Lincoln Part 55

One important bit of a.s.sistance Lincoln gave to the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment he was not prepared to make public at the time. During the last days of debate in the House of Representatives, rumors spread that Confederate commissioners were on their way to Was.h.i.+ngton to negotiate a settlement, that peace was at hand. Fearing defections among the reluctant supporters of the measure, Ashley anxiously asked the President whether there was any truth in the reports. Choosing his words with care, Lincoln replied: "So far as I know, there are no peace commissioners in the city, or likely to be in it." His note calmed the Democrats, who, as he said later, "would have gone off in a tangent at the last moment had they smelt Peace."

In fact, at that very moment a Confederate peace commission, consisting of Alexander H. Stephens, the Vice President of the Confederacy, John A. Campbell, the Confederate a.s.sistant secretary of war, and Robert M. T. Hunter, the prominent Virginia Confederate senator, was crossing into Union lines-but at City Point, not Was.h.i.+ngton.

Behind their visit lay some careful planning on Lincoln's part. Earlier he had strongly opposed any negotiation with the Confederates, refusing to meet with Stephens in 1863 and as recently as July insisting on terms he knew the Confederate emissaries at Niagara Falls could not accept. Talk of peace, he then thought, would lower army morale; worse, it might lead to an armistice that, in effect, gave the Confederacy its independence. But now things had changed. The overwhelming victories of Sherman and Thomas in the West, coupled with the unremitting devastation that Grant and Sheridan were wreaking in Virginia, had weakened the Southern will to fight, and there were strong indications that the Confederacy might be coming to pieces. Grant believed that half of Lee's army would desert if there was an armistice. The governors of Georgia and North Carolina were openly talking of making a separate peace; the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Confederate House of Representatives debated a resolution creating a peace commission; Representative Henry S. Foote demanded a "cessation of hostilities and restoration of peace" and declared that only Jefferson Davis stood in the way of ending the war.

Lincoln's annual message to Congress in December 1864 sought to take advantage of this disarray among the Confederates. After what he had learned through the Jaquess-Gilmore mission, he was confident "that no attempt at negotiation with the insurgent leader"-whenever possible he avoided Jefferson Davis's name and never referred to him as President of the Confederate States-"could result in any good. He would accept nothing short of severance of the Union-precisely what we will not and cannot give." But, the President continued: "What is true ... of him who heads the insurgent cause, is not necessarily true of those who follow. Although he cannot reaccept the Union, they can." To encourage these second-level Confederate leaders, the President promised generous terms: "They can, at any moment, have peace simply by laying down their arms and submitting to the national authority under the Const.i.tution." But the generous program of amnesty and pardon, which he had offered in December 1863 and which was still "open to all," would not remain so indefinitely. "The time may come-probably will come," he said, "when ... more rigorous measures ... shall be adopted."

Several intermediaries attempted to follow the lead the President offered. James R. Gilmore wanted to try another peace mission, this time to North Carolina, where he was sure he could persuade Governor Zebulon B. Vance to bring the state back into the Union, but Lincoln did not think this approach expedient. The plan of a former Illinois legislator evoked a more favorable response from the White House. Backed by Browning, James W. Singleton, a leading Peace Democrat, secured Lincoln's permission to go to Richmond in order to sound Confederate opinion on ending the war. Singleton spent two pleasant weeks in the Confederate capital and had interviews with Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and others. He returned to tell the President that Southerners were eager for peace on generous terms but that they were unwilling to give up slavery except for "a fair compensation coupled with other liberal terms of reconstruction secured by Const.i.tutional Amendments." Lincoln listened, but his faith in Singleton, always slight, dwindled when it became clear that he was less interested in peace than in buying up huge quant.i.ties of Southern cotton and tobacco.

