure +observation of a poet; Motley, the historian of the Dutch Republic, +studying affairs in the thick of them at the outset of the war, and not +less closely by correspondence when he went as Minister to Vienna--such +men when they praised Lincoln after his death expressed a judgment +which they began to form from the first; a judgment which started with +the recognition of his honesty, traced the evidence of his wisdom as it +appeared, gradually and not by repentant impulse learned his greatness. +And it is a judgment large enough to explain the lower estimate of +Lincoln which certainly had wide currency. Not to multiply witnesses, +Motley in June, 1861, having seen him for the second time, writes: "I +went and had an hour's talk with Mr. Lincoln. I am very glad of it, +for, had I not done so, I should have left Washington with a very +inaccurate impression of the President. I am now satisfied that he is +a man of very considerable native sagacity; and that he has an +ingenuous, unsophisticated, frank, and noble character. I believe him +to be as true as steel, and as courageous as true. At the same time +there is doubtless an ignorance about State matters, and particularly +about foreign affairs, which he does not attempt to conceal, but which +we must of necessity regret in a man placed in such a position at such +a crisis. Nevertheless his very modesty in this respect disarms +criticism. We parted very affectionately, and perhaps I shall never +set eyes on him again, but I feel that, so far as perfect integrity and +directness of purpose go, the country will be safe in his hands." +Three years had passed, and the political world of America was in that +storm of general dissatisfaction in which not a member of Congress +would be known as "a Lincoln man," when Motley writes again from Vienna +to his mother, "I venerate Abraham Lincoln exactly because he is the +true, honest type of American democracy. There is nothing of the +shabby-genteel, the would-be-but-couldn't-be fine gentleman; he is the +great American Demos, honest, shrewd, homely, wise, humorous, cheerful, +brave, blundering occasionally, but through blunders struggling onwards +towards what he believes the right." In a later letter he observes, +"His mental abilities were large, and they became the more robust as +the more weight was imposed upon them." + +This last sentence, especially if in Lincoln's mental abilities the +qualities of his character be included, probably indicates the chief +point for remark in any estimate of his presidency. It is true that he +was judged at first as a stranger among strangers. Walt Whitman has +described vividly a scene, with "a dash of comedy, almost farce, such +as Shakespeare puts in his blackest tragedies," outside the hotel in +New York where Lincoln stayed on his journey to Washington; "his look +and gait, his perfect composure and coolness," to cut it short, the +usually noted marks of his eccentricity, "as he stood looking with +curiosity on that immense sea of faces, and the sea of faces returned +the look with similar curiosity, not a single one" among the crowd "his +personal friend." He was not much otherwise situated when he came to +Washington. It is true also that in the early days he was learning his +business. "Why, Mr. President," said some one towards the end of his +life, "you have changed your mind." "Yes, I have," said he, "and I +don't think much of a man who isn't wiser to-day than he was +yesterday." But it seems to be above all true that the exercise of +power and the endurance of responsibility gave him new strength. This, +of course, cannot be demonstrated, but Americans then living, who +recall Abraham Lincoln, remark most frequently how the man grew to his +task. And this perhaps is the main impression which the slight record +here presented will convey, the impression of a man quite unlike the +many statesmen whom power and the vexations attendant upon it have in +some piteous way spoiled and marred, a man who started by being tough +and shrewd and canny and became very strong and very wise, started with +an inclination to honesty, courage, and kindness, and became, under a +tremendous strain, honest, brave, and kind to an almost tremendous +degree. + +The North then started upon the struggle with an eagerness and +unanimity from which the revulsion was to try all hearts, and the +President's most of all; and not a man in the North guessed what the +strain of that struggle was to be. At first indeed there was alarm in +Washington for the immediate safety of the city. Confederate flags +could be seen floating from the hotels in Alexandria across the river; +Washington itself was full of rumours of plots and intended +assassinations, and full of actual Southern spies; everything was +disorganised; and Lincoln himself, walking round one night, found the +arsenal with open doors, absolutely unguarded. + +By April 20, first the Navy Yard at Gosport, in Virginia, had to be +abandoned, then the Arsenal at Harper's Ferry, and on the day of this +latter event Lee went over to the South. One regiment from +Massachusetts, where the State authorities had prepared for war before +the fall of Sumter, was already in Washington; but it had had to fight +its way through a furious mob in Baltimore, with some loss of life on +both sides. A deputation from many churches in that city came to the +President, begging him to desist from his bloodthirsty preparations, +but found him "constitutionally genial and jovial," and "wholly +inaccessible to Christian appeals." It mattered more that a majority +of the Maryland Legislature was for the South, and that the Governor +temporised and requested that no more troops should pass through +Baltimore. The Mayor of Baltimore and the railway authorities burned +railway bridges and tore up railway lines, and the telegraph wires were +cut. Thus for about five days the direct route to Washington from the +North was barred. It seemed as if the boast of some Southern orator +that the Confederate flag would float over the capital by May 1 might +be fulfilled. Beauregard could have transported his now drilled troops +by rail from South Carolina and would have found Washington isolated +and hardly garrisoned. As a matter of fact, no such daring move was +contemplated in the South, and the citizens of Richmond, Virginia, were +themselves under a similar alarm; but the South had a real opportunity. + +The fall of Washington at that moment would have had political +consequences which no one realised better than Lincoln. It might well +have led the Unionists in the border States to despair, and there is +evidence that even then he so fully realised the task which lay before +the North as to feel that the loss of Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri +would have made it impossible. He was at heart intensely anxious, and +quaintly and injudiciously relieved his feelings by the remark to the +"6th Massachusetts" that he felt as if all other help were a dream, and +they were "the only real thing." Yet those who were with him testify +to his composure and to the vigour with which he concerted with his +Cabinet the various measures of naval, military, financial, postal, and +police preparation which the occasion required, but which need not here +be detailed. Many of the measures of course lay outside the powers +which Congress had conferred on the public departments, but the +President had no hesitation in "availing himself," as he put it, "of +the broader powers conferred by the Constitution in cases of +insurrection," and looking for the sanction of Congress afterwards, +rather than "let the Government at once fall into ruin." The +difficulties of government were greatly aggravated by the uncertainty +as to which of its servants, civil, naval, or military, were loyal, and +the need of rapidly filling the many posts left vacant by unexpected +desertion. Meanwhile troops from New England, and also from New York, +which had utterly disappointed some natural expectations in the South +by the enthusiasm of its rally to the Union, quickly arrived near +Baltimore. They repaired for themselves the interrupted railway tracks +round the city, and by April 25 enough soldiers were in Washington to +put an end to any present alarm. In case of need, the law of "habeas +corpus" was suspended in Maryland. The President had no wish that +unnecessary recourse should be had to martial law. Naturally, however, +one of his generals summarily arrested a Southern recruiting agent in +Baltimore. The ordinary law would probably have sufficed, and Lincoln +is believed to have regretted this action, but it was obvious that he +must support it when done. Hence arose an occasion for the old Chief +Justice Taney to make a protest on behalf of legality, to which the +President, who had armed force on his side, could not give way, and +thus early began a controversy to which we must recur. It was gravely +urged upon Lincoln that he should forcibly prevent the Legislature of +Maryland from holding a formal sitting; he refused on the sensible +ground that the legislators could assemble in some way and had better +not assemble with a real grievance in constitutional law. Then a +strange alteration came over Baltimore. Within three weeks all active +demonstration in favour of the South had subsided; the disaffected +Legislature resolved upon neutrality; the Governor, loyal at heart--if +the brief epithet loyal may pass, as not begging any profound legal +question--carried on affairs in the interest of the Union; postal +communication and the passage of troops were free from interruption by +the middle of May; and the pressing alarm about Maryland was over. +These incidents of the first days of war have been recounted in some +detail, because they may illustrate the gravity of the issue in the +border States, in others of which the struggle, though further removed +from observation, lasted longer; and because, too, it is well to +realise the stress of agitation under which the Government had to make +far-reaching preparation for a larger struggle, while Lincoln, whose +will was decisive in all these measures, carried on all the while that +seemingly unimportant routine of a President's life which is in the +quietest times exacting. + +The alarm in Washington was only transitory, and it was generally +supposed in the North that insurrection would be easily put down. Some +even specified the number of days necessary, agreeably fixing upon a +smaller number than the ninety days for which the militia were called +out. Secretary Seward has been credited with language of this kind, +and even General Scott, whose political judgment was feeble, though his +military judgment was sound, seems at first to have rejected proposals, +for example, for drilling irregular cavalry, made in the expectation of +a war of some length. There is evidence that neither Lincoln nor +Cameron, the Secretary of War, indulged in these pleasant fancies. +Irresistible public opinion, in the East especially, demanded to see +prompt activity. The North had arisen in its might; it was for the +Administration to put forth that might, capture Richmond, to which the +Confederate Government had moved, and therewith make an end of +rebellion. The truth was that the North had to make its army before it +could wisely advance into the assured territory of the South; the +situation of the Southern Government in this respect was precisely the +same. The North had enough to do meantime in making sure of the States +which were still debatable ground. Such forces as were available must +of necessity be used for this purpose, but for any larger operations of +war military considerations, especially on the side which had the +larger resources at its back, were in favour of waiting and perfecting +the instrument which was to be used. But in the course of July the +pressure of public opinion and of Congress, which had then assembled, +overcame, not without some reason, the more cautious military view, and +on the 21st of that month the North received its first great lesson in +adversity at the battle of Bull Run. + +Before recounting this disaster we may proceed with the story of the +struggle in the border States. At an early date the rising armies of +the North had been organised into three commands, called the Department +of the Potomac, on the front between Washington and Richmond, the +Department of the Ohio, on the upper watershed of the river of that +name, and the Department of the West. Of necessity the generals +commanding in these two more Western Departments exercised a larger +discretion than the general at Washington. The Department of the Ohio +was under General McClellan, before the war a captain of Engineers, who +had retired from active service and had been engaged as a railway +manager, in which capacity he has already been noticed, but who had +earned a good name in the Mexican War, had been keen enough in his +profession to visit the Crimea, and was esteemed by General Scott. The +people of West Virginia, who, as has been said, were trying to organise +themselves as a new State, adhering to the Union, were invaded by +forces despatched by the Governor of their old State. They lay mainly +west of the mountains, and help could reach them up tributary valleys +of the Ohio. They appealed to McClellan, and the successes quickly won +by forces despatched by him, and afterwards under his direct command, +secured West Virginia, and incidentally the reputation of McClellan. +In Kentucky, further west, the Governor endeavoured to hold the field +for the South with a body known as the State Guard, while Unionist +leaders among the people were raising volunteer regiments for the +North. Nothing, however, was determined by fighting between these +forces. The State Legislature at first took up an attitude of +neutrality, but a new Legislature, elected in June, was overwhelmingly +for the Union. Ultimately the Confederate armies invaded Kentucky, and +the Legislature thereupon invited the Union armies into the State to +expel them, and placed 40,000 Kentucky volunteers at the disposal of +the President. Thenceforward, though Kentucky, stretching as it does +for four hundred miles between the Mississippi and the Alleghanies, +remained for long a battle-ground, the allegiance of its people to the +Union was unshaken. But the uncertainty about their attitude continued +till the autumn of 1861, and while it lasted was an important element +in Lincoln's calculations. (It must be remembered that slavery existed +in Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri.) In Missouri the strife of +factions was fierce. Already in January there had been reports of a +conspiracy to seize the arsenal at St. Louis for the South when the +time came, and General Scott had placed in command Captain Nathaniel +Lyon, on whose loyalty he relied the more because he was an opponent of +slavery. The Governor was in favour of the South--as was also the +Legislature, and the Governor could count on some part of the State +Militia; so Lincoln, when he called for volunteers, commissioned Lyon +to raise them in Missouri. In this task a Union State Committee in St. +Louis greatly helped him, and the large German population in that city +was especially ready to enlist for the Union. Many of the German +immigrants of those days had come to America partly for the sake of its +free institutions. A State Convention was summoned by the Governor to +pass an Ordinance of Secession, but its electors were minded otherwise, +and the Convention voted against secession. In several encounters +Lyon, who was an intrepid soldier, defeated the forces of the Governor; +in June he took possession of the State capital, driving the Governor +and Legislature away; the State Convention then again assembled and set +up a Unionist Government for the State. This new State Government was +not everywhere acknowledged; conspiracies in the Southern interest +continued to exist in Missouri; and the State was repeatedly molested +by invasions, of no great military consequence, from Arkansas. Indeed, +in the autumn there was a serious recrudescence of trouble, in which +Lyon lost his life. But substantially Missouri was secured for the +Union. Naturally enough, a great many of the citizens of Missouri who +had combined to save their State to the Union became among the +strongest of the "Radicals" who will later engage our attention. Many, +however, of the leading men who had done most in this cause, including +the friends of Blair, Lincoln's Postmaster-General, adhered no less +emphatically to the "Conservative" section of the Republicans. + + +2. _Bull Run_. + +Thus, in the autumn of 1861, North and South had become solidified into +something like two countries. In the month of July, which now concerns +us, this process was well on its way, but it is to be marked that the +whole long tract of Kentucky still formed a neutral zone, which the +Northern Government did not wish to harass, and which perhaps the South +would have done well to let alone, while further west in Missouri the +forces of the North were not even as fully organised as in the East. +So the only possible direction in which any great blow could be struck +was the direction of Richmond, now the capital, and it might seem, +therefore, the heart, of the Confederacy. The Confederate Congress was +to meet there on July 20. The _New York Tribune_, which was edited by +Mr. Horace Greeley, a vigorous writer whose omniscience was unabated by +the variation of his own opinion, was the one journal of far-reaching +influence in the North; and it only gave exaggerated point to a general +feeling when it declared that the Confederate Congress must not meet. +The Senators and Congressmen now in Washington were not quite so +exacting, but they had come there unanimous in their readiness to vote +taxes and support the war in every way, and they wanted to see +something done; and they wanted it all the more because the three +months' service of the militia was running out. General Scott, still +the chief military adviser of Government, was quite distinct in his +preference for waiting and for perfecting the discipline and +organisation of the volunteers, who had not yet even been formed into +brigades. On the militia he set no value at all. For long he refused +to countenance any but minor movements preparatory to a later advance. +It is not quite certain, however, that Congress and public opinion were +wrong in clamouring for action. The Southern troops were not much, if +at all, more ready for use than the Northerners; and Jefferson Davis +and his military adviser, Lee, desired time for their defensive +preparations. It was perhaps too much to expect that the country after +its great uprising should be content to give supplies and men without +end while nothing apparently happened; and the spirit of the troops +themselves might suffer more from inaction than from defeat. A further +thought, while it made defeat seem more dangerous, made battle more +tempting. There was fear that European Powers might recognise the +Southern Confederacy and enter into relations with it. Whether they +did so depended on whether they were confirmed in their growing +suspicion that the North could not conquer the South. Balancing the +military advice which was given them as to the risk against this +political importunity, Lincoln and his Cabinet chose the risk, and +Scott at length withdrew his opposition. Lincoln was possibly more +sensitive to pressure than he afterwards became, more prone to treat +himself as a person under the orders of the people, but there is no +reason to doubt that he acted on his own sober judgment as well as that +of his Cabinet. Whatever degree of confidence he reposed in Scott, +Scott was not very insistent; the risk was not overwhelming; the battle +was very nearly won, would have been won if the orders of Scott had +been carried out. No very great harm in fact followed the defeat of +Bull Run; and the danger of inaction was real. He was probably then, +as he certainly was afterwards, profoundly afraid that the excessive +military caution which he often encountered would destroy the cause of +the North by disheartening the people who supported the war. That is +no doubt a kind of fear to which many statesmen are too prone, but +Lincoln's sense of real popular feeling throughout the wide extent of +the North is agreed to have been uncommonly sure. Definite judgment on +such a question is impossible, but probably Lincoln and his Cabinet +were wise. + +However, they did not win their battle. The Southern army under +Beauregard lay near the Bull Run river, some twenty miles from +Washington, covering the railway junction of Manassas on the line to +Richmond. The main Northern army, under General McDowell, a capable +officer, lay south of the Potomac, where fortifications to guard +Washington had already been erected on Virginian soil. In the +Shenandoah Valley was another Southern force, under Joseph Johnston, +watched by the Northern general Patterson at Harper's Ferry, which had +been recovered by Scott's operations. Each of these Northern generals +was in superior force to his opponent. McDowell was to attack the +Confederate position at Manassas, while Patterson, whose numbers were +nearly double Johnston's, was to keep him so seriously occupied that he +could not join Beauregard. With whatever excuse of misunderstanding or +the like, Patterson made hardly an attempt to carry out his part of +Scott's orders, and Johnston, with the bulk of his force, succeeded in +joining Beauregard the day before McDowell's attack, and without his +gaining knowledge of this movement. The battle of Bull Run or Manassas +(or rather the earlier and more famous of two battles so named) was an +engagement of untrained troops in which up to a certain point the high +individual quality of those troops supplied the place of discipline. +McDowell handled with good judgment a very unhandy instrument. It was +only since his advance had been contemplated that his army had been +organised in brigades. The enemy, occupying high wooded banks on the +south side of the Bull Run, a stream about as broad as the Thames at +Oxford but fordable, was successfully pushed back to a high ridge +beyond; but the stubborn attacks over difficult ground upon this +further position failed from lack of co-ordination, and, when it +already seemed doubtful whether the tired soldiers of the North could +renew them with any hope, they were themselves attacked on their right +flank. It seems that from that moment their success upon that day was +really hopeless, but some declare that the Northern soldiers with one +accord became possessed of a belief that this flank attack by a +comparatively small body was that of the whole force of Johnston, +freshly arrived upon the scene. In any case they spontaneously retired +in disorder; they were not effectively pursued, but McDowell was unable +to rally them at Centreville, a mile or so behind the Bull Run. Among +the camp followers the panic became extreme, and they pressed into +Washington in wild alarm, accompanied by citizens and Congressmen who +had come out to see a victory, and who left one or two of their number +behind as prisoners of war. The result was a surprise to the Southern +army. Johnston, who now took over the command, declared that it was as +much disorganised by victory as the Northern army by defeat. With the +full approval of his superiors in Richmond, he devoted himself to +entrenching his position at Manassas. But in Washington, where rumours +of victory had been arriving all through the day of battle, there +prevailed for some time an impression that the city was exposed to +immediate capture, and this impression was shared by McClellan, to whom +universal opinion now turned as the appointed saviour, and who was +forthwith summoned to Washington to take command of the army of the +Potomac. + +Within the circle of the Administration there was, of course, deep +mortification. Old General Scott passionately declared himself to have +been the greatest coward in America in having ever given way to the +President's desire for action. Lincoln, who was often to prove his +readiness to take blame on his own shoulders, evidently thought that +the responsibility in this case was shared by Scott, and demanded to +know whether Scott accused him of having overborne his judgment. The +old general warmly, if a little ambiguously, replied that he had served +under many Presidents, but never known a kinder master. Plainly he +felt that his better judgment had somehow been overpowered, and yet +that there was nothing in their relations for which in his heart he +could blame the President; and this trivial dialogue is worth +remembering during the dreary and controversial tale of Lincoln's +relations with Scott's successor. Lincoln, however bitterly +disappointed, showed no signs of discomposure or hesitancy. The +business of making the army of the Potomac quietly began over again. +To the four days after Bull Run belongs one of the few records of the +visits to the troops which Lincoln constantly paid when they were not +too far from Washington, cheering them with little talks which served a +good purpose without being notable. He was reviewing the brigade +commanded at Bull Run by William Sherman, later, but not yet, one of +the great figures in the war. He was open to all complaints, and a +colonel of militia came to him with a grievance; he claimed that his +term of service had already expired, that he had intended to go home, +but that Sherman unlawfully threatened to shoot him if he did so. +Lincoln had a good look at Sherman, and then advised the colonel to +keep out of Sherman's way, as he looked like a man of his word. This +was said in the hearing of many men, and Sherman records his lively +gratitude for a simple jest which helped him greatly in keeping his +brigade in existence. + +Not one of the much more serious defeats suffered later in the war +produced by itself so lively a sense of discomfiture in the North as +this; thus none will equally claim our attention. But, except for the +first false alarms in Washington, there was no disposition to mistake +its military significance. The "second uprising of the North," which +followed upon this bracing shock, left as vivid a memory as the little +disaster of Bull Run. But there was of necessity a long pause while +McClellan remodelled the army in the East, and the situation in the +West was becoming ripe for important movements. The eagerness of the +Northern people to make some progress, again asserted itself before +long, but to their surprise, and perhaps to that of a reader to-day, +the last five months of 1861 passed without notable military events. +Here then we may turn to the progress of other affairs, departmental +affairs, foreign affairs, and domestic policy, which, it must not be +forgotten, had pressed heavily upon the Administration from the moment +that war began. + + +3. _Lincoln's Administration Generally_. + +Long before the Eastern public was very keenly aware of Lincoln the +members of his Cabinet had come to think of the Administration as his +Administration, some, like Seward, of whom it could have been little +expected, with a loyal, and for America most fortunate, acceptance of +real subordination, and one at least, Chase, with indignant surprise +that his own really great abilities were not dominant. One Minister +early told his friends that there was but one vote in the Cabinet, the +President's. This must not be taken in the sense that Lincoln's +personal guidance was present in every department. He had his own +department, concerned with the maintenance of Northern unity and with +that great underlying problem of internal policy which will before long +appear again, and the business of the War Department was so immediately +vital as to require his ceaseless attention; but in other matters the +degree and manner of his control of course varied. Again, it is far +from being the case that the Cabinet had little influence on his +action. He not only consulted it much, but deferred to it much. His +wisdom seems to have shown itself in nothing more strongly than in +recognising when he wanted advice and when he did not, when he needed +support and when he could stand alone. Sometimes he yielded to his +Ministers because he valued their judgment, sometimes also because he +gauged by them the public support without which his action must fail. +Sometimes, when he was sure of the necessity, he took grave steps +without advice from them or any one. More often he tried to arrive +with them at a real community of decision. It is often impossible to +guess what acts of an Administration are rightly credited to its chief. +The hidden merit or demerit of many statesmen has constantly lain in +the power, or the lack of it, of guiding their colleagues and being +guided in turn. If we tried to be exact in saying Lincoln, or +Lincoln's Cabinet, or the North did this or that, it would be necessary +to thresh out many bushels of tittle-tattle. The broad impression, +however, remains that in the many things in which Lincoln did not +directly rule he ruled through a group of capable men of whom he made +the best use, and whom no other chief could have induced to serve so +long in concord. As we proceed some authentic examples of his precise +relations with them will appear, in which, unimportant as they seem, +one test of his quality as a statesman and of his character should be +sought. + +The naval operations of the war afford many tales of daring on both +sides which cannot here be noticed. They afford incidents of strange +interest now, such as the exploit of the first submarine. (It belonged +to the South; its submersion invariably resulted in the death of the +whole crew; and, with full knowledge of this, a devoted crew went down +and destroyed a valuable Northern iron-clad.) The ravages on commerce +of the _Alabama_ and some other Southern cruisers became only too +famous in England, from whose ship-building yards they had escaped. +The North failed too in some out of the fairly numerous combined naval +and military expeditions, which were undertaken with a view to making +the blockade more complete and less arduous by the occupation of +Southern ports, and perhaps to more serious incursions into the South. +Among those of them which will require no special notice, most +succeeded. Thus by the spring of 1863 Florida was substantially in +Northern hands, and by 1865 the South had but two ports left, +Charleston and Wilmington; but the venture most attractive to Northern +sentiment, an attack upon Charleston itself, proved a mere waste of +military force. Moreover, till a strong military adviser was at last +found in Grant there was some dissipation of military force in such +expeditions. Nevertheless, the naval success of the North was so +continuous and overwhelming that its history in detail need not be +recounted in these pages. Almost from the first the ever-tightening +grip of the blockade upon the Southern coasts made its power felt, and +early in 1862 the inland waterways of the South were beginning to fall +under the command of the Northern flotillas. Such a success needed, of +course, the adoption of a decided policy from the outset; it needed +great administrative ability to improvise a navy where hardly any +existed, and where the conditions of its employment were in many +respects novel; and it needed resourceful watching to meet the +surprises of fresh naval invention by which the South, poor as were its +possibilities for ship-building, might have rendered impotent, as once +or twice it seemed likely to do, the Northern blockade. Gideon Welles, +the responsible Cabinet Minister, was constant and would appear to have +been capable at his task, but the inspiring mind of the Naval +Department was found in Gustavus V. Fox, a retired naval officer, who +at the beginning of Lincoln's administration was appointed Assistant +Secretary of the Navy. The policy of blockade was begun by Lincoln's +Proclamation on April 19, 1861. It was a hardy measure, certain to be +a cause of friction with foreign Powers. The United States Government +had contended in 1812 that a blockade which is to confer any rights +against neutral commerce must be an effective blockade, and has not +lately been inclined to take lax views upon such questions; but when it +declared its blockade of the South it possessed only three steamships +of war with which to make it effective. But the policy was stoutly +maintained. The Naval Department at the very first set about buying +merchant ships in Northern ports and adapting them to warlike use, and +building ships of its own, in the design of which it shortly obtained +the help of a Commission of Congress on the subject of ironclads. The +Naval Department had at least the fullest support and encouragement +from Lincoln in the whole of its policy. Everything goes to show that +he followed naval affairs carefully, but that, as he found them +conducted on sound lines by men that he trusted, his intervention in +them was of a modest kind. Welles continued throughout the member of +his Cabinet with whom he had the least friction, and was probably one +of those Ministers, common in England, who earn the confidence of their +own departments without in any way impressing the imagination of the +public; and a letter by Lincoln to Fox immediately after the affair of +Fort Sumter shows the hearty esteem and confidence with which from the +first he regarded Fox. Of the few slight records of his judgment in +these matters one is significant. The unfortunate expedition against +Charleston in the spring of 1863 was undertaken with high hopes by the +Naval Department; but Lincoln, we happen to know, never believed it +could succeed. He has, rightly or wrongly, been blamed for dealings +with his military officers in which he may be said to have spurred them +hard; he cannot reasonably be blamed for giving the rein to his expert +subordinates, because his own judgment, which differed from theirs, +turned out right. This is one of very many instances which suggest +that at the time when his confidence in himself was full grown his +disposition, if any, to interfere was well under control. It is also +one of the indications that his attention was alert in many matters in +which his hand was not seen. + +He was no financier, and that important part of the history of the war, +Northern finance, concerns us little. The real economic strength of +the North was immense, for immigration and development were going on so +fast, that, for all the strain of the war, production and exports +increased. But the superficial disturbance caused by borrowing and the +issue of paper money was great, and, though the North never bore the +pinching that was endured in the South, it is an honourable thing that, +for all the rise in the cost of living and for all the trouble that +occurred in business when the premium on gold often fluctuated between +40 and 60 and on one occasion rose to 185, neither the solid working +class of the country generally nor the solid business class of New York +were deeply affected by the grumbling at the duration of the war. The +American verdict upon the financial policy of Chase, a man of intellect +but new to such affairs, is one of high praise. Lincoln left him free +in that policy. He had watched the acts and utterances of his chief +contemporaries closely and early acquired a firm belief in Chase's +ability. How much praise is due to the President, who for this reason +kept Chase in his Cabinet, a later part of this story may show. + +One function of Government was that of the President alone. An English +statesman is alleged to have said upon becoming Prime Minister, "I had +important and interesting business in my old office, but now my chief +duty will be to create undeserving Peers." Lincoln, in the anxious +days that followed his first inauguration, once looked especially +harassed; a Senator said to him: "What is the matter, Mr. President? +Is there bad news from Fort Sumter?" "Oh, no," he answered, "it's the +Post Office at Baldinsville." The patronage of the President was +enormous, including the most trifling offices under Government, such as +village postmasterships. In the appointment to local offices, he was +expected to consult the local Senators and Representatives of his own +party, and of course to choose men who had worked for the party. In +the vast majority of cases decent competence for the office in the +people so recommended might be presumed. The established practice +further required that a Republican President on coming in should +replace with good Republicans most of the nominees of the late +Democratic administration, which had done the like in its day. +Lincoln's experience after a while led him to prophesy that the +prevalence of office-seeking would be the ruin of American politics, +but it certainly never occurred to him to try and break down then the +accepted rule, of which no party yet complained. It would have been +unmeasured folly, even if he had thought of it, to have taken during +such a crisis a new departure which would have vexed the Republicans +far more than it would have pleased the Democrats. And at that time it +was really of great consequence that public officials should be men of +known loyalty to the Union, for obviously a postmaster of doubtful +loyalty might do mischief. Lincoln, then, except in dealing with posts +of special consequence, for which men with really special +qualifications were to be found, frankly and without a question took as +the great principle of his patronage the fairest possible distribution +of favours among different classes and individuals among the supporters +of the Government, whom it was his primary duty to keep together. His +attitude in the whole business was perfectly understood and respected +by scrupulous men who watched politics critically. It was the cause in +one way of great worry to him, for, except when his indignation was +kindled, he was abnormally reluctant to say "no,"--he once shuddered to +think what would have happened to him if he had been a woman, but was +consoled by the thought that his ugliness would have been a shield; and +his private secretaries accuse him of carrying out his principle with +needless and even ridiculous care. In appointments to which the party +principle did not apply, but in which an ordinary man would have felt +party prejudice, Lincoln's old opponents were often startled by his +freedom from it. If jobbery be the right name for his persistent +endeavour to keep the partisans of the Union pleased and united, his +jobbery proved to have one shining attribute of virtue; later on, when, +apart from the Democratic opposition which revived, there arose in the +Republican party sections hostile to himself, the claims of personal +adherence to him and the wavering prospects of his own reelection seem, +from recorded instances, to have affected his choice remarkably little. + + +4. _Foreign Policy and England_. + +The question, what was his influence upon foreign policy, is more +difficult than the general praise bestowed upon it might lead us to +expect; because, though he is known to have exercised a constant +supervision over Seward, that influence was concealed from the +diplomatic world. + +For at least the first eighteen months of the war, apart from lesser +points of quarrel, a real danger of foreign intervention hung over the +North. The danger was increased by the ambitions of Napoleon III. in +regard to Mexico, and by the loss and suffering caused to England, +above all, not merely from the interruption of trade but from the +suspension of cotton supplies by the blockade. From the first there +was the fear that foreign powers would recognise the Southern +Confederacy as an independent country; that they were then likely to +offer mediation which it would at the best have been embarrassing for +the President to reject; that they might ultimately, when their +mediation had been rejected, be tempted to active intervention. It is +curious that the one European Government which was recognised all along +as friendly to the Republic was that of the Czar, Alexander II. of +Russia, who in this same year, 1861, was accomplishing the project, +bequeathed to him by his father, of emancipating the serfs. Mercier, +the French Minister in Washington, advised his Government to recognise +the South Confederacy as early as March, 1861. The Emperor of the +French, though not the French people, inclined throughout to this +policy; but he would not act apart from England, and the English +Government, though Americans did not know it, had determined, and for +the present was quite resolute, against any hasty action. Nevertheless +an almost accidental cause very soon brought England and the North +within sight of a war from which neither people was in appearance +averse. + +Neither the foreign policy of Lincoln's Government nor, indeed, the +relations of England and America from his day to our own can be +understood without some study of the attitude of the two countries to +each other during the war. If we could put aside any previous judgment +on the cause as between North and South, there are still some marked +features in the attitude of England during the war which every +Englishman must now regret. It should emphatically be added that there +were some upon which every Englishman should look back with +satisfaction. Many of the expressions of English opinion at that time +betray a powerlessness to comprehend another country and a +self-sufficiency in judging it, which, it may humbly be claimed, were +not always and are not now so characteristic of Englishmen as they were +in that period of our history, in many ways so noble, which we +associate with the rival influences of Palmerston and of Cobden. It is +not at all surprising that ordinary English gentlemen started with a +leaning towards the South; they liked Southerners and there was much in +the manners of the North, and in the experiences of Englishmen trading +with or investing in the North, which did not impress them favourably. +Many Northerners discovered something snobbish and unsound in this +preference, but they were not quite right. With this leaning, +Englishmen readily accepted the plea of the South that it was +threatened with intolerable interference; indeed to this day it is +hardly credible to Englishmen that the grievance against which the +South arose in such passionate revolt was so unsubstantial as it really +was. On the other hand, the case of the North was not apprehended. +How it came to pass, in the intricate and usually uninteresting play of +American politics, that a business community, which had seemed pretty +tolerant of slavery, was now at war on some point which was said to be +and said not to be slavery, was a little hard to understand. Those of +us who remember our parents' talk of the American Civil War did not +hear from them the true and fairly simple explanation of the war, that +the North fought because it refused to connive further in the extension +of slavery, and would not--could not decently--accept the disruption of +a great country as the alternative. It is strictly true that the +chivalrous South rose in blind passion for a cause at the bottom of +which lay the narrowest of pecuniary interests, while the over-sharp +Yankees, guided by a sort of comic backwoodsman, fought, whether wisely +or not, for a cause as untainted as ever animated a nation in arms. +But it seems a paradox even now, and there is no reproach in the fact, +that our fathers, who had not followed the vacillating course of +Northern politics hitherto, did not generally take it in. We shall see +in a later chapter how Northern statesmanship added to their +perplexity. But it is impossible not to be ashamed of some of the +forms in which English feeling showed itself and was well known in the +North to show itself. Not only the articles of some English +newspapers, but the private letters of Americans who then found +themselves in the politest circles in London, are unpleasant to read +now. It is painful, too, that a leader of political thought like +Cobden should even for a little while--and it was only a little +while--have been swayed in such a matter by a sympathy relatively so +petty as agreement with the Southern doctrine of Free Trade. We might +now call it worthier of Prussia than of England that a great Englishman +like Lord Salisbury (then Lord Robert Cecil) should have expressed +friendship for the South as a good customer of ours, and antagonism for +the North as a rival in our business. When such men as these said such +things they were, of course, not brutally indifferent to right, they +were merely blind to the fact that a very great and plain issue of +right and wrong was really involved in the war. Gladstone, to take +another instance, was not blind to that, but with irritating +misapprehension he protested against the madness of plunging into war +to propagate the cause of emancipation. Then came in his love of small +states, and from his mouth, while he was a Cabinet Minister, came the +impulsive pronouncement, bitterly regretted by him and bitterly +resented in the North: "Jefferson Davis and other leaders of the South +have made an army; they are making, it appears, a navy; and they have +made--what is more than either--they have made a nation." Many other +Englishmen simply sympathised with the weaker side; many too, it should +be confessed, with the apparently weaker side which they were really +persuaded would win. ("Win the battles," said Lord Robert Cecil to a +Northern lady, "and we Tories shall come round at once.") These things +are recalled because their natural effect in America has to be +understood. What is really lamentable is not that in this distant and +debatable affair the sympathy of so many inclined to the South, but +that, when at least there was a Northern side, there seemed at first to +be hardly any capable of understanding or being stirred by it. Apart +from politicians there were only two Englishmen of the first rank, +Tennyson and Darwin, who, whether or not they understood the matter in +detail, are known to have cared from their hearts for the Northern +cause. It is pleasant to associate with these greater names that of +the author of "Tom Brown." The names of those hostile to the North or +apparently quite uninterested are numerous and surprising. Even +Dickens, who had hated slavery, and who in "Martin Chuzzlewit" had +appealed however bitterly to the higher national spirit which he +thought latent in America, now, when that spirit had at last and in +deed asserted itself, gave way in his letters to nothing but hatred of +the whole country. And a disposition like this--explicable but +odious--did no doubt exist in the England of those days. + +There is, however, quite another aspect of this question besides that +which has so painfully impressed many American memories. When the +largest manufacturing industry of England was brought near to famine by +the blockade, the voice of the stricken working population was loudly +and persistently uttered on the side of the North. There has been no +other demonstration so splendid of the spirit which remains widely +diffused among individual English working men and which at one time +animated labour as a concentrated political force. John Bright, who +completely grasped the situation in America, took a stand, in which J. +S. Mill, W. E. Forster, and the Duke of Argyll share his credit, but +which did peculiar and great honour to him as a Quaker who hated war. +But there is something more that must be said. The conduct of the +English Government, supported by the responsible leaders of the +Opposition, was at that time, no less than now, the surest indication +of the more deep-seated feelings of the real bulk of Englishmen on any +great question affecting our international relations; and the attitude +of the Government, in which Lord Palmerston was Prime Minister and Lord +John Russell Foreign Secretary, and with which in this matter +Conservative leaders like Disraeli and Sir Stafford Northcote entirely +concurred, was at the very least free from grave reproach. Lord John +Russell, and, there can be little doubt, his colleagues generally, +regarded slavery as an "accursed institution," but they felt no anger +with the people of the South for it, because, as he said, "we gave them +that curse and ours were the hands from which they received that fatal +gift"; in Lord John at least the one overmastering sentiment upon the +outbreak of the war was that of sheer pain that "a great Republic, +which has enjoyed institutions under which the people have been free +and happy, is placed in jeopardy." Their insight into American affairs +did not go deep; but the more seriously we rate "the strong antipathy +to the North, the strong sympathy with the South, and the passionate +wish to have cotton," of which a Minister, Lord Granville, wrote at the +time, the greater is the credit due both to the Government as a whole +and to Disraeli for having been conspicuously unmoved by these +considerations; and "the general approval from Parliament, the press, +and the public," which, as Lord Granville added, their policy received, +is creditable too. It is perfectly true, as will be seen later, that +at one dark moment in the fortunes of the North, the Government very +cautiously considered the possibility of intervention, but Disraeli, to +whom a less patriotic course would have offered a party advantage, +recalled to them their own better judgment; and it is impossible to +read their correspondence on this question without perceiving that in +this they were actuated by no hostility to the North, but by a sincere +belief that the cause of the North was hopeless and that intervention, +with a view to stopping bloodshed, might prove the course of honest +friendship to all America. Englishmen of a later time have become +deeply interested in America, and may wish that their fathers had +better understood the great issue of the Civil War, but it is matter +for pride, which in honesty should be here asserted, that with many +selfish interests in this contest, of which they were most keenly +aware, Englishmen, in their capacity as a nation, acted with complete +integrity. + +But for our immediate purpose the object of thus reviewing a subject on +which American historians have lavished much research is to explain the +effect produced in America by demonstrations of strong antipathy and +sympathy in England. The effect in some ways has been long lasting. +The South caught at every mark of sympathy with avidity, was led by its +politicians to expect help, received none, and became resentful. It is +surprising to be told, but may be true, that the embers of this +resentment became dangerous to England in the autumn of 1914. In the +North the memory of an antipathy which was almost instantly perceived +has burnt deep--as many memoirs, for instance those recently published +by Senator Lodge, show--into the minds of precisely those Americans to +whom Englishmen have ever since been the readiest to accord their +esteem. There were many men in the North with a ready-made dislike of +England, but there were many also whose sensitiveness to English +opinion, if in some ways difficult for us to appreciate, was intense. +Republicans such as James Russell Lowell had writhed under the +reproaches cast by Englishmen upon the acquiescence of all America in +slavery; they felt that the North had suddenly cut off this reproach +and staked everything on the refusal to give way to slavery any +further; they looked now for expressions of sympathy from many quarters +in England; but in the English newspapers which they read and the +reports of Americans in England they found evidence of nothing but +dislike. There soon came evidence, as it seemed to the whole North, of +actually hostile action on the part of the British Government. It +issued a Proclamation enjoining neutrality upon British subjects. This +was a matter of course on the outbreak of what was nothing less than +war; but Northerners thought that at least some courteous explanation +should first have been made to their Government, and there were other +matters which they misinterpreted as signs of an agreement of England +with France to go further and open diplomatic relations with the +Confederate Government. Thus alike in the most prejudiced and in the +most enlightened quarters in the North there arose an irritation which +an Englishman must see to have been natural but can hardly think to +have been warranted by the real facts. + +Here came in the one clearly known and most certainly happy +intervention of Lincoln's in foreign affairs. Early in May Seward +brought to him the draft of a vehement despatch, telling the British +Government peremptorily what the United States would not stand, and +framed in a manner which must have frustrated any attempt by Adams in +London to establish good relations with Lord John Russell. That draft +now exists with the alterations made in Lincoln's own hand. With a few +touches, some of them very minute, made with the skill of a master of +language and of a life-long peacemaker, he changed the draft into a +firm but entirely courteous despatch. In particular, instead of +requiring Adams, as Seward would have done, to read the whole despatch +to Russell and leave him with a copy of it, he left it to the man on +the spot to convey its sense in what manner he judged best. Probably, +as has been claimed for him, his few penstrokes made peaceful relations +easy when Seward's despatch would have made them almost impossible; +certainly a study of this document will prove both his strange, +untutored diplomatic skill and the general soundness of his view of +foreign affairs. + +Now, however, followed a graver crisis in which his action requires +some discussion. Messrs. Mason and Slidell were sent by the +Confederate Government as their emissaries to England and France. They +got to Havana and there took ship again on the British steamer _Trent_. +A watchful Northern sea captain overhauled the _Trent_, took Mason and +Slidell off her, and let her go. If he had taken the course, far more +inconvenient to the _Trent_, of bringing her into a Northern harbour, +where a Northern Prize Court might have adjudged these gentlemen to be +bearers of enemy despatches, he would have been within the law. As it +was he violated well-established usage, and no one has questioned the +right and even the duty of the British Government to demand the release +of the prisoners. This they did in a note of which the expression was +made milder by the wish of the Queen (conveyed in almost the last +letter of the Prince Consort), but which required compliance within a +fortnight. Meanwhile Secretary Welles had approved the sea captain's +action. The North was jubilant at the capture, the more so because +Mason and Slidell were Southern statesmen of the lower type and held to +be specially obnoxious; and the House of Representatives, to make +matters worse, voted its approval of what had been done. Lincoln, on +the very day when the news of the capture came, had seen and said +privately that on the principles which America had itself upheld in the +past the prisoners would have to be given up with an apology. But +there is evidence that he now wavered, and that, bent as he was on +maintaining a united North, he was still too distrustful of his own +better judgment as against that of the public. At this very time he +was already on other points in painful conflict with many friends. In +any case he submitted to Seward a draft despatch making the ill-judged +proposal of arbitration. He gave way to Seward, but at the Cabinet +meeting on Christmas Eve, at which Seward submitted a despatch yielding +to the British demand, it is reported that Lincoln, as well as Chase +and others, was at first reluctant to agree, and that it was Bates and +Seward that persuaded the Cabinet to a just and necessary surrender. + +This was the last time that there was serious friction in the actual +intercourse of the two Governments. The lapse of Great Britain in +allowing the famous _Alabama_ to sail was due to delay and misadventure +("week-ends" or the like) in the proceedings of subordinate officials, +and was never defended, and the numerous minor controversies that +arose, as well as the standing disagreement as to the law of blockade +never reached the point of danger. For all this great credit was due +to Lord Lyons and to C. F. Adams, and to Seward also, when he had a +little sobered down, but it might seem as if the credit commonly given +to Lincoln by Americans rested on little but the single happy +performance with the earlier despatch which has been mentioned. Adams +and Lyons were not aware of his beneficent influence--the papers of the +latter contain little reference to him beyond a kindly record of a +trivial conversation, at the end of which, as the Ambassador was going +for a holiday to England, the President said, "Tell the English people +I mean them no harm." Yet it is evident that Lincoln's supporters in +America, the writer of the Biglow Papers, for instance, ascribed to him +a wise, restraining power in the _Trent_ dispute. What is more, +Lincoln later claimed this for himself. Two or three years later, in +one of the confidences with which he often startled men who were but +slight acquaintances, but who generally turned out worthy of +confidence, he exclaimed with emphatic self-satisfaction, "Seward knows +that I am his master," and recalled with satisfaction how he had forced +Seward to yield to England in the _Trent_ affair. It would have been +entirely unlike him to claim praise when it was wholly undue to him; we +find him, for example, writing to Fox, of the Navy Department, about "a +blunder which was probably in part mine, and certainly was not yours"; +so that a puzzling question arises here. It is quite possible that +Lincoln, who did not press his proposal of arbitration, really +manoeuvred Seward and the Cabinet into full acceptance of the British +demands by making them see the consequences of any other action. It is +also, however, likely enough that, being, as he was, interested in +arbitration generally, he was too inexperienced to see the +inappropriateness of the proposal in this case. If so, we may none the +less credit him with having forced Seward to work for peace and +friendly relations with Great Britain, and made that minister the +agent, more skilful than himself, of a peaceful resolution which in its +origin was his own. + + +5. _The Great Questions of Domestic Policy_. + +The larger questions of civil policy which arose out of the fact of the +war, and which weighed heavily on Lincoln before the end of 1861, can +be related with less intricate detail if the fundamental point of +difficulty is made clear. + +Upon July 4 Congress met. In an able Message which was a skilful but +simple appeal not only to Congress, but to the "plain people," the +President set forth the nature of the struggle as he conceived it, +putting perhaps in its most powerful form the contention that the Union +was indissoluble, and declaring that the "experiment" of "our popular +government" would have failed once for all if it did not prove that +"when ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided, there can be no +successful appeal back to bullets." He recounted the steps which he +had taken since the bombardment of Fort Sumter, some of which might be +held to exceed his constitutional authority as indeed they did, saying +he would have been false to his trust if for fear of such illegality he +had let the whole Constitution perish, and asking that, if necessary, +Congress should ratify them. He appealed to Congress now to do its +part, and especially he appealed for such prompt and adequate provision +of money and men as would enable the war to be speedily brought to a +close. Congress, with but a few dissentient voices, chiefly from the +border States, approved all that he had done, and voted the supplies +that he had asked. Then, by a resolution of both Houses, it defined +the object of the war; the war was not for any purpose of conquest or +subjugation, or of "overthrowing or interfering with the rights or +established institutions" of the Southern States; it was solely "to +preserve the Union with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the +several States unimpaired." + +In this resolution may be found the clue to the supreme political +problem with which, side by side with the conduct of the war, Lincoln +was called upon to grapple unceasingly for the rest of his life. That +problem lay in the inevitable change, as the war dragged on, of the +political object involved in it. The North as yet was not making war +upon the institutions of Southern States, in other words upon slavery, +and it would have been wrong to do so. It was simply asserting the +supremacy of law by putting down what every man in the North regarded +as rebellion. That rebellion, it seemed likely, would completely +subside after a decisive defeat or two of the Southern forces. The law +and the Union would then have been restored as before. A great victory +would in fact have been won over slavery, for the policy of restricting +its further spread would have prevailed, but the constitutional right +of each Southern State to retain slavery within its borders was not to +be denied by those who were fighting, as they claimed, for the +Constitution. + +Such at first was the position taken up by an unanimous Congress. It +was obviously in accord with those political principles of Lincoln +which have been examined in a former chapter. More than that, it was +the position which, as he thought, his official duty as President +imposed on him. It is exceedingly difficult for any Englishman to +follow his course as the political situation developed. He was neither +a dictator, nor an English Prime Minister. He was first and foremost +an elected officer with powers and duties prescribed by a fixed +Constitution which he had sworn to obey. His oath was continually +present to his mind. + +He was there to uphold the Union and the laws, with just so much +infraction of the letter of the law, and no more, as might be obviously +necessary if the Union and the whole fabric of law were not to perish. + +The mere duration of the war altered of necessity the policy of the +North and of the President. Their task had presented itself as in +theory the "suppression of an unlawful combination" within their +country; it became in manifest fact the reabsorption of a country now +hostile, with which reunion was possible only if slavery, the +fundamental cause of difference, was uprooted. + +As the hope of a speedy victory and an easy settlement vanished, wide +differences of opinion appeared again in the North, and the lines on +which this cleavage proceeded very soon showed themselves. There were +those who gladly welcomed the idea of a crusade against slavery, and +among them was an unreasonable section of so-called Radicals. These +resented that delay in a policy of wholesale liberation which was +enforced by legal and constitutional scruples, and by such practical +considerations as the situation in the slave States which adhered to +the North. There was, on the other hand, a Democratic party Opposition +which before long began to revive. It combined many shades of opinion. +There were supporters or actual agents of the South, few at first and +very quiet, but ultimately developing a treasonable activity. There +were those who constituted themselves the guardians of legality and +jealously criticised all the measures of emergency which became more or +less necessary. Of the bulk of the Democrats it would probably be fair +to say that their conscious intention throughout was to be true to the +Union, but that throughout they were beset by a respect for Southern +rights which would have gone far to paralyse the arm of the Government. +Lastly, there were Republicans, by no means in sympathy with the +Democratic view, who became suspect to their Radical fellows and were +vaguely classed together as Conservatives. This term may be taken to +cover men simply of moderate and cautious, or in some cases, of +variable disposition, but it included, too, some men who, while +rigorous against the South, were half-hearted in their detestation of +slavery. + +So far as Lincoln's private opinions were concerned, it would have been +impossible to rank him in any of these sections. He had as strong a +sympathy with the Southern people as any Democrat, but he was for the +restoration of the Union absolutely and without compromise. He was the +most cautious of men, but his caution veiled a detestation of slavery +of which he once said that he could not remember the time when he had +not felt it. It was his business, so far as might be, to retain the +support of all sections in the North to the Union. In the course, full +of painful deliberation, which we shall see him pursuing, he tried to +be guided by a two-fold principle which he constantly avowed. The +Union was to be restored with as few departures from the ways of the +Constitution as was possible; but such departures became his duty +whenever he was thoroughly convinced that they were needful for the +restoration of the Union. + +Before the war was four months old, the inevitable subject of dispute +between Northern parties had begun to trouble Lincoln. As soon as a +Northern force set foot on Southern soil slaves were apt to escape to +it, and the question arose, what should the Northern general do with +them, for he was not there to make war on the private property of +Southern citizens. General Butler--a newspaper character of some fame +or notoriety throughout the war--commanded at Fort Monroe, a point on +the coast of Virginia which was always held by the North. He learnt +that the slaves who fled to him had been employed on making +entrenchments for the Southern troops, so he adopted a view, which took +the fancy of the North, that they were "contraband of war," and should +be kept from their owners. The circumstances in which slaves could +thus escape varied so much that great discretion must be left to the +general on the spot, and the practice of generals varied. Lincoln was +well content to leave the matter so. Congress, however, passed an Act +by which private property could be confiscated, if used in aid of the +"insurrection" but not otherwise, and slaves were similarly dealt with. +This moderate provision as to slaves met with a certain amount of +opposition; it raised an alarming question in slave States like +Missouri that had not seceded. Lincoln himself seems to have been +averse to any legislation on the subject. He had deliberately +concentrated his mind, or, as his critics would have said, narrowed it +down to the sole question of maintaining the Union, and was resolved to +treat all other questions as subordinate to this. + +Shortly after, there reappeared upon the political scene a leader with +what might seem a more sympathetic outlook. This was Fremont, +Lincoln's predecessor as the Republican candidate for the Presidency. +Fremont was one of those men who make brilliant and romantic figures in +their earlier career, and later appear to have lost all solid +qualities. It must be recalled that, though scarcely a professional +soldier (for he had held a commission, but served only in the Ordnance +Survey) he had conducted a great exploring expedition, had seen +fighting as a free-lance in California, and, it is claimed, had with +his handful of men done much to win that great State from Mexico. Add +to this that he, a Southerner by birth, was known among the leaders who +had made California a free State, and it is plain how appropriate it +must have seemed when he was set to command the Western Department, +which for the moment meant Missouri. Here by want of competence, and, +which was more surprising, lethargy he had made a present of some +successes to a Southern invading force, and had sacrificed the +promising life of General Lyon. Lincoln, loath to remove him, had made +a good effort at helping him out by tactfully persuading a more +experienced general to serve as a subordinate on his staff. At the end +of August Fremont suddenly issued a proclamation establishing martial +law throughout Missouri. This contained other dangerous provisions, +but above all it liberated the slaves and confiscated the whole +property of all persons proved (before Court Martial) to have taken +active part with the enemy in the field. It is obvious that such a +measure was liable to shocking abuse, that it was certain to infuriate +many friends of the Union, and that it was in conflict with the law +which Congress had just passed on the subject. To Lincoln's mind it +presented the alarming prospect that it might turn the scale against +the Union cause in the still pending deliberations in Kentucky. +Lincoln's overpowering solicitude on such a point is among the proofs +that his understanding of the military situation, however elementary, +was sound. He wished, characteristically, that Fremont himself should +withdraw his Proclamation. He invited him to withdraw it in private +letters from which one sentence may be taken: "You speak of it as being +the only means of saving the Government. On the contrary, it is itself +the surrender of the Government. Can it be pretended that it is any +longer the Government of the United States--any government of +constitution and laws--wherein a general or a president may make +permanent rules of property by proclamation?" Fremont preferred to +make Lincoln publicly overrule him, which he did; and the inevitable +consequence followed. When some months later, the utter military +disorganisation, which Fremont let arise while he busied himself with +politics, and the scandalous waste, out of which his flatterers +enriched themselves, compelled the President to remove him from his +command, Fremont became, for a time at least, to patriotic crowds and +to many intelligent, upright and earnest men from St. Louis to Boston, +the chivalrous and pure-hearted soldier of freedom, and Lincoln, the +soulless politician, dead to the cause of liberty, who, to gratify a +few wire-pulling friends, had struck this hero down on the eve of +victory to his army--an army which, by the way, he had reduced almost +to nonentity. + +This salient instance explains well enough the nature of one half of +the trial which Lincoln throughout the war had to undergo. Pursuing +the restoration of the Union with a thoroughness which must estrange +from him the Democrats of the North, he was fated from the first to +estrange also Radicals who were generally as devoted to the Union as +himself and with whose over-mastering hatred of slavery he really +sympathised. In the following chapter we are more concerned with the +other half of his trial, the war itself. Of his minor political +difficulties few instances need be given--only it must be remembered +that they were many and involved, besides delicate questions of +principle, the careful sifting of much confident hearsay; and, though +the critics of public men are wont to forget it, that there are only +twenty-four hours in the day. + +But the year 1861 was to close with a further vexation that must be +related. Secretary Cameron proved incapable on the business side of +war administration. Waste and alleged corruption called down upon him +a searching investigation by a committee of the House of +Representatives. He had not added to his own considerable riches, but +his political henchmen had grown fat. The displeasure with the whole +Administration was the greater because the war was not progressing +favourably, or at all. There were complaints of the Naval Department +also, but politicians testified their belief in the honesty of Welles +without saying a word for Cameron. There is every reason to think he +was not personally dishonourable. Lincoln believed in his complete +integrity, and so also did sterner critics, Chase, an apostle of +economy and uprightness, and Senator Sumner. But he had to go. He +opened the door for his removal by a circular to generals on the +subject of slaves, which was comparable to Fremont's Proclamation and +of which Lincoln had to forbid the issue. He accepted the appointment +of Minister to Russia, and when, before long, he returned, he justified +himself and Lincoln's judgment by his disinterested friendship and +support. He was removed from the War Office at the end of December and +a remarkable incident followed. While Lincoln's heart was still set on +his law practice, the prospect of appearing as something more than a +backwoods attorney smiled for a single moment on him. He was briefed +to appear in an important case outside Illinois with an eminent lawyer +from the East, Edwin M. Stanton; but he was not allowed to open his +mouth, for Stanton snuffed him out with supreme contempt, and he +returned home crestfallen. Stanton before the war was a strong +Democrat, but hated slavery. In the last days of Buchanan's Presidency +he was made Attorney-General and helped much to restore the lost credit +of that Administration. He was now in Washington, criticising the slow +conduct of the war with that explosive fury and scorn which led him to +commit frequent injustice (at the very end of the war he publicly and +monstrously accused Sherman of being bribed into terms of peace by +Southern gold), which concealed from most eyes his real kindness and a +lurking tenderness of heart, but which made him a vigorous +administrator intolerant of dishonesty and inefficiency. He was more +contemptuous of Lincoln than ever, he would constantly be denouncing +his imbecility, and it is incredible that kind friends were wanting to +convey his opinion to Lincoln. Lincoln made him Secretary of War. + +Since the summer, to the impatient bewilderment of the Northern people, +of Congress, now again in session, and of the President himself, their +armies in the field were accomplishing just nothing at all, and, as +this agitating year, 1861, closed, a deep gloom settled on the North, +to be broken after a while by the glare of recurrent disaster. