Lincoln

by Gore Vidal

  “It will be necessary to finance three fourths of our next budget through borrowing.” The demure faces began, ever so slightly, to turn wolfish, while the president of the Bank of Commerce developed fangs; with fascination, Chase watched the magnate’s grooved upper lip withdraw in a predatory snarl. “I shall want to increase the tariff. I shall also wish to put some sort of small nominal tax on individual incomes.” The wolves leaned forward when they heard this. Chase heard, distinctly, a low growling. “I know that the American has always resisted such a tax, but I can think of a no more direct method of raising revenue.”

  “Mr. Chase,” said Mr. Aspinwall, the mildest of the wolves, “you can put a tax on an American’s income any time you like, but will he pay it?”

  “Surely patriotic duty would induce any citizen …”

  Mr. Ketchum laughed. “You’ll have to hire so many agents to make sure that these taxes are collected that all your new revenue will be used up just paying for them.”

  “I am not so pessimistic,” said Chase, struck by the notion of a thousand new Treasury agents at work in every state; and each beholden to him. He knew that it was ignoble to think of his political career at such a time, but if the national welfare should coincide with his own legitimate political interests he would have no choice but to serve both with the same zeal. As always, St. Paul consoled him.

  When the bankers began to question him about the necessity of minting more currency, preferably through their own bank notes, Chase recalled his own inaugural address as governor of Ohio. “As I said then, the best practical currency would be a currency of coin, admitting the use of large notes only for the convenience of commerce. I stand by that, in principle. But in practice …” Chase was now very much at sea; the bankers were also at sea, but unlike Chase they had in mind a specific golden landfall. Reluctantly, Chase gave in to them. Yet he was consistent in this. He had always been against a central banking system. He had worshipped General Jackson, who had broken the Bank of the United States, and he had regarded a plurality of banks as the very emblem and essence of democracy. But now that he sat in this altogether satisfactory office—except for the pearl-gray velvet carpet, which, despite the conspicuous placement of a shining spittoon at every chair, had started to darken from tobacco juice—Chase was by no means as certain as he once was that the financing of the Federal government by these … wolves (he could think of no better word) was in the best interest of the people. No alternative had yet suggested itself. Grimly, he hammered out a treaty with them. After first stating, as eloquently as he knew how, that the idea of a perpetual debt is not of American nativity, and should not be naturalized, war is war. But the bankers were after high profits on short-term loans, and Chase agreed to what he and Jay Cooke had come to think of as the “5–20’s”: twenty-year bonds that could be redeemed after only five years. Although he was able to keep the rate of interest below eight percent, the bankers were able to drive him to the wall in other ways, obliging him to sell certain government issues considerably below par. Chase had the sense of being outwitted; had no sense of how to gain control of the situation. But before he was finished, he thought grimly, as the bright-toothed, well-fed wolves, one by one, shook his hand and said good-bye, he would reinvent the banking system of the United States; or be devoured in the process.

  After the last of the bankers had departed, the chief secretary announced that Governor Sprague was in the anteroom. Chase’s mood immediately lightened; and he greeted the young man cordially; led him to a sofa where they could sit at opposite ends, and be both intimate and formal.

  “Where,” said Sprague, “can I get a new pair of spectacles?”

  Since Chase’s callers usually spoke in terms of millions of dollars and of complex tariff matters, he was, for an instant, speechless; but then he rallied. “I go to Franklin’s,” he said. “Just down the street. My secretary has the address. I’m delighted that you have the time to visit me so … spontaneously.”

  “Oh, I’ve got Burnside looking after the regiment. You couldn’t put in a word with the President, could you?”

  “About your commission as …?”

  “As major-general, yes. Butler’s got his already.”

  “Well, I’m not exactly certain that this is within my province …”

  “What is habeas corpus?” asked the governor of Rhode Island.