The most conspicuous effort at peacemaking was that of Francis P. Blair, Sr., who reached Richmond on January 11. He had wanted to go earlier, but Lincoln had refused permission, saying, "Come to me when Savannah falls." When the President did allow the elder statesman to cross the lines, he declined to talk with him about his project or to offer any instructions; Blair was on his own. In a long interview with Jefferson Davis, who had been a close friend of his family before the war, Blair argued that slavery was no longer "an insurmountible [sic] obstruction to pacification," since the recent decision to enroll blacks in the Confederate army necessarily entailed giving them freedom. The reunion of the North and South was now inevitable. Only the machinations of European monarchs could prevent it, and the activities of France's puppet ruler of Mexico, Maximilian, showed how real was this danger. Davis could remove this threat by agreeing to an armistice with the Union and removing his armies to Texas, where-as dictator, if necessary-he could lead the fight to drive out the French invaders. Doubtless many Northern soldiers would volunteer to join his forces, and Blair offered the services of his son, General Frank Blair.

According to the elder Blair, Davis rose to the bait. He doubted-or perhaps it was Blair who doubted-the good faith of Seward in any negotiations, but he was willing to accept Blair's a.s.surance that if Lincoln "plights his faith to any man ..., he will maintain his word inviolably." He gave Blair a letter to take to Was.h.i.+ngton, promising to appoint a commission that would enter into negotiations "with a view to secure peace to the two countries."

This was not at all what Lincoln had in mind. He wanted to undermine the authority of the Confederate government and to fragment the Confederate state, not to negotiate with its leader as an equal. Promptly he sent Blair back to Richmond with the message that he would be willing to receive a Confederate commission that looked toward "securing peace to the people of our one common country."

That should have been that. But on both sides of the battle lines sentiment for peace was now too strong to be derailed. Under pressure, Davis named three leading advocates of negotiation-Stephens, Campbell, and Hunter-as commissioners authorized not merely to secure peace between the two countries but to discuss "the issues involved in the existing war." Lincoln and Stanton were ready to refuse to receive the commissioners because they would not concede, even for purposes of discussion, that the Confederacy was a separate nation. At this point Grant, who was increasingly eager to finish off the war and who was not attuned to the niceties of diplomatic negotiations, intervened. He persuaded the commissioners to delete from their instructions the reference to two separate countries and wired to Was.h.i.+ngton that he hoped Lincoln could meet with them.

Agreeing with Grant that to send the three Confederates back to Richmond "without any expression from any one in authority" would be impolitic, Lincoln forthwith joined Seward at Fort Monroe for a conference from which he expected little. On the morning of February 3, Stephens, Hunter, and Campbell came aboard the President's steamer, the River Queen, at Hampton Roads for an interview of several hours. Lincoln had not seen Stephens for sixteen years, when they were both Whig members of the House of Representatives, and he greeted the Confederate Vice President with a smile and a handshake. Watching the ninety-pound Stephens take off his thick gray woolen overcoat, his long wool m.u.f.fler, and several shawls, he laughed, "Never have I seen so small a nubbin come out of so much husk."

The five men agreed that the discussion was to be informal, that no papers or doc.u.ments would be read, and that no notes would be taken. Stephens opened by asking, "Well, Mr. President, is there no way of putting an end to the present trouble, and bringing about a restoration of the general good feeling and harmony... between the different States and Sections of the country?" Thus at the outset he avoided making an issue of whether there was now one country or two.

Lincoln replied "that there was but one way that he knew of, and that was, for those who were resisting the laws of the Union to cease that resistance."

The Confederates then began to explore the path that Blair had apparently opened. Stephens asked whether, in order to give time for pa.s.sions to cool, there was "no Continental question" that could temporarily engage the attention of both sides to the present conflict? In short, just as Blair had suggested, could there not be an armistice, during which Southern and Northern armies could join in driving the French out of Mexico? Lincoln replied bluntly that he had not authorized Blair's mission and that he could not consider any proposition of an armistice that was not based "upon a pledge first given, for the ultimate restoration of the Union."