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE DISASTERS OF THE NORTH + +1. _Military Policy of the North_. + +The story of the war has here to be told from the point of view of the +civilian administrator, the President; stirring incidents of combat and +much else of interest must be neglected; episodes in the war which +peculiarly concerned him, or have given rise to controversy about him, +must be related lengthily. The President was an inexperienced man. It +should be said, too--for respect requires perfect frankness--that he +was one of an inexperienced people. The Americans had conquered their +independence from Great Britain at the time when the ruling factions of +our country had reached their utmost degree of inefficiency. They had +fought an indecisive war with us in 1812-14, while our main business +was to win at Salamanca and Vittoria. These experiences in some ways +warped American ideas of war and politics, and their influence perhaps +survives to this day. The extent of the President's authority and his +position in regard to the advice he could obtain have been explained. +An examination of the tangle in which military policy was first +involved may make the chief incidents of the war throughout easier to +follow. + +Immediately after Bull Run McClellan had been summoned to Washington to +command the army of the Potomac. In November, Scott, worn out by +infirmity, and finding his authority slighted by "my ambitious junior," +retired, and thereupon McClellan, while retaining his immediate command +upon the Potomac, was made for the time General-in-Chief over all the +armies of the North. There were, it should be repeated, two other +principal armies besides that of the Potomac: the army of the Ohio, of +which General Buell was given command in July; and that of the West, to +which General Halleck was appointed, though Fremont seems to have +retained independent command in Missouri. All these armies were in an +early stage of formation and training, and from a purely military point +of view there could be no haste to undertake a movement of invasion +with any of them. + +Three distinct views of military policy were presented to Lincoln in +the early days. Scott, as soon as it was clear that the South meant +real fighting, saw how serious its resistance would be. His military +judgment was in favour of a strictly defensive attitude before +Washington; of training the volunteers for at least four months in +healthy camps; and of then pushing a large army right down the +Mississippi valley to New Orleans, making the whole line of that river +secure, and establishing a pressure on the South between this Western +army and the naval blockade which must slowly have strangled the +Confederacy. He was aware that public impatience might not allow a +rigid adherence to his policy, and in fact, when his view was made +public before Bull Run, "Scott's Anaconda," coiling itself round the +Confederacy, was the subject of general derision. The view of the +Northern public and of the influential men in Congress was in favour of +speedy and, as it was hoped, decisive action, and this was understood +as involving, whatever else was done, an attempt soon to capture +Richmond. In McClellan's view, as in Scott's, the first object was the +full preparation of the Army, but he would have wished to wait till he +had a fully trained force of 273,000 men on the Potomac, and a powerful +fleet with many transports to support his movements; and, when he had +all this, to move southwards in irresistible force, both advancing +direct into Virginia and landing at points on the coast, subduing each +of the Atlantic States of the Confederacy in turn. If the indefinite +delay and the overwhelming force which his fancy pictured could have +been granted him, it is plain, the military critics have said, that "he +could not have destroyed the Southern armies--they would have withdrawn +inland, and the heart of the Confederacy would have remained +untouched." But neither the time nor the force for which he wished +could be allowed him. So he had to put aside his plan, but in some +ways perhaps it still influenced him. + +It would have been impossible to disregard the wishes of those, who in +the last resort were masters, for a vigorous attempt on Richmond, and +the continually unsuccessful attempts that were made did serve a +military purpose, for they kept up a constant drain upon the resources +of the South. In any well-thought-out policy the objects both of +Scott's plan and of the popular plan would have been borne in mind. +That no such policy was consistently followed from the first was partly +a result of the long-continued difficulty in finding any younger man +who could adequately take the place of Scott; it was not for a want of +clear ideas, right or wrong, on Lincoln's part. + +Only two days after the battle of Bull Run, he put on paper his own +view as to the future employment of the three armies. He thought that +one should "threaten" Richmond; that one should move from Cincinnati, +in Ohio, by a pass called Cumberland Gap in Kentucky, upon Knoxville in +Eastern Tennessee; and that the third, using Cairo on the Mississippi +as its base, should advance upon Memphis, some 120 miles further south +on that river. Apparently he did not at first wish to commit the army +of the Potomac very deeply in its advance on Richmond, and he certainly +wished throughout that it should cover Washington against any possible +attack. Memphis was one of the three points at which the Southern +railway system touched the great river and communicated with the States +beyond--Vicksburg and New Orleans, much further south, were the others. +Knoxville again is a point, by occupying which, the Northern forces +would have cut the direct railway communication between Virginia and +the West, but for this move into Eastern Tennessee Lincoln had other +reasons nearer his heart. The people of that region were strongly for +the Union; they were invaded by the Confederates and held down by +severe coercion, and distressing appeals from them for help kept +arriving through the autumn; could they have been succoured and their +mountainous country occupied by the North, a great stronghold of the +Union would, it seemed to Lincoln, have been planted securely far into +the midst of the Confederacy. Therefore he persistently urged this +part of his scheme on the attention of his generals. The chief +military objection raised by Buell was that his army would have to +advance 150 miles from the nearest base of supply upon a railway; (for +200 miles to the west of the Alleghanies there were no railways running +from north to south). To meet this Lincoln, in September, urged upon a +meeting of important Senators and Representatives the construction of a +railway line from Lexington in Kentucky southwards, but his hearers, +with their minds narrowed down to an advance on Richmond, seem to have +thought the relatively small cost in time and money of this work too +great. Lincoln still thought an expedition to Eastern Tennessee +practicable at once, and it has been argued from the circumstances in +which one was made nearly two years later that he was right. It would, +one may suppose, have been unwise to separate the armies of the Ohio +and of the West so widely; for the main army of the Confederates in the +West, under their most trusted general, Albert Sidney Johnston, was +from September onwards in South-western Kentucky, and could have struck +at either of these two Northern armies; and this was in Buell's mind. +On the other hand, Lincoln's object was a wise one in itself and would +have been worth some postponement of the advance along the Mississippi +if thereby the army in the West could have been used in support of it. +However this may be, the fact is that Lincoln's plan, as it stood, was +backed up by McClellan; McClellan was perhaps unduly anxious for Buell +to move on Eastern Tennessee, because this would have supported the +invasion of Virginia which he himself was now contemplating, and he was +probably forgetful of the West; but he was Lincoln's highest military +adviser and his capacity was still trusted. Buell's own view was that, +when he moved, it should be towards Western Tennessee. He would have +had a railway connection behind him all his way, and Albert Johnston's +army would have lain before him. He wished that Halleck meanwhile +should advance up the courses of the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers; +Eastern Tennessee (he may have thought) would be in the end more +effectively succoured; their two armies would thus have converged on +Johnston's. Halleck agreed with Buell to the extent of disagreeing +with Lincoln and McClellan, but no further. He declined to move in +concert with Buell. Fremont had disorganised the army of the West, and +Halleck, till he had repaired the mischief, permitted only certain +minor enterprises under his command. + +Each of the three generals, including the General-in-Chief, who was the +Government's chief adviser, was set upon his own immediate purpose, and +indisposed to understanding the situation of the others--Buell perhaps +the least so. Each of them had at first a very sound reason, the +unreadiness of his army, for being in no hurry to move, but then each +of them soon appeared to be a slow or unenterprising commander. Buell +was perhaps unlucky in this, for his whole conduct is the subject of +some controversy; but he did appear slow, and the two others, it is +universally agreed, really were so. As 1861 drew to a close, it became +urgent that something should be done somewhere, even if it were not +done in the best possible direction. The political pressure upon the +Administration became as great as before Bull Run. The army of the +Potomac had rapidly become a fine army, and its enemy, in no way +superior, lay entrenching at Manassas, twenty miles in front of it. +When Lincoln grew despondent and declared that "if something was not +done soon, the bottom would drop out of the whole concern," soldiers +remark that the military situation was really sound; but he was right, +for a people can hardly be kept up to the pitch of a high enterprise if +it is forced to think that nothing will happen. Before the end of the +year 1861 military reasons for waiting were no longer being urged; +McClellan had long been promising immediate action, Buell and Halleck +seemed merely unable to agree. + +In later days when Lincoln had learnt much by experience it is hard to +trace the signs of his influence in military matters, because, though +he followed them closely, he was commonly in full agreement with his +chief general and he invariably and rightly left him free. At this +stage, when his position was more difficult, and his guidance came from +common sense and the military books, of which, ever since Bull Run, he +had been trying, amidst all his work, to tear out the heart, there is +evidence on which to judge the intelligence which he applied to the +war. Certainly he now and ever after looked at the matter as a whole +and formed a clear view of it, which, for a civilian at any rate, was a +reasonable view. Certainly also at this time and for long after no +military adviser attempted, in correcting any error of his, to supply +him with a better opinion equally clear and comprehensive. This is +probably why some Northern military critics, when they came to read his +correspondence with his generals, called him, as his chief biographers +were tempted to think him, "the ablest strategist of the war." Grant +and Sherman did not say this; they said, what is another thing, that +his was the greatest intellectual force that they had met with. +Strictly speaking, he could not be a strategist. If he were so judged, +he would certainly be found guilty of having, till Grant came to +Washington, unduly scattered his forces. He could pick out the main +objects; but as to how to economise effort, what force and how composed +and equipped was necessary for a particular enterprise, whether in +given conditions of roads, weather, supplies, and previous fatigue, a +movement was practicable, and how long it would take any clever +subaltern with actual experience of campaigning ought to have been a +better judge than he. The test, which the reader must be asked to +apply to his conduct of the war, is whether he followed, duly or unduly +his own imperfect judgment, whether, on the whole, he gave in whenever +it was wise to the generals under him, and whether he did so without +losing his broad view or surrendering his ultimate purpose. It is +really no small proof of strength that, with the definite judgments +which he constantly formed, he very rarely indeed gave imperative +orders as Commander-in-Chief, which he was, to any general. The +circumstances, all of which will soon appear, in which he was tempted +or obliged to do so, are only the few marked exceptions to his habitual +conduct. There are significant contrary instances in which he +abstained even from seeking to know his general's precise intentions. +At the time which has just been reviewed, when the scheme of the war +was in the making, his correspondence with Buell and Halleck shows his +fundamental intention. He emphatically abstains from forcing them; he +lucidly, though not so tactfully as later, urges his own view upon the +consideration of his general, begging him, not necessarily to act upon +it, but at least to see the point, and if he will not do what is +wished, to form and explain as clearly a plan for doing something +better. + + +2. _The War in the West Up to May, 1862_. + +The pressure upon McClellan to move grew stronger and indeed more +justifiable month after month, and when at last, in March, 1862, +McClellan did move, the story of the severest adversity to the North, +of Lincoln's sorest trials, and, some still say, his gravest failures, +began. Its details will concern us more than those of any other part +of the war. But events in the West began earlier, proceeded faster, +and should be told first. Buell could not obtain from McClellan +permission to carry out his own scheme. He did, however, obtain +permission for Halleck, if he consented, to send flotillas up the +Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers to make a diversion while Buell, as +Lincoln had proposed and as McClellan had now ordered, marched upon +Eastern Tennessee. Halleck would not move. Buell prepared to move +alone, and in January, 1862, sent forward a small force under Thomas to +meet an equally small Confederate force that had advanced through +Cumberland Gap into Eastern Kentucky. Thomas won a complete victory, +most welcome as the first success since the defeat of Bull Run, at a +place called Mill Springs, far up the Cumberland River towards the +mountains. But at the end of January, while Buell was following up +with his forces rather widely dispersed because he expected no support +from Halleck, he was brought to a stop, for Halleck, without warning, +did make an important movement of his own, in which he would need +Buell's support. + +The Cumberland and the Tennessee are navigable rivers which in their +lower course flow parallel in a northerly or north-westerly direction +to join the Ohio not far above its junction with the Mississippi at +Cairo. Fort Henry was a Confederate fort guarding the navigation of +the Tennessee near the northern boundary of the State of that name, +Fort Donelson was another on the Cumberland not far off. Ulysses +Simpson Grant, who had served with real distinction in the Mexican War, +had retired from the Army and had been more or less employed about his +father's leather store in Illinois and in the gloomy pursuit of +intoxication and of raising small sums from reluctant friends when he +met them. On the outbreak of the Civil War he suddenly pulled himself +together, and with some difficulty got employment from the Governor of +Illinois as a Major-General in the State Militia (obtaining Army rank +later). Since then, while serving under Halleck, he had shown sense +and promptitude in seizing an important point on the Ohio, upon which +the Confederates had designs. He had a quick eye for seeing important +points. Grant was now ordered or obtained permission from Halleck to +capture Fort Henry and Fort Donelson. By the sudden movements of Grant +and of the flotilla acting with him, the Confederates were forced to +abandon Fort Henry on February 6, 1862. Ten days later Fort Donelson +surrendered with nearly 10,000 prisoners, after a brilliant and nearly +successful sortie by the garrison, in which Grant showed, further, +tenacity and a collected mind under the pressure of imminent calamity. +Halleck had given Grant little help. Buell was reluctant to detach any +of his volunteer troops from their comrades to act with a strange army, +and Halleck had not warned him of his intentions. Halleck soon applied +to Lincoln for the supreme command over the two Western armies with +Buell under him. This was given to him. Experience showed that one or +the other must command now that concerted action was necessary. +Nothing was known at Washington to set against Halleck's own claim of +the credit for the late successes. So Lincoln gave him the command, +though present knowledge shows clearly that Buell was the better man. +Grant had been left before Fort Donelson in a position of some danger +from the army under Albert Johnston; and, from needless fear of +Beauregard with a Confederate force under him yet further West, Halleck +let slip the chance of sending Grant in pursuit of Johnston, who was +falling back up the Cumberland valley. As it was, Johnston for a time +evacuated Nashville, further up the Cumberland, the chief town of +Tennessee and a great railway centre, which Buell promptly occupied; +Beauregard withdrew the Confederate troops from Columbus, a fortress of +great reputed strength on the Mississippi not far below Cairo, to +positions forty or fifty miles (as the crow flies) further down the +stream. Thus, as it was, some important steps had been gained in +securing that control of the navigation of the river which was one of +the great military objects of the North. Furthermore, successful work +was being done still further West by General Curtis in Missouri, who +drove an invading force back into Arkansas and inflicted a crushing +defeat upon them there in March. But a great stroke should now have +been struck. Buell, it is said, saw plainly that his forces and +Halleck's should have been concentrated as far up the Tennessee as +possible in an endeavour to seize upon the main railway system of the +Confederacy in the West. Halleck preferred, it would seem, to +concentrate upon nothing and to scatter his forces upon minor +enterprises, provided he did not risk any important engagement. An +important engagement with the hope of destroying an army of the enemy +was the very thing which, as Johnston's forces now stood, he should +have sought, but he appears to have been contented by the temporary +retirement of an unscathed enemy who would return again reinforced. +Buell was an unlucky man, and Halleck got quite all he deserved, so it +is possible that events have been described to us without enough regard +to Halleck's case as against Buell. But at any rate, while much should +have been happening, nothing very definite did happen till April 6, +when Albert Johnston, now strongly reinforced from the extreme South, +came upon Grant, who (it is not clear why) had lain encamped, without +entrenching, and not expecting immediate attack, near Shiloh, far up +the Tennessee River in the extreme south of Tennessee State. Buell at +the time, though without clear information as to Grant's danger, was on +his way to join him. There seems to have been negligence both on +Halleck's part and on Grant's. The battle of Shiloh is said to have +been highly characteristic of the combats of partly disciplined armies, +in which the individual qualities, good or bad, of the troops play a +conspicuous part. Direction on the part of Johnston or Grant was not +conspicuously seen, but the latter, whose troops were surprised and +driven back some distance, was intensely determined. In the course of +that afternoon Albert Johnston was killed. Rightly or wrongly +Jefferson Davis and his other friends regarded his death as the +greatest of calamities to the South. After the manner of many battles, +more especially in this war, the battle of Shiloh was the subject of +long subsequent dispute between friends of Grant and of Buell, and far +more bitter dispute between friends of Albert Johnston and Beauregard. +But it seems that the South was on the point of winning, till late on +the 6th the approach of the first reinforcements from Buell made it +useless to attempt more. By the following morning further large +reinforcements had come up; Grant in his turn attacked, and Beauregard +had difficulty in turning a precipitate retirement into an orderly +retreat upon Corinth, forty miles away, a junction upon the principal +railway line to be defended. The next day General Pope, who had some +time before been detached by Halleck for this purpose, after arduous +work in canal cutting, captured, with 7,000 prisoners, the northernmost +forts held by the Confederacy on the Mississippi. But Halleck's plans +required that his further advance should be stopped. Halleck himself, +in his own time, arrived at the front. In his own time, after being +joined by Pope, he advanced, carefully entrenching himself every night. +He covered in something over a month the forty miles route to Corinth, +which, to his surprise, was bloodlessly evacuated before him. He was +an engineer, and like some other engineers in the Civil War, was +overmuch set upon a methodical and cautious procedure. But his mere +advance to Corinth caused the Confederates to abandon yet another fort +on the Mississippi, and on June 6 the Northern troops were able to +occupy Memphis, for which Lincoln had long wished, while the flotilla +accompanying them destroyed a Confederate flotilla. Meanwhile, on May +1, Admiral Farragut, daringly running up the Mississippi, had captured +New Orleans, and a Northern force under Butler was able to establish +itself in Louisiana. The North had now gained the command of most of +the Mississippi, for only the hundred miles or so between Vicksburg far +south and Port Hudson, between that and New Orleans, was still held by +the South; and command by Northern gunboats of the chief tributaries of +the great river was also established. The Confederate armies in the +West were left intact, though with some severe losses, and would be +able before long to strike northward in a well-chosen direction; for +all that these were great and permanent gains. Yet the North was not +cheered. The great loss of life at Shiloh, the greatest battle in the +war so far, created a horrible impression. Halleck, under whom all +this progress had been made, properly enough received a credit, which +critics later have found to be excessive, though it is plain that he +had reorganised his army well; but Grant was felt to have been caught +napping at Shiloh; there were other rumours about him, too, and he fell +deep into general disfavour. The events of the Western war did not +pause for long, but, till the end of this year 1862, the North made no +further definite progress, and the South, though it was able to invade +the North, achieved no Important result. It will be well then here to +take up the story of events in the East and to follow them continuously +till May, 1863, when the dazzling fortune of the South in that theatre +if the war reached its highest point. + + +3. _The War in the East Up to May, 1863_. + +The interest of this part of the Civil War lies chiefly in the +achievements of Lee and "Stonewall" Jackson. From the point of view of +the North, it was not only disastrous but forms a dreary and +controversial chapter. George McClellan came to Washington amid +overwhelming demonstrations of public confidence. His comparative +youth added to the interest taken in him; and he was spoken of as "the +young Napoleon." This ridiculous name for a man already thirty-four +was a sign that the people expected impossible things from him. +Letters to his wife, which have been injudiciously published, show him +to us delighting at first in the consideration paid to him by Lincoln +and Scott, proudly confident in his own powers, rather elated than +otherwise by a sense that the safety of the country rested on him +alone. "I shall carry the thing _en grande_, and crush the rebels in +one campaign." He soon had a magnificent army; he may be said to have +made it himself. Before, as he thought, the time had come to use it, +he had fallen from favour, and a dead set was being made against him in +Washington. A little later, at the crisis of his great venture, when, +as he claimed, the Confederate capital could have been taken, his +expedition was recalled. Then at a moment of deadly peril to the +country his services were again called in. He warded off the danger. +Yet a little while and his services were discarded for ever. This +summary, which is the truth, but not the whole truth, must enlist a +certain sympathy for him. The chief fact of his later life should at +once be added. In 1864, when a Presidential election was approaching +and despondency prevailed widely in the North, he was selected as the +champion of a great party. The Democrats adopted a "platform" which +expressed neither more nor less than a desire to end the war on any +terms. In accordance with the invariable tradition of party opposition +in war time, they chose a war hero as their candidate for the +Presidency. McClellan publicly repudiated their principles, and no +doubt he meant it, but he became their candidate--their master or their +servant as it might prove. That he was Lincoln's opponent in the +election of that year ensured that his merits and his misfortunes would +be long remembered, but his action then may suggest to any one the +doubtful point in his career all along. + +Some estimate of his curious yet by no means uncommon type of character +is necessary, if Lincoln's relations with him are to be understood at +all. The devotion to him shown by his troops proves that he had great +titles to confidence, besides, what he also had, a certain faculty of +parade, with his handsome charger, his imposing staff and the rest. He +was a great trainer of soldiers, and with some strange lapses, a good +organiser. He was careful for the welfare of his men; and his almost +tender carefulness of their lives contrasted afterwards with what +appeared the ruthless carelessness of Grant. Unlike some of his +successors, he could never be called an incapable commander. His great +opponent, Lee, who had known him of old, was wont to calculate on his +extraordinary want of enterprise, but he spoke of him on the whole in +terms of ample respect--also, by the way, he sympathised with him like +a soldier when, as he naturally assumed, he became a victim to scheming +politicians; and Lee confided this feeling to the ready ears of another +great soldier, Wolseley. As he showed himself in civil life, McClellan +was an attractive gentleman of genial address; it was voted that he was +"magnetic," and his private life was so entirely irreproachable as to +afford lively satisfaction. More than this, it may be conjectured that +to a certain standard of honour, loyalty, and patriotism, which he set +consciously before himself, he would always have been devotedly true. +But if it be asked further whether McClellan was the desired instrument +for Lincoln's and the country's needs, and whether, as the saying is, +he was a man to go tiger-hunting with, something very much against him, +though hard to define, appears in every part of his record (except +indeed, one performance in his Peninsular Campaign). Did he ever do +his best to beat the enemy? Did he ever, except for a moment, +concentrate himself singly upon any great object? Were even his +preparations thorough? Was his information ever accurate? Was his +purpose in the war ever definite, and, if so, made plain to his +Government? Was he often betrayed into marked frankness, or into +marked generosity? No one would be ready to answer yes to any of these +questions. McClellan fills so memorable a place in American history +that he demands such a label as can be given to him. In the most +moving and the most authentic of all Visions of Judgment, men were not +set on the right hand or the left according as they were of +irreproachable or reproachable character; they were divided into those +who did and those who did not. In the provisional judgment which men, +if they make it modestly, should at times make with decision, +McClellan's place is clear. The quality, "spiacente a Dio ed ai nemici +suoi," of the men who did not, ran through and through him. + +Lincoln required first a general who would make no fatal blunder, but +he required too, when he could find him, a general of undaunted +enterprise; he did not wish to expose the North to disaster, but he did +mean to conquer the South. There was some security in employing +McClellan, though employing him did at one time throw on Lincoln's +unfit shoulders the task of defending Washington. It proved very hard +to find another general equally trustworthy. But, in the light of +facts which Lincoln came to perceive, it proved impossible to consider +McClellan as the man to finish the war. + +We need only notice the doings of the main armies in this theatre of +the war and take no account of various minor affairs at outlying posts. +From the battle of Bull Run, which was on July 21, 1861, to March 5, +1862, the Southern army under Joseph Johnston lay quietly drilling at +Manassas. It, of course, entrenched its position, but to add to the +appearance of its strength, it constructed embrasures for more than its +number of guns and had dummy guns to show in them. At one moment there +was a prospect that it might move. Johnston and the general with him +had no idea of attacking the army of the Potomac where it lay, but they +did think that with a further 50,000 or 60,000 they might successfully +invade Maryland, crossing higher up the Potomac, and by drawing +McClellan away from his present position, get a chance of defeating +him. The Southern President came to Manassas, at their invitation, on +October 1, but he did not think well to withdraw the trained men whom +he could have sent to Johnston from the various points in the South at +which they were stationed; he may have had good reasons but it is +likely that he sacrificed one of the best chances of the South. +McClellan's army was soon in as good a state of preparation as +Johnston's. Early in October McClellan had, on his own statement, over +147,000 men at his disposal; Joseph Johnston, on his own statement, +under 47,000. Johnston was well informed as to McClellan's +numbers--very likely he could get information from Maryland more easily +than McClellan from Virginia. The two armies lay not twenty-five miles +apart. The weather and the roads were good to the end of December; the +roads were practicable by March and they seem to have been so all the +time. As spring approached, it appeared to the Southern generals that +McClellan must soon advance. Johnston thought that his right flank was +liable to be turned and the railway communications south of Manassas +liable to be cut. In the course of February it was realised that his +position was too dangerous; the large stores accumulated there were +removed; and when, early in March, there were reports of unusual +activity in the Northern camp, Johnston, still expecting attack from +the same direction, began his retreat. On March 9 it was learned in +Washington that Manassas had been completely evacuated. McClellan +marched his whole army there, and marched it back. Johnston withdrew +quietly behind the Rapidan River, some 30 miles further south, and to +his surprise was left free from any pursuit. + +For months past the incessant report in the papers, "all quiet upon the +Potomac," had been getting upon the nerves of the North. The gradual +conversion of their pride in an imposing army into puzzled rage at its +inactivity has left a deeper impression on Northern memories than the +shock of disappointment at Bull Run. Public men of weight had been +pressing for an advance in November, and when the Joint Committee of +Congress, an arbitrary and meddlesome, but able and perhaps on the +whole useful body, was set up in December, it brought its full +influence to bear on the President. Lincoln was already anxious +enough; he wished to rouse McClellan himself to activity, while he +screened him against excessive impatience or interference with his +plans. It is impossible to say what was McClellan's real mind. Quite +early he seems to have held out hopes to Lincoln that he would soon +attack, but he was writing to his wife that he expected to be attacked +by superior numbers. It is certain, however, that he was possessed now +and always by a delusion as to the enemy's strength. For instance +Lincoln at last felt bound to work out for himself definite prospects +for a forward movement; it is sufficient to say of this layman's effort +that he proposed substantially the line of advance which Johnston a +little later began to dread most; Lincoln's plan was submitted for +McClellan's consideration; McClellan rejected it, and his reasons were +based on his assertion that he would have to meet nearly equal numbers. +He, in fact, out-numbered the enemy by more than three to one. If we +find the President later setting aside the general's judgment on +grounds that are not fully explained, we must recall McClellan's vast +and persistent miscalculations of an enemy resident in his +neighbourhood. And the distrust which he thus created was aggravated +by another propensity of his vague mind. His illusory fear was the +companion of an extravagant hope; the Confederate army was invincible +when all the world expected him to attack it then and there, but the +blow which he would deal it in his own place and his own time was to +have decisive results, which were indeed impossible; the enemy was to +"pass beneath the Caudine Forks." The demands which he made on the +Administration for men and supplies seemed to have no finality about +them; his tone in regard to them seemed to degenerate into a chronic +grumble. The War Department certainly did not intend to stint him in +any way; but he was an unsatisfactory man to deal with in these +matters. There was a great mystery as to what became of the men sent +to him. In the idyllic phrase, which Lincoln once used of him or of +some other general, sending troops to him was "like shifting fleas +across a barn floor with a shovel--not half of them ever get there." +But his fault was graver than this; utterly ignoring the needs of the +West, he tried, as General-in-Chief, to divert to his own army the +recruits and the stores required for the other armies. + +The difficulty with him went yet further; McClellan himself +deliberately set to work to destroy personal harmony between himself +and his Government. It counts for little that in private he soon set +down all the civil authorities as the "greatest set of incapables," and +so forth, but it counts for more that he was personally insolent to the +President. Lincoln had been in the habit, mistaken in this case but +natural in a chief who desires to be friendly, of calling at +McClellan's house rather than summoning him to his own. McClellan +acquired a habit of avoiding him, he treated his enquiries as idle +curiosity, and he probably thought, not without a grain of reason, that +Lincoln's way of discussing matters with many people led him into +indiscretion. So one evening when Lincoln and Seward were waiting at +the general's house for his return, McClellan came in and went +upstairs; a message was sent that the President would be glad to see +him; he said he was tired and would rather be excused that night. +Lincoln damped down his friends' indignation at this; he would, he once +said, "hold General McClellan's stirrup for him if he will only win us +victories." But he called no more at McClellan's, and a curious +abruptness in some of his orders later marks his unsuccessful effort to +deal with McClellan in another way. The slightly ridiculous light in +which the story shows Lincoln would not obscure to any soldier the full +gravity of such an incident. It was not merely foolish to treat a kind +superior rudely; a general who thus drew down a curtain between his own +mind and that of the Government evidently went a very long way to +ensure failure in war. + +Lincoln had failed to move McClellan early in December. For part of +that month and January McClellan was very ill. Consultations were held +with other generals, including McDowell, who could not be given the +chief command because the troops did not trust him. McDowell and the +rest were in agreement with Lincoln. Then McClellan suddenly recovered +and was present at a renewed consultation. He snubbed McDowell; the +inadequacy of his force to meet, in fact, less than a third of its +number was "so plain that a blind man could see it"; he was severely +and abruptly tackled as to his own plans by Secretary Chase; Lincoln +intervened to shield him, got from him a distinct statement that he had +in his mind a definite time for moving, and adjourned the meeting. +Stanton, one of the friends to whom McClellan had confided his +grievances, was now at the War Department and was at one with the Joint +Committee of Congress in his impatience that McClellan should move. At +last, on January 27, Lincoln published a "General War Order" that a +forward movement was to be made by the army of the Potomac and the +Western armies on February 22. It seems a blundering step, but it +roused McClellan. For a time he even thought of acting as Lincoln +wished; he would move straight against Johnston, and "in ten days," he +told Chase on February 13, "I shall be in Richmond." But he quickly +returned to the plan which he seems to have been forming before but +which he only now revealed to the Government, and it was a plan which +involved further delay. When February 22 passed and nothing was done, +the Joint Committee were indignant that Lincoln still stood by +McClellan. But McClellan now was proposing definite action; apart from +the difficulty of finding a better man, there was the fact that +McClellan had made his army and was beloved by it; above all, Lincoln +had not lost all the belief he had formed at first in McClellan's +capacity; he believed that "if he could once get McClellan started" he +would do well. Professional criticism, alive to McClellan's military +faults, has justified Lincoln in this, and it was for something other +than professional failure that Lincoln at last removed him. + +McClellan had determined to move his army by sea to some point further +down the coast of the Chesapeake Bay. The questions which Lincoln +wrote to him requesting a written answer have never been adequately +answered. Did McClellan's plan, he asked, require less time or money +than Lincoln's? Did it make victory more certain? Did it make it more +valuable? In case of disaster, did it make retreat more easy? The one +point for consideration in McClellan's reply to him is that the enemy +did not expect such a movement. This was quite true; but the enemy was +able to meet it, and McClellan was far too deliberate to reap any +advantage from a surprise. His original plan was to land near a place +called Urbana on the estuary of the Rappahannock, not fifty miles east +of Richmond. When he heard that Johnston had retreated further south, +he assumed, and ever after declared, that this was to anticipate his +design upon Urbana, which, he said, must have reached the enemy's ears +through the loose chattering of the Administration. As has been seen, +this was quite untrue. His project of going to Urbana was now changed, +by himself or the Government, upon the unanimous advice of his chief +subordinate generals, into a movement to Fort Monroe, which he had even +before regarded as preferable to a direct advance southwards. A few +days after Johnston's retreat, the War Department began the embarkation +of his troops for this point. Fort Monroe is at the end of the +peninsula which lies between the estuaries of the York River on the +north and the James on the south. Near the base of this projection of +land, seventy-five miles from Fort Monroe, stands Richmond. On April +2, 1862, McClellan himself landed to begin the celebrated Peninsula +Campaign which was to close in disappointment at the end of July. + +Before the troops were sent to the Peninsula several things were to be +done. An expedition to restore communication westward by the Baltimore +and Ohio Rail way involved bridging the Potomac with boats which were +to be brought by canal. It collapsed because McClellan's boats were +six inches too wide for the canal locks. Then Lincoln had insisted +that the navigation of the lower Potomac should be made free from the +menace of Confederate batteries which, if McClellan would have +co-operated with the Navy Department, would have been cleared away long +before. This was now done, and though a new peril to the +transportation of McClellan's army suddenly and dramatically disclosed +itself, it was as suddenly and dramatically removed. In the hasty +abandonment of Norfolk harbour on the south of the James estuary by the +North, a screw steamer called the _Merrimac_ had been partly burnt and +scuttled by the North. On March 1 she steamed out of the harbour in +sight of the North. The Confederates had raised her and converted her +into an ironclad. Three wooden ships of the North gave gallant but +useless fight to her and were destroyed that day; and the news spread +consternation in every Northern port. On the very next morning there +came into the mouth of the James the rival product of the Northern Navy +Department and of the Swedish engineer Ericsson's invention. She was +compared to a "cheesebox on a raft"; she was named the _Monitor_, and +was the parent of a type of vessel so called which has been heard of +much more recently. The _Merrimac_ and the _Monitor_ forthwith fought +a three hours' duel; then each retired into harbour without fatal +damage. But the _Merrimac_ never came out again; she was destroyed by +the Confederates when McClellan had advanced some way up the Peninsula; +and it will be unnecessary to speak of the several similar efforts of +the South, which nearly but not quite achieved very important successes +later. + +Before and after his arrival at the Peninsula, McClellan received +several mortifications. Immediately after the humiliation of the +enemy's escape from Manassas, he was without warning relieved of his +command as General-in-Chief. This would in any case have followed +naturally upon his expedition away from Washington; it was in public +put on that ground alone; and he took it well. He had been urged to +appoint corps commanders, for so large a force as his could not remain +organised only in divisions; he preferred to wait till he had made +trial of the generals under him; Lincoln would not have this delay, and +appointed corps commanders chosen by himself because he believed them +to be fighting men. The manner in which these and some other +preparatory steps were taken were, without a doubt, intended to make +McClellan feel the whip. They mark a departure, not quite happy at +first, from Lincoln's formerly too gentle manner. A worse shock to +McClellan followed. The President had been emphatic in his orders that +a sufficient force should be left to make Washington safe, and supposed +that he had come to a precise understanding on this point. He suddenly +discovered that McClellan, who had now left for Fort Monroe, had +ordered McDowell to follow him with a force so large that it would not +leave the required number behind. Lincoln immediately ordered McDowell +and his whole corps to remain, though he subsequently sent a part of it +to McClellan. McClellan's story later gives reason for thinking that +he had intended no deception; but if so, he had expressed himself with +unpardonable vagueness, and he had not in fact left Washington secure. +Now and throughout this campaign Lincoln took the line that Washington +must be kept safe--safe in the judgment of all the best military +authorities available. + +McClellan's progress up the Peninsula was slow. He had not informed +himself correctly as to the geography; he found the enemy not so +unprepared as he had supposed; he wasted, it is agreed, a month in +regular approaches to their thinly-manned fortifications at Yorktown, +when he might have carried them by assault. He was soon confronted by +Joseph Johnston, and he seems both to have exaggerated Johnston's +numbers again and to have been unprepared for his movements. The +Administration does not seem to have spared any effort to support him. +In addition to the 100,000 troops he took with him, 40,000 altogether +were before long despatched to him. He was operating in a very +difficult country, but he was opposed at first by not half his own +number. Lincoln, in friendly letters, urged upon him that delay +enabled the enemy to strengthen himself both in numbers and in +fortifications. The War Department did its best for him. The whole of +his incessant complaints on this score are rendered unconvincing by the +language of his private letters about that "sink of iniquity, +Washington," "those treacherous hounds," the civil authorities, who +were at least honest and intelligent men, and the "Abolitionists and +other scoundrels," who, he supposed, wished the destruction of his +army. The criticism in Congress of himself and his generals was no +doubt free, but so, as Lincoln reminded him, was the criticism of +Lincoln himself. Justly or not, there were complaints of his relations +with corps commanders. Lincoln gave no weight to them, but wrote him a +manly and a kindly warning. The points of controversy which McClellan +bequeathed to writers on the Civil War are innumerable, but no one can +read his correspondence at this stage without concluding that he was +almost impossible to deal with, and that the whole of his evidence in +his own case was vitiated by a sheer hallucination that people wished +him to fail. He had been nearly two months in the Peninsula when he +was attacked at a disadvantage by Johnston, but defeated him on May 31 +and June 1 in a battle which gave confidence and prestige to the +Northern side, but which he did not follow up. A part of his army +pursued the enemy to within four miles of Richmond, and it has been +contended that if he had acted with energy he could at this time have +taken that city. His delay, to whatever it was due, gave the enemy +time to strengthen himself greatly both in men and in fortifications. +The capable Johnston was severely wounded in the battle, and was +replaced by the inspired Lee. According to McClellan's own account, +which English writers have followed, his movements had been greatly +embarrassed by the false hope given him that McDowell was now to march +overland and join him. His statement that he was influenced by this is +refuted by his own letters at the time. McClellan, however, suffered a +great disappointment. The front of Washington was now clear of the +enemy and Lincoln had determined to send McDowell when he was induced +to keep him back by a diversion in the war which he had not expected, +and which indeed McClellan had advised him not to expect. + +"Stonewall" Jackson's most famous campaign happened at this juncture, +and to save Washington, Lincoln and Stanton placed themselves, or were +placed, in the trying position of actually directing movements of +troops. There were to the south and south-west of Washington, besides +the troops under McDowell's command, two Northern forces respectively +commanded by Generals Banks and Fremont. These two men were among the +chief examples of those "political generals," the use of whom in this +early and necessarily blundering stage of the war has been the subject +of much comment. Banks was certainly a politician, a self-made man, +who had worked in a factory and who had risen to be at one time Speaker +of the House. He was now a general because as a powerful man in the +patriotic State of Massachusetts he brought with him many men, and +these were ready to obey him. On the other hand, he on several +occasions showed good judgment both in military matters and in the +questions of civil administration which came under him; his heart was +in his duty; and, though he held high commands almost to the end of the +war, want of competence was never imputed to him till the failure of a +very difficult enterprise on which he was despatched in 1864. He was +now in the lower valley of the Shenandoah, keeping a watch over a much +smaller force under Jackson higher up the valley. Fremont was in some +sense a soldier, but after his record in Missouri he should never have +been employed. His new appointment was one of Lincoln's greatest +mistakes, and it was a mistake of a characteristic kind. It will +easily be understood that there were real political reasons for not +leaving this popular champion of freedom unused and unrecognized. +These reasons should not have, and probably would not have, prevailed. +But Lincoln's personal reluctance to resist all entreaties on behalf of +his own forerunner and his own rival was great; and then Fremont came +to Lincoln and proposed to him a knight-errant's adventure to succour +the oppressed Unionists of Tennessee by an expedition through West +Virginia. So he was now to proceed there, but was kept for the present +in the mountains near the Shenandoah valley. The way in which the +forces under McDowell, Banks and Fremont were scattered on various +errands was unscientific; what could be done by Jackson, in +correspondence with Lee, was certainly unforeseen. At the beginning of +May, Jackson, who earlier in the spring had achieved some minor +successes in the Shenandoah valley and had raided West Virginia, began +a series of movements of which the brilliant skill and daring are +recorded in Colonel Henderson's famous book. With a small force, +surrounded by other forces, each of which, if concentrated, should have +outnumbered him, he caught each in turn at a disadvantage, inflicted on +them several damaging blows, and put the startled President and +Secretary of War in fear for the safety of Washington. There seemed to +be no one available who could immediately be charged with the supreme +command of these three Northern forces, unless McDowell could have been +spared from where he was; so Lincoln with Stanton's help took upon +himself to ensure the co-operation of their three commanders by orders +from Washington. His self-reliance had now begun to reach its full +stature, his military good sense in comparison with McClellan's was +proving greater than he had supposed, and he had probably not +discovered its limitations. Presumably his plans now were, like an +amateur's, too complicated, and it is not worth while to discuss them. +But he was trying to cope with newly revealed military genius, and, so +far as can be told, he was only prevented from crushing the adventurous +Jackson by a piece of flat disobedience on the part of Fremont. +Fremont, having thus appropriately punished Lincoln, was removed, this +time finally, from command. Jackson, having successfully kept McDowell +from McClellan, had before the end of June escaped safe southward. +McClellan was nearing Richmond. Lee, by this time, had been set free +from Jefferson Davis' office and had taken over the command of Joseph +Johnston's army. Lincoln must have learnt a great deal, and he fully +realised that the forces not under McClellan in the East should be +under some single commander. Pope, an experienced soldier, had +succeeded well in the West; he was no longer necessary there, and there +was no adverse criticism upon him. He was in all respects a proper +choice, and he was now summoned to take command of what was to be +called the army of Virginia. A few days later, upon the advice, as it +seems, of Scott, Halleck himself was called from the West. His old +command was left to Grant and he himself was made General-in-Chief and +continued at Washington to the end of the war as an adviser of the +Government. All the progress in the West had been made under Halleck's +supervision, and his despatches had given an exaggerated impression of +his own achievement at Corinth. He had not seen active service before +the war, but he had a great name as an accomplished military writer; in +after years he was well known as a writer on international law. He is +not thought to have justified his appointment by showing sound judgment +about war, and Lincoln upon some later emergency told him in his direct +way that his military knowledge was useless if he could not give a +definite decision in doubtful circumstances. But whether Halleck's +abilities were great or small, Lincoln continued to use them, because +he found him "wholly for the service," without personal favour or +prejudice. + +McClellan was slowly but steadily nearing Richmond. From June 26 to +July 2 there took place a series of engagements between Lee and +McClellan, or rather the commanders under him, known as the Seven Days' +Battles. The fortunes of the fighting varied greatly, but the upshot +is that, though the corps on McClellan's left won a strong position not +far from Richmond, the sudden approach of Jackson's forces upon +McClellan's right flank, which began on the 26th, placed him in what +appears to have been, as he himself thought it, a situation of great +danger. Lee is said to have "read McClellan like an open book," +playing upon his caution, which made him, while his subordinates +fought, more anxious to secure their retreat than to seize upon any +advantage they gained. But Lee's reading deceived him in one respect. +He had counted upon McClellan's retreating, but thought he would +retreat under difficulties right down the Peninsula to his original +base and be thoroughly cut up on the way. But on July 2 McClellan with +great skill withdrew his whole army to Harrison's Landing far up the +James estuary, having effected with the Navy a complete transference of +his base. Here his army lay in a position of security; they might yet +threaten Richmond, and McClellan's soldiers still believed in him. But +the South was led by a great commander and had now learned to give him +unbounded confidence; there was some excuse for a panic in Wall Street, +and every reason for dejection in the North. + +On the third of the Seven Days, McClellan, much moved by the sight of +dead and wounded comrades, sent a gloomy telegram to the Secretary of +War, appealing with excessive eloquence for more men. "I only wish to +say to the President," he remarked in it, "that I think he is wrong in +regarding me as ungenerous when I said that my force was too weak." He +concluded: "If I save the army now, I tell you plainly that I owe no +thanks to you nor to any other persons in Washington. You have done +your best to sacrifice this army." Stanton still expressed the +extraordinary hope that Richmond would fall in a day or two. He had +lately committed the folly of suspending enlistment, an act which, +though of course there is an explanation of it, must rank as the one +first-rate blunder of Lincoln's Administration. He was now negotiating +through the astute Seward for offers from the State Governors of a levy +of 300,000 men to follow up McClellan's success. Lincoln, as was his +way, feared the worst. He seems at one moment to have had fears for +McClellan's sanity. But he telegraphed, himself, an answer to him, +which affords as fair an example as can be given of his characteristic +manner. "Save your army at all events. Will send reinforcements as +fast as we can. Of course they cannot reach you to-day or to-morrow, +or next day. I have not said you were ungenerous for saying you needed +reinforcements. I thought you were ungenerous in assuming that I did +not send them as fast as I could. I feel any misfortune to you and +your army quite as keenly as you feel it yourself. If you have had a +drawn battle or repulse, it is the price we pay for the enemy not being +in Washington. We protected Washington and the enemy concentrated on +you. Had we stripped Washington, he would have been upon us before the +troops could have gotten to you. Less than a week ago you notified us +reinforcements were leaving Richmond to come in front of us. It is +the nature of the case, and neither you nor the Government are to +blame. Please tell me at once the present condition and aspect of +things." + +Demands for an impossible number of reinforcements continued. Lincoln +explained to McClellan a few days later that they were impossible, and +added: "If in your frequent mention of responsibility you have the +impression that I blame you for not doing more than you can, please be +relieved of such an impression. I only beg that, in like manner, you +will not ask impossibilities of me." Much argument upon Lincoln's next +important act may be saved by the simple observations that the problem +in regard to the defence of Washington was real, that McClellan's +propensity to ask for the impossible was also real, and that Lincoln's +patient and loyal attitude to him was real too. + +Five days after his arrival at Harrison's Landing, McClellan wrote +Lincoln a long letter. It was a treatise upon Lincoln's political +duties. It was written as "on the brink of eternity." He was not then +in fact in any danger, and possibly he had composed it seven days +before as his political testament; and apprehensions, free from +personal fear, excuse, without quite redeeming, its inappropriateness. +The President is before all things not to abandon the cause. But the +cause should be fought for upon Christian principles. Christian +principles exclude warfare on private property. More especially do +they exclude measures for emancipating slaves. And if the President +gives way to radical views on slavery, he will get no soldiers. Then +follows a mandate to the President to appoint a Commander-in-Chief, not +necessarily the writer. Such a summary does injustice to a certain +elevation of tone in the letter, but that elevation is itself slightly +strained. McClellan, whatever his private opinions, had not meddled +with politics before he left