Abraham Lincoln

by Baron Godfrey Rathbone Benson Charnwood

Such at first was the position taken up by an unanimous Congress. It was obviously in accord with those political principles of Lincoln which have been examined in a former chapter. More than that, it was the position which, as he thought, his official duty as President imposed on him. It is exceedingly difficult for any Englishman to follow his course as the political situation developed. He was neither a dictator, nor an English Prime Minister. He was first and foremost an elected officer with powers and duties prescribed by a fixed Constitution which he had sworn to obey. His oath was continually present to his mind.

He was there to uphold the Union and the laws, with just so much infraction of the letter of the law, and no more, as might be obviously necessary if the Union and the whole fabric of law were not to perish.

The mere duration of the war altered of necessity the policy of the North and of the President. Their task had presented itself as in theory the "suppression of an unlawful combination" within their country; it became in manifest fact the reabsorption of a country now hostile, with which reunion was possible only if slavery, the fundamental cause of difference, was uprooted.

As the hope of a speedy victory and an easy settlement vanished, wide differences of opinion appeared again in the North, and the lines on which this cleavage proceeded very soon showed themselves. There were those who gladly welcomed the idea of a crusade against slavery, and among them was an unreasonable section of so-called Radicals. These resented that delay in a policy of wholesale liberation which was enforced by legal and constitutional scruples, and by such practical considerations as the situation in the slave States which adhered to the North. There was, on the other hand, a Democratic party Opposition which before long began to revive. It combined many shades of opinion. There were supporters or actual agents of the South, few at first and very quiet, but ultimately developing a treasonable activity. There were those who constituted themselves the guardians of legality and jealously criticised all the measures of emergency which became more or less necessary. Of the bulk of the Democrats it would probably be fair to say that their conscious intention throughout was to be true to the Union, but that throughout they were beset by a respect for Southern rights which would have gone far to paralyse the arm of the Government. Lastly, there were Republicans, by no means in sympathy with the Democratic view, who became suspect to their Radical fellows and were vaguely classed together as Conservatives. This term may be taken to cover men simply of moderate and cautious, or in some cases, of variable disposition, but it included, too, some men who, while rigorous against the South, were half-hearted in their detestation of slavery.

So far as Lincoln's private opinions were concerned, it would have been impossible to rank him in any of these sections. He had as strong a sympathy with the Southern people as any Democrat, but he was for the restoration of the Union absolutely and without compromise. He was the most cautious of men, but his caution veiled a detestation of slavery of which he once said that he could not remember the time when he had not felt it. It was his business, so far as might be, to retain the support of all sections in the North to the Union. In the course, full of painful deliberation, which we shall see him pursuing, he tried to be guided by a two-fold principle which he constantly avowed. The Union was to be restored with as few departures from the ways of the Constitution as was possible; but such departures became his duty whenever he was thoroughly convinced that they were needful for the restoration of the Union.

Before the war was four months old, the inevitable subject of dispute between Northern parties had begun to trouble Lincoln. As soon as a Northern force set foot on Southern soil slaves were apt to escape to it, and the question arose, what should the Northern general do with them, for he was not there to make war on the private property of Southern citizens. General Butler—a newspaper character of some fame or notoriety throughout the war—commanded at Fort Monroe, a point on the coast of Virginia which was always held by the North. He learnt that the slaves who fled to him had been employed on making entrenchments for the Southern troops, so he adopted a view, which took the fancy of the North, that they were "contraband of war," and should be kept from their owners. The circumstances in which slaves could thus escape varied so much that great discretion must be left to the general on the spot, and the practice of generals varied. Lincoln was well content to leave the matter so. Congress, however, passed an Act by which private property could be confiscated, if used in aid of the "insurrection" but not otherwise, and slaves were similarly dealt with. This moderate provision as to slaves met with a certain amount of opposition; it raised an alarming question in slave States like Missouri that had not seceded. Lincoln himself seems to have been averse to any legislation on the subject. He had deliberately concentrated his mind, or, as his critics would have said, narrowed it down to the sole question of maintaining the Union, and was resolved to treat all other questions as subordinate to this.