Since Stephens was obviously unwilling to give up the possibility of a Mexican adventure, Seward suggested that he develop what he called a "philosophical basis" for that scheme, and the Confederate Vice President did so at considerable length, discoursing on the importance of maintaining the Monroe Doctrine. Seward raised objections to his arguments, and Hunter made it clear that he differed with Stephens and thought the Southern people "would be found unwilling to kindle a new war with the French on any such pretence." All three men realized that the discussion was pointless since, as Stephens said, "Lincoln had virtually closed all further conference on that subject."

Campbell then asked what terms of reconstruction would be offered if the Confederate states agreed to return to the Union. Lincoln replied that once resistance to the national authority ceased, "the States would be immediately restored to their practical relations to the Union"-a phrase that he used repeatedly. But he made it clear that he would not enter into negotiations while Southerners were in arms against the United States. When Hunter attempted to show that governments had often entered into agreements with rebels and pointed out that Charles I of England had frequently negotiated with those who were fighting against him, the President responded tartly: "I do not profess to be posted in history. On all such matters I will turn you over to Seward. All I distinctly recollect about the case of Charles I, is, that he lost his head in the end."

As to slavery, Seward reminded the Confederates of Lincoln's pledge, made most recently in his annual message to Congress: "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." The Secretary then dropped a bombsh.e.l.l by telling the commissioners that Congress had just submitted the Thirteenth Amendment to the states for ratification. Seeing that the Confederates were rattled by the news, Lincoln turned to Stephens: "I'll tell you what I would do if I were in your place: I would go home and get the Governor of the State [of Georgia] to call the Legislature together, and get them to recall all the State troops from the war; elect Senators and Members to Congress, and ratify this Const.i.tutional Amendment prospectively, so as to take effect-say in five years. Such a ratification would be valid in my opinion."

Hunter gagged at Lincoln's terms, which he saw as nothing but "an unconditional surrender on the part of the Confederate States and their people." Shortly afterward Stephens concluded that it was "entirely fruitless" to have further discussion of a peace settlement, and he turned to the vexed problem of the exchange of prisoners, which Lincoln said he had placed entirely in Grant's hands. On leaving the River Queen, the Confederate Vice President urged the President to think again about his plan for an armistice and a Mexican adventure, and Lincoln replied, "Well, Stephens, I will re-consider it, but I do not think my mind will change, but I will re-consider."

The Hampton Roads conference, as Lincoln reported to Congress, "ended without result." It was a failure, as he had expected it to be, because he would not negotiate with Jefferson Davis. But in the course of the conversations Lincoln made two remarkable suggestions that showed the direction of his thinking about ending the war. Discussing possible terms of reconstruction, Stephens asked what would be the status of the Southern slaves who had not been freed by the Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation. He and Seward agreed that only about 200,000 slaves had up to that point gained their freedom. According to Campbell, Lincoln said that there were different opinions about the effects of his proclamation: "Some believed that it was not operative at all; others that it operated only within the circle which had been occupied by the army and others believed that it was operative everywhere in the States to which it applied." This was a question that only the courts could decide, but, if Stephens's later report can be credited, the President added: "His own opinion was, that as the Proclamation was a war measure, and would have effect only from its being an exercise of the war power, as soon as the war ceased, it would be inoperative for the future. It would be held to apply only to such slaves as had come under its operation while it was in active exercise."

Stephens's record would be highly suspect were it not confirmed by other, more contemporary evidence that Lincoln did not now insist upon the end of slavery as a precondition for peace. He told Representative Singleton that his "To Whom It May Concern" letter to the Confederate commissioners at Niagara Falls had "put him in a false position-that he did not mean to make the abolition of slavery a condition" of peace and that "he would be willing to grant peace with an amnesty, and restoration of the union, leaving slavery to abide the decisions of judicial tribunals." On the day before Christmas, Lincoln repeated these views to Browning, who was advising Singleton; he declared "that he had never entertained the purpose of making the abolition of slavery a condition precedent to the termination of the war, and the restoration of the Union."