Washington. The question why in this +military crisis he should have written what a Democratic politician +might have composed as a party manifesto must later have caused Lincoln +some thought, but it apparently did not enter into the decision he next +took. He arrived himself at Harrison's Landing next day. McClellan +handed him the letter. Lincoln read it, and said that he was obliged +to him. McClellan sent a copy to his wife as "a very important record." + +Lincoln had come in order to learn the views of McClellan and all his +corps commanders. They differed a good deal on important points, but a +majority of them were naturally anxious to stay and fight there. +Lincoln was left in some anxiety as to how the health of the troops +would stand the climate of the coming months if they had to wait long +where they were. He was also disturbed by McClellan's vagueness about +the number of his men, for he now returned as present for duty a number +which far exceeded that which some of his recent telegrams had given +and yet fell short of the number sent him by an amount which no +reasonable estimate of killed, wounded, and sick could explain. This +added to Lincoln's doubt on the main question presented to him. +McClellan believed that he could take Richmond, but he demanded for +this very large reinforcements. Some part of them were already being +collected, but the rest could by no means be given him without leaving +Washington with far fewer troops to defend it than McClellan or anybody +else had hitherto thought necessary. + +On July 24, the day after his arrival at Washington, Halleck was sent +to consult with McClellan and his generals. The record of their +consultations sufficiently shows the intricacy of the problem to be +decided. The question of the health of the climate in August weighed +much with Halleck, but the most striking feature of their conversation +was the fluctuation of McClellan's own opinion upon each important +point--at one moment he even gave Halleck the impression that he wished +under all the circumstances to withdraw and to join Pope. When Halleck +returned to Washington McClellan telegraphed in passionate anxiety to +be left in the Peninsula and reinforced. On the other hand, some of +the officers of highest rank with him wrote strongly urging withdrawal. +This latter was the course on which Lincoln and Halleck decided. In +the circumstances it was certainly the simplest course to concentrate +all available forces in an attack upon the enemy from the direction of +Washington which would keep that capital covered all the while. It was +in any case no hasty and no indefensible decision, nor is there any +justification for the frequent assertion that some malignant influence +brought it about. It is one of the steps taken by Lincoln which have +been the most often lamented. But if McClellan had had all he demanded +to take Richmond and had made good his promise, what would Lee have +done? Lee's own answer to a similar question later was, "We would swap +queens"; that is, he would have taken Washington. If so the +Confederacy would not have fallen, but in all probability the North +would have collapsed, and European Powers would at the least have +recognised the Confederacy. + +Lincoln indeed had acted as any prudent civilian Minister would then +have acted. But disaster followed, or rather there followed, with +brief interruption, a succession of disasters which, after this long +tale of hesitation, can be quickly told. It would be easy to represent +them as a judgment upon the Administration which had rejected the +guidance of McClellan. But in the true perspective of the war, the +point which has now been reached marks the final election by the North +of the policy by which it won the war. McClellan, even if he had taken +Richmond while Washington remained safe, would have concentrated the +efforts of the North upon a line of advance which gave little promise +of finally reducing the Confederacy. It is evident to-day that the +right course for the North was to keep the threatening of Richmond and +the recurrent hammering at the Southern forces on that front duly +related to that continual process by which the vitals of the Southern +country were being eaten into from the west. This policy, it has been +seen, was present to Lincoln's mind from an early day; the temptation +to depart from it was now once for all rejected. On the other hand, +the three great Southern victories, the second battle of Bull Run, +Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville, which followed within the next +nine months, had no lasting influence. Jefferson Davis might perhaps +have done well if he had neglected all else and massed every man he +could gather to pursue the advantage which these battles gave him. He +did not--perhaps could not--do this. But he concentrated his greatest +resource of all, the genius of Lee, upon a point at which the real +danger did not lie. + +Pope had now set vigorously to work collecting and pulling together his +forces, which had previously been scattered under different commanders +in the north of Virginia. He was guilty of a General Order which +shocked people by its boastfulness, insulted the Eastern soldiers by a +comparison with their Western comrades, and threatened harsh and most +unjust treatment of the civil population of Virginia. But upon the +whole he created confidence, for he was an officer well trained in his +profession as well as an energetic man. The problem was now to effect +as quickly as possible the union of Pope's troops and McClellan's in an +overwhelming force. Pope was anxious to keep McClellan unmolested +while he embarked his men. So, to occupy the enemy, he pushed boldly +into Virginia; he pushed too far, placed himself in great danger from +the lightning movements which Lee now habitually employed Jackson to +execute, but extricated himself with much promptitude, though with some +considerable losses. McClellan had not been deprived of command; he +was in the curious and annoying position of having to transfer troops +to Pope till, for a moment, not a man remained under him, but the +process of embarking and transferring them gave full scope for energy +and skill. McClellan, as it appeared to Lincoln, performed his task +very slowly. This was not the judgment of impatience, for McClellan +caused the delay by repeated and perverse disobedience to Halleck's +orders. But the day drew near when 150,000 men might be concentrated +under Pope against Lee's 55,000. The stroke which Lee now struck after +earnest consultation with Jackson has been said to have been "perhaps +the most daring in the history of warfare." He divided his army almost +under the enemy's eyes and sent Jackson by a circuitous route to cut +Pope's communications with Washington. Then followed an intricate +tactical game, in which each side was bewildered as to the movements of +the other. Pope became exasperated and abandoned his prudence. He +turned on his enemy when he should and could have withdrawn to a safe +position and waited. On August 29 and 30, in the ominous neighbourhood +of the Bull Run and of Manassas, he sustained a heavy defeat. Then he +abandoned hope before he need have done so, and, alleging that his men +were demoralised, begged to be withdrawn within the defences of +Washington, where he arrived on September 3, and, as was inevitable in +the condition of his army, was relieved of his command. McClellan, in +Lincoln's opinion, had now been guilty of the offence which that +generous mind would find it hardest to forgive. He had not bestirred +himself to get his men to Pope. In Lincoln's belief at the time he had +wished Pope to fail. McClellan, who reached Washington at the crisis +of Pope's difficulties, was consulted, and said to Lincoln that Pope +must be left to get out of his scrape as best he could. It was perhaps +only an awkward phrase, but it did not soften Lincoln. + +Washington was now too strongly held to be attacked, but Lee determined +to invade Maryland. At least this would keep Virginia safe during +harvest time. It might win him many recruits in Maryland. It would +frighten the North, all the more because a Confederate force further +west was at that same time invading Kentucky; it might accomplish there +was no saying how much. This much, one may gather from the "Life of +Lord John Russell," any great victory of the South on Northern soil +would probably have accomplished: the Confederacy would have been +recognised, as Jefferson Davis longed for it to be, by European Powers. +Lincoln now acted in total disregard of his Cabinet and of all +Washington, and in equal disregard of any false notions of dignity. By +word of mouth he directed McClellan to take command of all the troops +at Washington. His opinion of McClellan had not altered, but, as he +said to his private secretaries, if McClellan could not fight himself, +he excelled in making others ready to fight. No other step could have +succeeded so quickly in restoring order and confidence to the Army. +Few or no instructions were given to McClellan. He was simply allowed +the freest possible hand, and was watched with keen solicitude as to +how he would rise to his opportunity. + +Lee, in his advance, expected his opponent to be slow. He actually +again divided his small army, leaving Jackson with a part of it behind +for a while to capture, as he did, the Northern fort at Harper's Ferry. +A Northern private picked up a packet of cigars dropped by some +Southern officer with a piece of paper round it. The paper was a copy +of an order of Lee's which revealed to McClellan the opportunity now +given him of crushing Lee in detail. But he did not rouse himself. He +was somewhat hampered by lack of cavalry, and his greatest quality in +the field was his care not to give chances to the enemy. His want of +energy allowed Lee time to discover what, had happened and fall back a +little towards Harper's Ferry. Yet Lee dared, without having yet +reunited his forces, to stop at a point where McClellan must be tempted +to give him battle, and where, if he could only stand against +McClellan, Jackson would be in a position to deliver a deadly +counter-stroke. Lee knew that for the South the chance of rapid +success was worth any risk. McClellan, however, moved so slowly that +Jackson was able to join Lee before the battle. The Northern army came +up with them near the north bank of the Potomac on the Antietam Creek, +a small tributary of that river, about sixty miles north-east of +Washington. There, on September 17, 1862, McClellan ordered an attack, +to which he did not attempt to give his personal direction. His corps +commanders led assaults on Lee's position at different times and in so +disconnected a manner that each was repulsed singly. But on the +following morning Lee found himself in a situation which determined him +to retreat. + +As a military success the battle of Antietam demanded to be followed +up. Reinforcements had now come to McClellan, and Lincoln telegraphed, +"Please do not let him get off without being hurt." Lee was between +the broad Potomac and a Northern army fully twice as large as his own, +with other large forces near. McClellan's subordinates urged him to +renew the attack and drive Lee into the river. But Lee was allowed to +cross the river, and McClellan lay camped on the Antietam battlefield +for a fortnight. He may have been dissatisfied with the condition of +his army and its supplies. Some of his men wanted new boots; many of +Lee's were limping barefoot. He certainly, as often before, +exaggerated the strength of his enemy. Lee recrossed the Potomac +little damaged. Lincoln, occupied in those days over the most +momentous act of his political life, watched McClellan eagerly, and +came to the Antietam to see things for himself. He came back in the +full belief that McClellan would move at once. Once more undeceived, +he pressed him with letters and telegrams from himself and Halleck. He +was convinced that McClellan, if he tried, could cut off Lee from +Richmond. Hearing of the fatigue of McClellan's horses, he telegraphed +about the middle of October, "Will you pardon me for asking what your +horses have done since the battle of Antietam that tires anything." +This was unkind; McClellan indeed should have seen about cavalry in the +days when he was organising in Washington, but at this moment the +Southern horse had just raided right round his lines and got safe back, +and his own much inferior cavalry was probably worn out with vain +pursuit of them. On the same day Lincoln wrote more kindly, "My dear +Sir, you remember my speaking to you of what I called your +over-cautiousness. Are you not over-cautious when you assume that you +cannot do what the enemy is constantly doing? Change positions with +the enemy, and think you not, he would break your communications with +Richmond within the next twenty-four hours." And after a brief +analysis of the situation, which seems conclusive, he ends: "I say +'try'; if we never try we shall never succeed. . . . If we cannot beat +him now when he bears the wastage of coming to us, we never can when we +bear the wastage of going to him." His patience was nearing a limit +which he had already fixed in his own mind. On October 28, more than +five weeks after the battle, McClellan began to cross the Potomac, and +took a week in the process. On November 5, McClellan was removed from +his command, and General Burnside appointed in his place. + +Lincoln had longed for the clear victory that he thought McClellan +would win; he gloomily foreboded that he might not find a better man to +put in his place; he felt sadly how he would be accused, as he has been +ever since, of displacing McClellan because he was a Democrat. "In +considering military merit," he wrote privately, "the world has +abundant evidence that I disregard politics." A friend, a Republican +general, wrote to him a week or so after McClellan had been removed to +urge that all the generals ought to be men in thorough sympathy with +the Administration. He received a crushing reply (to be followed in a +day or two by a friendly invitation) indignantly proving that Democrats +served as well in the field as Republicans. But in regard to McClellan +himself we now know that a grave suspicion had entered Lincoln's mind. +He might, perhaps, in the fear of finding no one better, have tolerated +his "over-cautiousness"; he did not care what line an officer who did +his duty might in civil life take politically; but he would not take +the risk of entrusting the war further to a general who let his +politics govern his strategy, and who, as he put it simply, "did not +want to hurt the enemy." This, he had begun to believe, was the cause +of McClellan's lack of energy. He resolved to treat McClellan's +conduct now, in fighting Lee or in letting him escape South, as the +test of whether his own suspicion about him was justified or not. Lee +did get clear away, and Lincoln dismissed McClellan in the full belief, +right or wrong, that he was not sorry for Lee's escape. + +It is not known exactly what further evidence Lincoln then had for his +belief, but information which seems to have come later made him think +afterwards that he had been right. The following story was told him by +the Governor of Vermont, whose brother, a certain General Smith, served +under McClellan and was long his intimate friend. Lincoln believed the +story; so may we. The Mayor of New York, a shifty demagogue named +Fernando Wood, had visited McClellan in the Peninsula with a proposal +that he should become the Democratic candidate for the Presidency, and +with a view to this should pledge himself to certain Democratic +politicians to conduct the war in a way that should conciliate the +South, which to Lincoln's mind meant an "inefficient" way. McClellan, +after some days of unusual reserve, told Smith of this and showed him a +letter which he had drafted giving the desired pledge. On Smith's +earnest remonstrance that this "looked like treason," he did not send +the letter then. But Wood came again after the battle of Antietam, and +this time McClellan sent a letter in the same sense. This he +afterwards confessed to Smith, showing him a copy of the letter. Smith +and other generals asked, after this, to be relieved from service under +him. If, as can hardly be doubted, McClellan did this, there can be no +serious excuse for him, and no serious question that Lincoln was right +when he concluded it was unsafe to employ him. McClellan, according to +all evidence except his own letters, was a nice man, and was not likely +to harbour a thought of what to him seemed treason; it is honourable to +him that he wished later to serve under Grant but was refused by him. +But, to one of his views, the political situation before and after +Antietam was alarming, and it is certain that to his inconclusive mind +and character an attitude of half loyalty would be easy. He may not +have wished that Lee should escape, but he had no ardent desire that he +should not. Right or wrong, such was the ground of Lincoln's +independent and conscientiously deliberate decision. + +The result again did not reward him. His choice of Burnside was a +mistake. There were corps commanders under McClellan who had earned +special confidence, but they were all rather old. General Burnside, +who was the senior among the rest, had lately succeeded in operations +in connection with the Navy on the North Carolina coast, whereby +certain harbours were permanently closed to the South. He had since +served under McClellan at the Antietam, but had not earned much credit. +He was a loyal friend to McClellan and very modest about his own +capacity. Perhaps both these things prejudiced Lincoln in his favour. +He continued in active service till nearly the end of the war, when a +failure led to his retirement; and he was always popular and respected. +At this juncture he failed disastrously. On December 11 and 12, 1862, +Lee's army lay strongly posted on the south of the Rappahannock. +Burnside, in spite, as it appears, of express warnings from Lincoln, +attacked Lee at precisely the point, near the town of Fredericksburg, +where his position was really impregnable. The defeat of the Northern +army was bloody and overwhelming. Burnside's army became all but +mutinous; his corps commanders, especially General Hooker, were loud in +complaint. He was tempted to persist, in spite of all protests, in +some further effort of rashness. Lincoln endeavoured to restrain him. +Halleck, whom Lincoln begged to give a definite military opinion, +upholding or overriding Burnside's, had nothing more useful to offer +than his own resignation. After discussions and recriminations among +all officers concerned, Burnside offered his resignation. Lincoln was +by no means disposed to remove a general upon a first failure or to +side with his subordinates against him, and refused to accept it. +Burnside then offered the impossible alternative of the dismissal of +all his corps commanders for disaffection to him, and on January 25, +1863, his resignation was accepted. + +There was much discussion in the Cabinet as to the choice of his +successor. It was thought unwise to give the Eastern army a commander +from the West again. At Chase's instance [Transcriber's note: +insistance?] the senior corps commander who was not too old, General +Hooker, sometimes called "Fighting Joe Hooker," was appointed. He +received a letter, often quoted as the letter of a man much altered +from the Lincoln who had been groping a year earlier after the right +way of treating McClellan: "I have placed you," wrote Lincoln, "at the +head of the Army of the Potomac. Of course I have done this upon what +appear to me to be sufficient reasons, and yet I think it best for you +to know that there are some things in regard to which I am not quite +satisfied with you. I believe you to be a brave and skilful soldier, +which of course I like. I also believe that you do not mix politics +with your profession, in which you are right. You have confidence in +yourself, which is a valuable, if not indispensable, quality. You are +ambitious, which, within reasonable bounds, does good rather than harm; +but I think that during General Burnside's command of the army you have +taken counsel of your ambition and thwarted him as much as you could, +in which you did a great wrong to the country, and to a most +meritorious and honourable brother officer. I have heard, in such a +way as to believe it, of your recently saying that both the Army and +the Government needed a dictator. Of course it was not for this, but +in spite of it, that I gave you the command. Only those generals who +gain successes can set up dictators. What I now ask of you is military +success, and I will risk the dictatorship. The Government will support +you to the utmost of its ability, which is neither more nor less than +it has done and will do for all commanders. I much fear that the +spirit which you have aided to infuse into the army, of criticising +their commander and withholding confidence from him, will now turn upon +you. Neither you nor Napoleon, if he were alive again, could get any +good out of an army while such a spirit prevails in it; and now beware +of rashness. Beware of rashness, but with energy and sleepless +vigilance go forward and give us victories." + +"He talks to me like a father," exclaimed Hooker, enchanted with a +rebuke such as this. He was a fine, frank, soldierly fellow, with a +noble figure, with "a grand fighting head," fresh complexion and bright +blue eyes. He was a good organiser; he put a stop to the constant +desertions; he felt the need of improving the Northern cavalry; and he +groaned at the spirit with which McClellan had infected his army, a +curious collective inertness among men who individually were daring. +He seems to have been highly strung; the very little wine that he drank +perceptibly affected him; he gave it up altogether in his campaigns. +And he cannot have been very clever, for the handsomest beating that +Lee could give him left him unaware that Lee was a general. In the end +of April he crossed the Rappahannock and the Rapidan, which still +divided the two armies, and in the first week of May, 1863, a brief +campaign, full of stirring incident, came to a close with the three +days' battle of Chancellorsville, in which Hooker, hurt and dazed with +pain, lost control and presence of mind, and, with heavy loss, drew +back across the Rappahannock. The South had won another amazing +victory; but "Stonewall" Jackson, at the age of thirty-nine, had fallen +in the battle. + +Abroad, this crowning disaster to the North seemed to presage the full +triumph of the Confederacy; and it was a gloomy time enough for Lincoln +and his Ministers. A second and more serious invasion by Lee was +impending, and the lingering progress of events in the West, of which +the story must soon be resumed, caused protracted and deepening +anxiety. But the tide turned soon. Moreover, Lincoln's military +perplexities, which have demanded our detailed attention during these +particular campaigns, were very nearly at an end. We have here to turn +back to the political problem of his Presidency, for the bloody and +inconclusive battle upon the Antietam, more than seven months before, +had led strangely to political consequences which were great and +memorable. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +EMANCIPATION + +When the news of a second battle of Bull Run reached England it seemed +at first to Lord John Russell that the failure of the North was +certain, and he asked Palmerston and his colleagues to consider whether +they must not soon recognise the Confederacy, and whether mediation in +the interest of peace and humanity might not perhaps follow. But +within two months all thoughts of recognising the Confederacy had been +so completely put aside that even Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville +caused no renewal of the suggestion, and an invitation from Louis +Napoleon to joint action of this kind between England and France had +once for all been rejected. The battle of Antietam had been fought in +the meantime. This made men think that the South could no more win a +speedy and decisive success than the North, and that victory must rest +in the end with the side that could last. But that was not all; the +battle of Antietam was followed within five days by an event which made +it impossible for any Government of this country to take action +unfriendly to the North. + +On September 22, 1862, Abraham Lincoln set his hand to a Proclamation +of which the principal words were these: "That, on the first day of +January in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and +sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State, or designated +part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against +the United States, shall be then, thenceforward and forever free." + +The policy and the true effect of this act cannot be understood without +some examination. Still less so can the course of the man who will +always be remembered as its author. First, in regard to the legal +effect of the Proclamation; in normal times the President would of +course not have had the power, which even the Legislature did not +possess, to set free a single slave; the Proclamation was an act of war +on his part, as Commander-in-Chief of the forces, by which slaves were +to be taken from people at war with the United States, just as horses +or carts might be taken, to subtract from their resources and add to +those of the United States. In a curiously prophetic manner, +ex-President John Quincy Adams had argued in Congress many years before +that, if rebellion ever arose, this very thing might be done. Adams +would probably have claimed that the command of the President became +law in the States which took part in the rebellion. Lincoln only +claimed legal force for his Proclamation in so far as it was an act of +war based on sufficient necessity and plainly tending to help the +Northern arms. If the legal question had ever been tried out, the +Courts would no doubt have had to hold that at least those slaves who +obtained actual freedom under the Proclamation became free in law; for +it was certainly in good faith an act of war, and the military result +justified it. A large amount of labour was withdrawn from the industry +necessary to the South, and by the end of the war 180,000 coloured +troops were in arms for the North, rendering services, especially in +occupying conquered territory that was unhealthy for white troops, +without which, in Lincoln's opinion, the war could never have been +finished. The Proclamation had indeed an indirect effect more +far-reaching than this; it committed the North to a course from which +there could be no turning back, except by surrender; it made it a +political certainty that by one means or another slavery would be ended +if the North won. But in Lincoln's view of his duty as President, this +ulterior consequence was not to determine his action. The fateful step +by which the end of slavery was precipitated would not have taken the +form it did take if it had not come to commend itself to him as a +military measure conducing to the suppression of rebellion. + +On the broader grounds on which we naturally look at this measure, many +people in the North had, as we have seen, been anxious from the +beginning that he should adopt an active policy of freeing Southern +slaves. It was intolerable to think that the war might end and leave +slavery where it was. To convert the war into a crusade against +slavery seemed to many the best way of arousing and uniting the North. +This argument was reinforced by some of the American Ministers abroad. +They were aware that people in Europe misunderstood and disliked the +Constitutional propriety with which the Union government insisted that +it was not attacking the domestic institutions of Southern States. +English people did not know the American Constitution, and when told +that the North did not threaten to abolish slavery would answer "Why +not?" Many Englishmen, who might dislike the North and might have +their doubts as to whether slavery was as bad as it was said to be, +would none the less have respected men who would fight against it. +They had no interest in the attempt of some of their own seceded +Colonists to coerce, upon some metaphysical ground of law, others who +in their turn wished to secede from them. Seward, with wonderful +misjudgment, had instructed Ministers abroad to explain that no attack +was threatened on slavery, for he was afraid that the purchasers of +cotton in Europe would feel threatened in their selfish interests; the +agents of the South were astute enough to take the same line and insist +like him that the North was no more hostile to slavery than the South. +If this misunderstanding were removed English hostility to the North +would never again take a dangerous form. Lincoln, who knew less of +affairs but more of men than Seward, was easily made to see this. Yet, +with full knowledge of the reasons for adopting a decided policy +against slavery, Lincoln waited through seventeen months of the war +till the moment had come for him to strike his blow. + +Some of his reasons for waiting were very plain. He was not going to +take action on the alleged ground of military necessity till he was +sure that the necessity existed. Nor was he going to take it till it +would actually lead to the emancipation of a great number of slaves. +Above all, he would not act till he felt that the North generally would +sustain his action, for he knew, better than Congressmen who judged +from their own friends in their own constituencies, how doubtful a +large part of Northern opinion really was. We have seen how in the +summer of 1861 he felt bound to disappoint the advanced opinion which +supported Fremont. He continued for more than a year after in a course +which alienated from himself the confidence of the men with whom he had +most sympathy. He did this deliberately rather than imperil the +unanimity with which the North supported the war. There was indeed +grave danger of splitting the North in two if he appeared unnecessarily +to change the issue from Union to Liberation. We have to remember that +in all the Northern States the right of the Southern States to choose +for themselves about slavery had been fully admitted, and that four of +the Northern States were themselves slave States all this while. + +But this is not the whole explanation of his delay. It is certain that +apart from this danger he would at first rather not have played the +historic part which he did play as the liberator of the slaves, if he +could have succeeded in the more modest part of encouraging a process +of gradual emancipation. In his Annual Message to Congress in +December, 1861, he laid down the general principles of his policy in +this matter. He gave warning in advance to the Democrats of the North, +who were against all interference with Southern institutions, that +"radical and extreme measures" might become indispensable to military +success, and if indispensable would be taken; but he declared his +anxiety that if possible the conflict with the South should not +"degenerate into a violent and remorseless revolutionary struggle," for +he looked forward with fear to a complete overturning of the social +system of the South. He feared it not only for the white people but +also for the black. "Gradual and not sudden emancipation," he said, in +a later Message, "is better for all." It is now probable that he was +right, and yet it is difficult not to sympathise with the earnest +Republicans who were impatient at his delay, who were puzzled and +pained by the free and easy way in which in grave conversation he would +allude to "the nigger question," and who concluded that "the President +is not with us; has no sound Anti-slavery sentiment." Indeed, his +sentiment did differ from theirs. Certainly, he hated slavery, for he +had contended more stubbornly than any other man against any concession +which seemed to him to perpetuate slavery by stamping it with approval; +but his hatred of it left him quite without the passion of moral +indignation against the slave owners, in whose guilt the whole country, +North and South, seemed to him an accomplice. He would have classed +that very natural indignation under the head of "malice"--"I shall do +nothing in malice," he wrote to a citizen of Louisiana; "what I deal +with is too vast for malicious dealing." But it was not, as we shall +see before long, too vast for an interest, as sympathetic as it was +matter of fact, in the welfare of the negroes. They were actual human +beings to him, and he knew that the mere abrogation of the law of +slavery was not the only thing necessary to their advancement. Looking +back, with knowledge of what happened later, we cannot fail to be glad +that they were emancipated somehow, but we are forced to regret that +they could not have been emancipated by some more considerate process. +Lincoln, perhaps alone among the Americans who were in earnest in this +matter, looked at it very much in the light in which all men look at it +to-day. + +In the early part of 1862 the United States Government concluded a +treaty with Great Britain for the more effectual suppression of the +African slave trade, and it happened about the same time that the first +white man ever executed as a pirate under the American law against the +slave trade was hanged in New York. In those months Lincoln was +privately trying to bring about the passing by the Legislature of +Delaware of an Act for emancipating, with fit provisions for their +welfare, the few slaves in that State, conditionally upon compensation +to be paid to the owners by the United States. He hoped that if this +example were set by Delaware, it would be followed in Maryland, and +would spread later. The Delaware House were favourable to the scheme, +but the Senate of the State rejected it. Lincoln now made a more +public appeal in favour of his policy. In March, 1862, he sent a +Message to Congress, which has already been quoted, and in which he +urged the two Houses to pass Resolutions pledging the United States to +give pecuniary help to any State which adopted gradual emancipation. +It must be obvious that if the slave States of the North could have +been led to adopt this policy it would have been a fitting preliminary +to any action which might be taken against slavery in the South; and +the policy might have been extended to those Southern States which were +first recovered for the Union. The point, however, upon which Lincoln +dwelt in his Message was that, if slavery were once given up by the +border States, the South would abandon all hope that they would ever +join the Confederacy. In private letters to an editor of a newspaper +and others he pressed the consideration that the cost of compensated +abolition was small in proportion to what might be gained by a quicker +ending of the war. During the discussion of his proposal in Congress +and again after the end of the Session he invited the Senators and +Representatives of the border States to private conference with him in +which he besought of them "a calm and enlarged consideration, ranging, +if it may be, far above, personal and partisan politics," of the +opportunity of good now open to them. The hope of the Confederacy was, +as he then conceived, fixed upon the sympathy which it might arouse in +the border States, two of which, Kentucky and Maryland, were in fact +invaded that year with some hope of a rising among the inhabitants. +The "lever" which the Confederates hoped to use in these States was the +interest of the slave owners there; "Break that lever before their +eyes," he urged. But the hundred and one reasons which can always be +found against action presented themselves at once to the +Representatives of the border States. Congress itself so far accepted +the President's view that both Houses passed the Resolution which he +had suggested. Indeed it gladly did something more; a Bill, such as +Lincoln himself had prepared as a Congressman fourteen years before, +was passed for abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia; +compensation was paid to the owners; a sum was set apart to help the +settlement in Liberia of any of the slaves who were willing to go; and +at Lincoln's suggestion provision was added for the education of the +negro children. Nothing more was done at this time. + +Throughout this matter Lincoln took counsel chiefly with himself. He +could not speak his full thought to the public, and apparently he did +not do so to any of his Cabinet. Supposing that the border States had +yielded to his persuasion, it may still strike us as a very sanguine +calculation that their action would have had much effect upon the +resolution of the Confederates. But it must be noted that when Lincoln +first approached the Representatives of the border States, the highest +expectations were entertained of the victory that McClellan would win +in Virginia, and when he made his last, rather despairing, appeal to +them, the decision to withdraw the army from the Peninsula had not yet +been taken. If a really heavy blow had been struck at the Confederates +in Virginia, their chief hope of retrieving their military fortunes +would certainly have lain in that invasion of Kentucky, which did +shortly afterwards occur and which was greatly encouraged by the hope +of a rising of Kentucky men who wished to join the Confederacy. This +part of Lincoln's calculations was therefore quite reasonable. And it +was further reasonable to suppose that, if the South had then given in +and Congress had acted in the spirit of the Resolution which it had +passed, the policy, of gradual emancipation, starting in the border +States, would have spread steadily. The States which were disposed to +hold out against the inducement that the cost of compensated +emancipation, if they adopted it, would be borne by the whole Union, +would have done so at a great risk; for each new free State would have +been disposed before long to support a Constitutional Amendment to +impose enfranchisement, possibly with no compensation, upon the States +that still delayed. The force of example and the presence of this fear +could not have been resisted long. Lincoln was not a man who could be +accused of taking any course without a reason well thought out; we can +safely conclude that in the summer of 1862 he nursed a hope, by no +means visionary, of initiating a process of liberation free from +certain evils in that upon which he was driven back. + +Before, however, he had quite abandoned this hope he had already begun +to see his way in case it failed. His last appeal to the border States +was made on July 12, 1862, while McClellan's army still lay at +Harrison's Landing. On the following day he privately told Seward and +Bates that he had "about come to the conclusion that it was a military +necessity, absolutely essential to the salvation of the nation, that we +must free the slaves or be ourselves subdued." On July 22 he read to +his Cabinet the first draft of his Proclamation of Emancipation; +telling them before he consulted them that substantially his mind was +made up. Various members of the Cabinet raised points on which he had +already thought and had come to a conclusion, but, as he afterwards +told a friend, Seward raised a point which had never struck him before. +He said that, if issued at that time of depression, just after the +failure in the Peninsula, the Proclamation would seem like "a cry of +distress"; and that it would have a much better effect if it were +issued after some military success. + +Seward was certainly right. The danger of division in the North would +have been increased and the prospect of a good effect abroad would have +been diminished if the Proclamation had been issued at a time of +depression and manifest failure. Lincoln, who had been set on issuing +it, instantly felt the force of this objection. He put aside his +draft, and resolved not to issue the Proclamation till the right +moment, and apparently resolved to keep the whole question open in his +own mind till the time for action came. + +Accordingly the two months which followed were not only full of anxiety +about the war; they were full for him of a suspense painfully +maintained. It troubled him perhaps comparatively little that he was +driven into a position of greater aloofness from the support and +sympathy of any party or school. He must now expect an opposition from +the Democrats of the North, for they had declared themselves strongly +against the Resolution which he had induced Congress to pass. And the +strong Republicans for their part had acquiesced in it coldly, some of +them contemptuously. In May of this year he had been forced for a +second time publicly to repress a keen Republican general who tried to +take this question of great policy into his own hands. General Hunter, +commanding a small expedition which had seized Port Royal in South +Carolina and some adjacent islands rich in cotton, had in a grand +manner assumed to declare free all the slaves in South Carolina, +Georgia and Florida. This, of course, could not be let pass. +Congress, too, had been occupied in the summer with a new measure for +confiscating rebel property; some Republicans in the West set great +store on such confiscation; other Republicans saw in it the incidental +advantage that more slaves might be liberated under it. It was learnt +that the President might put his veto upon it. It seemed to purport, +contrary to the Constitution, to attaint the property of rebels after +their death, and Lincoln was unwilling that the Constitution should be +stretched in the direction of revengeful harshness. The objectionable +feature in the Bill was removed, and Lincoln accepted it. But the +suspicion with which many Republicans were beginning to regard him was +now reinforced by a certain jealousy of Congressmen against the +Executive power; they grumbled and sneered about having to "ascertain +the Royal pleasure" before they could legislate. This was an able, +energetic, and truly patriotic Congress, and must not be despised for +its reluctance to be guided by Lincoln. But it was reluctant. + +Throughout August and September he had to deal in the country with +dread on the one side of any revolutionary action, and belief on the +other side that he was timid and half-hearted. The precise state of +his intentions could not with advantage be made public. To up-holders +of slavery he wrote plainly, "It may as well be understood once for all +that I shall not surrender this game leaving any available card +unplayed"; to its most zealous opponents he had to speak in an entirely +different strain. While the second battle of Bull Run was impending, +Horace Greeley published in the _New York Tribune_ an "open letter" of +angry complaint about Lincoln's supposed bias for slavery. Lincoln at +once published a reply to his letter. "If there be in it," he said, +"any statements or assumptions of fact which I may know to be +erroneous, I do not now and here controvert them. If there be +perceptible in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in +deference to an old friend whose heart I have always supposed to be +right. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union. If +I could save the Union without freeing any slaves I would do it; and if +I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could +save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. +I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the +cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will +help the cause. I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear +to be true views." + +It was probably easy to him now to write these masterful generalities, +but a week or two later, after Pope's defeat, he had to engage in a +controversy which tried his feelings much more sorely. It had really +grieved him that clergymen in Illinois had opposed him as unorthodox, +when he was fighting against the extension of slavery. Now, a week or +two after his correspondence with Greeley, a deputation from a number +of Churches in Chicago waited upon him, and some of their members spoke +to him with assumed authority from on high, commanding him in God's +name to emancipate the slaves. He said, "I am approached with the most +opposite opinions and advice, and that by religious men who are equally +certain that they represent the divine will. I am sure that either the +one or the other class is mistaken in that belief, and perhaps in some +respects both. I hope it will not be irreverent for me to say that, if +it is probable that God would reveal His will to others, on a point so +connected with my duty, it might be supposed He would reveal it +directly to me. What good would a proclamation of emancipation from me +do especially as we are now situated? I do not want to issue a +document that the whole world will see must necessarily be inoperative +like the Pope's Bull against the comet. Do not misunderstand me, +because I have mentioned these objections. They indicate the +difficulties that have thus far prevented my acting in some such way as +you desire. I have not decided against a proclamation of liberty to +the slaves, but hold the matter under advisement. And I can assure you +that the subject is on my mind, by day and night, more than any other. +Whatever shall appear to be God's will, I will do." The language of +this speech, especially when the touch is humorous, seems that of a +strained and slightly irritated man, but the solemnity blended in it +showed Lincoln's true mind. + +In this month, September, 1862, he composed for his own reading alone a +sad and inconclusive fragment of meditation which was found after his +death. "The will of God prevails," he wrote. "In great contests each +party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be +and one must be wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at +the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that +God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party, +and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of +the best adaptation to effect His purpose. I am almost ready to say +that this is probably true, that God wills this contest, and wills that +it shall not end yet. By His mere great power on the minds of the +contestants, He could have either saved or destroyed the Union without +a human contest. Yet the contest began, and, having begun, He could +give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest +proceeds." For Lincoln's own part it seemed his plain duty to do what +in the circumstances he thought safest for the Union, and yet he was +almost of a mind with the deputation which had preached to him, that he +must be doing God's will in taking a great step towards emancipation. +The solution, that the great step must be taken at the first opportune +moment, was doubtless clear enough in principle, but it must always +remain arguable whether any particular moment was opportune. He told +soon afterwards how his mind was finally made up. + +On the day that he received the news of the battle of Antietam, the +draft Proclamation was taken from its drawer and studied afresh; his +visit to McClellan on the battlefield intervened; but on the fifth day +after the battle the Cabinet was suddenly called together. When the +Ministers had assembled Lincoln first entertained them by reading the +short chapter of Artemus Ward entitled "High-handed Outrage at Utica." +It is less amusing than most of Artemus Ward; but it had just appeared; +it pleased all the Ministers except Stanton, to whom the frivolous +reading he sometimes had to hear from Lincoln was a standing vexation; +and it was precisely that sort of relief to which Lincoln's mind when +overwrought could always turn. Having thus composed himself for +business, he reminded his Cabinet that he had, as they were aware, +thought a great deal about the relation of the war to slavery, and had +a few weeks before read them a draft Proclamation on this subject. +Ever since then, he said, his mind had been occupied on the matter, +and, though he wished it were a better time, he thought the time had +come now. "When the rebel army was at Frederick," he is related to +have continued, "I determined, as soon as it should be driven out of +Maryland, to issue a Proclamation of Emancipation such as I thought +likely to be most useful. I said nothing to any one, but I made the +promise to myself and"--here he hesitated a little--"to my Maker. The +rebel army is now driven out, and I am going to fulfil that promise. I +have got you together to hear what I have written down. I do not wish +your advice about the main matter, for that I have determined for +myself. This I say without intending anything but respect for any one +of you." He then invited their suggestions upon the expressions used +in his draft and other minor matters, and concluded: "One other +observation I will make. I know very well that many others might in +this matter, as in others, do better than I can; and if I was satisfied +that the public confidence was more fully possessed by any one of them +than by me, and knew of any constitutional way in which he could be put +in my place, he should have it. I would gladly yield it to him. But +though I believe I have not so much of the confidence of the people as +I had some time since, I do not know that, all things considered, any +other person has more; and, however this may be, there is no way in +which I can have any other man put where I am. I am here; I must do +the best I can, and bear the responsibility of taking the course which +I feel I ought to take." Then he read his draft, and in the long +discussion which followed, and owing to which a few slight changes were +made in it, he told them further, without any false reserve, just how +he came to his decision. In his great perplexity he had gone on his +knees, before the battle of Antietam, and, like a child, he had +promised that if a victory was given which drove the enemy out of +Maryland he would consider it as an indication that it was his duty to +move forward. "It might be thought strange," he said, "that he had in +this way submitted the disposal of matters, when the way was not clear +to his mind what he should do. God had decided this question in favour +of the slaves." + +Such is the story of what we may now remember as one of the signal +events in the chequered progress of Christianity. We have to follow +its consequences a little further. These were not at first all that +its author would have hoped. "Commendation in newspapers and by +distinguished individuals is," he said in a private letter, "all that a +vain man could wish," but recruits for the Army did not seem to come in +faster. In October and November there were elections for Congress, and +in a number of States the Democrats gained considerably, though it was +noteworthy that the Republicans held their ground not only in New +England and in the furthest Western States, but also in the border +slave States. The Democrats, who from this time on became very +formidable to Lincoln, had other matters of complaint, as will be seen +later, but they chiefly denounced the President for trying to turn the +war into one against slavery. "The Constitution as it is and the Union +as it was" had been their election cry. The good hearing that they +got, now as at a later time, was due to the fact that people were +depressed about the war; and it is plain enough that Lincoln had been +well advised in delaying his action till after a military success. As +it was, there was much that seemed to show that public confidence in +him was not strong, but public confidence in any man is hard to +estimate, and the forces that in the end move opinion most are not +quickly apparent. There are little indications that his power and +character were slowly establishing their hold; it seems, for instance, +to have been about this time that "old Abe" or "Uncle Abe" began to be +widely known among common people by the significant name of "Father +Abraham," and his secretaries say that he was becoming conscious that +his official utterances had a deeper effect on public opinion than any +immediate response to them in Congress showed. + +In his Annual Message of December, 1862, Lincoln put before Congress, +probably with little hope of result, a comprehensive policy for dealing +with slavery justly and finally. He proposed that a Constitutional +Amendment should be submitted to the people providing: first, that +compensation should be given in United States bonds to any State, +whether now in rebellion or not, which should abolish slavery before +the year 1900; secondly, that the slaves who had once enjoyed actual +freedom through the chances of the war should be permanently free and +that their owners should be compensated; thirdly, that Congress should +have authority to spend money on colonisation for negroes. Even if the +greater part of these objects could have been accomplished without a +Constitutional Amendment, it is evident that such a procedure would +have been more satisfactory in the eventual resettlement of the Union. +He urged in his Message how desirable it was, as a part of the effort +to restore the Union, that the whole North should be agreed in a +concerted policy as to slavery, and that parties should for this +purpose reconsider their positions. "The dogmas of the quiet past," he +said, "are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled +high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case +is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall +ourselves, and then we shall save our country. Fellow citizens, we +cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this Administration +will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or +insignificance can spare one or another of us. We say we are for the +Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to +save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. In giving +freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free. We shall nobly +save or meanly lose the last, best hope of earth. Other means may +succeed, this could not fail." The last four words expressed too +confident a hope as to what Northern policy apart from Northern arms +could do towards ending the war, but it was impossible to exaggerate +the value which a policy, concerted between parties in a spirit of +moderation, would have had in the settlement after victory. Every +honest Democrat who then refused any action against slavery must have +regretted it before three years were out, and many sensible Republicans +who saw no use in such moderation may have lived to regret their part +too. Nothing was done. It is thought that Lincoln expected this; but +the Proclamation of Emancipation would begin to operate within a month; +it would produce by the end of the war a situation in which the country +would be compelled to decide on the principle of slavery, and Lincoln +had at least done his part in preparing men to face the issue. + +Before this, the nervous and irritable feeling of many Northern +politicians, who found in emancipation a good subject for quarrel among +themselves and in the slow progress of the war a good subject of +quarrel with the Administration, led to a crisis in Lincoln's Cabinet. +Radicals were inclined to think Seward's influence in the +Administration the cause of all public evils; some of them had now got +hold of a foolish private letter, which he had written to Adams in +England a few months before, denouncing the advocates of emancipation. +Desiring his downfall, they induced a small "caucus" of Republican +Senators to speak in the name of the party and the nation and send the +President a resolution demanding such changes in his Cabinet as would +produce better results in the war. Discontented men of opposite +opinions could unite in demanding success in the war; and Conservative +Senators joined in this resolution hoping that it would get rid not +only of Seward, but also of Chase and Stanton, the objects of their +particular antipathy. Seward, on hearing of this, gave Lincoln his +resignation, which was kept private. Though egotistic, he was a clever +man, and evidently a pleasant man to work with; he was a useful +Minister under a wise chief, though he later proved a harmful one under +a foolish chief. Stanton was most loyal, and invaluable as head of the +War Department. Chase, as Lincoln said in private afterwards, was "a +pretty good fellow and a very able man"; Lincoln had complete +confidence in him as a Finance Minister, and could not easily have +replaced him. But this handsome, dignified, and righteous person was +unhappily a sneak. Lincoln found as time went on that, if he ever had +to do what was disagreeable to some important man, Chase would pay +court to that important man and hint how differently he himself would +have done as President. On this occasion he was evidently aware that +Chase had encouraged the Senators who attacked Seward. Much as he +wished to retain each of the two for his own worth, he was above all +determined that one should not gain a victory over the other. +Accordingly, when a deputation of nine important Senators came to +Lincoln to present their grievances against Seward, they found +themselves, to their great annoyance, confronted with all the Cabinet +except Seward, who had resigned, and they were invited by Lincoln to +discuss the matter in his presence with these Ministers. Chase, to his +still greater annoyance, found himself, as the principal Minister +there, compelled for decency's sake to defend Seward from the very +attack which he had helped to instigate. The deputation withdrew, not +sure that, after all, it wanted Seward removed. Chase next day +tendered, as was natural, his resignation. Lincoln was able, now that +he had the resignations of both men, to persuade both of their joint +duty to continue in the public service. By this remarkable piece of +riding he saved the Union from a great danger. The Democratic +opposition, not actually to the prosecution of the war, but to any and +every measure essential for it, was now developing, and a serious +division, such as at this stage any important resignation would have +produced in the ranks of the Republicans, or, as they now called +themselves, the "Union men," would have been perilous. + +On the first day of January, 1863, the President signed the further +Proclamation needed to give effect to emancipation. The small portions +of the South which were not in rebellion were duly excepted; the naval +and military authorities were ordered to maintain the freedom of the +slaves seeking their protection; the slaves were enjoined to abstain +from violence and to "labour faithfully for reasonable wages" if +opportunity were given them; all suitable slaves were to be taken into +armed service, especially for garrison duties. Before the end of 1863, +a hundred thousand coloured men were already serving, as combatants or +as labourers, on military work in about equal number. They were +needed, for volunteering was getting slack, and the work of guarding +and repairing railway lines was specially repellent to Northern +volunteers. The coloured regiments fought well; they behaved well in +every way. Atrocious threats of vengeance on them and their white +officers were officially uttered by Jefferson Davis, but, except for +one hideous massacre wrought in the hottest of hot blood, only a few +crimes by individuals were committed in execution of these threats. To +Lincoln himself it was a stirring thought that when democratic +government was finally vindicated and restored by the victory of the +Union, "then there will be some black men who can remember that with +silent tongue and clenched teeth and steady eye and well-poised bayonet +they have helped mankind on to this great consummation." There was, +however, prejudice at first among many Northern officers against negro +enlistment. The greatest of the few great American artists, St. +Gaudens, commemorated in sculpture (as the donor of the new playing +fields at Harvard commemorated by his gift) the action of a brilliant +and popular Massachusetts officer, Robert Gould Shaw, who set the +example of leaving his own beloved regiment to take command of a +coloured regiment, at the head of which he died, gallantly leading them +and gallantly followed by them in a desperate fight. + +It was easier to raise and train these negro soldiers than to arrange +for the control, shelter, and employment of the other refugees who +crowded especially to the protection of Grant's army in the West. The +efforts made for their benefit cannot be related here, but the +recollections of Army Chaplain John Eaton, whom Grant selected to take +charge of them in the West, throw a little more light on Lincoln and on +the spirit of his dealing with "the nigger question." When Eaton after +some time had to come to Washington, upon the business of his charge +and to visit the President, he received that impression, of versatile +power and of easy mastery over many details as well as over broad +issues, which many who worked under Lincoln have described, but he was +above all struck with the fact that from a very slight experience in +early life Lincoln had gained a knowledge of negro character such as +very few indeed in the North possessed. He was subjected to many +seemingly trivial questions, of which he was quick enough to see the +grave purpose, about all sorts of persons and things in the West, but +he was also examined closely, in a way which commanded his fullest +respect as an expert, about the ideas, understanding, and expectations +of the ordinary negroes under his care, and more particularly as to the +past history and the attainments of the few negroes who had become +prominent men, and who therefore best illustrated the real capacities +of their race. Later visits to the capital and to Lincoln deepened +this impression, and convinced Eaton, though by trifling signs, of the +rare quality of Lincoln's sympathy. Once, after Eaton's difficult +business had been disposed of, the President turned to relating his own +recent worries about a colony of negroes which he was trying to +establish on a small island off Hayti. There flourishes in Southern +latitudes a minute creature called _Dermatophilus penetrans_, or the +jigger, which can inflict great pain on barefooted people by housing +itself under their toe-nails. This Colony had a plague of jiggers, and +every expedient for defeating them had failed. Lincoln was not merely +giving the practical attention to this difficulty that might perhaps be +expected; the Chaplain was amazed to find that at that moment, at the +turning point of the war, a few days only after Vicksburg and +Gettysburg, with his enormous pre-occupations, the President's mind had +room for real and keen distress about the toes of the blacks in the Cow +Island. At the end of yet another interview Eaton was startled by the +question, put by the President with an air of shyness, whether +Frederick Douglass, a well-known negro preacher, could be induced to +visit him. Of course he could. Frederick Douglass was then reputed to +be the ablest man ever born as a negro slave; he must have met many of +the best and kindest Northern friends of the negro; and he went to +Lincoln distressed at some points in his policy, particularly at his +failure to make reprisals for murders of negro prisoners by Southern +troops. When he came away he was in a state little short of ecstasy. +It was not because he now understood, as he did, Lincoln's policy. +Lincoln had indeed won his warm approval when he told him "with a +quiver in his voice" of his horror of killing men in cold blood for +what had been done by others, and his dread of what might follow such a +policy; but he had a deeper gratification, the strangeness of which it +is sad to realise. "He treated me as a man," exclaimed Douglass. "He +did not let me feel for a moment that there was any difference in the +colour of our skins." + +Perhaps the hardest effort of speech that Lincoln ever essayed was an +address to negroes which had to do with this very subject of colour. +His audience were men who had been free from birth or for some time and +were believed to be leaders among their community. It was Lincoln's +object to induce some of them to be pioneers in an attempt at +colonisation in some suitable climate, an attempt which he felt must +fail if it started with negroes whose "intellects were clouded by +slavery." He clung to these projects of colonisation, as probably the +best among the various means by which the improvement of the negro must +be attempted, because their race, "suffering the greatest wrong ever +inflicted on any people," would "yet be far removed from being on an +equality with the white race" when they ceased to be slaves; a +"physical difference broader than exists between almost any other two +races" and constituting "a greater disadvantage to us both," would +always set a "ban" upon the negroes even where they were best treated +in America. This unpalatable fact he put before them with that total +absence of pretence which was probably the only possible form of tact +in such a discussion, with no affectation of a hope that progress would +remove it or of a desire that the ordinary white man should lose the +instinct that kept him apart from the black. But this only makes more +apparent his simple recognition of an equality and fellowship which did +exist between him and his hearers in a larger matter than that of +social intercourse or political combination. His appeal to their +capacity for taking large and unselfish views was as direct and as +confident as in his addresses to his own people; it was made in the +language of a man to whom the public spirit which might exist among +black people was of the same quality as that which existed among white, +in whose belief he and his hearers could equally find happiness in +"being worthy of themselves" and in realising the "claim of kindred to +the great God who made them." + +It may be well here, without waiting to trace further the course of the +war, in which at the point where we left it the slow but irresistible +progress of conquest was about to set in, to recount briefly the later +stages of the abolition of slavery in America. In 1863 it became +apparent that popular feeling in Missouri and in Maryland was getting +ripe for abolition. Bills were introduced into Congress to compensate +their States if they did away with slavery; the compensation was to be +larger if the abolition was immediate and not gradual. There was a +majority in each House for these Bills, but the Democratic minority was +able to kill them in the House of Representatives by the methods of +"filibustering," or, as we call it, obstruction, to which the procedure +of that body seems well adapted. The Republican majority had not been +very zealous for the Bills; its members asked "why compensate for a +wrong" which they had begun to feel would soon be abolished without +compensation; but their leaders at least did their best for the Bills. +It would have been idle after the failure of these proposals to +introduce the Bills that had been contemplated for buying out the loyal +slave owners in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, which was now +fast being regained for the Union. Lincoln after his Message of +December, 1862, recognised it as useless for him to press again the +principles of gradual emancipation or of compensation, as to which it +is worth remembrance that the compensation which he proposed was for +loyal and disloyal owners alike. His Administration, however, bought +every suitable slave in Delaware for service (service as a free man) in +the Army. In the course of 1864 a remarkable development of public +opinion began to be manifest in the States chiefly concerned. In the +autumn of that year Maryland, whose representatives had paid so little +attention to Lincoln two years before, passed an Amendment to the State +Constitution abolishing slavery without compensation. A movement in +the same direction was felt to be making progress in Kentucky and +Tennessee; and Missouri followed Maryland's example in January, 1865. +Meanwhile, Louisiana had been reconquered, and the Unionists in these +States, constantly encouraged and protected by Lincoln when Congress +looked upon them somewhat coldly or his generals showed jealousy of +their action, had banded themselves together to form State Governments +with Constitutions that forbade slavery. Lincoln, it may be noted, had +suggested to Louisiana that it would be well to frame some plan by +which the best educated of the negroes should be admitted to the +franchise. Four years after his death a Constitutional Amendment was +passed by which any distinction as to franchise on the ground of race +or colour is forbidden in America. The policy of giving the vote to +negroes indiscriminately had commended itself to the cold pedantry of +some persons, including Chase, on the ground of some natural right of +all men to the suffrage; but it was adopted as the most effective +protection for the negroes against laws, as to vagrancy and the like, +by which it was feared they might practically be enslaved again. +Whatever the excuse for it, it would seem to have proved in fact a +great obstacle to healthy relations between the two races. The true +policy in such a matter is doubtless that which Rhodes and other +statesmen adopted in the Cape Colony and which Lincoln had advocated in +the case of Louisiana. It would be absurd to imagine that the spirit +which could champion the rights of the negro and yet face fairly the +abiding difficulty of his case died in America with Lincoln, but it +lost for many a year to come its only great exponent. + +But the question of overwhelming importance, between the principles of +slavery and of freedom, was ready for final decision when local opinion +in six slave States was already moving as we have seen. The Republican +Convention of 1864, which again chose Lincoln as its candidate for the +Presidency, declared itself in favour of a Constitutional Amendment to +abolish slavery once for all throughout America. Whether the first +suggestion came from him or not, it is known that Lincoln's private +influence was energetically used to procure this resolution of the +Convention. In his Message to Congress in 1864 he urged the initiation +of this Amendment. Observation of elections made it all but certain +that the next Congress would be ready to take this action, but Lincoln +pleaded with the present doubtful Congress for the advantage which +would be gained by ready, and if possible, unanimous concurrence in the +North in the course which would soon prevail. The necessary Resolution +was passed in the Senate, but in the House of Representatives till +within a few hours of the vote it was said to be "the toss of a copper" +whether the majority of two-thirds, required for such a purpose, would +be obtained. In the efforts made on either side to win over the few +doubtful voters Lincoln had taken his part. Right or wrong, he was not +the man to see a great and beneficent Act in danger of postponement +without being tempted to secure it if he could do so by terrifying some +unprincipled and white-livered opponents. With the knowledge that he +was always acquiring of the persons in politics, he had been able to +pick out two Democratic Congressmen who were fit for his +purpose--presumably they lay under suspicion of one of those +treasonable practices which martial law under Lincoln treated very +unceremoniously. He sent for them. He told them that the gaining of a +certain number of doubtful votes would secure the Resolution. He told +them that he was President of the United States. He told them that the +President of the United States in war time exercised great and dreadful +powers. And he told them that he looked to them personally to get him +those votes. Whether this wrong manoeuvre affected the result or not, +on January 31, 1865, the Resolution was passed in the House by a +two-thirds majority with a few votes to spare, and the great crowd in +the galleries, defying all precedent, broke out in a demonstration of +enthusiasm which some still recall as the most memorable scene in their +lives. On December 18 of that year, when Lincoln had been eight months +dead, William Seward, as Secretary of State, was able to certify that +the requisite majority of States had passed the Thirteenth Amendment to +the Constitution, and the cause of that "irrepressible conflict" which +he had foretold, and in which he had played a weak but valuable part, +was for ever extinguished. + +At the present day, alike in the British Empire and in America, the +unending difficulty of wholesome human relations between races of +different and unequal development exercises many minds; but this +difficulty cannot obscure the great service done by those who, first in +England and later and more hardly in America, stamped out that cardinal +principle of error that any race is without its human claim. Among +these men William Lloyd Garrison lived to see the fruit of his labours, +and to know and have friendly intercourse with Lincoln. There have +been some comparable instances in which men with such different +characters and methods have unconsciously conspired for a common end, +as these two did when Garrison was projecting the "Liberator" and +Lincoln began shaping himself for honourable public work in the vague. +The part that Lincoln played in these events did not seem to him a +personal achievement of his own. He appeared to himself rather as an +instrument. "I claim not," he once said in this connection, "to have +controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me." +In 1864, when a petition was sent to him from some children that there +should be no more child slaves, he wrote, "Please tell these little +people that I am very glad their young hearts are so full of just and +generous sympathy, and that, while I have not the power to grant all +they ask, I trust they will remember that God has, and that, as it +seems, He wills to do it." Yet, at least, he redeemed the boyish +pledge that has been, fancifully perhaps, ascribed to him; each +opportunity that to his judgment ever presented itself of striking some +blow for human freedom was taken; the blows were timed and directed by +the full force of his sagacity, and they were never restrained by +private ambition or fear. It is probable that upon that cool review, +which in the case of this singular figure is difficult, the sense of +his potent accomplishment would not diminish, but increase. