Lincoln

by Gore Vidal

  “Major-general of volunteers,” said Sprague, smoothing his silky moustaches, glossy now from gin. “There’s to be one commission for New England. I know. I heard. So who’s to get it? Butler or me?”

  “I have no idea, sir.”

  “What does the President say?”

  “Nothing that I know of. Promotions are decided at the War Department, by General Scott.”

  “Major-generals are decided by the President, Mr. Hay. They have to be. They’re political. Where do you find girls?”

  Hay finished his brandy-smash in a long swallow. He now felt more competent to deal with Sprague, whose conversational style was reminiscent of that of Tad Lincoln. “There are some excellent houses, sir.”

  Sprague looked eager. “Where?”

  Hay described for him Sal Austin’s establishment. The hidden alcove appealed to Sprague. “Funny,” he said, solemnly. “You can’t be seen at those places. But,” he added with inexorable logic, “you’ve got to go to them. Cotton,” he continued, “was ten cents a pound when you announced that blockade of the Southern ports last week.”

  “We announced the blockade, sir. You are Union, too.”

  “That’s right. When you people started that blockade, cotton was ten cents a pound. Now even though there’s no real shortage yet, cotton’s gone to twenty cents a pound. That’s ruinous for my business. Do you know Kate Chase?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Met her in Columbus. Ever notice the way he suddenly squints his eyes at you?” Sprague imitated the way that Chase first widened his eyes; and then slowly narrowed them. The effect was so comical that Hay burst out laughing. “What’s so funny?” asked Sprague.

  “The way that you looked just like Chase.”

  “Funny the way he looks just like Chase. Secretary of the Treasury has all sorts of powers in these matters.”

  “What matters?”

  “Can we get something to eat at Sal’s?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Let’s go. Only, first, I’ve got to check out my regiment. They’ve put us in the Patent Office. Don’t know why. We’ve got tents. Brand-new. Twenty-seven dollars apiece, wholesale.” The boy-governor was on his feet, arranging the yellow-plumed cap at a jaunty angle. Hay felt as if he himself were an entire regiment as he followed, meekly, the first volunteer of the war out of the long bar.

  FIFTEEN

  LINCOLN stared at the painting of General Scott conquering Mexico while Seward stared at the painting of General Scott winning the War of 1812. General Scott stared at the bust of General Scott, executed in white marble by a student of Canova who had, in Seward’s view, failed to matriculate.

  General Scott’s office was filled with all the usual sounds of the city, particularly the horsecars rattling up and down the Avenue, to which was added the thudding sound of troops marching, of drums beating the tattoo, of cavalry … In four days the empty, doleful city had filled up with troops; and the office-seekers were once more in evidence. Each train from the North brought more troops to the depot, while the telegraph in the War Department had been restored and, at frequent intervals, the President was told of the success of his call for troops. To date, more than seventy-five thousand men had offered to fight, while the various state legislatures had contributed, thus far, millions of dollars to the Treasury for the defense of Washington; and for a successful prosecution of a war that everyone agreed would be brief but bloody.

  Finally, Lincoln spoke to the youthful General Scott storming Chapultepec rather than to the ancient, mottled man who was propped up opposite him, one huge cylinder of a leg resting on a low table. “If the Maryland legislature meets as planned today, they are certain to vote an ordinance of secession.”

  “In the presence of General Butler?” Seward shook his head. “If they do such a thing, he has threatened to arrest the whole lot of them.”

  “To what end?” Lincoln shifted his eyes from the heights of Chapultepec; and looked at Seward. “The legislature of any state has the right to meet whenever they choose.”

  “Even if they plan to withdraw from the Union, which we hold to be not possible?” Seward was now lawyer for the prosecution.

  Lincoln took the defense. “Until they actually meet and pass such an ordinance, we cannot presume to know what they will do.”

  “But, sir, if they do meet and they do secede?”

