Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 2

by Michael Burlingame

  But Lincoln changed his mind in July 1864, when Edward Atkinson, a textile manufacturer and philanthropist from Massachusetts, informed him “that although the Rebels sold less cotton they received about as much for it in consequence of high prices as when they had more of the article.” The president told his cabinet that he “thought it might be well to take measures to secure the cotton, but was opposed to letting the Rebels have gold.”169

  Two months later, the administration revised its trade policy to expedite cotton sales, making it a government monopoly. Treasury agents, not private merchants or brokers, would buy cotton, sell it on the open market, and use the gold they received to redeem greenbacks. The new regulations backfired, for they unintentionally made it easier for speculators to sell contraband to the South. When General Edward R. S. Canby complained about the policy’s effects, Lincoln explained the administration’s thinking: “By the external blockade, the price is made certainly six times as great as it was. And yet the enemy gets through at least one sixth part as much in a given period, say a year, as if there were no blockade, and receives as much for it, as he would for a full crop in time of peace. The effect in substance is, that we give him six ordinary crops, without the trouble of producing any but the first; and at the same time leave his fields and his laborers free to produce provisions. You know how this keeps up his armies at home, and procures supplies from abroad. For other reasons we cannot give up the blockade, and hence it becomes immensely important to us to get the cotton away from him. Better give him guns for it, than let him, as now, get both guns and ammunition for it. But even this only presents part of the public interest to get out cotton. Our finances are greatly involved in the matter. The way cotton goes now carries so much gold out of the country as to leave us paper currency only, and that so far depreciated, as that for every hard dollar’s worth of supplies we obtain, we contract to pay two and a half hard dollars hereafter. This is much to be regretted; and while I believe we can live through it at all events, it demands an earnest effort on the part of all to correct it. And if pecuniary greed can be made to aid us in such effort, let us be thankful that so much good can be got out of pecuniary greed.”170

  Despite Lincoln’s contention, the blockade was no boon to the Confederates, for its grip drove desperate enemy agents to try obtaining supplies from the North in exchange for cotton. In March 1865, when Congress passed a bill to clamp down on illicit trading, Lincoln pocket-vetoed it. An indignant John Murray Forbes wrote to the bill’s author, Edward Atkinson: “You can hardly imagine my disgust … at finding that old Abe had pocketed our Grand bill—I could have wrung his long neck! I suppose the cotton speculators around him were too many for him. It is sad to see the impression which this and other things give that whether he gets any thing out of it or not his course is influenced by those who do. The next best thing now is to try and get him to give an order that all cotton seized shall be certified to the owners leaving Congress to decide hereafter upon what should be done with the proceeds. As this course would help the cotton speculators and increase the quantity of cotton by encouraging holders to bring it in instead of burning it I should think he would do it if properly moved thereto.”171

  Lincoln’s handling of the cotton trade was one of the least creditable chapters in the history of his administration. In the spring of 1864, New York Senator E. D. Morgan was understandably disgusted because “there has been fraud enough in sending supplies in and bringing cotton out of Rebel States to destroy any administration at any other time.” (Morgan withheld public comment because there was so much congressional criticism of the administration that he did not wish to compound it.)172 Lincoln issued valuable trading permits to intimates like Leonard Swett, to friends and associates of Ward Hill Lamon, and to political allies with tarnished ethical credentials like Thurlow Weed. As Charles A. Dana observed, “Mr. Lincoln had a vast number of friends who were bent upon making money in various ways, and he was much more willing that they should have favorable opportunities of this sort, than I could have wished.”173 The president’s policy encouraged a spirit of get-rich-quick greed. More seriously, over the objections of Grant, Sherman, Canby, Welles, Bates, and others, he countenanced a system that prolonged the war needlessly. His reasons for doing so were partly political, rooted in a desire to placate Massachusetts cotton manufacturers as well as merchants and politicos in New York, a state he carried by a razor-thin margin in 1864.

  Pecuniary greed certainly motivated Singleton and his fellow speculators, who anticipated making enormous profits on the $7 million worth of cotton and tobacco he had contracted to buy in Richmond. At the White House on February 5, when he asked help in getting these goods through Union lines, Lincoln, according to Browning’s diary, “expressed himself pleased with what was done—said he wanted to get out all [cotton etc.] he could, and send in all the Green backs he could in exchange, and he would do for us [Singleton, Browning and their associates] all that he could.”174 Shortly thereafter, Lincoln wrote to Grant requesting that Singleton be permitted to bring “a large amount of Southern produce” through the lines. “For its bearing on our finances I would be glad for this to be done if it can be without injuriously disturbing your military operations, or supplying the enemy. I wish you to be judge and master on these points.”175 Grant balked, alleging that Singleton was carrying out “a deep laid plan for making millions” that might “sacrifice every interest of the country to succeed.”176 Lincoln promptly authorized the commanding general to cancel all trade permits within his department. When the Confederates set fire to Richmond as they abandoned it in early April, all of Singleton’s purchases were destroyed.