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE APPROACH OF VICTORY + + +1. _The War to the End of 1863_. + +The events of the Eastern theatre of war have been followed into the +early summer of 1863, when Lee was for the second time about to invade +the North. The Western theatre of war has been left unnoticed since the +end of May, 1862. From that time to the end of the year no definite +progress was made here by either side, but here also the perplexities of +the military administration were considerable; and in Lincoln's life it +must be noted that in these months the strain of anxiety about the +Eastern army and about the policy of emancipation was accompanied by +acute doubt in regard to the conduct of war in the West. + +When Halleck had been summoned from the West, Lincoln had again a general +by his side in Washington to exercise command under him of all the +armies. Halleck was a man of some intellectual distinction who might be +expected to take a broad view of the war as a whole; this and his freedom +from petty feelings, as to which Lincoln's known opinion of him can be +corroborated, doubtless made him useful as an adviser; nor for a +considerable time was there any man with apparently better qualifications +for his position. But Lincoln soon found, as has been seen, that Halleck +lacked energy of will, and cannot have been long in discovering that his +judgment was not very good. The President had thus to make the best use +he could of expert advice upon which he would not have been justified in +relying very fully. + +When Halleck arrived at Corinth at the end of May, 1862, the whole of +Western and Middle Tennessee was for the time clear of the enemy, and he +turned his attention at once to the long delayed project of rescuing the +Unionists in Eastern Tennessee, which was occupied by a Confederate army +under General Kirby Smith. His object was to seize Chattanooga, which +lay about 150 miles to the east of him, and invade Eastern Tennessee by +way of the valley of the Tennessee River, which cuts through the +mountains behind Chattanooga. With this in view he would doubtless have +been wise if he had first continued his advance with his whole force +against the Confederate army under Beauregard, which after evacuating +Corinth had fallen back to rest and recruit in a far healthier situation +50 miles further south. Beauregard would have been obliged either to +fight him with inferior numbers or to shut himself up in the fortress of +Vicksburg. As it was, Halleck spent the month of June merely in +repairing the railway line which runs from Corinth in the direction of +Chattanooga. When he was called to Washington he left Grant, who for +several months past had been kept idle as his second in command, in +independent command of a force which was to remain near the Mississippi +confronting Beauregard, but he restricted him to a merely defensive part +by ordering him to keep a part of his army ready to send to Buell +whenever that general needed it, as he soon did. Buell, who again took +over his former independent command, was ordered by Halleck to advance on +Chattanooga, using Corinth as his base of supply. Buell had wished that +the base for the advance upon Chattanooga should be transferred to +Nashville, in the centre of Tennessee, in which case the line of railway +communication would have been shorter and also less exposed to raids by +the Southern cavalry. After Halleck had gone, Buell obtained permission +to effect this change of base. The whole month of June had been wasted +in repairing the railway with a view to Halleck's faulty plan. When +Buell himself was allowed to proceed on his own lines and was approaching +Chattanooga, his communications with Nashville were twice, in the middle +of July and in the middle of August, cut by Confederate cavalry raids, +which did such serious damage as to impose great delay upon him. In the +end of August and beginning of September Kirby Smith, whose army had been +strengthened by troops transferred from Beauregard, crossed the mountains +from East Tennessee by passes some distance northeast of Chattanooga, and +invaded Kentucky, sending detachments to threaten Louisville on the +Indiana border of Kentucky and Cincinnati in Ohio. It was necessary for +Buell to retreat, when, after a week or more of uncertainty, it became +clear that Kirby Smith's main force was committed to this invasion. +Meanwhile General Bragg, who, owing to the illness of Beauregard, had +succeeded to his command, left part of his force to hold Grant in check, +marched with the remainder to support Kirby Smith, and succeeded in +placing himself between Buell's army and Louisville, to protect which +from Kirby Smith had become Buell's first object. It seems that Bragg, +who could easily have been reinforced by Kirby Smith, had now an +opportunity of fighting Buell with great advantage. But the Confederate +generals, who mistakenly believed that Kentucky was at heart with them, +saw an imaginary political gain in occupying Frankfort, the State +capital, and formally setting up a new State Government there. Bragg +therefore marched on to join Kirby Smith at Frankfort, which was well to +the east of Buell's line of retreat, and Buell was able to reach +Louisville unopposed by September 25. + +These events were watched in the North with all the more anxiety because +the Confederate invasion of Kentucky began just about the time of the +second battle of Bull Run, and Buell arrived at Louisville within a week +after the battle of Antietam while people were wondering how that victory +would be followed up. Men of intelligence and influence, especially in +the Western States, were loud in their complaints of Buell's want of +vigour. It is remarkable that the Unionists of Kentucky, who suffered +the most through his supposed faults, expressed their confidence in him; +but his own soldiers did not like him, for he was a strict disciplinarian +without either tact or any quality which much impressed them. Their +reports to their homes in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, from which they +mostly came, increased the feeling against him which was arising in those +States, and his relations with the Governors of Ohio and Indiana, who +were busy in sending him recruits and whose States were threatened with +invasion, seem, wherever the fault may have lain, to have been +unfortunate. Buell's most powerful friend had been McClellan, and by an +irrational but unavoidable process of thought the real dilatoriness of +McClellan became an argument for blaming Buell as well. Halleck defended +him loyally, but this by now probably seemed to Lincoln the apology of +one irresolute man for another. Stanton, whose efficiency in the +business of the War Department gave him great weight, had become eager +for the removal of Buell. Lincoln expected that as soon as Buell could +cover Louisville he would take the offensive promptly. His army appears +to have exceeded in numbers, though not very much, the combined forces of +Bragg and Kirby Smith, and except as to cavalry it was probably as good +in quality. If energetically used by Halleck some months before, the +Western armies should have been strong enough to accomplish great +results; and if the attempt had been made at first to raise much larger +armies, it seems likely that the difficulties of training and +organisation and command would have increased out of proportion to any +gain. Buell remained some days at Louisville itself, receiving +reinforcements which were considerable, but consisted mainly of raw +recruits. While he was there orders arrived from Lincoln removing him +and appointing his second in command, the Virginian Thomas, in his place. +This was a wise choice; Thomas was one of the four Northern generals who +won abiding distinction in the Civil War. But Thomas felt the injustice +which was done to Buell, and he refused the command in a letter +magnanimously defending him. The fact was that Lincoln had rescinded his +orders before they were received, for he had issued them under the belief +that Buell was remaining on the defensive, but learnt immediately that an +offensive movement was in progress, and had no intention of changing +commanders under those circumstances. + +On October 8 a battle, which began in an accidental minor conflict, took +place between Buell with 58,000 men and Bragg with considerably less than +half that number of tried veterans. Buell made little use of his +superior numbers, for which the fault may have lain with the corps +commander who first became engaged and who did not report at once to him; +the part of Buell's army which bore the brunt of the fighting suffered +heavy losses, which made a painful impression in the North, and the +public outcry against him, which had begun as soon as Kentucky was +invaded by the Confederates, now increased. After the battle Bragg fell +back and effected a junction with Kirby Smith. Their joint forces were +not very far inferior to Buell's in numbers, but after a few more days +Bragg determined to evacuate Kentucky, in which his hope of raising many +recruits had been disappointed. Buell, on perceiving his intention, +pursued him some distance, but, finding the roads bad for the movement of +large bodies of troops, finally took up a position at Bowling Green, on +the railway to the north of Nashville, intending later in the autumn to +move a little south of Nashville and there to wait for the spring before +again moving on Chattanooga. He was urged from Washington to press +forward towards Chattanooga at once, but replied decidedly that he was +unable to do so, and added that if a change of command was desired the +present was a suitable time for it. At the end of October he was removed +from command. In the meantime the Confederate forces that had been left +to oppose Grant had attacked him and been signally defeated in two +engagements, in each of which General Rosecrans, who was serving under +Grant, was in immediate command on the Northern side. Rosecrans, who +therefore began to be looked upon as a promising general, and indeed was +one of those who, in the chatter of the time, were occasionally spoken of +as suitable for a "military dictatorship," was now put in Buell's place, +which Thomas had once refused. He advanced to Nashville, but was as firm +as Buell in refusing to go further till he had accumulated rations enough +to make him for a time independent of the railway. Ultimately he moved +on Murfreesborough, some thirty miles further in the direction of +Chattanooga. Here on December 31, 1862, Bragg, with somewhat inferior +numbers, attacked him and gained an initial success, which Rosecrans and +his subordinates, Thomas and Sheridan, were able to prevent him from +making good. Bragg's losses were heavy, and, after waiting a few days in +the hope that Rosecrans might retreat first, he fell back to a point near +the Cumberland mountains a little in advance of Chattanooga. Thus the +battle of Murfreesborough counted as a victory to the North, a slight +set-off to the disaster at Fredericksburg a little while before. But it +had no very striking consequences. For over six months Rosecrans +proceeded no further. The Northern armies remained in more secure +possession of all Tennessee west of the mountains than they had obtained +in the first half of 1862; but the length of their communications and the +great superiority of the South in cavalry, which could threaten those +communications, suspended their further advance. Lincoln urged that +their army could subsist on the country which it invaded, but Buell and +Rosecrans treated the idea as impracticable; in fact, till a little later +all Northern generals so regarded it. + +Thus Chattanooga, which it was hoped would be occupied soon after Halleck +had occupied Corinth, remained in Southern hands for more than a year +after that, notwithstanding the removal of Buell, to whom this +disappointment and the mortifying invasion of Kentucky were at first +attributed. This was rightly felt to be unsatisfactory, but the chief +blame that can now be imputed falls upon the mistakes of Halleck while he +was still commanding in the West. There is no reason to suppose that +Buell had any exceptional amount of intuition or of energy and it was +right to demand that a general with both these qualities should be +appointed if he could be found. But he was at least a prudent officer, +of fair capacity, doing his best. The criticisms upon him, of which the +well informed were lavish, were uttered without appreciation of practical +difficulties or of the standard by which he was really to be judged. So, +with far more justice than McClellan, he has been numbered among the +misused generals. Lincoln, there is no doubt, had watched his +proceedings, as he watched those of Rosecrans after him, with a feeling +of impatience, and set him down as unenterprising and obstinate. In one +point his Administration was much to blame in its treatment of the +Western commanders. It became common political talk that the way to get +victories was to treat unsuccessful generals almost as harshly as the +French in the Revolution were understood to have treated them. Lincoln +did not go thus far, but it was probably with his authority that before +Buell was removed Halleck, with reluctance on his own part, wrote a +letter referring to this prevalent idea and calculated to put about among +the Western commanders an expectation that whichever of them first did +something notable would be put over his less successful colleagues. +Later on, and, as we can hardly doubt, with Lincoln's consent, Grant and +Rosecrans were each informed that the first of them to win a victory +would get the vacant major-generalship in the United States Army in place +of his present volunteer rank. This was not the way to handle men with +proper professional pride, and it is one of those cases, which are +strangely few, where Lincoln made the sort of mistake that might have +been expected from his want of training and not from his native +generosity. But in the main his treatment of this difficult question was +sound. Sharing as he did the prevailing impatience with Buell, he had no +intention of yielding to it till there was a real prospect that a change +of generals would be a change for the better. When the appointment of +Thomas was proposed there really was such a prospect. When Rosecrans was +eventually put in Buell's place the result was disappointing to Lincoln, +but it was evidently not a bad appointment, and a situation had then +arisen in which it would have been folly to retain Buell if any capable +successor to him could be found; for the Governors of Indiana, Ohio and +Illinois, of whom the first named was reputed the ablest of the "war +Governors" in the West, and on whom his army depended for recruits, now +combined in representations against him which could not be ignored. +Lincoln, who could not have personal acquaintance with the generals of +the Western armies as he had with those in the East, was, it should be +observed, throughout unceasing in his efforts to get the fullest and +clearest impression of them that he could; he was always, as it has been +put, "taking measurements" of men, and a good deal of what seemed idle +and gossipy talk with chance visitors, who could tell him little +incidents or give him new impressions, seems to have had this serious +purpose. For the first half of the war the choice of men for high +commands was the most harassing of all the difficulties of his +administration. There is no doubt of his constant watchfulness to +discern and promote merit. He was certainly beset by the feeling that +generals were apt to be wanting in the vigour and boldness which the +conduct of the war demanded, but, though this in some cases probably +misled him, upon the whole there was good reason for it. On the other +hand, it must be considered that all this while he knew himself to be +losing influence through his supposed want of energy in the war, and that +he was under strong and unceasing pressure from every influential quarter +to dismiss every general who caused disappointment. Newspapers and +private letters of the time demonstrate that there was intense impatience +against him for not producing victorious generals. This being so, his +own patience in this matter and his resolution to give those under him a +fair chance appear very remarkable and were certainly very wise. + +We have come, however, to the end, not of all the clamour against +Lincoln, but of his own worst perplexities. In passing to the operations +further west we are passing to an instance in which Lincoln felt it right +to stand to the end by a decried commander, and that decried commander +proved to possess the very qualities for which he had vainly looked in +others. The reverse side of General Grant's fame is well enough known to +the world. Before the war he had been living under a cloud. In the +autumn of 1862, while his army lay between Corinth and Memphis, the cloud +still rested on his reputation. In spite of the glory he had won for a +moment at Fort Donelson, large circles were ready to speak of him simply +as an "incompetent and disagreeable man." The crowning work of his life +was accomplished with terrible bloodshed which was often attributed to +callousness and incapacity on his part. The eight years of his +Presidency afterwards, which cannot properly be discussed here, added at +the best no lustre to his memory. Later still, when he visited Europe as +a celebrity the general impression which he created seems to be contained +in the words "a rude man." Thus the Grant that we discover in the +recollections of a few loyal and loving friends, and in the memoirs which +he himself began when late in life he lost his money and which he +finished with the pains of death upon him, is a surprising, in some ways +pathetic, figure. He had been a shy country boy, ready enough at all the +work of a farm and good with horses, but with none of the business +aptitude that make a successful farmer, when his father made him go to +West Point. Here he showed no great promise and made few friends; his +health became delicate, and he wanted to leave the army and become a +teacher of mathematics. But the Mexican War, one of the most unjust in +all history, as he afterwards said, broke out, and--so he later +thought--saved his life from consumption by keeping him in the open air. +After that he did retire, failed at farming and other ventures, and at +thirty-nine, when the Civil War began, was as has been seen, a +shabby-looking, shiftless fellow, pretty far gone in the habit of drink, +and more or less occupied about a leather business of his father's. +Rough in appearance and in manner he remained--the very opposite of +smart, the very opposite of versatile, the very opposite of expansive in +speech or social intercourse. Unlike many rough people, he had a really +simple character--truthful, modest, and kind; without varied interests, +or complicated emotions, or much sense of fun, but thinking intensely on +the problems that he did see before him, and in his silent way keenly +sensitive on most of the points on which it is well to be sensitive. His +friends reckoned up the very few occasions on which he was ever seen to +be angry; only one could be recalled on which he was angry on his own +account; the cruelty of a driver to animals in his supply train, +heartless neglect in carrying out the arrangements he had made for the +comfort of the sick and wounded, these were the sort of occasions which +broke down Grant's habitual self-possession and good temper. "He was +never too anxious," wrote Chaplain Eaton, who, having been set by him in +charge of the negro refugees with his army, had excellent means of +judging, "never too preoccupied with the great problems that beset him, +to take a sincere and humane interest in the welfare of the most +subordinate labourer dependent upon him." And he had delicacy of feeling +in other ways. Once in the crowd at some hotel, in which he mingled an +undistinguished figure, an old officer under him tried on a lecherous +story for the entertainment of the General, who did not look the sort of +man to resent it; Grant, who did not wish to set down an older man +roughly, and had no ready phrases, but had, as it happens, a sensitive +skin, was observed to blush to the roots of his hair in exquisite +discomfort. It would be easy to multiply little recorded traits of this +somewhat unexpected kind, which give grace to the memory of his +determination in a duty which became very grim. + +The simplicity of character as well as manner which endeared him to a few +close associates was probably a very poor equipment for the Presidency, +which, from that very simplicity, he afterwards treated as his due; and +Grant presented in some ways as great a contrast as can be imagined to +the large and complex mind of Lincoln. But he was the man that Lincoln +had yearned for. Whatever degree of military skill may be ascribed to +him, he had in the fullest measure the moral attributes of a commander. +The sense that the war could be put through and must be put through +possessed his soul. He was insusceptible to personal danger--at least, +so observers said, though he himself told a different story--and he +taught himself to keep a quiet mind in the presence of losses, rout in +battle, or failure in a campaign. It was said that he never troubled +himself with fancies as to what the enemy might be doing, and he +confessed to having constantly told himself that the enemy was as much +afraid of him as he of the enemy. His military talent was doubled in +efficacy by his indomitable constancy. In one sense, moreover, and that +a wholly good sense, he was a political general; for he had constantly +before his mind the aims of the Government which employed him, perceiving +early that there were only two possible ends to the war, the complete +subjugation of the South or the complete failure of the Union; perceiving +also that there was no danger of exhausting the resources of the North +and great danger of discouraging its spirit, while the position of the +South was in this respect the precise contrary. He was therefore the +better able to serve the State as a soldier, because throughout he +measured by a just standard the ulterior good or harm of success or +failure in his enterprises. + +The affectionate confidence which existed between Lee and "Stonewall" +Jackson till the latter was killed at Chancellorsville had a parallel in +the endearing friendship which sprung up between Grant and his principal +subordinate, William T. Sherman, who was to bear a hardly less momentous +part than his own in the conclusion of the war. Sherman was a man of +quick wits and fancy, bright and mercurial disposition, capable of being +a delightful companion to children, and capable of being sharp and +inconsiderate to duller subordinates. It is a high tribute both to this +brilliant soldier and to Grant himself that he always regarded Grant as +having made him, not only by his confidence but by his example. + +As has been said, Grant was required to remain on the defensive between +Memphis and Corinth, which mark the line of the Northern frontier at this +period, while Buell was advancing on Chattanooga. Later, while the +Confederates were invading Kentucky further east, attacks were also +directed against Grant to keep him quiet. These were defeated, though +Grant was unable to follow up his success at the time. When the invasion +of Kentucky had collapsed and the Confederates under Bragg were +retreating before Buell and his successor out of Middle Tennessee, it +became possible for Grant and for Halleck and the Government at +Washington to look to completing the conquest of the Mississippi River. +The importance to the Confederates of a hold upon the Mississippi has +been pointed out; if it were lost the whole of far South-West would +manifestly be lost with it; in the North, on the other hand, public +sentiment was strongly set upon freeing the navigation of the great +river. The Confederacy now held the river from the fortress of +Vicksburg, which after taking New Orleans Admiral Farragut had attacked +in vain, down to Port Hudson, 120 miles further south, where the +Confederate forces had since then seized and fortified another point of +vantage. Vicksburg, it will be observed, lies 175 to 180 miles south of +Memphis, or from Grand Junction, between Memphis and Corinth, the points +in the occupation of the North which must serve Grant as a base. At +Vicksburg itself, and for some distance south of it, a line of bluffs or +steep-sided hills lying east of the Mississippi comes right up to the +edge of the river. The river as it approaches these bluffs makes a +sudden bend to the north-east and then again to the south-west, so that +two successive reaches of the stream, each from three to four miles long, +were commanded by the Vicksburg guns, 200 feet above the valley; the +eastward or landward side of the fortress was also well situated for +defence. To the north of Vicksburg the country on the east side of the +Mississippi is cut up by innumerable streams and "bayous" or marshy +creeks, winding and intersecting amid a dense growth of cedars. The +North, with a flotilla under Admiral Porter, commanded the Mississippi +itself, and the Northern forces could freely move along its western shore +to the impregnable river face of Vicksburg beyond. But the question of +how to get safely to the assailable side of Vicksburg presented +formidable difficulty to Grant and to the Government. + +Grant's operations began in November, 1862. Advancing directly southward +along the railway from Memphis with the bulk of his forces, he after a +while detached Sherman with a force which proceeded down the Mississippi +to the mouth of the Yazoo, a little north-west of Vicksburg. Here +Sherman was to land, and, it was hoped, surprise the enemy at Vicksburg +itself while the bulk of the enemy's forces were fully occupied by +Grant's advance from the north. But Grant's lengthening communications +were cut up by a cavalry raid, and he had to retreat, while Sherman came +upon an enemy fully prepared and sustained a defeat a fortnight after +Burnside's defeat at Fredericksburg. This was the first of a long series +of failures during which Grant, who for his part was conspicuously frank +and loyal in his relations with the Government, received upon the whole +the fullest confidence and support from them. There occurred, however, +about this time an incident which was trying to Grant, and of which the +very simple facts must be stated, since it was the last of the occasions +upon which severe criticism of Lincoln's military administration has been +founded. General McClernand was an ambitious Illinois lawyer-politician +of energy and courage; he was an old acquaintance of Lincoln's, and an +old opponent; since the death of Douglas he and another +lawyer-politician, Logan, had been the most powerful of the Democrats in +Illinois; both were zealous in the war and had joined the Army upon its +outbreak. Logan served as a general under Grant with confessed ability. +It must be repeated that, North and South, former civilians had to be +placed in command for lack of enough soldiers of known capacity to go +round, and that many of them, like Logan and like the Southern general, +Polk, who was a bishop in the American Episcopal Church, did very good +service. McClernand had early obtained high rank and had shown no sign +as yet of having less aptitude for his new career than other men of +similar antecedents. Grant, however, distrusted him, and proved to be +right. In October, 1862, McClernand came to Lincoln with an offer of his +personal services in raising troops from Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa, +with a special view to clearing the Mississippi. He of course expected +to be himself employed in this operation. Recruiting was at a low ebb, +and it would have been folly to slight this offer. McClernand did in +fact raise volunteers to the number of a whole army corps. He was placed +under Grant in command of the expedition down the Mississippi which had +already started under Sherman. Sherman's great promise had not yet been +proved to any one but Grant; he appears at this time to have come under +the disapproval of the Joint Committee of Congress on the War, and the +newspaper Press had not long before announced, with affected regret, the +news that he had become insane. McClernand, arriving just after +Sherman's defeat near Vicksburg, fell in at once with a suggestion of his +to attack the Post of Arkansas, a Confederate stronghold in the State of +Arkansas and upon the river of that name, from the shelter of which +Confederate gunboats had some chance of raiding the Mississippi above +Vicksburg. The expedition succeeded in this early in January, 1863, and +was then recalled to join Grant. This was a mortification to McClernand, +who had hoped for a command independent of Grant. In his subsequent +conduct he seems to have shown incapacity; he was certainly insubordinate +to Grant, and he busied himself in intrigues against him, with such +result as will soon be seen. As soon as Grant told the Administration +that he was dissatisfied with McClernand, he was assured that he was at +liberty to remove him from command. This he eventually did after some +months of trial. + +In the first three months of 1863, while the army of the Potomac, +shattered at Fredericksburg, was being prepared for the fresh attack upon +Lee which ended at Chancellorsville, and while Bragg and Rosecrans lay +confronting each other in Middle Tennessee, each content that the other +was afraid to weaken himself by sending troops to the Mississippi, Grant +was occupied in a series of enterprises apparently more cautious than +that in which he eventually succeeded, but each in its turn futile. An +attempt was made to render Vicksburg useless by a canal cutting across +the bend of the Mississippi to the west of that fortress. Then Grant +endeavoured with the able co-operation of Admiral Porter and his flotilla +to secure a safe landing on the Yazoo, which enters the Mississippi a +little above Vicksburg, so that he could move his army to the rear of +Vicksburg by this route. Next Grant and Porter tried to establish a sure +line of water communication from a point far up the Mississippi through +an old canal, then somehow obstructed, into the upper waters of the Yazoo +and so to a point on that river 30 or 40 miles to the north-east of +Vicksburg, by which they would have turned the right of the main +Confederate force; but this was frustrated by the Confederates, who +succeeded in establishing a strong fort further up the Yazoo. Yet a +further effort was made to establish a waterway by a canal quitting the +Mississippi about 40 miles north of Vicksburg and communicating, through +lakes, bayous, and smaller rivers, with its great tributary the Red River +far to the south. This, like the first canal attempted, would have +rendered Vicksburg useless. + +Each of these projects failed in turn. The tedious engineering work +which two of them involved was rendered more depressing by adverse +conditions of weather and by ill-health among Grant's men. Natural +grumbling among the troops was repeated and exaggerated in the North. +McClernand employed the gift for intrigue, which perhaps had helped him +to secure his command, in an effort to get Grant removed. It is +melancholy to add that a good many newspapers at this time began to print +statements that Grant had again taken to drink. It is certain that he +was at this time a total abstainer. It is said that he had offended the +authors of this villainy by the restrictions which he had long before +found necessary to put upon information to the Press. Some of the men +freely confessed afterwards that they had been convinced of his sobriety, +and added the marvellous apology that their business was to give the +public "the news." Able and more honest journalists urged that Grant had +proved his incompetence. Secretary Chase took up their complaints and +pressed that Grant should be removed. Lincoln, before the outcry against +Grant had risen to its height, had felt the need of closer information +than he possessed about the situation on the Mississippi; and had hit +upon the happy expedient of sending an able official of the War +Department, who deserved and obtained the confidence of Grant and his +officers, to accompany the Western army and report to him. Apart, +however, from the reports he thus received, he had always treated the +attacks on Grant with contempt. "I cannot spare this general; he +fights," he said. In reply to complaints that Grant drank, he enquired +(adapting, as he knew, George II.'s famous saying about Wolfe) what +whisky he drank, explaining that he wished to send barrels of it to some +of his other generals. His attitude is remarkable, because in his own +mind he had not thought well of any of Grant's plans after his first +failure in December; he had himself wished from an early day that Grant +would take the very course by which he ultimately succeeded. He let him +go his own way, as he afterwards told him, from "a general hope that you +know better than I." + +At the end of March Grant took a memorable determination to transfer his +whole force to the south of Vicksburg and approach it from that +direction. He was urged by Sherman to give up any further attempt to use +the river, and, instead, to bring his whole army back to Memphis and +begin a necessarily slow approach on Vicksburg by the railway. He +declared himself that on ordinary grounds of military prudence this would +have been the proper course, but he decided for himself that the +depressing effect of the retreat to Memphis would be politically +disastrous. At Grand Gulf, 30 miles south of Vicksburg, the South +possessed another fortified post on the river; to reach this Grant +required the help of the Navy, not only in crossing from the western bank +of the river, but in transporting the supplies for which the roads west +of the river were inadequate. Admiral Porter, with his gunboats and +laden barges, successfully ran the gauntlet of the Vicksburg batteries by +night without serious damage. Grand Gulf was taken on May 3, and Grant's +army established at this new base. A further doubt now arose. General +Banks in Louisiana was at this time preparing to besiege Port Hudson. It +might be well for Grant to go south and join him, and, after reducing +Port Hudson, return with Banks' forces against Vicksburg. This was what +now commended itself to Lincoln. In the letter of congratulation which +some time later he was able to send to Grant, after referring to his +former opinion which had been right, he confessed that he had now been +wrong. Banks was not yet ready to move, and Vicksburg, now seriously +threatened, might soon be reinforced. Orders to join Banks, though they +were probably meant to be discretionary, were actually sent to Grant, but +too late. He had cut himself loose from his base at Grand Gulf and +marched his troops north, to live with great hardship to themselves on +the country and the supplies they could take with them. He had with him +35,000 men. General Pemberton, to whom he had so far been opposed, lay +covering Vicksburg with 20,000 and a further force in the city; Joseph +Johnston, whom he afterwards described as the Southern general who in all +the war gave him most trouble, had been sent by Jefferson Davis to take +supreme command in the West, and had collected 11,000 men at Jackson, the +capital of Mississippi, 45 miles east of Vicksburg. Grant was able to +take his enemy in detail. Having broken up Johnston's force he defeated +Pemberton in a series of battles. His victory at Champion's Hill on May +16, not a fortnight after Chancellorsville, conveyed to his mind the +assurance that the North would win the war. An assault on Vicksburg +failed with heavy loss. Pemberton was at last closely invested in +Vicksburg and Grant could establish safe communications with the North by +way of the lower Yazoo and up the Mississippi above its mouth. There had +been dissension between Pemberton and Johnston, who, seeing that gunboats +proved able to pass Vicksburg in any case, thought that Pemberton, whom +he could not at the moment hope to relieve, should abandon Vicksburg and +try to save his army. Long before Johnston could be sufficiently +reinforced to attack Grant, Grant's force had been raised to 71,000. On +July 4, 1863, the day of the annual commemoration of national +Independence, Vicksburg was surrendered. Its garrison, who had suffered +severely, were well victualled by Grant and allowed to go free on parole. +Pemberton in his vexation treated Grant with peculiar insolence, which +provoked a singular exhibition of the conqueror's good temper to him; and +in his despatches to the President, Grant mentioned nothing with greater +pride than the absence of a word or a sign on the part of his men which +could hurt the feelings of the fallen. Johnston was forced to abandon +the town of Jackson with its large stores to Sherman, but could not be +pursued in his retreat. On July 9, five days later, the defender of Port +Hudson, invested shortly before by Banks, who had not force enough for an +assault, heard the news of Vicksburg and surrendered. Lincoln could now +boast to the North that "the Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the +sea." + +At the very hour when Vicksburg was surrendered Lincoln had been issuing +the news of another victory won in the preceding three days, which, along +with the capture of Vicksburg, marked the turning point of the war. For +more than a month after the battle of Chancellorsville the two opposing +armies in the East had lain inactive. The Conscription Law, with which +we must deal later, had recently been passed, and various elements of +discontent and disloyalty in the North showed a great deal of activity. +It seems that Jefferson Davis at first saw no political advantage in the +military risk of invading the North. Lee thought otherwise, and was +eager to follow up his success. At last, early in June, 1863, he started +northward. This time he aimed at the great industrial regions of +Pennsylvania, hoping also while assailing them to draw Hooker further +from Washington. Hooker, on first learning that Lee had crossed the +Rappahannock, entertained the thought of himself going south of it and +attacking Richmond. Lincoln dissuaded him, since he might be "entangled +upon the river, like an ox jumped half over a fence"; he could not take +Richmond for weeks, and his communications might be cut; besides, Lincoln +added, his true objective point throughout was Lee's army and not +Richmond. Hooker's later movements, in conformity with what he could +gather of Lee's movements, were prudent and skilful. He rejected a later +suggestion of Lincoln's that he should strike quickly at the most +assailable point in Lee's lengthening line of communications, and he was +wise, for Lee could live on the country he was traversing, and Hooker now +aimed at covering Philadelphia or Baltimore and Washington, according to +the direction which Lee might take, watching all the while for the moment +to strike. He found himself hampered in some details by probably +injudicious orders of his superior, Halleck, and became irritable and +querulous; Lincoln had to exercise his simple arts to keep him to his +duty and to soothe him, and was for the moment successful. Suddenly on +June 27, with a battle in near prospect, Hooker sent in his resignation; +probably he meant it, but there was no time to debate the matter. +Probably he had lost confidence in himself, as he did before at +Chancellorsville. Lincoln evidently judged that his state of mind made +it wise to accept this resignation. He promptly appointed in Hooker's +place one of his subordinates, General George Meade, a lean, tall, +studious, somewhat sharp-tongued man, not brilliant or popular or the +choice that the army would have expected, but with a record in previous +campaigns which made him seem to Lincoln trustworthy, as he was. A +subordinate command in which he could really distinguish himself was +later found for Hooker, who now took leave of his army in words of marked +generosity towards Meade. All this while there was great excitement in +the North. Urgent demands had been raised for the recall of McClellan, a +course of which, Lincoln justly observed, no one could measure the +inconvenience so well as he. + +Lee was now feeling his way, somewhat in the dark as to his enemy's +movements, because he had despatched most of his cavalry upon raiding +expeditions towards the important industrial centre of Harrisburg. Meade +continued on a parallel course to him, with his army spread out to guard +against any movements of Lee's to the eastward. Each commander would +have preferred to fight the other upon the defensive. Suddenly on July +1, three days after Meade had taken command, a chance collision took +place north of the town of Gettysburg between the advance guards of the +two armies. It developed into a general engagement, of which the result +must partly depend on the speed with which each commander could bring up +the remainder of his army. On the first day Lee achieved a decided +success. The Northern troops were driven back upon steep heights just +south of Gettysburg, of which the contour made it difficult for the enemy +to co-ordinate his movements in any attack on them. Here Meade, who when +the battle began was ten miles away and did not expect it, was able by +the morning of the 2nd or during that day to bring up his full force; and +here, contrary to his original choice of a position for bringing on a +battle, he made his stand. The attack planned by Lee on the following +day must, in his opinion, afterwards have been successful if "Stonewall" +Jackson had been alive and with him. As it was, his most brilliant +remaining subordinate, Longstreet, disapproved of any assault, and on +this and the following day obeyed his orders reluctantly and too slowly. +On July 3, 1863, Lee renewed his attack. In previous battles the +Northern troops had been contending with invisible enemies in woods; now, +after a heavy cannonade, the whole Southern line could be seen advancing +in the open to a desperate assault. This attack was crushed by the +Northern fire. First and last in the fighting round Gettysburg the North +lost 23,000 out of about 93,000 men, and the South about an equal number +out of 78,000. The net result was that, after a day's delay, Lee felt +compelled to retreat. Nothing but an actual victory would have made it +wise for him to persist in his adventurous invasion. + +The importance of this, which has been remembered as the chief battle of +the war, must be estimated rather by the peril from which the North was +delivered than by the results it immediately reaped. Neither on July 3 +nor during Lee's subsequent retreat did Meade follow up his advantage +with the boldness to which Lincoln, in the midst of his congratulations, +exhorted him. On July 12 Lee recrossed the Potomac. Meade on the day +before had thought of attacking him, but desisted on the advice of the +majority in a council of war. That council of war, as Lincoln said, +should never have been held. Its decision was demonstrably wrong, since +it rested on the hope that Lee would himself attack. Lincoln writhed at +a phrase in Meade's general orders about "driving the invader from our +soil." "Will our generals," he exclaimed in private, "never get that +idea out of their heads? The whole country is our soil." Meade, +however, unlike McClellan, was only cautious, not lukewarm, nor without a +mind of his own. The army opposed to him was much larger than that which +McClellan failed to overwhelm after Antietam. He had offered to resign +when he inferred Lincoln's dissatisfaction from a telegram. Lincoln +refused this, and made it clear through another officer that his strong +opinion as to what might have been done did not imply ingratitude or want +of confidence towards "a brave and skilful officer, and a true man." +Characteristically he relieved his sense of Meade's omissions in a letter +of most lucid criticism, and characteristically he never sent it. Step +by step Meade moved on Lee's track into the enemy's country. Indecisive +manoeuvres on both sides continued over four months. Lee was forced over +the Rappahannock, then over the Rapidan; Meade followed him, found his +army in peril, and prudently and promptly withdrew. In December the two +armies went into winter quarters on the two sides of the Rappahannock to +await the opening of a very different campaign when the next spring was +far advanced. + +The autumn months of 1863 witnessed in the Middle West a varying conflict +ending in a Northern victory hardly less memorable than those of +Gettysburg and Vicksburg. At last, after the fall of Vicksburg, +Rosecrans in Middle Tennessee found himself ready to advance. By skilful +manoeuvres, in the difficult country where the Tennessee River cuts the +Cumberland mountains and the parallel ranges which run from north-east to +south-west behind, he turned the flank of Bragg's position at Chattanooga +and compelled him to evacuate that town in the beginning of September. +Bragg, as he retreated, succeeded in getting false reports as to his +movements and the condition of his army conveyed to Rosecrans, who +accordingly followed him up in an incautious manner. By this time the +bulk of the forces that had been used against Vicksburg should have been +brought to support Rosecrans. Halleck, however, at first scattered them +for purposes which he thought important in the West. After a while, +however, one part of the army at Vicksburg was brought back to General +Burnside in Ohio, from whom it had been borrowed. Burnside accomplished +the very advance by Lexington, in Kentucky, over the mountains into +Eastern Tennessee, which Lincoln had so long desired for the relief of +the Unionists there, and he was able to hold his ground, defeating at +Knoxville a little later an expedition under Longstreet which was sent to +dislodge him. Other portions of the Western army were at last ordered to +join Rosecrans, but did not reach him before he had met with disaster. +For the Confederate authorities, eager to retrieve their losses, sent +every available reinforcement to Bragg, and he was shortly able to turn +back towards Chattanooga with over 71,000 men against the 57,000 with +which Rosecrans, scattering his troops in false security, was pursuing +him. The two armies came upon one another, without clear expectation, +upon the Chicamauga Creek beyond the ridge which lies south-east of +Chattanooga. The battle fought among the woods and hills by Chicamauga +on September 19 and 20 surpassed any other in the war in the heaviness of +the loss on each side. On the second day Bragg's manoeuvres broke +Rosecrans' line, and only an extraordinarily gallant stand by Thomas with +a part of the line, in successive positions of retreat, prevented Bragg +from turning the hasty retirement of the remainder into a disastrous +rout. As it was, Rosecrans made good his retreat to Chattanooga, but +there he was in danger of being completely cut off. A corps was promptly +detached from Meade in Virginia, placed under Hooker, and sent to relieve +him. Rosecrans, who in a situation of real difficulty seems to have had +no resourcefulness, was replaced in his command by Thomas. Grant was +appointed to supreme command of all the forces in the West and ordered to +Chattanooga. There, after many intricate operations on either side, a +great battle was eventually fought on November 24 and 25, 1863. Grant +had about 60,000 men; Bragg, who had detached Longstreet for his vain +attack on Burnside, had only 33,000, but he had one steep and entrenched +ridge behind another on which to stand. The fight was marked by notable +incidents--Hooker's "battle above the clouds"; and the impulse by which +apparently with no word of command, Thomas' corps, tired of waiting while +Sherman advanced upon the one flank and Hooker upon the other, arose and +carried a ridge which the enemy and Grant himself had regarded as +impregnable. It ended in a rout of the Confederates, which was +energetically followed up. Bragg's army was broken and driven right back +into Georgia. To sum up the events of the year, the one serious invasion +of the North by the South had failed, and the dominion on which the +Confederacy had any real hold was now restricted to the Atlantic States, +Alabama, and a part of the State of Mississippi. + +At this point, at which the issue of the war, if it were only pursued, +could not be doubted, and at which, as it happens, the need of Lincoln's +personal intervention in military matters became greatly diminished, we +may try to obtain a general impression of his wisdom, or want of it, in +such affairs. The closeness and keen intelligence with which he followed +the war is undoubted, but could only be demonstrated by a lengthy +accumulation of evidence. The larger strategy of the North, sound in the +main, was of course the product of more than one co-operating mind, but +as his was undoubtedly the dominant will of his Administration, so too it +seems likely that, with his early and sustained grasp of the general +problem, he contributed not a little to the clearness and consistency of +the strategical plans. The amount of the forces raised was for long, as +we shall see later, beyond his control, and, in the distribution of what +he had to the best effect, his own want of knowledge and the poor +judgment of his earlier advisers seem to have caused some errors. He +started with the evident desire to put himself almost unreservedly in the +hands of the competent military counsellors, and he was able in the end +to do so; but for a long intermediate period, as we have seen, he was +compelled as a responsible statesman to forego this wish. It was all +that time his function first to pick out, with very little to go by, the +best officers he could find, replacing them with better when he could; +and secondly to give them just so much direction, and no more, as his +wisdom at a distance and their more expert skill upon the spot made +proper. In each of these respects his occasional mistakes are plain +enough, but the evidence, upon which he has often been thought capable of +setting aside sound military considerations causelessly or in obedience +to interested pressure, breaks down when the facts of any imputed +instance are known. It is manifest that he gained rapidly both in +knowledge of the men he dealt with and in the firm kindness with which he +treated them. It is remarkable that, with his ever-burning desire to see +vigour and ability displayed, he could watch so constantly as he did for +the precise opportunity or the urgent necessity before he made changes in +command. It is equally remarkable that, with his decided and often right +views as to what should be done, his advice was always offered with equal +deference and plainness. "Quite possibly I was wrong both then and now," +he once wrote to Hooker, "but in the great responsibility resting upon +me, I cannot be entirely silent. Now, all I ask is that you will be in +such mood that we can get into action the best cordial judgment of +yourself and General Halleck, with my poor mite added, if indeed he and +you shall think it entitled to any consideration at all." The man whose +habitual attitude was this, and who yet could upon the instant take his +own decision, may be presumed to have been wise in many cases where we do +not know his reasons. Few statesmen, perhaps, have so often stood +waiting and refrained themselves from a firm will and not from the want +of it, and for the sake of the rare moment of action. + +The passing of the crisis in the war was fittingly commemorated by a +number of State Governors who combined to institute a National Cemetery +upon the field of Gettysburg. It was dedicated on November 19, 1863. +The speech of the occasion was delivered by Edward Everett, the +accomplished man once already mentioned as the orator of highest repute +in his day. The President was bidden then to say a few words at the +close. The oration with which for two hours Everett delighted his vast +audience charms no longer, though it is full of graceful sentiment and +contains a very reasonable survey of the rights and wrongs involved in +the war, and of its progress till then. The few words of Abraham Lincoln +were such as perhaps sank deep, but left his audience unaware that a +classic had been spoken which would endure with the English language. +The most literary man present was also Lincoln's greatest admirer, young +John Hay. To him it seemed that Mr. Everett spoke perfectly, and "the +old man" gracefully for him. These were the few words: "Four score and +seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, +conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are +created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether +that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long +endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to +dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who +here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether +fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we +cannot dedicate--we cannot consecrate--we cannot hallow--this ground. +The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it +far above our poor power to add or to detract. The world will little +note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what +they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to +the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly +advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task +remaining before us--that from these honoured dead we take increased +devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of +devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died +in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; +and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall +not perish from the earth." + + +2. _Conscription and the Politics of 1863_. + +The events of our day may tempt us to underestimate the magnitude of the +American Civil War, not only in respect of its issues, but in respect of +the efforts that were put forth. Impartial historians declare that "no +previous war had ever in the same time entailed upon the combatants such +enormous sacrifices of life and wealth." Even such battles as Malplaquet +had not rivalled in carnage the battles of this war, and in the space of +these four years there took place a number of engagements--far more than +can be recounted here--in many of which, as at Gettysburg, the casualties +amounted to a quarter of the whole forces engaged. The Southern armies, +especially towards the end of the war, were continually being pitted +against vastly superior numbers; the Northern armies, whether we look at +the whole war as one vast enterprise of conquest or at almost any +important battle save that of Gettysburg, were as continually confronted +with great obstacles in the matter of locality and position. In this +case, of a new and not much organised country unprepared for war, exact +or intelligible figures as to losses or as to the forces raised must not +be expected, but, according to what seems to be a fair estimate, the +total deaths on the Northern and the Southern side directly due to the +war stood to the population of the whole country at its beginning as at +least 1 to 32. Of these deaths about half occurred on the Northern and +half on the Southern side; this, however, implies that in proportion to +its population the South lost twice as heavily as the North. + +Neither side obtained the levies of men that it needed without resort to +compulsion. The South, in which this necessity either arose more quickly +or was seen more readily, had called up before the end of the war its +whole available manhood. In the North the proportion of effort and +sacrifice required was obviously less, and, at least at one critical +moment, it was disastrously under-estimated. A system of compulsion, to +be used in default of volunteering, was brought into effect half-way +through the war. Under this system there were in arms at the end of the +war 980,000 white Northern soldiers, who probably stood to the population +at that time in as high a proportion as 1 to 25, and everything was in +readiness for calling up a vastly greater number if necessary. After +twenty months of war, when the purely voluntary system still existed but +was proving itself inadequate to make good the wastage of the armies, the +number in arms for the North was 860,717, perhaps as much as 1 in 27 of +the population then. It would be useless to evade the question which at +once suggests itself, whether the results of voluntary enlistment in this +country during the present war have surpassed to the extent to which they +undoubtedly ought to have surpassed the standard set by the North in the +Civil War. For these two cases furnish the only instances in which the +institution of voluntary enlistment has been submitted to a severe test +by Governments reluctant to abandon it. The two cases are of course not +strictly comparable. Our own country in this matter had the advantages +of riper organisation, political and social, and of the preparatory +education given it by the Territorials and by Lord Roberts. The +extremity of the need was in our case immediately apparent; and the cause +at issue appealed with the utmost simplicity and intensity to every brave +and to every gentle nature. In the Northern States, on the other hand, +apart from all other considerations, there were certain to be sections, +local, racial, and political, upon which the national cause could take no +very firm hold. That this was so proves no unusual prevalence of +selfishness