  “We shall be in a worse fix, certainly. But put it this way, Mr. Seward. If we forbid the legislature to meet, which we have no right to do …”

  “But we could stop them, sir.” General Scott had not, as Seward thought, gone to sleep. The eyes were now so ringed with fat that it was hard to tell whether or not they were open, while the old man’s breathing was that of a heavy sleeper.

  “Oh, we can disperse them, General,” said Lincoln. “We can lock them all up. But if we do, another legislature will convene somewhere else, and we’ll be exactly where we are now. We can’t keep shutting down legislatures from one end of the state to the other.” Lincoln was now studying General Scott’s winning of the War of 1812. “This morning we created the Military Department of Annapolis, with General Butler as its commander. I think Governor Hicks understands what I have done by making the capital of his state a Federal city, with a formidable garrison and a highly dramatic and bad-tempered commander.”

  “Governor Hicks may understand,” said Seward, “but I don’t. What is your intention?”

  Lincoln slumped in his chair; and grabbed his knees in such a way that his chin could now rest comfortably upon them. The hair as usual resembled a stack of black hay after a wind. “I think the governor will take the hint, and guide the legislature in such a way that it will do nothing provocative for fear of our garrison.”

  “My informants,” said General Scott, “tell me that he is planning to move the legislature out of the Department of Annapolis altogether.”

  Lincoln frowned. “That could be good for us. That could be bad for us.”

  “It would look good,” said Seward. “We would not appear to be coercing them. But those fire-eating Baltimore secessionists are in the majority and once free of us …” Seward contemplated General Scott as if he were already a monument—to food if not to victory.

  “I think we must run a certain risk in the eyes of the world.” Lincoln’s beard now resembled a bird’s nest once the young had flown. “I’ve already instructed General Butler to let the legislature meet. But I have also given him orders to arrest anyone who takes up arms—or incites others to take up arms, against the Federal government.”

  “I assume that this comes under your ‘inherent’ powers?” Seward was always amused by Lincoln’s solemn attempts to rationalize such illegalities as the removal of two million dollars from the Treasury or the confiscation of all of Western Union’s files.

  “An inherent power, Mr. Seward, is just as much a power as one that has been spelled out. But I realize now that I am going to have to stray a mite beyond our usual highly cautious interpretation of those peculiar powers.” Lincoln gave Seward a look of such dreamy candor that Seward was immediately on guard.

  “I thought, sir, that you’d strayed about as far from the usual as is possible.”

  “Well, there’s always another stretch of field up ahead, as the farmer said.” Lincoln turned to General Scott, who came to massive attention in his chair. “You are to instruct General Butler, in your capacity as general-in-chief, that he is to wait upon the legislature and if an ordinance of secession is passed, he is to interpret this as an incitement to take up arms against the United States, and those legislators—who would incite the people to take up arms against us, or attempt to seize Federal property, as they did when they occupied the Naval Academy—shall be promptly arrested and held in prison at the government’s pleasure.”

  “I shall transmit this order gladly, sir. But what are the legal consequences? I mean, sir, with what are they to be charged?”

  “I don’t think we should be too sp
ecific. After all, if we were to put too fine a point on it, the charge would have to be treason, and such trials are endless, and very hard on the innocent, who might easily be rounded up along with the guilty.”

  Seward was too stunned to say anything. As for General Scott, although his legal training was a half-century in the past, he did understand treason trials. “You are right, sir, about the difficulty of proving treason. I myself testified at Richmond in the course of the trial of Colonel Aaron Burr, who was no more guilty—”

  Seward interrupted the old man without even a show of courtesy. “Mr. Lincoln, you are willing to arrest and to hold men indefinitely without ever charging them with any offense?”

  “That’s about it, Mr. Seward.” Lincoln’s face was uncommonly serene.

  “But on what authority?” Seward felt as if two millennia of law had been casually erased by this peculiar lazy-limbed figure, now twisted in his chair like an ebony German pretzel.

