Lincoln

by Gore Vidal

  Lincoln shook his head as if he had been dreaming; and said, “I have already given the proclamation to the Associated Press.” The manner was matter-of-fact. “It will be in every newspaper tomorrow.”

  “You won’t answer me?”

  “There is nothing to answer, Judge. But I seem to remember that I ended that speech with the hope that we would return to George Washington, and never violate his principles.”

  “But you also said that those principles had quite faded away. And that there must now be something else.” Douglas waited for an answer; but there was none. “Well, whatever else there is, you have it now.”

  “Yes.” Lincoln nodded; and looked away; and spoke as if to himself. “I have it now.”

  Hay was at the door. “Mr. Seward is here, sir.”

  “Tell him to wait in the Cabinet Room.”

  “What can I do to help?” Douglas repeated.

  “Make a statement to the effect that you support the proclamation and the Union.”

  “And the eagle and the lion?”

  “I would refrain from zoological metaphors.” Lincoln smiled.

  “I will say that we are all Republicans, that we are all Democrats. I don’t mind imitating the founders.”

  “And you think that I mind?”

  “I have never heard you praise any president or any political leader—except that one time when you were called on to give an obituary of Henry Clay.”

  “Well, there is one that I always praise—when I remember.” Lincoln pointed to the portrait of Washington.

  “The first of them all. Well, let us pray that you will not be the last.”

  “Let us pray that I am the last of what we have been enduring for half a century.”

  “It is not enough to be James Buchanan?”

  “Oh, Judge! Go on like that and you will really hear the lion’s roar!”

  Laughing, the two men left the Red Room. As they crossed the entrance hall, Mary and Lizzie came toward them from the East Room.

  “Mary Todd!” Douglas threw wide his arms.

  “Judge Douglas!” Impulsively, Mary embraced the man the world thought that she might have married. Then she pulled back. “Oh, what have I done, Father?” She turned to Lincoln.

  “Well, I won’t tell the State Department about your unseemly display if you won’t tell them how many pairs of white kid gloves I’ve lost.”

  “You grace this house, Mary Todd.” Douglas looked at her intently. She noticed, as she always did when they were face-to-face, that each was the same height and so they could look each other, levelly, in the eye. Then Douglas turned to Lincoln. “If she had consented to marry me, I’d be here instead of you.”

  “But, Judge, suppose she’d gone and married John C. Breckinridge? Then he’d be here.”

  Mary laughed, amused and proud. “I don’t think any other woman was ever in such a position, with three of her beaux all running for president in the same year.”

  “Or,” said Douglas, “if she’d been a bit older, she might have got off with Jefferson Davis when he was at Transylvania College; and been queen of the South.”

  Lincoln chuckled. “Or a bit younger and she could’ve married Montgomery Blair. He was at Transylvania, too.”

  “Now you go too far, Father. I was never searching for a politician to marry, only a brilliant man. Having been courted by the two of you, that’s more than enough honor for me.”

  “That was joy for me,” said Douglas, swaying slightly.

  “Are you all right?” Mary took his arm. Lincoln came forward and took the other arm.

  “You should go back to your bed, Judge,” said Lincoln. “Save up your energy and get well. There’s work for us to do.” Lincoln shook Douglas’s hand with both of his own.

  “I know.” Douglas started toward the door. Lincoln motioned for Old Edward to help him. “I’ll write my message straight away, and give it to the wire-service. I’ll see that it appears alongside your proclamation.”

  “Thank you, Judge.”

  When Douglas was gone, Mary turned to Lincoln. “Father, he’s dying.”

  Lincoln nodded. “That is my impression, too.”

  “Our past is leaving us, isn’t it?”

  “Well, I reckon we’re sort of in motion ourselves.”

  “Father!”

  “I didn’t say today, Molly. Now I’ve work to do.”

  Seward was staring out the window of the Cabinet Room at the shaggy south lawn, strewn now with daffodils and narcissus and truly gorgeous weeds. Across the river, the hills of Virginia were a smoky blue—like good cigar smoke, he thought, removing the unlighted stump from his mouth just as Hay opened the door and said, “Sir, the President.”

