Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 1

by Michael Burlingame

  In addition to his appealing biography, Lincoln’s reputation as “Honest Abe” helped his cause immeasurably. Corruption in the Pierce and Buchanan administrations, as well as in state and local governments throughout the 1850s, had scandalized the nation. Many voters shared Indiana Congressman David Kilgore’s desire “to see this God forsaken Hell deserving set of corrupt politicians turned out of office, and honest men put in their places.”392 The Missouri Democrat was sure that “the deep and just hatred of the corrupt and reckless National Democracy” would carry Lincoln to victory and stay “the waves of the deluge of corruption.”393 On election eve the New York World remarked that thousands “of intelligent men support the candidates of the republican party, not that they care a broken tobacco-pipe for the negro question, but because they see no other way to honest management at Washington.… If Mr. Lincoln’s administration shall prove honest, economical and tranquillizing, they will be quite satisfied, though he should never once allude to free soil in any of his annual messages.”394 Similarly, the Springfield, Massachusetts, Republican noted that Democrats “cannot deny the demoralization that has come over the democratic party by its long lease of power, or the gross corruptions that have disgraced the recent administrations of the general government, and they think it will be a good thing to put the cormorants who have so long hung around the federal offices on a low diet for four years at least.”395 Joseph Medill asserted that “[w]e got Lincoln nominated on the idea of his honesty, and elected him by endorsing him as honest Abe.”396 Joshua R. Giddings, when asked by friends for his opinion of the candidate, said simply: “Lincoln is an honest man.” Giddings clearly admired Lincoln’s antislavery principles, but he chose to emphasize his integrity above his opposition to slavery, evidently thinking that it was a more salient consideration for voters.397 The New York Courier and Enquirer, the Philadelphia North American and United States Gazette, and the New York Times all agreed that the corruption issue was the dominant one for many voters.

  After the election, a Republican congressman told Lincoln that nothing “did more to secure the enthusiasm and unanimity in your favor than the general impression and belief of the corruption of the present administration and the confident belief that your character and history afforded the best guarantee of a change for the better.”398 New York Congressman Francis E. Spinner asserted that “[l]arge numbers of true men, from all parties, joined our standard because of the corruptions of the national administration.”399 Republican Senator James W. Grimes of Iowa said that the Republican “triumph was achieved more because of Lincoln[’]s reputed honesty & the known corruptions of the Democrats” than because of “the negro question.”400 A leading Democrat, August Belmont, concurred: “The country at large had become disgusted with the misrule of Mr. Buchanan, and the corruption which disgraced his Administration. The Democratic party was made answerable for his misdeeds.” Belmont noted that the anti-corruption backlash “was particularly strong in the rural districts.”401 A prominent New York Democrat complained that “our rural people, like those of New England, are so thoroughly & generally anti-Slavery that they will support Lincoln in an almost compact mass—& so they would do if they knew disunion would be the result.”402 (Democrats did well in urban areas. Though receiving 55% of all votes in the North, Lincoln won a majority in only four of its eleven cities with a population of 50,000 or more.) A New Englander assured John J. Crittenden that “[m]ultitudes of us voted the republican ticket because we wanted honesty to displace corruption.”403 A case in point was the economist David A. Wells, who said: “I voted for Mr. Lincoln, not because I hated slavery, or thought it a sin, or wished in any way to do my neighbor a wrong,—but because I was disgusted with the present Administration, & wished for a change.”404

  Lincoln himself interpreted his election as a rebuke to corruptionists. During an interview in June, he “spoke with great freedom of corruption in high places. He regarded it as the bane of our American politics; and said he could not respect, either as a man or a politician, one who bribed or was bribed.” The New York journalist to whom he said this remarked, “I wish the thousands of people in my own State who loathe corrupt practices could have heard and seen Mr. Lincoln’s indignant denunciation of venality in high places. I can now understand how the epithet of ‘Honest Abraham Lincoln’ has come to be so universally applied to him by the Great West.”405

  Essential to Lincoln’s victory were the Fillmore supporters of 1856, especially in Pennsylvania, New York, and the Midwest. Bell won only 78,000 Northern votes, whereas Fillmore had received 395,000 four years earlier. The Fillmoreites, who had shied away from the Republicans in 1856 because of the party’s radicalism on slavery and race, regarded Lincoln’s antislavery views as acceptably moderate. They also favored protectionism and other economic measures endorsed by the Chicago Convention, and they appreciated the Republicans’ willingness to enact nativist legislation in several states and to share patronage plums with Know-Nothings. In addition, they hated corruption, not just among immigrants, but also among the cynical native politicians who manipulated the immigrant vote. Moreover, the Know-Nothings did not want to waste their votes on Bell, who had no chance of winning, nor did they want to throw the election into the House. Know-Nothings like Richard W. Thompson feared that if the election were to be settled in Congress, Democrat Joseph Lane (Breckinridge’s running mate and widely regarded as a disunionist) seemed likely to win the presidency. Some nativists voted Republican simply because they would do anything to defeat the hated Democrats. This exasperated a leading ex-Whig, Washington Hunt, who complained that in New York “a portion of the old Whigs, who are still inclined to be national, could not be induced to cooperate heartily with the democrats. They could not be made to realize the full danger to the country from a sectional election.”406 Anti-Catholic bigots feared that Douglas’s Catholic wife might persuade him to become a tool of the Pope. These were voters whom Seward probably could not have won. Many delegates at the Chicago Convention regarded the Sage of Auburn as unelectable; the returns suggested that they were right.