  As Forbes alleged, some cotton speculators did wield significant political influence with the administration. A conspicuous example was Simeon Draper, collector of customs in New York and a staunch ally of Weed and Seward. After playing a key role in carrying the Empire State for Lincoln in 1864, Draper wished to become the agent selling the huge supply of cotton that fell into Union hands when Sherman captured Savannah on December 22. Draper was given that lucrative commission after paying Mary Lincoln a $20,000 bribe, according to David Davis.177

  (In February 1864, it was reported that Draper had already received $50,000 from the administration in auction fees. In September 1864, Draper pleaded with Secretary of the Treasury Fessenden to be allowed to continue as the officer in the New York customhouse auctioning consignments of property seized in the South. Mary Lincoln was in touch with Draper, urging him to reinstate a Mr. Martin to a clerkship in the customhouse. Draper traveled to Savannah to oversee the auction of cotton there.)178

  Gideon Welles was “sickened” at “the idea of sending such a man [as Draper] on such a mission,” which he predicted “will be a swindle.” The navy secretary felt certain that a “ring will be formed for the purchase of the cotton, regardless of public or private rights.”179

  In addition to the money she received from Draper, Mrs. Lincoln also obtained funds from an influence-peddling scheme. In January 1865, she arranged to have the longtime doorkeeper of the White House, Edward McManus, replaced by one Cornelius O’Leary. Although McManus was regarded as “good and kind,” and was well liked by the president and his friends, he had evidently angered the First Lady by telling Thurlow Weed that she was romantically linked with a man other than the president. When petitioners sought to have friends or relatives released from prisoner-of-war camps, O’Leary said he could expedite the pardons if they paid him $50; otherwise they might have to wait a long time before gaining admission to the president’s office. O’Leary divided whatever he received with the First Lady. When a Democratic newspaper exposed this corrupt arrangement, Lincoln promptly fired O’Leary.180

  A Sacred Effort: The Second Inaugural

  On March 4, Lincoln’s desire for true sectional reconciliation shone through his inaugural address, the greatest of his oratorical masterpieces. Although the morning was dark and rainy, well before ten o’clock huge crowd
s lined Pennsylvania Avenue, hoping to catch a glimpse of the president. They were doomed to disappointment, for quite early he had gone to the Capitol to sign bills passed in the final hours of the Thirty-eighth Congress. The presidential carriage, however, did roll down the avenue, conveying Mary and Robert Lincoln as well as Iowa Senator James Harlan, whose daughter would marry Robert in 1868. As the carriage prepared to join the procession, some confusion arose about just where it was to fit in. After waiting twenty minutes, Mrs. Lincoln grew impatient. Finally, she asked if something might be done to clear a passage for her. When she received a positive response, she ordered it done, and her carriage horses galloped forward, causing marshals and their assistants to protest loudly that she was ruining their arrangements.

  Spectators filled the plaza in front of the Capitol’s east facade. Nicolay estimated that the turnout was twice as large as the one four years earlier. When the doors to the senate gallery were finally opened, women rushed in, taking all the seats. One of them described the chaos below: “The whole thing was confusion itself,” for no usher was there “to show the foreign ministers where to go,” and the senate floor was “so filled by people who did not belong there that the members of the house could not get in.”181 Gideon Welles called the scene “a jumble.”182 Though the senate was still in session, women in the galleries made so much noise with their chatter that the presiding officer tried unsuccessfully to shush them. They finally quieted down when admirals, generals, cabinet members, Supreme Court justices, and the president filed in and took their seats.

  At noon, the outgoing vice-president, Hannibal Hamlin, entered with his successor, Andrew Johnson. After the former delivered a brief valedictory, the latter embarrassed all present with a drunken harangue. The night before, Johnson and his friend John W. Forney had consumed several drinks, and the next morning, feeling unwell, the vice-president-elect took three glasses of whiskey straight. He had been recovering from a debilitating bout of typhoid; in his weakened state, the liquor was more than he could handle. Obviously intoxicated, he gave a twenty-minutes speech, taking far more than his allotted time. When Hamlin nudged him from behind and audibly reminded him that his time was up, Johnson paid no attention.

