CHAPTER VI

SUNDRIES

It has been pleasant to emerge from the dismal winter of 1862-63 into the sun-gleam of the Fourth of July of the latter year. But it is necessary to return for a while into that dusky gloom, for the career of a "war president" is by no means wholly a series of campaigns. Domestic politics, foreign relations, finance, make their several demands.

Concerning one of these topics, at least, there is little to be said. One day, in a period of financial stress, Mr. Chase expressed a wish to introduce to the President a delegation of bankers, who had come to Washington to discuss the existing condition with regard to money. "Money!" exclaimed Mr. Lincoln, "I don't know anything about 'money'! I never had enough of my own to fret me, and I have no opinion about it any way." Accordingly, throughout his administration he left the whole subject in the hands of the secretary of the treasury. The tariffs and internal revenue bills, the legal tender notes, the "five-twenties," the "ten-forties," and the "seven-thirties," all the loans, the national banking system, in short, all the financial schemes of the administration were adopted by Mr. Lincoln upon the recommendation of Mr. Chase, with little apparent study upon his own part. Satisfied of the ability of his secretary, he gave to all the Treasury measures his loyal support. In return, he expected the necessary funds to be forthcoming; for he had implicit confidence in the willingness of the people to pay the bills of the Union; and he expected the secretary to arrange methods by which they could do so with reasonable convenience. Mr. Chase was cast for the role of magician, familiar with those incantations which could keep the Treasury ever full. It was well thus, for in fact no word or incident in Mr. Lincoln's life indicates that he had any capacity whatsoever in financiering. To live within his income and pay his dues with a minute and careful punctuality made the limit of his dealings and his interest in money matters.

* * * * *

Foreign affairs, less technical, could not in like easy manner be committed to others, and in these Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward labored together. The blackest cloud was the Trent affair, yet after that had passed the sky by no means became clear. In the spring of 1862 the Oreto went out from Liverpool to become the rebel privateer Florida. Before her departure Mr. Adams complained concerning her to the English government, but was assured that the vessel was designed for the Sicilian fruit trade! As it is not diplomatic to say that gentlemen in office are telling lies, the American minister could push the matter no farther. The Florida, therefore, escaped, not to conduct commerce with Sicily, but to destroy the commerce of the United States. At the same time that she was fitting out, a mysterious craft, oddly known only as the "290," was also building in the Liverpool docks, and against her Mr. Adams got such evidence that the queen's ministers could not help deciding that she must be detained. Unfortunately, however, and by a strange, if not a significant chance, they reached this decision on the day after she had sailed! She became the notorious Alabama. Earl Russell admitted that the affair was "a scandal," but this did not interfere with the career of Captain Semmes. In these incidents there was both cause and provocation for war, and hot-headed ones cried out for it, while prudent men feared it. But the President and the secretary were under the bonds of necessity to keep their official temper. Just at this juncture England would have found it not only very easy, but also very congenial to her real sympathies, to play for the South a part like that which France had once played for certain thirteen revolted colonies, and thereby to change a rebellion into a revolution. So Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward, not willing to give the unfriendly power this opportunity, only wrote down in the national ledger sundry charges against Great Britain, which were afterward paid, not promptly, yet in full!

Another provoking thing was the placing of

Confederate loans in London. This could not be interfered with. The only comfort was that the blockaded South had much difficulty in laying hands upon the proceeds of the bonds which English friends of the Slave Empire were induced to buy. Yet time, always the faithful auxiliary of the North, took care of this matter also. When the news of Gettysburg and Vicksburg came, the investors, who had scarcely finished writing the cheques with which to pay their subscriptions, were obliged to face a drop of thirty per cent, in the market price of their new securities. For many years after the war was over British strong boxes wasted space in accommodating these absurd documents, while the idea of their worthlessness was slowly filtering through the minds of their owners.

