Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 2

by Michael Burlingame

  The most eloquent black eulogy for Lincoln was delivered by Frederick Douglass before a large audience at Manhattan’s Cooper Union on June 1, 1865, a day of national humiliation marking the end of the official mourning period for Lincoln. “No people or class of people in the country,” he declared, “have a better reason for lamenting the death of Abraham Lincoln, and for desiring to honor and perpetuate his memory, than have the colored people.” The record of the martyred president, when compared “with the long line of his predecessors, many of whom were merely the facile and servile instruments of the slave power,” was impressive. Douglass acknowledged that Lincoln was “unsurpassed in his devotion to the welfare of the white race,” and that “he sometimes smote” blacks “and wounded them severely”; nevertheless he was also “in a sense hitherto without example, emphatically the black man’s President: the first to show any respect for their rights as men .… He was the first American President who … rose above the prejudice of his times, and country.” If during the early stages of the Civil War the president had favored colonizing the freedmen abroad, Douglass asserted, “Lincoln soon outgrew his colonization ideas and schemes and came to look upon the Black man as an American citizen.”

  To illustrate this point, Douglass cited his personal experience: “It was my exceeding great privilege to know Abraham Lincoln personally. I saw and conversed with him at different times during his administration.” Douglass found Lincoln’s willingness to receive him remarkable in itself: “He knew that he could do nothing which would call down upon him more fiercely the ribaldry of the vulgar than by showing any respect to a colored man.” (In a draft of this speech, Douglass said: “Some men there are who can face death and dangers, but have not the moral courage to contradict a prejudice or face ridicule. In daring to admit, nay in daring to invite a Negro to an audience at the White house, Mr. Lincoln did that which he knew would be offensive to the crowd and excite their ribaldry. It was saying to the country, I am President of the black people as well as the white, and I mean to respect their rights and feelings as men and as citizens.”)

  When Douglass was admitted to the president’s office, he found him easy to talk with: “He set me at perfect liberty to state where I differed from him as freely as where I agreed with him. From the first five minutes I seemed to myself to have been acquainted with [him] during all my life … [H]e was one of the very few white Americans who could converse with a negro without anything like condescension, and without in anywise reminding him of the unpopularity of his color.”

  Douglass recalled one episode in particular that demonstrated Lincoln’s “kindly disposition towards colored people.” While Douglass was talking with the president, a White House aide on two occasions announced that the governor of Connecticut sat in an adjacent room, eager for an interview. “Tell the Governor to wait,” said the president. “I want to have a long talk with my friend Douglass.” Their conversation continued for another hour. Douglass later speculated that “[t]his was probably the first time in the history of the country when the Governor of a State was required to wait for an interview, because the President of the United States was engaged in conversation with a negro.”

  Douglass did not rely solely on his own experience to explain why Lincoln should be considered “emphatically the black man’s President.” He told the Cooper Union audience about “[o]ne of the most touching scenes connected with the funeral of our lamented President,” which “occurred at the gate of the Presidential Mansion: A colored woman standing at the gate weeping, was asked the cause of her tears. ‘Oh! Sir,’ she said, ‘we have lost our Moses.’ ‘But,’ said the gentleman, ‘the Lord will send you another; That may be,’ said the weeping woman, ‘but Ah! we had him.’ ” (Dozens of funeral sermons likened Lincoln to Moses.

  This woman, according to Douglass, represented millions of blacks who “from first to last, and through all, whether through good or through evil report, fully believed in Abraham Lincoln.” Despite his initial tardiness in attacking slavery, Douglass said, they “firmly trusted in him” with a faith that constituted “no blind trust unsupported by reason.” Blacks had “early caught a glimpse of the man, and from the evidence of their senses, they believed in him. They viewed him not in the light of separate individual acts, but in the light of his mission, in his manifest relation to events and in the philosophy of his statesmanship. Viewing him thus they trusted him as men are seldom trusted. They did not care what forms of expression the President adopted, whether it were justice, expedience, or military necessity, so that they see slavery abolished and liberty established in the country.”