or of stupidity; and the apathy of such sections of the +people, like that of smaller sections in our own case, sets in a brighter +light the devotion which made so many eager to give their all. Moreover, +the general patriotism of the Northern people is not to be judged by the +failure of the purely voluntary system, but rather, as will be seen +later, by the success of the system which succeeded it. There is in our +case no official statement of the exact number serving on any particular +day, but the facts which are published make it safe to conclude that, at +the end of fifteen months of war, when no compulsion was in force, the +soldiers then in service and drawn from the United Kingdom alone amounted +to 1 in 17 of the population. The population in this case is one of +which a smaller proportion are of military age than was the case in the +Northern States, with their great number of immigrants. The apparent +effect of these figures would be a good deal heightened if it were +possible to make a correct addition in the case of each country for the +numbers killed or disabled in war up to the dates in question and for the +numbers serving afloat. Moreover, the North, when it was driven to +abandon the purely voluntary system, had not reached the point at which +the withdrawal of men from civil occupations could have been regarded +among the people as itself a national danger, or at which the Government +was compelled to deter some classes from enlisting; new industries +unconnected with the war were all the while springing up, and the +production and export of foodstuffs were increasing rapidly. For the +reasons which have been stated, there is nothing invidious in thus +answering an unavoidable question. Judged by any previous standard of +voluntary national effort, the North answered the test well. Each of our +related peoples must look upon the rally of its fathers and grandfathers +in the one case, its brothers and sons in the other, with mingled +feelings in which pride predominates, the most legitimate source of pride +in our case being the unity of the Empire. To each the question must +present itself whether the nations, democratic and otherwise, which have +followed from the first, or, like the South, have rapidly adopted a +different principle, have not, in this respect, a juster cause of pride. +In some of these countries, by common and almost unquestioning consent, +generation after generation of youths and men in their prime have held +themselves at the instant disposal of their country if need should arise; +and, in the absence of need and the absence of excitement, have +contentedly borne the appreciable sacrifice of training. With this it is +surely necessary to join a further question, whether the compulsion +which, under conscription, the public imposes on individuals is +comparable in its harshness to the sacrifice and the conflict of duties +imposed by the voluntary system upon the best people in all classes as +such. + +From the manner in which the war arose it will easily be understood that +the South was quicker than the North in shaping its policy for raising +armies. Before a shot had been fired at Fort Sumter, and when only seven +of the ten Southern States had yet seceded, President Jefferson Davis had +at his command more than double the number of the United States Army as +it then was. He had already lawful authority to raise that number to +nearly three times as many. And, though there was protest in some +States, and some friction between the Confederate War Department and the +State militias, on the whole the seceding States, in theory jealous of +their rights, submitted very readily in questions of defence to the +Confederacy. + +It is not clear how far the Southern people displayed their warlike +temper by a sustained flow of voluntary enlistment; but their Congress +showed the utmost promptitude in granting every necessary power to their +President, and on April 16, 1862, a sweeping measure of compulsory +service was passed. The President of the Confederacy could call into the +service any white resident in the South between the ages of eighteen and +thirty-five, with certain statutory exemptions. There was, of course, +trouble about the difficult question of exemptions, and under conflicting +pressure the Confederate Congress made and unmade various laws about +them. After a time all statutory exemptions were done away, and it was +left entirely in the discretion of the Southern President to say what men +were required in various departments of civil life. The liability to +serve was extended in September, 1862, to all between eighteen and +forty-five, and finally in February, 1864, to all between seventeen and +fifty. The rigorous conscription which necessity required could not be +worked without much complaint. There was a party disposed to regard the +law as unconstitutional. The existence of sovereign States within the +Confederacy was very likely an obstacle to the local and largely +voluntary organisation for deciding claims which can exist in a unified +country. A Government so hard driven must, even if liberally minded, +have enforced the law with much actual hardship. A belief in the +ruthlessness of the Southern conscription penetrated to the North. If +was probably exaggerated from the temptation to suppose that secession +was the work of a tyranny and not of the Southern people. Desertion and +failure of the Conscription Law became common in the course of 1864, but +this would seem to have been due not so much to resentment at the system +as to the actual loss of a large part of the South, and the spread of a +perception that the war was now hopelessly lost. In the last extremities +of the Confederate Government the power of compulsion of course +completely broke down. But, upon the surface at least, it seems plain +that what has been called the military despotism of Jefferson Davis +rested upon the determination rather than upon the submissiveness of the +people. + +In the North, where there was double the population to draw upon, the +need for compulsion was not likely to be felt as soon. The various +influences which would later depress enlistment had hardly begun to +assert themselves, when the Government, as if to aggravate them in +advance, committed a blunder which has never been surpassed in its own +line. On April 3, 1862, recruiting was stopped dead; the central +recruiting office at Washington was closed and its staff dispersed. Many +writers agree in charging this error against Stanton. He must have been +the prime author of it, but this does not exonerate Lincoln. It was no +departmental matter, but a matter of supreme policy. Lincoln's knowledge +of human nature and his appreciation of the larger bearings of every +question might have been expected to set Stanton right, unless, indeed, +the thing was done suddenly behind his back. In any case, this must be +added to the indications seen in an earlier chapter, that Lincoln's calm +strength and sure judgment had at that time not yet reached their full +development. As for Stanton, a man of much narrower mind, but acute, +devoted, and morally fearless, kept in the War Department as a sort of +tame tiger to prey on abuses, negligences, pretensions, and political +influences, this was one among a hundred smaller erratic doings, which +his critics have never thought of as outweighing his peculiar usefulness. +His departmental point of view can easily be understood. Recruits, +embarrassingly, presented themselves much faster than they could be +organised or equipped, and an overdriven office did not pause to think +out some scheme of enlistment for deferred service. Waste had been +terrific, and Stanton did not dislike a petty economy which might shock +people in Washington. McClellan clamoured for more men--let him do +something with what he had got; Stanton, indeed, very readily became +sanguine that McClellan, once in motion, would crush the Confederacy. +Events conspired to make the mistake disastrous. In these very days the +Confederacy was about to pass its own Conscription Act. McClellan, +instead of pressing on to Richmond, sat down before Yorktown and let the +Confederate conscripts come up. Halleck was crawling southward, when a +rapid advance might have robbed the South of a large recruiting area. +The reopening of enlistment came on the top of the huge disappointment at +McClellan's failure in the peninsula. There was a creditable response to +the call which was then made for volunteers. But the disappointment of +the war continued throughout 1862; the second Bull Run; the inconclusive +sequel to Antietam; Fredericksburg; and, side by side with these events, +the long-drawn failure of Buell's and Rosecrans' operations. The spirit +of voluntary service seems to have revived vigorously enough wherever and +whenever the danger of Southern invasion became pressing, but under this +protracted depressing influence it no longer rose to the task of subduing +the South. It must be added that wages in civil employment were very +high. Lincoln, it is evident, felt this apparent failure of patriotism +sadly, but in calm retrospect it cannot seem surprising. + +In the latter part of 1862 attempts were made to use the powers of +compulsion which the several States possessed, under the antiquated laws +as to militia which existed in all of them, in order to supplement +recruiting. The number of men raised for short periods in this way is so +small that the description of the Northern armies at this time as purely +volunteer armies hardly needs qualification. It would probably be worth +no one's while to investigate the makeshift system with which the +Government, very properly, then tried to help itself out; for it speedily +and completely failed. The Conscription Act, which became law on March +3, 1863, set up for the first time an organisation for recruiting which +covered the whole country but was under the complete control of the +Federal Government. It was placed under an officer of great ability, +General J. B. Fry, formerly chief of staff to Buell, and now entitled +Provost-Marshal-General. It was his business, through provost-marshals +in a number of districts, each divisible into sub-districts as +convenience might require, to enroll all male citizens between twenty and +forty-five. He was to assign a quota, in other words a stated proportion +of the number of troops for which the Government might at any time call, +to each district, having regard to the number of previous enlistments +from each district. The management of voluntary enlistment was placed in +his hands, in order that the two methods of recruiting might be worked in +harmony. The system as a whole was quite distinct from any such system +of universal service as might have been set up beforehand in time of +peace. Compulsion only came into force in default of sufficient +volunteers from any district to provide its required number of the troops +wanted. When it came into force the "drafts" of conscripts were chosen +by lot from among those enrolled as liable for service. But there was a +way of escape from actual service. It seems, from what Lincoln wrote, to +have been looked upon as a time-honoured principle, established by +precedent in all countries, that the man on whom the lot fell might +provide a substitute if he could. The market price of a substitute (a +commodity for the provision of which a class of "substitute brokers" came +into being) proved to be about 1,000 dollars. Business or professional +men, who felt they could not be spared from home but wished to act +patriotically, did buy substitutes; but they need not have done so, for +the law contained a provision intended, as Lincoln recorded, to safeguard +poorer men against such a rise in prices. They could escape by paying +300 dollars, or 60 pounds, not, in the then state of wages, an +extravagant penalty upon an able-bodied man. The sums paid under this +provision covered the cost of the recruiting business. + +Most emphatically the Conscription Law operated mainly as a stimulus to +voluntary enlistment. The volunteer received, as the conscript did not, +a bounty from the Government; States, counties, and smaller localities, +when once a quota was assigned to them, vied with one another in filling +their quota with volunteers, and for that purpose added to the Government +bounty. It goes without saying that in a new country, with its scattered +country population and its disorganised great new towns, there were +plenty of abuses. Substitute brokers provided the wrong article; +ingenious rascals invented the trade of "bounty-jumping," and would +enlist for a bounty, desert, enlist for another bounty, and so on +indefinitely; and the number of men enrolled who were afterwards +unaccounted for was large. There was of course also grumbling of +localities at the quotas assigned to them, though no pains were spared to +assign them fairly. There was some opposition to the working of the law +after it was passed, but it was, not general, but partly the opposition +of rowdies in degraded neighbourhoods, partly factitious political +opposition, and partly seditious and openly friendly to the South. In +general the country accepted the law as a manifest military necessity. +The spirit and manner of its acceptance may be judged from the results of +any of the calls for troops under this law. For example, in December, +1864, towards the end of the war, 211,752 men were brought up to the +colours; of these it seems that 194,715 were ordinary volunteers, 10,192 +were substitutes provided by conscripts, and only 6,845 were actually +compelled men. It is perhaps more significant still that among those who +did not serve there were only 460 who paid the 300-dollar penalty, as +against the 10,192 who must have paid at least three times that sum for +substitutes. Behind the men who had been called up by the end of the war +the North had, enrolled and ready to be called, over two million men. +The North had not to suffer as the South suffered, but unquestionably in +this matter it rose to the occasion. + +The constitutional validity of the law was much questioned by +politicians, but never finally tried out on appeal to the Supreme Court. +There seems to be no room for doubt that Lincoln's own reasoning on this +matter was sound. The Constitution simply gave to Congress "power to +raise and support armies," without a word as to the particular means to +be used for the purpose; the new and extremely well-considered +Constitution of the Confederacy was in this respect the same. The +Constitution, argued Lincoln, would not have given the power of raising +armies without one word as to the mode in which it was to be exercised, +if it had not meant Congress to be the sole judge as to the mode. "The +principle," he wrote, "of the draft, which simply is involuntary or +enforced service, is not new. It has been practised in all ages of the +world. It was well known to the framers of our Constitution as one of +the modes of raising armies. . . . It had been used just before, in +establishing our independence, and it was also used under the +Constitution in 1812." In fact, as we have seen, a certain power of +compelling military service existed in each of the States and had existed +in them from the first. Their ancestors had brought the principle with +them from the old country, in which the system of the "militia ballot" +had not fallen into desuetude when they became independent. The +traditional English jealousy, which the American Colonies had imbibed, +against the military power of the Crown had never manifested itself in +any objection to the means which might be taken to raise soldiers, but in +establishing a strict control of the number which the Crown could at any +moment maintain; and this control had long been in England and had always +been in America completely effective. We may therefore treat the protest +which was raised against the law as unconstitutional, and the companion +argument that it tended towards military despotism, as having belonged to +the realm of political verbiage, and as neither founded in reason nor +addressed to living popular emotions. + +This is the way in which the Northern people, of whom a large part were, +it must be remembered, Democrats, seem to have regarded these +contentions, and a real sense, apart from these contentions, that +conscription was unnecessary or produced avoidable hardship seems +scarcely to have existed. It was probably for this reason that Lincoln +never published the address to the people, or perhaps more particularly +to the Democratic opposition, to which several references have already +been made. In the course of it he said: "At the beginning of the war, +and ever since, a variety of motives, pressing, some in one direction and +some in the other, would be presented to the mind of each man physically +fit to be a soldier, upon the combined effect of which motives he would, +or would not, voluntarily enter the service. Among these motives would +be patriotism, political bias, ambition, personal courage, love of +adventure, want of employment, and convenience, or the opposite of some +of these. We already have and have had in the service, as it appears, +substantially all that can be obtained upon this voluntary weighing of +motives. And yet we must somehow obtain more or relinquish the original +object of the contest, together with all the blood and treasure already +expended in the effort to secure it. To meet this necessity the law for +the draft has been enacted. You who do not wish to be soldiers do not +like this law. This is natural; nor does it imply want of patriotism. +Nothing can be so just and necessary as to make us like it if it is +disagreeable to us. We are prone, too, to find false arguments with +which to excuse ourselves for opposing such disagreeable things." He +proceeded to meet some of these arguments upon the lines which have +already been indicated. After speaking of the precedents for +conscription in America, he continued: "Wherein is the peculiar hardship +now? Shall we shrink from the necessary means to maintain our free +government, which our grandfathers employed to establish it and our +fathers have already once employed to maintain it? Are we degenerate? +Has the manhood of our race run out?" Unfair administration was +apprehended. "This law," he said, "belongs to a class, which class is +composed of those laws whose object is to distribute burthens or benefits +on the principle of equality. No one of these laws can ever be +practically administered with that exactness which can be conceived of in +the mind. A tax law . . . will be a dead letter if no one will be +compelled to pay until it can be shown that every other one will be +compelled to pay in precisely the same proportion according to value; +nay, even it will be a dead letter if no one can be compelled to pay +until it is certain that every other one will pay at all. . . . This +sort of difficulty applies in full force to the practical administration +of the draft law. In fact, the difficulty is greater in the case of the +draft law"; and he proceeded to state the difficulties. "In all these +points," he continued, "errors will occur in spite of the utmost +fidelity. The Government is bound to administer the law with such an +approach to exactness as is usual in analogous cases, and as entire good +faith and fidelity will reach." Errors, capable of correction, should, +he promised, be corrected when pointed out; but he concluded: "With these +views and on these principles, I feel bound to tell you it is my purpose +to see the draft law faithfully executed." It was his way, as has been +seen, sometimes to set his thoughts very plainly on paper and to consider +afterwards the wisdom of publishing them. This paper never saw the light +till after his death. It is said that some scruple as to the custom in +his office restrained him from sending it out, but this scruple probably +weighed with him the more because he saw that the sincere people whom he +had thought of addressing needed no such appeal. It was surely a wise +man who, writing so wisely, could see the greater wisdom of silence. + +The opposition to the Conscription Law may be treated simply as one +element in the propaganda of the official Opposition to the +Administration. The opposition to such a measure which we might possibly +have expected to arise from churches, or from schools of thought +independent of the ordinary parties, does not seem, as a matter of fact, +to have arisen. The Democratic party had, as we have seen, revived in +force in the latter part of 1862. Persons, ambitious, from whatever +mixture of motives, of figuring as leaders of opposition during a war +which they did not condemn, found a public to which to appeal, mainly +because the war was not going well. They found a principle of opposition +satisfactory to themselves in condemning the Proclamation of +Emancipation. (It was significant that McClellan shortly after the +Proclamation issued a General Order enjoining obedience to the Government +and adding the hint that "the remedy for political errors, if any are +committed, is to be found only in the action of the people at the +polls.") In the curious creed which respectable men, with whom +allegiance to an ancient party could be a powerful motive at such a time, +were driven to construct for themselves, enforcement of the duty to +defend the country and liberation of the enemy's slaves appeared as twin +offences against the sacred principles of constitutional freedom. It +would have been monstrous to say that most of the Democrats were opposed +to the war. Though a considerable number had always disliked it and now +found courage to speak loudly, the bulk were as loyal to the Union as +those very strong Republicans like Greeley, who later on despaired of +maintaining it. But there were naturally Democrats for whom a chance now +appeared in politics, and who possessed that common type of political +mind that meditates deeply on minor issues and is inflamed by zeal +against minor evils. Such men began to debate with their consciences +whether the wicked Government might not become more odious than the +enemy. There arose, too, as there often arises in war time, a fraternal +feeling between men who hated the war and men who reflected how much +better they could have if waged it themselves. + +There was, of course, much in the conduct of the Government which called +for criticism, and on that account it was a grievous pity that +independence should have stultified itself by reviving in any form the +root principle of party government, and recognising as the best critics +of the Administration men who desired to take its place. More useful +censure of the Government at that time might have come from men who, if +they had axes to grind, would have publicly thrown them away. There were +two points which especially called for criticism, apart from military +administration, upon which, as it happened, Lincoln knew more than his +critics knew and more than he could say. One of these points was +extravagance and corruption in the matter of army contracts and the like; +these evils were dangerously prevalent, but members of the Cabinet were +as anxious to prevent them as any outside critic could be, and it was +friendly help, not censure, that was required. The other point was the +exercise of martial law, a difficult question, upon which a word must +here be said, but upon which only those could usefully have spoken out +whose general support of the Government was pronounced and sincere. + +In almost every rebellion or civil war statesmen and the military +officers under them are confronted with the need, for the sake of the +public safety or even of ordinary justice, of rules and procedure which +the law in peace time would abhor. In great conflicts, such as our own +wars after the French Revolution and the American Civil War, statesmen +such as Pitt and Lincoln, capable of handling such a problem well, have +had their hands full of yet more urgent matters. The puzzling part of +the problem does not lie in the neighbourhood of the actual fighting, +where for the moment there can be no law but the will of the commander, +but in the districts more distantly affected, or in the period when the +war is smouldering out. Lincoln's Government had at first to guard +itself against dangerous plots which could be scented but not proved in +Washington; later on it had to answer such questions as this: What should +be done when a suspected agent of the enemy is vaguely seen to be working +against enlistment, when an attack by the civil mob upon the recruits is +likely to result, and when the local magistrate and police are not much +to be trusted? There is no doubt that Seward at the beginning, and +Stanton persistently, and zealous local commanders now and then solved +such problems in a very hasty fashion, or that Lincoln throughout was far +more anxious to stand by vigorous agents of the Government than to +correct them. + +Lincoln claimed that as Commander-in-Chief he had during the continuance +of civil war a lawful authority over the lives and liberties of all +citizens, whether loyal or otherwise, such as any military commander +exercises in hostile country occupied by his troops. He held that there +was no proper legal remedy for persons injured under this authority +except by impeachment of himself. He held, further, that this authority +extended to every place to which the action of the enemy in any form +extended--that is, to the whole country. This he took to be the doctrine +of English Common Law, and he contended that the Constitution left this +doctrine in full force. Whatever may be said as to his view of the +Common Law doctrine, his construction of the Constitution would now be +held by every one to have been wrong. Plainly read, the Constitution +swept away the whole of that somewhat undefined doctrine of martial law +which may be found in some decisions of our Courts, and it did much more. +Every Legislature in the British Empire can, subject to the veto of the +Crown, enact whatever exceptional measures of public safety it thinks +necessary in an emergency. The Constitution restricted this legislative +power within the very narrowest limits. There is, moreover, a recognised +British practice, initiated by Wellington and Castlereagh, by which all +question as to the authority of martial law is avoided; a governor or +commander during great public peril is encouraged to consider what is +right and necessary, not what is lawful, knowing that if necessary there +will be enquiry into his conduct afterwards, but knowing also that, +unless he acts quite unconscionably, he and his agents will be protected +by an Act of Indemnity from the legal consequences of whatever they have +done in good faith. The American Constitution would seem to render any +such Act of Indemnity impossible. In a strictly legal sense, therefore, +the power which Lincoln exercised must be said to have been usurped. The +arguments by which he defended his own legality read now as good +arguments on what the law should have been, but bad arguments on what the +law was. He did not, perhaps, attach extreme importance to this legal +contention, for he declared plainly that he was ready to break the law in +minor matters rather than let the whole fabric of law go to ruin. This, +however, does not prove that he was insincere when he pleaded legal as +well as moral justification; he probably regarded the Constitution in a +manner which modern lawyers find it difficult to realise; he probably +applied in construing it a principle such as Hamilton laid down for the +construction of statutes, that it was "qualified and controlled" by the +Common Law and by considerations of "convenience" and of "reason" and of +the policy which its framers, as wise and honest men, would have followed +in present circumstances; he probably would have adapted to the occasion +Hamilton's position that "construction may be made against the letter of +the statute to render it agreeable to natural justice." + +In the exercise of his supposed prerogative Lincoln sanctioned from +beginning to end of the war the arrest of many suspected dangerous +persons under what may be called "letters de cachet" from Seward and +afterwards from Stanton. He publicly professed in 1863 his regret that +he had not caused this to be done in cases, such as those of Lee and +Joseph Johnston, where it had not been done. When agitation arose on the +matter in the end of 1862 many political prisoners were, no doubt wisely, +released. Congress then proceeded, in 1863, to exercise such powers in +the matter as the Constitution gave it by an Act suspending, where the +President thought fit, the privilege of the writ of _habeas corpus_. A +decision of the Supreme Court, delivered curiously enough by Lincoln's +old friend David Davis, showed that the real effect of this Act, so far +as valid under the Constitution, was ridiculously small (see _Ex parte +Milligan_, 4 Russell, 2). In any case the Act was hedged about with many +precautions. These were entirely disregarded by the Government, which +proceeded avowedly upon Lincoln's theory of martial law. The whole +country was eventually proclaimed to be under martial law, and many +persons were at the orders of the local military commander tried and +punished by court-martial for offences, such as the discouragement of +enlistment or the encouragement of desertion, which might not have been +punishable by the ordinary law, or of which the ordinary Courts might not +have convicted them. This fresh outbreak of martial law must in large +part be ascribed to Lincoln's determination that the Conscription Act +should not be frustrated; but apart from offences relating to enlistment +there was from 1863 onwards no lack of seditious plots fomented by the +agents of the Confederacy in Canada, and there were several secret +societies, "knights" of this, that, or the other. Lincoln, it is true, +scoffed at these, but very often the general on the spot thought +seriously of them, and the extreme Democratic leader, Vallandigham, +boasted that there were half a million men in the North enrolled in such +seditious organisations. Drastic as the Government proceedings were, the +opposition to them died down before the popular conviction that strong +measures were necessary, and the popular appreciation that the +blood-thirsty despot "King Abraham I.," as some Democrats were pleased to +call him, was not of the stuff of which despots were made and was among +the least blood-thirsty men living. The civil Courts made no attempt to +interfere; they said that, whatever the law, they could not in fact +resist generals commanding armies. British Courts would in many cases +have declined to interfere, not on the ground that the general had the +might, but on the ground that he had the right; yet, it seems, they would +not quite have relinquished their hold on the matter, but would have held +themselves free to consider whether the district in which martial law was +exercised was materially affected by the state of war or not. The legal +controversy ended in a manner hardly edifying to the layman; in the +course of 1865 the Supreme Court solemnly tried out the question of the +right of one Milligan to a writ of _habeas corpus_. At that time the +war, the only ground on which the right could have been refused him, had +for some months been ended; and nobody in court knew or cared whether +Milligan was then living to enjoy his right or had been shot long before. + +Save in a few cases of special public interest, Lincoln took no personal +part in the actual administration of these coercive measures. So great a +tax was put upon his time, and indeed his strength, by the personal +consideration of cases of discipline in the army, that he could not +possibly have undertaken a further labour of the sort. Moreover, he +thought it more necessary for the public good to give steady support to +his ministers and generals than to check their action in detail. He +contended that no great injustice was likely to arise. Very likely he +was wrong; not only Democrats, but men like Senator John Sherman, a +strong and sensible Republican, thought him wrong. There are evil +stories about the secret police under Stanton, and some records of the +proceedings of the courts-martial, composed sometimes of the officers +least useful at the front, are not creditable. Very likely, as John +Sherman thought, the ordinary law would have met the needs of the case in +many districts. The mere number of the political prisoners, who counted +by thousands, proves nothing, for the least consideration of the +circumstances will show that the active supporters of the Confederacy in +the North must have been very numerous. Nor does it matter much that, to +the horror of some people, there were persons of station, culture, and +respectability among the sufferers; persons of this kind were not likely +to be exposed to charges of disloyal conduct if they were actively loyal. +Obscure and ignorant men are much more likely to have become the innocent +victims of spiteful accusers or vile agents of police. Doubtless this +might happen; but that does not of itself condemn Lincoln for having +maintained an extreme form of martial law. The particular kind of +oppression that is likely to have occurred is one against which the +normal procedure of justice and police in America is said to-day to +provide no sufficient safeguard. It is almost certain that the regular +course of law would have exposed the public weal to formidable dangers; +but it by no means follows that it would have saved individuals from +wrong. The risk that many individuals would be grievously wronged was at +least not very great. The Government was not pursuing men for erroneous +opinions, but for certain very definite kinds of action dangerous to the +State. These were indeed kinds of action with which Lincoln thought +ordinary Courts of justice "utterly incompetent" to deal, and he avowed +that he aimed rather at preventing intended actions than at punishing +them when done. To some minds this will seem to be an attitude dangerous +to liberty, but he was surely justified when he said, "In such cases the +purposes of men are much more easily understood than in cases of ordinary +crime. The man who stands by and says nothing when the peril of his +Government is discussed cannot be misunderstood. If not hindered, he is +sure to help the enemy, much more if he talks ambiguously--talks for his +country with 'buts' and 'ifs' and 'ands.'" In any case, Lincoln stood +clearly and boldly for repressing speech or act, that could help the +enemy, with extreme vigour and total disregard for the legalities of +peace time. A little later on we shall see fully whether this imported +on his part any touch whatever of the ferocity which it may seem to +suggest. + +The Democratic opposition which made some headway in the first half of +1863 comprised a more extreme opposition prevailing in the West and led +by Clement Vallandigham, a Congressman from Ohio, and a milder opposition +led by Horatio Seymour, who from the end of 1862 to the end of 1864, when +he failed of re-election, was Governor of New York State. The extreme +section were often called "Copperheads," after a venomous snake of that +name. Strictly, perhaps, this political term should be limited to the +few who went so far as to desire the victory of the South; more loosely +it was applied to a far larger number who went no further than to say +that the war should be stopped. This demand, it must be observed, was +based upon the change of policy shown in the Proclamation of +Emancipation. "The war for the Union," said Vallandigham in Congress in +January, 1863, "is in your hands a most bloody and costly failure. War +for the Union was abandoned; war for the negro openly begun. With what +success? Let the dead at Fredericksburg answer.--Ought this war to +continue? I answer no--not a day, not an hour. What then? Shall we +separate? Again I answer, no, no, no.--Stop fighting. Make an +armistice. Accept at once friendly foreign mediation." And further: +"The secret but real purpose of the war was to abolish slavery in the +States, and with it the change of our present democratical form of +government into an imperial despotism." This was in no sense treason; it +was merely humbug. The alleged design to establish despotism, chiefly +revealed at that moment by the liberation of slaves, had of course no +existence. Equally false, as will be seen later, was the whole +suggestion that any peace could have been had with the South except on +the terms of separation. Vallandigham, a demagogue of real vigour, had +perhaps so much honesty as is compatible with self-deception; at any +rate, upon his subsequent visit to the South his intercourse with +Southern leaders was conducted on the footing that the Union should be +restored. But his character inspired no respect. Burnside, now +commanding the troops in Ohio, held that violent denunciation of the +Government in a tone that tended to demoralise the troops was treason, +since it certainly was not patriotism, and when in May, 1863, +Vallandigham made a very violent and offensive speech in Ohio he had him +arrested in his house at night, and sent him before a court-martial which +imprisoned him. Loud protest was raised by every Democrat. This worry +came upon Lincoln just after Chancellorsville. He regretted Burnside's +action--later on he had to reverse the rash suppression of a newspaper by +which Burnside provoked violent indignation--but on this occasion he +would only say in public that he "regretted the necessity" of such +action. Evidently he thought it his duty to support a well-intentioned +general against a dangerous agitator. The course which after some +consideration he took was of the nature of a practical joke, perhaps +justified by its success. Vallandigham was indeed released; he was taken +to the front and handed over to the Confederates as if he had been an +exchanged prisoner of war. In reply to demands from the Democratic +organisation in Ohio that Vallandigham might be allowed to return home, +Lincoln offered to consent if their leaders would sign a pledge to +support the war and promote the efficiency of the army. This they called +an evasion. Vallandigham made his way to Canada and conducted intrigues +from thence. In his absence he was put up for the governorship of Ohio +in November, but defeated by a huge majority, doubtless the larger +because of Gettysburg and Vicksburg. The next year he suddenly returned +home, braving the chance of arrest, and, probably to his disappointment, +Lincoln let him be. In reply to protests against Vallandigham's arrest +which had been sent by meetings in Ohio and New York, Lincoln had written +clear defences of his action, from which the foregoing account of his +views on martial law has been taken. In one of them was a sentence which +probably went further with the people of the North than any other: "Must +I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a +hair of a wily agitator who induces him to desert?" There may or may not +be some fallacy lurking here, but it must not be supposed that this +sentence came from a pleader's ingenuity. It was the expression of a man +really agonised by his weekly task of confirming sentences on deserters +from the army. + +Governor Seymour was a more presentable antagonist than Vallandigham. He +did not propose to stop the war. On the contrary, his case was that the +war could only be effectively carried on by a law-abiding Government, +which would unite the people by maintaining the Constitution, not, as the +Radicals argued, by the flagitious policy of freeing the slaves. It +should be added that he was really concerned at the corruption which was +becoming rife, for which war contracts gave some scope, and which, with a +critic's obliviousness to the limitations of a human force, he thought +the most heavily-burdened Administration of its time could easily have +put down. With a little imagination it is easy to understand the +difficult position of the orthodox Democrats, who two years before had +voted against restricting the extension of slavery, and were now asked +for the sake of the Union to support a Government which was actually +abolishing slavery by martial law. Also the attitude of the thoroughly +self-righteous partisan is perfectly usual. Many of Governor Seymour's +utterances were fair enough, and much of his conduct was patriotic +enough. His main proceedings can be briefly summarised. His election as +Governor in the end of 1862 was regarded as an important event, the +appearance of a new leader holding an office of the greatest influence. +Lincoln, assuming, as he had a right to do, the full willingness of +Seymour to co-operate in prosecuting the war, did the simplest and best +thing. He wrote and invited Seymour after his inauguration in March, +1863, to a personal conference with himself as to the ways in which, with +their divergent views, they could best co-operate. The Governor waited +three weeks before he acknowledged this letter. He then wrote and +promised a full reply later. He never sent this reply. He protested +energetically and firmly against the arrest of Vallandigham. In July, +1863, the Conscription Act began to be put in force in New York city; +then occurred the only serious trouble that ever did occur under the Act; +and it was very serious. A mob of foreign immigrants, mainly Irish, put +a forcible stop to the proceeding of the draft. It set fire to the +houses of prominent Republicans, and prevented the fire brigade from +saving them. It gave chase to all negroes that it met, beating some to +death, stringing up others to trees and lamp-posts and burning them as +they hung. It burned down an orphanage for coloured children after the +police had with difficulty saved its helpless inmates. Four days of +rioting prevailed throughout the city before the arrival of fresh troops +restored order. After an interval of prudent length the draft was +successfully carried out. Governor Seymour arrived in the city during +the riots. He harangued this defiled mob in gentle terms, promising +them, if they would be good, to help them in securing redress of the +grievance to which he attributed their conduct. Thenceforward to the end +of his term of office he persecuted Lincoln with complaints as to the +unfairness of the quota imposed on certain districts under the +Conscription Act. It is true that he also protested on presumably +sincere constitutional grounds against the Act itself, begging Lincoln to +suspend its enforcement till its validity had been determined by the +Courts. As to this Lincoln most properly agreed to facilitate, if he +could, an appeal to the Supreme Court, but declined, on the ground of +urgent military necessity, to delay the drafts in the meantime. +Seymour's obstructive conduct, however, was not confined to the +intelligible ground of objection to the Act itself; it showed itself in +the perpetual assertion that the quotas were unfair. No complaint as to +this had been raised before the riots. It seems that a quite unintended +error may in fact at first have been made. Lincoln, however, immediately +reduced the quotas in question to the full extent which the alleged error +would have required. Fresh complaints from Seymour followed, and so on +to the end. Ultimately Seymour was invited to come to Washington and +have out the whole matter of his complaints in conference with Stanton. +Like a prudent man, he again refused to face personal conference. It +seems that Governor Seymour, who was a great person in his day, was very +decidedly, in the common acceptance of the term, a gentleman. This has +been counted unto him for righteousness. It should rather be treated as +an aggravation of his very unmeritable conduct. + +Thus, since the Proclamation of Emancipation the North had again become +possessed of what is sometimes considered a necessity of good government, +an organised Opposition ready and anxious to take the place of the +existing Administration. It can well be understood that honourable men +entered into this combination, but it is difficult to conceive on what +common principle they could hold together which would not have been +disastrous in its working. The more extreme leaders, who were likely to +prove the driving force among them, were not unfitly satirised in a novel +of the time called the "Man Without a Country." Their chance of success +in fact depended upon the ill-fortune of their country in the war and on +the irritation against the Government, which could be aroused by that +cause alone and not by such abuses as they fairly criticised. In the +latter part of 1863 the war was going well. A great meeting of "Union +men" was summoned in August in Illinois. Lincoln was tempted to go and +speak to them, but he contented himself with a letter. Phrases in it +might suggest the stump orator, more than in fact his actual stump +speeches usually did. In it, however, he made plain in the simplest +language the total fallacy of such talk of peace as had lately become +common; the Confederacy meant the Confederate army and the men who +controlled it; as a fact no suggestion of peace or compromise came from +them; if it ever came, the people should know it. In equally simple +terms he sought to justify, even to supporters of the Union who did not +share his "wish that all men could be free," his policy in regard to +emancipation. In any case, freedom had for the sake of the Union been +promised to negroes who were now fighting or working for the North, "and +the promise being made must be kept." As that most critical year of the +war drew to a close there was a prevailing recognition that the rough but +straight path along which the President groped his way was the right +path, and upon the whole he enjoyed a degree of general favour which was +not often his portion. + + +3. _The War in 1864_. + +It is the general military opinion that before the war entered on its +final stage Jefferson Davis should have concentrated all his forces for a +larger invasion of the North than was ever in fact undertaken. In the +Gettysburg campaign he might have strengthened Lee's army by 20,000 men +if he could have withdrawn them from the forts at Charleston. +Charleston, however, was threatened during 1863 by the sea and land +forces of the North, in an expedition which was probably itself unwise, +as Lincoln himself seems to have suspected, but which helped to divert a +Confederate army. In the beginning of 1864 Davis still kept this force +at Charleston; he persisted also in keeping a hold on his own State, +Mississippi, with a further small army; while Longstreet still remained +in the south-east corner of Tennessee, where a useful employment of his +force was contemplated but none was made. The chief Southern armies with +which we have to deal are that of Lee, lying south of the Rapidan, and +that of Bragg, now superseded by Joseph Johnston, at Dalton, south of +Chattanooga. The Confederacy, it is thought, was now in a position in +which it might take long to reduce it, but the only military chance for +it was concentration on one great counter-stroke. This seems to have +been the opinion of Lee and Longstreet. Jefferson Davis clung, even late +in the year 1864, to the belief that disaster must somehow overtake any +invading Northern army which pushed far. Possibly he reckoned also that +the North would weary of the repeated checks in the process of conquest. +Indeed, as will be seen later, the North came near to doing so, while a +serious invasion of the North, unless overwhelmingly successful, might +really have revived its spirit. In any case Jefferson Davis, unlike +Lincoln, had no desire to be guided by his best officers. He was for +ever quarrelling with Joseph Johnston and often with Beauregard; the less +capable Bragg, though removed from the West, was now installed as his +chief adviser in Richmond; and the genius of Lee was not encouraged to +apply itself to the larger strategy of the war. + +At the beginning of 1864 an advance from Chattanooga southward into the +heart of the Confederate country was in contemplation. Grant and +Farragut wished that it should be supported by a joint military and naval +attack upon Mobile, in Alabama, on the Gulf of Mexico. Other +considerations on the part of the Government prevented this. In 1863 +Marshal Bazaine had invaded Mexico to set up Louis Napoleon's ill-fated +client the Archduke Maximilian as Emperor. As the so-called "Monroe +Doctrine" (really attributable to the teaching of Hamilton and the action +of John Quincy Adams, who was Secretary of State under President Monroe) +declared, such an extension of European influence, more especially +dynastic influence, on the American continent was highly unacceptable to +the United States. Many in the North were much excited, so much so that +during 1864 a preposterous resolution, which meant, if anything, war with +France, was passed on the motion of one Henry Winter Davis. It was of +course the business of Lincoln and of Seward, now moulded to his views, +to avoid this disaster, and yet, with such dignity as the situation +allowed, keep the French Government aware of the enmity which they might +one day incur. They did this. But they apprehended that the French, +with a footing for the moment in Mexico, had designs on Texas; and thus, +though the Southern forces in Texas were cut off from the rest of the +Confederacy and there was no haste for subduing them, it was thought +expedient, with an eye on France, to assert the interest of the Union in +Texas. General Banks, in Louisiana, was sent to Texas with the forces +which would otherwise have been sent to Mobile. His various endeavours +ended in May, 1864, with the serious defeat of an expedition up the Red +River. This defeat gave great annoyance to the North and made an end of +Banks' reputation. It might conceivably have had a calamitous sequel in +the capture by the South of Admiral Porter's river flotilla, which +accompanied Banks, and the consequent undoing of the conquest of the +Mississippi. As it was it wasted much force. + +Before Grant could safely launch his forces southward from Chattanooga +against Johnston, it was necessary to deal in some way with the +Confederate force still at large in Mississippi. Grant determined to do +this by the destruction of the railway system by which alone it could +move eastward. For this purpose he left Thomas to hold Chattanooga, +while Sherman was sent to Meridian, the chief railway centre in the +Southern part of Mississippi. In February Sherman arrived there, and, +though a subsidiary force, sent from Memphis on a similar but less +important errand somewhat further north, met with a severe repulse, he +was able unmolested to do such damage to the lines around Meridian as to +secure Grant's purpose. + +There was yet a further preliminary to the great final struggle. On +March 1, 1864, pursuant to an Act of Congress which was necessary for +this object, Lincoln conferred upon Grant the rank of Lieutenant-General, +never held by any one else since Washington, for it was only brevet rank +that was conferred on Scott. Therewith Grant took the command, under the +President, of all the Northern armies. Grant came to Washington to +receive his new honour. He had taken leave of Sherman in an interchange +of letters which it is good to read; but he had intended to return to the +West. Sherman, who might have desired the command in the West for +himself, had unselfishly pressed him to return. He feared that the +dreaded politicians would in some way hurt Grant, and that he would be +thwarted by them, become disgusted, and retire; they did hurt him, but +not then, nor in the way that Sherman had expected. Grant, however, +could trust Sherman to carry out the work he wanted done in the West, and +he now saw that, as Lincoln might have told him and possibly did, the +work he wanted done in the East must be done by him. He went West again +for a few days only, to settle his plans with Sherman. Sherman with his +army of 100,000 was to follow Johnston's army of about 60,000, wherever +it went, till he destroyed it. Grant with his 120,000 was to keep up an +equally unfaltering fight with Lee's army, also of 60,000. There was, of +course, nothing original about this conception except the idea, fully +present to both men's minds, of the risk and sacrifice with which it was +worth while to carry it out. Lincoln and Grant had never met till this +month. Grant at the first encounter was evidently somewhat on his guard. +He was prepared to like Lincoln, but he was afraid of mistaken dictation +from him, and determined to discourage it. Also Stanton had advised him +that Lincoln, out of mere good nature, would talk unwisely of any plans +discussed with him. This was probably quite unjust. Stanton, in order +to keep politicians and officers in their places, was accustomed to bite +off the noses of all comers. Lincoln, on the contrary, would talk to all +sorts of people with a readiness which was sometimes astonishing, but +there was a good deal of method in this--he learnt something from these +people all the time--and he certainly had a very great power of keeping +his own counsel when he chose. In any case, when Grant at the end of +April left Washington for the front, he parted with Lincoln on terms of +mutual trust which never afterwards varied. Lincoln in fact, satisfied +as to his general purpose, had been happy to leave him to make his plans +for himself. He wrote to Grant: "Not expecting to see you again before +the spring campaign begins, I wish to express in this way my entire +satisfaction with what you have done up to this time so far as I +understand it. The particulars of your plan I neither know nor seek to +know. You are vigilant and self-reliant, and, pleased with this, I wish +not to obtrude any constraints or restraints upon you. While I am very +anxious that any great disaster or capture of our men in great numbers +shall be avoided, I know these points are less likely to escape your +attention than they would be mine. If there is anything wanting which is +within my power to give, do not fail to let me know it. And now, with a +brave army and a just cause, may God sustain you." Grant replied: "From +my first entrance into the volunteer service of the country to the +present day I have never had cause of complaint--have never expressed or +implied a complaint against the Administration, or the Secretary of War, +for throwing any embarrassment in the way of my vigorously prosecuting +what appeared to me my duty. Indeed, since the promotion which placed me +in command of all the armies, and in view of the great responsibility and +importance of success, I have been astonished at the readiness with which +everything asked for has been yielded, without even an explanation being +asked. Should my success be less than I desire or expect, the least I +can say is, the fault is not with you." At this point the real +responsibility of Lincoln in regard to military events became +comparatively small, and to the end of the war those events may be traced +with even less detail than has hitherto been necessary. + +Upon joining the Army of the Potomac Grant retained Meade, with whom he +was pleased, in a somewhat anomalous position under him as commander of +that army. "Wherever Lee goes," he told him, "there you will go too." +His object of attack was, in agreement with the opinion which Lincoln had +from an early date formed, Lee's army. If Lee could be compelled, or +should choose, to shut himself up in Richmond, as did happen, then +Richmond would become an object of attack, but not otherwise. Grant, +however, hoped that he might force Lee to give him battle in the open. +In the open or behind entrenchments, he meant to fight him, reckoning +that if he lost double the number that Lee did, his own loss could easily +be made up, but Lee's would be irreparable. His hope was to a large +extent disappointed. He had to do with a greater general than himself, +who, with his men, knew every inch of a tangled country. In the +engagements which now followed, Grant's men were constantly being hurled +against chosen positions, entrenched and with the new device of wire +entanglements in front of them. "I mean," he wrote, "to fight it out on +this line if it takes all summer." It took summer, autumn, winter, and +the early spring. Once across the Rapidan he was in the tract of scrubby +jungle called the Wilderness. He had hoped to escape out of this +unopposed and at the same time to turn Lee's right by a rapid march to +his own left. But he found Lee in his way. On May 5 and 6 there was +stubborn and indecisive fighting, with a loss to Grant of 17,660 and to +Lee of perhaps over 10,000--from Grant's point of view something gained. +Then followed a further movement to the left to out-flank Lee. Again Lee +was to be found in the way in a chosen position of his own near +Spottsylvania Court House. Here on the five days from May 8 to May 12 +the heavy fighting was continued, with a total loss to Grant of over +18,000 and probably a proportionate loss to Lee. Another move by Grant +to the left now caused Lee to fall back to a position beyond the North +Anna River, on which an attack was made but speedily given up. Further +movements in the same general direction, but without any such serious +fighting--Grant still endeavouring to turn Lee's right, Lee still moving +so as to cover Richmond--brought Grant by the end of the month to Cold +Harbour, some ten miles east by north of Richmond, close upon the scene +of McClellan's misadventures. Meanwhile Grant had caused an expedition +under General Butler to go by sea up the James, and to land a little +south of Richmond, which, with the connected fortress of Petersburg, +twenty-two miles to the south of it, had only a weak garrison left. +Butler was a man with remarkable powers of self-advertisement; he had now +a very good chance of taking Petersburg, but his expedition failed +totally. From June 1 to June 3 Grant was occupied on the most disastrous +enterprise of his career, a hopeless attack upon a strong entrenched +position, which, with the lesser encounters that took place within the +next few days, cost the North 14,000 men, against a loss to the South +which has been put as low as 1,700. It was the one battle which Grant +regretted having fought. He gave up the hope of a fight with Lee on +advantageous conditions outside Richmond. On June 12 he suddenly moved +his army across the James to the neighbourhood of City Point, east of +Petersburg. Lee must now stand siege in Richmond and Petersburg. Had he +now marched north against Washington, Grant would have been after him and +would have secured for his vastly larger force the battle in the open +which he had so far vainly sought. Yet another disappointment followed. +On July 30 an attempt was made to carry Petersburg by assault immediately +after the explosion of an enormous mine. It failed with heavy loss, +through the fault of the amiable but injudicious Burnside, who now passed +into civil life, and of the officers under him. The siege was to be a +long affair. In reality, for all the disappointment, and in spite of +Grant's confessed mistake at Cold Harbour, his grim plan was progressing. +The force which the South could ill spare was being worn down, and Grant +was in a position in which, though he might have got there at less cost, +and though the end would not be yet, the end was sure. His army was for +the time a good deal shaken, and the estimation in which the West Point +officers held him sank low. His own determination was quite unshaken, +and, though Lincoln hinted somewhat mildly that these enormous losses +ought not to recur, his confidence in Grant was unabated, too. + +People in Washington who had watched all this with alternations of +feeling that ended in dejection had had another trial to their nerves +early in July. The Northern General Sigel, who commanded in the lower +part of the Shenandoah Valley, protecting the Baltimore and Ohio Railway, +had marched southward in June in pursuance of a subsidiary part of +Grant's scheme, but in a careless and rather purposeless manner. General +Early, detached by Lee to deal with him, defeated him; outmanoeuvred and +defeated General Hunter, who was sent to supersede him; overwhelmed with +superior force General Lew Wallace, who stood in his way further on; and +upon July 11 appeared before Washington itself. The threat to Washington +had been meant as no more than a threat, but the garrison was largely +made up of recruits; reinforcements to it sent back by Grant arrived only +on the same day as Early, and if that enterprising general had not wasted +some previous days there might have been a chance that he could get into +Washington, though not that he could hold it. As it was he attacked one +of the Washington forts. Lincoln was present, exhibiting, till the +officers there insisted on his retiring, the indifference to personal +danger which he showed on other occasions too. The attack was soon given +up, and in a few days Early had escaped back across the Potomac, leaving +in Grant's mind a determination that the Shenandoah Valley should cease +to be so useful to the South. + +Sherman set out from Chattanooga on the day when Grant crossed the +Rapidan. Joseph Johnston barred his way in one entrenched position after +another. Sherman, with greater caution than Grant, or perhaps with +greater facilities of ground, manoeuvred him out of each position in +turn, pushing him slowly back along the line of the railway towards +Atlanta, the great manufacturing centre of Georgia, one hundred and +twenty miles south by east from Chattanooga. Only once, towards the end +of June at Kenesaw Mountain, some twenty miles north of Atlanta, did he +attack Johnston's entrenchments, causing himself some unnecessary loss +and failing in his direct attack on them, but probably thinking it +necessary to show that he would attack whenever needed. Johnston has +left a name as a master of defensive warfare, and doubtless delayed and +hampered Sherman as much as he could. Jefferson Davis angrily and +unwisely sent General Hood to supersede him. This less prudent officer +gave battle several times, bringing up the Confederate loss before +Atlanta fell to 34,000 against 30,000 on the other side, and being, by +great skill on Sherman's part, compelled to evacuate Atlanta on September +2. + +By this time there had occurred the last and most brilliant exploit of +old Admiral Farragut, who on August 5 in a naval engagement of +extraordinarily varied incident, had possessed himself of the harbour of +Mobile, with its forts, though the town remained as a stronghold in +Confederate hands and prevented a junction with Sherman which would have +quite cut the Confederacy in two. + +Nearer Washington, too, a memorable campaign was in process. For three +weeks after Early's unwelcome visit, military mismanagement prevailed +near Washington. Early was able to turn on his pursuers, and a further +raid, this time into Pennsylvania, took place. Grant was too far off to +exercise control except through a sufficiently able subordinate, which +Hunter was not. Halleck, as in a former crisis, did not help matters. +Lincoln, though at this time he issued a large new call for recruits, was +unwilling any longer to give military orders. Just now his political +anxieties had reached their height. His judgment was never firmer, but +friends thought his strength was breaking under the strain. On this and +on all grounds he was certainly wise to decline direct interference in +military affairs. On August 1 Grant ordered General Philip H. Sheridan +to the Shenandoah on temporary duty, expressing a wish that he should be +put "in command of all the troops in the field, with instructions to put +himself south of the enemy or follow him to the death." Lincoln +telegraphed to Grant, quoting this despatch and adding, "This I think is +exactly right; but please look over the despatches you may have received +from here even since you made that order and see if there is any idea in +the head of any one here of putting our army south of the enemy or +following him to the death in any direction. I repeat to you it will +neither be done nor attempted unless you watch it every day and hour and +force it." Grant now came to Hunter's army and gently placed Sheridan in +that general's place. The operations of that autumn, which established +Sheridan's fame and culminated in his final defeat of Early at Cedar +Creek on October 19, made him master of all the lower part of the valley. +Before he retired into winter quarters he had so laid waste the resources +of that unfortunate district that Richmond could no longer draw supplies +from it, nor could it again support a Southern army in a sally against +the North. + +In the month of November Sherman began a new and extraordinary movement, +of which the conception was all his own, sanctioned with reluctance by +Grant, and viewed with anxiety by Lincoln, though he maintained his +absolute resolve not to interfere. He had fortified himself in Atlanta, +removing its civil inhabitants, in an entirely humane fashion, to places +of safety, and he had secured a little rest for his army. But he lay far +south in the heart of what he called "Jeff Davis' Empire," and Hood could +continually harass him by attacks on his communications. Hood, now +supervised by Beauregard, was gathering reinforcements, and Sherman +learnt that he contemplated a diversion by invading Tennessee. Sherman +determined to divide his forces, to send Thomas far back into Tennessee +with sufficient men, as he calculated, to defend it, and himself with the +rest of his army to set out for the eastern sea-coast, wasting no men on +the maintenance of his communications, but living on the country and +"making the people of Georgia feel the weight of the war." He set out +for the East on November 15. Hood, at Beauregard's orders, shortly +marched off for the North, where the cautious Thomas awaited events +within the fortifications of Nashville. At Franklin, in the heart of +Tennessee, about twenty miles south of Nashville, Hood's army suffered +badly in an attack upon General Schofield, whom Thomas had left to check +his advance while further