  Chase had not found conversation with the young man altogether easy at the reception. Now he found himself constantly jolted by the shifts in subject. Chase liked to begin a conversation by making clear-cut the subject; then after an examination of the pros and cons, he would move, in a stately fashion, to a reasoned conclusion. This was not possible with Sprague, who jumped about from subject to subject. It was now quite plain to Chase that the problem was not that Sprague was ill-educated; he had, simply, not been educated at all. Yet the mind was quick; very much a businessman’s mind, thought Chase, whose own mind was, he knew, more suitable to that of a bishop than to a man of finance.

  “Habeas corpus,” Chase began, wondering if he would be allowed to finish what promised to be a satisfactory aria, “is a Latin phrase meaning ‘thou shalt have the body.’ Although the concept dates back to the thirteenth century, it was not until 1679 that the English Habeas Corpus Act became the law of their land—and ours.” Chase had had to take this particular examination twice. “According to the act, anyone who has been arrested must, in response to a writ, be produced in a court for a trial. Neither in England nor in the United States can anyone be held without due process of law.” Chase watched, somewhat anxiously, as Sprague shifted a half-filled spittoon from the side of the sofa to the front of the sofa where the nacreous glory of the carpet was still virginal. “This act is the foundation of all free societies in general and of ours in particular.” Chase was finished; he had not been interrupted; he felt a warm glow. The boy was educable.

  “Not any more,” said Sprague, twirling his glasses by their cord. “There’s all hell to pay. I was at the President’s House. I couldn’t see him. Nobody could. The Chief Justice is after him. Mr. Lincoln went and arrested a friend—or something—of the old fellow’s.”

  Chase nodded. “A Mr. Merryman of Baltimore.”

  “That’s right. They got him locked up in Fort McHenry and when the Chief Justice told the general in charge of the fort to produce the body, the general told the Chief Justice to go to hell, on Mr. Lincoln’s orders.

  “I’m certain, sir, that that was not General Cadwalder’s exact message to the Chief Justice,” Chase began.

  “Whatever it was, the old fellow’s gone and thrown the Constitution at Mr. Lincoln’s head. They say Mr. Lincoln should be put in jail for breaking the law. May I ask Miss Chase to go riding with me Sunday, before I head back to Providence?”

  “May you …?” Chase had followed one hare almost to its form: now Sprague had flushed a second.

  “Invite your daughter to go riding on Sunday. On horseback.” Sprague spelled it out as if Chase was uncommonly slow to understand. “Monday, I have to take the cars to Providence. But I’ll be back in time for the war.”

  “By all means, sir. If that should be her pleasure, why, I would be pleased, too. You said the Chief Justice means to arrest Mr. Lincoln?”

  “Something on that order. Now let’s talk about cotton.”

  There was no talk of cotton at the White House. But there was a good deal of talk of habeas corpus. Lincoln sat at the head of the Cabinet table with Attorney-General Bates at his elbow. The waiting room was, as always, filled with people. In fact, a few moments earlier, when Lincoln and Bates had made their way down the crowded corridor, a dozen letters and petitions were handed the President, who was obliged to respond graciously to assorted cries of, “One minute, sir, please! Only one minute!” Lincoln had murmured to Bates, “I feel sometimes like I’m the proprietor of a boardinghouse that’s caught on fire. While the back rooms are burning up, I’m busy renting out the front rooms.”

>   But now, in the relative tranquility of the Cabinet room, there was a bit of a fire burning, too, thought Hay, in the form of a letter that had just arrived from Chief Justice Taney, written in the old man’s shaky hand. “It was a bit of bad luck,” said Bates, “that old Taney lives in Baltimore and so they could produce him fast.”

  “It’s a bit of hard luck that Mr. Taney is a Marylander to begin with,” said Lincoln. “It’s even worse luck,” he added, “that Jackson made him Chief Justice. But there he is. So what is this kindly message to me?” Lincoln pushed the letter, unread, back to Bates.