If these conversations can be believed, the President of the United States who had demanded emanc.i.p.ation as a precondition for negotiations in July 1864, who had insisted that his party's platform include a call for abolition, who had pledged that he would never retract a word of his proclamations or send a man back into slavery, who had just been working closely with Congress to secure the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment, had now changed his mind about eradicating slavery. Since Lincoln himself left no record of any of these interviews, it is possible that all the witnesses distorted his message. But it is more likely-though this can only be a speculation-that Lincoln's remarks stemmed from his realization that slavery was already dead. His princ.i.p.al concern now was that the war might drag on for at least another year. His purpose was to undermine the Jefferson Davis administration by appealing to those "followers" mentioned in his annual message to Congress. He wanted to raise their hopes, if necessary through a campaign of misinformation. Clearly the three Confederate commissioners at Hampton Roads would have an easier task in persuading other Southerners to lay down their arms if they promised that at least the remnants of their "peculiar inst.i.tution" could still be saved.

A second suggestion that Lincoln made to the Confederate commissioners at Hampton Roads reinforces this view of his intent. Pledging that he would be generous in restoring Southern property seized under the Confiscation Acts, he went on to say, according to Stephens and Hunter, "that he would be willing to be taxed to remunerate the Southern people for their slaves." He had all along favored compensated emanc.i.p.ation, and he believed that many Northerners were "in favor of an appropriation as high as Four Hundred Millions of Dollars for this purpose." Seward strongly dissented, showing his impatience by getting up and pacing the floor, exclaiming "that in his opinion the United States had done enough in expending so much money on the war for the abolition of slavery," but Lincoln said that both sections were responsible: "If it was wrong in the South to hold slaves, it was wrong in the North to carry on the slave trade and sell them to the South." He "could give no a.s.surance-enter into no stipulation" on this subject, but he told the Confederates that he could mention persons, "whose names would astonish you, who are willing to do this, if the war shall now cease without further expense, and with the abolition of slavery as stated."

That this proposal was not a figment of the Confederates' imagination is attested by the proposal that Lincoln drew up when he returned to Was.h.i.+ngton, which asked Congress to appropriate $400,000,000 to be distributed to the Southern states in proportion to their slave population. Half would be paid by April 1, if all resistance to the national authority ceased, and the remaining half by July 1, provided that the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified. This astonis.h.i.+ng doc.u.ment told much of Lincoln's generosity of spirit and of his understanding of the problems the South faced in making the transition from a slave society to a free society. But it revealed even more his almost desperate sense of urgency to bring the war to a speedy end.

The President laid his plan before the cabinet at an evening session on February 5, earnestly defending it "as a measure of strict and simple economy." "How long has this war lasted, and how long do you suppose it will still last?" he asked his advisers. Answering his own question, he told them: "We cannot hope that it will end in less than a hundred days. We are now spending three millions a day, and that will equal the full amount I propose to pay, to say nothing of the lives lost and property destroyed." But his colleagues were not convinced. Welles thought the President's wish to conciliate the South was commendable, "but there may be such a thing as so overdoing as to cause a distrust or adverse feeling." "The Rebels," he predicted, "would misconstrue it if [the offer was] made," doubtless taking it as evidence of Northern weakness or war-weariness. Anyway, as Fessenden noted, it was "not advisable" to submit the proposal to Congress now, "because there would probably be no chance of its being adopted before the adjournment." The cabinet members felt strongly "that the only way to effectually end the war was by force of arms, and that until the war was thus ended no proposition to pay money would come from us." "You are all against me," Lincoln said sadly, and he reluctantly gave up his proposal, noting, as he folded the papers away, that they "were drawn up and submitted to the Cabinet and unanimously disapproved by them."

V

All along Lincoln believed that the surest way to undermine the Confederacy was by setting up loyal governments in the Southern states as they fell under the control of the Union armies. His terms for reconstruction were both generous and vague, for he was thinking less of the status of the South after the war than of means to stop the fighting. For this reason he was not greatly troubled when his military commanders failed to follow the letter of the law in setting up new Unionist regimes in the Southern states, nor was he interested in the details of registration and voting requirements. What he wanted was a series of seemingly viable loyal governments in several Southern states that could present a believable alternative to the Confederacy.

