Team of Rivals

by Doris Kearns Goodwin

  Even before this train of events, Horace Greeley had taken it upon himself to counsel Lincoln. Greeley had received word that “two Ambassadors” representing Jefferson Davis had come to Niagara Falls in Canada “with full & complete powers for a peace.” Urging the president to meet with them immediately, he reminded Lincoln that “our bleeding, bankrupt, almost dying country also longs for peace—shudders at the prospect of fresh conscriptions, of further wholesale devastations, and of new rivers of human blood. And a wide-spread conviction that the Government…[is] not anxious for Peace, and do not improve proffered opportunities to achieve it, is doing great harm.”

  Though fairly certain that the so-called “ambassadors” had not been authorized by Jefferson Davis, Lincoln nonetheless discussed the matter with Seward and commissioned Horace Greeley to go to Niagara Falls. If the Confederate envoys were genuinely carrying legitimate propositions for peace, Greeley should offer them “safe conduct” and escort them to Washington. In addition, Lincoln dispatched John Hay to join Greeley at Niagara Falls and deliver a handwritten, confidential note to the envoys. “To Whom it may concern,” the note read. “Any proposition which embraces the restoration of peace, the integrity of the whole Union, and the abandonment of slavery…will be met by liberal terms on other substantial and collateral points.”

  As Lincoln suspected, the two envoys had “no credentials whatever” and could offer no assurances that Jefferson Davis was ready to stop the war. He hoped the failed mission would demonstrate to Greeley and others the absurdity of the claims that he was the one preventing peace. Unfortunately, his intention backfired when the Confederate envoys sent Lincoln’s confidential letter to the newspapers, falsely proclaiming that Lincoln’s inadmissible demand for abolition had torpedoed the negotiations. Democratic newspapers embellished the story, accusing Lincoln of continuing the war for the sole purpose of freeing the slaves.

  Leading Republicans were also upset by the president’s “To Whom it may concern” letter. Looking simply for restoration of the Union, Thurlow Weed complained, the people “are told that the President will only listen to terms of Peace on condition Slavery be ‘abandoned.’” Deeply disheartened, Weed and other leading Republicans became convinced that their party would be defeated in November. Weed journeyed to Washington during the first week in August and told Lincoln “that his re-election was an impossibility.” Leonard Swett felt compelled to inform his friend of a growing movement to “call a convention and supplant him.” A date for the new convention had been set for September 22 in Cincinnati, three weeks after the Democratic Convention. Swett warned Lincoln that a “most alarming depression” had overtaken his erstwhile supporters, and that unless something were done “to stem the tide,” the situation was hopeless.

  Dissatisfaction was rife inside the cabinet as well. Both Gideon Welles and Montgomery Blair were mystified by Lincoln’s decision to “impose conditions” that were “inadmissible” by their very nature. Knowing that only Seward and Fessenden had been privy to his plan, Welles questioned the president’s right “to assume this unfortunate attitude without consulting his Cabinet.”

  Henry Raymond, editor of the New York Times and chairman of the Republican National Party, added to Lincoln’s woes. “I am in active correspondence with your staunchest friends in every state and from them all I hear but one report,” wrote Raymond in late August. “The tide is setting strongly against us.” Raymond went on to predict that if the election were held immediately, Lincoln would be beaten in Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Indiana. Raymond ascribed two causes for “this great reaction in public sentiment,—the want of military successes, and the impression in some minds, the fear and suspicion in others” that the Confederates were ready for reunion and peace, but for the absolute demand that slavery be abandoned. He recognized the inaccuracy of this perception but argued that it could “only be expelled by some authoritative act, at once bold enough to fix attention.” He recommended sending a commissioner to meet with Jefferson Davis “to make distinct proffers of peace…on the sole Condition of acknowledging the supremacy of the Constitution,” leaving all remaining issues to be settled later.