  The outcome of the election pleased some Radicals, including Frederick Douglass, who exulted: “For fifty years the country has taken the law from the lips of an exacting, haughty and imperious slave oligarchy.… Lincoln’s election has vitiated their authority, and broken their power” and “has demonstrated the possibility of electing, if not an Abolitionist, as least [a man with] an anti-slavery reputation to the Presidency.”407 Salmon P. Chase acknowledged that Lincoln “may not be so radical as some would wish” but predicted that he “will never surrender our principles.”408 Wendell Phillips was less charitable, charging that the president-elect was “hardly an anti-slavery man” and that he “believes a negro may walk where he wishes, eat what he earns, read what he can, and associate with any other who is exactly the same shade of black he is. That is all he can grant.”409 Responding to such criticism, the Springfield, Massachusetts, Republican dismissed Phillips as a crank and “a political Ishmaelite whose hand is against every man.”410

  At the opposite end of the political spectrum, Southern fire-eaters prepared to carry out their secession threats. Well before the election, South Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi had provided that in case of a Republican victory, they would hold conventions to determine their response. On November 10, the Palmetto State Legislature unanimously authorized a secession convention to be elected three weeks later. Georgia and the five Gulf States rapidly followed suit. When the New York Herald predicted that “Lincoln’s troubles will begin on the first day after his election,” for the “selection of his cabinet will sow the bitterest discord among his supporters,” it was only partially correct.411 Lincoln faced the daunting challenge of uniting not only his young party but also the nation; and yet he would be unable to exercise power for four long, frustrating months, during which seven Slave States pulled out of the Union and others seemed likely to join them.

  It is no wonder that Lincoln
remarked upon learning of his triumph, “I feel a great responsibility. God help me, God help me.”412 The weight of that new responsibility kept him awake that night. He told a friend that though “much fatigued and exhausted he got but little rest.” The next morning, he “rose early, oppressed with the overwhelming responsibility that was upon him and which he had not before fully realized.”413

  17

  “I Will Suffer Death Before I Will Consent

  to Any Concession or Compromise”

  President-elect in Springfield

  (1860–1861)

  During the four months separating his election from his inauguration, Lincoln faced the daunting challenge of Southern secession. Although he would not officially take office until March 1861, his party looked to him for guidance. Like most Republicans, he was startled when the Cotton States made good their supposedly idle threats to withdraw from the Union. Should they be allowed to go in peace? Should they be forcibly resisted? Should they be conciliated or appeased? What compromise measures might preserve national unity without sacrificing the party’s principles?

  Radicals like Michigan Senator Zachariah Chandler believed all would be well if only Lincoln would “ ‘Stand like an Anvil when the sparks fall thick & fast, a fiery shower,’ ” but some Republicans feared that he would not do so.1 (Chandler was quoting, somewhat inaccurately, a poem by George Washington Doane.) A few days after the election, Charles Francis Adams viewed Southern threats to secede as a means “to frighten Mr Lincoln at the outset, and to compel him to declare himself in opposition to the principles of the party that has elected him.” Adams confessed that he awaited the president-elect’s reaction “with some misgivings,” for “the swarms that surround Mr Lincoln are by no means the best.”2

  Adams need not have worried, for Lincoln sided with the “stiff-backed” Republicans in rejecting any concession of basic principle, just as he had rebuffed those Eastern Republicans who two years earlier had supported the reelection of Douglas. Secession would not be tolerated, nor would slavery be allowed to expand into the territories. “By no act or complicity of mine, shall the Republican party become a mere sucked egg, all shell & no principle in it,” he told a visitor in January 1861.3 If it meant war, then so be it. He remarked to an Illinois Republican leader, “we have got plenty of corn & pork and it wouldn’t be exactly brave for us to leave this question to be settled by posterity.”4

  To Thomas Hutchinson, who informed Lincoln that he and his fellow Kentuckians would support the secessionists if coercion were employed against them, the president-elect emphatically replied: “If Kentucky means to say that if the federal government undertakes to recapture the southern forts and collect the revenue and war ensues, she will unite with the South, let her prepare for war.”5 Thus, it was no surprise that Lincoln’s friends and allies like Horace White considered him “quite belligerent.”6 Herndon called his law partner “Jackson redivivus” and assured Wendell Phillips that “Lincoln has a superior will—good common sense, and moral, as well as physical courage.” The president-elect would “make a grave yard of the South, if rebellion or treason lifts its head: he will execute the laws, as against Treason & Rebellion.” His Republican convictions were as “as firm … as the rocks [sic] of Gibraltar.” To be sure, on “questions of economy—policy—calculation—… & dollars you can rule him; but on the questions of Justice—Right—Liberty he rules himself.”7 Lincoln repeatedly told Herndon “that rather than back down—rather than concede to traitors, his soul might go back to God from the wings of the Capitol.”8

