Part 47 (1/2)
Twenty months before the Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation, the president had told Hay that ”the central idea pervading this struggle is the necessity that is upon us, of proving that popular government is not an absurdity,” predicting that ”if we fail it will go far to prove the incapability of the people to govern themselves.” Now tens of thousands had died in pursuit of that purpose. At Gettysburg, he would express that same conviction in far more concise and eloquent terms.
”Four score and seven years ago,” he began, our fathers brought forth upon 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 battle-field 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 can not dedicate-we can not consecrate-we can not hallow-this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or 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 n.o.bly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us-that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here 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 G.o.d, 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.
When Lincoln finished, ”the a.s.semblage stood motionless and silent,” according to the awestruck George Gitt. ”The extreme brevity of the address together with its abrupt close had so astonished the hearers that they stood transfixed. Had not Lincoln turned and moved toward his chair, the audience would very likely have remained voiceless for several moments more. Finally there came applause.” Lincoln may have initially interpreted the audience's surprise as disapproval. As soon as he finished, he turned to Ward Lamon. ”Lamon, that speech won't scour! It is a flat failure, and the people are disappointed.” Edward Everett knew better, and expressed his wonder and respect the following day. ”I should be glad,” he wrote Lincoln, ”if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes.”
Lincoln had translated the story of his country and the meaning of the war into words and ideas accessible to every American. The child who would sleeplessly rework his father's yarns into tales comprehensible to any boy had forged for his country an ideal of its past, present, and future that would be recited and memorized by students forever.
LINCOLN RETURNED FROM GETTYSBURG to find a vexing letter from Zachariah Chandler, the radical Michigan senator who had made a fortune in dry goods and real estate before entering politics. Chandler had been a thorn in Lincoln's side, constantly criticizing his conduct of the war, his reliance on overly cautious, conservative generals, and his tardiness on emanc.i.p.ation. ”Your president is unstable as water,” Chandler had warned Trumbull the previous September. ”For G.o.d & country's sake, send someone to stay with [him] who will controll & hold him.”
Now, without having seen a word of the president's upcoming message to Congress, which Lincoln had only begun drafting, Chandler was antic.i.p.ating a disaster. Having read in the press that Thurlow Weed and New York governor Edwin Morgan had come to the White House to urge a ”bold conservative” stance in the message, Chandler warned the president that if he acquiesced, he would jeopardize all the gains made in the fall elections. The president must realize that in each of the victorious states, radical platforms had carried the day. He could be the ”master of the Situation,” Chandler patronizingly suggested, only if he could ”Stand firm” against the influences of men like Weed, Seward, and Blair. ”They are a millstone about Your neck.” If he dropped them, ”they are politically ended for ever.” The success of the radical canva.s.s proved that. ”Conservatives and Traitors are buried together, for G.o.ds sake dont exhume their remains in Your Message. They will smell worse than Lazarus did after he had been buried three days.”
Ordinarily, Lincoln would have shelved Chandler's arrogant letter until his temper cooled. This time, however, he did not stifle his anger. Apparently, Chandler had struck a nerve by insinuating that Lincoln did not know his own mind. Although the president listened to the opinions of many, he took pride in arriving at his own decisions in his own way. Nor would he countenance Chandler's slanderous a.s.sertion that men like Seward, Weed, and Blair deserved the dishonorable grave of traitors.
”My dear Sir,” Lincoln began his cold reply. ”I have seen Gov. [Edwin D.] Morgan and Thurlow Weed, separately, but not together, within the last ten days; but neither of them mentioned the forthcoming message, or said anything, so far as I can remember, which brought the thought of the Message to my mind. I am very glad the elections this autumn have gone favorably, and that I have not, by native depravity, or under evil influences, done anything bad enough to prevent the good result. I hope to 'stand firm' enough not to go backward, and yet not go forward fast enough to wreck the country's cause.”
Lincoln's impatience with Chandler may have been aggravated by the fact that he was coming down with a mild case of smallpox. The illness would last for several weeks and fray his self-restraint, yet it left his humor intact. ”Yes, it is a bad disease, but it has its advantages,” he told some visitors. ”For the first time since I have been in office, I have something now to give to everybody that calls.” The enforced bedrest that attended his sickness allowed Lincoln the quiet he needed to complete his message to Congress. The pause in his frenetic life proved helpful as he laid out his own views on the knotty problem of Reconstruction, which he considered ”the greatest question ever presented to practical statesmans.h.i.+p.”
Most everyone a.s.sumed, Noah Brooks wrote, ”that the President would either ignore reconstruction altogether,” as the conservatives suggested, or follow the radicals' advice and ”give an elaborate and decisive program.” No one predicted ”such an original message,” which cleverly mollified both wings of his divided party. John Hay was present when the message was read. ”I never have seen such an effect produced by a public doc.u.ment,” he recorded in his diary that night. ”Chandler was delighted, Sumner was beaming, while at the other political pole [James] Dixon and Reverdy Johnson said it was highly satisfactory.”
Radicals were thrilled with the stipulation that before the president would pardon any rebel or restore the rights of property, he must not only swear allegiance to the Union but also accept emanc.i.p.ation. To abandon the laws and proclamations promising freedom to the slaves would be ”a cruel and an astounding breach of faith,” Lincoln said, adding that ”while I remain in my present position I shall not attempt to retract or modify the emanc.i.p.ation proclamation; nor shall I return to slavery any person who is free by the terms of that proclamation, or by any of the acts of Congress.” By this statement, Sumner enthused, ”He makes Emanc.i.p.ation the corner-stone of reconstruction.” The Missouri radical Henry Blow agreed. Though he recently had castigated Lincoln, he now lauded him. ”G.o.d bless Old Abe,” he said. ”I am one of the Radicals who have always believed in the President.”
