Part 22

══════════════╤═════════════════════╦═══════════════════ │ POPULAR VOTE. ║ ELECTORAL VOTE. STATES. ├──────────┬──────────╫────────┬────────── │ Lincoln. │McClellan.║Lincoln.│McClellan. ──────────────┼──────────┼──────────╫────────┼────────── Maine │ 72,278 │ 47,736 ║ 7 │ ―― New Hampshire │ 36,595 │ 33,034 ║ 5 │ ―― Vermont │ 42,422 │ 13,325 ║ 5 │ ―― Massachusetts │ 126,742 │ 48,745 ║ 12 │ ―― Rhode Island │ 14,343 │ 8,718 ║ 4 │ ―― Connecticut │ 44,693 │ 42,288 ║ 6 │ ―― New York │ 368,726 │ 361,986 ║ 33 │ ―― New Jersey │ 60,723 │ 68,014 ║ ―― │ 7 Pennsylvania │ 296,389 │ 276,308 ║ 26 │ ―― Delaware │ 8,155 │ 8,767 ║ ―― │ 3 Maryland │ 40,153 │ 32,739 ║ 7 │ ―― Kentucky │ 27,786 │ 64,301 ║ ―― │ 11 West Virginia │ 23,223 │ 10,457 ║ 5 │ ―― Ohio │ 265,154 │ 205,568 ║ 21 │ ―― Indiana │ 150,422 │ 130,233 ║ 13 │ ―― Illinois │ 189,487 │ 158,349 ║ 16 │ ―― Michigan │ 85,352 │ 67,370 ║ 8 │ ―― Iowa │ 87,331 │ 49,260 ║ 8 │ ―― Wisconsin │ 79,564 │ 63,875 ║ 8 │ ―― Minnesota │ 25,060 │ 17,375 ║ 4 │ ―― Kansas │ 14,228 │ 3,871 ║ 3 │ ―― Missouri │ 72,991 │ 31,026 ║ 11 │ ―― Nevada[19] │ 9,826 │ 6,594 ║ 2 │ ―― California │ 62,134 │ 43,841 ║ 5 │ ―― Oregon │ 9,888 │ 8,457 ║ 3 │ ―― ├──────────┼──────────╫────────┼────────── Totals │2,213,665 │1,802,237 ║ 212 │ 21 ══════════════╧══════════╧══════════╩════════╧══════════

[19] Nevada chose three electors, one of whom died before election.

═════════════════════╤══════════════════════ │ SOLDIER VOTE. STATES. ├─────────┬──────────── │ Lincoln.│ McClellan. ─────────────────────┼─────────┼──────────── Maine │ 4,174 │ 741 New Hampshire │ 2,066 │ 690 Vermont │ 243 │ 49 Pennsylvania │ 26,712 │ 12,349 Maryland │ 2,800 │ 321 Kentucky │ 1,194 │ 2,823 Ohio │ 41,146 │ 9,757 Michigan │ 9,402 │ 2,959 Iowa │ 15,178 │ 1,364 Wisconsin │ 11,372 │ 2,458 California │ 2,600 │ 237 ├─────────┼──────────── Totals │ 116,887 │ 33,748 ═════════════════════╧═════════╧════════════

The army vote of Vermont, Kansas, and Minnesota was not received in time to be taken into the official count, and part of the vote of Wisconsin was rejected for informality.

The States of Tennessee and Louisiana also held elections and were carried for Lincoln, but their votes were not necessary to the election of the Republican ticket, and although Lincoln earnestly desired that these States should be recognized and the votes counted, Congress, by joint resolution, that Lincoln signed with great reluctance, declared that they should not be recognized, and they were omitted in the final count by Congress.

Pennsylvania was the only Republican State that faltered in the fall elections of 1864. There was no State ticket to be chosen, and the Republicans in charge of the campaign assumed that Lincoln would carry the State without extraordinary efforts, while the friends of McClellan, a native of the State, with strong individual and social relations, made exhaustive efforts to give him the victory.