Another thing, which did no harm at all, but was exceedingly vexatious, was the constant suggestion of European mediation. For a couple of years, at least, the air was full of this sort of talk. Once, in spite of abundant discouragement, the French emperor actually committed the folly of making the proposal. It came inopportunely on February 3, 1863, after the defeat of Fredericksburg, like a carrion bird after a battle. It was rejected very decisively, and if Napoleon III. appreciated Mr. Seward's dispatch, he became aware that he had shown gross lack of discernment. Yet he was not without some remarkable companions in this incapacity to understand that which he was observing, as if from aloft, with an air of superior wisdom. One would think that the condition of feeling in the United States which had induced Governor Hicks, in the early stage of the rebellion, to suggest a reference to Lord Lyons, as arbitrator, had long since gone by. But it had not; and it is the surprising truth that Horace Greeley had lately written to M. Mercier, the French minister at Washington, suggesting precisely the step which the emperor took; and there were other less conspicuous citizens who manifested a similar lack of spirit and intelligence.

All this, however, was really of no serious consequence. Talk about mediation coming from American citizens could do little actual injury, and from foreigners it could do none. If the foreigners had only been induced to offer it by reason of a friendly desire to help the country in its hour of stress, the rejection might even have been accompanied with sincere thanks. Unfortunately, however, it never came in this guise; but, on the contrary, it always involved the offensive assumption that the North could never restore the integrity of the Union by force. Northern failure was established in advance, and was the unconcealed, if not quite the avowed, basis of the whole transaction. Now though mere unfriendliness, not overstepping the requirements of international law, could inflict little substantial hurt, yet there was something very discouraging in the unanimity and positiveness with which all these experienced European statesmen assumed the success of the Confederacy as the absolutely sure outcome; and in this time of extreme trial to discourage was to injure. Furthermore, the undisguised pleasure with which this prospect was contemplated was sorely trying to men oppressed by the burdens of anxiety and trouble which rested on the President and his ministers. The man who had begun life as a frontiersman had need of much moral courage to sustain him in the face of the presagings, the condemnations, and the hostility of nearly all the sage and well-trained statesmen of Europe. In those days the United States had not yet fully thrown off a certain thralldom of awe before European opinion. Nevertheless, at whatever cost in the coin of self-reliance, the President and the secretary maintained the courage of their opinions, and never swerved or hesitated in the face of foreign antipathy or contempt. The treatment inflicted upon them was only so much added to the weight under which they had to stand up.

* * * * *

Rebellion and foreign ill-will, even Copperheadism, presented difficulties and opposition which were in a certain sense legitimate; but that loyal Republicans should sow the path of the administration thick with annoyances certainly did seem an unfair trial. Yet, on sundry occasions, some of which have been mentioned, these men did this thing, and they did it in the very uncompromising and exasperating manner which is the natural emanation from conscientious purpose and intense self-faith. An instance occurred in December, 1862. The blacker the prospect became, the more bitter waxed the extremists. Such is the fashion of fanatics, who are wont to grow more warm as their chances seem to grow more desperate; and some of the leaders of the anti-slavery wing of the Republican party were fanatics. These men by no means confined their hostility to the Democratic McClellan; but extended it to so old and tried a Republican as the secretary of state himself. It had already come to this, that the new party was composed of, if not split into, two sections of widely discordant views. The conservative body found its notions expressed in the cabinet by Seward; the radical body had a mouthpiece in Chase. The conservatives were not aggressive; but the radicals waged a genuine political warfare, and denounced Seward, not, indeed, with the vehemence which was considered to be appropriate against McClellan, yet very strenuously. Finally this hostility reached such a pass that, at a caucus of Republican senators, it was actually voted to demand the dismission of this long-tried and distinguished leader in the anti-slavery struggle. Later, in place of this blunt vote, a more polite equivalent was substituted, in the shape of a request for a reconstruction of the cabinet. Then a committee visited the President and pressed him to have done with the secretary, whom they thought lukewarm. Meanwhile, Seward had heard of what was going forward, and, in order to free Mr. Lincoln from embarrassment, he had already tendered his resignation before the committee arrived.

