Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 2

by Michael Burlingame

  Despite the criticism, Lincoln thought that his involvement in the bungled affair was worthwhile. At least, he said, it “will shut up Greeley, and satisfy the people who are clamoring for peace.”156 When some of those clamorers objected to making abolition a precondition for peace, he said: “there has never been a time since the war began when I was not willing to stop it if I could do so and preserve the Union, and earlier in the war I would have omitted some of the conditions of my note to the rebel Commissioners, but I had become satisfied that no lasting peace could be built up between the States in some of which there were free and in others slave institutions, and, therefore, I made the recognition of the abolition of slavery a sine qua non.”157

  In early August, Lincoln solemnly assured George M. Gill, a member of the Baltimore City Council who had four sons in the army, “that he would never consent to an armistice, or to peace, on any other terms but the explicit abolition of slavery in all the Southern States; that he was satisfied that if any other candidate except himself should be elected, that the result of such an election would be an immediate armistice, which would be followed by peace; that he considered peace, without the abolition of slavery, to be a great deal worse calamity than a separation of the South from the North would be; that, in plain terms, he preferred such a separation to a peace which would leave the South in the enjoyment of that institution, and that therefore he felt it to be his duty to oppose, by all means in his power, the election of any other candidate, and that he intended to do so.” He added “that he was determined to prosecute the war with all the means at his command till the rebels were conquered or exterminated, even if it took four years more.”158

  Lincoln’s moral sense dictated this bold insistence on emancipation as a basis for peace. If he had been motivated by political expediency alone, he could simply have avoided mentioning the slavery issue; he knew that the Confederates would reject any peace terms denying them independence.

  While Greeley went about his abortive mission to Canada, another peace effort was being undertaken in Richmond. It was the brainchild of Colonel James F. Jacquess, a Methodist minister commanding the 73rd Illinois regiment. In 1863, he had obtained from General Rosecrans a furlough, which Lincoln approved, in order to consult with Jefferson Davis. When the Confederate president learned that Jacquess had no authority to speak for the administration, he refused to see him. (Lincoln approved a similar mission in the fall of 1863, undertaken by his chiropodist and troubleshooter, Issacher Zacharie, who did meet with Confederate cabinet members. The details of this venture are murky, and nothing came of it.)

  Though Jacquess’s sojourn in the Confederacy proved futile, the colonel managed to win the sympathy of a journalist, James R. Gilmore, who wrote under the pen name Edmund Kirke. A year later, when those two men requested official permission to repeat the experiment, Lincoln granted them a pass but no official sanction to negotiate on his behalf. They met with Davis, who insisted that the only terms acceptable must include complete independence for the Confederacy. (Here Davis blundered, for if he had hinted that a negotiated settlement might be possible, he could have jeopardized Lincoln’s reelection chances.) When Gilmore reported this conversation to Lincoln, the president saw at once that it would help nullify criticism of his handling of the Greeley mission. He told Gilmore that “it is important that Davis’s position should be known at once. It will show the country that I didn’t fight shy of Greeley’s Niagara business without a reason .… This may be worth as much to us as half a dozen battles.” Charles Sumner, who was present at the interview, suggested that Gilmore write a brief account of his mission for a Boston paper and a fuller account for the Atlantic Monthly. Lincoln concurred, and on July 22 the Boston Transcript carried Gilmore’s report, which closely resembled the one prepared by Judah P. Benjamin, the Confederate secretary of state. The Atlantic Monthly ran a longer version in September. Both items were widely copied in the Northern press. “We can negotiate only with the bayonet,” Gilmore assured his readers. “We can have peace only by putting forth all our strength, crushing the Southern armies, and overthrowing the Southern Government.”159

  On July 25, Lincoln wrote a letter to Abram Wakeman intended for the eyes of James Gordon Bennett, whose New York Herald proclaimed that the Niagara Manifesto doomed the president’s reelection chances. Though Lincoln believed that it was “important to humor the Herald,” he would not have the editor as a guest at the White House, evidently sharing John Hay’s view that Bennett was “too pitchy to touch.”160 (When it was suggested that Bennett be invited to the Executive Mansion, the president hesitated, saying: “I understand Mr. Bennett has made a great deal of money, some say not very properly; now he wants me to make him respectable.” Since Lincoln had never invited William Cullen Bryant or Horace Greeley, he refused to extend Bennett a special invitation. If, however, the editor wished to call at the White House, the president let it be known that he would be received.)161 But as the political skies darkened that summer, Lincoln grew more willing to accommodate Bennett. In his letter to Wakeman, the president contended that Jefferson Davis had made no bona fide peace feelers: “The men of the South, recently (and perhaps still) at Niagara Falls, tell us distinctly that they are in the confidential employment of the rebellion; and they tell us as distinctly that they are not empowered to offer terms of peace. Does any one doubt that what they are empowered to do, is to assist in selecting and arranging a candidate and a platform for the Chicago convention [of the national Democratic Party]? Who could have given them this confidential employment but he who only a week since declared to Jaquess and Gilmore that he had no terms of peace but the independence of the South—the dissolution of the Union? Thus the present presidential contest will almost certainly be no other than a contest between a Union and a Disunion candidate, disunion certainly following the success of the latter.” In closing, Lincoln hinted that Bennett might be rewarded if he supported the Republican ticket: “The issue is a mighty one for all people and all time; and whoever aids the right, will be appreciated and remembered.”162 Wakeman read this letter to Bennett, who said after a few moments’ reflection, “it did not amount to much.” The editor clearly wanted a more specific pledge of a quid pro quo. To help close a deal between the president and the Herald, Wakeman suggested as intermediary William O. Bartlett, a well-known New York lawyer and journalist whom he called “a curious genius.”163