The October election was practically a stand-off, and Lincoln telegraphed me on the morning after the election to come to Washington. He was much distressed at the attitude of our State, and apprehensive that New York, with Horatio Seymour as Governor, one of the ablest Democrats of the country, might vote for McClellan, as Tammany was then in the very zenith of its power. I had been Chairman of the State Committee when Lincoln was elected in 1860, and General Cameron was my successor in 1864. He was thoroughly competent for the task, but evidently did not appreciate the perils which confronted him. Lincoln asked me to join Cameron and devote the intervening month between the October and November elections to assure a victory. I answered that I could not make the suggestion to Cameron, as our political relations were not especially friendly, to which he replied, asking me whether I would do it if so requested by Cameron. I of course assented, and the following day I received a letter from Cameron at my home in Chambersburg, requesting me to join him, where I found Honorable Wayne MacVeagh, who had been the Republican chairman the year before and who was then not more friendly to Cameron than myself. We all united in an earnest effort to win the State, always acting in entire harmony with Cameron and his committee.

I had private quarters at the Continental, while Cameron’s quarters were at the Girard, and, as requested, advised Lincoln each day of the apparent progress of the battle. My reports were not so assuring as he desired, for the friends of McClellan, inspired by the partial victory of October, renewed their energies for the November fight. Postmaster-General Dennison came to see me on a special mission from Lincoln about two weeks before the election to learn the situation as precisely as possible, and I had to tell him that I saw but little hope of carrying the State on the home vote. The army vote would doubtless be largely for Lincoln and give him the State, but it would be declared a “bayonet election,” and with such a result in Pennsylvania, and New York lost, as was possible, while Lincoln’s election could not be defeated, as the Southern States did not vote, the moral power of the new administration to prosecute the war and attain peace would be greatly impaired. My answer to Lincoln was that I would go to Washington within a few days if it should appear necessary to take extreme measures to save the State on the home vote.

As the political conditions did not improve, I telegraphed to Lincoln that I would meet him at nine o’clock in the evening to discuss the campaign. I found him nervously anxious about Pennsylvania, although not doubting his re-election. He knew that New York was trembling in the balance and might be lost, and his fears were fully warranted, as he had but little over 6000 majority in a million votes. I told him that I had not confidence in the State being carried by the home vote, but that it could be done without interfering with the military operations of the army, as Grant was then besieging Petersburg and Sheridan had whipped the Confederates clear out of the valley. I suggested that he should in some way have Grant furlough five thousand Pennsylvania soldiers home for twenty days, and that Sheridan should do the same, as that vote cast at home would insure a home majority. He hesitated about making the request of Grant for reasons which I could not understand, and I then suggested that General Meade was a soldier and a gentleman, and that he could safely send an order to him as Commander of the Army of the Potomac, and that Meade would obey it and permit the order to be returned.

A messenger from the War Office went the next morning to Meade, bearing the order from Lincoln, brought it back with him, and fully five thousand Pennsylvania soldiers were furloughed to return home. I said: “How about Sheridan?” Lincoln’s face brightened and with great enthusiasm he said:

“Oh, Phil; he’s all right.”

The same order went to Sheridan, of which no record was ever kept, and Sheridan sent five thousand of his veterans home to vote as they shot, and Lincoln’s majority on the home vote was 5712, to which the army vote added 14,363, making a total majority in the State of 20,075.

It is not generally known how earnestly Lincoln labored for compensated emancipation. He made earnest efforts to save the Border States to the Union by the assurance of compensation for slaves, and even after all the slave States south of the Potomac and the Ohio had joined the Confederacy, he adhered to the policy of compensated emancipation until the day of his death. In August, 1864, when the political situation presented a very gloomy aspect, I had a long conference with Lincoln at the White House, and he then introduced the subject of compensated emancipation.