The crisis was serious. The recent elections indicated that even while, as now, the government represented all the sections of Republicanism, still the situation was none too good; but if it was to be controlled by the extremist wing of a discordant party, the chance that it could endure to the end the tremendous strain of civil war was reduced almost to hopelessness. The visitors who brought this unwelcome suggestion to the President received no immediate response or expression of opinion from him, but were invited to come again in the evening; they did so, and were then much surprised to meet all the members of the cabinet except Mr. Seward. An outspoken discussion ensued, in which Mr. Chase found his position embarrassing, if not equivocal. On the following morning, he, with other members of the cabinet, came again for further talk with the President; in his hand he held a written resignation of his office. He "tendered" it, yet "did not advance to deliver it," whereupon the President stepped forward and took it "with alacrity."[48]

Having now in his hands the resignations of the chiefs of the two principal factions of the party, the President had made the first step towards relieving the situation of dangerous one-sidedness. At once he took the next step by sending to each this note:--

December 20, 1862.

HON. WILLIAM H. SEWARD and HON. SALMON P. CHASE:

_Gentlemen_,--You have respectively tendered me your resignations as secretary of state and secretary of the treasury of the United States. I am apprised of the circumstances which render this course personally desirable to each of you; but, after most anxious consideration, my deliberate judgment is, that the public interest does not admit of it.

I therefore have to request that you will resume the duties of your departments respectively.

Your obedient servant,

A. LINCOLN.

The next morning Mr. Seward wrote briefly: "I have cheerfully resumed the functions of this department, in obedience to your command." Mr. Chase seemed to hesitate. On December 20, in the afternoon, he had written a letter, in which he had said that he thought it desirable that his resignation should be accepted. He gave as his reason that recent events had "too rudely jostled the unity" of the cabinet; and he intimated that, with both himself and Seward out of it, an improved condition might be reached. He had not, however, actually dispatched this, when the President's note reached him. He then, though feeling his convictions strengthened, decided to hold back the letter which he had prepared and "to sleep on" the matter. Having slept, he wrote, on the morning of December 22, a different letter, to the effect that, though reflection had not much, if at all, changed his original opinion as to the desirability of his resignation, yet he would conform to the judgment and wishes of the President. If Mr. Chase was less gracious than Mr. Seward in this business, it is to be remembered that he was very much more dissatisfied with the President's course than was Mr. Seward, who, indeed, for the most part was not dissatisfied at all.

Thus a dangerous crisis was escaped rather than overcome. For though after the relief given by this plain speaking the situation did not again become quite so strained as it had previously been, yet disagreement between men naturally prudent and men naturally extremist was inevitable. Nevertheless it was something that the two sections had encountered each other, and that neither had won control of the government. The President had restrained dissension within safe limits and had saved himself from the real or apparent domination of a faction. When it was all over, he said: "Now I can ride; I have got a pumpkin in each end of my bag." Later on he repeated: "I do not see how it could have been done better. I am sure it was right. If I had yielded to that storm and dismissed Seward, the thing would all have slumped over one way, and we should have been left with a scanty handful of supporters." Undoubtedly he had managed very skillfully a very difficult affair, but he ought never to have been compelled to arrange such quarrels in the camp of his own party.