  “He says”—Bates glanced at the message—“that his order to General Cadwalder to produce Mr. Merryman was disobeyed. He now reminds you that you are under oath—sworn to him at your inaugural—to uphold the Constitution, and that you must see to it that the laws, and the Chief Justice, are obeyed.”

  “So what am I supposed to do now?”

  “Bring Mr. Merryman to trial immediately.”

  “If I don’t?”

  “You will be in contempt of the Supreme Court of the United States, and in violation of the law, and … so on.”

  “Well, he doesn’t want to arrest me, does he?”

  “I’d say, sir, that he does, very much, but he says that he has not the might though he has the right.”

  “I think we should, first, persuade Mr. Taney that though it might’ve looked like I was swearing an oath to him because he happened to be holding the Bible that morning, I was really swearing an oath to the whole country to defend the whole Constitution. Have you got that, Johnny?”

  “I’m getting it, sir.” Hay was writing very fast.

  “I think,” said Blair, “that you should invoke your inherent powers and tell him …”

  “No, no.” Lincoln now angled his chair so that it teetered dangerously on its back legs. One day, thought Hay, the remarkably long First Magistrate was going to go crashing to the floor. For some reason, he could never allow a chair to remain four-square once he had taken it on. “We’ll handle Mr. Taney by not mentioning him.”

  Bates showed his surprise by shaking his bearded Old Testament head to denote the negative. “How can you ignore the Chief Justice?”

  “Oh, easy enough. What I’ll do is make my case to Congress, when they get back in July. Nicolay, where’s the Constitution?”

  “I don’t know, sir. I think they keep it down at the Capitol, somewhere. I’ll ask …”

  “No, I meant where’s a copy of it?”

  “I don’t know.” Nicolay looked at Hay, who shook his head. Lincoln turned, comically, to Bates. “Tell no one that there’s not a copy of the Constitution in the President’s House.”

  “People have already guessed that.” Bates was dour.

  “Well, Nicolay, you come up with a copy from somewhere. Now here’s the line I’ll take.” Lincoln shut his eyes. Hay was always fascinated whenever the Tycoon began to think aloud. He would circle and circle a subject and then, like an eagle, strike at its heart. “After I called forth the militia, I told the commanding general—that is, I felt it my duty to tell him—that he could arrest or detain any individual he suspected of being a danger to us—to the public safety, that is. At my spoken request.” Lincoln gave Bates a sidelong look. “There’s no written order.”

  “That was wise, sir.”

  Lincoln again shut his eyes. “The general has used this power sparingly. Nicolay, how many arrests have been made to date?”

  “Around forty, sir, including the police-marshal of Baltimore.”

  “If a police-marshal does not set an example, he will be the example. That is my maxim for the day. Now someone in a high position—we won’t mention his name—reminds me that I have sworn faithfully to execute the laws. Well, when I took that oath”—automatically, Hay wrote “registered in Heaven,” even though Lincoln did not, for once, invoke this usual formula—“all of the laws which I’d sworn to uphold were being resisted and broken in one-third of the states. So then, are all the laws except this one to go unexecuted? More to the point, in my view, I would have totally betrayed my oath if I should have allowed—should even now allow—the government to be overthrown, all because I have chosen not to disregard this one law.” Hay was enjoying the clarity of Lincoln’s subtle negative. “I have violated no law …”

  “Sir,” Bates interrupted. “You have not only violated the law but you have chosen to ignore an order of the Supreme Court.”

  Lincoln opened his eyes; and gazed thoughtfully for a moment at Bates, then he turned to Hay, “Make that: ‘in my opinion, I have violated no law.’ Is that better, Mr. Bates?”

  “Probably not. After all, I’m a lifelong old-fogey Whig. But your language is less categorical.”

