Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 2

by Michael Burlingame

  At the reception afterward, an immense crowd streamed into the recently completed state capitol from three directions. Among his well-wishers was a gentleman holding aloft a baby, which Lincoln kissed. When the infant’s mother asked the president-elect to name him, he smiled and said: “Abraham is too big for such a wee atom of humanity. I will name him Lincoln.” He kissed the babe again and returned it to its mother, who replied: “We will add the Abraham, for he saved his people.” The crowd cheered lustily.58

  Lax security arrangements imperiled Lincoln’s safety. The rotunda area was bisected by two wide aisles, perpendicular to each other, one of which was designated to channel callers toward the president and then away from him to the exit on the opposite side of the building; the other aisle was to be closed. The guards shutting off the transverse aisle were inadequate and allowed people to enter through three doors, with only one exit provided. As Nicolay recalled, “before anyone was well aware of the occurrence there was a concentric jam of the crowd toward the President-elect which threatened to crush him and those about him.” Luckily, the exceptionally strong Ward Hill Lamon planted himself in front of Lincoln and stemmed the tide long enough for his friend to seek shelter behind a pilaster. There, overcome by heat, Lincoln stopped shaking hands and instead simply bowed to the people as they passed by. Hay remarked that if “royalty was ever more effectually pushed about, punctured with elbows, shouted at, and gazed at, than the President elect on this occasion, why then—royalty is greatly to be pitied; and if royalty ever took it all with half the grace Mr. Lincoln did, why—royalty must be very good natured.” When informed that the electoral votes had been counted in Congress and he was declared duly elected, Lincoln with palpable gratitude and relief remarked emotionally: “ ’Tis well.”59

  One of the many observers of this scene, the future president James A. Garfield, had mixed feelings about the Lincolns. “In some respects I was disappointed in Lincoln,” he wrote, “but in most he surpasses expectation. He has raised a pair of whiskers, but notwithstanding all their beautifying effects he is distressingly homely. But through all his awkward homeliness there is a look of transparent, genuine goodness, which at once reaches your heart, and makes you trust and love him. His visits are having a fine effect on the country. He has the tone and bearing of a fearless, firm man.” Garfield detected in Lincoln “no touch of affectation” and called him “frank—direct—and thoroughly honest.” The president-elect’s “remarkable good sense—simple and condensed style of expression—and evident marks of indomitable will—give me great hopes for the country. … After the long dreary period of Buchanan’s weakness and cowardly imbecility, the people will hail a strong and vigorous leader.” Garfield depicted Mary Lincoln as a “stocky, sallow, pugnosed plain lady” with “much of the primitiveness of western life. He stands higher on the whole in my estimation than ever. She considerably lower.”60 Lincoln’s host in Columbus, Governor William Dennison, thought that he seemed “worn out from the fatigues of his journey.”61

  Embarassing Speech in Pittsburgh

  On Valentine’s Day, as the presidential party headed toward Pittsburgh, torrents of rain fell, inspiring hope in Lincoln that he might not have to address crowds along the way. He “stated that he had determined to make, for the rest of the trip, as few speeches as possible, thus avoiding much fatigue.”62 To Ward Hill Lamon, he complained that “he had done much hard work in his life, but to make speeches day after day, with the object of speaking and saying nothing, was the hardest work he ever had done. ‘I wish,’ said he, ‘that this thing were through with, and I could find peace and quiet somewhere.’ ”63

  Despite the bad weather, huge crowds turned out at the stopping points and insisted on a speech. On more than one occasion, he told an anecdote by way of an apology for not complying. He knew of a man, he said, who had a good chance of winning his party’s nomination for a county office. He rented a horse to canvass extensively throughout the county. On the morning of the party convention, he mounted the nag and headed toward the county seat, but even though he applied the whip and spurs energetically, his horse made such slow progress that by the time he arrived, the convention had adjourned and he had lost the nomination. Upon returning the nag to its owner, the man asked him what such a horse was good for. “Why, a good horse for a funeral, I guess!” came the reply. “No, my friend,” said the would-be candidate, “never hire that horse out for a funeral.” “Why not?” “Because if that horse pulls the hearse, the Judgment Day will come before the corpse gets to the graveyard!” So, said Lincoln, that was just his case, for “if he stopped at every station to make a stump speech he would not arrive at Washington until the inauguration was over.”64

  Lincoln devised another clever stratagem for handling crowd demands for a speech. He stayed inside the train until the conductor announced its imminent departure, at which point Lincoln emerged onto the platform of the car and bowed to his well-wishers as the locomotive pulled out of the station. When a committee from Steubenville, where a half-hour stop was scheduled, asked him to speak, he replied jocularly that he felt like an old rooster belonging to a peripatetic Illinois farmer who tied up his fowls before making each of his many moves. Whenever the farmer began loading furniture into his wagon, the rooster would fling himself down on his back and cross his legs, ready to be tied up. Emulating that rooster, Lincoln said he would accommodate the committee by giving an address.

