Part 27 (1/2)
Though Mr. Lincoln had no faith in Jewett's story, and doubted whether the emba.s.sy had any existence, he determined to take immediate action on this proposition. He felt the unreasonableness and injustice of Mr.
Greeley's letter, which in effect charged his administration with a cruel disinclination to treat with the rebels, and resolved to convince him at least, and perhaps others, that there was no foundation for these reproaches. So he arranged that the witness of his willingness to listen to any overtures that might come from the South should be Mr. Greeley himself, and answering his letter at once on July 9, said:
”If you can find any person, anywhere, professing to have any proposition of Jefferson Davis in writing, for peace, embracing the restoration of the Union and abandonment of slavery, whatever else it embraces, say to him he may come to me with you, and that if he really brings such proposition he shall at the least have safe conduct with the paper (and without publicity, if he chooses) to the point where you shall have met him. The same if there be two or more persons.”
This ready acquiescence evidently surprised and somewhat embarra.s.sed Mr.
Greeley, who replied by several letters of different dates, but made no motion to produce his commissioners. At last, on the fifteenth, to end a correspondence which promised to be indefinitely prolonged, the President telegraphed him: ”I was not expecting you to send me a letter, but to bring me a man or men.” Mr. Greeley then went to Niagara, and wrote from there to the alleged commissioners, Clement C. Clay and James P. Holcombe, offering to conduct them to Was.h.i.+ngton, but neglecting to mention the two conditions--restoration of the Union and abandonment of slavery--laid down in Mr. Lincoln's note of the ninth and repeated by him on the fifteenth. Even with this great advantage, Clay and Holcombe felt themselves too devoid of credentials to accept Mr. Greeley's offer, but replied that they could easily get credentials, or that other agents could be accredited, if they could be sent to Richmond armed with ”the circ.u.mstances disclosed in this correspondence.”
This, of course, meant that Mr. Lincoln should take the initiative in suing the Richmond authorities for peace on terms proposed by them. The essential impossibility of these terms was not, however, apparent to Mr.
Greeley, who sent them on to Was.h.i.+ngton, soliciting fresh instructions.
With unwearied patience, Mr. Lincoln drew up a final paper, ”To Whom it may Concern,” formally restating his position, and despatched Major Hay with it to Niagara. This ended the conference; the Confederates charging the President through the newspapers with a ”sudden and entire change of views”; while Mr. Greeley, being attacked by his colleagues of the press for his action, could defend himself only by implied censure of the President, utterly overlooking the fact that his own original letter had contained the identical propositions Mr. Lincoln insisted upon.
The discussion grew so warm that both he and his a.s.sailants at last joined in a request to Mr. Lincoln to permit the publication of the correspondence. This was, of course, an excellent opportunity for the President to vindicate his own proceeding. But he rarely looked at such matters from the point of view of personal advantage, and he feared that the pa.s.sionate, almost despairing appeals of the most prominent Republican editor of the North for peace at any cost, disclosed in the correspondence, would deepen the gloom in the public mind and have an injurious effect upon the Union cause. The spectacle of the veteran journalist, who was justly regarded as the leading controversial writer on the antislavery side, ready to sacrifice everything for peace, and frantically denouncing the government for refusing to surrender the contest, would have been, in its effect upon public opinion, a disaster equal to the loss of a great battle. He therefore proposed to Mr.
Greeley, in case the letters were published, to omit some of the most vehement pa.s.sages; and took Mr. Greeley's refusal to a.s.sent to this as a veto on their publication.
It was characteristic of him that, seeing the temper in which Mr.
Greeley regarded the transaction, he dropped the matter and submitted in silence to the misrepresentations to which he was subjected by reason of it. Some thought he erred in giving any hearing to the rebels; some criticized his choice of a commissioner; and the opposition naturally made the most of his conditions of negotiation, and accused him of embarking in a war of extermination in the interests of the negro.
Though making no public effort to set himself right, he was keenly alive to their att.i.tude. To a friend he wrote:
”Saying reunion and abandonment of slavery would be considered, if offered, is not saying that nothing else or less would be considered, if offered.... Allow me to remind you that no one, having control of the rebel armies, or, in fact, having any influence whatever in the rebellion, has offered, or intimated, a willingness to a restoration of the Union, in any event, or on any condition whatever.... If Jefferson Davis wishes for himself, or for the benefit of his friends at the North, to know what I would do if he were to offer peace and reunion, saying nothing about slavery, let him try me.”
If the result of Mr. Greeley's Niagara efforts left any doubt that peace was at present unattainable, the fact was demonstrated beyond question by the published report of another unofficial and volunteer negotiation which was proceeding at the same time. In May, 1863, James F. Jaquess, D.D., a Methodist clergyman of piety and religious enthusiasm, who had been appointed by Governor Yates colonel of an Illinois regiment, applied for permission to go South, urging that by virtue of his church relations he could, within ninety days, obtain acceptable terms of peace from the Confederates. The military superiors to whom he submitted the request forwarded it to Mr. Lincoln with a favorable indors.e.m.e.nt; and the President replied, consenting that they grant him a furlough, if they saw fit, but saying:
”He cannot go with any government authority whatever. This is absolute and imperative.”
