The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, Complete

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This could be understood only as a formal demand that the President
should acknowledge his own incompetency to perform his duties, content
himself with the amusement of distributing post-offices, and resign his
power as to all important affairs into the hands of his Secretary of
State. It seems to-day incomprehensible how a statesman of Seward's
calibre could at that period conceive a plan of policy in which the
slavery question had no place; a policy which rested upon the utterly
delusive assumption that the secessionists, who had already formed their
Southern Confederacy and were with stern resolution preparing to fight
for its independence, could be hoodwinked back into the Union by some
sentimental demonstration against European interference; a policy which,
at that critical moment, would have involved the Union in a foreign war,
thus inviting foreign intervention in favor of the Southern Confederacy,
and increasing tenfold its chances in the struggle for independence. But
it is equally incomprehensible how Seward could fail to see that this
demand of an unconditional surrender was a mortal insult to the head of
the government, and that by putting his proposition on paper he delivered
himself into the hands of the very man he had insulted; for, had Lincoln,
as most Presidents would have done, instantly dismissed Seward, and
published the true reason for that dismissal, it would inevitably have
been the end of Seward's career. But Lincoln did what not many of the
noblest and greatest men in history would have been noble and great
enough to do. He considered that Seward was still capable of rendering
great service to his country in the place in which he was, if rightly
controlled. He ignored the insult, but firmly established his
superiority. In his reply, which he forthwith despatched, he told Seward
that the administration had a domestic policy as laid down in the
inaugural address with Seward's approval; that it had a foreign policy as
traced in Seward's despatches with the President's approval; that if any
policy was to be maintained or changed, he, the President, was to direct
that on his responsibility; and that in performing that duty the
President had a right to the advice of his secretaries. Seward's
fantastic schemes of foreign war and continental policies Lincoln brushed
aside by passing them over in silence. Nothing more was said. Seward
must have felt that he was at the mercy of a superior man; that his
offensive proposition had been generously pardoned as a temporary
aberration of a great mind, and that he could atone for it only by
devoted personal loyalty. This he did. He was thoroughly subdued, and
thenceforth submitted to Lincoln his despatches for revision and
amendment without a murmur. The war with European nations was no longer
thought of; the slavery question found in due time its proper place in
the struggle for the Union; and when, at a later period, the dismissal of
Seward was demanded by dissatisfied senators, who attributed to him the
shortcomings of the administration, Lincoln stood stoutly by his faithful
Secretary of State.

Chase, the Secretary of the Treasury, a man of superb presence, of
eminent ability and ardent patriotism, of great natural dignity and a
certain outward coldness of manner, which made him appear more difficult
of approach than he really was, did not permit his disappointment to
burst out in such extravagant demonstrations. But Lincoln's ways were so
essentially different from his that they never became quite intelligible,
and certainly not congenial to him. It might, perhaps, have been better
had there been, at the beginning of the administration, some decided
clash between Lincoln and Chase, as there was between Lincoln and Seward,
to bring on a full mutual explanation, and to make Chase appreciate the
real seriousness of Lincoln's nature. But, as it was, their relations
always remained somewhat formal, and Chase never felt quite at ease under
a chief whom he could not understand, and whose character and powers he
never learned to esteem at their true value. At the same time, he
devoted himself zealously to the duties of his department, and did the
country arduous service under circumstances of extreme difficulty. Nobody
recognized this more heartily than Lincoln himself, and they managed to
work together until near the end of Lincoln's first Presidential term,
when Chase, after some disagreements concerning appointments to office,
resigned from the treasury; and, after Taney's death, the President made
him Chief Justice.

The rest of the cabinet consisted of men of less eminence, who
subordinated themselves more easily. In January, 1862, Lincoln found it
necessary to bow Cameron out of the war office, and to put in his place
Edwin M. Stanton, a man of intensely practical mind, vehement impulses,
fierce positiveness, ruthless energy, immense working power, lofty
patriotism, and severest devotion to duty. He accepted the war office
not as a partisan, for he had never been a Republican, but only to do all
he could in "helping to save the country." The manner in which Lincoln
succeeded in taming this lion to his will, by frankly recognizing his
great qualities, by giving him the most generous confidence, by aiding
him in his work to the full of his power, by kindly concession or
affectionate persuasiveness in cases of differing opinions, or, when it
was necessary, by firm assertions of superior authority, bears the
highest testimony to his skill in the management of men. Stanton, who
had entered the service with rather a mean opinion of Lincoln's character
and capacity, became one of his warmest, most devoted, and most admiring
friends, and with none of his secretaries was Lincoln's intercourse more
intimate. To take advice with candid readiness, and to weigh it without
any pride of his own opinion, was one of Lincoln's preeminent virtues;
but he had not long presided over his cabinet council when his was felt
by all its members to be the ruling mind.