* * * * *

Those counties of Virginia which lay west of the Alleghanies contained a population which was, by an overwhelming majority, strenuously loyal. There had long been more of antagonism than of friendship between them and the rest of the State, and now, as has been already mentioned, the secession of Virginia from the Union stimulated them, in turn, to secede from Virginia. In the summer of 1861 they took measures to form themselves into a separate State; and in April, 1862, they adopted a state Constitution by a vote of 18,862 yeas against 514 nays. A bill for the admission of "West Virginia" was passed by the Senate in July, and by the House in December, and was laid before the President for signature. There were nice questions of constitutional law about this, and some doubt also as to whether the move was altogether well advised. Mr. Lincoln asked the opinions of the cabinet as to whether he should sign the bill. Three said Yea, and three Nay; and it was noteworthy that the three who thought it expedient also thought it constitutional, and that the three who thought it inexpedient also thought it unconstitutional. Mr. Lincoln, not much assisted, then decided in the affirmative, and signed the bill December 31, 1862. A statement of the reasons[49] which led him to this decision concludes thus: "It is said that the admission of West Virginia is secession, and tolerated only because it is _our_ secession. Well, if we call it by that name, there is still difference enough between secession against the Constitution and secession in favor of the Constitution." Mr. Elaine says that the creation of this State was sustained by "legal fictions;" and Thaddeus Stevens declared that it was a measure entirely outside of any provision of the Constitution, yet said that he should vote for it in accordance with his general principle: that none of the States in rebellion were entitled to the protection of the Constitution. The Republicans themselves were divided in their views as to the lawfulness of the measure. However the law may have stood, it is evident to us, looking backward, that for practical purposes the wisdom of the President's judgment cannot be impugned. The measure was the amputation of so much territory from that which the Confederates, if they should succeed, could claim as their own; and it produced no inconvenience at all when, instead of succeeding, they failed.

* * * * *

Many causes conspired to induce an obstreperous outbreak of "Copperheadism" in the spring of 1863. The Democratic successes in the elections of the preceding autumn were in part a premonition of this, in part also a cause. Moreover, reaction was inevitable after the intense outburst of patriotic enthusiasm which had occurred during the earlier part of the war. But more than all this, Mr. Lincoln wrote, and every one knew, that, "if the war fails, the administration fails," and thus far the war had been a failure. So the grumblers, the malcontents, and the Southern sympathizers argued that the administration also, at least so far as it had gone, had been a failure; and they fondly conceived that their day of triumph was dawning.

That which was due, punctually arrived. There now came into prominence those secret societies which, under a shifting variety of names, continued to scheme and to menace until the near and visible end of the war effected their death by inanition. The Knights of the Golden Circle, The Order of American Knights, the Order of the Star, The Sons of Liberty, in turn enlisted recruits in an abundance which is now remembered with surprise and humiliation,--sensations felt perhaps most keenly by the sons of those who themselves belonged to the organizations. Mr. Seward well said: "These persons will be trying to forget, years hence, that they ever opposed this war." These societies gave expression to a terrible blunder, for Copperheadism was even more stupid than it was vicious. But the fact of their stupidity made them harmless. Their very names labeled them. Men who like to enroll themselves in Golden Circles and in Star galaxies seldom accomplish much in exacting, especially in dangerous, practical affairs. Mr. Lincoln took this sensible view of these associations. His secretaries, who doubtless speak from personal knowledge, say that his attitude "was one of good-humored contempt."

As a rule these "Knights" showed their valor in the way of mischief, plotting bold things, but never doing them. They encouraged soldiers to desert; occasionally they assassinated an enrolling officer; they maintained communications with the Confederates, to whom they gave information and occasionally also material aid; they were tireless in caucus work and wire-pulling; in Indiana, in 1863, they got sufficient control of the legislature to embarrass Governor Morton quite seriously; they talked much about establishing a Northwestern Confederacy; a few of them were perhaps willing to aid in those cowardly efforts at incendiarism in the great Northern cities, also in the poisoning of reservoirs, in the distribution of clothing infected with disease, and in other like villainies which were arranged by Confederate emissaries in Canada, and some of which were imperfectly carried out in New York and elsewhere; they also made great plans for an uprising and for the release of Confederate prisoners in Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana. But no actual outbreak ever occurred; for when they had come close to the danger line, these associates of mediaeval tastes and poetic appellatives always stopped short.