  Lincoln’s firmness was rooted in a profound self-respect that forbade knuckling under to what he perceived as extortionate bullying. He insisted that “he did not wish to pay for being inaugurated.”9 In addition, his hatred of slavery and his unwillingness to abandon the principle of majority rule made him reluctant to appease disunionists. Moreover, if secession were tolerated, the nation and the idea for which it stood—that ordinary people should have a significant voice in their governance and be allowed to advance socially and economically as far as their talent, virtue, industry, and ability allowed—would be discredited. Practical political considerations also influenced his thinking, for he could ill afford to alienate the many Republicans opposed to any abandonment of the party’s platform.

  Answering Mail and Receiving Visitors

  Immediately after the election, Lincoln was inundated with mail. His assistant personal secretary, John Hay, reported that Lincoln “reads letters constantly—at home—in the street—among his friends. I believe he is strongly tempted in church.”10 The sculptor Thomas D. Jones, who executed a bust of Lincoln in Springfield that winter, told a friend that the president-elect “generally opened about seventy letters every morning in my [hotel] room. He read all the short ones—laid all of the long ones aside. One morning he opened a letter of ten or twelve pages folio—he immediately returned it into the envelope—saying—‘That man ought to be sent to the Penitentiary, or lunatic assylum.’ ”11 Henry Villard, stationed in Springfield by the New York Herald and the Cincinnati Commercial to cover the president-elect, observed that “Lincoln’s correspondence would offer a most abundant source of knowledge to the student of human nature.” The mail, which “emanates from representatives of all grades of society,” included “grave effusions of statesmen,” poetic tributes, “disinterested advice of patriots,” “able editorials” clipped from innumerable journals, “wretched wood-cut representations of his surroundings,” volumes from “speculative booksellers,” inventors’ circulars and samples, “well calculated, wheedling praises” from “the expectant politician,” “[e]xuberant wide awake enthusiasm,” as well as “the meaningless commonplaces of scribblers from mere curiosity.” Nicolay often called his boss’s attention to “[f]emale forwardness and inquisitiveness.” More ominously, letters arrived from impulsive Southerners containing “senseless fulminations, and, in a few instances, disgraceful threats and indecent drawings.”12

  Indecent language also appeared in some missives, including one from A. G. Frick: “if you don’t Resign we are going to put a spider in your dumpling and play the Devil with you you god or mighty god dam sundde of a bit[c]h go to hell and kiss my Ass suck my prick and call my Bolics your uncle Dick goddam a fool and goddam Abe Lincoln who would like you goddam you excuse me for using such hard words with you but you need it you are nothing but a goddam Black nigger.”13 Many others urged Lincoln to resign. An anonymous correspondent, signing himself “Hand of God against you,” cursed Lincoln: “May the hand of the devil strike you down before long—You are destroying the country. Damn you—every breath you take.”14 (From South Carolina, Mrs. Lincoln received a picture of her husband with a rope about his neck, his feet in manacles, and his back coated with tar and feathers.) Such threats did not bother Lincoln. To suggestions that he resign, he replied that “it will do no good to put him out of the way” for vice-president-elect Hannibal Hamlin “has plenty of backbone” and “plenty of Pluck.”15

  To carve out time to answer his more polite letters as well as to formulate a Southern policy, to consider cabinet appointments, and to compose his inaugural address, Lincoln restricted public visits to two hours in the morning and two and a half in the afternoon. (He usually arose before dawn, breakfasted around 7 A.M., arrived at the office by 8, and read mail and held private interviews till 10.) A typical reception began with the crowd making its way up the stairs of the statehouse to the governor’s room, which continued to be available to Lincoln throughout November and December. (Thereafter he used a room in the nearby Johnson’s Building.) Upon reaching their destination, callers were greeted by the president-elect, who shook hands with the leader of the delegation and heartily announced, “Get in, all of you.” Fewer than twenty could comfortably be accommodated. After informal introductions, he genially launched a conversation. Villard reported that in “this respect he displays more than ordinary talent and practice. Although he is naturally more listened than talk
ed to, he does not allow a pause to become protracted. He is never at a loss as to subjects that please the different classes of visitors, and there is a certain quaintness and originality about all he has to say, so that one cannot help feeling interested. His ‘talk’ is not brilliant. His phrases are not ceremoniously set, but pervaded by a humorousness, and, at times, a grotesque joviality, that will always please. I think it would be hard to find one who tells better jokes, enjoys them better and laughs oftener, than Abraham Lincoln.” Some of the jokes, Villard informed his readers, “are rather crude, both as to form and substance. But they are regularly to the point, and hence never come short of effect.”16 (In his memoirs, Villard offered a less favorable assessment of Lincoln’s humor: “I could not take a real personal liking to the man” because of his vulgar taste: “the coarser the joke, the lower the anecdote, and the more risky the story, the more he enjoyed them.”)17