The cautious policy foreshadowed in his inaugural address, and pursued
during the first period of the civil war, was far from satisfying all his
party friends. The ardent spirits among the Union men thought that the
whole North should at once be called to arms, to crush the rebellion by
one powerful blow. The ardent spirits among the antislavery men insisted
that, slavery having brought forth the rebellion, this powerful blow
should at once be aimed at slavery. Both complained that the
administration was spiritless, undecided, and lamentably slow in its
proceedings. Lincoln reasoned otherwise. The ways of thinking and
feeling of the masses, of the plain people, were constantly present to
his mind. The masses, the plain people, had to furnish the men for the
fighting, if fighting was to be done. He believed that the plain people
would be ready to fight when it clearly appeared necessary, and that they
would feel that necessity when they felt themselves attacked. He
therefore waited until the enemies of the Union struck the first blow.
As soon as, on the 12th of April, 1861, the first gun was fired in
Charleston harbor on the Union flag upon Fort Sumter, the call was
sounded, and the Northern people rushed to arms.

Lincoln knew that the plain people were now indeed ready to fight in
defence of the Union, but not yet ready to fight for the destruction of
slavery. He declared openly that he had a right to summon the people to
fight for the Union, but not to summon them to fight for the abolition of
slavery as a primary object; and this declaration gave him numberless
soldiers for the Union who at that period would have hesitated to do
battle against the institution of slavery. For a time he succeeded in
rendering harmless the cry of the partisan opposition that the Republican
administration were perverting the war for the Union into an "abolition
war." But when he went so far as to countermand the acts of some
generals in the field, looking to the emancipation of the slaves in the
districts covered by their commands, loud complaints arose from earnest
antislavery men, who accused the President of turning his back upon the
antislavery cause. Many of these antislavery men will now, after a calm
retrospect, be willing to admit that it would have been a hazardous
policy to endanger, by precipitating a demonstrative fight against
slavery, the success of the struggle for the Union.

Lincoln's views and feelings concerning slavery had not changed. Those
who conversed with him intimately upon the subject at that period know
that he did not expect slavery long to survive the triumph of the Union,
even if it were not immediately destroyed by the war. In this he was
right. Had the Union armies achieved a decisive victory in an early
period of the conflict, and had the seceded States been received back
with slavery, the "slave power" would then have been a defeated power,
defeated in an attempt to carry out its most effective threat. It would
have lost its prestige. Its menaces would have been hollow sound, and
ceased to make any one afraid. It could no longer have hoped to expand,
to maintain an equilibrium in any branch of Congress, and to control the
government. The victorious free States would have largely overbalanced
it. It would no longer have been able to withstand the onset of a
hostile age. It could no longer have ruled,--and slavery had to rule in
order to live. It would have lingered for a while, but it would surely
have been "in the course of ultimate extinction." A prolonged war
precipitated the destruction of slavery; a short war might only have
prolonged its death struggle. Lincoln saw this clearly; but he saw also
that, in a protracted death struggle, it might still have kept disloyal
sentiments alive, bred distracting commotions, and caused great mischief
to the country. He therefore hoped that slavery would not survive the
war.

But the question how he could rightfully employ his power to bring on its
speedy destruction was to him not a question of mere sentiment. He
himself set forth his reasoning upon it, at a later period, in one of his
inimitable letters. "I am naturally antislavery," said he. "If slavery
is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I cannot remember the time when I did
not so think and feel. And yet I have never understood that the
Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act upon that
judgment and feeling. It was in the oath I took that I would, to the
best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the
United States. I could not take the office without taking the oath. Nor
was it my view that I might take an oath to get power, and break the oath
in using that power. I understood, too, that, in ordinary civil
administration, this oath even forbade me practically to indulge my
private abstract judgment on the moral question of slavery. I did
understand, however, also, that my oath imposed upon me the duty of
preserving, to the best of my ability, by every indispensable means, that
government, that nation, of which the Constitution was the organic law.
I could not feel that, to the best of my ability, I had even tied to
preserve the Constitution--if, to save slavery, or any minor matter, I
should permit the wreck of government, country, and Constitution all
together." In other words, if the salvation of the government, the
Constitution, and the Union demanded the destruction of slavery, he felt
it to be not only his right, but his sworn duty to destroy it. Its
destruction became a necessity of the war for the Union.