  Black people, Douglass maintained, could observe with their own eyes astounding progress: “Under Abraham Lincoln[’]s beneficent rule, they saw themselves being gradually lifted to the broad plain of equal manhood; under his rule, and by measures approved by him, they saw gradually fading the handwriting of ages which was against them. Under his rule, they saw millions of their brethren proclaimed free and invested with the right to defend their freedom. Under his rule, they saw the Confederate states … broken to pieces, overpowered, conquered, shattered to fragments, ground to powder, and swept from the face of existence. Under his rule, they saw the Independence of Hayti and Liberia recognized, and the whole colored race steadily rising into the friendly consideration of the American people. In their broad practical common sense, they took no captious exceptions to the unpleasant incidents of their transition from slavery to freedom. All they wanted to know was that those incidents were only transitional not permanent.”196

  Many of his contemporaries ranked Lincoln second only to Washington, but Rutherford B. Hayes disagreed, privately writing that “Lincoln is overshadowing Washington. Washington is formal, statue-like, a figure for exhibition.”197 That is indeed the reason Lincoln was more warmly remembered than Washington; people admired Washington, but they loved as well as admired Lincoln. The Rev. Mr. William James Potter told his Massachusetts parishioners that while the first president “was the father of our country,” Lincoln “was its savior. And in many respects he came nearer to the heart of the people than did even Washington.”198 In Wisconsin, Edward Searing, professor of Latin and French at Milton College, went even further, publicly declaring that Lincoln “was greater than Washington, as a man, and did a much greater work.” Washington’s “main work” was to win freedom for three million colonists, while Lincoln, as “an incident in his work,” freed four million slaves. “Washington’s work was great, Lincoln’s gigantic.” Moreover, Searing claimed, the sixteenth president outshone the first one intellectually: “I believe Lincoln to have been much superior to Washington—superior as a speaker, as a writer and as a clear-headed original thinker.”199 Another Midwestern academic, Richard Edwards, president of Illinois Normal University, reached a similar conclusion: “Lincoln the Liberator, contending for a grand, unselfish and beneficent idea, is greater in his opportunities and his position, than Washington the Patriot, fighting for the freedom of his native land.”200 A black Presbyterian minister concurred, stating that in “some things Abraham Lincoln is to be regarded as superior to Washington” and that if “the American people have reason to rejoice in the life and labors of a Washington, then the colored people of our country have a much greater reason to rejoice that Abraham Lincoln was permitted to occupy the executive chair.”201 Theodore Cuyler boldly predicted that within fifty years “the foremost name in American history will be the name that was signed to the Edict of Emancipation.”202

  Lincoln was so beloved that some preachers interpreted his assassination as God’s way of thwarting idolatry. A Philadelphia Baptist asked: “Was not President Lincoln’s death necessary to the nation’s life? Were we not leaning on an arm of flesh forgetful of the ever loving God?”203 Thomas M. Hopkins, a Presbyterian divine in Indiana, maintained that “God cannot tolerate idols. … This nation was on the point of worshipping Mr. Lincoln. … Ask these heavy hearts why this sadness? and they will reply … we l
oved our President and were lo[a]th to spare him. … We knew not how much we loved him until he was gone. This fact alone shows us that there was danger of his occupying too great a space in our hearts.” Hopkins added that to “the soldiers and their families he was a friend, a loving father.”204

  Indeed, the troops reverenced Lincoln profoundly and were enraged at the assassins. “We moved away slowly to our quarters, as if each had lost a near and dear friend at home,” a private reported. “I always thought that he was most loved by all the Army,” he added. “What a hold Old Honest Abe had on the hearts of the soldiers of the army could only be told by the way they showed their mourning for him.”205 A Wisconsin soldier thought “[n]o man, not even Grant himself, possesses the entire love of the army as did President Lincoln. We mourn him not only as a President but as a man, for we had learned to love him as one possessed of every manly principle.”206 From Fort Stevens in Washington, one trooper wrote that “[e]veryone here looks sad, and the men all feel terribly indignant .… I would pitty any of them [the assassins] who fall into the hands of the army. I would like to be a private executioner of any one of them. … Death to Traitors is now the unanimous cry, particularly in the army.”207 Black troops were especially saddened.