  To the crowd of 20,000, including not only Buckeyes but also Virginians who had crossed the ice-choked Ohio River, he offered a preview of an argument he would spell out more fully in his inaugural address: “Though the people have made me by electing me, the instrument to carry out the wishes expressed in the address, I greatly fear that I shall not be the repository of the ability to do so. Indeed I know I shall not, more than in purpose, unless sustained by the great body of the people, and by the Divine Power, without whose aid we can do nothing. We everywhere express devotion to the Constitution. I believe there is no difference in this respect, whether on this or on the other side of this majestic stream [the Ohio River]. I understand that on the other side, among our dissatisfied brethren, they are satisfied with the Constitution of the United States, if they can have their rights under the Constitution. The question is, as to what the Constitution means—‘What are their rights under the Constitution?’ That is all. To decide that, who shall be the judge? Can you think of any other, than the voice of the people? If the majority does not control, the minority must—would that be right? Would that be just or generous? Assuredly not! Though the majority may be wrong, and I will not undertake to say that they were not wrong in electing me, yet we must adhere to the principle that the majority shall rule. By your Constitution you have another chance in four years. No great harm can be done by us in that time—in that time there can be nobody hurt. If anything goes wrong, however, and you find you have made a mistake, elect a better man next time. There are plenty of them.”65

  A Democrat in the audience found Lincoln’s delivery “rather quizzical” and thought that while his face indicated “good humor” and “fine social qualities,” it lacked “the higher order of intellectual developments, so necessary for the position he is called to occupy.” He considered the president-elect’s remarks noncommittal, containing little “either to approve or disapprove, unless we are much gratified or dissatisfied with the ‘day of small things.’ ”66

  At Rochester, Pennsylvania, a member of the crowd shouted out, “What will you do with the secessionists?” Lincoln replied evasively, “My friend, that is a matter which I have under very grave consideration.”67

  Thanks to the delay caused by a freight train accident, Lincoln arrived two hours late in Pittsburgh. Nicolay told his fiancée that “we hardly expected to find a soul at the depot. It was a vain illusion. The depot and grounds were literally jammed full of people.” Confusion reigned, for the presidential party’s carriages had been stationed so close to the tracks that the horses took
fright as the locomotive approached with its bell clanging and its steam whistle screaming. In the resulting near-stampede, Lincoln had to locate the carriage meant for him. His entourage, fearing for his safety, struggled to help him amid the panicky horses and the shouting committemen, spectators, and drivers. Mercifully, no one was hurt. “We finally got Mr. Lincoln into a carriage,” Nicolay reported, “but having accomplished that, it looked for a while as if we would never get the carriage out of the crowd that was pushing and pulling and yelling all around us.”68

  When Lincoln finally reached the hotel, another crowd awaited him. Standing on a chair in the lobby, he made brief remarks to his unusually good-natured well-wishers. He thanked them for supporting the Republican cause in the election: “By a mere accident, and not through any merit of mine, it happened that I was the representative of that cause, and I acknowledge with all sincerity the high honor you have conferred on me. [‘Three cheers for Honest Abe,’ and a voice saying, ‘It was no accident that elected you, but your own merits, and the worth of the cause.’] I thank you, my fellow citizen, for your kind remark, and trust that I feel a becoming sense of the responsibility resting upon me. [‘We know you do.’] I could not help thinking, my friends, as I traveled in the rain through your crowded streets, on my way here, that if all those people were in favor of the Union, it can certainly be in no great danger—it will be preserved. [A voice—‘We are all Union men.’ Another voice—‘That’s so.’ A third voice—‘No compromise.’ A fourth—‘Three cheers for the Union.’] But I am talking too long, longer than I ought. [‘Oh, no! go on; split another rail.’ Laughter.] You know that it has not been my custom, since I started on the route to Washington, to make long speeches; I am rather inclined to silence, [‘That’s right’] and whether that be wise or not, it is at least more unusual now-a-days to find a man who can hold his tongue than to find one who cannot. [Laughter, and a voice—‘No railery Abe.’]” He promised to speak to them more fully in the morning.69

  One of Lincoln’s principal aims in that address on February 15, delivered to 5,000 people standing beneath a sea of umbrellas, was to assure Pennsylvanians of his soundness on the tariff issue. But before dealing with that controversial topic, he explained his reluctance to discuss the secession crisis: “It is naturally expected that I should say something upon this subject, but to touch upon it at all would involve an elaborate discussion of a great many questions and circumstances, would require more time than I can at present command, and would perhaps unnecessarily commit me upon matters which have not yet fully developed themselves. [Immense cheering, and cries of ‘good!’ ‘that’s right!’] The condition of the country, fellow-citizens, is an extraordinary one, and fills the mind of every patriot with anxiety and solicitude. My intention is to give this subject all the consideration which I possibly can before I speak fully and definitely in regard to it—so that, when I do speak, I may be as nearly right as possible.”