As the war dragged on and disaster followed disaster, the sense of that
necessity steadily grew upon him. Early in 1862, as some of his friends
well remember, he saw, what Seward seemed not to see, that to give the
war for the Union an antislavery character was the surest means to
prevent the recognition of the Southern Confederacy as an independent
nation by European powers; that, slavery being abhorred by the moral
sense of civilized mankind, no European government would dare to offer so
gross an insult to the public opinion of its people as openly to favor
the creation of a state founded upon slavery to the prejudice of an
existing nation fighting against slavery. He saw also that slavery
untouched was to the rebellion an element of power, and that in order to
overcome that power it was necessary to turn it into an element of
weakness. Still, he felt no assurance that the plain people were
prepared for so radical a measure as the emancipation of the slaves by
act of the government, and he anxiously considered that, if they were
not, this great step might, by exciting dissension at the North, injure
the cause of the Union in one quarter more than it would help it in
another. He heartily welcomed an effort made in New York to mould and
stimulate public sentiment on the slavery question by public meetings
boldly pronouncing for emancipation. At the same time he himself
cautiously advanced with a recommendation, expressed in a special message
to Congress, that the United States should co-operate with any State
which might adopt the gradual abolishment of slavery, giving such State
pecuniary aid to compensate the former owners of emancipated slaves. The
discussion was started, and spread rapidly. Congress adopted the
resolution recommended, and soon went a step farther in passing a bill to
abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. The plain people began to
look at emancipation on a larger scale as a thing to be considered
seriously by patriotic citizens; and soon Lincoln thought that the time
was ripe, and that the edict of freedom could be ventured upon without
danger of serious confusion in the Union ranks.

The failure of McClellan's movement upon Richmond increased immensely the
prestige of the enemy. The need of some great act to stimulate the
vitality of the Union cause seemed to grow daily more pressing. On July
21, 1862, Lincoln surprised his cabinet with the draught of a
proclamation declaring free the slaves in all the States that should be
still in rebellion against the United States on the 1st of January,1863.
As to the matter itself he announced that he had fully made up his mind;
he invited advice only concerning the form and the time of publication.
Seward suggested that the proclamation, if then brought out, amidst
disaster and distress, would sound like the last shriek of a perishing
cause. Lincoln accepted the suggestion, and the proclamation was
postponed. Another defeat followed, the second at Bull Run. But when,
after that battle, the Confederate army, under Lee, crossed the Potomac
and invaded Maryland, Lincoln vowed in his heart that, if the Union army
were now blessed with success, the decree of freedom should surely be
issued. The victory of Antietam was won on September 17, and the
preliminary Emancipation Proclamation came forth on the a 22d. It was
Lincoln's own resolution and act; but practically it bound the nation,
and permitted no step backward. In spite of its limitations, it was the
actual abolition of slavery. Thus he wrote his name upon the books of
history with the title dearest to his heart, the liberator of the slave.

It is true, the great proclamation, which stamped the war as one for
"union and freedom," did not at once mark the turning of the tide on the
field of military operations. There were more disasters, Fredericksburg
and Chancellorsville. But with Gettysburg and Vicksburg the whole aspect
of the war changed. Step by step, now more slowly, then more rapidly, but
with increasing steadiness, the flag of the Union advanced from field to
field toward the final consummation. The decree of emancipation was
naturally followed by the enlistment of emancipated negroes in the Union
armies. This measure had a anther reaching effect than merely giving the
Union armies an increased supply of men. The laboring force of the
rebellion was hopelessly disorganized. The war became like a problem of
arithmetic. As the Union armies pushed forward, the area from which the
Southern Confederacy could draw recruits and supplies constantly grew
smaller, while the area from which the Union recruited its strength
constantly grew larger; and everywhere, even within the Southern lines,
the Union had its allies. The fate of the rebellion was then virtually
decided; but it still required much bloody work to convince the brave
warriors who fought for it that they were really beaten.