reinforcements came to Nashville. Schofield +fell back slowly on Thomas, Hood rashly pressing after him with a small +but veteran army now numbering 44,000. Grant and the Washington +authorities viewed with much concern an invasion which Thomas had +suffered to proceed so far. Grant had not shared Sherman's faith in +Thomas. He now repeatedly urged him to act, but Thomas had his own views +and obstinately bided his time. Days followed when frozen sleet made an +advance impossible. Grant had already sent Logan to supersede Thomas, +and, growing still more anxious, had started to come west himself, when +the news reached him of a battle on December 15 and 16 in which Thomas +had fallen on Hood, completely routing him, taking on these days and in +the pursuit that followed no less than 13,000 prisoners. + +There was a song, "As we go marching through Georgia," which was +afterwards famous, and which Sherman could not endure. What his men most +often sang, while they actually were marching through Georgia, was +another, and of its kind a great song:-- + + "John Brown's body lies amouldering in the grave, + But his soul goes marching on. + Glory, glory, Hallelujah." + +Their progress was of the nature of a frolic, though in one way a very +stern frolic. They had little trouble from the small and scattered +Confederate forces that lay near their route. They industriously and +ingeniously destroyed the railway track of the South, heating the rails +and twisting them into knots; and the rich country of Georgia, which had +become the chief granary of the Confederates, was devastated as they +passed, for a space fifty or sixty miles broad, by the destruction of all +the produce they could not consume. This was done under control by +organised forage parties. Reasonable measures were taken to prevent +private pillage of houses. No doubt it happened. Sherman's able cavalry +commander earned a bad name, and "Uncle Billy," as they called him to his +face, clearly had a soft corner in his heart for the light-hearted and +light-fingered gentlemen called "bummers" (a "bummer," says the Oxford +Dictionary, "is one who quits the ranks and goes on an independent +foraging expedition on his own account"). They were, incidentally, +Sherman found, good scouts. But the serious crimes committed were very +few, judged by the standard of the ordinary civil population. The +authentic complaints recorded relate to such matters as the smashing of a +grand piano or the disappearance of some fine old Madeira. Thus the +suffering caused to individuals was probably not extreme, and a long +continuance of the war was rendered almost impossible. A little before +Christmas Day, 1864, Sherman had captured, with slight opposition, the +city of Savannah, on the Atlantic, with many guns and other spoils, and +was soon ready to turn northwards on the last lap of his triumphant +course. Lincoln's letter of thanks characteristically confessed his +earlier unexpressed and unfulfilled fears. + +Grant was proceeding all the time with his pressure on the single large +fortress which Richmond and Petersburg together constituted. Its circuit +was far too great for complete investment. His efforts were for a time +directed to seizing the three railway lines which converged from the +south on Petersburg and to that extent cutting off the supplies of the +enemy. But he failed to get hold of the most important of these +railways. He settled down to the slow process of entrenching his own +lines securely and extending the entrenchment further and further round +the south side of Petersburg. Lee was thus being forced to extend the +position held by his own small army further and further. In time the +lines would crack and the end come. + +It need hardly be said that despair was invading the remnant of the +Confederacy; supplies began to run short in Richmond, recruiting had +ceased, desertion was increasing. Before the story of its long +resistance closes it is better to face the gravest charge against the +South. That charge relates to the misery inflicted upon many thousands +of Northern prisoners in certain prisons or detention camps of the South. +The alleged horrors were real and were great. The details should not be +commemorated, but it is right to observe that the pitiable condition in +which the stricken survivors of this captivity returned, and the tale +they had to tell, caused the bitterness which might be noted afterwards +in some Northerners. The guilt lay mainly with a few subordinate but +uncontrolled officials. In some degree it must have been shared by +Jefferson Davis and his Administration, though a large allowance should +be made for men so sorely driven. But it affords no ground whatever, as +more fortunate prisoners taken by the Confederates have sometimes +testified, for any general imputation of cruelty against the Southern +officers, soldiers, or people. There is nothing in the record of the war +which dishonours the South, nothing to restrain the tribute to its +heroism which is due from a foreign writer, and which is irrepressible in +the case of a writer who rejoices that the Confederacy failed. + + +4. _The Second Election of Lincoln: 1864_. + +Having the general for whom he had long sought, Lincoln could now be in +military matters little more than the most intelligent onlooker; he could +maintain the attitude, congenial to him where he dealt with skilled men, +that when he differed from them they probably knew better than he. This +was well, for in 1864 his political anxieties became greater than they +had been since war declared itself at Fort Sumter. Whole States which +had belonged to the Confederacy were now securely held by the Union +armies, and the difficult problem of their government was approaching its +final settlement. It seemed that the war should soon end; so the +question of peace was pressed urgently. Moreover, the election of a +President was due in the autumn, and, strange as it is, the issue was to +be whether, with victory in their grasp, the victors should themselves +surrender. + +It was not given to Lincoln after all to play a great part in the +reconstruction of the South; that was reserved for much rougher and much +weaker hands. But the lines on which he had moved from the first are of +interest. West Virginia, with its solid Unionist population, was simply +allowed to form itself into an ordinary new State. But matters were not +so simple where the Northern occupation was insecure, or where a tiny +fraction of a State was held, or where a large part of the people leaned +to the Confederacy. Military governors were of course appointed; in +Tennessee this position was given to a strong Unionist, Andrew Johnson, +who was already Senator for that State. In Louisiana and elsewhere +Lincoln encouraged the citizens who would unreservedly accept the Union +to organise State Governments for themselves. Where they did so there +was friction between them and the Northern military governor who was +still indispensable. There was also to the end triangular trouble +between the factions in Missouri and the general commanding there. To +these little difficulties, which were of course unceasing, Lincoln +applied the firmness and tact which were no longer surprising in him, +with a pleasing mixture of good temper and healthy irritation. But +further difficulties lay in the attitude of Congress, which was concerned +in the matter because each House could admit or reject the Senators or +Representatives claiming to sit for a Southern State. There were +questions about slavery in such States. Lincoln, as we have seen, had +desired, if he could, to bring about the abolition of slavery through +gradual and through local action, and he had wished to see the franchise +given only to the few educated negroes. Nothing came of this, but it +kept up the suspicion of Radicals in Congress that he was not sound on +slavery; and, apart from slavery, the whole question of the terms on +which people lately in arms against the country could be admitted as +participators in the government of the country was one on which statesmen +in Congress had their own very important point of view. Lincoln's main +wish was that, with the greatest speed and the least heat spent on +avoidable controversy, State government of spontaneous local growth +should spring up in the reconquered South. "In all available ways," he +had written to one of his military governors, "give the people a chance +to express their wishes at these elections. Follow forms of law as far +as convenient, but at all events get the expression of the largest number +of people possible." Above all he was afraid lest in the Southern +elections to Congress that very thing should happen which after his death +did happen. "To send a parcel of Northern men here as representatives, +elected, as would be understood (and perhaps really so), at the point of +the bayonet, would be disgraceful and outrageous." For a time he and +Congress worked together well enough, but sharp disagreement arose in +1864. He had propounded a particular plan for the reconstruction of +Southern States. Senator Wade, the formidable Chairman of the Joint +Committee on the War, and Henry Winter Davis, a keen, acrid, and fluent +man who was powerful with the House, carried a Bill under which a State +could only be reconstructed on their own plan, which differed from +Lincoln's. The Bill came to Lincoln for signature in the last hours of +the session, and, amidst frightened protests from friendly legislators +then in his room, he let it lie there unsigned, till it expired with the +session, and went on with his work. This was in July, 1864; his +re-election was at stake. The Democrats were gaining ground; he might be +giving extreme offence to the strongest Republican. "If they choose," he +said, "to make a point of this I do not doubt that they can do harm" +(indeed, those powerful men Wade and Davis now declared against his +re-election with ability and extraordinary bitterness); but he continued: +"At all events I must keep some consciousness of being somewhere near +right. I must keep some standard or principle fixed within myself." The +Bill would have repressed loyal efforts already made to establish State +Governments in the South. It contained also a provision imposing the +abolition of slavery on every such reconstructed State. This was an +attempt to remedy any flaw in the constitutional effect of the +Proclamation of Emancipation. But it was certainly in itself flagrantly +unconstitutional; and the only conclusive way of abolishing slavery was +the Constitutional Amendment, for which Lincoln was now anxious. This +was not a pedantic point, for there might have been great trouble if the +courts had later found a constitutional flaw in some negro's title to +freedom. But the correctness of Lincoln's view hardly matters. In lots +of little things, like a tired man who was careless by nature, Lincoln +may perhaps have yielded to influence or acted for his political +convenience in ways which may justly be censured, but it would be merely +immoral to care whether he did so or did not, since at the crisis of his +fate he could risk all for one scruple. In an earlier stage of his +controversies with the parties he had written: "From time to time I have +done and said what appeared to me proper to do and say. The public knows +it all. It obliges nobody to follow me, and I trust it obliges me to +follow nobody. The Radicals and Conservatives each agree with me in some +things and disagree in others. I could wish both to agree with me in all +things; for then they would agree with each other, and be too strong for +any foe from any quarter. They, however, choose to do otherwise, and I +do not question their right. I, too, shall do what seems to be my duty. +I hold whoever commands in Missouri or elsewhere responsible to me and +not to either Radicals or Conservatives. It is my duty to hear all; but +at last I must, within my sphere, judge what to do and what to forbear." + +In this same month of July, after the Confederate General Early's +appearance before Washington had given Lincoln a pause from political +cares, another trouble reached a point at which it is known to have tried +his patience more than any other trouble of his Presidency. Peace after +war is not always a matter of substituting the diplomatist for the +soldier. When two sides were fighting, one for Union and the other for +Independence, one or the other had to surrender the whole point at issue. +In this case there might appear to have been a third possibility. The +Southern States might have been invited to return to the Union on terms +which admitted their right to secede again if they felt aggrieved. The +invitation would in fact have been refused. But, if it had been made and +accepted, this would have been a worse surrender for the North than any +mere acknowledgment that the South could not be reconquered; for national +unity from that day to this would have existed on the sufferance of a +factious or a foreign majority in any single State. Lincoln had faced +this. He was there to restore the Union on a firm foundation. He meant +to insist to the point of pedantry that, by not so much as a word or line +from the President or any one seeming to act for him, should the lawful +right of secession even appear to be acknowledged. Some men would have +been glad to hang Jefferson Davis as a traitor, yet would have been ready +to negotiate with him as with a foreign king. Lincoln, who would not +have hurt one hair of his head, and would have talked things over with +Mr. Davis quite pleasantly, would have died rather than treat with him on +the footing that he was head of an independent Confederacy. The blood +shed might have been shed for nothing if he had done so. But to many +men, in the long agony of the war and its disappointments, the plain +position became much obscured. The idea in various forms that by some +sort of negotiation the issue could be evaded began to assert itself +again and again. The delusion was freely propagated that the South was +ready to give in if only Lincoln would encourage its approaches. It was +sheer delusion. Jefferson Davis said frankly to the last that the +Confederacy would have "independence or extermination," and though +Stephens and many others spoke of peace to the electors in their own +States, Jefferson Davis had his army with him, and the only result which +agitation against him ever produced was that two months before the +irreparable collapse the chief command under him was given to his most +faithful servant Lee. But it was useless for Lincoln to expose the +delusion in the plainest terms; it survived exposure and became a danger +to Northern unity. + +Lincoln therefore took a strange course, which generally succeeded. When +honest men came to him and said that the South could be induced to yield, +he proposed to them that they should go to Jefferson Davis and see for +themselves. The Chairman of the Republican organisation ultimately +approached Lincoln on this matter at the request of a strong committee; +but he was a sensible man whom Lincoln at once converted by drafting the +precise message that would have to be sent to the Confederate President. +On two earlier occasions such labourers for peace were allowed to go +across the lines and talk with Davis; it could be trusted to their honour +to pretend to no authority; they had interesting talks with the great +enemy, and made religious appeals to him or entertained him with wild +proposals for a joint war on France over Mexico. They returned, +converted also. But in July Horace Greeley, the great editor, who was +too opinionated to be quite honest, was somehow convinced that Southern +agents at Niagara, who had really come to hold intercourse with the +disloyal group among the Democrats, were "two ambassadors" from the +Confederacy seeking an audience of Lincoln. He wrote to Lincoln, begging +him to receive them. Lincoln caused Greeley to go to Niagara and see the +supposed ambassadors himself. He gave him written authority to bring to +him any person with proper credentials, provided, as he made plain in +terms that perhaps were blunt, that the basis of any negotiation should +include the recognition of the Union and the abolition of slavery. The +persons whom Greeley saw had no authority to treat about anything. +Greeley in his irritation now urged Lincoln to convey to Jefferson Davis +through these mysterious men his readiness to receive them if they were +accredited. In other words, the North was to begin suing for peace--a +thing clearly unwise, which Lincoln refused. Greeley now involved +Lincoln in a tangled controversy to which he gave such a turn that, +unless Lincoln would publish the most passionately pacific of Greeley's +letters, to the great discouragement of the public with whom Greeley +counted, he must himself keep silent on what had passed. He elected to +keep silent while Greeley in his paper criticised him as the person +responsible for the continuance of senseless bloodshed. This was +publicly harmful; and, as for its private bearing, the reputation of +obstinate blood-thirstiness was certain to be painful to Lincoln. + +The history of Lincoln's Cabinet has a bearing upon what is to follow. +He ruled his Ministers with undisputed authority, talked with them +collectively upon the easiest terms, spoke to them as a headmaster to his +school when they caballed against one another, kept them in some sort of +unison in a manner which astonished all who knew them. Cameron had had +to retire early; so did the little-known Caleb Smith, who was succeeded +in his unimportant office as Secretary of the Interior by a Mr. Usher, +who seems to have been well chosen. Bates, the Attorney-General, +retired, weary of his work, towards the end of 1864, and Lincoln had the +keen pleasure of appointing James Speed, the brother of that unforgotten +and greatly honoured friend whom he honoured the more for his +contentedness with private station. James Speed himself was in Lincoln's +opinion "an honest man and a gentleman, and one of those well-poised men, +not too common here, who are not spoiled by a big office." + +Blair might be regarded as a delightful, or equally as an intolerable +man. He attacked all manner of people causelessly and violently, and +earned implacable dislike from the Radicals In his party. Then he +frankly asked Lincoln to dismiss him whenever it was convenient. There +came a time when Lincoln's re-election was in great peril, and he might, +it was urged, have made it sure by dismissing Blair. It is significant +that Lincoln then refused to promote his own cause by seeming to +sacrifice Blair, but later on, when his own election was fairly certain, +but a greater degree of unity in the Republican party was to be gained, +did ask Blair to go; (Blair's quarrels, it should be added, had become +more and more outrageous). So he went and immediately flung himself with +enthusiasm into the advocacy of Lincoln's cause. All the men who left +Lincoln remained his friends, except one who will shortly concern us. Of +Lincoln's more important ministers Welles did his work for the Navy +industriously but unnoted. Stanton, on the other hand, and Lincoln's +relations with Stanton are the subjects of many pages of literature. +These two curious and seemingly incompatible men hit upon extraordinary +methods of working together. It can be seen that Lincoln's chief care in +dealing with his subordinates was to give support and to give free play +to any man whose heart was in his work. In countless small matters he +would let Stanton disobey him and flout him openly. ("Did Stanton tell +you I was a damned fool? Then I expect I must be one, for he is almost +always right and generally says what he means.") But every now and then, +when he cared much about his own wish, he would step in and crush Stanton +flat. Crowds of applicants to Lincoln with requests of a kind that must +be granted sparingly were passed on to Stanton, pleased with the +President, or mystified by his sadly observing that he had not much +influence with this Administration but hoped to have more with the next. +Stanton always refused them. He enjoyed doing it. Yet it seems a low +trick to have thus indulged his taste for unpopularity, till one +discovers that, when Stanton might have been blamed seriously and +unfairly, Lincoln was very careful to shoulder the blame himself. The +gist of their mutual dealings was that the hated Stanton received a +thinly disguised, but quite unfailing support, and that hated or +applauded, ill or well, wrong in this detail and right in that, he abode +in his department and drove, and drove, and drove, and worshipped +Lincoln. To Seward, who played first and last a notable part in history, +and who all this time conducted foreign affairs under Lincoln without any +mishap in the end, one tribute is due. When he had not a master it is +said that his abilities were made useless by his egotism; yet it can be +seen that, with his especial cause to be jealous of Lincoln, he could not +even conceive how men let private jealousy divide them in the performance +of duty. + +It was otherwise with the ablest man in the Cabinet. Salmon P. Chase +must really have been a good man in the days before he fell in love with +his own goodness. Lincoln and the country had confidence in his +management of the Treasury, and Lincoln thought more highly of his +general ability than of that of any other man about him. He, for his +part, distrusted and despised Lincoln. Those who read Lincoln's +important letters and speeches see in him at once a great gentleman; +there were but few among the really well-educated men of America who made +much of his lacking some of the minor points of gentility to which most +of them were born; but of these few Chase betrayed himself as one. At +the beginning of 1864 Chase was putting it about that he had himself no +wish to be President, but--; that of course he was loyal to Mr. Lincoln, +but--; and so forth. He had, as indeed he deserved, admirers who wished +he should be President, and early in the year some of them expressed this +wish in a manifesto. Chase wrote to Lincoln that this was not his own +doing; Lincoln replied that he himself knew as little of these things "as +my friends will allow me to know." To those who spoke to him of Chase's +intrigues he only said that Chase would in some ways make a very good +President, and he hoped they would never have a worse President than he. +The movement in favour of Chase collapsed very soon, and it evidently had +no effect on Lincoln. Chase, however, was beginning to foster grievances +of his own against Lincoln. These related always to appointments in the +service of the Treasury. He professed a horror of party influences in +appointments, and imputed corrupt motives to Lincoln in such matters. He +shared the sound ideas of the later civil service reformers, though he +was far too easily managed by a low class of flatterers to have been of +the least use in carrying them out. Lincoln would certainly not at that +crisis have permitted strife over civil service reform, but some of his +admirers have probably gone too far in claiming him as a sturdy supporter +of the old school who would despise the reforming idea. Letters of his +much earlier betray his doubts as to the old system, and he was exactly +the man who in quieter times could have improved matters with the least +possible fuss. However that may be, all the tiresome circumstances of +Chase's differences with him are well known, and in these instances +Lincoln was clearly in the right, and Chase quarrelled only because he +could not force upon him appointments that would have created fury. Once +Chase was overruled and wrote his resignation. Lincoln went to him with +the resignation in his hand, treated him with simple affection for a man +whom he still liked, and made him take it back. Later on Chase got his +own way on the whole, but was angry and sent another resignation. Some +one heard of it and came to Lincoln to say that the loss of Chase would +cause a financial panic. Lincoln's answer was to this effect: "Chase +thinks he has become indispensable to the country; that his intimate +friends know it, and he cannot comprehend why the country does not +understand it. He also thinks he ought to be President; has no doubt +whatever about that. It is inconceivable to him why people do not rise +as one man and say so. He is a great statesman, and at the bottom a +patriot. Ordinarily he discharges the duties of a public office with +greater ability than any man I know. Mind, I say 'ordinarily,' but he +has become irritable, uncomfortable, so that he is never perfectly happy +unless he is thoroughly miserable and able to make everybody else just as +uncomfortable as he is himself. He is either determined to annoy me, or +that I shall pat him on the shoulder and coax him to stay. I don't think +I ought to do it. I will not do it. I will take him at his word." So +he did. This was at the end of June, 1864, when Lincoln's apprehensions +about his own re-election were keen, and the resignation of Chase, along +with the retention of Blair, seemed likely to provoke anger which was +very dangerous to himself. An excellent successor to the indispensable +man was soon found. Chase found more satisfaction than ever in insidious +opposition to Lincoln. Lincoln's opportunity of requiting him was not +yet. + +The question of the Presidency loomed large from the beginning of the +year to the election in November. At first, while the affairs of war +seemed to be in good train, the chief question was who should be the +Republican candidate. It was obviously not a time when a President of +even moderate ability and character, with all the threads in his hands, +could wisely have been replaced except for overwhelming reasons. But +since 1832, when Jackson had been re-elected, the practice of giving a +President a second term had lapsed. It has been seen that there was +friction, not wholly unnatural, between Lincoln and many of his party. +The inner circles of politicians were considering what candidate could +carry the country. They were doing so with great anxiety, for +disaffection was growing serious in the North and the Democrats would +make a good fight. They honestly doubted whether Lincoln was the best +candidate, and attributed their own excited mood of criticism to the +public at large. They forgot the leaning of ordinary men towards one who +is already serving them honestly. Of the other possible candidates, +including Chase, Fremont had the most energetic backers. Enough has been +said already of his delusive attractiveness. General Butler had also +some support. He was an impostor of a coarser but more useful stamp. A +successful advocate in Massachusetts, he had commanded the militia of the +State when they first appeared on the scene at Baltimore in 1861, and he +had been in evidence ever since without sufficient opportunity till May, +1864, of proving that real military incapacity of which some of Lincoln's +friends suspected him. He had a kind of resourceful impudence, coupled +with executive vigour and a good deal of wit, which had made him useful +in the less martial duties of his command. Generals in a war of this +character were often so placed that they had little fighting to do and +much civil government, and Butler, who had first treated slaves as +"contraband" and had dealt with his difficulties about negroes with more +heart and more sense than many generals, had to some extent earned his +reputation among the Republicans. Thus of those volunteer generals who +never became good soldiers he is said to have been the only one that +escaped the constant process of weeding out. To the end he kept +confidently claiming higher rank in the Army, and when he had signally +failed under Grant at Petersburg he succeeded somehow in imposing himself +upon that, at first indignant, general. Nothing actually came of the +danger that the public might find a hero in this man, who was neither +scrupulous nor able, but he had so captivated experienced politicians +that some continued even after Lincoln's re-election to think Butler the +man whom the people would have preferred. Last but not least many were +anxious to nominate Grant. It was an innocent thought, but Grant's +merits were themselves the conclusive reason why he should not be taken +from the work he had already in hand. + +Through the early months of the year the active politicians earnestly +collogued among themselves about possible candidates, and it seems there +was little sign among them of that general confidence in Lincoln which a +little while before had been recognised as prevailing in the country. In +May the small and light-headed section of the so-called Radicals who +favoured Fremont organised for themselves a "national meeting" of some +few people at which they nominated him for the Presidency. They had no +chance of success, but they might have helped the Democrats by carrying +off some Republican votes. Besides, there are of course men who, having +started as extremists in one direction and failed, will go over to the +opposite extreme rather than moderate their aims. Months later, when a +Republican victory of some sort became certain, unanimity among +Republicans was secured; for some passions were appeased by the +resignation of Blair, and Fremont was prevailed upon to withdraw. But in +the meantime the Republican party had sent its delegates to a Convention +at Baltimore early in June. This Convention met in a comparatively +fortunate hour. In spite of the open disaffection of small sections, the +Northern people had been in good spirits about the war when Grant set out +to overcome Lee. At first he was felt to be progressing pretty well, +and, though the reverse at Cold Harbour had happened a few days before, +the size of that mishap was not yet appreciated. Ordinary citizens, +called upon now and then to decide a broad and grave issue, often judge +with greater calm than is possible to any but the best of the politicians +and the journalists. Indeed, some serious politicians had been anxious +to postpone the Convention, justly fearing that these ignorant delegates +were not yet imbued with that contempt for Lincoln which they had worked +up among themselves. At the Baltimore Convention the delegates of one +State wanted Grant, but the nomination of Lincoln was immediate and +almost unanimous. This same Convention declared for a Constitutional +Amendment to abolish slavery. Lincoln would say nothing as to the choice +of a candidate for the Vice-Presidency. He was right, but the result was +most unhappy in the end. The Convention chose Andrew Johnson. Johnson, +whom Lincoln could hardly endure, began life as a journeyman tailor. He +had raised himself like Lincoln, and had performed a great part in +rallying the Unionists of Tennessee. But--not to dwell upon the fact +that he was drunk when he was sworn in as Vice-President--his political +creed was that of bitter class-hatred, and his character degenerated into +a weak and brutal obstinacy. This man was to succeed Lincoln. Lincoln, +in his letter to accept the nomination, wrote modestly, refusing to take +the decision of the Convention as a tribute to his peculiar fitness for +his post, but was "reminded in this connection of a story of an old Dutch +farmer, who remarked to a companion that it was not best to swap horses +when crossing a stream." + +It remained possible that the dissatisfied Republicans would revolt later +and put another champion in the field. But now attention turned to the +Democrats. Their Convention was to meet at Chicago at the end of August, +and in the interval the North entered upon the period of deepest mental +depression that came to it during the war. It is startling to learn now +that in the course of that year, when the Confederacy lay like a nut in +the nutcrackers, when the crushing of its resistance might indeed require +a little stronger pressure than was expected, and the first splitting in +its hard substance might not come on the side on which it was looked for, +but when no wise man could have a doubt as to the end, the victorious +people were inclined to think that the moment had come for giving in. +"In this purpose to save the country and its liberties," said Lincoln, +"no class of people seem so nearly unanimous as the soldiers in the field +and the sailors afloat. Do they not have the hardest of it? Who should +quail while they do not?" Yet there is conclusive authority for saying +that there was now more quailing in the North than there had ever been +before. When the war had gone on long, checks to the course of victory +shook the nerves of people at home more than crushing defeats had shaken +them in the first two years of the struggle, and men who would have +wrapped the word "surrender" in periphrasis went about with surrender in +their hearts. Thus the two months that went before the great rally of +the Democrats at Chicago were months of good omen for a party which, +however little the many honourable men in its ranks were willing to face +the fact, must base its only hope upon the weakening of the national +will. For public attention was turned away from other fields of war and +fixed upon the Army of the Potomac. Sherman drove back Johnston, and +routed Hood; Farragut at Mobile enriched the annals of the sea; but what +told upon the imagination of the North was that Grant's earlier progress +was followed by the definite failure of his original enterprise against +Lee's army, by Northern defeats on the Shenandoah and an actual dash by +the South against Washington, by the further failure of Grant's first +assault upon Petersburg, and by hideous losses and some demoralisation in +his army. The candidate that the Democrats would put forward and the +general principle of their political strategy were well known many weeks +before their Convention met; and the Republicans already despaired of +defeating them. In the Chicago Convention there were men, apparently +less reputable in character than their frank attitude suggests, who were +outspoken against the war; their leader was Vallandigham. There were men +who spoke boldly for the war, but more boldly against emancipation and +the faults of the Government; their leader was Seymour, talking with the +accent of dignity and of patriotism. Seymour, for the war, presided over +the Convention; Vallandigham, against the war, was the master spirit in +its debates. It was hard for such men, with any saving of conscience, to +combine. The mode of combination which they discovered is memorable in +the history of faction. First they adopted a platform which meant peace; +then they adopted a candidate intended to symbolise successful war. They +resolved "that this Convention does explicitly declare, as the sense of +the American people, that after four years of failure to restore the +Union by the experiment of war . . . justice, humanity, liberty, and the +public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of +hostilities, with a view to an ultimate convention of the States or other +peaceable means, to the end that at the earliest practicable moment peace +may be restored on the basis of the Federal Union of the States." The +fallacy which named the Union as the end while demanding as a means the +immediate cessation of hostilities needs no demonstration. The +resolution was thus translated: "Resolved that the war is a failure"; and +the translation had that trenchant accuracy which is often found in +American popular epigram. The candidate chosen was McClellan; McClellan +in set terms repudiated the resolution that the war was a failure, and +then accepted the candidature. He meant no harm to the cause of the +Union, but he meant no definite and clearly conceived good. Electors +might now vote Democratic because the party was peaceful or because the +candidate was a warrior. The turn of fortune was about to arrest this +combination in the really formidable progress of its crawling approach to +power. Perhaps it was not only, as contemporary observers thought, +events in the field that began within a few days to make havoc with the +schemes of McClellan and his managers. Perhaps if the patience of the +North had been tried a little longer the sense of the people would still +have recoiled from the policy of the Democrats, which had now been +defined in hard outline. As a matter of fact it was only in the months +while the Chicago Convention was still impending and for a few days or +weeks after it had actually taken place that the panic of the Republicans +lasted. But during that time the alarm among them was very great, +whether it was wholly due to the discouragement of the people about the +war or originated among the leaders and was communicated to their flock. +Sagacious party men reported from their own neighbourhoods that there was +no chance of winning the election. In one quarter or another there was +talk of setting aside Lincoln and compelling Grant to be a candidate. +About August 12 Lincoln was told by Thurlow Weed, the greatest of party +managers, that his election was hopeless. Ten days later he received the +same assurance from the central Republican Committee through their +chairman, Raymond, together with the advice that he should make overtures +for peace. + +Supposing that in the following November McClellan should have been +elected, and that in the following March he should have come into office +with the war unfinished, it seems now hardly credible that he would have +returned to slavery, or at least disbanded without protection the 150,000 +negroes who were now serving the North. Lincoln, however, seriously +believed that this was the course to which McClellan's principles and +those of his party committed him, and that (policy and honour apart) this +would have been for military reasons fatal. McClellan had repudiated the +Peace Resolution, but his followers and his character were to be reckoned +with rather than his words, and indeed his honest principles committed +him deeply to some attempt to reverse Lincoln's policy as to slavery, and +he clearly must have been driven into negotiations with the South. The +confusion which must inevitably be created by attempts to satisfy the +South, when it was in no humour of moderation, and by the fury which +yielding would have provoked in half the people of the North, was well +and tersely described by Grant in a letter to a friend, which that friend +published in support of Lincoln. At a fair at Philadelphia for the help +of the wounded Lincoln said: "We accepted this war; we did not begin it. +We accepted it for an object, and when that object is accomplished the +war will end, and I hope to God that it will never end until that object +is accomplished." Whatever the real mind of McClellan and of the average +Democrat may have been, it was not this; and the posterity of Mr. +Facing-both-ways may succeed in an election, but never in war or the +making of lasting peace. + +Lincoln looked forward with happiness, after he was actually re-elected, +to the quieter pursuits of private life which might await him in four +years' time. He looked forward not less happily to a period of peace +administration first, and there can be no doubt that he would have prized +as much as any man the highest honour that his countrymen could bestow, a +second election to the Presidency. But, even in a smaller man who had +passed through such an experience as he had and was not warped by power, +these personal wishes might well have been merged in concern for the +cause in hand. There is everything to indicate that they were completely +so in his case. A President cannot wisely do much directly to promote +his own re-election, but he appears to have done singularly little. At +the beginning of 1864, when the end of the war seemed near, and the +election of a Republican probable, he may well have thought that he would +be the Republican candidate, but he had faced the possible choice of +Chase very placidly, and of Grant he said, "If he takes Richmond let him +have the Presidency." It was another matter when the war again seemed +likely to drag on and a Democratic President might come in before the end +of it. An editor who visited the over-burdened President in August told +him that he needed some weeks of rest and seclusion. But he said, "I +cannot fly from my thoughts. I do not think it is personal vanity or +ambition, though I am not free from those infirmities, but I cannot but +feel that the weal or woe of the nation will be decided in November. +There is no proposal offered by any wing of the Democratic party but that +must result in the permanent destruction of the Union." He would have +been well content to make place for Grant if Grant had finished his work. +But that work was delayed, and then Lincoln became greatly troubled by +the movement to force Grant, the general whom he had at last found, into +politics with his work undone; for all would have been lost if McClellan +had come in with the war still progressing badly. Lincoln had been +invited in June to a gathering in honour of Grant, got up with the thinly +disguised object of putting the general forward as his rival. He wrote, +with true diplomacy: "It is impossible for me to attend. I approve +nevertheless of whatever may tend to strengthen and sustain General Grant +and the noble armies now under his command. 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." In August he told his mind +plainly to Grant's friend Eaton. He never dreamed for a moment that +Grant would willingly go off into politics with the military situation +still insecure, and he believed that no possible pressure could force +Grant to do so; but on this latter question he wished to make himself +sure; with a view to future military measures he really needed to be sure +of it. Eaton saw Grant, and in the course of conversation very tactfully +brought to Grant's notice the designs of his would-be friends. "We had," +writes Eaton, "been talking very quietly, but Grant's reply came in an +instant and with a violence for which I was not prepared. He brought his +clenched fists down hard on the strap arms of his camp chair, 'They can't +do it. They can't compel me to do it.' Emphatic gesture was not a +strong point with Grant. 'Have you said this to the President?' I asked. +'No,' said Grant. 'I have not thought it worth while to assure the +President of my opinion. I consider it as important for the cause that +he should be elected as that the army should be successful in the +field.'" "I told you," said Lincoln afterwards, "they could not get him +to run till he had closed out the rebellion." Since the great danger was +now only that McClellan would become President in March, there was but +one thing to do--to try and finish the war before then. Raymond's advice +in favour of negotiations with the South now came, and Lincoln's mode of +replying to this has been noticed. Rumours were afloat that if McClellan +won in November there would be an attempt to bring him irregularly into +power at once. Lincoln let it be known that he should stay at his post +at all costs till the last lawful day. On August 23, in that curious way +in which deep emotion showed itself with him, he wrote a resolution upon +a paper, which he folded and asked his ministers to endorse with their +signatures without reading it. They all wrote their names on the back of +it, ready, if that were possible, to commit themselves blindly to support +of him in whatever he had resolved; a great tribute to him and to +themselves. He sealed it up and put it away. + +How far in this dark time the confidence of the people had departed from +Lincoln no one can tell. It might be too sanguine a view of the world to +suppose that they would have been proof against what may be called a +conspiracy to run him down. There were certainly quarters in which the +perception of his worth came soon and remained. Not all those who are +poor or roughly brought up were among those plain men whose approval +Lincoln desired and often expected; but at least the plain man does exist +and the plain people did read Lincoln's words. The soldiers of the +armies in the East by this time knew Lincoln well, and there were by now, +as we shall see, in every part of the North, honest parents who had gone +to Washington, and entered the White House very sad, and came out very +happy, and taken their report of him home. No less could there be found, +among those to whom America had given the greatest advantages that birth +and upbringing can offer, families in which, when Lincoln died, a +daughter could write to her father as Lady Harcourt (then Miss Lily +Motley) wrote: "I echo your 'thank God' that we always appreciated him +before he was taken from us." But if we look at the political world, we +find indeed noble exceptions such as that of Charles Sumner among those +who had been honestly perplexed by Lincoln's attitude on slavery; we have +to allow for the feelings of some good State Governor who had come to him +with a tiresome but serious proposition and been adroitly parried with an +untactful and coarse apologue; yet it remains to be said that a thick +veil, woven of self-conceit and half-education, blinded most politicians +to any rare quality in Lincoln, and blinded them to what was due in +decency to any man discharging his task. The evidence collected by Mr. +Rhodes as to the tone prevailing in 1864 at Washington and among those in +touch with Washington suggests that strictly political society was on the +average as poor in brain and heart as the court of the most decadent +European monarchy. It presents a stern picture of the isolation, on one +side at least, in which Lincoln had to live and work. + +A little before this crowning period of Lincoln's career Walt Whitman +described him as a man in the streets of Washington could see him, if he +chose. He has been speaking of the cavalry escort which the President's +advisers insisted should go clanking about with him. "The party," he +continues, "makes no great show in uniform or horses. Mr. Lincoln on the +saddle generally rides a good-sized, easy-going grey horse, is dressed in +plain black, somewhat rusty and dusty, and looks about as ordinary in +attire, etc., as the commonest man. The entirely unornamental _cortege_ +arouses no sensation; only some curious stranger stops and gazes. I see +very plainly Abraham Lincoln's dark brown face, with the deep-cut lines, +the eyes always to me with a deep latent sadness in the expression. We +have got so that we exchange bows, and very cordial ones. Sometimes the +President goes and comes in an open barouche" (not, the poet intimates, a +very smart turn-out). "Sometimes one of his sons, a boy of ten or +twelve, accompanies him, riding at his right on a pony. They passed me +once very close, and I saw the President in the face fully as they were +moving slowly, and his look, though abstracted, happened to be directed +steadily in my eye. He bowed and smiled, but far beneath his smile I +noticed well the expression I have alluded to. None of the artists or +pictures has caught the deep though subtle and indirect expression of +this man's face. There is something else there. One of the great +portrait painters of two or three centuries ago is needed." + +The little boy on the pony was Thomas, called "Tad," a constant companion +of his father's little leisure, now dead. An elder boy, Robert, has +lived to be welcomed as Ambassador in this country, and was at this time +a student at Harvard. Willie, a clever and lovably mischievous child, +"the chartered libertine of the White House" for a little while, had died +at the age of twelve in the early days of 1862, when his father was +getting so impatient to stir McClellan into action. These and a son who +had long before died in infancy were the only children of Mr. and Mrs. +Lincoln. Little has been made public concerning them, but enough to +convey the impression of a wise and tender father, trusted by his +children and delighting in them. John Nicolay, his loyal and capable +secretary, and the delightful John Hay must be reckoned on the cheerful +side--for there was one--of Lincoln's daily life. The life of the home +at the White House, and sometimes in summer at the "Soldiers' Home" near +Washington, was simple, and in his own case (not in that of his guests) +regardless of the time, sufficiency, or quality of meals. He cannot have +given people much trouble, but he gave some to the guard who watched him, +themselves keenly watched by Stanton; for he loved, if he could, to walk +alone from his midnight conferences at the War Department to the White +House or the Soldiers' Home. The barest history of the events with which +he dealt is proof enough of long and hard and anxious working days, which +continued with hardly a break through four years. In that history many a +complication has here been barely glanced at or clean left out; in this +year, for example, the difficulty about France and Mexico and the failure +of the very estimable Banks in Texas have been but briefly noted. And +there must be remembered, in addition, the duty of a President to be +accessible to all people, a duty which Lincoln especially strove to +fulfil. + +Apart from formal receptions, the stream of callers on him must have +given Lincoln many compensations for its huge monotony. Very odd, and +sometimes attractive, samples of human nature would come under his keen +eye. Now and then a visitor came neither with a troublesome request, nor +for form's sake or for curiosity, but in simple honesty to pay a tribute +of loyalty or speak a word of good cheer which Lincoln received with +unfeigned gratitude. Farmers and back-country folk, of the type he could +best talk with, came and had more time than he ought to have spared +bestowed on them. At long intervals there came a friend of very +different days. Some ingenious men, for instance, fitted out Dennis +Hanks in a new suit of clothes and sent him as their ambassador to plead +for certain political offenders. It is much to be feared that they were +more successful than they deserved, though Stanton intervened and Dennis, +when he had seen him, favoured his old companion, the President, with +advice to dismiss that minister. But the immense variety of puzzling +requests to be dealt with in such interviews must have made heavy demands +upon a conscientious and a kind man, especially if his conscience and his +kindness were, in small matters, sometimes at variance. Lincoln sent a +multitude away with that feeling, so grateful to poor people, that at +least they had received such hearing as it was possible to give them; and +in dealing with the applications which imposed the greatest strain on +himself he made an ineffaceable impression upon the memory of his +countrymen. + +The American soldier did not take naturally to discipline. Death +sentences, chiefly for desertion or for sleeping or other negligence on +the part of sentries, were continually being passed by courts-martial. +In some cases or at some period these used to come before the President +on a stated day of the week, of which Lincoln would often speak with +horror. He was continually being appealed to in relation to such +sentences by the father or mother of the culprit, or some friend. At one +time, it may be, he was too ready with pardon; "You do not know," he +said, "how hard it is to let a human being die, when you feel that a +stroke of your pen will save him." Butler used to write to him that he +was destroying the discipline of the army. A letter of his to Meade +shows clearly that, later at least, he did not wish to exercise a merely +cheap and inconsiderate mercy. The import of the numberless pardon +stories really is that he would spare himself no trouble to enquire, and +to intervene wherever he could rightly give scope to his longing for +clemency. A Congressman might force his way into his bedroom in the +middle of the night, rouse him from his sleep to bring to his notice +extenuating facts that had been overlooked, and receive the decision, +"Well, I don't see that it will do him any good to be shot." It is +related that William Scott, a lad from a farm in Vermont, after a +tremendous march in the Peninsula campaign, volunteered to do double +guard duty to spare a sick comrade, slept at his post, was caught, and +was under sentence of death, when the President came to the army and +heard of him. The President visited him, chatted about his home, looked +at his mother's photograph, and so forth. Then he laid his hands on the +boy's shoulders and said with a trembling voice, "My boy, you are not +going to be shot. I believe you when you tell me that you could not keep +awake. I am going to trust you and send you back to the regiment. But I +have been put to a great deal of trouble on your account. . . . Now what +I want to know is, how are you going to pay my bill?" Scott told +afterwards how difficult it was to think, when his fixed expectation of +death was suddenly changed; but how he managed to master himself, thank +Mr. Lincoln and reckon up how, with his pay and what his parents could +raise by mortgage on their farm and some help from his comrades, he might +pay the bill if it were not more than five or six hundred dollars. "But +it is a great deal more than that," said the President. "My bill is a +very large one. Your friends cannot pay it, nor your bounty, nor the +farm, nor all your comrades. There is only one man in the world who can +pay it, and his name is William Scott. If from this day William Scott +does his duty, so that, when he comes to die, he can look me in the face +as he does now and say, 'I have kept my promise and I have done my duty +as a soldier,' then my debt will be paid. Will you make the promise and +try to keep it?" And William Scott did promise; and, not very long +after, he was desperately wounded, and he died, but not before he could +send a message to the President that he had tried to be a good soldier, +and would have paid his debt in full if he had lived, and that he died +thinking of Lincoln's kind face and thanking him for the chance he gave +him to fall like a soldier in battle. If the story is not true--and +there is no reason whatever to doubt it--still it is a remarkable man of +whom people spin yarns of that kind. + +When Lincoln's strength became visibly tried friends often sought to +persuade him to spare himself the needless, and to him very often +harrowing, labour of incessant interviews. They never succeeded. +Lincoln told them he could not forget what he himself would feel in the +place of the many poor souls who came to him desiring so little and with +so little to get. But he owned to the severity of the strain. He was +not too sensitive to the ridicule and reproach that surrounded him. +"Give yourself no uneasiness," he had once said to some one who had +sympathised with him over some such annoyance, "I have endured a great +deal of ridicule without much malice, and have received a great deal of +kindness not quite free from ridicule. I am used to it." But the gentle +nature that such words express, and that made itself deeply felt by those +that were nearest him, cannot but have suffered from want of +appreciation. With all this added to the larger cares, which before the +closing phases of the war opened had become so intense, Lincoln must have +been taxed near to the limit of what men have endured without loss of +judgment, or loss of courage or loss of ordinary human feeling. There is +no sign that any of these things happened to him; the study of his record +rather shows a steady ripening of mind and character to the end. It has +been seen how throughout his previous life the melancholy of his +temperament impressed those who had the opportunity of observing it. A +colleague of his at the Illinois bar has told how on circuit he sometimes +came down in the morning and found Lincoln sitting alone over the embers +of the fire, where he had sat all night in sad meditation, after an +evening of jest apparently none the less hilarious for his total +abstinence. There was no scope for this brooding now, and in a sense the +time of his severest trial cannot have been the saddest time of Lincoln's +life. It must have been a cause not of added depression but of added +strength that he had long been accustomed to face the sternest aspect of +the world. He had within his own mind two resources, often, perhaps +normally, associated together, but seldom so fully combined as with him. +In his most intimate circle he would draw upon his stores of poetry, +particularly of tragedy; often, for instance, he would recite such +speeches as Richard II.'s: + + "For God's sake let us sit upon the ground + And tell sad stories of the death of kings. + . . . . . All murdered." + +Slighter acquaintances saw, day by day, another element in his thoughts, +the companion to this; for the hardly interrupted play of humour in which +he found relief continued to help him to the end. Whatever there was in +it either of mannerism or of coarseness, no one can grudge it him; it is +an oddity which endears. The humour of real life fades in reproduction, +but Lincoln's, there is no doubt was a vein of genuine comedy, deep, +rich, and unsoured, of a larger human quality than marks the brilliant +works of literary American humorists. It was, like the comedy of +Shakespeare, plainly if unaccountably akin with the graver and grander +strain of thought and feeling that inspired the greatest of his speeches. +Physically his splendid health does not seem to have been impaired beyond +recovery. But it was manifestly near to breaking; and the "deep-cut +lines" were cut still deeper, and the long legs were always cold. + +The cloud over the North passed very suddenly. The North indeed paid the +penalty of a nation which is spared the full strain of a war at the +first, and begins to discover its seriousness when the hope of easy +victory has been many times dashed down. It has been necessary to dwell +upon the despondency which at one time prevailed; but it would be hard to +rate too highly the military difficulty of the conquest undertaken by the +North, or the trial involved to human nature by perseverance in such a +task. If the depression during the summer was excessive, as it clearly +was, at least the recovery which followed was fully adequate to the +occasion which produced it. On September 2 Sherman telegraphed, "Atlanta +is ours and fairly won." The strategic importance of earlier successes +may have been greater, but the most ignorant man who looked at a map +could see what it signified that the North could occupy an important city +in the heart of Georgia. Then they recalled Farragut's victory of a +month before. Then there followed, close to Washington, putting an end +to a continual menace, stirring and picturesquely brilliant beyond other +incidents of the war, Sheridan's repeated victories in the Shenandoah +Valley. The war which had been "voted a failure" was evidently not a +failure. At the same time men of high character conducted a vigorous +campaign of speeches for Lincoln. General Schurz, the German +revolutionary Liberal, who lived to tell Bismarck at his table that he +still preferred democracy to his amused host's method of government, +sacrificed his command in the Army--for Lincoln told him it could not be +restored--to speak for Lincoln. Even Chase was carried away, and after +months of insidious detraction, went for Lincoln on the stump. In the +elections in November Lincoln was elected by an enormous popular +majority, giving him 212 out of the 233 votes in the electoral college, +where in form the election is made. Three Northern States only, one of +them his native State, had gone against him. He made some little +speeches to parties which came to "serenade" him; some were not very +formal speeches, for, as he said, he was now too old to "care much about +the mode of doing things." But one was this: "It has long been a grave +question whether any Government not too strong for the liberties of its +people can be strong enough to maintain its existence in great +emergencies. On this point the present rebellion brought our Government +to a severe test, and a Presidential election occurring in regular course +during the rebellion added not a little to the strain. But we cannot +have a free Government without elections; and if the rebellion could +force us to forego or postpone a national election it might fairly claim +to have already conquered and ruined us. But the election along with its +incidental and undesirable strife has done good too. It has demonstrated +that a people's Government can sustain a national election in the midst +of a great civil war. Until now it has not been known to the world that +this was a possibility. But the rebellion continues, and now that the +election is over may not all have a common interest to reunite in a +common effort to save our common country? For my own part I have striven +and shall strive to avoid placing any obstacle in the way. So long as I +have been here I have not willingly planted a thorn in any man's bosom. +While I am duly sensible to the high compliment of a re-election, and +duly grateful as I trust to Almighty God for having directed my +countrymen to a right conclusion, as I think, for their good, it adds +nothing to my satisfaction that any man may be disappointed by the +result. May I ask those who have not differed from me to join with me in +this same spirit towards those who have? And now let me close by asking +three hearty cheers for our brave soldiers and seamen, and their gallant +and skilful commanders." + +In the Cabinet he brought out the paper that he had sealed up in the dark +days of August; he reminded his ministers of how they had endorsed it +unread, and he read it them. Its contents ran thus: "This morning, as +for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this +Administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be my duty to so +co-operate with the President-elect as to save the Union between the +election and the inauguration, as he will have secured his election on +such ground that he cannot possibly save it afterwards." Lincoln +explained what he had intended to do if McClellan had won. He would have +gone to him and said, "General, this election shows that you are +stronger, have more influence with the people of this country than I"; +and he would have invited him to co-operate in saving the Union now, by +using that great influence to secure from the people the willing +enlistment of enough recruits. "And the general," said Seward, "would +have said, 'Yes, yes'; and again the next day, when you spoke to him +about it, 'Yes, yes'; and so on indefinitely, and he would have done +nothing." + +"Seldom in history," wrote Emerson in a letter after the election, "was +so much staked upon a popular vote. I suppose never in history." + +And to those Americans of all classes and in all districts of the North, +who had set their hearts and were giving all they had to give to preserve +the life of the nation, the political crisis of 1864 would seem to have +been the most anxious moment of the war. It is impossible--it must be +repeated--to guess how great the danger really was that their popular +government might in the result betray the true and underlying will of the +people; for in any country (and in America perhaps more than most) the +average of politicians, whose voices are most loudly heard, can only in a +rough and approximate fashion be representative. But there is in any +case no cause for surprise that the North should at one time have +trembled. Historic imagination is easily, though not one whit too +deeply, moved by the heroic stand of the South. It is only after the +effort to understand the light in which the task of the North has +presented itself to capable soldiers, that a civilian can perceive what +sustained resolution was required if, though far the stronger, it was to +make its strength tell. Notwithstanding the somewhat painful impression +which the political chronicle of this time at some points gives, it is +the fact that the wisest Englishmen who were in those days in America and +had means of observing what passed have retained a lasting sense of the +constancy, under trial, of the North. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE END + +On December 6, 1864, Lincoln sent the last of his Annual Messages to +Congress. He treated as matter for oblivion the "impugning of motives +and heated controversy as to the proper means of advancing the Union +cause," which had played so large a part in the Presidential election +and the other elections of the autumn. For, as he said, "on the +distinct issue of Union or no Union the politicians have shown their +instinctive knowledge that there is no diversity among the people." +This was accurate as well as generous, for though many Democrats had +opposed the war, none had avowed that for the sake of peace he would +give up the Union. Passing then to the means by which the Union could +be made to prevail he wrote: "On careful consideration of all the +evidence accessible it seems to me that no attempt at negotiation with +the insurgent leader could result in any good. He would accept nothing +short of severance of the Union--precisely what we will not and cannot +give. Between him and us the issue is distinct, simple, and +inflexible. It is an issue which can only be tried by war and decided +by victory. The abandonment of armed resistance to the national +authority on the part of the insurgents is the only indispensable +condition to ending the war on the part of the Government." To avoid a +possible misunderstanding he added that not a single person who was +free by the terms of the Emancipation Proclamation or of any Act of +Congress would be returned to slavery while he held the executive +authority. "If the people should by whatever mode or means make it an +executive duty to re-enslave such persons, another, and not I, must be +their instrument to perform it." This last sentence was no meaningless +flourish; the Constitutional Amendment prohibiting slavery could not be +passed for some time, and might conceivably be defeated; in the +meantime the Courts might possibly have declared any negro in the +Southern States a slave; Lincoln's words let it be seen that they would +have found themselves without an arm to enforce their decision. But in +fact there was no longer an issue with the South as to abolition. +Jefferson Davis had himself declared that slavery was gone, for most +slaves had now freed themselves, and that he for his part troubled very +little over that. There remained, then, no issue between North and +South except that between Independence and Union. + +On the same day that he sent his annual message Lincoln gave himself a +characteristic pleasure by another communication which he sent to the +Senate. Old Roger Taney of the Dred Scott case had died in October; +the Senate was now requested to confirm the President's nomination of a +new Chief Justice to succeed him; and the President had nominated +Chase. Chase's reputation as a lawyer had seemed to fit him for the +position, but the well informed declared that, in spite of some +appearances on the platform for Lincoln he still kept "going around +peddling his griefs in private ears and sowing dissatisfaction against +Lincoln." So in spite of Lincoln's pregnant remark on this subject +that he "did not believe in keeping any man under," nobody supposed +that Lincoln would appoint him. Sumner and Congressman Alley of +Massachusetts had indeed gone to Lincoln to urge the appointment. "We +found, to our dismay," Alley relates, "that the President had heard of +the bitter criticisms of Mr. Chase upon himself and his Administration. +Mr. Lincoln urged many of Chase's defects, to discover, as we +afterwards learned, how his objection could be answered. We were both +discouraged and made up our minds that the President did not mean to +appoint Mr. Chase. It really seemed too much to expect of poor human +nature." One morning Alley again saw the President. "I have something +to tell you that will make you happy," said Lincoln. "I have just sent +Mr. Chase word that he is to be appointed Chief Justice, and you are +the first man I have told of it." Alley said something natural about +Lincoln's magnanimity, but was told in reply what the only real +difficulty had been. Lincoln from his "convictions of duty to the +Republican party and the country" had always meant to appoint Chase, +subject to one doubt which he had revolved in his mind till he had +settled it. This doubt was simply whether Chase, beset as he was by a +craving for the Presidency which he could never obtain, would ever +really turn his attention with a will to becoming the great Chief +Justice that Lincoln thought he could be. Lincoln's occasional +failures of tact had sometimes a noble side to them; he even thought +now of writing to Chase and telling him with simple seriousness where +he felt his temptation lay, and he with difficulty came to see that +this attempt at brotherly frankness would be misconstrued by a +suspicious and jealous man. Charles Sumner, Chase's advocate on this +occasion, was all this time the most weighty and the most pronounced of +those Radicals who were beginning to press for unrestricted negro +suffrage in the South and in general for a hard and inelastic scheme of +"reconstruction," which they would have imposed on the conquered South +without an attempt to conciliate the feeling of the vanquished or to +invite their co-operation in building up the new order. He was thus +the chief opponent of that more tentative, but as is now seen, more +liberal and more practical policy which lay very close to Lincoln's +heart; enough has been said of him to suggest too that this grave +person, bereft of any glimmering of fun, was in one sense no congenial +companion for Lincoln. But he was stainlessly unselfish and sincere, +and he was the politician above all others in Washington with whom +Lincoln most gladly and most successfully maintained easy social +intercourse. And, to please him in little ways, Lincoln would +disentangle his long frame from the "grotesque position of comfort" +into which he had twisted it in talk with some other friend, and would +assume in an instant a courtly demeanour when Sumner was about to enter +his room. + +On January 31, 1865, the resolution earlier passed by the Senate for a +Constitutional Amendment to prohibit slavery was passed by the House of +Representatives, as Lincoln had eagerly desired, so that the requisite +voting of three quarters of the States in its favour could now begin. +Before that time the Confederate Congress had, on March 13, 1865, +closed its last, most anxious and distracted session by passing an Act +for the enlistment of negro volunteers, who were to become free on +enlistment. As a military measure it was belated and inoperative, but +nothing could more eloquently have marked the practical extinction of +slavery which the war had wrought than the consent of Southern +legislators to convert the remaining slaves into soldiers. + +The military operations of 1865 had proceeded but a very little way +when the sense of what they portended was felt among the Southern +leaders in Richmond. The fall of that capital itself might be hastened +or be delayed; Lee's army if it escaped from Richmond might prolong +resistance for a shorter or for a longer time, but Sherman's march to +the sea, and the far harder achievements of the same kind which he was +now beginning, made the South feel, as he knew it would feel, that not +a port, not an arsenal, not a railway, not a corn district of the South +lay any longer beyond the striking range of the North. Congressmen and +public officials in Richmond knew that the people of the South now +longed for peace and that the authority of the Confederacy was gone. +They beset Jefferson Davis with demands that he should start +negotiations. But none of them had determined what price they would +pay for peace; and there was not among them any will that could really +withstand their President. In one point indeed Jefferson Davis did +wisely yield. On February 9, 1865, he consented to make Lee +General-in-Chief of all the Southern armies. This belated delegation +of larger authority to Lee had certain military results, but no +political result whatever. Lee could have been the dictator of the +Confederacy if he had chosen, and no one then or since would have +blamed him; but it was not in his mind to do anything but his duty as a +soldier. The best beloved and most memorable by far of all the men who +served that lost cause, he had done nothing to bring about secession at +the beginning, nor now did he do anything but conform to the wishes of +his political chief. As for that chief, Lincoln had interpreted Davis' +simple position quite rightly. Having once embraced the cause of +Southern independence and taken the oath as chief magistrate of an +independent Confederacy, he would not yield up that cause while there +was a man to obey his orders. Whether this attitude should be set +down, as it usually has been set down, to a diseased pride or to a very +real heroism on his part, he never faced the truth that the situation +was desperate and the spirit of his people daunted at last. But it is +probable that just like Lincoln he was ready that those who were in +haste to make peace should see what peace involved; and it is probable +too that, in his terrible position, he deluded himself with some vague +and vain hopes as to the attitude of the North. Lincoln on the other +hand would not enter into any proceedings in which the secession of the +South was treated otherwise than as a rebellion which must cease; but +this did not absolutely compel him to refuse every sort of informal +communication with influential men in the South, which might help them +to see where they stood and from which he too might learn something. + +Old Mr. Francis Blair, the father of Lincoln's late Postmaster-General, +was the last of the honest peace-makers whom Lincoln had allowed to see +things for themselves by meeting Jefferson Davis. His visit took place +in January, 1865, and from his determination to be a go-between and the +curious and difficult position in which Lincoln and Davis both stood in +this respect an odd result arose. The Confederate Vice-President +Stephens, who had preached peace in the autumn without a quarrel with +Davis, and two other Southern leaders presented themselves at Grant's +headquarters with the pathetic misrepresentation that they were sent by +Davis on a mission which Lincoln had undertaken to receive. What they +could show was authority from Davis to negotiate with Lincoln on the +footing of the independence of the Confederacy, and a politely turned +intimation from Lincoln that he would at any time receive persons +informally sent to talk with a view to the surrender of the rebel +armies. Grant, however, was deeply impressed with the sincerity of +their desire for peace, and he entreated Lincoln to receive them. +Lincoln therefore decided to overlook the false pretence under which +they came. He gave Grant strict orders not to delay his operations on +this account, but he came himself with Seward and met Davis' three +commissioners on a ship at Hampton Roads on February 3. He and +Stephens had in old days been Whig Congressmen together, and Lincoln +had once been moved to tears by a speech of Stephens. They met now as +friends. Lincoln lost no time in making his position clear. The +unhappy commissioners made every effort to lead him away from the plain +ground he had chosen. It is evident that they and possible that +Jefferson Davis had hoped that when face to face with them he would +change his mind, and possibly Blair's talk had served to encourage this +hope. They failed, but the conversation continued in a frank and +friendly manner. Lincoln told them very freely his personal opinions +as to how the North ought to treat the South when it did surrender, but +was careful to point out that he could make no promise or bargain, +except indeed this promise that so far as penalties for rebellion were +concerned the executive power, which lay in his sole hands, would be +liberally used. Slavery was discussed, and Seward told them of the +Constitutional Amendment which Congress had now submitted to the +people. One of the commissioners returning again to Lincoln's refusal +to negotiate with armed rebels, as he considered them, cited the +precedent of Charles I.'s conduct in this respect. "I do not profess," +said Lincoln, "to be posted in history. On all such matters I turn you +over to Seward. All I distinctly recollect about Charles I. is that he +lost his head in the end." Then he broke out into simple advice to +Stephens as to the action he could now pursue. He had to report to +Congress afterwards that the conference had had no result. He brought +home, however, a personal compliment which he valued. "I understand, +then," Stephens had said, "that you regard us as rebels, who are liable +to be hanged for treason." "That is so," said Lincoln. "Well," said +Stephens, "we supposed that would have to be your view. But, to tell +you the truth, we have none of us been much afraid of being hanged with +you as President." He brought home, besides the compliment, an idea of +a kind which, if he could have had his way with his friends, might have +been rich in good. He had discovered how hopeless the people of the +South were, and he considered whether a friendly pronouncement might +not lead them more readily to surrender. He deplored the suffering in +which the South might now lie plunged, and it was a fixed part of his +creed that slavery was the sin not of the South but of the nation. So +he spent the day after his return in drafting a joint resolution which +he hoped the two Houses of Congress might pass, and a Proclamation +which he would in that case issue. In these he proposed to offer to +the Southern States four hundred million dollars in United States +bonds, being, as he calculated the cost to the North of two hundred +days of war, to be allotted among those States in proportion to the +property in slaves which each had lost. One half of this sum was to be +paid at once if the war ended by April 1, and the other half upon the +final adoption of the Constitutional Amendment. It would have been a +happy thing if the work of restoring peace could have lain with a +statesman whose rare aberrations from the path of practical politics +were of this kind. Yet, considering the natural passions which even in +this least revengeful of civil wars could not quite be repressed, we +should be judging the Congress of that day by a higher standard than we +should apply in other countries if we regarded this proposal as one +that could have been hopefully submitted to them. Lincoln's illusions +were dispelled on the following day when he read what he had written to +his Cabinet, and found that even among his own ministers not one man +supported him. It would have been worse than useless to put forward +his proposals and to fail. "You are all opposed to me," he said sadly; +and he put his papers away. But the war had now so far progressed that +it is necessary to turn back to the point at which we left it at the +end of 1864. + +Winter weather brought a brief pause to the operations of the armies. +Sherman at Savannah was preparing to begin his northward march, a +harder matter, owing to the rivers and marshes that lay in his way, +than his triumphal progress from Atlanta. Efforts were made to +concentrate all available forces against him at Augusta to his +north-west. Making feints against Augusta on the one side, and against +the city and port of Charleston on the other, he displayed the +marvellous engineering capacity of his army by an advance of +unlooked-for speed across the marshes to Columbia, due north of him, +which is the State capital of South Carolina. He reached it on +February 17, 1865. The intended concentration of the South at Augusta +was broken up. The retreating Confederates set fire to great stores of +cotton and the unfortunate city was burnt, a calamity for which the +South, by a natural but most unjust mistake, blamed Sherman. The +railway communications of Charleston were now certain to be severed; so +the Confederates were forced to evacuate it, and on February 18, 1865, +the North occupied the chief home of the misbegotten political ideals +of the South and of its real culture and chivalry. + +Admiral Porter (for age and ill-health had come upon Farragut) was +ready at sea to co-operate with Sherman. Thomas' army in Tennessee had +not been allowed by Grant to go into winter quarters. A part of it +under Schofield was brought to Washington and there shipped for North +Carolina, where, ever since Burnside's successful expedition in 1862, +the Union Government had held the ports north of Wilmington. +Wilmington itself was the only port left to the South, and Richmond had +now come to depend largely on the precarious and costly supplies which +could still, notwithstanding the blockade, be run into that harbour. +At the end of December, Butler, acting in flagrant disobedience to +Grant, had achieved his crowning failure in a joint expedition with +Porter against Wilmington. But Porter was not discouraged, nor was +Grant, who from beginning to end of his career had worked well together +with the Navy. On February 8, Porter, this time supported by an +energetic general, Terry, effected a brilliant capture of Fort Fisher +at the mouth of Wilmington harbour. The port was closed to the South. +On the 22nd, the city itself fell to Schofield, and Sherman had now +this sea base at hand if he needed it. + +Meanwhile Grant's entrenchments on the east of Richmond and Petersburg +were still extending southward, and Lee's defences had been stretched +till they covered nearly forty miles. Grant's lines now cut the +principal railway southward from the huge fortress, and he was able +effectually to interrupt communication by road to the southwest. There +could be little doubt that Richmond would fall soon, and the real +question was coming to be whether Lee and his army could escape from +Richmond and still carry on the war. + +The appointment of Lee as General-in-Chief was not too late to bear one +consequence which may have prolonged the war a little. Joseph +Johnston, whose ability in a campaign of constant retirement before +overwhelming force had been respected and redoubted by Sherman, had +been discarded by Davis in the previous July. He was now put in +command of the forces which it was hoped to concentrate against +Sherman, with a view to holding up his northward advance and preventing +him from joining hands with Grant before Richmond. There were +altogether about 89,000 Confederate troops scattered in the Carolinas, +Georgia, and Florida, and there would be about the same number under +Sherman when Schofield in North Carolina could join him, but the number +which Johnston could now collect together seems never to have exceeded +33,000. It was Sherman's task by the rapidity of his movements to +prevent a very formidable concentration against him. Johnston on the +other hand must hinder if he could Sherman's junction with Schofield. +Just before that junction took place he narrowly missed dealing a +considerable blow to Sherman's army at the battle of Bentonville in the +heart of North Carolina, but had in the end to withdraw within an +entrenched position where Sherman would not attack him, but which upon +the arrival of Schofield he was forced to abandon. On March 23, 1865, +Sherman took possession of the town and railway junction of +Goldsborough between Raleigh and New Berne. From Savannah to +Goldsborough he had led his army 425 miles in fifty days, amid +disadvantages of ground and of weather which had called forth both +extraordinary endurance and mechanical skill on the part of his men. +He lay now 140 miles south of Petersburg by the railway. The port of +New Berne to the east of him on the estuary of the Neuse gave him a +sure base of supplies, and would enable him quickly to move his army by +sea to Petersburg and Richmond if Grant should so decide. The +direction in which Johnston would now fall back lay inland up the Neuse +Valley, also along a railway, towards Greensborough, some 150 miles +south-west of Petersburg; Greensborough was connected by another +railway with Petersburg and Richmond, and along this line Lee might +attempt to retire and join him. + +All this time whatever designs Lee had of leaving Richmond were +suspended because the roads in that weather were too bad for his +transport; and, while of necessity he waited, his possible openings +narrowed. Philip Sheridan had now received the coveted rank of +Major-General, which McClellan had resigned on the day on which he was +defeated for the Presidency. The North delighted to find in his +achievements the dashing quality which appeals to civilian imagination, +and Grant now had in him, as well as in Sherman, a lieutenant who would +faithfully make his chief's purposes his own, and who would execute +them with independent decision. The cold, in which his horses +suffered, had driven Sheridan into winter quarters, but on February 27 +he was able to start up the Shenandoah Valley again with 10,000 +cavalry. Most of the Confederate cavalry under Early had now been +dispersed, mainly for want of forage in the desolated valley; the rest +were now dispersed by Sheridan, and the greater part of Early's small +force of infantry with all his artillery were captured. There was a +garrison in Lynchburg, 80 or 90 miles west of Richmond, which though +strong enough to prevent Sheridan's cavalry from capturing that place +was not otherwise of account; but there was no Confederate force in the +field except Johnston's men near enough to co-operate with Lee; only +some small and distant armies, hundreds of miles away with the railway +communication between them and the East destroyed. Sheridan now broke +up the railway and canal communication on the north-west side of +Richmond. He was to have gone on south and eventually joined Sherman +if he could; but, finding himself stopped for the time by floods in the +upper valley of the James, he rode past the north of Richmond, and on +March 19 joined Grant, to put his cavalry and brains at his service +when Grant judged that the moment for his final effort had come. + +On March 4, 1865, Abraham Lincoln took office for the second time as +President of the United. States. There was one new and striking +feature in the simple ceremonial, the presence of a battalion of negro +troops in his escort. This time, though he would say no sanguine word, +it cannot have been a long continuance of war that filled his thoughts, +but the scarcely less difficult though far happier task of restoring +the fabric of peaceful society in the conquered South. His +difficulties were now likely to come from the North no less than the +South. Tentative proposals which he had once or twice made suggest the +spirit in which he would have felt his way along this new path. In the +Inaugural address which he now delivered that spirit is none the less +perceptible because he spoke of the past. The little speech at +Gettysburg, with its singular perfection of form, and the "Second +Inaugural" are the chief outstanding examples of his peculiar +oratorical power. The comparative rank of his oratory need not be +discussed, for at any rate it was individual and unlike that of most +other great speakers in history, though perhaps more like that of some +great speeches in drama. + +But there is a point of some moment in which the Second Inaugural does +invite a comment, and a comment which should be quite explicit. +Probably no other speech of a modern statesman uses so unreservedly the +language of intense religious feeling. The occasion made it natural; +neither the thought nor the words are in any way conventional; no +sensible reader now could entertain a suspicion that the orator spoke +to the heart of the people but did not speak from his own heart. But +an old Illinois attorney, who thought he knew the real Lincoln behind +the President, might have wondered whether the real Lincoln spoke here. +For Lincoln's religion, like everything else in his character, became, +when he was famous, a stock subject of discussion among his old +associates. Many said "he was a Christian but did not know it." Some +hinted, with an air of great sagacity, that "so far from his being a +Christian or a religious man, the less said about it the better." In +early manhood he broke away for ever from the scheme of Christian +theology which was probably more or less common to the very various +Churches which surrounded him. He had avowed this sweeping denial with +a freedom which pained some friends, perhaps rather by its rashness +than by its impiety, and he was apt to regard the procedure of +theologians as a blasphemous twisting of the words of Christ. He +rejected that belief in miracles and in the literally inspired accuracy +of the Bible narrative which was no doubt held as fundamental by all +these Churches. He rejected no less any attempt to substitute for this +foundation the belief in any priestly authority or in the authority of +any formal and earthly society called the Church. With this total +independence of the expressed creeds of his neighbours he still went +and took his boys to Presbyterian public worship--their mother was an +Episcopalian and his own parents had been Baptists. He loved the Bible +and knew it intimately--he is said also by the way to have stored in +his memory a large number of hymns. In the year before his death he +wrote to Speed: "I am profitably engaged in reading the Bible. Take +all of this book upon reason that you can and the balance upon faith +and you will live and die a better man." It was not so much the Old +Testament as the New Testament and what he called "the true spirit of +Christ" that he loved especially, and took with all possible +seriousness as the rule of life. His theology, in the narrower sense, +may be said to have been limited to an intense belief in a vast and +over-ruling Providence--the lighter forms of superstitious feelings +which he is known to have had in common with most frontiersmen were +apparently of no importance in his life. And this Providence, darkly +spoken of, was certainly conceived by him as intimately and kindly +related to his own life. In his Presidential candidature, when he +owned to some one that the opposition of clergymen hurt him deeply, he +is said to have confessed to being no Christian and to have continued, +"I know that there is a God and that He hates injustice and slavery. I +see the storm coming and I know that His hand is in it. If He has a +place and work for me, and I think He has, I believe I am ready. I am +nothing, but truth is everything; I know I am right because I know that +liberty is right, for Christ teaches it, and Christ is God. I have +told them that a house divided against itself cannot stand, and Christ +and reason say the same, and they will find it so." When old +acquaintances said that he had no religion they based their opinion on +such remarks as that the God, of whom he had just been speaking +solemnly, was "not a person." It would be unprofitable to enquire what +he, and many others, meant by this expression, but, later at any rate, +this "impersonal" power was one with which he could hold commune. His +robust intellect, impatient of unproved assertion, was unlikely to rest +in the common assumption that things dimly seen may be treated as not +being there. So humorous a man was also unlikely to be too conceited +to say his prayers. At any rate he said them; said them intently; +valued the fact that others prayed for him and for the nation; and, as +in official Proclamations (concerning days of national religious +observance) he could wield, like no other modern writer, the language +of the Prayer Book, so he would speak of prayer without the smallest +embarrassment in talk with a general or a statesman. It is possible +that this was a development of later years. Lincoln did not, like most +of us, arrest his growth. To Mrs. Lincoln it seemed that with the +death of their child, Willie, a change came over his whole religious +outlook. It well might; and since that grief, which came while his +troubles were beginning, much else had come to Lincoln; and now through +four years of unsurpassed trial his capacity had steadily grown, and +his delicate fairness, his pitifulness, his patience, his modesty had +grown therewith. Here is one of the few speeches ever delivered by a +great man at the crisis of his fate on the sort of occasion which a +tragedian telling his story would have devised for him. This man had +stood alone in the dark. He had done justice; he had loved mercy; he +had walked humbly with his God. The reader to whom religious utterance +makes little appeal will not suppose that his imaginative words stand +for no real experience. The reader whose piety knows no questions will +not be pained to think that this man had professed no faith. + +He said, "Fellow Countrymen: At this second appearance to take the oath +of the Presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended +address than there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat in +detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at +the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have +been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great +contest which still absorbs the energies and engrosses the attention of +the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our +arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the +public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and +encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in +regard to it is ventured. + +"On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts +were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it--all +sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered +from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, +insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without +war--seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects, by negotiation. +Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than +let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let +it perish. And the war came. + +"One-eighth of the whole population were coloured slaves, not +distributed generally over the Union, but localised in the Southern +part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. +All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To +strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for +which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the +Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial +enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or +the duration which it has already attained. Neither expected that the +cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict +itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result +less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to +the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem +strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in +wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us +judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be +answered--that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has +His own purposes. 'Woe unto the world because of offenses! for it must +needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense +cometh.' If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those +offenses, which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, +having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, +and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war, as the woe +due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any +departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living +God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope--fervently do we +pray--that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if +God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's +two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until +every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid with another +drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it +must be said, 'The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous +altogether.' + +"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the +right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the +work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who +shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do +all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among +ourselves, and with all nations." + +Lincoln's own commentary may follow upon his speech: + +"March 15, 1865. Dear Mr. Weed,--Every one likes a little compliment. +Thank you for yours on my little notification speech and on the recent +inaugural address. I expect the latter to wear as well as--perhaps +better than--anything I have produced; but I believe it is not +immediately popular. Men are not flattered by being shown that there +has been a difference of purpose between the Almighty and them. To +deny it however in this case is to deny that there is a God governing +the world. It is a truth which I thought needed to be told, and, as +whatever of humiliation there is in it falls most directly on myself, I +thought others might afford for me to tell it. + +"Truly yours, + +"A. LINCOLN." + + +On March 20, 1865, a period of bright sunshine seems to have begun in +Lincoln's life. Robert Lincoln had some time before finished his +course at Harvard, and his father had written to Grant modestly asking +him if he could suggest the way, accordant with discipline and good +example, in which the young man could best see something of military +life. Grant immediately had him on to his staff, with a commission as +captain, and now Grant invited Lincoln to come to his headquarters for +a holiday visit. There was much in it besides holiday, for Grant was +rapidly maturing his plans for the great event and wanted Lincoln near. +Moreover Sheridan had just arrived, and while Lincoln was there Sherman +came from Goldsborough with Admiral Porter for consultation as to +Sherman's next move. Peremptory as he was in any necessary political +instructions, Lincoln was now happy to say nothing of military matters, +beyond expressing his earnest desire that the final overmastering of +the Confederate armies should be accomplished with the least further +bloodshed possible, and indulging the curiosity that any other guest +might have shown. A letter home to Mrs. Lincoln betrays the interest +with which he heard heavy firing quite near, which seemed to him a +great battle, but did not excite those who knew. Then there were rides +in the country with Grant's staff. Lincoln in his tall hat and frock +coat was a marked and curious figure on a horse. He had once, by the +way, insisted on riding with Butler, catechising him with remorseless +chaff on engineering matters and forbidding his chief engineer to +prompt him, along six miles of cheering Northern troops within easy +sight and shot of the Confederate soldiers to whom his hat and coat +identified him. But, however odd a figure, he impressed Grant's +officers as a good and bold horseman. Then, after Sherman's arrival, +there evidently was no end of talk. Sherman was at first amused by the +President's anxiety as to whether his army was quite safe without him +at Goldsborough; but that keen-witted soldier soon received, as he has +said, an impression both of goodness and of greatness such as no other +man ever gave him. + +What especially remained on Sherman's and on Porter's mind was the +recollection of Lincoln's over-powering desire for mercy and for +conciliation with the conquered. Indeed Sherman blundered later in the +terms he first accepted from Johnston; for he did not see that +Lincoln's clemency for Southern leaders and desire for the welfare of +the South included no mercy at all for the political principle of the +Confederacy. Grant was not exposed to any such mistake, for a week or +two before Lee had made overtures to him for some sort of conference +and Lincoln had instantly forbidden him to confer with Lee for any +purpose but that of his unconditional surrender. What, apart from the +reconstruction of Southern life and institutions, was in part weighing +with Lincoln was the question of punishments for rebellion. By Act of +Congress the holders of high political and military office in the South +were liable as traitors, and there was now talk of hanging in the +North. Later events showed that a very different sentiment would make +itself heard when the victory came; but Lincoln was much concerned. To +some one who spoke to him of this matter he exclaimed, "What have I to +do with you, ye sons of Zeruiah, that ye should this day be adversaries +unto me? Shall there any man be put to death this day in Israel?" +There can be no doubt that the prerogative of mercy would have been +vigorously used in his hands, but he did not wish for a conflict on +this matter at all; and Grant was taught, in a parable about a teetotal +Irishman who forgave being served with liquor unbeknownst to himself, +that zeal in capturing Jefferson Davis and his colleagues was not +expected of him. + +While Lincoln was at Grant's headquarters at City Point, Lee, hoping to +recover the use of the roads to the south-west, endeavoured to cause a +diversion of the besiegers' strength by a sortie on his east front. It +failed and gave the besiegers a further point of vantage. On April 1 +Sheridan was sent far round the south of Lee's lines, and in a battle +at a point called Five Forks established himself in possession of the +railway running due west from Petersburg. The defences were weakest on +this side, and to prevent the entrance of the enemy there Lee was bound +to withdraw troops from other quarters. On the two following days +Grant's army delivered assaults at several points on the east side of +the Petersburg defences, penetrating the outer lines and pushing on +against the inner fortifications of the town. On Sunday, April 2, +Jefferson Davis received in church word from Lee to make instant +preparation for departure, as Petersburg could not be held beyond that +night and Richmond must fall immediately. That night the Confederate +Government left the capital, and Lee's evacuation of the fortress began +the next day. Lincoln was sent for. He came by sea, and to the +astonishment and alarm of the naval officers made his way at once to +Richmond with entirely insufficient escort. There he strolled about, +hand in hand with his little son Tad, greeted by exultant negroes, and +stared at by angry or curious Confederates, while he visited the former +prison of the Northern prisoners and other places of more pleasant +attraction without receiving any annoyance from the inhabitants. He +had an interesting talk with Campbell, formerly a Supreme Court judge, +and a few weeks back one of Davis' commissioners at Hampton Roads. +Campbell obtained permission to convene a meeting of the members of the +Virginia Legislature with a view to speedier surrender by Lee's army. +But the permission was revoked, for he somewhat clumsily mistook its +terms, and, moreover, the object in view had meantime been accomplished. + +Jefferson Davis was then making his way with his ministers to +Johnston's army. When they arrived he and they held council with +Johnston and Beauregard. He would issue a Proclamation which would +raise him many soldiers and he would "whip them yet." No one answered +him. At last he asked the opinion of Johnston, who bluntly undeceived +him as to facts, and told him that further resistance would be a crime, +and got his permission to treat with Sherman, while the fallen +Confederate President escaped further south. + +Lee's object was to make his way along the north side of the Appomattox +River, which flows east through Petersburg to the James estuary, and at +a certain point strike southwards towards Johnston's army. He fought +for his escape with all his old daring and skill, while hardly less +vigorous and skilful efforts were made not only to pursue, but to +surround him. Grant in his pursuit sent letters of courteous entreaty +that he would surrender and spare further slaughter. Northern cavalry +got ahead of Lee, tearing up the railway lines he had hoped to use and +blocking possible mountain passes; and his supply trains were being cut +off. After a long running fight and one last fierce battle on April 6, +at a place called Sailor's Creek, Lee found himself on April 9 at +Appomattox Court House, some seventy miles west of Petersburg, +surrounded beyond hope of escape. On that day he and Grant with their +staffs met in a neighbouring farmhouse. Those present recalled +afterwards the contrast of the stately Lee and the plain, ill-dressed +Grant arriving mud-splashed in his haste. Lee greeted Meade as an old +acquaintance and remarked how grey he had grown with years. Meade +gracefully replied that Lee and not age was responsible for that. +Grant had started "quite jubilant" on the news that Lee was ready to +surrender, but in presence of "the downfall of a foe who had fought so +long and valiantly" he fell into sadness. Pleasant "talk of old army +times" followed, and he had almost forgotten, as he declares, the +business in hand, when Lee asked him on what terms he would accept +surrender. Grant sat down and wrote, not knowing when he began what he +should go on to write. As he wrote he thought of the handsome sword +Lee carried. Instantly he added to his terms permission for every +Southern officer to keep his sword and his horse. Lee read the paper +and when he came to that point was visibly moved. He gauged his man, +and he ventured to ask something more. He thought, he said, Grant +might not know that the Confederate cavalry troopers owned their own +horses. Grant said they would be badly wanted on the farms and added a +further concession accordingly. "This will have the best possible +effect on the men," said Lee. "It will do much towards conciliating +our people." Grant included also in his written terms words of general +pardon to Confederate officers for their treason. This was an +inadvertent breach, perhaps, of Lincoln's orders, but it was one which +met with no objection. Lee retired into civil life and devoted himself +thereafter to his neighbours' service as head of a college in +Virginia--much respected, very free with alms to old soldiers and not +much caring whether they had fought for the South or for the North. +Grant did not wait to set foot in the capital which he had conquered, +but, the main business being over, posted off with all haste to see his +son settled in at school. + +Lincoln remained at City Point till April 8, when he started back by +steamer. Those who were with him on the two days' voyage told +afterwards of the happy talk, as of a quiet family party rejoicing in +the return of peace. Somebody said that Jefferson Davis really ought +to be hanged. The reply came in the quotation that he might almost +have expected, "Judge not, that ye be not judged." On the second day, +Sunday, the President read to them parts of "Macbeth." Sumner, who was +one of them, recalled that he read twice over the lines, + + "Duncan is in his grave; + After life's fitful fever he sleeps well; + Treason has done his worst; nor steel, nor poison, + Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing + Can touch him further." + +On the Tuesday, April 11, a triumphant crowd came to the White House to +greet Lincoln. He made them a speech, carefully prepared in substance +rather than in form, dealing with the question of reconstruction in the +South, with special reference to what was already in progress in +Louisiana. The precise points of controversy that arose in this regard +hardly matter now. Lincoln disclaimed any wish to insist pedantically +upon any detailed plan of his; but he declared his wish equally to keep +clear of any merely pedantic points of controversy with any in the +South who were loyally striving to revive State Government with +acceptance of the Union and without slavery; and he urged that genuine +though small beginnings should be encouraged. He regretted that in +Louisiana his wish for the enfranchisement of educated negroes and of +negro soldiers had not been followed; but as the freedom of the negroes +was unreservedly accepted, as provision was made for them in the public +schools, and the new State constitution allowed the Legislature to +enfranchise them, there was clear gain. "Concede that the new +government of Louisiana is only to what it should be as the egg is to +the fowl, we shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by +smashing it. What has been said of Louisiana will apply generally to +other States. So new and unprecedented," he ended, "is the whole case +that no exclusive and inflexible plan can safely be prescribed as to +details and collaterals. Such exclusive and inflexible plan would +surely become a new entanglement. Important principles may and must be +inflexible. In the present situation, as the phrase goes, it may be my +duty to make some new announcement to the people of the South. I am +considering, and shall not fail to act when satisfied that action will +be proper." A full generation has had cause to lament that that +announcement was never to be made. + +On Good Friday, April 14, 1865, with solemn religious service the Union +flag was hoisted again on Fort Sumter by General Anderson, its old +defender. On that morning there was a Cabinet Council in Washington. +Seward was absent, in bed with an injury from a carriage accident. +Grant was there a little anxious to get news from Sherman. Lincoln was +in a happy mood. He had earlier that morning enjoyed greatly a talk +with Robert Lincoln about the young man's new experience of soldiering. +He now told Grant and the Cabinet that good news was coming from +Sherman. He knew it, he said, for last night he had dreamed a dream, +which had come to him several times before. In this dream, whenever it +came, he was sailing in a ship of a peculiar build, indescribable but +always the same, and being borne on it with great speed towards a dark +and undefined shore. He had always dreamed this before victory. He +dreamed it before Antietam, before Murfreesborough, before Gettysburg, +before Vicksburg. Grant observed bluntly that Murfreesborough had not +been a victory, or of any consequence anyway. Lincoln persisted on +this topic undeterred. After some lesser business they discussed the +reconstruction of the South. Lincoln rejoiced that Congress had +adjourned and the "disturbing element" in it could not hinder the work. +Before it met again, "if we are wise and discreet we shall re-animate +the States and get their governments in successful operation, with +order prevailing and the Union re-established." Lastly, there was talk +of the treatment of rebels and of the demand that had been heard for +"persecution" and "bloody work." "No one need expect me," said +Lincoln, "to take any part in hanging or killing these men, even the +worst of them. Frighten them out of the country, open the gates, let +down the bars, scare them off." "Shoo," he added, throwing up his +large hands like a man scaring sheep. "We must extinguish our +resentments if we expect harmony and union. There is too much of the +desire on the part of some of our very good friends to be masters, to +interfere with and dictate to those States, to treat the people not as +fellow citizens; there is too little respect for their rights. I do +not sympathise in these feelings." Such was the tenor of his last +recorded utterance on public affairs. + +In the afternoon Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln drove together and he talked to +her with keen pleasure of the life they would live when the Presidency +was over. That night Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln went to the theatre, for the +day was not observed as in England. The Grants were to have been with +them, but changed their minds and left Washington that day, so a young +officer, Major Rathbone, and the lady engaged to him, both of them +thereafter ill-fated, came instead. The theatre was crowded; many +officers returned from the war were there and eager to see Lincoln. +The play was "Our American Cousin," a play in which the part of Lord +Dundreary was afterwards developed and made famous. Some time after 10 +o'clock, at a point in the play which it is said no person present +could afterwards remember, a shot was heard in the theatre and Abraham +Lincoln fell forward upon the front of the box unconscious and dying. +A wild-looking man, who had entered the box unobserved and had done his +work, was seen to strike with a knife at Major Rathbone, who tried to +seize him. Then he jumped from the box to the stage; he caught a spur +in the drapery and fell, breaking the small bone of his leg. He rose, +shouted "Sic semper tyrannis," the motto of Virginia, disappeared +behind the scenes, mounted a horse that was in waiting at the stage +door, and rode away. + +This was John Wilkes Booth, brother of a famous actor then playing +"Hamlet" in Boston. He was an actor too, and an athletic and daring +youth. In him that peculiarly ferocious political passion which +occasionally showed itself among Southerners was further inflamed by +brandy and by that ranting mode of thought which the stage develops in +some few. He was the leader of a conspiracy which aimed at compassing +the deaths of others besides Lincoln. Andrew Johnson, the +Vice-President, was to die. So was Seward. That same night one of the +conspirators, a gigantic boy of feeble mind, gained entrance to +Seward's house and wounded three people, including Seward himself, who +was lying already injured in bed and received four or five wounds. +Neither he nor the others died. The weak-minded or mad boy, another +man, whose offense consisted in having been asked to kill Johnson and +refused to do so, and another alleged conspirator, a woman, were hanged +after a court-martial whose proceedings did credit neither to the new +President nor to others concerned. Booth himself, after many +adventures, was shot in a barn in which he stood at bay and which had +been set on fire by the soldiers pursuing him. During his flight he is +said to have felt much aggrieved that men did not praise him as they +had praised Brutus and Cassius. + +There were then in the South many broken and many permanently +embittered men, indeed the temper which would be glad at Lincoln's +death could be found here and there and notably among the partisans of +the South in Washington. But, if it be wondered what measure of +sympathy there was for Booth's dark deed, an answer lies in the fact +that the murder of Lincoln would at no time have been difficult for a +brave man. Fair blows were now as powerless as foul to arrest the end. +On the very morning when Lincoln and Grant at the Cabinet had been +telling of their hopes and fears for Sherman, Sherman himself at +Raleigh in North Carolina had received and answered a letter from +Johnston opening negotiations for a peaceful surrender. Three days +later he was starting by rail for Greensborough when word came to him +from the telegraph operator that an important message was upon the +wire. He went to the telegraph box and heard it. Then he swore the +telegraph operator to secrecy, for he feared that some provocation +might lead to terrible disorders in Raleigh, if his army, flushed with +triumph, were to learn, before his return in peace, the news that for +many days after hushed their accustomed songs and shouts and cheering +into a silence which was long remembered. He went off to meet Johnston +and requested to be with him alone in a farmhouse near. There he told +him of the murder of Lincoln. "The perspiration came out in large +drops on Johnston's forehead," says Sherman, who watched him closely. +He exclaimed that it was a disgrace to the age. Then he asked to know +whether Sherman attributed the crime to the Confederate authorities. +Sherman could assure him that no one dreamed of such a suspicion +against men like him and General Lee; but he added that he was not so +sure of "Jefferson Davis and men of that stripe." Then followed some +delay, through a mistake of Sherman's which the authorities in +Washington reversed, but in a few days all was settled and the whole of +the forces under Johnston's command laid down their arms. Twenty years +later, as an old man and infirm, their leader left his Southern home to +be present at Sherman's funeral, where he caught a chill from which he +died soon after. Jefferson Davis was captured on May 10, near the +borders of Florida. He was, not without plausible grounds but quite +unjustly, suspected in regard to the murder, and he suffered +imprisonment for some time till President Andrew Johnson released him +when the evidence against him had been seen to be worthless. He lived +many years in Mississippi and wrote memoirs, in which may be found the +fullest legal argument for the great Secession, his own view of his +quarrels with Joseph Johnston, and much besides. Amongst other things +he tells how when they heard the news of Lincoln's murder some troops +cheered, but he was truly sorry for the reason that Andrew Johnson was +more hostile to the cause than Lincoln. It is disappointing to think, +of one who played a memorable part in history with much determination, +that in this reminiscence he sized his stature as a man fairly +accurately. After several other surrenders of Southern towns and small +scattered forces, the Confederate General Kirby Smith, in Texas, +surrendered to General Canby, Banks' successor, on May 26, and after +four years and forty-four days armed resistance to the Union was at an +end. + +On the night of Good Friday, Abraham Lincoln had been carried still +unconscious to a house near the theatre. His sons and other friends +were summoned. He never regained consciousness. "A look of +unspeakable peace," say his secretaries who were there, "came over his +worn features." At 7.22 on the morning of April 15, Stanton, watching +him more closely than the rest, told them what had passed in the words, +"Now he belongs to the ages." + +The mourning of a nation, voiced to later times by some of the best +lines of more than one of its poets, and deeper and more prevailing for +the lack of comprehension which some had shown him before, followed his +body in its slow progress--stopping at Baltimore, where once his life +had been threatened, for the homage of vast crowds; stopping at New +York, where among the huge assembly old General Scott came to bid him +affectionate farewell; stopping at other cities for the tribute of +reverent multitudes--to Springfield, his home of so many years, where, +on May 4, 1865, it was laid to rest. After the burial service the +"Second Inaugural" was read over his grave, nor could better words than +his own have been chosen to honour one who "with malice toward none, +with charity toward all, with firmness in the right as God gave him to +see the right, had striven on to finish the work that he was in." In +England, apart from more formal tokens of a late-learnt regard and an +unfeigned regret, Punch embodied in verse of rare felicity the manly +contrition of its editor for ignorant derision in past years; and Queen +Victoria symbolised best of all, and most acceptably to Americans, the +feeling of her people when she wrote to Mrs. Lincoln "as a widow to a +widow." Nor, though the transactions in which he bore his part were +but little understood in this country till they were half forgotten, +has tradition ever failed to give him, by just instinct, his rank with +the greatest of our race. + +Many great deeds had been done in the war. The greatest was the +keeping of the North together in an enterprise so arduous, and an +enterprise for objects so confusedly related as the Union and freedom. +Abraham Lincoln did this; nobody else could have done it; to do it he +bore on his sole shoulders such a weight of care and pain as few other +men have borne. When it was over it seemed to the people that he had +all along been thinking their real thoughts for them; but they knew +that this was because he had fearlessly thought for himself. He had +been able to save the nation, partly because he saw that unity was not +to be sought by the way of base concession. He had been able to free +the slaves, partly because he would not hasten to this object at the +sacrifice of what he thought a larger purpose. This most unrelenting +enemy to the project of the Confederacy was the one man who had quite +purged his heart and mind from hatred or even anger towards his +fellow-countrymen of the South. That fact came to be seen in the South +too, and generations in America are likely to remember it when all +other features of his statecraft have grown indistinct. A thousand +reminiscences ludicrous or pathetic, passing into myth but enshrining +hard fact, will prove to them that this great feature of his policy was +a matter of more than policy. They will remember it as adding a +peculiar lustre to the renovation of their national existence; as no +small part of the glory, surpassing that of former wars, which has +become the common heritage of North and South. For perhaps not many +conquerors, and certainly few successful statesmen, have escaped the +tendency of power to harden or at least to narrow their human +sympathies; but in this man a natural wealth of tender compassion +became richer and more tender while in the stress of deadly conflict he +developed an astounding strength. + +Beyond his own country some of us recall his name as the greatest among +those associated with the cause of popular government. He would have +liked this tribute, and the element of truth in it is plain enough, yet +it demands one final consideration. He accepted the institutions to +which he was born, and he enjoyed them. His own intense experience of +the weakness of democracy did not sour him, nor would any similar +experience of later times have been likely to do so. Yet if he +reflected much on forms of government it was with a dominant interest +in something beyond them. For he was a citizen of that far country +where there is neither aristocrat nor democrat. No political theory +stands out from his words or actions; but they show a most unusual +sense of the possible dignity of common men and common things. His +humour rioted in comparisons between potent personages and Jim Jett's +brother or old Judge Brown's drunken coachman, for the reason for which +the rarely jesting Wordsworth found a hero in the "Leech-Gatherer" or +in Nelson and a villain in Napoleon or in Peter Bell. He could use and +respect and pardon and overrule his far more accomplished ministers +because he stood up to them with no more fear or cringing, with no more +dislike or envy or disrespect than he had felt when he stood up long +before to Jack Armstrong. He faced the difficulties and terrors of his +high office with that same mind with which he had paid his way as a +poor man or navigated a boat in rapids or in floods. If he had a +theory of democracy it was contained in this condensed note which he +wrote, perhaps as an autograph, a year or two before his Presidency: +"As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses +my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the +difference, is no democracy.--A. LINCOLN." + + + + +APPENDIX + + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE + +A complete bibliography of books dealing specially with Lincoln, and of +books throwing important light upon his life or upon the history of the +American Civil War, cannot be attempted here. The author aims only at +mentioning the books which have been of greatest use to him and a few +others to which reference ought obviously to be made. + +The chief authorities for the life of Lincoln are:-- + +"Abraham Lincoln: A History," by John G. Nicolay and John Hay (his +private secretaries), in ten volumes: The Century Company, New York, +and T. Fisher Unwin, London; "The Works of Abraham Lincoln" (_i. e._, +speeches, letters, and State papers), in eight volumes: G. Putnam's +Sons, London and New York; and, for his early life, "The Life of +Abraham Lincoln," by Herndon and Weik: Appleton, London and New York. + +There are numerous short biographies of Lincoln, but among these it is +not invidious to mention as the best (expressing as it does the mature +judgment of the highest authority) "A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln," +by John G. Nicolay: The Century Company, New York. + +The author may be allowed to refer, moreover, to the interest aroused +in him as a boy by "Abraham Lincoln," by C. G. Leland, in the "New +Plutarch Series": Marcus Ward & Co., London; and to the light he has +much later derived from "Abraham Lincoln," by John T. Morse, Junior: +Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, U.S.A. + +Among studies of Lincoln, containing a wealth of illustrative stories, +a very high place is due to "The True Abraham Lincoln," by William +Eleroy Curtis: The J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia and London. + +For the history of America at the period concerned the reader may be +most confidently referred to a work, which by plentiful extracts and +citations enables its writer's judgment to be checked, without +detracting from the interest and power of his narrative, namely, +"History of the United States, 1850-1877," by James Ford Rhodes, in +seven volumes: The Macmillan Company, London and New York. + +Among the shorter complete histories of the United States are: "The +United States: an Outline of Political History," by Goldwin Smith: The +Macmillan Company, London and New York; the article "United States of +America" (section "History") in the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" (see +also the many excellent articles on American biography in the +"Encyclopaedia Britannica"); "The Cambridge Modern History: Vol. VII., +United States of America": Cambridge University Press, and The +Macmillan Company, New York. + +Two volumes of special interest in regard to the early days of the +United States, in some ways complementary to each other in their +different points of view, are: "Alexander Hamilton," by F. G. Oliver: +Constable & Co., and "Historical Essays," by John Fitch. + +Almost every point in regard to American institutions and political +practice is fully treated in "The American Commonwealth," by Viscount +Bryce, O.M., two volumes: The Macmillan Company, London and New York. + +For the attitude of the British Government during the war the +conclusive authority is the correspondence to be found in "The Life of +Lord John Russell," by Sir Spencer Walpole, K.C.B., two volumes: +Longmans, Green & Co., London and New York; and light on the attitude +of the English people is thrown by "The Life of John Bright," by G. M. +Trevelyan: Constable, London, and Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, +U.S.A. + +With respect to the military history of the Civil War the author is +specially indebted to "The Civil War in the United States," by W. +Birkbeck Wood and Major J. E. Edmonds, R.E., with an introduction by +Spenser Wilkinson: Methuen & Co., London, and Putnam, New York, which +is the only concise and complete history of the war written with full +knowledge of all recent works bearing on the subject. Mr. Nicolay's +chapters in the "Cambridge Modern History" give a very lucid narrative +of the war. + +Among works of special interest bearing on the war, though not much +concerning the subject of this book, it is only necessary to mention +"'Stonewall' Jackson," by Colonel Henderson, C.B., two volumes: +Longmans, London and New York; "Battles and Leaders of the Civil War" +(a book of monographs by several authors, many of them actors in the +war), four volumes: T. Fisher Unwin, London, and Century Company, New +York, and "Story of the Civil War," by J. C. Ropes: Putnam, London and +New York. + +It may be added that a life of General Robert E. Lee had been +projected, as a companion volume to this in the same series, by +Brigadier-General Frederick Maurice, C.B., and it is to be hoped that, +though suspended by the present war, this book may still be written. +Existing biographies of Lee are disappointing. It has been (especially +in view of this intended book on Lee) outside the scope of this volume +to present the history of the Civil War with special reference to the +Southern actors in it, but "Memoirs of Jefferson Davis" must be here +referred to as in some sense an authoritative, though not a very +attractive or interesting, exposition of the views of Southern +statesmen at the time. + +An interesting sidelight on the war may be found in "Life with the +Confederate Army," by Watson, being the experiences of a Scotchman who +for a time served under the Confederacy. + +In regard to slavery and to Southern society before the war the author +has made much use of "Our Slave States," by Frederick Law Olmsted; Dix +and Edwards, New York, 1856, and other works of the same author. Mr. +Olmsted was a Northerner, but his very full observations can be checked +by the numerous quotations on the same subject collected by Mr. Rhodes +in his history. + +For the history of the South since the war and the present position of +the negroes, see the chapters on this subject in Bryce's "American +Commonwealth," second or any later edition, two volumes: Macmillan, +London and New York. + +Mr. Owen Wister's novel, "Lady Baltimore": Macmillan, London and New +York, embraces a most interesting study of the survivals of the old +Southern society at the present time and of the present relations +between it and the North. + +The treatment of the negroes freed during the war is the main subject +of "Grant, Lincoln and the Freedmen," by John Eaton and E. O. Mason: +Longmans, Green & Co., London and New York, a book to which the author +is also indebted for other interesting matter. + +The personal memoirs, and especially the autobiographies dealing with +the Civil War, are very numerous, and the author therefore would only +wish to mention those which seem to him of altogether unusual interest. +"Personal Memoirs of General U. S. Grant": Century Company, New York, +is a book of very high order (Sherman's memoirs: Appleton, New York, +and his correspondence with his brother: Scribner, New York, have also +been quoted in these pages). + +Great interest both in regard to Lincoln personally and to the history +of the United States after his death attaches to "Reminiscences," by +Carl Schurz, three volumes (Vol. I. being concerned with Germany in +1848): John Murray, London, and Doubleday Page, New York, and to "The +Life of John Hay," by W. R. Thayer, two volumes: Constable & Co., +London, and Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, U.S.A. + +The author has derived much light from "Specimen Days, and Collect," by +Walt Whitman: Wilson and McCormick, Glasgow, and McKay, U.S.A. + +He may be allowed, in conclusion, to mention the encouragement given to +him in beginning his work by the late Mr. Henry James, O.M., whose +vivid and enthusiastic judgment of Lincoln he had the privilege of +receiving. + + + + + CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE + + Some events in History of United Some events in English and + States. General History. + + 1759. Capture of Quebec. 1759. Capture of Quebec. + + 1757-60. Ministry of Chatham + (William Pitt). + + 1760. _Contrat Social_ published. + + 1764-76. Great inventions in + spinning industries. + + 1765. Stamp Act passed. 1765. Watt's steam engine. + + 1776. Declaration of 1776. Publication of "Wealth of + Independence Nations." + + 1778. Death of Chatham. + + 1782. Rodney's victory. + + 1783. American Independence + recognised. + + 1787. Constitution framed. + North West Territory ceded + by States to Congress and + slavery excluded from it. + + 1789. Constitution comes into 1789. Meeting of States General. + force. + + 1793. Eli Whitney invents cotton 1793. England at war with French + gin. Republic. + + 1794. Slave Trade abolished by + French Convention. + + 1799. Death of Washington. + + 1802. Peace of Amiens. + + 1803. Louisiana purchase. 