  Lincoln’s response to these extraordinary pressures reveals much about his character. “I confess that I desire to be re-elected,” he told Thaddeus Stevens and Simon Cameron that August. “I have the common pride of humanity to wish my past four years administration endorsed; and besides I honestly believe that I can better serve the nation in its need and peril than any new man could possibly do. I want to finish this job of putting down the rebellion, and restoring peace and prosperity to the country.”

  Yet he forthrightly faced the likelihood of defeat and resolved to do his utmost in the remaining months both to win the war on the North’s terms and to bring as many slaves as possible into Union lines before newly elected Democratic leaders could shut the door forever. In the third week of August, Lincoln asked all cabinet members to sign—without having read—a memorandum committing the administration to devote all its powers and energies to help bring the war to a successful conclusion. The presumption was that no Democrat would be able to resist the immense pressure for an immediate compromise peace. Slavery would thus be allowed to remain in the South, and even independence might be sanctioned.

  “This morning, as for some days past,” the blind memo began, “it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be my duty to so co-operate with the President elect, as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration; as he will have secured his election on such ground that he can not possibly save it afterwards.”

  In these same weeks, Colonel John Eaton recalled, Lincoln “was considering every possible means by which the Negro could be secured in his freedom.” He knew that Eaton had come into contact with thousands of slaves who had escaped as the Union troops advanced. Tens of thousands more remained in the South. Lincoln asked Eaton if he thought Frederick Douglass “could be induced to come to see him” and discuss how these slaves could be brought into freedom. Eaton was aware that Douglass had recently criticized the president vehemently, denouncing the administration’s insufficient retaliatory measures against the Confederacy for its blatant refusal to treat captured black soldiers as prisoners of war. He also knew, however, that Douglass respected Lincoln and was certain that he would lend his hand.

  Douglass met with the president on August 19. In an open conversation that Douglass later recounted, Lincoln candidly acknowledged his fear that the “mad cry” for peace might bring a premature end to the war, “which would leave still in slavery all who had not come within our lines.” He had thought the publication of his Emancipation Proclamation would stimulate an exodus from the South, but, he lamented, “the slaves are not coming so rapidly and so numerously to us as I had hoped.” Douglass suggested that “the slaveholders knew how to keep such things from their slaves, and probably very few knew of his proclamation.” Hearing this, Lincoln proposed that the federal government might underwrite an organized “band of scouts, composed of colored men, whose business should be somewhat after the original plan of John Brown, to go into the rebel states, beyond the lines of our Armies, and carry the news of emancipation, and urge the slaves to come within our boundaries.” Douglass promised to confer with leaders in the black community on the possibility of such a plan.

  There was yet another subject Lincoln wanted to discuss with Douglass. Three days earlier, Wisconsin’s former governor Alexander Randall had hand-delivered a heartfelt letter from Charles Robinson, the editor of a Democratic paper in Wisconsin. “I am a War Democrat,” Robinson began. “I have sustained your Administration…. It was alleged that because I and my friends sustained the Emancipation measure, we had become abolitionized. We replied that we regarded the freeing of the negroes as sound war policy, in that the depriving the South of its laborers weakened the strength of the Rebellion. That was a good argument, and was accepted by a great many men who would
have listened to no other. It was solid ground on which we could stand, and still maintain our position as Democrats.” Now the Niagara Falls declaration that “no steps can be taken towards peace, from any quarter, unless accompanied with an abandonment of slavery,” left him with “no ground to stand upon.” He was not writing “for the purpose of finding fault…but with the hope that you may suggest some interpretation of it, as well as make it tenable ground on which we War Democrats may stand.”

  Lincoln shared a draft of his reply with Douglass and requested his advice on whether or not to send it. “To me it seems plain,” the draft began, “that saying reunion and abandonment of slavery would be considered, if offered, is not saying that nothing else or less would be considered.” Having written these evasive words, however, he at once emphasized that as a “matter of morals” and a “matter of policy,” it would be ruinous to recant the promise of freedom contained in his proclamation “as it seems you would have me to do…. For such a work, another would have to be found.” Nonetheless, he acknowledged that if the rebels agreed to “cease fighting & consent to reunion” so long as they could keep their slaves, he would be powerless to continue the war for the sole purpose of abolition. The people would not support such a war; their congressional representatives would cut off supplies. All such figuring was irrelevant, in any case, for “no one who can control the rebel armies has made the offer supposed.”