  Lincoln was eager to enlist the support of the cynical, egocentric Bennett, who had been trumpeting Grant while sneering at the president as an “imbecile joker,” the “head ghoul,” a “Political abolitionist failure,” and condemning his “nigger-worshipping policy.”164 Iowa Senator James Harlan believed “that Bennett’s support is so important especially considered as to its bearing on the soldier vote that it would pay to offer him a foreign mission for it.”165 Horace Greeley concurred, telling Bartlett that “if the President should see the way clear to tend to the Editor of the Herald some important diplomatic post in recognition of his services to the country in sustaining the Union at all hazards, but especially in upholding the Draft, I think a very good and extensive influence would thereby be exerted.”166 Also working behind the scenes was Mrs. Lincoln, who in August paid a call on Bennett’s wife in New York. The two women had been friendly, and this meeting helped facilitate the Herald’s change of editorial course.

  Bartlett shuttled back and forth between Bennett and Lincoln. On November 1, he told the president: “There are but few days now before the election. If Mr. Bennett is not certainly to have the offer of the French Mission, I want to know it now. It is important to me.” According to Bartlett’s report to the editor, Lincoln “concluded with the remarks that in regard to the understanding between him and me, about Mr. Bennett, he had been a ‘shut pan, to everybody’; and that he expected to do that thing (appoint you to France) as much as he expected to live. He repeated: ‘I expect to do it as certainly as I do to be reelected myself.’”167 This offer was somewha
t curious, for the incumbent minister to France, William L. Dayton, had no intention of resigning. (Lincoln may have been planning to replace him after the election.)

  During the final week of the campaign, Bennett toned down his criticism of Lincoln but did not endorse him, merely telling readers of the Herald that it made little difference how they voted. The editor believed that he could best help the president by simply not mentioning him in the Herald. In February 1865, Bennett was tendered the French post made vacant by the death of William Dayton two months earlier. Bennett turned it down, for he craved recognition and deference more than a diplomatic assignment. (When sounded out in the fall about his willingness to back the Republican ticket, the self-styled “Napoleon of the American Press” had asked: “Will I be a welcome visitor at the White House if I support Mr. Lincoln?”)168 Bennett was doubtless gratified that he had been offered a more prestigious post than any of his rivals like Horace Greeley, Henry J. Raymond, James Watson Webb, and William Cullen Bryant. When news of the bargain leaked out, Gideon Welles was disgusted at Lincoln’s willingness to give the French mission to “an editor without character for such an appointment, whose whims are often wickedly and atrociously leveled against the best men and the best causes, regardless of honor or right.”169

  Reaching the Nadir: The Blind Memorandum

  On August 23, the despairing Lincoln wrote one of his most curious documents, a memorandum revealing his belief that a Democratic victory was likely: “This morning, as for some days past, 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.”170 He folded and sealed this document and then, inexplicably, asked his cabinet to sign it without knowing its contents. It became known as the “blind memorandum.” Lincoln may have feared that its contents would be leaked to the press if the cabinet had been allowed to read it.

  Four days earlier, Lincoln had explained his pessimism to Commissioner of Indian Affairs William P. Dole and a pair of Wisconsin Republican leaders, Judge Joseph T. Mills and Alexander W. Randall. The president assured them that “there is no program intended by the democratic party but that will result in the dismemberment of the Union.” When they objected that George McClellan would probably be the Democratic nominee and that he was “in favor of crushing out the rebellion,” Lincoln replied that the “slightest acquaintance with arithmetic will prove to any man that the rebel armies cannot be destroyed with democratic strategy. It would sacrifice all the white men of the north to do it. There are now between 1 & 200 thousand black men now in the service of the Union. These men will be disbanded, returned to slavery & we will have to fight two nations instead of one. I have tried it. You cannot concilliate the South, when the mastery & control of millions of blacks makes them sure of ultimate success. You cannot concilliate the South, when you place yourself in such a position, that they see they can achieve their independence. The war democrat depends upon conciliation. He must confine himself to that policy entirely. If he fights at all in such a war as this he must economise life & use all the means which God & nature puts in his power. 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. We have to hold territory. Where are the war democrats to do it. The field was open to them to have enlisted & put down this rebellion by force of arms, by concilliation, long before the present policy was inaugurated. 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. The world shall know that I will keep my faith to friends & enemies, come what will. My enemies say I am now carrying on this war for the sole purpose of abolition. It is & will be carried on so long as I am President for the sole purpose of restoring the Union. But no human power can subdue this rebellion without using the Emancipation lever as I have done. Freedom has given us the control of 200,000 able bodied men, born & raised on southern soil. It will give us more yet. Just so much it has sub[t]racted from the strength of our enemies, & instead of alienating the south from us, there are evidences of a fraternal feeling growing up between our own & rebel soldiers. My enemies condemn my emancipation policy. Let them prove by the history of this war, that we can restore the Union without it.”171