  Lincoln entered, hair on end. As Lincoln took his place next to Seward at the Cabinet table, Seward noticed that he had not shaved for at least two days. He also noticed several gray hairs in the coarse black whiskers at the corner of the President’s beard.

  “Judge Douglas was just here. He thinks I should’ve asked for two hundred thousand men. But I’m afraid we’ll have trouble enough getting the ones I’ve called for.”

  “Will he support you publicly?”

  Lincoln nodded. “He’ll make a statement tomorrow.”

  “He carries great weight, particularly in New York, where we will have our problems.”

  “But I thought that your mayor of New York …”

  “Sir, he is not my mayor.”

  “Mr. Seward, I think of the whole state of New York as being your personal farm. Anyway, the mayor has just sent me a message saying that he would like New York City to secede from the Union, and become what he calls ‘a free city.’ ”

  Seward sighed. “He is a great fool. But he is sly; and a lot of New Yorkers feel as he does. It’s all those immigrants, particularly the Irish, the Papists. I must say they have always loved me. Probably too much for my own good.” Seward suddenly smiled. “They ended my political career, you know. I thought we should give state money to their schools. The bishop thought me a splendid fellow. The West did not. What did you say to the mayor?”

  “I said I was not about to let the front door set up housekeeping on its own.”

  Seward laughed, genuinely amused; he was also genuinely uneasy. On April 1, he had written Lincoln a long memorandum, outlining the problems that faced the Administration and, in the process, he had delivered himself of certain “home truths,” as he described them to Chase, which he feared that Lincoln might take offense at. Nearly two weeks had passed and Lincoln had made no mention of the memorandum. Seward presumed that the reason he had now been sent for, on this day of all days, was to discuss those truths. Seward was right.

  Lincoln put his hands behind his head and the long splayed brown fingers intertwined. “I have taken some time to answer your thoughts for my consideration, dated April the first.”

  Seward wondered if this might be a pointed reference to All Fools Day; but if it were, Lincoln gave no particular sign. “I wrote you a letter the same day. But thought we should talk before you read it. In your … bill of indictment, you tell me that at the end of the Administration’s first month in office we have no foreign policy and no domestic policy even though we had met, President and Cabinet, seven or eight times and together made many decisions, of which you were a part. Today, for instance, I have called upon the states for troops. I believe you think that I did the right thing?”

  “Yes, sir. Naturally, what I wrote you was before you decided to provision Fort Sumter, and of course their attack—”

  Lincoln interrupted him, somewhat abruptly. “I take two essential points from your memorandum. The first is that we should begin a continental war with the European powers as a huge diversion, including a declaration of war on Spain. Precisely how we are to overthrow the Spanish garrisons in Santo Domingo and Cuba when we cannot, properly, support one of our own forts in South Carolina, you do not say.”

  “In the event of war, there would be, na
turally, armies raised, ships built, as you are doing now. What I would count on, sir, is the unifying principle that would have its effect on all Americans if we were to go to war with France and Spain.”

  “I respect your opinion, Mr. Seward, as always.” Lincoln was bland as he withdrew the—fatal, Seward was beginning to think—memorandum from his inside pocket. “You make the point that we should shift the issue between us and the rebels from that of slavery to that of union or disunion. I was under the impression that that was exactly what I did in my inaugural address.” Lincoln looked Seward straight in the eyes. Although the gray eyes were as dreamy as ever, the left lid was drawn higher than usual.

  These are the eyes of a hunter, thought Seward; and he shifted his ground. “I have, perhaps, felt that you pay too much attention to the abolitionists, and that this is causing distress in the border-states.”

  “Your opinion is valuable to me, Mr. Seward.” The eyes continued to stare into Seward’s until the Secretary of State affected a cigar-smoker’s cough in order to pull out his handkerchief and escape that curiously equable yet entirely disconcerting gaze. “I think Mr. Chase and Mr. Sumner and every so-called abolitionist in the country would tell you that I have favored too much the sensibilities of the slave-owners. But it is your last point, Mr. Seward, which most concerns me.” Lincoln looked at the paper in his hand. “You say that whatever policy we do adopt must be prosecuted energetically.”

