Our Presidents and how we make them

by Alexander K. McClure

Pennsylvania was the battle ground, and he naturally tried to keep in close touch with it. His letters were always kind and hopeful, sometimes quaint, and always going directly to the point of winning the State. He communicated with me every week from the time I opened headquarters early in June until after the election, and I prized more highly the Lincoln correspondence of that struggle than any of all the many valued letters I have ever received. I think it safe to say that he was as familiar with the details of the contest in Pennsylvania as I was myself, and knew every element of strength and every element of weakness in our lines. He was never enthusiastic or sentimental, but always thoroughly practical, with occasional flashes of his exquisite Western humor.

After such intercourse with Lincoln, lasting from the beginning to the close of the great battle of his life, I of course had formed what I supposed to be an intelligent and accurate estimate of the character and attributes of the man, but I never had a glimpse of the grandeur of Lincoln’s character until I met him personally at his home in Springfield on the 3d of January, 1861. A contest over the appointment of Cameron to the Cabinet, in which I took part, in opposition to Cameron, made Lincoln telegraph me on the 2d of January to visit him at Springfield. I was then a member of the Senate; the Legislature was just about to meet, and I made as hurried a trip as possible. I reached Springfield about seven o’clock on the evening of the 3d, having telegraphed him in advance that I would arrive at that hour and must return at eleven. I went from the depot directly to his house, and when I rang the bell the door was opened by Lincoln himself, and I saw no other person during my stay.

I think I did not well conceal my disappointment when I stood before him in the dimly lighted hall looking up into the face of the new President. There was nothing in his appearance calculated to make a favorable impression at first sight. He was illy clad, ungraceful in movement, and his rudely chiselled face, that was always sad in repose, clearly portrayed the fretting anxieties which his election to the Presidency to meet the severest trial of the Republic had brought upon him. He had then decided to appoint Cameron to the Cabinet, against which I had protested, and he had sent for me to know whether there were good reasons for a change of judgment. We sat down in his plainly furnished parlor, and for an hour or more he heard me patiently with evident interest. During this part of the conversation he said but little, but gave many incisive questions to be answered. He did not exhibit a single trace of humor, and it seemed to me most of the time as if I were making my appeal to a sphinx. He gave no sign whatever as to whether I impressed him or not, and when I left him I had not a single clue by which to judge what importance he had attached to my arguments, but before he retired that night he wrote a letter to Cameron revoking the appointment, and suggesting that Cameron should regard the position as tendered, and give a letter of declination.

In that letter, which can be found in Nicolay and Hay’s “Life of Lincoln,” he uses this language: “You will say this comes of an interview with McClure, and this is partly but not wholly true.” The result was that the position of Secretary of War was held open until Lincoln arrived in Washington, when Seward and Weed finally prevailed upon the President to give the position to Cameron. He advised me of his purpose after he had decided, and was much gratified for the assurance that no factional hostility would be made against either Cameron or the administration. Seward and Weed were much embittered at Curtin and Lane for defeating Seward at Chicago, and they dealt a retributive blow by securing the appointment of Cameron, as Cameron and Curtin were never in political accord after the bitter struggle they had for Senator in 1855.

It was not until after the question of the Cabinet appointment was dismissed that I had an opportunity to see something of Lincoln as he was. It was my part to do the talking on the Cabinet issue; after that it was his part to talk, and he gradually developed all the great and grand qualities of his character. He was appalled at the prospect of civil war being the sequel of his election to the Presidency, and above all things, he wanted peace if consistent with the line of duty. He fully appreciated that he was confronted by graver problems than had ever beset American statesmanship, and that he was compelled to meet the great issue of the threatened dismemberment of the Republic.

