Apologetically, Lincoln asked Congress to endorse retrospectively the emergency measures he had taken since the bombardment of Fort Sumter. “It was with the deepest regret that the Executive found the duty of employing the war-power, in defence of the government, forced upon him. He could but perform this duty, or surrender the existence of the government. No compromise, by public servants, could, in this case, be a cure; not that compromises are not often proper, but that no popular government can long survive a marked precedent, that those who carry an election, can only save the government from immediate destruction, by giving up the main point, upon which the people gave the election. The people themselves, and not their servants, can safely reverse their own deliberate decisions. As a private citizen, the Executive could not have consented that these institutions shall perish; much less could he, in betrayal of so vast, and so sacred a trust, as these free people had confided to him. He felt that he had no moral right to shrink; nor even to count the chances of his own life, in what might follow. In full view of his great responsibility, he has, so far, done what he has deemed his duty. You will now, according to your own judgment, perform yours.”
To supplement what he had already done, Lincoln urged Congress to authorize the creation of a huge army and to appropriate enormous sums of money. He had concluded in the two months since his call for 42,000 volunteers that Confederate resistance would be more formidable than earlier anticipated. “It is now recommended that you give the legal means for making this contest a short, and a decisive one; that you place at the control of the government, for the work, at least four hundred thousand men, and four hundred millions of dollars. That number of men is about one tenth of those of proper ages within the regions where, apparently, all are willing to engage; and the sum is less than a twenty-third part of the money value owned by the men who seem ready to devote the whole. A debt of six hundred millions of dollars now, is a less sum per head, than was the debt of our revolution, when we came out of that struggle; and the money value in the country now, bears even a greater proportion to what it was then, than does the population. Surely each man has as strong a motive now, to preserve our liberties, as each had then, to establish them. A right result, at this time, will be worth more to the world, than ten times the men, and ten times the money. The evidence reaching us from the country, leaves no doubt, that the material for the work is abundant; and that it needs only the hand of legislation to give it legal sanction, and the hand of the Executive to give it practical shape and efficiency. One of the greatest perplexities of the government, is to avoid receiving troops faster than it can provide for them. In a word, the people will save their government, if the government itself, will do its part, only indifferently well.”179
As the message was read in the House, its members paid profound attention and frequently expressed their approval, especially at the call for 400,000 troops, which elicited loud, irrepressible, unrestrained applause from the congressmen and the galleries. “Hurrah for Uncle Abe!” shouted one solider, to which another spectator burst out, “Bully for him!”180 The speaker of the House shrilly called for order, but in vain. Another passage received a particularly favorable reception: “A right result, at this time, will be worth more to the world, than ten times the men, and ten times the money.”181 The audience also liked the allusion to the loyalty of enlisted men as opposed to officers. The president’s analysis of the doctrine of secession, according to one report, “was so direct and ingenious and so saturated with traces of the President’s peculiar quaintness of humor, as to provoke more than once a general buzz of satisfied approval.”182 Some Republican congressmen deemed it “very Lincolnish” with its “new ways of putting old questions,” “full of strong sense and irony,” “admirable for the times[,] the people & the occasion,” and predicted that it would be “very popular.”183
In the upper chamber, the message was listened to in silence as a clerk read it in a low monotone. Occasionally, one senator would whisper to another, “It’s too long,” or “What’s the point of going into that?” The consensus among them was “that the argumentative and historical parts of the message were unnecessary, but, as a Senator observed, the people had a right to know the facts of the case as they appeared to the mind of the Executive in making such propositions, and that nothing should be taken for granted or supposed to be known to those who were so materially interested in the result.”184 At the mention of $400 million and 400,000 troops, pro-Southern senators like John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky and Trusten Polk of Missouri shifted nervously in their seats.