  Douglass saw clearly that Lincoln was trying “to make manifest his want of power to do the thing which his enemies and pretended friends professed to be afraid he would do.” Regardless of his personal convictions, he seemed to be saying, he “could not carry on the war for the abolition of slavery. The country would not sustain such a war, and [he] could do nothing without the support of Congress.” Douglass emphatically urged Lincoln not to send the letter. “It would be given a broader meaning than you intend to convey; it would be taken as a complete surrender of your anti-slavery policy, and do you serious damage.”

  After listening carefully to the impassioned advice of Douglass, Lincoln turned the conversation to other topics. While they were talking, a messenger informed Lincoln that the governor of Connecticut wished for an audience. “Tell Governor Buckingham to wait, I want to have a long talk with my friend Douglass,” Lincoln instructed. Douglass could barely “suppress his excitement” when he encountered John Eaton later that day. “He treated me as a man; he did not let me feel for a moment that there was any difference in the color of our skins! The President is a most remarkable man. I am satisfied now that he is doing all that circumstances will permit him to do.” Eaton believed that Douglass “had seen the situation for the first time as it appeared to Mr. Lincoln’s eyes.” For his part, Lincoln told Eaton that “considering the conditions from which Douglass rose, and the position to which he had attained, he was…one of the most meritorious men in America.”

  That same night, perhaps buoyed by his conversation with Douglass, Lincoln invited Governor Randall and Judge Joseph Mills to the Soldiers’ Home for a further discussion of the Robinson letter. “The President was free & animated in conversation,” Mills recorded in his diary. “I was astonished at his elasticity of spirits.” Lincoln admitted from the outset that he could not help “but feel that the weal or woe of this great nation will be decided in the approaching canvas.” This was not “personal vanity, or ambition,” but rather a firm belief that the Democrats’ strategy of mollifying the South with a promise to renounce abolition as a condition for peace would “result in the dismemberment of the Union.” He pointed out that there were “between 1 & 200 thousand black men now in the service of the Union.” If the promise of freedom were rescinded, these men would rightly give up their arms. “Abandon all the posts now possessed by black men surrender all these advantages to the enemy, & we would be compelled to abandon the war in 3 weeks.”

  Lincoln’s tone grew more fervent as he continued, as if he were arguing with himself against sending the reply to Robinson. “There have been men who have proposed to me to return to slavery the black warriors of Port Hudson & Olustee to their masters to conciliate the South. I should be damned in time & in eternity for so doing.” Those who accused him of “carrying on this war for the sole purpose of abolition” must understand that “no human power can subdue this rebellion without using the Emancipation lever…. Let them prove by the history of this war, that we can restore the Union without it.”

  Mills, who had been initially skeptical of Lincoln, was overwhelmed by “his transparent honesty” and the depth of his convictions. “As I heard a vindication of his policy from his own lips, I could not but feel that his mind grew in stature like his body, & that I stood in the presence of the great guiding intellect of the age.” His confidence in the justice of the Union cause “could not but inspire me with confidence.” The visitors stood to leave, but Lincoln entreated them to stay so that he might entertain them with a mix of stories, jokes, and “reminiscences of the past.”

  His momentary ambivalence over a peace compromise put to rest by his own logic, Lincoln permanently shelved the draft of his letter to Robinson. Nor did he accede to Raymond’s suggestion that he dispatch a commissioner to Richmond and sound out Jefferson Davis’s conditions for peace. He played with the idea for a few days, even drafting a letter allowing Raymond to proceed to Richmond with authority to say that “upon the restoration of the Union and the national authority, the war shall cease at once, all remaining questions [including slavery] to be left for adjustment by peaceful modes.” But he soon discarded the idea. The Raymond letter, like the reply to Robinson, was placed in an envelope and “slept undisturbed” for over two decades until unearthed by Nicolay and Hay when writing their biography of Lincoln.