The President was often urged to take decisive measures against these devisers of ignoble treasons. Such men as Governor Morton and General Rosecrans strove to alarm him. But he said that the "conspiracy merited no special attention, being about an equal mixture of puerility and malice." He had perfect information as to all the doings and plottings, and as to the membership, of all the societies, and was able to measure accurately their real power of hurtfulness; he never could be induced to treat them with a severity which was abundantly deserved, but which might not have been politic and would certainly have added to the labor, the expense, and the complications of the government. "Nothing can make me believe," he once charitably said, "that one hundred thousand Indiana Democrats are disloyal!" His judgment was proved to be sound; for had many of these men been in grim earnest in their disloyalty, they would have achieved something. In fact these bodies were unquestionably composed of a small infusion of genuine traitors, combined with a vastly larger proportion of bombastic fellows who liked to talk, and foolish people who were tickled in their shallow fancy by the element of secrecy and the fineness of the titles.

The man whose name became unfortunately preeminent for disloyalty at this time was Clement L. Vallandigham, a Democrat, of Ohio. General Burnside was placed in command of the Department of the Ohio, March 25, 1863, and having for the moment no Confederates to deal with, he turned his attention to the Copperheads, whom he regarded with even greater animosity. His Order No. 38, issued on April 13, brought these hornets about his ears in impetuous fury; for, having made a long schedule of their favorite offenses, which he designed for the future severely to proscribe, he closed it by saying that "the habit of declaring sympathy for the enemy will not be allowed in this Department;" and he warned persons with treasonable tongues that, unless they should keep that little member in order, they might expect either to suffer death as traitors, or to be sent southward within the lines of "their friends." Now Mr. Vallandigham had been a member of Congress since 1856, and was at present a prominent candidate for any office which the Democrats of his State or of the United States might be able to fill; he was the popular and rising leader of the Copperhead wing of the Democracy. Such was his position that it would have been ignominious for him to allow any Union general to put a military gag in his mouth. Nor did he. On the contrary, he made speeches which at that time might well have made Unionists mad with rage, and which still seem to have gone far beyond the limit of disloyalty which any government could safely tolerate. Therefore on May 4 he was arrested by a company of soldiers, brought to Cincinnati, and thrown into jail. His friends gathered in anger, and a riot was narrowly avoided. At once, by order of General Burnside, he was tried by a military commission. He was charged with "publicly expressing sympathy for those in arms against the government of the United States, and declaring disloyal sentiments and opinions, with the object and purpose of weakening the power of the government in its efforts to suppress an unlawful rebellion." Specifications were drawn from a speech delivered by him on or about May 1. The evidence conclusively sustained the indictment, and the officers promptly pronounced him guilty, whereupon he was sentenced by Burnside to confinement in Fort Warren. An effort to obtain his release by a writ of habeas corpus was ineffectual.

The rapidity of these proceedings had taken every one by surprise. But the Democrats throughout the North, rapidly surveying the situation, seized the opportunity which perhaps had been too inconsiderately given them. The country rang with plausible outcries and high-sounding oratory concerning military usurpation, violation of the Constitution, and stifling freedom of speech. It was painfully obvious that this combination of rhetoric and argument troubled the minds of many well-affected persons. If the President had been consulted in the outset, it is thought by some that he would not have allowed matters to proceed so far. Soon afterward, in his reply to the New York Democrats, he said: "In my own discretion, I do not know whether I would have ordered the arrest of Mr. Vallandigham." On the other hand, Mr. Blaine states that Burnside "undoubtedly had confidential instructions in regard to the mode of dealing with the rising tide of disloyalty which, beginning in Ohio, was sweeping over the West."