Neither did the Emancipation Proclamation forthwith command universal
assent among the people who were loyal to the Union. There were even
signs of a reaction against the administration in the fall elections of
1862, seemingly justifying the opinion, entertained by many, that the
President had really anticipated the development of popular feeling. The
cry that the war for the Union had been turned into an "abolition war"
was raised again by the opposition, and more loudly than ever. But the
good sense and patriotic instincts of the plain people gradually
marshalled themselves on Lincoln's side, and he lost no opportunity to
help on this process by personal argument and admonition. There never
has been a President in such constant and active contact with the public
opinion of the country, as there never has been a President who, while at
the head of the government, remained so near to the people. Beyond the
circle of those who had long known him the feeling steadily grew that the
man in the White House was "honest Abe Lincoln" still, and that every
citizen might approach him with complaint, expostulation, or advice,
without danger of meeting a rebuff from power-proud authority, or
humiliating condescension; and this privilege was used by so many and
with such unsparing freedom that only superhuman patience could have
endured it all. There are men now living who would to-day read with
amazement, if not regret, what they ventured to say or write to him. But
Lincoln repelled no one whom he believed to speak to him in good faith
and with patriotic purpose. No good advice would go unheeded. No candid
criticism would offend him. No honest opposition, while it might pain
him, would produce a lasting alienation of feeling between him and the
opponent. It may truly be said that few men in power have ever been
exposed to more daring attempts to direct their course, to severer
censure of their acts, and to more cruel misrepresentation of their
motives: And all this he met with that good-natured humor peculiarly his
own, and with untiring effort to see the right and to impress it upon
those who differed from him. The conversations he had and the
correspondence he carried on upon matters of public interest, not only
with men in official position, but with private citizens, were almost
unceasing, and in a large number of public letters, written ostensibly to
meetings, or committees, or persons of importance, he addressed himself
directly to the popular mind. Most of these letters stand among the
finest monuments of our political literature. Thus he presented the
singular spectacle of a President who, in the midst of a great civil war,
with unprecedented duties weighing upon him, was constantly in person
debating the great features of his policy with the people.

While in this manner he exercised an ever-increasing influence upon the
popular understanding, his sympathetic nature endeared him more and more
to the popular heart. In vain did journals and speakers of the
opposition represent him as a lightminded trifler, who amused himself
with frivolous story-telling and coarse jokes, while the blood of the
people was flowing in streams. The people knew that the man at the head
of affairs, on whose haggard face the twinkle of humor so frequently
changed into an expression of profoundest sadness, was more than any
other deeply distressed by the suffering he witnessed; that he felt the
pain of every wound that was inflicted on the battlefield, and the
anguish of every woman or child who had lost husband or father; that
whenever he could he was eager to alleviate sorrow, and that his mercy
was never implored in vain. They looked to him as one who was with them
and of them in all their hopes and fears, their joys and sorrows, who
laughed with them and wept with them; and as his heart was theirs; so
their hearts turned to him. His popularity was far different from that
of Washington, who was revered with awe, or that of Jackson, the
unconquerable hero, for whom party enthusiasm never grew weary of
shouting. To Abraham Lincoln the people became bound by a genuine
sentimental attachment. It was not a matter of respect, or confidence,
or party pride, for this feeling spread far beyond the boundary lines of
his party; it was an affair of the heart, independent of mere reasoning.
When the soldiers in the field or their folks at home spoke of "Father
Abraham," there was no cant in it. They felt that their President was
really caring for them as a father would, and that they could go to him,
every one of them, as they would go to a father, and talk to him of what
troubled them, sure to find a willing ear and tender sympathy. Thus,
their President, and his cause, and his endeavors, and his success
gradually became to them almost matters of family concern. And this
popularity carried him triumphantly through the Presidential election of
1864, in spite of an opposition within his own party which at first
seemed very formidable.