  In late 1862, soldiers had started referring to the president as “Father Abraham” and continued to do so for the remainder of his life, most notably during the 1864 election campaign. An Illinois corporal recalled that during “the last two years of the war especially, the men had come to regard Mr. Lincoln with sentiments of veneration and love. To them he really was ‘Father Abraham,’ with all that term implied.”208 A lieutenant in the U.S. Colored Troops told his wife, “I am getting to regard Old Abe almost as a Father—to almost venerate him—so earnestly do I believe in his earnestness, fidelity, honesty & Patriotism.” Another lieutenant wrote: “With us of the U.S. Colored Army the death of Lincoln is indeed the loss of a friend. From him we received our commission—and toward him we have even looked as toward a Father.”209 With heartfelt emotion the troops sang, “We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more.”

  Some members of Congress also felt the magnetic force of Lincoln’s paternal nature. A White House secretary noted that they “became bound to him by near ties of mutual understanding and respect. A sort of family feeling grew in the hearts of many, unconsciously regarding themselves as watching the control of the common household by a man who oddly combined the functions of a father and an elder brother.”210 One of the most important elements in Lincoln’s success as president was his ability to inspire in congressmen, senators, and their constituents filial trust and devotion. In part, it stemmed from the eloquence of his public utterances, which Harriet Beecher Stowe said “more resembled a father’s talks to his children than a State paper.” In the first inaugural address, his words to the South, in the view of a Republican congressman, contained “conciliatory promises” and “such winning arguments and admonitions only, as a tender father might employ with a wayward offspring.”211 Other literary figures echoed the theme. “So wise and good he was,” George William Curtis told his friend Charles Eliot Norton. “Never had a country a father so tender and true.”212 Even Lincoln’s harshest critics among the abolitionists paid their tribute. Parker Pillsbury called him as “[o]ur kind, gentle, noble hearted chief magistrate.”213

  Lincoln radiated the positive Old Man archetype, embodying the Wise Father. Many Northerners sensed this intuitively and trusted him. Without that trust, Northern morale might well have flagged, crippling the administration and the war effort. Few things contributed more to Lincoln’s success as president than his ability to inspire the kind of confidence that children accord a benevolent father.

  Lincoln’s Greatness

  Lincoln’s personality was the North’s secret weapon in the Civil War, the key variable that spelled the difference between victory and defeat. He was a model of psychological maturity, a fully individuated man who attained a level of consciousness unrivaled in the history of American public life. He managed to be strong-willed without being willful, righteous without being self-righteous, and moral without being moralistic. Most politicians, indeed, most people, are dominated by their own petty egos. They take things personally, try to dominate one another, waste time and energy on feuds and vendettas, project their unacceptable qualities onto others, displace anger and rage, and put the needs of their own clamorous egos above all other considerations. A dramatic exception to this pattern, Lincoln achieved a kind of balance and wholeness that led one psychologist to remark that he had more “psychological honesty” than anyone since Christ.214 If one considers Christ as a psychological paradigm, the analogy is apt. (In 1866, John Hay stated flatly that “Lincoln with all his foibles, is the greatest character since Christ.”)215

  Lincoln’s high degree of consciousness enabled him to suppress his own egotism while steadily focusing on the main goal: victory in the Civil War. As a friend observed, he “managed his politics upon a plan entirely different from any other man the country has ever produced. … In his conduct of the war he acted upon the theory that but one thing was necessary, and that was a united North. He had all shades of sentiments and opinions to deal with, and the consideration was always presented to his mind, How can I hold these discordant elements together?”216 In a less conscious man, envy, jealousy, self-righteousness, false pride, vanity, and the other shortcomings of ordinary humanity would have undermined his ability to maintain Northern unity and resolve.

  Strengthening that resolve was Lincoln’s exceptional eloquence. The public letters—to Horace Greeley, Erastus Corning, James C. Conkling, and Albert Hodges—as well as his formal addresses and state papers—including the speech at Gettysburg, the two inaugurals, and the messages to Congress—inspired profound respect, confidence, and trust. So, too, did his character and personality, which made him loved as well as respected and trusted. Few leaders in American history combined those qualities as well as Lincoln.

