Part 26 (2/2)
In the end, Lincoln had unerringly read the character of Chase and slyly called Seward's bluff. Through all the countervailing pressures, he had achieved the cabinet he wanted from the outset-a mixture of former Whigs and Democrats, a combination of conciliators and hard-liners. He would be the head of his own administration, the master of the most unusual cabinet in the history of the country.
His opponents had been certain that Lincoln would fail in this first test of leaders.h.i.+p. ”The construction of a Cabinet,” one editorial advised, ”like the courting of a shrewd girl, belongs to a branch of the fine arts with which the new Executive is not acquainted. There are certain little tricks which go far beyond the arts familiar to the stump, and the cross-road tavern, whose comprehension requires a delicacy of thought and subtlety of perception, secured only by experience.”
In fact, as John Nicolay later wrote, Lincoln's ”first decision was one of great courage and self-reliance.” Each of his rivals was ”sure to feel that the wrong man had been nominated.” A less confident man might have surrounded himself with personal supporters who would never question his authority. James Buchanan, for example, had deliberately chosen men who thought as he did. Buchanan believed, Allan Nevins writes, that a president ”who tried to conciliate opposing elements by placing determined agents of each in his official family would find that he had simply strengthened discord, and had deepened party divisions.” While it was possible that his team of rivals would devour one another, Lincoln determined that ”he must risk the dangers of faction to overcome the dangers of rebellion.”
Later, Joseph Medill of the Chicago Tribune asked Lincoln why he had chosen a cabinet comprised of enemies and opponents. He particularly questioned the president's selection of the three men who had been his chief rivals for the Republican nomination, each of whom was still smarting from the loss.
Lincoln's answer was simple, straightforward, and shrewd. ”We needed the strongest men of the party in the Cabinet. We needed to hold our own people together. I had looked the party over and concluded that these were the very strongest men. Then I had no right to deprive the country of their services.”
Seward, Chase, Bates-they were indeed strong men. But in the end, it was the prairie lawyer from Springfield who would emerge as the strongest of them all.
PART II
MASTER AMONG MEN
In this composite, Lincoln has taken over Seward's central position in the Republican Party, becoming the clear leader of a most unusual team of rivals.
SECOND FLOOR OF THE LINCOLN WHITE HOUSE
CHAPTER 12
”MYSTIC CHORDS OF MEMORY”
ON THE NIGHT BEFORE her husband's March 4 inauguration, Mary Lincoln was unable to sleep. She stood by her window in the Willard Hotel and watched strangers swarming in the darkened streets below. Though all the major hotels had laid out mattresses and cots in every conceivable open s.p.a.ce, filling parlors, reception rooms, and lobbies, thousands were still left to wander the streets and wait for the great day to dawn.
Lincoln rose before sunrise to look over the inaugural address he had been crafting in his peculiar fas.h.i.+on. According to Nicolay, ”Lincoln often resorted to the process of c.u.mulative thought.” He would reduce complex ideas to paragraphs and sentences, and then days or weeks later return to the same pa.s.sage and polish it further ”to elaborate or to conclude his point or argument.” While Seward or Chase would consult countless books, drawing from ancient to modern history to ill.u.s.trate and refine their arguments, Lincoln built the armature of his inaugural out of four doc.u.ments: the Const.i.tution, Andrew Jackson's nullification proclamation, Daniel Webster's memorable ”Liberty and Union Forever” speech, and Clay's address to the Senate arguing for the Compromise of 1850.
Lincoln faced a dual challenge in this long-awaited speech, his first significant public address since his election. It was imperative that he convey his staunch resolution to defend the Union and to carry out his responsibilities as president, while at the same time mitigating the anxieties of the Southern states. Finding the balance between force and conciliation was not easy, and his early draft tilted more toward the forceful side. Among the first people to see the draft was Orville Browning. Browning had intended to accompany Lincoln on the train from Springfield to Was.h.i.+ngton, but finding ”such a crowd of hangers on gathering about him,” he decided to end the journey in Indianapolis. Before Browning left, Lincoln handed him a copy of his draft.