  Through these difficult days that Nicolay deemed “a sort of political Bull Run,” Lincoln was sustained most of all by his “ever present and companionable” secretary of state. Mary and Tad had once again escaped the summer heat, spending August and early September in Manchester, Vermont. Seward had hoped to get away but did not feel he should leave Lincoln in this trying period, when “one difficulty no sooner passes away than another arises.” His presence buoyed Lincoln, for he never lost faith that all would be well. While Seward agreed that “the signs of discontent and faction are very numerous and very painful,” he refused to panic, believing that “any considerable success would cause them all to disappear.” So long as ordinary people retained their faith in the cause, a faith evidenced by new enlistments in the army, Seward remained “firm and hopeful,” convinced that Lincoln would see the country through.

  Stanton provided additional reassurance to the beleaguered president. The relationship among Lincoln, Seward, and Stanton had strengthened over the years. Welles observed that “the two S’s” had developed “an understanding” enabling them to act in concert supporting the president. Though Stanton lacked the genial temperament that won both Lincoln and Seward countless friends, he believed passionately in both the Union and the soldiers who were risking their lives to support it. Though he regularly argued with Lincoln over minor matters and peremptorily dismissed favor seekers from his office, the sight of a disabled soldier would command his immediate attention. In the mind of this brilliant, irascible man, there could be no peace without submission by the South.

  On August 25, Lincoln invited Raymond to the White House and explained why, after careful consideration, he had decided that sending a commissioner to Richmond “would be utter ruination.” Raymond was already in Washington, chairing a meeting of the Republican National Committee. The committee members charged with organizing support for Lincoln in the upcoming election had been so dubious about his chances that, as yet, they had done nothing to mobilize the party.

  John Nicolay believed the president’s meeting with Raymond and his colleagues could prove “the turning-point in our crisis.” As the group gathered that morning, Nicolay wrote to John Hay, who was visiting his family in Illinois, “If the President can infe
ct R. and his committee with some of his own patience and pluck, we are saved.” If the committee members were unmoved after talking with Lincoln, however, hope for the election would fade.

  Nicolay was relieved to see that Lincoln had invited Seward, Stanton, and Fessenden, “the stronger half of the Cabinet,” to join the meeting. The results exceeded Nicolay’s fondest hopes. In a memo written that same day, Nicolay delightedly noted that the president and his cabinet colleagues had managed to convince Raymond “that to follow his plan of sending a commission to Richmond would be worse than losing the Presidential contest—it would be ignominiously surrendering it in advance.” Nicolay was convinced that the meeting had done “great good.” The president’s iron will impressed the committee members. They returned home “encouraged and cheered,” with renewed belief that the election could be salvaged.

  Two days later, a revealing item appeared in Raymond’s New York Times. Noting that the members of the Republican National Committee would remain in Washington for another day to complete their plans for the presidential canvass, the Times declared: “Every member is deeply impressed with the belief that Mr. Lincoln will be reelected; and regards the political situation as most hopeful and satisfactory for the Union party.”

  Even before the approaching military success in Atlanta, which would transform the public mood, Lincoln had alleviated his own discouragement by refocusing his intense commitment to the twin goals of Union and freedom. He gave voice to these ideals in late August with an emotional address to the men of an Ohio regiment returning home to their families. “I happen temporarily to occupy this big White House,” he said. “I am a living witness that any one of your children may look to come here as my father’s child has. It is in order that each of you may have through this free government which we have enjoyed, an open field and a fair chance for your industry, enterprise and intelligence; that you may all have equal privileges in the race of life, with all its desirable human aspirations. It is for this the struggle should be maintained, that we may not lose our birthright…. The nation is worth fighting for, to secure such an inestimable jewel.”