  Several weeks later, Lincoln read the “blind memorandum” to the cabinet and explained its genesis. “[Y]ou will remember that this was written at a time (6 days before the Chicago nominating convention) when as yet we had no adversary, and seemed to have no friends,” he said. “I then solemnly resolved on the course of action indicated above. I resolved, in case of the election of General McClellan[,] being certain that he would be the Candidate, that I would see him and talk matters over with him. I would say, ’General, the election has demonstrated that you are stronger, have more influence with the American people than I. Now let us together, you with your influence and I with all the executive power of the Government, try to save the country. You raise as many troops as you possibly can for this final trial, and I will devote all my energies to assisting and finishing the war.”

  Seward remarked, “And the General would answer you ‘Yes, Yes’; and the next day when you saw him again & pressed these views upon him he would say, ‘Yes—yes’ & so on forever and would have done nothing at all.”

  “At least,” Lincoln replied, “I should have done my duty and have stood clear before my own conscience.”172

  John Brown’s Raid Redivivus: Lincoln Recruits Frederick Douglass

  Because Lincoln quite rightly feared that a Democratic victory would end the emancipation process, he wanted to gather as many slaves as possible beneath the tent of freedom. All who were within Union lines by March 4, 1865, would be liberated by the Emancipation Proclamation. In August, he told Colonel John Eaton, superintendent of freedmen in the Department of the Tennessee and the state of Arkansas, “that he wished the ‘grapevine telegraph’ ” which informed slaves about the progress of the war “could be utilized to call upon the Negroes of the interior peacefully to leave the plantations and seek the protection of our armies.” When Eaton mentioned Frederick Douglass’s recent criticism of administration policy, the president asked if Douglass might be persuaded to come to the White House for a discussion. Eaton, who knew Douglass well, facilitated the meeting.

  On August 19, Lincoln and Douglass met for the second time. Among other things, they discussed a recent letter the president had drafted but not sent to a War Democrat, Charles D. Robinson, who had written to Lincoln criticizing the Niagara Manifesto. In defending that document to Robinson, the president appeared to renege on its insistence that abolition was a prerequisite for peace. In a lawyerly quibble, he maintained that “it seems plain that saying re-union and abandonment of slavery would be considered, if offered, is not saying that nothing else or less would be considered, if offered.” He reminded Robinson that “no one, having control of the rebel armies, or, in fact, having any influence whatever in the rebellion, has offered, or intimated a willingness to, a restoration of the Union, in any event, or on any condition whatever. … If Jefferson Davis wishes, for himself, or for the benefit of his friends at the North, to know what I would do if he were to offer peace and re-union, saying nothing about slavery, let him try me.”

  In this draft of the letter to Robinson, Lincoln repeated the arguments he had made to his Wisconsin visitors that same day: “I am sure you would not desire me to say, or to leave an inference, that I am ready, whenever convenient, to join in re-enslaving those who shall have served us in consideration of our promise. As matter of morals, could such treachery by any possibility, escape the curses of Heaven, or of any good man? As matter of policy, to announce such a purpose, would ruin the Union cause itself. All recruiting of colo
red men would instantly cease, and all colored men now in our service, would instantly desert us. And rightfully too. Why should they give their lives for us, with full notice of our purpose to betray them?” The employment of black troops “is not a question of sentiment or taste, but one of physical force, which may be measured, and estimated as horsepower, and steam power, are measured and estimated. And by measurement, it is more than we can lose, and live. Nor can we, by discarding it, get a white force in place of it. There is a witness in every white man[’]s bosom that he would rather go to the war having the negro to help him, than to help the enemy against him.”173

  While Douglass heartily agreed with Lincoln’s arguments regarding the importance of black soldiers, he emphatically objected to the implicit backsliding on emancipation. He urged the president not to send the letter to Robinson, for 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. In answer to your Copperhead accusers, your friends can make the argument of your want of power, but you cannot wisely say a word on that point.”174 Taking that advice, Lincoln decided to leave the missive in his desk, unsigned and unsent. He may also have been influenced by Dole and Randall, who had criticized the letter.

  (Yet the gist of the Robinson letter leaked out when Henry J. Raymond, after conferring with Lincoln, wrote in the New York Times that the president “did say that he would receive and consider propositions for peace coming with proper authority, if they embraced the integrity of the Union and abandonment of slavery. But he did not say that he would not receive them unless they embraced both these conditions.” The editor of the Albany Evening Journal ran a similar report of a conversation with Lincoln. Democrats denounced the president’s evident waffling as “the dodge of a political trickster.”)175