That focus had led to fierce disputes with Radicals in his own party, who were worried about what would happen in the South after the war-about the continuing economic and political power of the Southern planter cla.s.s, the protection of the civil rights of the freedmen, and the status of black labor in the postwar South. The President was not indifferent to any of these concerns, but he preferred to postpone discussion of such divisive issues until the defeat of the Confederacy. In July these differences between President and Congress had come to a head when the legislators refused to recognize the reconstruction governments he had set up in Louisiana and Arkansas and, instead, insisted on their own program in the Wade-Davis bill, which the President vetoed.

Now, during the winter of 18641865, the President and the Congress faced precisely the same issues-but the outcome was remarkably different. As the Congress a.s.sembled, Lincoln let it be known that he would veto any reconstruction bill that did not recognize the free-state government he had been carefully nurturing in Louisiana. Instead of leading to a crisis, his insistence produced a compromise. On December 15, Representative Ashley, who was also in charge of the Thirteenth Amendment, introduced a bill designed to please both Conservatives and Radicals, one that he hoped the Congress would approve and the President sign. It extended congressional recognition to Lincoln's 10 percent government in Louisiana but required the other Southern states to follow the procedures announced in the ill-fated Wade-Davis bill-namely, that voters must take the "iron-clad" oath that they had never supported the rebellion and that more than 50 percent of the eligible voters must favor any new, reconstructed government. In addition, Ashley's bill called for Negro suffrage, a provision that Radicals increasingly insisted was the only way to ensure the loyalty of the Southern states.

Over the next weeks Ashley's compromise measure underwent intense scrutiny from all parties. For the more extreme Radicals, Charles Sumner accepted the proposal, grumbling about the readmission of Louisiana-"which ought not to be done"-but rejoicing that giving suffrage to blacks in the other Southern states was "an immense political act." Montgomery Blair and N. P. Banks, both Conservatives, went over the measure with the President, who thought the provision for black jurors and voters "might be objectionable to some." Agreeing that this clause "would simply throw the Government into the hands of the blacks, as the white people under that arrangement would refuse to vote," Banks promised that the objectionable juror clause would be removed. Congressmen of various persuasions weighed in with suggestions for change, which ranged from simply admitting Louisiana and Arkansas to insisting that all new Southern state const.i.tutions must guarantee "equality of civil rights before the law... to all persons."

Obligingly Ashley amended his bill again and again in the hope of attracting a majority. He even added one remarkable provision that would recognize the existing Confederate governments in the Southern states as legitimate if they submitted to the United States, repudiated the Confederate debt, and ratified the Thirteenth Amendment. But no combination worked, and on February 21, Ashley was obliged to give up, conceding that "no bill providing for the reorganization of loyal State government in the rebel States can pa.s.s this Congress."

The defeat of Ashley's bill was a major victory for Lincoln. Seven months earlier every Republican in the Senate and all but six Republicans in the House had voted for the Wade-Davis bill, to take the process of reconstruction out of the President's hands. Only Lincoln's pocket veto had kept the reconstruction process under the control of the executive branch. Now, in a remarkable turnabout, the Congress failed to adopt any reconstruction legislation. The approaching end of the congressional session left the reconstruction entirely in Lincoln's hands. Lamenting the change, Henry Winter Davis, the arch-Radical who was now a lame-duck congressman, mourned: "Sir, when I came into Congress ten years ago, this was a Government of law. I have lived to see it a Government of personal will. Congress has dwindled from a power to dictate law and the policy of the Government to a commission to audit accounts and appropriate moneys to enable the Executive to execute his will and not ours."

The November elections were princ.i.p.ally responsible for the change. It was one thing for Republican congressmen to break with the head of their own party when he appeared to be a failure, whose bid for reelection was doomed to disgraceful defeat. It was quite another to defy a President recently reelected by a huge majority with a clear popular mandate.