  “I think, sir, we are all agreed as to that. The drift must stop …”

  “The drift …” Lincoln looked out the window. “How strange that you should use that word! I dreamt last night that I was on a raft on a river so wide that I could not see either shore, and I had no pole, and I was drifting.” Lincoln turned back to Seward. “Plainly, Mr. Seward, you were visiting me in my dreams. Now this is what I find most curious.” Lincoln put on his glasses and read. “ ‘Either the President must do it himself, and be all the while active in it or devolve it on some member of his Cabinet.’ ” For a moment, Lincoln looked over the top rims of his glasses at Seward, who maintained his Jesuitical smile. Lincoln continued to read. “ ‘Once adopted, debate on it must end, and all agree and abide. It is not my especial province. But I neither seek nor assume responsibility.’ This is a most unusual document, Mr. Seward. Most unusual.” Lincoln half crumpled the paper and, idly, stuffed it in his side pocket. “You are saying that we need a strong leader from within the Cabinet, and that we must all obey him when he raises a navy to attack, let’s say, the French coast.”

  “Sir, I see no alternative to this sort of leadership.”

  “Would you rather that I did not consult the Cabinet? That I did not open myself to the views of all?”

  “I think there can be too much discussion and too little action.”

  “That is possible. But it is not my way to rush into any great event, particularly if it looks as if war is a more than likely result at a time when we have no army to speak of, no navy to speak of, and a Treasury that is close to empty.”

  “Nevertheless, firm, decisive action …”

  Lincoln tapped the table with one long finger; and Seward stopped as if he had heard the cracking of a whip. “There is nothing firmer nor more decisive—nor, I fear, more irrevocable—than my summoning of the troops. Now I realize that it is your view that our party made a significant error in nominating me instead of you …”

  “Sir, I have never said such a thing.”

  Lincoln smiled. “I am sure that you are far too loyal a member of my Administration ever to say such a thing. But you have just gone and written it, confidentially, to me.” Lincoln paused.

  Seward had a sense of having, somehow, lost control of a situation which he had assumed had been very much in hand. “Sir, I have in good—and open, to you, that is—faith made known my deep opinion—”

  “For which I thank you. We shall now act as if this exchange never took place.”

  Seward rose. “Under the circumstance, sir, I think it best for me to resign.”

  “Well, I don’t. So you just stay where you are. We have more than enough work for two men to do.” Lincoln led Seward to the door to the Cabinet Room, which Seward opened; then he stood back so that the President could precede him through the door. Lincoln looked down a moment at Seward. “I think we better keep this to ourselves. Who else knows about your memorandum?”

  “Only my son, Frederick.”

  Lincoln nodded. “Nicolay and Hay have seen it. But they will be silent as the tomb. We don’t,” said Lincoln with a half smile, “want Mr. Chase hearing about any of this, do we?”

  “Why, no. No, we don’t.” Seward smiled his conspiratorial smile, as Nicolay came forward to lead him through the unusual-for-Sunday crowd that had gathered in the waiting room to hear the latest news from Charleston.

  Lincoln motioned for Hay to join him in the President’s office. It was Hay’s self-appointed task to keep Lincoln moving when he tarried too long with visitors. Hay could never understand Lincoln’s endless patience with even the most audacious of bores or boors. “They get so little, most of them,” Lincoln would say, as if in explanation of the time wasted.

  Once inside the President’s office, Lincoln sank into his maplewood chair. “The seat of office,” he would say of the shabby chair when showing visitors around. “Tell General Scott that I would like him to put a telegraph machine in the small room there.” Lincoln pointed to the sliver of a room which was Nicolay’s office.

  Then Lincoln handed Hay the Seward memorandum. “Lock this away in the strongbox. I don’t think Mr. Seward will ever want anybody to look at it.” Lincoln chuckled. “He thinks he runs me. Well, I don’t suppose there’s anything wrong with his thinking that.”

  “Sir, that friend of Senator Hale is waiting to see you. He wanted the consulship at Liverpool, and we gave him the consulship at Vera Cruz. He’s not happy.”