Many of the radical antislavery men were never quite satisfied with
Lincoln's ways of meeting the problems of the time. They were very
earnest and mostly very able men, who had positive ideas as to "how this
rebellion should be put down." They would not recognize the necessity of
measuring the steps of the government according to the progress of
opinion among the plain people. They criticised Lincoln's cautious
management as irresolute, halting, lacking in definite purpose and in
energy; he should not have delayed emancipation so long; he should not
have confided important commands to men of doubtful views as to slavery;
he should have authorized military commanders to set the slaves free as
they went on; he dealt too leniently with unsuccessful generals; he
should have put down all factious opposition with a strong hand instead
of trying to pacify it; he should have given the people accomplished
facts instead of arguing with them, and so on. It is true, these
criticisms were not always entirely unfounded. Lincoln's policy had,
with the virtues of democratic government, some of its weaknesses, which
in the presence of pressing exigencies were apt to deprive governmental
action of the necessary vigor; and his kindness of heart, his disposition
always to respect the feelings of others, frequently made him recoil from
anything like severity, even when severity was urgently called for. But
many of his radical critics have since then revised their judgment
sufficiently to admit that Lincoln's policy was, on the whole, the wisest
and safest; that a policy of heroic methods, while it has sometimes
accomplished great results, could in a democracy like ours be maintained
only by constant success; that it would have quickly broken down under
the weight of disaster; that it might have been successful from the
start, had the Union, at the beginning of the conflict, had its Grants
and Shermans and Sheridans, its Farraguts and Porters, fully matured at
the head of its forces; but that, as the great commanders had to be
evolved slowly from the developments of the war, constant success could
not be counted upon, and it was best to follow a policy which was in
friendly contact with the popular force, and therefore more fit to stand
trial of misfortune on the battlefield. But at that period they thought
differently, and their dissatisfaction with Lincoln's doings was greatly
increased by the steps he took toward the reconstruction of rebel States
then partially in possession of the Union forces.

In December, 1863, Lincoln issued an amnesty proclamation, offering
pardon to all implicated in the rebellion, with certain specified
exceptions, on condition of their taking and maintaining an oath to
support the Constitution and obey the laws of the United States and the
proclamations of the President with regard to slaves; and also promising
that when, in any of the rebel States, a number of citizens equal to one
tenth of the voters in 1860 should re-establish a state government in
conformity with the oath above mentioned, such should be recognized by
the Executive as the true government of the State. The proclamation
seemed at first to be received with general favor. But soon another
scheme of reconstruction, much more stringent in its provisions, was put
forward in the House of Representatives by Henry Winter Davis. Benjamin
Wade championed it in the Senate. It passed in the closing moments of
the session in July, 1864, and Lincoln, instead of making it a law by his
signature, embodied the text of it in a proclamation as a plan of
reconstruction worthy of being earnestly considered. The differences of
opinion concerning this subject had only intensified the feeling against
Lincoln which had long been nursed among the radicals, and some of them
openly declared their purpose of resisting his re-election to the
Presidency. Similar sentiments were manifested by the advanced
antislavery men of Missouri, who, in their hot faction-fight with the
"conservatives" of that State, had not received from Lincoln the active
support they demanded. Still another class of Union men, mainly in the
East, gravely shook their heads when considering the question whether
Lincoln should be re-elected. They were those who cherished in their
minds an ideal of statesmanship and of personal bearing in high office
with which, in their opinion, Lincoln's individuality was much out of
accord. They were shocked when they heard him cap an argument upon grave
affairs of state with a story about "a man out in Sangamon County,"--a
story, to be sure, strikingly clinching his point, but sadly lacking in
dignity. They could not understand the man who was capable, in opening a
cabinet meeting, of reading to his secretaries a funny chapter from a
recent book of Artemus Ward, with which in an unoccupied moment he had
relieved his care-burdened mind, and who then solemnly informed the
executive council that he had vowed in his heart to issue a proclamation
emancipating the slaves as soon as God blessed the Union arms with
another victory. They were alarmed at the weakness of a President who
would indeed resist the urgent remonstrances of statesmen against his
policy, but could not resist the prayer of an old woman for the pardon of
a soldier who was sentenced to be shot for desertion. Such men, mostly
sincere and ardent patriots, not only wished, but earnestly set to work,
to prevent Lincoln's renomination. Not a few of them actually believed,
in 1863, that, if the national convention of the Union party were held
then, Lincoln would not be supported by the delegation of a single State.
But when the convention met at Baltimore, in June, 1864, the voice of the
people was heard. On the first ballot Lincoln received the votes of the
delegations from all the States except Missouri; and even the Missourians
turned over their votes to him before the result of the ballot was
declared.