He was painfully and profoundly impressed with the fearful responsibility that devolved upon him, but the first great attribute of his character developed by this discussion, or rather by his statements of the situation, was his unswerving fidelity to duty regardless of all personal or political interests, and even regardless of life itself. He well understood that armed rebellion was apparently inevitable, and that he must meet the most appalling peril that ever confronted our free government, and one for which neither the history of this Government nor of any other Government of the world furnished precedents to guide him in his course. The right of secession had been claimed and denied since the formation of the Constitution with almost equal ability and integrity, and there he was, crowned with the laurels of the highest trust of the civilized world, with the prospect of a nearly united South in rebellion, and the North divided—and intensely divided—as to the power of the Government to maintain the unity of the States by force. I heard Lincoln in this conversation but a short time before I discovered that he had but one purpose, from which no interests could swerve him, and that was to perform his duty with fidelity and accept the consequences. He felt that as a Republican President he would owe it to his party to give it the advantages of power; yet he understood that the Government could not be maintained without the co-operation of the Democrats.

My next meeting with Lincoln was under circumstances well calculated to study his true character intelligently. I was one of a dozen or more who dined with him at what is now the Commonwealth Hotel in Harrisburg on the evening of the 22d of February, 1861. The dinner was given by Governor Curtin to the President-elect, and I believe that none of the guests are now living but myself. The story of Lincoln’s sudden departure on the memorable midnight journey to Washington from Harrisburg on that night has been many times told, and in no instance with entire correctness. He arrived in Philadelphia on the evening of February 21, and the published programme of his journey to Washington was from Philadelphia to Harrisburg on the 22d, and from Harrisburg to Washington by the Northern Central Railroad through Baltimore on the 23d. He was met in Philadelphia by Mr. Fenton, President of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad, and by Pinkerton’s detectives, who informed him that he could not pass through Baltimore according to his published programme without inviting assassination, that had been deliberately planned; and the son of Senator Seward brought Lincoln a letter signed by Seward and General Scott, insisting that he should change his route, because he could not safely pass through Baltimore if the time of his coming were known.

He was earnestly urged to omit his Harrisburg appointment and take the eleven o’clock train from Philadelphia to Washington that night, but he peremptorily refused, and left the question to be determined at Harrisburg. He hoisted the flag on Independence Hall early on the morning of the 22d, and delivered an address that betrayed none of the serious emotions which must have agonized him at the time. He arrived at Harrisburg early in the afternoon, where I was one of the legislators to receive him, had a reception and delivered a brief address in the hall of the House, and soon after five o’clock he sat down to the dinner at the hotel as the guest of Governor Curtin, who was there advised by Colonel Lamon and Colonel Sumner of the information received in Philadelphia the night before, and of the necessity of considering the question of changing his route.

Dinner was hastily served, when the servants were cleared from the dining-hall, and Governor Curtin stated the facts to the dining guests, and insisted that Lincoln’s programme should be changed. Every one present promptly responded in approval, and the only silent man at the table was Lincoln. I sat near enough to him to watch and study his face, and there was not a sign of agitation upon it, and when he was called upon to give his views, it was at once made evident to all that he thought much more of commanding the respect and honor of the nation than of preserving his life. His answer was substantially, and I think exactly, in these words: “I cannot consent. What would the nation think of its President stealing into its capital like a thief in the night?” His voice was clear and distinct, and his cool and earnest manner made his expression painfully pathetic.

Fortunately, among the guests was the late Colonel Thomas A. Scott, and when Governor Curtin declared that the question was not one for Lincoln to decide, Colonel Scott at once proposed to take charge of the new programme, and send Lincoln back to Philadelphia on a special train in time to make the eleven o’clock from Broad and Prime Streets to Washington that night. Scott was a master alike in keenness of perception and swiftness of execution. He at once directed the Governor to take Lincoln down to the front of the hotel, where there were multitudes awaiting to cheer them, and loudly call a carriage to take them to the Executive Mansion, as that would be the natural place for them to go. They entered the carriage, drove up along the river front toward the Executive Mansion, and then made a detour to reach the depot in thirty minutes, as instructed by Colonel Scott. I accompanied Colonel Scott to the depot, when he first cleared one track of his line to Philadelphia, forbidding anything to enter upon it until released, and with his own hands cut all of the few telegraph wires which then came into Harrisburg. A locomotive and a car were in readiness at the time appointed a square below the depot, where Lincoln and Curtin arrived with Colonel Lamon, and Lincoln and Lamon entered the car for their journey. When I shook hands with Lincoln and wished him God’s protection on his journey, he was as cool and deliberate as ever in his life.