  “On my authority, as Commander-in-Chief.”

  “But you have no authority to allow the military to arrest anyone they like and to hold them without due process of law.”

  “Plainly, I think that I do have that right because that is what I am about to do.” Slowly, the coiled figure straightened out. Then Lincoln addressed General Scott. “Telegraph the order to General Butler.”

  “Yes, sir.” Scott rang a bell. An orderly entered, received his instructions from Scott; and then departed with the order to overthrow the first rule of law—habeas corpus.

  “The most ancient of all our liberties,” said Seward, with some awe, “is the right of a man who has been detained to know what he is charged with and then to be brought, in due course, to trial …”

  “Mr. Seward, the most ancient of all our human characteristics is survival. In order that this Union survive, I have found it necessary to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, but only in the military zone.”

  Seward whistled, very loudly; something that he had not done in years. “No president has ever done this.”

  “No president has ever been in my situation.”

  “President Madison was driven from this city by the British, who then set fire to the Capitol and the Mansion. Yet Madison never dreamed of suspending habeas corpus.”

  “The times are not comparable.” Lincoln got to his feet. “Madison was faced with a foreign invasion that did not affect any but a small part of the country. I am faced with a war in which a third of the population has turned against the other two-thirds.”

  As Seward got to his feet, General Scott said, “You will forgive me, sir, if I do not rise.”

  “You are forgiven, General.” Absently Lincoln patted the old man’s epauleted shoulder.

  Seward now stood next to the heroic bust of Scott; he looked up at Lincoln. “Will you be forgiven, sir, when the people learn of this?”

  “Well, I don’t plan to make a public announcement just yet—”

  “But the word will spread.”

  “Mr. Seward, for the moment all that matters is to keep Maryland in the Union, and there is nothing that I will not do to accomplish that.”

  “Well, you have convinced me of that!” Although Seward chuckled, he was more alarmed than amused. “What happens when those hotheads in Baltimore find out?”

  “Well, as we have a list of the worst of the lot, I reckon Ben Butler will lock them all up in Fort McHenry.”

  “What happens if the people of the city resist our troops?”

  “We burn Baltimore to the ground. We are at war, Mr. Seward.”

  “Yes, sir.” Seward wondered what precedents there were for the disposal of a mad president. Like so many other interesting matters, the Constitution had left the question unduly vague.

  “Before you go, Mr. President,” said General Scott, “what am I to do about the commissioning of General Butler and Governor Sprague? Each expects to be made major-general of volunteers. Each has made the point that he is a Democrat loyal to the Union and that you favor such men.”

  “That’s true, of course. I must woo the Northern Democrats. Commission Butler. As for Governor Sprague …” Lincoln sighed. He turned to Seward. “Rhode Island is such a small state.”

  “And the governor is really such a small sort of Democrat.”

  Lincoln turned to General Scott. “If Governor Sprague pesters you, as he’s been trying to pester me, offer him a brigadier-generalship. If he takes it, which I doubt, he can command his Rhode Islanders. But he’ll have to resign as governor.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  As Lincoln and Seward stepped into Seventeenth Street, they were suddenly deafened by a military band playing “Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean.”

  “That’s not the Marine Band,” said Seward, whose ear for music was sharp, or so he liked to think—and always said.

  “You’re right. It’s the New York Seventh’s band. They’re on the south lawn, giving a concert. Willie persuaded me that it was a good idea.”

  As they crossed the street, hats were raised to the President, who responded by raising his own hat and smiling, gravely.

  “What was Willie’s advice on habeas corpus?”

  “Why, in those matters, I always turn to Tad, whose approach is singularly direct—like mine.” An office-seeker stopped Lincoln at the White House gates.

  “Mr. President, sir, I am a lifelong Republican from Dutchess County, New York …”

  “But, sir, our party’s only seven years old.” Lincoln was amused.