Browning focused on one imprudent pa.s.sage that he feared would be seen in the South as a direct ”threat, or menace,” and would prove ”irritating even in the border states.” Lincoln had pledged: ”All the power at my disposal will be used to reclaim the public property and places which have fallen; to hold, occupy and possess these, and all other property and places belonging to the government....” Browning suggested he delete the promise to reclaim what had already fallen, such as Fort Moultrie or Castle Pinckney, limiting himself to ”hold, occupy, and possess” what was still in Union hands. ”In any conflict which may ensue between the government and the seceding States,” Browning argued, ”it is very important that the traitors shall be the aggressors, and that they be kept constantly and palpably in the wrong.” Though in a number of private conversations during the long secession winter Lincoln had expressed his determination to take back the fallen properties, he accepted Browning's argument and took out the promise to reclaim places that the seceding states had already taken.
Of all who read the draft, it was Seward who had the largest impact on Lincoln's inaugural address. Seward had read the initial draft with a heavy heart. Though he believed Lincoln's argument for the perpetuity of the Union was ”strong and conclusive,” he felt that the bellicose tone of the text would render useless all the hard work, all the risks taken during the previous weeks to stop the secession movement from expanding. Working on the draft for hours, seated in his favorite swivel chair, Seward wrote a long, thoughtful letter to Lincoln that contained scores of revisions. Taken together, his suggested changes softened the tone of the draft, made it more conciliatory toward the South.
Lincoln's text had opened on a forceful note, pledging himself ”bound by duty...upon the plainest grounds of good faith” to abide by the Chicago platform, without ”liberty to s.h.i.+ft his position.” Since many seceders considered the Chicago platform one of the touchstones of their withdrawal from the Union, this was clearly a provocative beginning. Even Bates had lambasted the Chicago platform as ”exclusive and defiant...needlessly exposing the party to the specious charge of favoring negro equality.” Seward argued that unless Lincoln eliminated his words pledging strict adherence to the platform, he would ”give such advantages to the Disunionists that Virginia and Maryland will secede, and we shall within ninety, perhaps within sixty, days be obliged to fight the South for this capital.... In that case the dismemberment of the republic would date from the inauguration of a Republican Administration.” Lincoln agreed to delete the reference to the Chicago platform entirely.
Seward also criticized Lincoln's pledge to reclaim fallen properties and to hold those still belonging to the government. He suggested that the text refer more ”ambiguously” to ”the exercise of power.” Lincoln had already planned to change the text as Browning advised, so he ignored this overly compromising suggestion and retained his pledge to ”hold, occupy and possess” the properties still belonging to the federal government, including Fort Sumter.
Seward's revisions are evident in nearly every paragraph. He qualified some, removed rough edges in others. Where Lincoln had referred to the secession ordinances and the acts of violence as ”treasonable,” Seward subst.i.tuted the less accusatory ”revolutionary.” With the Dred Scott decision in mind, Lincoln warned against turning the ”government over to the despotism of the few men [life officers] composing the court.” Seward deleted the word ”despotism” and elevated the Court to read ”that eminent tribunal.”
Lincoln had decried the idea of an amendment to the Const.i.tution to ensure that Congress could never interfere with slavery in the states where it already existed. ”I am, rather, for the old s.h.i.+p,” he had written, ”and the chart of the old pilots.” Lincoln's stance put Seward in a difficult position; at Lincoln's behest, he had introduced the controversial resolution that called for the amendment in the first place. Lincoln's reversal now would leave Seward exposed. Treading carefully, Seward suggested that Lincoln acknowledge a diversity of opinion surrounding the proposed amendment, and that his own views would only ”aggravate the dispute.” As it happened, Lincoln went further than Seward had suggested. In the early hours of the night before the inauguration, Congress, in its final session, had pa.s.sed the proposed amendment ”to the effect that the federal government, shall never interfere with the domestic inst.i.tutions of the States.” In light of this action, Lincoln reversed his position yet again. He revised his pa.s.sage to say that since Congress had proposed the amendment, and since he believed ”such a provision to now be implied const.i.tutional law, I have no objection to its being made express, and irrevocable.”
Seward's greatest contribution to the tone and substance of the inaugural address was in its conclusion. Lincoln's finale threw down the gauntlet to the South: ”With you, and not with me, is the solemn question of 'Shall it be peace, or a sword?'” Seward recommended a very different closing, designed ”to meet and remove prejudice and pa.s.sion in the South, and despondency and fear in the East. Some words of affection-some of calm and cheerful confidence.” He suggested two alternate endings. Lincoln drew upon Seward's language to create his immortal coda.
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