In that conversation he gave me the first intimation of his purpose to try and end the war by paying the South $400,000,000 as compensation for the freedom of the slaves. He had the proposition written out in his own handwriting, but he well knew that if such a purpose on his part were made public, it would make his re-election impossible. He discussed it freely and very earnestly, however, and said that he regarded compensated emancipation as the only way to restore fellowship between the States. He did not doubt the ability of the North to overthrow the military power of the Confederacy, but what he most feared was that the people of the South, driven to desperation by the severe sacrifices they had suffered, and the general desolation of their country, that gave them no hope of regaining prosperity, would make their armies disband into guerrilla squads and would be implacable in their resentments against the Government.

In all of the many expressions I heard Lincoln make use of, toward the close of the war, he always exhibited an earnest desire to do something that would impressively teach the Southern people that they were not to be held as conquered subjects of a despotic power, but were to come back into the Union and enjoy the blessings of a reunited people.

Lincoln believed that in no way could he so widely and profoundly impress the Southern people with the desire of the Government to deal with them in generous justice as by paying them $400,000,000 as compensation for the loss of their slaves. I can never forget the earnestness with which he spoke of this proposition at a time when he did not dare breathe it to the public. He said the war was costing $4,000,000 a day, and that it would certainly last for more than four months, thus costing the Government more than the whole amount he would have gladly given as compensation for the freedom of the slaves, not to calculate the sacrifice of life and destruction of property. He fretted because he could not convey to the South what he believed should be done to close the war and enable them to re-establish their homes and fruitful fields. He believed in his theory of compensated emancipation until his death, and he abandoned it only a short time before the surrender of Lee. He would have suggested it to Vice-President Stephens, of the Confederacy, at their City Point meeting in the winter of 1865, had not Stephens advised him at the outset that he was instructed by Jefferson Davis to entertain no proposition that did not perpetuate the Confederacy, and after his return he wrote a message to Congress in favor of it, submitted it to his Cabinet, by which it was nearly or quite unanimously disapproved, and he endorsed upon it the disapproval of the Cabinet and laid it away.

Lincoln was the most notable combination of sadness and mirth that I ever met with in any of our public men. His face in repose, under all circumstances, was one of the saddest I ever beheld. It would brighten in conversation, and at times would portray a measure of sorrow that could not be surpassed. He was from his youth much given to melancholy. While he was known as fond of sports and brimful of humor, a very large portion of his life was always given to isolation and solitude, when he gave free latitude to the melancholy tendencies of his mind.

Strange as it may seem, he was always a hopeful man, never pessimistic, and always inclined when discussing any question to take the bright side. He was severely conscientious in his convictions and in his actions. He had faith in the present and greater faith in the future. He had been in early life what is now commonly called an agnostic, with a strong inclination to atheism, but in his mature years he never exhibited a trace of it. I have never known any man who had greater reverence for God than Abraham Lincoln. Throughout his writings, political and otherwise, will be found multiplied expressions of his abiding faith in the Great Ruler of nations and individuals.

In a single sentence to be found in Lincoln’s second inaugural address the country and the world have the most complete portrayal of his character. When he was inaugurated for a second term as President, on the 4th of March, 1865, the military power of the Confederacy was broken, and many in his position would have exhibited the pride of the victor over the vanquished on such an occasion; but after stating in the kindest and most temperate language the duty of himself and of the patriotic people of the country to protect the Union against dismemberment, he does not utter a word of resentment against the South. “With malice toward none; with charity for all,” was the brief and eloquent sentence in which he defined the duty of those who had then substantially destroyed the power of the Rebellion. That beautiful expression came from the heart of Abraham Lincoln, and it profoundly impressed the whole country, then wildly impassioned by the bitterness of fraternal strife. He knew the resentments which must confront him in restoring the shattered fragments of the Union, and his supreme desire was to have the bitterness of the conflict perish when peace came.