Once again the radicals' doubts about Lincoln's firmness on slavery had proved unfounded. Early in August, he had written a letter to Nathaniel Banks, the general in charge of occupied Louisiana, delineating his thoughts on Reconstruction and emanc.i.p.ation. While not desiring to dictate to the Creole state, Lincoln ”would be glad for her to make a new Const.i.tution recognizing the emanc.i.p.ation proclamation, and adopting emanc.i.p.ation in those parts of the state to which the proclamation does not apply. And while she is at it, I think it would not be objectionable for her to adopt some practical system by which the two races could gradually live themselves out of their old relation to each other, and both come out better prepared for the new. Education for young blacks should be included in the plan.”
Agreeing that no rebellious state could be reconstructed without emanc.i.p.ation, Lincoln still refused to tolerate the radicals' desire to punish the South. He offered full pardons to all those who took the oath, excepting those who had served at high levels in the Confederate government or the army. When the number of loyal men taking the oath reached 10 percent of the votes cast in the 1860 election, they could ”re-establish a State government” recognized by the United States. The names and boundaries of the states would remain as they were.
Conservatives hailed the 10 percent plan, believing it effectively destroyed Sumner's scheme to consider the defeated states as territories that Congress could rename and reorganize as it wished. Nevertheless, Sumner told a fellow radical that Lincoln's ”theory is identical with ours,” for he, too, required Reconstruction before the ”subverted” rebel states could rejoin the Union, ”although he adopts a different nomenclature.”
In presenting his 10 percent plan, Lincoln a.s.sured members of Congress that it was not fixed in stone. He would listen to their ideas as the process evolved. He hoped simply to give the Southern states ”a rallying point,” bringing them ”to act sooner than they otherwise would.” He recognized that it would devastate Confederate morale to see Southern citizens declare their fealty to the Union and their support for emanc.i.p.ation.
Though the happy accord would not last long, Lincoln had succeeded for the moment in uniting the Republican Party. When the Blairs, Sumner, and the Missouri radicals ”are alike agreed to accept” the president's message, Brooks observed, ”we may well conclude that the political millennium has well-nigh come, or that the author of the message is one of the most sagacious men of modern times.” The president, announced Congressman Francis Kellogg of Michigan, ”is the great man of the century. There is none like him in the world. He sees more widely and more clearly than anybody.”
Lincoln's old friend Norman Judd called on the president the evening of the annual address. He speculated that, given the radical tone of the doc.u.ment, Blair and Bates ”must walk the plank.” On the contrary, Lincoln a.s.sured him, both ”acquiesced in it without objection. The only member of the Cabinet who objected to it was Mr. Chase.”
Chase had obstinately demanded a requirement for states to prove their ”sincerity” by changing their const.i.tutions to perpetuate emanc.i.p.ation. This legitimate objection had the felicitous effect of allowing Chase to stay in front of Lincoln on Reconstruction in order to cement his standing in radical circles. While Republicans of all stripes praised the message, Chase expressed disappointment. Writing to the abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher, he said he had tried but failed to get Lincoln to make it ”more positive and less qualified.... But I suppose I must use Touchstone's philosophy & be thankful for skim milk when cream is not to be had.”
LINCOLN APPROACHED the Christmas season in high spirits. As he said in his annual message, he detected a more hopeful mood in the country after the ”dark and doubtful days” following the Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation. The fall elections had been ”highly encouraging”; the rebels had been defeated in a series of recent battles; and the opening round in the debate over Reconstruction had gone surprisingly well.
Early in December, Lincoln translated his rhetoric about forgiveness and reconciliation into action when he invited his sister-in-law, Emilie Helm, to stay at the White House. Emilie's husband, Ben, had disappointed Lincoln in the early days of the war by taking a commission in the Confederate Army instead of Lincoln's offer of the Union Army paymaster's position. Helm was fatally wounded in Tennessee at the Battle of Chickamauga, where he commanded the First Kentucky Brigade. Judge Davis saw Lincoln shortly after he received the news of Helm's death. ”I never saw Mr. Lincoln more moved than when he heard that his young brother-in-law, Ben Hardin Helm, scarcely thirty-two years of age, had been killed,” Davis said. ”I saw how grief-stricken he was...so I closed the door and left him alone.”
Emilie had been living with her young daughter in Selma, Alabama, when she learned that her wounded husband had been taken to Atlanta. She reached the hospital minutes too late. Alone in Atlanta, she had no desire to return to Selma, where she had moved only for its proximity to her husband's post. Now she desperately wanted to see her mother in Kentucky. Confederate general Braxton Bragg unsuccessfully sought through Grant to secure a pa.s.s for her through Union lines. Helm's father then wrote to Betsy Todd, Mary's stepmother, in Lexington, Kentucky. ”I am totally at a loss to know how to begin. Could you or one of your daughters write to Mrs. Lincoln and through her secure a pa.s.s?”
Four days later, Lincoln personally issued a pa.s.s allowing Mrs. Todd ”to go south and bring her daughter...with her children, North to Kentucky.” When Emilie arrived at Fort Monroe, however, the officials demanded that she take the oath of allegiance to the United States. Unable to contemplate such a momentous step so soon after her husband's death in the Confederate cause, she refused. The officials sent a telegram to the president, explaining the dilemma. They received a prompt directive: ”Send her to me.”
After weeks of uncertainty, the young widow was received at the White House by the president and first lady ”with the warmest affection.” The three of them, Emilie wrote in her diary, were ”all too grief-stricken at first for speech.” The Lincolns had lost Willie, Emilie had lost her husband, and the two sisters had lost three brothers in the Confederate Army-Sam Todd at s.h.i.+loh, David Todd from wounds at Vicksburg, and little Alexander, Mary's favorite baby brother, at Baton Rouge.