Eleven days later he was back again within Union lines, claiming to have valuable ”unofficial” proposals for peace. President Lincoln paid no attention to his request for an interview, and in course of time he returned to his regiment. Nothing daunted, however, a year later he applied for and received permission to repeat his visit, this time in company with J.R. Gilmore, a lecturer and writer, but, as before, expressly without instruction or authority from Mr. Lincoln. They went to Richmond, and had an extended interview with Mr. Davis, during which they proposed to him a plan of adjustment as visionary as it was unauthorized, its central feature being a general election to be held over the whole country, North and South, within sixty days, on the two propositions,--peace with disunion and Southern independence, or peace with Union, emanc.i.p.ation, no confiscation, and universal amnesty,--the majority vote to decide, and the governments at Was.h.i.+ngton and Richmond to be finally bound by the decision.
The interview resulted in nothing but a renewed declaration from Mr.
Davis that he would fight for separation to the bitter end--a declaration which, on the whole, was of service to the Union cause, since, to a great extent, it stopped the clamor of the peace factionists during the presidential campaign. Not entirely, however. There was still criticism enough to induce Henry J. Raymond, chairman of the executive committee of the Republican party, to write a letter on August 22, suggesting to Mr. Lincoln that he ought to appoint a commission in due form to make proffers of peace to Davis on the sole condition of acknowledging the supremacy of the Const.i.tution; all other questions to be settled in a convention of the people of all the States.
Mr. Lincoln answered this patiently and courteously, framing, to give point to his argument, an experimental draft of instructions with which he proposed, in case such proffers were made, to send Mr. Raymond himself to the rebel authorities. On seeing these in black and white, Raymond, who had come to Was.h.i.+ngton to urge his project, readily agreed with the President and Secretaries Seward, Stanton, and Fessenden, that to carry it out would be worse than losing the presidential contest: it would be ignominiously surrendering it in advance.
”Nevertheless,” wrote an inmate of the White House, ”the visit of himself and committee here did great good. They found the President and cabinet much better informed than themselves, and went home encouraged and cheered.”
The Democratic managers had called the national convention of their party to meet on the fourth of July, 1864; but after the nomination of Fremont at Cleveland, and of Lincoln at Baltimore, it was thought prudent to postpone it to a later date, in the hope that something in the chapter of accidents might arise to the advantage of the opposition.
It appeared for a while as if this manoeuver were to be successful. The military situation was far from satisfactory. The terrible fighting of Grant's army in Virginia had profoundly shocked and depressed the country; and its movement upon Petersburg, so far without decisive results, had contributed little hope or encouragement. The campaign of Sherman in Georgia gave as yet no positive a.s.surance of the brilliant results it afterward attained. The Confederate raid into Maryland and Pennsylvania in July was the cause of great annoyance and exasperation.
This untoward state of things in the field of military operations found its exact counterpart in the political campaign. Several circ.u.mstances contributed to divide and discourage the administration party. The resignation of Mr. Chase had seemed to not a few leading Republicans a presage of disintegration in the government. Mr. Greeley's mission at Niagara Falls had unsettled and troubled the minds of many. The Democrats, not having as yet appointed a candidate or formulated a platform, were free to devote all their leisure to attacks upon the administration. The rebel emissaries in Canada, being in thorough concert with the leading peace men of the North, redoubled their efforts to disturb the public tranquility, and not without success. In the midst of these discouraging circ.u.mstances the manifesto of Wade and Davis had appeared to add its depressing influence to the general gloom.
Mr. Lincoln realized to the full the tremendous issues of the campaign.
Asked in August by a friend who noted his worn looks, if he could not go away for a fortnight's rest, he replied:
”I cannot fly from my thoughts--my solicitude for this great country follows me wherever I go. I do not think it is personal vanity or ambition, though I am not free from these infirmities, but I cannot but feel that the weal or woe of this great nation will be decided in November. There is no program offered by any wing of the Democratic party, but that must result in the permanent destruction of the Union.”
”But, Mr. President,” his friend objected, ”General McClellan is in favor of crus.h.i.+ng out this rebellion by force. He will be the Chicago candidate.”
”Sir, the slightest knowledge of arithmetic will prove to any man that the rebel armies cannot be destroyed by Democratic strategy. It would sacrifice all the white men of the North to do it. There are now in the service of the United States nearly one hundred and fifty thousand able-bodied colored men, most of them under arms, defending and acquiring Union territory. The Democratic strategy demands that these forces be disbanded, and that the masters be conciliated by restoring them to slavery.... You cannot conciliate the South if you guarantee to them ultimate success; and the experience of the present war proves their successes inevitable if you fling the compulsory labor of millions of black men into their side of the scale.... Abandon all the posts now garrisoned by black men, take one hundred and fifty thousand men from our side and put them in the battle-field or corn-field against us, and we would be compelled to abandon the war in three weeks.... My enemies pretend I am now carrying on this war for the sole purpose of abolition.