  The new vice-president’s words were difficult to hear over the chatter and giggling of women in the galleries. According to the journalists present, Johnson boasted “that he was a plebeian—he thanked God for it.” He reminded the senators and Supreme Court justices that they owed their exalted positions to the people. Turning to the cabinet, he added: “And I will say to you, Mr. Secretary Seward, and to you, Mr. Secretary Stanton, and to you, Mr. Secretary—” He could not remember Gideon Welles’s name and sotto voce asked a seatmate, “Who is Secretary of the Navy?” The whispered reply came, “Mr. Welles.” Johnson continued: “and to you, Mr. Secretary Welles, I would say, you all derive your power from the people.” Indirectly, he bragged about his accomplishments as military governor of Tennessee. Finally, he took the oath of office; then he grabbed the Bible he had been swearing on and melodramatically declared in a loud voice, “I kiss this Book in the face of my nation of the United States.” He carried out that promise histrionically. In reciting the long oath of allegiance, he interpolated such phrases as “I can say that with perfect propriety” and gave a five-minute discourse on the oath.183

  As he listened to Johnson’s incoherent tirade, the embarrassed president closed his eyes, lowered his head in despair, and appeared to withdraw into himself. Others were equally dismayed. Attorney General Speed whispered to Welles, “all this is in wretched bad taste” and said Johnson “is certainly deranged.” Welles in turn told Stanton, who seemed frozen in horror, that “Johnson is either drunk or crazy.”184 Postmaster General Dennison turned alternately red and white, and his secretary, who had received a cold chill as he listened to Johnson, called the speech “the most disgraceful exhibition I ever witnessed.”185 The face of Senator Henry Wilson was flushed, and his Massachusetts colleague Charles Sumner smiled sardonically. Senator Zachariah Chandler wrote his wife about Johnson’s “drunken foolish speech,” saying: “I was never so mortified in my life[;] had I been able to find a small hole I should have dropped through it out of sight.”186 Other agonized senators squirmed in their seats. The jaw of horrified Supreme Court Justice Samuel Nelson dropped until a disapproving glace from the chief justice induced him to close his mouth. The New York World deplored “the person who defiled our chief council-chamber … with the spewings of a drunken boor” and said that compared to Johnson, “even Caligula’s horse was respectable.”187

  As the scandalized spectators exited to listen to the inaugural address, Lincoln instructed a marshal: “Do not permit Johnson to speak a word during the exercises that are now to follow.”188 Afterward he allegedly palliated the vice-president’s behavior, saying that he “would not lose confidence in him for what he regarded [as] an unfortunate accident.”189

  (But while Lincoln was willing to make allowances for Johnson, he shunned him. At City Point a month later, when the vice-president and another politician came to visit him, Lincoln leaped up and frantically exclaimed: “Don’t let those men come into my presence. I won’t see either of them; send them away. … I won’t see them now, and never want to lay eyes on them. I don’t care what you do with them … but don’t let them come near me!” The agitated chief executive then sat back down with a forbidding look on his face. During that sojourn at City Point, Mary Lincoln heard him say: “For God’s sake don’t let Johnson dine with us.”)190

  As the presidential party emerged from the rotunda onto the platform erected for the occasion, many spectators followed, swarming over the stairs, the column bases, and every other vantage point. As Lincoln gazed out over the vast, surging throng, cheering broke out, bands blared away, and flags fluttered everywhere. When he stood to read his remarks, a thunderous outburst of applause greeted him. Just before he began speaking, the sun emerged from behind the clouds which had obscured it all morning. (Later Lincoln said that “he was just superstitious enough to consider it a happy omen.”191 Many in the crowd interpreted it similarly.)

  Lincoln’s central aim was to prepare the public mind for a generous Reconstruction policy. Rather than introducing a series of policy recommendations, he sought to exorcise feelings of vindictiveness and self-righteousness. He also wished to share his understanding of the nature of the war and the reasons for its long duration.

  His deep thinking on those questions led him to conclusions that he shared with the nation in his unusually brief address. He began by explaining why no lengthy account of recent events was necessary: “At this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention, and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.”

  Tersely he summarized the events culminating in war: “On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil-war. All dreaded it—all sought to avert it. While the inaugeral address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.”

  After this succinct description of how the war began, Lincoln explained why it occurred
. Slavery caused the war, he maintained: “One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration, which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other.”

  Stressing a theme which had long been at the core of his antislavery feeling, Lincoln said that it “may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged.”