  Lincoln nodded; and shut his eyes again. Hay decided that there must be some sort of huge tablet in the President’s mind on which appeared, in words of fire, the sentences that he, in turn, read off to the nation. “The Constitution provides that … We’ll put in the exact wording later. I paraphrase: that habeas corpus can only be suspended in cases of rebellion or invasion. I have decided that we have a rebellion, and I have suspended, in certain particular cases, the writ of habeas corpus. It is insisted that the power to do this is invested not in me but in the Congress. But the Constitution is silent as to which of us is to exercise … to execute this power. As the Congress was not in session when the rebellion endangered the city of Washington, I acted as swiftly as I could to preserve the city.” Lincoln brought down his chair with a crash. He turned to Bates. “Then I’ll ask Congress to approve what I’ve done, which they’ll do, as we have a good majority, and let us hope that the Chief Justice will be satisfied that this is wartime.”

  “Well done, sir,” said Bates.

  “Let’s hope so,” said Lincoln. “I am improvising from minute to minute. Have you any news from Missouri?”

  “Nothing that you probably don’t know, Mr. Lincoln. I had a letter from Frank Blair, who says there is still trouble in St. Louis. But he, personally, will keep it under control. He likes playing soldier, he says.”

  “Will he come back to Congress?”

  “Only if you need him. He’ll try to keep both his seat in Congress and his army commission. Frank loves to fight, you know.”

  Lincoln smiled. “I know. All the Blairs do.” Lincoln turned to Hay and Nicolay. “There’s an old saying back in Kentucky that when the Blairs go in for a fight, they go in for a funeral.” Lincoln rose. “All right, Johnny, you can write that up to be added to my message to Congress. Nico, you can turn the folks loose on me.”

  Lincoln towered over the other three. “I often think,” he said, “that if ever this country is destroyed, it will be because of people wanting jobs with the government, people wanting to live without work, a terrible fault …”

  Lincoln looked out the window at the company of New Jersey infantry that was drilling beneath the stern gaze of Tad and of Willie, who was mounted on Nanda the goat. “… A terrible fault,” he repeated, “from which I am not entirely free myself. It was once my dream, twenty years ago, to be American consul in Bogotá. Thank God, I failed to get appointed.

  “I guess we’re all in God’s debt,” said Bates.

  “Don’t speak too soon.” Lincoln put his finger to his lips. Then he went into his office, followed by Nicolay.

  Hay walked Bates down the long corridor, filled today with moustached men seeking army commissions. At the beginning of the private quarters, they encountered Madam and Mrs. Grimsley.

  “Mr. Bates, sir!” Mrs. Lincoln exclaimed, with pleasure. To Hay’s cold eye, she looked somewhat pasty of face. But she was, at least, no longer insane. Hay and Nicolay often debated whether or not she was really sick when seized by The Headache, or simply shamming in order to get her way with the Tycoon. Lately, she had begun to meddle once again in appointments, to the dismay of the President’s two secretaries. What the President himself thought of her political activities neither secretary kne
w.

  Hay left the Attorney-General in Madam’s care and went back to his own office to begin the search for a copy of the Constitution.

  EIGHTEEN

  ON THE morning of June 29, Chase received in his office the man whom he regarded as the perfect modern warrior: Irvin McDowell, brigadier-general of volunteers, and commander of the Army of the Potomac. At forty-two, McDowell was civilized so far beyond the military norm that the fact that he was not a bachelor caused Chase an occasional moment of regret when he saw the sturdy figure seated beside Kate on the piano bench at Sixth and E, teaching her a Mozart sonata, or holding forth on Roman architecture, or the landscapes of Capability Brown, or simply withdrawing into French, which he spoke even better than Kate’s highly finished French because he had been educated in Paris, that most civilized of communities whose elegant Revue des deux mondes was faithfully read, albeit with difficulty, by Chase himself.

  McDowell was one of the few non-Southern graduates of West Point never to have left the army. For gallantry in the Mexican War, he had been breveted a captain in the field. But over the years, as Scott tended to promote only Southern officers, McDowell had vanished into the office of the Adjutant-General. Now he had come into his own. He had established headquarters across the Potomac at Arlington House, the home of the rebel commander Robert E. Lee.