The document won widespread public approval. Henry Villard reported that among “the throng that daily now frequent the hotels and capitol, none is found (save the secession spies who abound here) who does not heartily endorse the patriotic message of the President.”185 The New York Tribune praised its brevity and directness: “It gushes out from the earnest heart of the author, and goes straight to the hearts of the patriotic millions. Utterly devoid of rhetorical embellishment and official reserve, its positions will be comprehended and its arguments appreciated by every rational mind.”186 The Providence Journal liked “its perfect plainness, its downright honesty, its unmistakable sincerity” and its “manly and straight-forward words.”187 Benjamin Brown French pronounced it “the best, considering all things, that was ever sent to Congress. It goes as straight as a rifle ball to the mark, & without the least flourish, tells the whole story of our troubles so that every man woman & child who can read it can understand.”188
Men of letters heaped praise on Lincoln’s message. George William Curtis, editor of Harper’s Weekly, privately called it “the most truly American message ever delivered. Think upon what a millennial year we have fallen when the President of the United States declares officially that this government is founded upon the rights of man! Wonderfully acute, simple, sagacious, and of antique honesty! I can forgive the jokes and the big hands, and the inability to make bows. Some of us who doubted were wrong.”189 In his magazine, Curtis was more formal but no less laudatory: “While many Presidents of many parties would have endeavored to save the Government by force of arms, not all Presidents would so clearly comprehend or so simply state what the Government was that they were saving. This Government was founded upon the rights of man; and for the first time in long years the President recognizes that fact. Presidents’ messages for many years have been labored defenses of an oligarchical and aristocratic administration of the Government. At length there is a people’s President, in no mean sense; and the Government of the United States is restored to its original principles. It is not a matter of party, but of patriotic congratulation.”190
The Philadelphia lawyer and essayist Sidney George Fisher called the message “simple, clear, positive,” “marked throughout by evident sincerity & truth,” “wholly free from egotism or desire to produce an effect,” and “earnest & candid.” It demonstrated “remarkable power of thought & argument. The reflections are eminently just and the right of secession is treated in a manner at once clear, comprehensive and original.” Fisher considered Lincoln’s style “not polished or graceful, but nervous, compact & clear, the utterance of strong convictions seeking expression.” The entire document was “pervaded by good feeling and loyal catholic spirit. In this hour of its trial, the country seems to have found in Mr. Lincoln a great man. I should judge that he has a clear head, a good heart, a strong will and high moral sentiment. Should he prove equal to the promise given by his [inaugural] speech, his message [to Congress] and his conduct thus far, he will be an unspeakable blessing to the nation.” Lincoln, thought Fisher, was “the best man we have had for President since Jno. Q. Adams, he is the man for this crisis, worth, in the strength of his mind and character & purity of purpose all the rest of the cabinet put together.”191
In late June, after Lincoln read the address to John Lothrop Motley, the noted historian told his wife that it “impressed me very favourably. With the exception of a few expressions
, it was not only highly commendable in spirit, but written with considerable untaught grace and power.”192 Motley found the president to be “a man of the most extraordinary conscientiousness. He seemed to have a window in his breast. There was something almost childlike in his absence of guile and affectation of any kind.”193
Also laudatory was the New York World, which praised the message’s “homely and honest simplicity.” Its style appealed to the public’s preference for “vigorous, everyday common sense, quaint expression and shrewd mother wit” instead of “the pomp of artificial rhetoric.” The editors predicted that the message would “strengthen that confidence in Mr. Lincoln’s honesty and robust common sense, which causes the sturdy masses to feel that he is a man to lean against in a great emergency.”194 The Ohio State Journal liked the message’s “blunt directness—its clearness of statement, and unaffected every-day diction, which is familiar without being undignified.”195 Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper found it “remarkable for its directness and simplicity, for its grasp of the whole subject which now agitates the country, and for its ability in meeting the various subterfuges upon which the Secession leaders have based their action.”196
Not every reader regarded Lincoln’s prose favorably. English papers declared that the president “writes like a half-educated lawyer,” that he “thinks like a European sovereign,” and that his style was “[h]omely in language and somewhat apologetic in tone.”197
While the Illinois State Journal rejoiced to find “no ‘niggerism’ in it” (that is, no mention of slavery), Frederick Douglass regretted that omission. “Any one reading that document, with no previous knowledge of the United States, would never dream from any thing there written that we have a slaveholders war waged upon the Government,” Douglass complained.198 At the other end of the political spectrum, some Democrats objected that the “necessity of circumstances placed in extenuation of the President’s guilt, is precisely the same plea put in by tyrants, despots, and usurpers of every age of the world.”199 Kentucky Senator Lazarus Powell denied that there was any necessity for extraconstitutional action, arguing that there “never was a king, potentate, or sovereign, when he was assuming powers that did not belong to him for the purpose of crushing the liberties of his people, who did not do it under the plea of necessity.”200 Echoing this charge, an Ohio Democrat complained that Lincoln “makes himself a perfect monarch. I would see him d[amne]d before I would by my official vote legalize his unconstitutional acts.”201 Other Democrats protested against Lincoln’s statement that the government should lift “artificial weights” from the shoulders of all men, for that implied that the shackles of slaves ought to be struck off. The Southern press condemned the message as the work of an “old perjurer,” a “Usurper,” and a “vulgar savage who seems to be making desperate efforts to imitate the Neros and Caligulas of old.”202
Some friendly newspapers legitimately objected that “there is too much of the lawyer about it,” that “it is too much marked by its special pleadings,” and that excessive attention was devoted to Virginia’s actions and to the settled question of the constitutionality of secession.203
Congress in Session: Dealing with the Crisis
Missing from the new Congress that assembled on July 4 were members from the seceded states, with the notable exception of Tennessee Senator Andrew Johnson. Thus, the Republicans were able to dominate both chambers by substantial majorities (106–42 in the House, 31–14 in the senate). Their party was divided into Radicals, Moderates, and Conservatives, who in time would clash, but not at this special session. Congress agreed to deal with only military, financial, judicial, and naval matters and to postpone all other business till December. As Wisconsin Senator Timothy O. Howe put it, the “resolution seems to be universal to do nothing more than the special occasion demands & to do that speedily—to use few words & no palaver—to clothe the President with the utmost potentiality of this great people, and command him to see that the ‘Republic receives no detriment.’ ”204 Lyman Trumbull accurately predicted that “[m]en & money will be voted without stint.”205
Also missing was Stephen A. Douglas, who had died on June 3 at the age of 48 after heroically exerting himself to rally Northern Democrats in support of the war effort. His pro-Union speeches in Illinois and elsewhere taxed his waning strength and helped bring on his premature demise, which created a vacuum in the leadership ranks of the Northern Democracy. That gap would eventually be filled by less enthusiastic supporters of the Union cause like New York Governor Horatio Seymour, Senators James A. Bayard of Delaware and Jesse D. Bright of Indiana, former governor Thomas H. Seymour of Connecticut, and three Ohio congressmen: Clement L. Vallandigham, Alexander Long, and Samuel S. (“Sunset”) Cox. They and their allies made Lincoln’s job far more difficult than it would have been if Douglas had lived. In the emergency summer session, however, Democrats agreed not to act as obstructionists.