In a very short time the violence of the fault-finding reached so excessive a measure that Burnside offered his resignation; but Mr. Lincoln declined to accept it, saying that, though all the cabinet regretted the necessity for the arrest, "some perhaps doubting there was a real necessity for it, yet, being done, all were for seeing you through with it." This seems to have been his own position. In fact it was clear that, whether what had been done was or was not a mistake, to undo it would be a greater mistake. Accordingly Mr. Lincoln only showed that he felt the pressure of the criticism and denunciation by commuting the sentence, and directing that Vallandigham should be released from confinement and sent within the Confederate lines,--which was, indeed, a very shrewd and clever move, and much better than the imprisonment. Accordingly the quasi rebel was tendered to and accepted by a Confederate picket, on May 25. He protested vehemently, declared his loyalty, and insisted that his character was that of a prisoner of war. But the Confederates, who had no objection whatsoever to his peculiar methods of demonstrating "loyalty" to their opponents, insisted upon treating him as a friend, the victim of an enemy common to themselves and him; and instead of exchanging him as a prisoner, they facilitated his passage through the blockade on his way to Canada. There he arrived in safety, and thence issued sundry manifestoes to the Democracy. On June 11 the Democratic Convention of Ohio nominated him as their candidate for governor, and it seems that for a while they really expected to elect him.

In the condition of feeling during the months in which these events were occurring, they undeniably subjected the government to a very severe strain. They furnished the Democrats with ammunition far better than any which they had yet found, and they certainly used it well. Since the earliest days of the war there had never been quite an end of the protestation against arbitrary military arrests and the suspension of the sacred writ of habeas corpus, and now the querulous outcry was revived with startling vehemence. Crowded meetings were held everywhere; popular orators terrified or enraged their audiences with pictures of the downfall of freedom, the jeopardy of every citizen; resolutions and votes without number expressed the alarm and anger of the great assemblages; learned lawyers lent their wisdom to corroborate the rhetoricians, and even some Republican newspapers joined the croaking procession of their Democratic rivals. Erelong the assaults appeared to be producing effects so serious and widespread that the President was obliged to enter into the controversy. On May 16 a monster meeting of "the Democrats of New York" was told by Governor Seymour that the question was: "whether this war is waged to put down rebellion at the South, or to destroy free institutions at the North." Excited by such instigation, the audience passed sundry damnatory resolutions and sent them to the President.

Upon receiving these, Mr. Lincoln felt that he must come down into the arena, without regard to official conventionality. On June 12 he replied by a full presentation of the case, from his point of view. He had once more to do the same thing in response to another address of like character which was sent to him on June 11 by the Democratic State Convention of Ohio. In both cases the documents prepared by the remonstrants were characterized, to more than the usual degree, by that dignified and _ore rotundo_ phraseology, that solemnity in the presentation of imposing generalities, which are wont to be so dear to committees charged with drafting resolutions. The replies of the President were in striking contrast to this rhetorical method alike in substance and in form; clear, concise, and close-knit, they were models of good work in political controversy, and like most of his writing they sorely tempt to liberal transcription, a temptation which must unfortunately be resisted, save for a few sentences. The opening paragraph in the earlier paper was cleverly put:--

"The resolutions are resolvable into two propositions,--first, the expression of a purpose to sustain the cause of the Union, to secure peace through victory, and to support the administration in every constitutional and lawful measure to suppress the rebellion; and, secondly, a declaration of censure upon the administration for supposed unconstitutional action, such as the making of military arrests. And, from the two propositions, a third is deduced, which is, that the gentlemen composing the meeting are resolved on doing their part to maintain our common government and country, despite the folly or wickedness, as they may conceive, of any administration. This position is eminently patriotic, and, as such, I thank the meeting, and congratulate the nation for it. My own purpose is the same, so that the meeting and myself have a common object, and can have no difference, except in the choice of means or measures for effecting that object."

Later on followed some famous sentences:--

"Mr. Vallandigham avows his hostility to the war on the part of the Union; and his arrest was made because he was laboring, with some effect, to prevent the raising of troops, to encourage desertion from the army, and to leave the rebellion without an adequate military force to suppress it. He was not arrested because he was damaging the political prospects of the administration or the personal interests of the commanding general, but because he was damaging the army, upon the existence and vigor of which the life of the Nation depends....

"I understand the meeting whose resolutions I am considering to be in favor of suppressing the rebellion by military force, by armies. Long experience has shown that armies cannot be maintained unless desertion shall be punished by the severe penalty of death.