No man who has filled the Presidential chair was so vindictively and malignantly defamed as was Lincoln in the South. The opponents of the war in the North were guilty of unpardonable assaults upon his integrity, his ability, and his methods, but the South had no knowledge of him, as he had filled no important part in national affairs before his election to the Presidency; and his humble birth in Kentucky, close by the birthplace of Jefferson Davis, and his exaggerated rudeness of appearance and manner made the people of the South ready to believe anything to his discredit. He was proclaimed throughout the Confederacy as a second Nero; as a bloody and remorseless butcher; as a vulgar clown who met the sorrows of the nation with ribald jest. Not a single virtue was conceded to him.

No one could know Lincoln well without seeing some features of his home life. I have seen him in grave conversation with public men on the most momentous subjects, when “Tad” Lincoln, his favorite boy, would rush into the room, bounce on to his father’s lap, throw his arms around his neck, and play hobby-horse on his foot regardless of all the sacred affairs of State. There never was a frown from the father, and the fretting questions of even a great war seemed to perish until “Tad” had completed his romp. The greatest sorrow of Lincoln’s life shadowed the altar of his own home, and it was one he had to suffer in silence. The calamity that befell Mrs. Lincoln after his death was visible to those who had opportunity to see for themselves at an early period of his administration. Mrs. Lincoln was mentally unbalanced, but not sufficiently so to prevent the performance of her social functions, and her vagaries often led to severe reflections upon the President, at times even to the extent of charging her with sympathy for the South, as her brothers were prominent in the Southern army.

I first saw Mrs. Lincoln at Harrisburg on the night that Lincoln made his midnight journey to Washington, and the greatest difficulty we had on that occasion was to prevent her from creating a scene that would have given publicity to the movement. I thought her a fool, and was so disgusted with her that I never spoke to her afterward, although I had frequently gone with ladies to her receptions. I wronged her, for she was then not wholly responsible, and soon after Lincoln’s death the climax came, leaving her to grope out the remainder of her life in the starless midnight of insanity. With Lincoln’s many other sorrows, considering his love of home and family, it may be understood how keenly he suffered, and how he was clouded by shadows for which the world could give no relief.

No man ever came in contact with Abraham Lincoln who did not learn to love, honor, and even reverence him. His ablest political enemies ever paid the highest tributes, not only to his personal attributes, but to his masterly ability, and none surpassed Stephen A. Douglas, the ablest foeman Lincoln ever met, in his appreciation of Lincoln’s qualities. He had to accept vastly the gravest responsibilities ever put upon any President of the United States, and I am quite sure that no other man could have filled Lincoln’s place during the Civil War with equal safety to the Republic. Had he been vindictive and resentful his fame would not be without blemish to-day.

What was to me the most beautiful tribute I have ever heard paid to him came from the lips of Jefferson Davis, when I visited him at his home in Mississippi some ten years after the war. He never tired of discussing the character and the actions of Lincoln, and asked me many questions about his personal qualities. After he had heard all that could be given in the brief time that I had, he said with a degree of mingled earnestness and pathos that few could have equalled:

“Next to the destruction of the Confederacy, the death of Abraham Lincoln was the darkest day the South has ever known.”

THE GRANT-SEYMOUR CONTEST

1868

To the casual reader of our political history, the election and re-election of Grant to the Presidency immediately after the close of the war would seem to be a result at once logical and inevitable; but there are few of the present day who have any knowledge of the many obstacles which confronted Grant in his transfer from the highest military to the highest civil duties of the nation.

It is noted that Grant, the Great Captain of the Age, was elected and re-elected by large majorities; that General Hayes, another soldier of national fame, succeeded him; that General Garfield, a soldier-statesman, succeeded Hayes, defeating Hancock, the most brilliant Democratic soldier of the war, by only a few thousands on the popular vote; that Blaine, the first civilian candidate of the party, was the first Republican to suffer defeat after the political revolution of 1860; that General Harrison, another honored soldier, was successful as the Republican candidate in 1888, and that Major McKinley, now Chief Magistrate of the Republic, carried his musket as a private in the flame of battle, and came out of the war an officer promoted for gallantry. With such a line of military Presidents, the natural assumption of the student of our political history would be that General Grant’s election came about because none could question its fitness.