1803. England at war with + Napoleon. + + 1804. Death of Hamilton. + + 1805. Trafalgar. + + 1806. The American Fulton's + steam-boat on Seine. + + 1807. Fulton's steam-boat on 1807. Slave Trade abolished by + Hudson. Great Britain. + + 1808. Slave Trade abolished by 1808. Battle of Vimiera. + U. S. A. Convention of Cintra. + + Wordsworth's literary + activity about at its + culmination. + + 1809. Abraham Lincoln born. 1809. Darwin, Tennyson, and + Gladstone born. + + 1812-1814. War with Great + Britain. + + 1815. Waterloo. + + 1820. Missouri Compromise. + + 1823. Monroe doctrine declared. + + 1825. First railway opened in + England. + + 1826. Death of Jefferson. 1826. Independence of Mexico and + Spanish Colonies in South + America recognised by + Canning. + + 1827. Navarino. + + 1828. Commencement of + "nullification" movement. + Election of Jackson. + + 1829. Catholic emancipation. + + 1830. Hayne-Webster debate. + + 1831. Garrison publishes first 1831. Mazzini founds Young + number of _Liberator_. Italy. + Lincoln starts life in New + Salem. + First railway opened in + America. + + 1832. First Reform Bill. + + 1833. Slavery abolished in + British Colonies. + + 1834. Lincoln elected to Illinois + legislature + + 1836-40. Great Boer Trek. + + 1837. End of Jackson's second 1837. Queen Victoria's accession. + presidency. First steam-boat from + England to America. + + 1838. First telegraph line in + England. + + 1839. Lord Durham's report on + Canada. + + 1841. First telegraph in America. + + 1842. Lincoln leaves Illinois + legislature, and (Nov.) + is married. + + 1844. "Martin Chuzzlewit" + published. + + 1845. Annexation of Texas. + + 1846. Boundary of Oregon and 1846. Boundary of Oregon and + British Columbia settled British Columbia settled + with Great Britain. with U. S. A. + + 1846-7. Mexican War. 1846-7. Irish famine. + + 1847-8. Lincoln in Congress. + + 1848. Gold discovery in 1848. Revolution in France and + California. in many parts of Europe. + + 1850. Clay's compromise adopted. 1850. Constitution Act for + Death of Calham. Australian colonies. + + 1852. Deaths of Clay and Webster. 1852. Constitution Act for New + Zealand. + + 1854. Missouri Compromise 1854-5. Gold rush to Australia. + repealed. + Republican Party formed. Crimean War. + + 1854-6. Abolition of slavery in + various Portuguese + Dominions. + + 1856. Defeat of Fremont by + Buchanan. + + 1857. Dred Scott case. 1857-8. Indian Mutiny. + + 1858. Kansas. Lincoln-Douglas + debate. + + 1859. John Brown's raid. 1859. Publication of "Origin of + Species." + + 1859-60. Kingdom of Italy formed. + + 1860. Nov. Lincoln elected 1860. Slavery abolished in Dutch + President. East Indies. + + Dec. Secession carried in + South Carolina. + + 1861. Feb. 4. Southern 1861. Emancipation of Russian + Confederacy formed. serfs. + + Mar. 4. Lincoln inaugurated. + + Ap. 12-14. Bombardment + of Fort Sumter. + + Ap. War begins. Further + secessions. + + July. First Battle of Bull + Run. + + Dec. Claim of Great Britain + as to Trent accepted. + + 1862. Ap.-Aug. McClellan in 1862. _Alabama_ escapes from the + Peninsula. Mersey (July). + + Ap. Shiloh. + + May. Jackson in Shenandoah + Valley. + + Aug.-Oct. Confederates in + Kentucky. + + Aug. Second Battle of Bull + Run. + + Sept. Antietam. Proclamation + of emancipation. + + Nov. McClellan removed. + + Dec. Fredericksburg. + Murfreesborough. + + 1863. Mar. 1. Conscription Act. 1863. Revolution in Poland. + Maximilian proclaimed Emperor + of Mexico. + + May. Chancellorsville. + Jackson killed. + + July. Gettysburg, Vicksburg. + New York riots. + + Sept. Chickamauga. + + Nov. Gettysburg speech. + Chattanooga. + + 1864. May. Beginning of Grant's 1864. Prussia and Austria invade + and Sherman's great Denmark. + campaigns. + + 1864. June. Cold Harbour. + Baltimore Convention. + + July. Early's raid reaches + Washington. + + Aug. Mobile. Chicago + Convention. + + Sept. Sherman at Atlanta. + Sheridan in Shenandoah + Valley. + + Nov. Lincoln re-elected + President. + + Dec. Nashville. Sherman + at Savannah. + + 1865. Jan. Congress passes 13th + Amendment. + + Feb. Further progress of + Sherman and Sheridan. + + Mar. 4. Second inauguration + of Lincoln. + + Ap. 2-9. Richmond falls, + and Lee surrenders. + + Ap. 14-15. Lincoln + assassinated and dies. + + Dec. 13. Amendment + ratified. + + 1866. Atlantic cable 1866. Atlantic cable successfully + successfully laid. laid. + + War between Austria and + Prussia. + + 1867. British North America Act. + Slave children emancipated + in Brazil. + Fall and execution of + Maximilian in Mexico. + + 1868. Rise of acute disorder in 1868. Mikado resumes + "reconstructed" South. government in Japan. + + 1870. Amendment securing negro 1870. Papal infallibility. + suffrage. Franco-German War. + + 1872. _Alabama_ arbitration with 1872. _Alabama_ arbitration with + Great Britain. U. S. A. + Responsible Government in + Cape Colony. + + 1876. Admitted failure of + Reconstruction. Election + of Hayes. + + 1877. Federal troops withdrawn + from South. + + 1878. Slavery abolished in Cuba + (last of Spanish Colonies). + + + + +INDEX + + +Abolition and Abolitionists: Early movement dies down, 36-9; rise of +later movement, 50-2; persecuted, 51, 76; Lincoln's attitude, 76, 101, +116, 126-7, 151; their position in view of civil war, 172. _See_ +Slavery and Garrison. + +Adams, Charles Francis: 236, 262, 264, 328. + +Adams, John: 37, 236. + +Adams, John Quincy: 47, 51, 115, 314, 388. + +Aesop: 10. + +_Alabama_, the: 224, 251, 264. + +Alabama State: 175, 199, 212, 361, 388. + +Alamo, the: 91. + +Alexander II. of Russia: 256. + +Alleghany (or Appalachian) Mountains: 26, 225, 244; distinct character +of people in them, 56, 198. + +Alley: 429. + +Alton: 76. + +Amendment of Constitution: how carried, 24; suggested amendment to +conciliate South, 192; Thirteenth Amendment prohibiting slavery, 335-7, +431, 433; Fifteenth Amendment requiring negro suffrage, 334-5. + +America, United States of, and American: Diverse character of Colonies, +resemblances to and differences from England, 16-20; first attempt at +Union, 20; independence and making of Constitution, 21-3; features of +Constitution, 23-5; expansion, 26-8; Union Government brought into +effect, 28-30, 41; rise of national tradition, 30-5; compromise on main +cause of disunion, slavery, 35-40; parties and tendencies in the first +half of nineteenth century, 40-52; triumph of Union sentiment, 45-6; +growth of separate interest and sentiment in South, 43-5, 52-9; +intellectual development and foundations of American patriotism, 59-61; +further compromise on slavery, 96-101; political cleavage of North and +South becomes definite, 109-12; "a house divided against itself," +143-7; for further developments, _see_ North and South; _see also_ +Lincoln; Lincoln's position as to enforcement of union, 143-4; common +heritage of America from Civil War, 455. + +American Party, or Know-Nothings: 112, 117-8. + +American Policy (so-called): 42-8. + +Anderson, Major: 189-90, 208, 212-3, 449. + +Appalachians. _See_ Alleghany Mountains. + +Appomattox River and Court House: 447. + +Arbitration: 263-4. + +Argyll, Duke of: 176, 260. + +Arizona: 96. + +Arkansas River: 28, 351. + +Arkansas State: 199, 229, 244, 351. + +Armstrong, Jack and Hannah: 64, 108. + +Army: comparison of Northern and Southern men, 216; and their officers, +216-7, 220, 223-4, 350; system of recruiting, 221-3, 363-74; +discipline, 220, 248, 282, 420-1; size of regular army, 228. _See +also_ Conscription, Voluntary Service and Militia. + +Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union: 20, 175. + +Atlanta: 226-7, 394-5, 396, 424. + +Augusta: 435. + + +Baker: 90. + +Baltimore: 205, 239-42, 453; Conventions there, 159-60, 410-1. + +Banks, N. P., General: 296, 354-5, 389. + +Bates, Attorney-General: 166, 201-2, 264, 320, 405. + +Battles (sieges, campaigns, etc., separately entered): Antietam, 306-7, +313, 324-5, 450; Bentonville, 437; Bull Run, first battle, 245-9; Bull +Run, second battle, 305, 313; Cedar Creek, 396; Champion's Hill, 355; +Chancellorsville, 311-13; Chattanooga, 360; Chickamauga, 360; Cold +Harbour, 393, 410; Five Forks, 446; Fort Donelson, 281; Four Oaks, 295; +Franklin, 396; Fredericksburg, 309, 313; Gettysburg, 357. 450; Kenesaw +Mountain, 394; Manassas (two battles), _see_ Bull Run; Mill Springs, +280; Mobile, 395; Murfreesborough, 343, 450; Nashville, 396; New +Orleans, 283; Perryville, 342; Sailor's Creek, 447; Seven Days' +Battles, 298; Seven Pines, _see_ Four Oaks; Shiloh, 282-3; +Spottsylvania, 392; Wilderness, 392. + +Bazaine, Marshal: 388. + +Bell, John: 159. + +Bentham, Jeremy: 32. + +Berry: 66-7. + +Bible: 10, 132, 439-40. + +Bismarck: 424. + +Black: 185. + +Black Hawk: 65. + +Blackstone's Commentaries: 67. + +Blair, Francis, senr.: 432-3. + +Blair, Montgomery: 202, 208, 245, 405, 410. + +Blockade: 224, 226, 251-2, 436. + +Booth, John Wilkes: 451. + +Border States: 171, 228-9, 243-5, 270, 318-9, 333-4. + +Boston: 47, 51, 59-60, 172-3. + +Boswell, James: 102. + +Bragg, General: 340-3, 352, 359-60, 387-8. + +Breckinridge, John C.: 159. + +Bright, John: 127, 236, 260. + +British Columbia: 28, 110. + +Brooks, Phillips: 60. + +Brooks, Preston: 138-9. + +Brown, John: 126, 150-5, 197, 397. + +Brown, Judge: 85. + +Buchanan, James: 113, 138, 140, 141, 177, 184-90, 206, 208, 231. + +Buell, Don Carlos, General; 274, 276-82, 339-44, 369. + +Bummers: 397. + +Burlingame: 139. + +Barns, Robert: 103, 105. + +Burnside, Ambrose, General: 307, 309, 359-60, 382, 393, 435. + +Burr, Aaron: 29. + +Butler, Benjamin, General: 268, 283, 392-3, 409, 436, 444. + +Butterfield: 95. + + +Calhoun, John: 68. + +Calhoun, John Caldwell: his character and influence, 42-5: his doctrine +of "nullification" and secession, 45-6; his death, 100; further +references, 97, 113, 175, 182. + +California: 28, 91-3, 96-9. + +Cambridge, Massachusetts: 59. + +Cameron, Simon: 166-7, 201-3, 242, 271. + +Campbell, Justice: 210, 446. + +Canada: 176, 211, 383. + +Carolina. _See_ North Carolina and South Carolina. + +Cass, General: 65, 94, 96, 172, 186. + +Castlereagh: 377. + +Cecil, Lord R. _See_ Salisbury. + +Central America: 145. + +Charming, Rev. William Eleroy: 51. + +Charles I.: 433. + +Charleston: 43, 251-3, 387, 435. _And see_ Fort Sumter. + +Chase, Salmon P.; rising opponent of slavery, 101; approves of +Lincoln's opposition to Douglas, 141; claims to the Presidency, 161, +166; Secretary of the Treasury, 201-2; his successful administration of +finance, 254; regarded as Radical leader, intrigues against Lincoln and +causes difficulty in Cabinet, 328-9; continues troublesome, desires +Presidency, resigns, 406-8; appointed Chief Justice, 429-30; other +references, 208, 311, 415. + +Chatham, 20, 234. + +Chattanooga: 226-7, 339-40, 342-3, 359-60, 387-8, 394. + +Chicago: Republican Convention there, 166-9; deputation of clergy, 323; +Democratic Convention, 411-4. + +Choate, Joseph H.: 106, 156. + +Civil Service: 50. + +Civil War. _See_ War. + +Clary's Grove: 64, 66. + +Clay, Henry: 41; his character and career, 42, 48; compromise of 1850 +originated by him, 99; his death, 100; Lincoln on him, 101, 122. + +Cobb: 185. + +Cobden, Richard: 257-8. + +Cock-fighting: 63, 69. + +Collamer, Senator: 167. + +Colonies. _See_ America. + +Colonisation. _See_ Negroes. + +Columbia, South Carolina: 435. + +Columbia, District of: 94, 319. + +Columbia River: 28. + +Columbus, Georgia: 226-7. + +Compulsory Service. _See_ Conscription. + +Confederacy, Confederates; _see also_ South; Confederacy of six States +formed and Constitution adopted at Montgomery and claims of these +States to Federal Government's forts, etc., or their soil taken over, +199-201; commencement of war by Confederacy, 212-3; area of its country +and difficulty of conquest, 214-6; character of population, 216; spirit +of independence animating Confederacy, 218-9; other conditions telling +against or for its success in the war, 214-27; original Confederate +States, viz., South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, +Florida, joined subsequently by Texas, and on outbreak of war by +Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas, 228-9; capital moved +to Richmond, 242; for course of war, _see_ War; for political course of +Confederacy, _see_ J. Davis and Congress of Confederacy; attitude of +foreign Governments to Confederacy, 256, 261, 302, 313; refusal of +Lincoln to treat with Confederacy as an independent state, 403, 432-3; +refusal of Davis to negotiate on other terms, 428, 432-3; ultimate +surrender of Confederate forces and dispersion of its Government, 445-8. + +Congregationalists: 17, 19. + +Congress of original American Confederation: 20, 38. + +Congress of U.S.A. under the Constitution: distinguished from +Parliament by the severance between it and the executive government, by +the limitation of its functions to strictly Federal matters, and by its +subjection to provisions of Constitution, 23-4, _see also_ 371, 377-9, +402, 429; for certain Acts of Congress, _see_ Slavery; attempts at +pacification during progress of Secession, 192-3; action of and +discussions in Congress during Civil War, 246, 253, 263, 265-6, 269, +271, 276, 288, 316-9, 321-3, 324-7, 333-6, 351, 369-70, 379, 380, 382, +388, 389, 400-1, 434. + +Congress of Confederacy: 200, 366-7, 431. + +Conscription: in South; 366-7; in North, 364-5, 369-70; superior on +grounds of moral principle to voluntary system, 366. + +_Conservative_, the: 119. + +Conservatives: 245, 267-8, 328. + +Constitution, British: 20, 23, 377. + +Constitution of United States: 22-5, 41. _See also_ Amendment of +Constitution. + +Contraband: 268, 409. + +Cooper Institute; 144, 155. + +Copperheads: 382. + +Corinth: 283, 338-9. + +Cotton: 39, 259-60, 313. + +Cow Island: 331. + +Cowper, William: 11. + +Crittenden: 192-5. + +Cuba: 145, 159. + +Cumberland River: 226, 277, 280-1. + +Curtis, B. R., Justice; 114. + + +Darwin, Charles: 138, 259. + +Davis, David, Justice: 167, 379. + +Davis, Henry Winter: 388, 401. + +Davis, Jefferson: his rise as an extreme Southern leader, 101, 138, +150; inclined to favour slave trade, 145; his-argument for right of +Secession, 176; his part in Secession, 198-200; President of +Confederacy, 200; vetoes Bill against slave trade as inadequate and +fraudulent, 200; orders attack on Fort Sumter, 212; criticisms upon his +military policy, 217-8, 387-8; his part in the war, 246, 355, 387-8, +395, 431, 433, 446; his determination to hold out and his attitude to +peace, 403-4, 431-4; as to prisoners of war, 330, 399; escape from +Richmond and last public action, 446; his capture, and his emotions on +Lincoln's assassination, 452-3; his memoirs, 453, 460. + +Dayton, Senator: 167. + +Declaration of Independence: meaning of its principles, 32-5; how +slave-holders signed it, 35-9; Lincoln's interpretation of it, 123; his +great speech upon it, 184. + +Delaware: 17, 198, 318, 334. + +Democracy: fundamental ideas in it, 32-9, 123; development of extreme +form and of certain abuses of it in America, 47-50; its institutions +and practices still in an early stage of development, 50; a foolish +perversion of it in the Northern States, 59, 218; Lincoln sees a decay +of worthy and honest democratic feeling, 117; the Civil War regarded by +Lincoln and many in North as a test whether democratic government could +maintain itself, 183-4, 362-3, 425; the sense in which Lincoln was a +great democrat, 455-6. + +Democratic Party: traces descent from Jefferson, 30; originated or +started anew by Jackson, its principles, 47-8; general subservience of +its leaders to Southern interests, 91, 110, 140, _see also_ Mexico, +Pierce, Douglas, Buchanan; breach between Northern and Southern +Democrats, 141, 148-50, 157-9; Northern Democrats loyal to Union, +172-4, 177, 188, 231; progress of Democratic opposition to Lincoln, +267, 316, 374-5, 381-5, 401, 411-5; Lincoln's appeal after defeating +them, 425. + +Dickens, Charles: 31, 32, 41, 259. + +Disraeli, Benjamin: 74, 260. + +Dough-Faces: 40. + +Douglas, Stephen: rival to Lincoln in Illinois Legislature, 71; +possibly also in love, 81, 87; his rise, influence, and character, 101, +110-1; repeals Missouri Compromise, 110-1; supports rights of Kansas, +115, 140; Lincoln's contest with him, 121-2, 132-7, 140-9; gist of +Lincoln's objection to his principles, 130, 142-5; unsuccessful +candidate for Presidency, 159, 168-9; attitude to Secession, 188; +relations with Lincoln after Secession, 206, 210, 231; death, 231. + +Douglass, Frederick: 332. + +Drink: 63, 76-7, 353, 423. + +Dundreary: 451. + + +Early, General: 394, 395, 438. + +Eaton, John: 330-2, 347, 416, 461. + +Edmonds. _See_ Wood and Edmonds. + +Edwards, Mrs. Ninian: 81. + +Emerson, Ralph Waldo: 60, 152, 426. + +Episcopalians: 85, 351, 440. + +Equality. _See_ Declaration of Independence. + +Euclid: 104, 132. + +Everett, Edward: 159, 362. + + +Farragut, David, Admiral: 231, 283, 349, 388, 395, 412, 424, 435. + +Federalism: 22. + +Federalist Party: 30, 173. + +Filibustering: (1) in sense of piracy: 194. (2) in sense of +obstruction: 333. + +Fillmore, Millard: 99, 112, 114, 133. + +Finance: 67-8, 254. + +Florida: 16, 26, 199, 251, 453. + +Fort Donelson: 280-1. + +Fort Fisher: 436. + +Fort Henry: 281. + +Fort Monroe: 268, 292. + +Fort Sumter: 187-90, 201, 208, 210, 212-3, 228, 449. + +Fox, Gustavus V.: 202, 252-3, 264. + +France: influence of French Revolution, 31; Louisiana territory +acquired from France, 26; French settlers, 27; slavery in Louisiana +State, 39-40; relations with America during Civil War, 211, 256, 262, +313, 388, 404, 420. + +Frankfort, Kentucky: 340. + +Franklin, Benjamin: 37. + +Franklin, Tennessee: 396-7. + +Free-Soil Party: 111. + +Free Trade: 45, 258. + +Fremont, John: 112, 133, 269-70, 274, 277, 296-7, 316, 409-10. + +Fry, J. B., General: 370. + + +Garrison, William Lloyd: 50-2, 336. + +Gentryville: 4, 6, 7. + +Gettysburg, Lincoln's speech at: 363. + +Georgia: 36, 56, 199, 226, 396-7. + +George II.: 353. + +Gibbon, Edward: 67. + +Gilmer: 194. + +Gladstone, W. E.: 258. + +Goldsborough: 437, 444. + +Governors of States: 20, 161, 222, 299, 343-5, 362. + +Graham, Mentor: 63, 64, 68. + +Grant, Ulysses S., General: previous disappointing career and return to +Army, earlier success in Civil War, 280; captures Fort Henry and Fort +Donelson, surprised but successful at Shiloh, 280-4; negro refugees +with his army, 330; kept idle as Halleck's second in command, and on +his departure left on defensive near Corinth, 339, 342; his reputation +now and his real greatness of character, 345-8; Vicksburg campaigns, +348-55; Lincoln's relations with him from the first, 352-3; Chattanooga +campaign, 359-60; appointed Lieutenant General, meeting with Lincoln, +parting from Sherman, 389-90; plans for final stages of war, 390; +unsuccessful attempts to crush Lee in the open field and movement to +City Point for siege of Petersburg and Richmond in which first +operations fail, 391-2; sends Sheridan to Shenandoah Valley, 393-4; +unnecessary anxiety as to Thomas, 397; siege of Petersburg and Richmond +continued, 398; attempts to get him to run for Presidency, 410-11; his +loyalty to Lincoln, 416-7; his wish to promote peace, 433; further +progress of siege, 436, 437-8; Lincoln's visit to him at City Point, +443-5; forbidden to treat with Lee on political questions, 445; fall of +Richmond, 445-6; Lee forced to surrender, 446-8; last interview with +Lincoln, 449-50; Memoirs, 459. + +Granville, Earl: 260. + +Gray, Asa: 138. + +Great Britain and Ireland: early relations with U.S.A., 16-20; relative +progress of the two countries at different periods, 32, 33, 38; English +views of American Revolution, 21, _see_ Constitution of Great Britain +and U.S.A.; war in 1812-14 with U.S.A., 42, 46, 273; comparisons of +English and American Government, 49, 50; relations of the two countries +in the Civil War, 211, 256-65, 313; voluntary system of recruiting in +the two countries and its result in each, 364-6, 370; Lincoln's fame in +England, 454. + +Greeley, Horace: 137, 143, 245, 322-3, 404. + +Greene, Bowline: 79. + +Greensborough: 437, 452. + +Grigsby, Reuben, and family: 6, 11, 12. + +Grimes, Senator: 194. + + +Halleck, Henry W., General: 274, 277-84, 297-8, 301-2, 306, 309, +338-43, 349, 356, 395. + +Hamilton, Alexander: his greatness, 29; his origin and career, he +brings the Union Government into successful operation, his beautiful +and heroic character, 29-30; original source of Monroe doctrine, 385; +other references, 34, 37; his view on construction of Statutes, 377-8. + +Hampton Roads: 433. + +Hanks, Dennis: 4, 6, 420. + +Hanks, John: 4, 6, 14, 166. + +Hanks, Joseph: 4. + +Harcourt, Lady: 417. + +Hardin: 90. + +Harper's Ferry: 151, 239. + +Harrison, William Henry: 72. + +Harrison's Landing: 298-302. + +Harvard: 59, 330, 444. + +Hawthorne, Nathaniel: 101. + +Hay, John: 235, 419, 458, 461. + +Hayne, Senator: 45. + +Henderson, Colonel: 221. + +Herndon, William: 66, 79, 87, 94, 102-3, 105, 119, 126, 142, 147, 165. + +Hood, John B., General: 394, 396-7. + +Hooker, Joseph, General: 309-11, 355-6, 360, 362. + +House of Commons. _See_ Parliament. + +House of Lords: 33. + +House of Representatives. _See_ Congress of U.S.A. + +Houston, Governor: 199. + +Hugo, Victor: 152. + +Hunter, General: 321, 395. + +Hymns: 11, 440. + + +Illinois, 27, 38, Chapters I., III., IV., 1 and 3, and V., 1, 3, and 5; +344, 350. + +Inaugural Address: Lincoln's first, 206-7; his second, 441-3; Jefferson +Davis', 200-1. + +Inaugural Ceremony: Lincoln's first, 206; Lincoln's second, 438. + +Independence. _See_ Declaration of Independence. + +Independents. _See_ Congregationalists. + +Indiana: 4, 9, 27, 38, 345. + +Indians, North American: 3, 65. + +Iowa; 27, 194. + +Ironclads: 252. + + +Jackson, Andrew: his opinion of Calhoun, 43; frustrates movement for +nullification, 46; his character, 46; revives party and promotes growth +of party machinery, and adopts "spoils system," 46-49; other +references, 66, 173, 209, 409. + +Jackson, Thomas J., called "Stonewall," General: his acknowledged +genius, 217, 220; goes with State of Virginia, 229; his character, 230; +Shenandoah Valley campaign and movement to outflank McClellan, 295-8; +Antietam campaign, 305; killed during victory of Chancellorsville, 311; +Lee's estimate of his loss, 357. + +James, Henry: 461. + +James River: 292, 298, 392-3, 438, 447. + +Jefferson, Thomas: curious and displeasing character, 30; great and +lasting influence on American life, 30-2; practical achievements in +statesmanship, 32; real sense and value of his doctrine, 32-5; opinion +and action as to slavery, 37-8; other references, 28, 46, 56, 179. + +Jiggers: 331. + +Johnson, Andrew: 400, 411, 451, 453. + +Johnson, Samuel: 33, 35. + +Johnston, Albert Sidney, General: 276-7, 281-2. + +Johnston, John: 4, 6, 14. + +Johnston, Joseph, General; 218, 247-8, 287-8, 295, 354-5, 378, 387, +390, 394, 436-7, 452. + + +Kansas: 110-2, 115, 117, 126, 128, 139-40, 162-3. + +Kentucky: 2-5, 9, 26, 81, 192, 197, 225, 229, 270, 334, 339-43. + +Kipling, Rudyard: 88. + +Kirkham's Grammar: 63. + +"Know-Nothings." _See_ American Party. + +Knoxville: 226, 275, 359. + + +Law, Lincoln's law study and practice, 10, 67, 68, 106-8, 271-2, 423. + +Lee, Robert E., General: his acknowledged genius, 217, 220; goes with +State of Virginia, 229, 239, 376; his character, 230; cautious military +advice at first, 246; opinion of McClellan, 285; operations against +McClellan, Pope, Burnside, and Hooker, 297, 311; invasion of +Pennsylvania and retreat, 355-8, 386-7; resistance to Grant, _see_ +Grant, 391-2, 398; appointed General in Chief, 431; abstains always +from political action, 431-2; final effort, surrender and later life, +445-6. + +Lincoln, Abraham, President: his career and policy up to his +Presidency, _see_ in Table of Contents; his military administration and +policy, 273-9, 302, 308, 345, _and see_ McClellan; his administration +generally, 250-5; his foreign policy, 261-5; his policy generally, +265-72, _and see_ Slavery, Negotiations for Peace, Reconstruction; +development of his abilities and character, 7-15, 62, 73-7, 87-8, +103-6, 134-6, 153-5, 163-6, 233-9, 337, 418-24, 439-41; his fame +to-day, 454-6. + +Lodge, Senator: 261. + +Logan, General: 350, 397. + +Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth: 53, 60, 61, 137, 152. + +Longstreet, General: 357, 359-60, 387. + +Louisiana Purchase: 26, 32, 39-40. + +Louisiana State: 26, 39-40, 199, 283, 334, 400, 448-9. + +Louisville: 116, 339-41. + +Love joy: 76. + +Lowell, James Russell, and references to his writings: 19, 92, 138, +172, 209, 237, 261, 264. + +Lundy: 50. + +Lynchburg: 438. + +Lyon, Nathaniel: 244-5, 269. + +Lyons, Lord: 236, 237, 264. + + +McDowell, General: 247-8, 290, 293-7. + +Machine, in politics: 48-9, 167-8. + +McClellan, George B., General: practical help to Douglas, 134; +successes in West Virginia, 243; put in command of Army of Potomac and +later of all armies, 272; his strategic views at outset of war, 274-5, +276, 280; his career and character, 284-6; Lincoln's problem about him, +286-7; procrastination and friction before he moved, 287-91; +preliminaries to campaign in Peninsula, 291-3; relieved of command over +Western armies, 293; campaign in Peninsula, 293-5, 298-302; his recall +and failure to support Pope, 302-4; army of Potomac restored to him, +305; battle of Antietam and subsequent delays, 305-7; his final +dismissal and its cause, 307-9; his political career, 300, 308, 374, +413-5, 416, 424; resigns from Army, 437; Seward's judgment on him, 427. + +McClernand, General: 350-2. + +McLean, Justice: 114, 167. + +Madison, James: 37. + +Maine: 16, 40. + +Malplaquet: 364. + +Marcy: 49. + +Marshall, John: 41. + +Martial Law: 376-81. _See also_ 265-7, 269-70, 313, 321, 335-6, 451. + +Martineau, Harriet: 43. + +Maryland: 197, 225, 240-2, 304-7, 333-4. + +Mason: 263. + +Massachusetts: 16, 19, 172-3, 239-40, 296, 409. + +Mathematics: 67. _And see_ Euclid. + +Maximilian, Archduke and Emperor: 388. + +_Mayflower_: 150. + +Meade, George, General: 356-8, 391, 447. + +Memphis: 226, 275, 349, 389. + +Meridian: 227, 389. + +Merrimac: 292-3. + +Methodists: 150. + +Mexico: 28, 90; war with, 91-3; later relations, 211, 256, 388-9, 404, +420. + +Mexico, Gulf of: 27, 208. + +Michigan: 38, 172. + +Militia: 228, 246, 369. + +Mill, John Stuart: 260. + +Milligan, case of, in Supreme Court: 378. + +Minnesota: 27. + +Mississippi River: 7, 8, 13, 26, 56, 198, 226, 275, 281, 283, 348-55. + +Mississippi State: 26, 175, 179, 199, 227. _And see_ Meridian and +Vicksburg. + +Missouri Compromise: 39-40; repealed, 109-12; question whether +unconstitutional, 112-5. + +Missouri River: 26. + +Missouri State: 27, 39-40, 113, 197, 225, 229, 244-5, 269-70, 333-4, +400. + +Mobile: 227, 388, 395, 412. + +Moltke: 217. + +Monroe Doctrine: 388. + +Montana: 26. + +Montgomery: 199-200, 225. + +Mormons: 99, 130. + +Motley, John Lathrop: 138, 237, 238, 417. + + +Napoleon I.: 26, 215. + +Napoleon III.: 256, 313, 388. + +Nashville: 339, 396. + +National Bank: 42, 47, 65. + +Nebraska: 110, 113. + +Negotiations for peace, impossible demand for them: 402-5, 428, 431-4. + +Negroes: Lincoln on notion of equality as applied to them, 124; +Stephens on great moral truth of their inferiority, 179; their good +conduct during the war and their valour as soldiers, 330; Lincoln's +human sympathy with them, and the right attitude in face of the bar +between the two races, 330-3; mistaken precipitancy in giving them the +suffrage, 334-5, 430; the Confederacy ultimately enlists negroes, 431; +negro bodyguard at Lincoln's second Inauguration, 435; projects for +colonisation of negroes, 42, 317, 331, 332. _See also_ Slavery. + +Neuse River: 437. + +Nevada: 95. + +New Berne: 437. + +New England: 17, 173, 241, 326. + +New Hampshire: 100. + +New Jersey: 17. + +New Mexico: 96, 99, 145, 194. + +New Orleans; 4, 13-4, 46, 198, 226, 283. + +New Salem: 4, 63-9, 78-80. + +New York City: 29, 49, 144, 155-6, 205, 241, 254, 384. + +New York State: 16, 17, 29. + +Niagara: 105, 139, 404. + +Nicolay, John: 211, 235, 419, 458, 460. + +North: original characteristics and gradual divergence from South, in +America and South; advantages and disadvantages in the war, 214-9; +divisions in the North, _see_ Democrats and Radicals; magnitude of +effort and endurance shown by the North, 363-6, 426-7. + +North Anna River: 392. + +North Carolina: 26, 27, 194; secedes with Virginia, 229, 435-7, 452. + +North-West Territory: 38. + +Northcote, Sir Stafford: 260. + +Novels: 67. + +Nueces River: 92. + + +Oberlin, 150. + +Officers: 220, 223-4, 350. + +Ohio River: 4, 8, 26, 117, 226, 243, 280. + +Ohio State: 38, 161, 172, 340-2, 344, 359, 381-3. + +Olmsted, Frederick Law: 53, 57, 460. + +Oratory in America: 34, 41, 133, 136, 138, 155, 159, 362. + +Oregon, Territory and State: 28, 92, 96, 112. + +Orsini: 152. + +Owens, Mary: 80-1. + + +Paine, Tom: 69. + +Palmerston: 234, 260, 313. + +Pardon of offenders by Lincoln; 420-1. + +Parliament: relation to Colonies, 19; contrast with Congress, 20, 23. + +Parliamentarians under Charles I.: 33. + +Party and Parties: 46-50, 374-5, 385. _And see_ American, Federalist, +Free-Soil, Democratic, Republican and Whig. + +Patterson, General: 247. + +Pemberton, General: 354-5. + +Pennsylvania: 17, 202, 355-8. + +Peoria: 72, 135, 142. + +Petersburg. _See_ Richmond. + +Philadelphia: 184, 356. + +Pierce, Franklin: 100, 111, 138, 218. + +Pilgrim's Progress: 10. + +Pitt, William, the younger: 376. + +Polk, President: 91-3. + +Polk, Bishop and General, 350. + +Pope, General: 283, 301, 302-3. + +Port Hudson: 343, 354-5. + +Porter, Admiral: 349, 353, 388, 435-6, 444. + +Post of Arkansas: 351. + +Potomac: 225, 243, 249, 288, 306, 358. + +Presbyterian: 77, 439. + +Prince Consort: 263. + +Prisoners of War: 398. + +Protection: 42, 45, 65, 68, 202. + +Public Works; 42, 65, 71. + +Puritans: 17. + + +Quakers: 17, 50, 153. + + +Radicals: 232-3, 245, 267-70, 328, 398-400, 410, 430. + +Railways: 7, 27, 226-7, 276, 339, 388, 396, 397, 447. + +Raleigh: 437, 452. + +Rapidan: 288, 311, 358, 391. + +Rappahannock: 309, 311, 355, 358. + +Rathbone, Major: 450-1. + +Raymond: 414. _And see_ 404. + +Reconstruction: 326-8, 333-5, 398-401, 434-5, 448-50. + +Red River: 388. + +Republican Party: (1) Party of this name which followed Jefferson and +of which leading members were afterwards Democrats, 30, 31; (2) New +party formed in 1854 to resist extension of slavery in Territories, +111; runs Fremont for Presidency, 112; embarrassed by Dred Scott +judgment, 112, 115; possibility of differences underlying its simple +principles, 122; disposition among its leaders to support Douglas after +Kansas scandal, 141-3; consistency of thought and action supplied to it +by Lincoln, 122, 145-6; nomination and election of Lincoln, 160-2, +166-9; sections in the party during war, 267-71; increasing divergence +between Lincoln and the leading men in the party, 321, 326-9, 401-2, +409-14, 430, 434-5, 450. + +Reuben, First Chronicles of: 11-2. + +Revolution, American: 20-2. + +Revolution, French: 31. + +Rhodes, Cecil: 335. + +Rhodes, James Ford: 418, 459. + +Richmond: 225-7, 242, 245, 275, 302, 392; siege of Petersburg and +Richmond, _see_ Lee or Grant; feeling in Richmond towards end, 431-2; +Lincoln's visit to it, 447. + +Roberts, F. M. Earl: 364. + +Robinson Crusoe: 10. + +Rollin: 67. + +Romilly, Samuel: 32. + +Rosecrans, General: 342-3, 351, 359-60. + +Russell, Lord John: 260, 263, 313. + +Russia: 118, 211, 256. + +Rutledge, Ann: 78. + + +St. Gaudens, Augustus: 330. + +St. Louis: 116, 244. + +Salisbury, Marquess of: 258, 259. + +Sangamon: 64-5, 166. + +Savannah: 398, 435. + +Schofield, General: 397, 436-7. + +Schools, Lincoln's: 10. + +Schurz, Carl: 235, 421. + +Scott, Dred, and his case; 112-5, 144. + +Scott, William: 421-2. + +Scott, Winfield, General: 93, 100, 205, 208, 231, 246-9, 274-5, 388, +453. + +Secession. _See_ South and Confederacy. + +Seward, William: opponent of compromise of 1850 and rising Republican +leader, 101, 137, 152; against opposing Douglas, 141; speaks well of +John Brown, 152; expected to be Republican candidate for Presidency, +rejected partly for his unworthy associates, more for his supposed +strong opinions, 161-8; supports Lincoln in election, 169; action +during progress of Secession, 193-5, 204; on First Inaugural, 206; +action during crisis of Fort Sumter, 208-10; vain attempt to master +Lincoln and generous acceptance of defeat, 210-1, 250; his part in +foreign policy, 262-5, 387; wise advice to postpone Emancipation, 320; +retained by Lincoln in spite of intrigues against him, 328-30; +administration of martial law, 376; his usefulness and great loyalty, +406; his judgment on McClellan, 426; attempt to assassinate him, 451; +certifies ratification of 13th amendment, 336. + +Seymour, Horatio: 381, 383-5, 413. + +Sigel, General: 394. + +Shakespeare: 103, 108, 423, 448. + +Shaw, Robert Gould: 330. + +Shenandoah Valley; 225, 247, 296, 394, 395-6, 424, 437-8. + +Sheridan, Philip, General: 220, 343, 395-6, 424, 437-8, 444. + +Sherman, John, Senator: 235, 380. + +Sherman, William Tecumseh, General; 52, 220, 224, 249; character and +relations with Grant, 348; failure in first attempt on Vicksburg, 350; +under McClernand, takes Post of Arkansas, 351; with Grant in rest of +Vicksburg campaigns, 353-5; at Chattanooga, 360; at Meridian, 388; +parting with Grant, his fears for him, their concerted plans, 389; +Atlanta campaign, 394-5, 424; detaches Thomas against Hood, 397-8; from +Atlanta to the sea, 397-9; campaigns in the Carolinas, 435-6; meets +Lincoln at City Point, 444-5; Lincoln's dream about him, 449; +Johnston's surrender to him, 452. + +Shields, Colonel: 85. + +Slave Trade: how treated by Constitution of U.S.A., 24; prohibition of +it in American colonies vetoed, 36; prohibited by several American +States, by United Kingdom, and by Union, 38; movement to revive it in +Southern States, 145, 150; prohibited by Confederate Constitution and +inadequate Bill against it vetoed by J. Davis, 200; treaty between +United Kingdom and U.S.A., for its more effectual prevention, and first +actual execution of a slave-trader in U.S.A., 317. + +Slavery: compromise about it in Constitution, 25; opinion and action of +the "Fathers" in regard to it, 35-9; becomes more firmly rooted in +South, 39; disputes as to it temporarily settled by Missouri +Compromise, 39-40; its real character in America, 52-5; its political +and social effect on the South, 43-5, 55-9; Abolition movement, _see_ +Abolition; its increasing influence on Southern policy; _see_ South; +repeal of Missouri Compromise, and dicta of Supreme Court in favour of +slavery, 109-15; Lincoln's attitude from first in regard to it, 14, 76, +94; his principles as to it, 121-131, 144; slavery the sole cause of +Secession, 178-9; the progress of actual Emancipation, 313-37; already +coming to an end in the South before the end of the war, 429, 431. +_See also_ Negroes. + +Slidell: 263. + +Smith, Baldwin, General: 308. + +Smith, Caleb: 167, 202, 405. + +Smith, Kirby, General: 339-42, 453. + +South: original difference of character and interest between Northern +and Southern States becoming more marked concurrently with growth of +Union, 17-8, 36, 39-40, 43-5; slavery and Southern society, 52-9; +growing power of a Southern policy for slavery to which the North +generally is subservient, 91-2, 98-100, 117, 138-41; rise of resistance +to this, _see_ Republican Party; causes of Secession and prevailing +feeling in South about it, 170-88; history of Secession and War, _see_ +Confederacy and War; Southern spirit in the war, 216, 218-20; heroism +of struggle, 397; memory of the war a common inheritance to North and +South, 455. + +South Carolina: 26-7, 36, 44-6, 57-8, 173, 179-80, 182, 185-90, 200-1, +208, 253, 321, 386, 435. + +Spain: 16, 26, 90, 211. + +Speed, James: 405. + +Speed, Joshua: 70, 81, 87, 116-8, 405, 440. + +Spoils System: 49-50, 95, 254-5. + +Springfield: Lincoln's life there, 70-7, 81-7, 101-9; his farewell +speech there, 203; his funeral there, 453. + +Stanton, Edwin: rude to Lincoln in law case, services in Buchanan's +Cabinet, denounces Lincoln's administration, made Secretary of War, +272; great mistake as to recruiting, 299, 368; Conservative hostility +to him, 328-9; services in War Department and loyalty to Lincoln, 272, +290, 329, 389, 406, 419-20; at Lincoln's death-bed, 453. + +States: relations to Federal Government and during secession to +Confederacy, 24, 221-3. + +Stephens, Alexander: 179, 199-200, 432-4. + +Stevenson, Robert Louis: 87. + +Stowe, Mrs. Beecher: 51, 54, 110. + +Submarines: 251. + +Sumner, Charles: 101, 138-9, 418, 429, 448. + +Supreme Court: 41, 112-5, 144, 378, 382. + +Swedish colonists: 17. + +Swett, Leonard: 13. + + +Talleyrand: 29. + +Taney, Roger: 112-5, 144, 206, 242, 429. + +Taylor, Zachary: 92-3, 95, 98. + +Tennessee River: 226, 280, 339. + +Tennessee State: 27, 199, 226, 229, 275-7, 279-84, 338-40, 342-3, +393-4, 397, 408. + +Tennyson, Alfred: 259. + +Territories: their position under Constitution, 25; expansion and +settlement, 26-8; cessions of Territories by States to Union, 38; +conflict as to slavery in them, _see_ Slavery. + +Terry, General; 433. + +Texas: 28, 91, 198, 199, 388, 453. + +Thomas, George H., General: 231, 280, 341, 343, 369, 388, 396-7. + +Todd, Mary. _See_ Lincoln, Mrs. + +Trumbull, Lyman: 120. + +Tyler, John: 72, 91, 200. + + +"Underground Railway": 150. + +Union and United States. _See_ America. + +Union men: letter of Lincoln to great meeting of, 384-5. + +Urbana: 291-2. + +Usher: 405. + +Utah: 99. + + +Vallandigham, Clement: 379, 381-3, 413. + +Van Buren, Martin: 47, 49, 66. + +Vandalia: 72. + +Vermont: 16, 38. + +Vicksburg: 226, 282, 339, 348-55, 449. + +Victoria, Queen: 263, 451. + +Virginia: 3, 27, 37, 38, 39, 47, 54, 69, 98, 197-200, 209, 213, 217, +228; and for stages of war in Virginia _see_ McClellan, Lee and +Shenandoah Valley. + +Volney: 69. + +Voltaire: 69. + +Voluntary enlistment in the North, 221-2; results here and in U.S.A., +364-5; its fundamental immorality when used on a large scale, 366. + + +Wad, Senator: 194, 400. + +Walker, Governor: 140. + +Wallace, General: 393. + +War, Civil, in U.S.A.: general conditions and strategic aspects of the +war, 214-27, 273-8; preliminary struggles in border States, 228-45; +first Battle of Bull Run, 245-50; blockade of South and naval +operations generally, 251-3; war in West to occupation of Corinth and +taking of New Orleans, 279-84; _Merrimac_ and _Monitor_, 292-3; +beginning of Peninsula campaign, 290-5; "Stonewall" Jackson's Valley +campaign, 295-7; end of Peninsula campaign, 298-302; second Battle of +Bull Run, 303-4; Lee's invasion of Maryland and Antietam, 304-7; +Fredericksburg, 309; Chancellorsville, 311; Buell's operations in +autumn of 1863, Confederate invasion of Kentucky, and Murfreesborough, +338-43; Vicksburg campaigns and completion of, conquest of Mississippi, +348-55; Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania, Gettysburg, and Meade's +campaign in Virginia, 355-8; campaigns of Chickamauga, Eastern +Tennessee, and Chattanooga, 358-64; certain minor operations, 386-8; +military situation at beginning of 1864 and Grant's plans, 386, 389; +Grant's campaign against Lee to beginning of siege of Petersburg, +390-2; Early's Shenandoah campaign, 394; Sherman's Atlanta campaign, +394-5; Farragut at Mobile, 395; Sheridan in Lower Shenandoah Valley, +395-6; Sherman's plans, 396; Hood's invasion of Tennessee, 396-7; +Sherman's march to Savannah, 397-8; Petersburg siege continues, 398; +effect of Sherman's operations, 431; Sherman's advance northward from +Savannah, 435; Porter and Terry take Fort Fisher, 435-6; Petersburg +siege progresses, 436; Sherman in North Carolina, 436-7; Sheridan in +Upper Shenandoah Valley, 437-8; fall of Petersburg and Richmond, and +surrender of Lee, 445-8; surrender of other Confederate forces, 452-3. + +Ward, Artemus: 208, 231, 324. + +Washington City: its importance and dangers in the war, 225, 239-42, +248, 293-4, 295-7, 302, 304, 355-6, 376, 392-3; its political society, +418. + +Washington, George: 10, 21, 37, 76, 203-4, 388. + +Watson, William: 460. + +Webster, Daniel: his career and services, 41-2; his great speech, 45-6, +173; value of his support to Whigs, 68; Lincoln meets him, 91; his +support of compromise of 1850 and his death, 99-100. + +Weed, Thurlow, 193-4, 414, 443. + +Weems' Life of Washington: 10. + +Welles, Gideon: 202, 252-3, 263, 271, 406. + +Wellington: 377. + +Wesley, Samuel: 35. + +West, the: 7-9, 27-8, 46, 61, 91, 93, 155, 224, 226, 303, 305. _And +see_ War. + +West Indies, British: 29, 52. + +West Point: 223, 390. + +West Virginia: 225, 229, 243, 296, 334, 400. + +Whig Party: 48, 66-8, 91-3, 95, 100, 111, 117, 159, 433. + +Whites, Poor or Mean: 55, 178. + +Whitman, Walt: 61, 237, 238, 418-9. + +Whitney, Eli: 39. + +Wilmington: 251, 435-6. + +Wilmot, David and Wilmot Proviso: 96, 99, 117. + +Wilson, President: 45, 54. + +Wisconsin: 38, 172. + +Wood and Edmonds: 233, 456. + +Wood, Fernando: 309. + +Wolfe, Sir James: 353. + +Wolseley, F. M. Viscount: 217, 218, 229-30, 285. + + +Yazoo: 350, 352. + +Young Men's Lyceum: 69. + + +Zeruiah, her sons: 445. + + + + +MAY WE HELP? + +_The publishers of Star books have tried to maintain a high standard in +the selection of titles for their list, and to offer a consistent +quality of workmanship and material. They trust that the book you have +just read has, in part at least, earned your esteem for other titles in +their list._ + +_They are trying to make the Star Library comprehend the best in the +literary fields of biography, science, history, true adventure, travel, +art, philosophy, psychology, etc._ + +_Believing that you will be interested in other books of a nature +similar to that which you have just finished reading, the publishers +have reproduced on the following pages a few extracts from other Star +books. These are pages picked at random. Although there is no +continuity, we hope that they will give you some idea of the style in +which the books are written and perhaps the character of the subject +from which you may form an opinion as to its place on your personal +book shelf._ + + + + +_Reprinted by permission from_ + +LINCOLN'S OWN STORIES + +_told by Anthony Gross_ + + +VI + +THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF + +Delegations from Baltimore called to protest against the "pollution" of +the soil of Maryland by the feet of the soldiers marching across it to +fight against the South. They had no difficulty in understanding the +President's reply: + +"We must have troops; and, as they can neither crawl _under_ Maryland +nor fly _over_ it, they must come across it." + + +When the war had actually begun he delighted in the soldiers' grim +humor in the face of death. He told story after story about the +"boys," laughing, with tears in his gray eyes, at their heroism in +danger. He never laughed at the private soldier, except in the pride +of his hearty patriotism. But he made constant fun of the assumptions +of generals and other high officials. The stories he most enjoyed +telling were of the soldiers' scoffing at rank and pretension. He +delighted in the following: + +A picket challenged a tug going up Broad River, South Carolina, with: + +"Who goes there?" + +"The Secretary of War and Major-General Foster," was the pompous reply. + +"Aw! We've got major-generals enough up here--why don't you bring us +up some hardtack?" + + +On another occasion a friend burst into his room to tell him that a +brigadier-general and twelve army mules had been carried off by a +Confederate raid. + +"How unfortunate! Those mules cost us two hundred dollars apiece!" was +the President's only reply. + + +Mr. Lincoln was a very abstemious man, ate very little and drank +nothing but water, not from principle, but because he did not like wine +or spirits. Once, in rather dark days early in the war, a temperance +committee came to him and said that the reason we did not win was +because our army drank so much whisky as to bring the curse of the Lord +upon them. He said, in reply, that it was rather unfair on the part of +the aforesaid curse, as the other side drank more and worse whisky than +ours did. + + +Some one urged President Lincoln to place General Fremont in command of +some station. While the President did not want to offend his friend at +a rather critical time of the war, he pushed him gently and firmly +aside in this wise: He said he did not know where to place General +Fremont, and it reminded him of an old man who advised his son to take +a wife, to which the young man responded, "Whose wife shall I take?" + + +On one occasion, exasperated at the discrepancy between the aggregate +of troops forwarded to McClellan and the number of men the General +reported as having received, Lincoln exclaimed, "Sending men to that +army is like shoveling fleas across a barnyard--half of them never get +there." + + +Lincoln's orders to his generals are filled with the kindly courtesy, +the direct argument, and the dry humor which are so characteristic of +the man. To Grant, who had telegraphed, "If the thing is pressed, I +think that Lee will surrender," Lincoln replied, "Let the thing be +pressed." + +To McClellan, gently chiding him for his inactivity: "I have just read +your despatch about sore tongue and fatigued horse. Will you pardon me +for asking what the horses of your army have done since the battle of +Antietam that fatigues anything?" + +Referring to General McClellan's inactivity, President Lincoln once +expressed his impatience by saying, "McClellan is a pleasant and +scholarly gentleman; he is an admirable engineer, but he seems to have +a special talent for stationary engineering." + + +After a long period of inaction on the part of the Union forces a +telegram from Cumberland Gap reached Mr. Lincoln, saying that firing +was heard in the direction of Knoxville. The President simply remarked +that he was glad of it. As General Burnside was in a perilous position +in Tennessee at that time, those present were greatly surprised at +Lincoln's calm view of the case. "You see," said the President, "it +reminds me of Mistress Sallie Ward, a neighbor of mine, who had a very +large family. Occasionally one of her numerous progeny would be heard +crying in some out-of-the-way place, upon which Mrs. Ward would +exclaim, 'There's one of my children not dead yet!'" + + +Writing to Hooker, who succeeded Burnside, Lincoln said: + +"I believe you to be a brave and skilful soldier, which, of course, I +like. I also believe you do not mix politics with your profession, in +which you are right. You have confidence in yourself, which is a +valuable, if not indispensable, quality. You are ambitious, which +within reasonable bounds does good rather than harm; but I think that +during General Burnside's command of the army you have taken counsel +with your ambition, and thwarted him as much as you could, in which you +did a great wrong to the country and to a most meritorious and +honorable brother-officer. I have heard, in such a way as to believe +it, of your recently saying that both the army and the government +needed a dictator. Of course, it is not for this, but in spite of it, +that I have given you the command. Only those generals who gain +successes can set up dictators. What I now ask of you is military +success, and I will risk the dictatorship." + + +General Fry, who was Provost-Marshal of the War Department and received +daily instructions from the President in regard to the draft for +troops, which was one of the most embarrassing and perplexing questions +that arose during the war, illustrates this peculiar trait by an +anecdote. He says: + +"Upon one occasion the Governor of a State came to my office bristling +with complaints in relation to the number of troops required from his +State, the details of drafting the men, and the plan of compulsory +service in general. I found it impossible to satisfy his demands, and +accompanied him to the Secretary of War's office, whence, after a +stormy interview with Stanton, he went alone to press his ultimatum +upon the highest authority. After I had waited anxiously for some +hours, expecting important orders or decisions from the President, or +at least a summons to the White House for explanation, the Governor +returned, and said, with a pleasant smile, that he was going home by +the next train, and merely dropping in _en route_ to say good-by. +Neither the business he came upon nor his interview with the President +was alluded to. + +"As soon as I could see Lincoln I said: 'Mr. President, I am very +anxious to learn how you disposed of Governor ----. He went to your +office from the War Department in a towering rage. I suppose you found +it necessary to make large concessions to him, as he returned from you +entirely satisfied.' + +"'Oh no,' he replied, 'I did not concede anything. You know how that +Illinois farmer managed the big log that lay in the middle of the +field? To the inquiries of his neighbors, one Sunday, he announced +that he had got rid of the big log. "Got rid of it!" said they. "How +did you do it? It was too big to haul out, too knotty to split, and +too wet and soggy to burn; what did you do?" "Well, now, boys," +replied the farmer, "if you won't divulge the secret, I'll tell you how +I got rid of it. I _plowed around_ it." Now,' said Lincoln, 'don't +tell anybody, but that's the way I got rid of Governor ----. I _plowed +around_ him, but it took me three mortal hours to do it, and I was +afraid every moment he'd see what I was at.'" + + +Commenting on Jeb Stuart's raid into Maryland and Pennsylvania and his +complete circuit of McClellan's army and his return over the river +unharmed despite McClellan's attempt to head him off, Lincoln remarked: + +"When I was a boy we used to play a game, three times round and out. +Stuart has been round twice; if he goes round him once more, gentlemen, +McClellan will be out." + +The General ascribed Stuart's success to his lack of horses, and +telegraphed that unless the army got more horses there would be similar +expeditions. To this Halleck telegraphed: + +"The President has read your telegram, and + + +[Transcriber's note: end of this extract.] + + + + + The following + is reprinted by permission from + RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS + OF ROBERT E. LEE + by his son Captain Robert E. Lee + + +LEE'S OPINION UPON THE LATE WAR + +envelope in which they were inclosed was the following indorsement in +General Lee's handwriting: + + +"LONDON, July 31, 1866. + +"Herbert C. Saunders asks permission to publish his conversation with +me. August 22d--Refused." + + +"3 BOLTON GARDENS, SOUTH KENSINGTON, + +"LONDON, July 31, 1866. + +"_My Dear General Lee_: Presuming on the acquaintance with you which I +had the honour and pleasure of making last November at Lexington, while +travelling in Virginia, I venture now to write to you under these +circumstances. You may remember that, at the time I presented to you +my letter of introduction, I told you that two other Englishmen, +friends of mine, who had come with me to America, were then making a +tour through Georgia, the Carolinas, and some other Southern States. +One of them, Mr. Kennaway, was so much interested with all he saw, and +the people at home have appreciated his letters descriptive of it so +well, that he is intending to publish a short account of his visit. +Not having, however, had an introduction to yourself, he is anxious to +avail himself of the somewhat full accounts I wrote home at the time, +descriptive of my most interesting interview with you, and, with this +view, he has asked me to put into the shape of a letter all those more +prominent points which occur to me as gathered from my letters and my +recollection, and which are likely to interest and instruct the English +public. I have, after some hesitation, acceded to the request--a +hesitation caused mainly by the fact that at the time I saw you I +neither prepared my notes with a view to publication nor did I inform +you that there was any chance of what you told me being repeated. I +may add that I never until a month or two ago had the slightest thought +of publishing anything, and, in fact, have constantly resisted the many +applications by my friends that I should let my letters see the light. +My object in now writing to you is to know whether you have any +objection to my giving my friend the inclosed short account of our +interview, as it would, I am convinced, add greatly to the interest of +the narrative. If you have no objection to this, perhaps you would +kindly correct any statements put into your mouth which are not quite +accurate, or expunge anything which might prejudice you with the public +either of the North or the South, if unluckily anything of this nature +should have crept in. My letters were written a day or two after the +conversation, but you had so much of interest and new to tell me that I +do not feel sure that I may not have confused names of battles, etc., +in some instances. It will be necessary for me to deliver my part of +the performance early in September to the publishers, and, therefore, I +should feel much obliged by your sending me an answer at your earliest +convenience. There will be a mail due here about the first of that +month, leaving the United States on Wednesday, the 22d., and I shall, +therefore, wait till its arrival before sending my letter to Mr. +Kennaway; but should I not hear from you then I shall consider you have +no objections to make or alterations to suggest, and act accordingly. +If you have any new facts which you think it desirable should be known +by the public, it will give me much pleasure to be the medium of their +communication. + +"I am sure I need scarcely tell you with what keen interest I have read +all the accounts from your continent of the proceedings in Congress and +elsewhere in connection with the reconstruction of the South. I do +sincerely trust it may be eventually effected in a way satisfactory to +the South, and I most deeply deplore the steps taken by the Radical +side of the House to set the two (North and South) by the ears again. +President Johnson's policy seems to me to be that which, if pursued, +would be most likely to contribute to the consolidation of the country; +but I am both surprised and pained to find how little power the +Executive has against so strong a faction as the Radicals, who, while +they claim to represent the North, do, in fact, but misrepresent the +country. I am sure you will believe that I say with sincerity that I +always take great interest in anything I hear said or that I read of +yourself, and I am happy to say that, even with all the rancour of the +Northern Radicals against the South, it is little they find of ill to +say of you. + +"Hoping you will not think I am doing wrong in the course I propose to +take, and that your answer may be satisfactory, I remain, my dear +General Lee, + +"Yours very sincerely, HERBERT C. SAUNDERS. + + +"GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE." + +"LEXINGTON, Virginia, August 22, 1866. + +"MR. HERBERT C. SAUNDERS, + +"3 Bolton Gardens, + +"South Kensington, London, England. + +"_My Dear Mr. Saunders_: I received to-day your letter of the 31st ult. +What I stated to you in conversation, during the visit which you did me +the honour to pay me in November last, was entirely for your own +information, and was in no way intended for publication. My only +object was to gratify the interest which you apparently evinced on the +several topics which were introduced, and to point to facts which you +might investigate, if you so desired, in your own way. I have an +objection to the publication of my private conversations, which are +never intended but for those to whom they are addressed. I cannot, +therefore, without an entire disregard of the rule which I have +followed in other cases, and in violation of my own sense of propriety, +assent to what you propose. I hope, therefore, you will excuse me. +What you may think proper to publish I hope will be the result of your +own observations and convictions, and not on my authority. In the +hasty perusal which I have been obliged to give the manuscript inclosed +to me, I perceive many inaccuracies, resulting as much, perhaps, from +my imperfect narration as from misapprehension on your part. Though +fully appreciating your kind wish to correct certain erroneous +statements as regards myself, I prefer remaining silent to doing +anything that might excite angry discussion at this time, when strong +efforts are being made by conservative men, North and South, to sustain +President Johnson in his policy, which, I think, offers the only means +of healing the lamentable divisions of the country, and which the +result of the late convention at Philadelphia gives great promise of +doing. Thanking you for the opportunity afforded me of expressing my +opinion before executing your purpose, I am, etc., + +"R. E. LEE." + + +The following is Mr. Saunders' account of the interview: + +"On only one subject would he talk at any length about his own conduct, +and that was with reference to the treatment of the Federal prisoners +who had fallen into his hands. He seemed to feel deeply the backhanded +stigma cast upon him by his having been included by name in the first +indictment framed against Wirz, though he was afterward omitted from +the new charges. He explained to me the circumstances under which he +had arranged with McClellan for the exchange of prisoners; how he had, +after the battles of Manassas, Fredericksburg, and (I think) +Chancellorsville, sent all the wounded over to the enemy on the +engagement of their generals to parole them. He also told me that on +several occasions his commissary generals had come to him after a +battle and represented that he had not rations enough both for +prisoners and the army when the former had to be sent several days' +march to their place of confinement, and he had always given orders +that the wants of the prisoners should be first attended to, as from +their position they could not save themselves from starvation by +foraging or otherwise, as the army could when in straits for +provisions. The General also explained how every effort had always +been made by the Confederates to do away with the necessity of +retaining prisoners by offering every facility for exchange, till at +last, when all exchange was refused, they found themselves with 30,000 +prisoners for whom they were quite unable to do as much as they wished +in the way of food. He stated, furthermore, that many of their +hardships arose from the necessity of constantly changing the prisons +to prevent recapture. With the management of the prisons he assured me +he had no more to do than I had, and did not even know that Wirz was in +charge of Andersonville prison (at least, I think he asserted this) +till after the war was over. I could quite sympathise with him in his +feeling of pain under which his generous nature evidently suffered that +the authorities at Washington should have included him and others +similarly circumstanced in this charge of cruelty at the time that +letters written by himself (General Lee), taken in Richmond when +captured, complaining that the troops in his army had actually been for +days together on several occasions without an ounce of meat, were in +possession of the military authorities. + +"When discussing the state of feeling in England with regard to the +war, he assured me that it had all along given him the greatest +pleasure to feel that the Southern cause had the sympathies of so many +in the 'old country,' to which he looked as a second home; but, in +answer to my questions, he replied that he had never expected us to +give them material aid, and added that he thought all governments were +right in studying only the interests of their own people and in not +going to war for an 'idea' when they had no distinct cause of quarrel. + +"On the subject of slavery, he assured me that he had always been in +favour of the emancipation of the negroes, and that in Virginia the +feeling had been strongly inclining in the same direction, till the +ill-judged enthusiasm (amounting to rancour) of the abolitionists in +the North had turned the Southern tide of feeling in the other +direction. In Virginia, about thirty years ago, an ordinance for the +emancipation of the slaves had been rejected by only a small majority, +and every one fully expected at the next convention it would have been +carried, but for the above cause. He went on to say that there was +scarcely a Virginian now who was not glad that the subject had been +definitely settled, though nearly all regretted that they had not been +wise enough to do it themselves the first year of the war. Allusion +was made by him to a conversation he had with a distinguished +countryman of mine. He had been visiting a large slave plantation +(Shirley) on the James River. The Englishman had told him that the +working population were better cared for there than in any country he +had ever visited, but that he must never expect an approval of the +institution of slavery by England, or aid from her in any cause in +which that question was involved. Taking these facts and the +well-known antipathy of the mass of the English to the institution into +consideration, he said he had never expected help from England. The +people 'at the South' (as the expression is), in the main, though +scarcely unanimously, seem to hold much the same language as General +Lee with reference to our neutrality, and to be much less bitter than +Northerners generally--who, I must confess, in my own opinion, have +much less cause to complain of our interpretation of the laws of +neutrality than the South. I may mention here, by way of parenthesis, +that I was, on two separate occasions (once in Washington and once in +Lexington), told that there were many people in the country who wished +that General Washington had never lived and that they were still +subjects of Queen Victoria; but I should certainly say as a rule the +Americans are much too well satisfied with themselves for this feeling +to be at all common. General Lee, in the course of this to me most +interesting evening's _seance_, gave me many details of the war too +long to put on paper, but, with reference to the small result of their +numerous victories, accounted for it in this way: the force which the +Confederates brought to bear was so often inferior in numbers to that +of the Yankees that the more they followed up the victory against one +portion of the enemy's line the more did they lay themselves open to +being surrounded by the remainder of the enemy. He likened the +operation to a man breasting a wave of the sea, who, as rapidly as he +clears a way before him, is enveloped by the very water he has +displaced. He spoke of the final surrender as inevitable owing to the +superiority in numbers of the enemy. His own army had, during the last +few weeks, suffered materially from defection in its ranks, and, +discouraged by failures and worn out by hardships, had at the time of +the surrender only 7,892 men under arms, and this little army was +almost surrounded by one of 100,000. They might, the General said with +an air piteous to behold, have cut their way out as they had done +before, but, looking upon the struggle as hopeless, I was not surprised +to hear him say that he thought it cruel to prolong it. In two other +battles he named (Sharpsburg and Chancellorsville, I think he said), +the Confederates were to the Federals in point of numbers as 35,000 to +120,000 and as 45,000 to 155,000 respectively, so that the mere +disparity of numbers was not sufficient to convince him of the +necessity of surrender; but feeling that his own army was persuaded of +the ultimate hopelessness of the contest as evidenced by their +defection, he took the course of surrendering his army in lieu of +reserving it for utter annihilation. + +"Turning to the political bearing of the important question at issue, +the great Southern general gave me, at some length, his feelings with +regard to the abstract right of secession. This right, he told me, was +held as a constitutional maxim at the South. As to its exercise at the +time on the part of the South, he was distinctly opposed, and it was +not until Lincoln issued a proclamation for 75,000 men to invade the +South, which was deemed clearly unconstitutional, that Virginia +withdrew from the United States. + +"We discussed a variety of other topics, and, at eleven o'clock when I +rose to go, he begged me to stay on, as he found the nights full long. +His son, General Custis Lee, who had distinguished himself much during +the war, but whom I had not the good fortune of meeting, is the only +one of his family at present with him at Lexington, where he occupies +the position of a professor in the Military Institute of Virginia. +This college had 250 cadets in it when the war broke out, General +'Stonewall' Jackson being one of the professors. At one moment in the +war, when the Federals were advancing steadily up the Shenandoah +Valley, these youths (from 16 to 22 years of age) were marched to join +the Confederate Army, and did good service. In one battle at +Newmarket, of which I shall have occasion to speak later in my letters, +they distinguished themselves in a conspicuous way under the leadership +of Colonel Shipp, who is still their commandant. By a brilliant +charge, they contributed, in a great measure, to turn the tide of +affairs, losing nine of their number killed and more than forty +wounded. General Hunter, on a subsequent occasion, when occupying +Lexington with a body of Federal troops, quartered his men in the +Military Institute for several days, and, on leaving, had the +building--a very handsome and extensive one--fired in numerous places, +completely destroying all but the external walls, which now stand. The +professors' houses stood in detached positions, and these, too, with +the house of Mr. Letcher, a former governor of the State, he also burnt +to the ground. The Washington College, the presidency of which General +Lee now holds, they also ransacked, destroying everything it contained, +and were preparing it for the flames, to which they were with +difficulty restrained from devoting it by earnest representations of +its strictly educational nature." + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Abraham Lincoln, by Lord Charnwood + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ABRAHAM LINCOLN *** + +***** This file should be named 18379.txt or 18379.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/3/7/18379/ + +Produced by Al Haines + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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