"The case requires, and the law and the Constitution sanction, this punishment. Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wily agitator who induces him to desert? This is none the less injurious when effected by getting a father, or brother, or friend, into a public meeting, and there working upon his feelings until he is persuaded to write the soldier boy that he is fighting in a bad cause, for a wicked administration of a contemptible government, too weak to arrest and punish him if he shall desert. I think that, in such a case, to silence the agitator, and save the boy, is not only constitutional, but withal a great mercy."

The Ohio Democrats found themselves confronted with this:--

"Your nominee for governor ... is known to you and to the world to declare against the use of an army to suppress the rebellion. Your own attitude therefore encourages desertion, resistance to the draft, and the like, because it teaches those who incline to desert and to escape the draft to believe it is your purpose to protect them, and to hope that you will become strong enough to do so."

The arguments of the President called out retort rather than reply, for in fact they really could not be answered, and they were too accurately put to be twisted by sophistry; that they reached the minds of the people was soon made evident. The Democratic managers had made a fatal blunder in arraying the party in a position of extreme hostility to the war. Though there were at the North hosts of grumblers who were maliciously pleased at all embarrassments of the administration, and who were willing to make the prosecution of the war very difficult, there were not hosts who were ready to push difficulty to the point of impossibility. On the other hand the fight was made very shrewdly by the Union men of Ohio, who nominated John Brough, a "war Democrat," as their candidate. Then the scales fell from the eyes of the people; they saw that in real fact votes for Brough or for Vallandigham were, respectively, votes for or against the Union. The campaign became a direct trial of strength on this point. Freedom of speech, habeas corpus, and the kindred incidents of the Vallandigham case were laid aside as not being the genuine and fundamental questions. It was one of those instances in which the common sense of the multitude suddenly takes control, brushes away confusing details, and gets at the great and true issue. The result was that Vallandigham was defeated by a majority of over 100,000 votes; and thus a perilous crisis was well passed. This incident had put the Republican ascendency in extreme peril, but when the administration emerged from the trial with a success so brilliant, it was thereafter much stronger than if the test had never been made. The strain was one of that kind to which the war was subjecting the whole nation, a strain which strengthens rather than weakens the body which triumphantly encounters it. The credit for the result was generally admitted to be chiefly due to Mr. Lincoln's effective presentation of the Republican position.

* * * * *

As the second year of the war drew towards its close, the administration had to face a new and grave difficulty in the recruitment of the army. Serious errors which had been made in calling and enlisting troops now began to bear fruit. Under the influence of the first enthusiasm a large proportion of the adult male population at the North would readily have enlisted "for the war;" but unfortunately that opportunity had not been seized by the government, and it soon passed, never to return. That the President and his advisers had been blameworthy can hardly be said; but whether they had been blameworthy or excusable became an immaterial issue, when they found that the terms of enlistment were soon to expire, and also that just when the war was at its hottest, the patriotism of the people seemed at its coldest. Defeats in the field and Copperheadism at home combined in their dispiriting and deadly work. Voluntary enlistment almost ceased. Thereupon Congress passed an act "for enrolling and calling out the national forces." All able-bodied citizens between twenty and forty-five years of age were to "perform military duty in the service of the United States, when called on by the President for that purpose."[50] This was strenuous earnest, for it portended a draft.

The situation certainly was not to be considered without solicitude when, in a war which peculiarly appealed to patriotism, compulsion must be used to bring involuntary recruits to maintain the contest. Yet the relaxation of the patriotic temper was really not so great as this fact might seem to indicate. Besides many partial and obvious explanations, one which is less obvious should also be noted. During two years of war the people, notoriously of a temperament readily to accept new facts and to adapt themselves thereto, had become accustomed to a state of war, and had learned to regard it as a _condition_, not normal and permanent, yet of indefinite duration. Accordingly they were now of opinion that the government must charge itself with the management of this condition, that is to say, with the conduct of the war, as a strict matter of business, to be carried on like all other public duties and functions. In the first months of stress every man had felt called upon to contribute, personally, his own moral, financial, and even physical support; but that crisis had passed, and it was now conceived that the administration might fairly be required to arrange for getting men and money and supplies in the systematic and business-like fashion in which, as history taught, all other governments had been accustomed to get these necessaries in time of war.