Republicans also found it easier to go along with the President's wishes on reconstruction because circ.u.mstances had changed since the previous summer. While the Congress was debating the proposed Thirteenth Amendment and Ashley's reconstruction bill, it was also moving, with the President's blessing, to create the new Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, intended to supervise the transition from slavery to freedom in the South. This Freedmen's Bureau Act, which gave the federal authorities guardians.h.i.+p over the recently emanc.i.p.ated slaves in order to protect them from exploitation by their former owners, made it easier for Republican congressmen to accept even imperfect reconstruction governments in the South, since they would be shorn of much of their power.

The adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment provided another incentive for Republicans to recognize the reconstruction regimes Lincoln had established. Before that amendment could go into effect, it had to be ratified by twenty-seven of the thirty-six states. Illinois, as Lincoln proudly reported, began the process on February 1, and the other Northern states were sure to follow promptly. The border states of Maryland, West Virginia, and Missouri had all now abolished slavery, and they were expected to ratify it. But slavery persisted in Delaware and Kentucky, and the outcome in those states was doubtful. Even if they both approved, the votes of two additional states were needed-and those votes could only come from states that had been in the Confederacy. The most likely possibilities were Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee. By recognizing the regimes that Lincoln had created in those states, congressmen could ensure the speedy death of slavery throughout the nation.

Congressmen, then, were in a receptive mood toward presidential reconstruction, and Lincoln, who had had very little to do with earlier congressional deliberations on the subject, now presented his case with great skill and force. He addressed the concerns of Radicals, who were beginning to argue that the only way to protect the rights of African-Americans in the South was to give them the ballot. Lincoln a.s.sured William D. Kelley that he, too, now believed in Negro suffrage, at least for the better educated and those who had served in the Union armies, and he showed the Pennsylvania congressman a copy of his letter to Governor Hahn of Louisiana, suggesting limited enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of blacks. Radical Senator B. Gratz Brown also saw a copy of that letter and quoted from it in urging his Missouri const.i.tuents to accept enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of Negroes as an "imperative necessity admitted on all sides."

To present to Congress the more attractive side of the reconstruction government in Louisiana, Lincoln detained N. P. Banks in Was.h.i.+ngton for six months so that the general, who had once been Speaker of the House of Representatives and still kept up his political contacts in the capital, could lobby in behalf of the regime he had helped to create. The President was also prepared to use bra.s.s-knuckle tactics if necessary. When the Radical abolitionists Wendell Phillips and George Luther Stearns tried to organize a protest against recognition of the Louisiana regime, they got nowhere. Congressmen told them, "A.L. has just now all the great offices to give afresh and can[']t be successfully resisted. He is dictator."

This combination of forces was strong enough to enable Lincoln to keep control of the reconstruction process in his own hands-but it was not quite enough to secure congressional approval of his actions. After the failure of Ashley's reconstruction bill in mid-February, administration supporters moved to secure the admission of Louisiana. Lyman Trumbull, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, took the lead. In the past he had often been a severe, even waspish, critic of the President, but his att.i.tude had remarkably softened since November. He seemed to have experienced what Ben Wade called "the most miraculous conversion that has taken place since St. Paul's time"; possibly he recalled that his next race for the Senate would occur while Lincoln was still in the White House. At any rate, Trumbull conferred with the President about recognizing the reconstructed government of Louisiana and seating its two recently elected senators. As usual, Lincoln cut through the legal verbiage that surrounded these issues and put the issue plainly: "Can Louisiana be brought into proper practical relations with the Union, sooner, by admitting or by rejecting the proposed Senators?"

A clear majority of the Republicans in the Senate joined Trumbull in following the President's wishes, but a small group of Radicals resolved to block the move. Joined by Wade, Grimes, and a few other Radicals, Sumner began a filibuster against recognizing Louisiana that often deteriorated into an angry shouting match with the President's supporters. He blasted "the pretended State government in Louisiana" as "a mere seven-months' abortion, begotten by the bayonet in criminal conjunction with the spirit of caste, and born before its time, rickety, unformed, unfinished-whose continued existence will be a burden, a reproach, and a wrong." The Radicals, who opposed the Louisiana regime because it did not give African-Americans the vote, worked in close cooperation with the Senate Democrats, who wanted to deny the suffrage to blacks; they shared only opposition to recognizing Lincoln's government in Louisiana. Because of pressing business that the Senate had to attend to before adjourning, Trumbull was forced to give way, and the admission of Louisiana was defeated.