  “Send him in.”

  The would-be consul was a well-dressed young New Englander, with chains of gold across a youthful paunch. “Mr. Lincoln, sir. This is an honor, sir.”

  Lincoln shook his hand. “Sit down, friend. What can I do for you?”

  “Well, sir. I’d hoped for Liverpool, and Senator Hale said it was all arranged with Mr. Seward. But then, I got the official letter which says I got to go to Vera Cruz, where I hear the bugs there eat you alive …”

  “Well, in that unhappy event, sir, I can only say that they’ll leave behind a mighty fine suit of clothes and a watch chain …”

  Suddenly a disembodied, treble voice sounded in the room. “Pa, don’t you ever get tired of folks?”

  The consul-to-be leapt in his chair. “We have a ghost in the White House,” said Lincoln, gently prodding Tad with his foot; lately, the boy had taken to hiding under his desk. “But we think it is benign.”

  THIRTEEN

  HALFWAY across the Long Bridge, the sweaty David paused to undo his tie, and stare down at the swift, yellow Potomac, swollen and muddy with the spring rains. All in all, he could not imagine a less agreeable way of wasting a Sunday afternoon than walking to Alexandria and back. He was also unpleasantly aware of the hard-eyed Union soldiers who were stationed along the bridge, studying the passers-by; particularly the few who were approaching the city from the Virginia side. Occasionally, a wagon from the South was stopped and searched as if it might contain the mysterious elements of secession. From the city, there was a great exodus of carriages, accompanied by wagons piled high with household goods—not to mention crates of chickens. The Union soldiers made no move to stop any of this traffic. They knew that there were secessionists, fleeing what had once been home but was now the capital of an enemy nation.

  As David stared down at the river and thought of the pleasures of fishing, he heard a familiar sound, a staccato, dry coughing that seemed, somehow, all wrong in this setting. He looked up and saw what he took to be some sort of farmhand or tramp—a thin old man in tattered clothes, who moved slowly, as if in pain
. It was not until they were face-to-face that David recognized old Mr. Surratt, who was supposed to be wasting away in the back parlor of H Street.

  At first, Mr. Surratt looked away; but then David said, “Mr. Surratt, sir. I thought you was sick, sir.”

  “You thought right, Davie.” Mr. Surratt rested a moment, back to the bridge’s railing. The cough was not constant but came at intervals. There were respites when he could speak normally.

  “I thought you never stirred from the back parlor.”

  “Well, now you see that I do. Fact, lately, I’ve been dressing up in these old clothes and going off to visit my friends on the Virginia side.”

  “Mr. Surratt, I want to help.”

  “Help?”

  “Yes, sir. I think I know what you’re doing. I think I know what Isaac is doing, too. You’re passing information along to the Confederates. I want to help, any way I can.”

  Mr. Surratt gave David a sharp look. The face was pale with illness but the eyes were bright. The old man gestured. “You walk a bit ahead of me, like we don’t know each other. We’ll talk on the other side.”

  Although there were no guards on the Virginia side, a Confederate flag flew over a tavern door while, just opposite, a neighbor displayed the Union flag.

  The carriages and wagons from the city did not pause; they continued their southerly journey toward Richmond and beyond. Mr. Surratt entered the tavern, followed by David. In the dim light of the main barroom, farmers sat about drinking whiskey, and talking what David assumed was either treason or the price of tobacco, each a subject calculated to excite these dour men, his own kin, his true confederates, he thought, suddenly sentimental. Mr. Surratt gave an envelope to a stout man, who motioned for him to go into a back room. David followed.

  Mr. Surratt and David sat at a long wooden table, a bottle of whiskey and a number of dusty glasses between them.

  “You’re a good boy, Davie,” said Mr. Surratt. You’re with us, I know. I hear that from my wife. I hear that from Annie. You can help us, too. There’s work for you. But there’s work for all of us who feel like we do. Now the best thing for you to do is go on down to Montgomery and sign up. President Davis has just got himself twenty thousand men, already under arms, they say.”