There were very serious obstacles to Grant’s nomination for the Presidency by the Republicans in 1868. First, he was not a Republican and never had been. He had never voted a Republican ticket, and he never cast a Republican ballot until after he had been eight years a Republican President. His last vote before he re-entered the army was cast for a radical pro-slavery Democrat, and he did not even sympathize with Stephen A. Douglas in 1860, although he lived in Illinois, the home of the great Democratic leader of that day. Second, he was resolutely averse to being a candidate for the Presidency. He was General of the Army, with freedom to retire without diminution of pay; he had no political training, and felt himself unfitted for a political career. He was honest and apparently fixed in his purpose not to become a candidate. These objections at first appeared to be insuperable obstacles to Grant’s nomination, but he was human, and had he declined the Presidency when it was apparently within his reach, he would have stood as the only man in the history of the Republic who had refused its crown.

[Illustration: U. S. GRANT]

The Democrats were in a hopeless condition, and they at once began a systematic movement to make him their candidate. This alarmed the Republicans, and they made equally earnest and methodical efforts to make him their leader. It is doubtful upon which side General Grant would have fallen had it not been for the early estrangement between President Johnson and himself. Johnson made repeated attempts to overslaugh him either directly or indirectly. He ordered Grant to Mexico to get him out of the country, but Grant refused to go, and he afterward made an earnest effort to supersede Grant by calling General Thomas to the command of the army, but Thomas stubbornly refused to consider the call. As the Republicans were then in bitter warfare against Johnson, Grant logically found sympathy in Republican circles, and finally, with visible reluctance, he agreed to become the candidate of the Republicans. Had he been nominated by the Democrats he would have been elected, but his administration would have greatly conserved and liberalized the Democratic teachings of that day. His final assent to become the Republican candidate for President was obtained by the late Colonel Forney.

The assassination of Lincoln and the succession of Vice-President Johnson to the Presidency repeated the political history of Tyler and Fillmore in a radical change of the policy of the Government. Johnson started under a cloud in his career as Vice-President. On the day of his inauguration he appeared in the Senate visibly intoxicated, and delivered a maudlin harangue so disgraceful that a correct report was never permitted to be given to the public. The report of that address as severely modified by the omission of the most offensive expressions was highly discreditable. He was immediately hurried away to the country residence of the elder Francis P. Blair, and there remained most of the time until more than a month later, when Lincoln was assassinated. He never attempted to resume his place in the Senate as presiding officer, although he was frequently in Washington and was there on the night of the assassination.

As President he at first startled the country by the most violent demands for the punishment of all those prominently engaged in the Rebellion. His favorite declaration was that “treason must be made odious.” It was not long, however, until his views were materially changed, and he gradually drifted into entire sympathy with the South and aggressively against the policy of the Republicans in Congress. It was this conflict between the Executive and the legislative powers of the Government that led to the radical policy of reconstruction and the wholesale enfranchisement of the colored voters of the South. All the reconstruction measures were vetoed by the President and passed over his veto by the Senate and House, and the issue grew more and more in bitterness until it culminated in the impeachment of Johnson, in which he escaped conviction by a single vote. Grant and Johnson had an acrimonious dispute when Grant, as Secretary of War _ad interim_, admitted Stanton back to the office after the Senate had refused to approve his removal by the President, and from that time Grant and Johnson never met or exchanged courtesies on any other than official occasions, where the necessity for it was imperative. When the arrangements were about to be made for the inauguration of Grant, he peremptorily refused to permit President Johnson to accompany him in the carriage to the Capitol for the inauguration ceremonies, and Johnson did not make his appearance on that occasion.