Lincoln was angry with Sumner. "He hopes to succeed in beating the President so as to change this Government from its original form and make it a strong centralized power," he growled. According to Was.h.i.+ngton insiders, the cordial personal relations that had existed between the senator and Lincoln were at an end now that Sumner had "kicked the pet scheme of the President down the marble steps of the Senate Chamber." But Lincoln did not permit a difference over policy to become a personal quarrel; he not only genuinely liked and admired Sumner, but he needed his support in the future. Only a few days after Sumner had talked the Louisiana bill to death, the President invited him to the inaugural ball, where the senator promenaded with Mrs. Lincoln, richly dressed in white moire ornamented with lace, on his arm. The President could afford to be generous because he, like nearly everyone else, was certain that the next Congress would admit Louisiana. As the New York Herald predicted, "This extraordinary railsplitter enters upon his second term the unquestioned master of the situation in reference to American affairs, at home and abroad."

VI

Inauguration Day, March 4, 1865, began wet and windy. It had been raining for several days in Was.h.i.+ngton, and the streets were a sea of mud at least ten inches deep. During the previous week delegations from all parts of the country had been arriving in the capital, and all the hotels were full, with Willard's accommodating overflow guests on cots in the hallways and parlors. Despite the abominable weather, a crowd began to gather at the east front of the Capitol before ten o'clock, and by the time the ceremonies began at noon, the spectators were sodden. Women, wearing their long, c.u.mbersome dresses, were in a "most wretched, wretched plight," Noah Brooks observed; "crinoline was smashed, skirts bedaubed, and moire antique, velvet, laces, and such dry goods were streaked with mud from end to end."

First came the swearing in of the Vice President, which took place in the Senate chamber. Andrew Johnson had hoped to remain in Tennessee to witness the installation of a new, loyal state government under a const.i.tution with "the foul blot of Slavery erased from her escutcheon," but Lincoln and his advisers felt that it was unsafe for him not to be in Was.h.i.+ngton on March 4. Exhausted from the long trip, unsteady from a recent bout of typhoid fever, Johnson asked for some whiskey to calm his nerves. He was especially sensitive to alcohol, and the drink went to his head. In a long, maudlin speech he boasted of his plebeian origins and reminded the embarra.s.sed members of the Supreme Court, the cabinet, and even the diplomatic corps-"with all your fine feathers and gewgaws"-that they were but creatures of the people. Lincoln had to sit silently through Johnson's ramblings, and an observer noted that he "closed his eyes and seemed to retire into himself as though beset by melancholy reflections." When Johnson finally finished and took the oath, the President leaned over to the parade marshal and whispered, "Do not let Johnson speak outside."

Then the presidential party moved onto the platform at the east front of the Capitol. As Lincoln's tall figure appeared, "cheer upon cheer arose, bands blatted upon the air, and flags waved all over the scene." After the sergeant-at-arms of the Senate quieted the crowd, the President stepped forward holding a half sheet of foolscap on which his inaugural address was printed in two columns. At just that moment the sun burst through the clouds and flooded the scene with light; Chief Justice Chase saw it as "an auspicious omen of the dispersion of the clouds of war and the restoration of the clear sun light of prosperous peace."

In his clear, high-pitched voice that reached even the outer edges of the huge crowd, Lincoln read one of the shortest inaugural addresses in American history (703 words) and also the most memorable. He began by reminding his listeners that at this time there was "less occasion for an extended address" outlining policy than there had been at his first inauguration. During the past four years of war, he noted in a tone of weariness, "public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest." Consequently he could devote the larger part of his address to an explanation of the origins of the conflict and an examination of its significance.