At any rate, however it was to be explained or commented upon, the fact confronted Mr. Lincoln that he must institute enrollment and drafting. The machinery was arranged and the very disagreeable task was entered upon early in the summer of 1863. If it was painful in the first instance for the President to order this, the process was immediately made as hateful as possible for him. Even loyal and hearty "war-governors" seemed at once to accept as their chief object the protection of the people of their respective States from the operation of the odious law. The mercantile element was instantly and fully accepted by them. The most patriotic did not hesitate to make every effort to have the assigned quotas reduced; they drew jealous comparisons to show inequalities; and they concocted all sorts of schemes for obtaining credits. Not marshaling recruits in the field, but filling quotas upon paper, seemed a legitimate purpose; for the matter had become one of figures, of business, of competition, and all the shrewdness of the Yankee mind was at once aroused to gain for one's self, though at the expense of one's neighbors. Especially the Democratic officials were viciously fertile in creating obstacles. The fact that the Act of Congress was based on the precedent of an Act of the Confederate Congress, passed a year before, did not seem in the least to conciliate the Copperheads. Governor Seymour of New York obtained a discreditable preeminence in thwarting the administration. He gathered ingenious statistics, and upon them based charges of dishonest apportionments and of fraudulent discrimination against Democratic precincts. He also declared the statute unconstitutional, and asked the President to stay all proceedings under it until it could be passed upon by the Supreme Court of the United States,--an ingenuous proposition, which he neglected to make practicable by arranging with General Lee to remain conveniently quiescent while the learned judges should be discussing the methods of reinforcing the Northern armies.

In a word, Mr. Lincoln was confronted by every difficulty that Republican inventiveness and Democratic disaffection could devise. Yet the draft must go on, or the war must stop. His reasonableness, his patience, his capacity to endure unfair trials, received in this business a demonstration more conspicuous than in any other during his presidency. Whenever apportionments, dates, and credits were questioned, he was liberal in making temporary, and sometimes permanent allowances, preferring that any error in exactions should be in the way of moderation. But in the main business he was inflexible; and at last it came to a direct issue between himself and the malcontents, whether the draft should go on or stop. In the middle of July the mob in New York city tested the question. The drafting began there on Saturday morning, July 11. On Monday morning, July 13, the famous riot broke out. It was an appalling storm of rage on the part of the lower classes; during three days terror and barbarism controlled the great city, and in its streets countless bloody and hideous massacres were perpetrated. Negroes especially were hanged and otherwise slain most cruelly. The governor was so inefficient that he was charged, of course extravagantly, with being secretly in league with the ringleaders. A thousand or more lives, as it was roughly estimated, were lost in this mad and brutal fury, before order was again restored. The government gave the populace a short time to cool, and then sent 10,000 troops into the city and proceeded with the business without further interruption. A smaller outbreak took place in Boston, but was promptly suppressed. In other places it was threatened, but did not occur. In spite of all, the President continued to execute the law. Yet although by this means the armies might be kept full, the new men were very inferior to those who had responded voluntarily to the earlier calls. Every knave in the country adopted the lucrative and tolerably safe occupation of "bounty-jumping," and every worthless loafer was sent to the front, whence he escaped at the first opportunity to sell himself anew and to be counted again. The material of the army suffered great depreciation, which was only imperfectly offset by the improvement of the military machine, whereby a more effective discipline, resembling that of European professionalism, was enforced.[51]

FOOTNOTES:

[48] N. and H. vi. 268; this account is derived from their twelfth chapter.

[49] N. and H. vi. 309, from MS.

[50] The act was signed by the President, March 3, 1863.

[51] Concerning the deterioration of the army, in certain particulars, see an article, "The War as we see it now," by John C. Ropes, _Scribner's Magazine_, June, 1891.

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