  “Exactly, sir, lifelong,” the man repeated; and thrust a sheaf of documents at Lincoln. “The postmastership of Poughkeepsie is open …”

  Politely, Lincoln stepped aside. “I’m not about to set up shop here in the street. You come during office hours.” Lincoln strode through the White House gates; Seward behind him. At the gates, soldiers saluted smartly. When Seward’s short legs had caught up with Lincoln’s long ones, he asked, “What will Tad have to say when Congress impeaches you?”

  “I reckon Tad will say, ‘At least Paw saved the Capitol of the country, just so they’d have a nice place to impeach him in.’ ”

  Seward was not prepared for so much blitheness; there was no other word. But Seward had also noticed that whenever Lincoln appeared to be vague and disturbed it was invariably before an important decision was made; after the decision was made, he acted as if he had not a care in the world, until the next crisis got him to brooding again.

  At the portico, Lincoln paused. “I have high hopes for that railroad colonel, Burnside. He’s a first-rate engineer who’s invented something to do with the loading of guns. He’s a trained military man, not like …” Lincoln paused and watched as a company from the New Jersey regiment marched past the gates of the Mansion. As the officer in charge shouted, “Eyes right!” and saluted the President, Lincoln lifted his hat.

  “Not like Ben Butler,” Seward supplied a name; then another, “or Governor Sprague.”

  “The governor has a plan to win the war quickly. I told him to put it in writing.”

  “That should take some time,” said Seward wryly.

  “That was the idea.” Lincoln entered the Mansion, while Seward strolled across the shaggy lawn to the State Department building, which he had more than once compared to a brick privy in its close proximity to the vast stone palace of the Treasury.

  Seward was having some difficulty in comprehending what he had just witnessed. Two lawyers and a professional general, who had been called in his day to the bar, had sat in a room and removed from an entire people their one inviolable right which had proved, upon test, to be as easily violable as a man transmitting a dozen or so words from a slip of paper to the telegraph wire. In six weeks, Congress would return. In six weeks, Seward was certain that an act of impeachment would be drawn up against the President. He wondered what his own line should be. After all, he was the advocate of the strong line; and certainly there was nothing stronger than what Lincoln had just done. Yet no Congre
ss would ever allow the basic law of the land to be overthrown. Lincoln would be called to account. But could the country endure an impeachment and a trial of the President during a war? Perhaps Lincoln could be persuaded to resign.

  Seward was smiling as he entered the office of the Secretary of State, where his son Frederick—the Assistant Secretary—sat in his shirt-sleeves at a table beneath a portrait of John Jay. The office was barely big enough for the two of them; yet, across the way, Chase sat alone in vast teakwood splendor, amidst crystal chandeliers, gilded cornices, velvet rugs.

  If Lincoln were to go of his own free will, or otherwise, Hannibal Hamlin would be president; and Hamlin, Seward knew, was a modest man who would understand the need for a strong man from within the Cabinet to direct the war, a man who not only knew intimately how the nation functioned but had a vision, which all the others lacked. Seward’s vision was simple: he wanted the entire western hemisphere to belong to the United States. Yet while Seward dreamed, splendidly and practically, of empire, the railroad lawyer in the White House wanted only to bring back into the Union a half-dozen or so rebellious mosquito-states—as Seward thought, contemptuously, of the Gulf states, so many irrelevant parcels of third-rate territory that would promptly revert to the Union once Mexico had come to accept American rule, much as Cisalpine Gaul had come to accept that of Rome. There were times when Seward felt that Chase shared his imperial vision. But those times were few. Essentially, Chase was a man in thrall to a single cause—the abolition of slavery. It was a cause that tended, in Seward’s view, to drive men quite mad, assuming that they were not already mad to begin with and so turned to the cause of abolition as a means of legitimizing the furies that drove them.

  “Don’t forget this evening, sir,” said Frederick, putting down a month’s worth of dispatches from London and Paris and Saint Petersburg.