  As he had done in Columbus, Lincoln played down the dangers of the secession movement: “there is really no crisis except an artificial one! What is there now to warrant the condition of affairs presented by our friends ‘over the river?’ Take even their own view of the questions involved, and there is nothing to justify the course which they are pursuing. I repeat it, then—there is no crisis, excepting such a one as may be gotten up at any time by designing politicians. My advice, then, under such circumstances, is to keep cool. If the great American people will only keep their temper, on both sides of the line, the troubles will come to an end, and the question which now distracts the country will be settled just as surely as all other difficulties of like character which have originated in this government have been adjusted. Let the people on both sides keep their self-possession, and just as other clouds have cleared away in due time, so will this, and this great nation shall continue to prosper as heretofore.”

  Somewhat lamely Lincoln addressed the tariff issue, which, he admitted, he did not fully comprehend: “I must confess that I do not understand this subject in all its multiform bearings, but I promise you that I will give it my closest attention.” He was equally lame in his admission of ignorance regarding the pending Morrill Tariff: “The tariff bill now before Congress may or may not pass at the present session. I confess I do not understand the precise provisions of this bill, and I do not know whether it can be passed by the present Congress or not.” He promised to abide by the rather vague protectionist plank of the Republican platform, which he had Nicolay read to the crowd. “We should do neither more nor less than we gave the people reason to believe we would, when they gave us their votes,” he said. Reverting to arguments he had made sixteen years earlier, Lincoln stressed the wastefulness of transporting goods across the Atlantic when those goods could be produced domestically at roughly the same cost. He endorsed the old Whig proposition that the executive should defer to the legislature and suggested that he would carry out whatever tariff policy Congress adopted.70 Later in the journey, he would declare that these remarks “were rather carefully worded. I took pains that they should be so.”71

  Ignoring his protectionist statement, the New York World praised Lincoln’s explanation of his silence on secession as “the wise utterance of a statesman who realizes the full weight of his responsibility to the nation for the preservation of its government; who feels bound to deliberate before he acts; who will not stultify himself by unnecessary committals to a line of proceeding with a new state of facts or the arguments of his constitutional advisers might prove to be unwise; and who is too self-contained to assume the part of President before he is invested with the office.”72 The New York Tribune took heart from his statement that “[w]e should do neither more nor less than we gave the people reason to believe we would, when they gave us their votes,” interpreting that as a pledge to carry out the Chicago Platform plank on slavery expansion.73

  With good reason, Henry Villard judged this speech the “least creditable performance” of the trip, calling it “nothing but crude, ignorant twaddle, without point or meaning.” It “proved him to be the veriest novice in economic matters” and strengthened Villard’s “doubts as to his capacity for the high office he was to fill.”74 His view was shared by Democratic papers, which called the speech “a lamentable though brief rigmarole of confusion and contradiction” that showed “an ignorance so gross that school-boys might laugh at him.” The Pittsburgh Post remarked that although the Morrill tariff bill had been under consideration by Congress for three sessions, Lincoln “does not seem to be thoroughly informed on it—any more than he is upon the geography of Pittsburgh, when he speaks of the South as ‘across the river.’ ”75 The Springfield, Massachusetts, Republican was more charitable, finding it “not strange that Mr. Lincoln should have been somewhat puzzled” by the tariff plank of the Republican platform, for “it was built diplomatically, to satisfy both protectionists and free traders, and is capable of a great variety of interpretations.”76 In Washington, some Republicans speculated that “if Mr. Lincoln endorses the Chicago platform in toto, as he intimated in his Pittsburg[h] remarks, he and Mr. Seward must be at issue.”77

  Detour to Cleveland

  The train pulled out at 10 A.M., zigging westward toward the next stop, Cleveland. When it halted briefly on the outskirts of Pittsburgh, hundreds of railway workers cheered the president-elect so lustily that he was quite touched. En route to the Forest City, Lincoln and his family rested quietly in their car. Afflicted with a bad cold, the president-elect said little and spent most of his time perusing newspapers and silently reflecting. The quiet was broken at Ravenna, where well-wishers fired a celebratory cannon so near the train that a window shattered, covering Mrs. Lincoln with shards of glass and frightening her badly. The sentiments expressed by the crowds grew more hawkish as the train proceeded through western Pennsylvania and the Western Reserve of Ohio.

  At Ashtabula, after listening to the president-elect’s brief remarks, the crowd demanded to see Mrs. Lincoln. Her husban
d “said he didn’t believe he could induce her to come out. In fact he could say that he never succeeded very well in getting her to do anything she didn’t want to do.”78

  In Cleveland, despite snow, rain, and mud, 30,000 people lined the two-mile stretch of Euclid Avenue connecting the depot with the city center. They rushed hither and thither trying to catch a glimpse of Lincoln. The superabundance of flags prompted one newspaperman to marvel that a “Vesuvian eruption of Stars and Stripes in the immediate vicinity could not have more completely covered the buildings.”79 Judge David Davis reported that “the appointments were the finest & the displays of enthusiasm as great as anywhere.” He was especially impressed with the mansions along what he termed the “the handsomest street, I ever saw.”80 Nicolay informed his fiancée that “for the first time we found the crowd tolerably well controlled by the police and military, and got through without any jam, though there was again a great crowd at the hotel.” In general, the arrangements proved better than those at any previous stop.81 Standing in a carriage, Lincoln bowed and waved his hat in acknowledgment of the crowd’s cheers.