  Lincoln’s greatness was widely acknowledged even before his death, and after it, his fame grew dramatically, spreading around the globe. In Switzerland, a leading historian of the Reformation predicted two weeks after the assassination that the “name of President Lincoln will remain one of the greatest that history has to inscribe on its annals.”217 In England, Professor Goldwin Smith declared that Lincoln would “live in the love of the nation and of mankind forever.”218 Leo Tolstoy’s tribute, given during an interview in 1909, provides moving testimony to the universality of Lincoln’s fame. The Russian novelist admired Lincoln’s “peculiar moral power” and “the greatness of his character.” Lincoln, he said, “was what Beethoven was in music, Dante in poetry, Raphael in painting, and Christ in the philosophy of life.” No political leader matched Lincoln, in Tolstoy’s judgment: “Of all the great national heroes and statesmen of history Lincoln is the only real giant. Alexander, Frederick the Great, Caesar, Napoleon, Gladstone and even Washington stand in greatness of character, in depth of feeling and in a certain moral power far behind Lincoln. Lincoln was a man of whom a nation has a right to be proud; he was a Christ in miniature, a saint of humanity, whose name will live thousands of years in the legends of future generations. We are still too near to his greatness, and so can hardly appreciate his divine power; but after a few centuries more our posterity will find him considerably bigger than we do. His genius is still too strong and too powerful for the common understanding, just as the sun is too hot when its light beams directly on us.” Lincoln “lived and died a hero, and as a great character he will live as long as the world lives. May his life long bless humanity!”219

  Postlude

  Lincoln speaks to us not only as a champion of freedom, democracy, and national unity, but also as a source of inspiration. Few will achieve his world historical importance, but many can profit from his personal example, encouraged by the knowledge that despite a childhood of emotional malnutrition and grinding poverty, despite a lack of f
ormal education, despite a series of career failures, despite a miserable marriage, despite a tendency to depression, despite a painful midlife crisis, despite the early death of his mother and his siblings as well as of his sweetheart and two of his four children, he became a model of psychological maturity, moral clarity, and unimpeachable integrity. His presence and his leadership inspired his contemporaries; his life story can do the same for generations to come.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  It is customary for authors to conclude their acknowledgments with an expression of gratitude to their spouses. I would like to bend tradition by opening with a heartfelt tribute to my better-half-to-be, the lovely and long-suffering Lois Erickson McDonald, who for the past two decades has demonstrated Lincolnian forbearance in tolerating my absences on innumerable research trips and has shown even greater forbearance when I am back in Connecticut. Without her support and love, I could not have completed this biography.

  Those research binges were spent mostly in Washington, D.C., and Springfield, Illinois. In the nation’s capital, my sister and brother-in-law (Sue and Edwin Coover) repeatedly put me up for weeks at a time, going far and above the call of family duty to facilitate my scholarly endeavors. In the Illinois capital, Sarah Thomas, daughter of the distinguished Lincoln biographer Benjamin P. Thomas, kindly allowed me the use of her home for several summers. In addition, Richard Hart and his wife Ann extended gracious hospitality at their Springfield home on numerous occasions, and Jim and Mary Patton permitted me to housesit for them. Sandy and Wayne C. Temple could not have been more kind to me during my sojourns in Springfield. While in Chicago, I had the pleasure of staying with my Andover classmate, attorney Wally Winter, historian manqué and good friend. In Boston, my daughter Jessica often put me up at her apartment, and my Manhattan-based brother Lloyd did the same for me again and again. Other hospitable hosts include William Lee Miller in Charlottesville, Virginia; Brett McMillan and Megan McDonald in Portland, Maine; Robert Bray in Bloomington, Illinois; and Charles Hubbard in Harrogate, Tennessee. To all, my heartiest thanks for making road trips thoroughly enjoyable as well as productive. I could not have afforded to conduct the research undergirding this book without their generosity.