Congress obliged Lincoln by retroactively approving all his emergency measures except the suspension of habeas corpus. (The House and senate waited until March 1863 to ratify that controversial step. Some Republicans hesitated to vote for such a bill lest they imply that the president had no power to suspend habeas corpus without congressional authorization.) Among the seventy-six statutes the lawmakers passed before adjournment on August 6 were acts authorizing the enlistment of 500,000 volunteers for three years as well as the expansion of both the regular army and the navy; providing military leaders with larger staffs; enlarging the War Department; and empowering the Treasury Department to borrow $250 million, which would supplement the money raised by increased import duties and taxes ($20 million of direct levies on the states and territories and an income tax).
Some members shared the uneasiness expressed by James W. Grimes of Iowa, who told a fellow Republican senator that “we are about to encourage precedents that will be very dangerous to the rights of the States & to the liberties of the people.” Grimes called Lincoln’s decision to expand the regular army by ten regiments “the most extraordinary assumption of power than any President has attempted to exercise.” With trepidation he asked: “Where is this thing to stop?”206
In late July, Congress overwhelmingly approved John J. Crittenden’s resolution stating that the war “has been forced upon the country by the disunionists of the southern States” and was not being waged “in any spirit of oppression, or for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, or purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of those States.” The aim of the war was “to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution, and to preserve the Union with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several States unimpaired.” Although some interpreted the resolution as a declaration that slavery would not be affected by the war, in fact slavery was not mentioned in the text and no promise was made to safeguard all “established institutions.” Abolition might be a by-product of hostilities even if it was not a war aim. On August 4, in the presence of Crittenden, Lincoln assured Kentucky Congressman Robert Mallory that “this war, so far as I have anything to do with it, is carried on on the idea that there is a Union sentiment in those States, which, set free from the control now held over it by the presence of the Confederate or rebel power, will be sufficient to replace those States in the Union.”207
By a much narrower margin, Congress also passed a Confiscation Act, seizing property (including slaves) employed by Confederates in direct support of military operations. It did not fully liberate bondsmen, but did represent a step on the path to emancipation. Despite its limited nature, the law cheered some Radicals, including Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who said he was “satisfied that we are gravitating towards a bolder anti-slavery policy … The desideratum is to approach a policy of emancipation by stages so clear and irresistible as to retain for that end a united public sentiment.”208 Lincoln was less enthusiastic about the Confiscation Act. Believing that it might violate the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment provision t
hat “no person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval, forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger” as well as Article 3, Section 3 (“no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture, except during the life of the person attainted”), he hesitated to approve the legislation. Moreover, he believed it was premature and might be a mere empty threat that would alienate the Border States; he allegedly exclaimed that “it will lose us Kentucky!”209 Lincoln was reluctant, however, to veto the bill for fear it might imply that the Rebels could, with impunity, employ their slaves in a military capacity. Ultimately he signed the statute after prominent senators urgently lobbied him, but he did little to enforce it.
The lawmakers also established a pair of special investigating committees. One, under the chairmanship of Wisconsin Congressman John F. Potter, looked into disloyalty among government employees. Many Southerners had been appointed to office during the previous two administrations, and legitimate concerns were raised about their devotion to the Union. Unfortunately, Potter’s committee pursued its mission clumsily, violating due process in denouncing men who were fired as a result. Charges were often falsely made by those who hungered for the jobs held by the accused. When told that a prospective appointee sympathized with the Confederacy, Lincoln replied that if office seekers thought they could obtain the presidency itself, they would “before night prove [him] the vilest secessionist in the country.”210 One evening two callers warned him that a cabal of government employees planned to communicate with the nearby Confederate army. Asked what should be done, they replied that the suspects ought to be fired. “Ah, gentlemen,” Lincoln interrupted, “I see it is the same old, old coon; why could you not tell me at once you wanted an office, and save your own time as well as mine?”211
Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 2 Page 31