Shortly after, there reappeared upon the political scene a leader with what might seem a more sympathetic outlook. This was Frémont, Lincoln's predecessor as the Republican candidate for the Presidency. Frémont was one of those men who make brilliant and romantic figures in their earlier career, and later appear to have lost all solid qualities. It must be recalled that, though scarcely a professional soldier (for he had held a commission, but served only in the Ordnance Survey) he had conducted a great exploring expedition, had seen fighting as a free-lance in California, and, it is claimed, had with his handful of men done much to win that great State from Mexico. Add to this that he, a Southerner by birth, was known among the leaders who had made California a free State, and it is plain how appropriate it must have seemed when he was set to command the Western Department, which for the moment meant Missouri. Here by want of competence, and, which was more surprising, lethargy he had made a present of some successes to a Southern invading force, and had sacrificed the promising life of General Lyon. Lincoln, loath to remove him, had made a good effort at helping him out by tactfully persuading a more experienced general to serve as a subordinate on his staff. At the end of August Frémont suddenly issued a proclamation establishing martial law throughout Missouri. This contained other dangerous provisions, but above all it liberated the slaves and confiscated the whole property of all persons proved (before Court Martial) to have taken active part with the enemy in the field. It is obvious that such a measure was liable to shocking abuse, that it was certain to infuriate many friends of the Union, and that it was in conflict with the law which Congress had just passed on the subject. To Lincoln's mind it presented the alarming prospect that it might turn the scale against the Union cause in the still pending deliberations in Kentucky. Lincoln's overpowering solicitude on such a point is among the proofs that his understanding of the military situation, however elementary, was sound. He wished, characteristically, that Frémont himself should withdraw his Proclamation. He invited him to withdraw it in private letters from which one sentence may be taken: "You speak of it as being the only means of saving the Government. On the contrary, it is itself the surrender of the Government. Can it be pretended that it is any longer the Government of the United States—any government of constitution and laws—wherein a general or a president may make permanent rules of property by proclamation?" Frémont preferred to make Lincoln publicly overrule him, which he did; and the inevitable consequence followed. When some months later, the utter military disorganisation, which Frémont let arise while he busied himself with politics, and the scandalous waste, out of which his flatterers enriched themselves, compelled the President to remove him from his command, Frémont became, for a time at least, to patriotic crowds and to many intelligent, upright and earnest men from St. Louis to Boston, the chivalrous and pure-hearted soldier of freedom, and Lincoln, the soulless politician, dead to the cause of liberty, who, to gratify a few wire-pulling friends, had struck this hero down on the eve of victory to his army—an army which, by the way, he had reduced almost to nonentity.

This salient instance explains well enough the nature of one half of the trial which Lincoln throughout the war had to undergo. Pursuing the restoration of the Union with a thoroughness which must estrange from him the Democrats of the North, he was fated from the first to estrange also Radicals who were generally as devoted to the Union as himself and with whose over-mastering hatred of slavery he really sympathised. In the following chapter we are more concerned with the other half of his trial, the war itself. Of his minor political difficulties few instances need be given—only it must be remembered that they were many and involved, besides delicate questions of principle, the careful sifting of much confident hearsay; and, though the critics of public men are wont to forget it, that there are only twenty-four hours in the day.

But the year 1861 was to close with a further vexation that must be related. Secretary Cameron proved incapable on the business side of war administration. Waste and alleged corruption called down upon him a searching investigation by a committee of the House of Representatives. He had not added to his own considerable riches, but his political henchmen had grown fat. The displeasure with the whole Administration was the greater because the war was not progressing favourably, or at all. There were complaints of the Naval Department also, but politicians testified their belief in the honesty of Welles without saying a word for Cameron. There is every reason to think he was not personally dishonourable. Lincoln believed in his complete integrity, and so also did sterner critics, Chase, an apostle of economy and uprightness, and Senator Sumner. But he had to go. He opened the door for his removal by a circular to generals on the subject of slaves, which was comparable to Frémont's Proclamation and of which Lincoln had to forbid the issue. He accepted the appointment of Minister to Russia, and when, before long, he returned, he justified himself and Lincoln's judgment by his disinterested friendship and support. He was removed from the War Office at the end of December and a remarkable incident followed. While Lincoln's heart was still set on his law practice, the prospect of appearing as something more than a backwoods attorney smiled for a single moment on him. He was briefed to appear in an important case outside Illinois with an eminent lawyer from the East, Edwin M. Stanton; but he was not allowed to open his mouth, for Stanton snuffed him out with supreme contempt, and he returned home crestfallen. Stanton before the war was a strong Democrat, but hated slavery. In the last days of Buchanan's Presidency he was made Attorney-General and helped much to restore the lost credit of that Administration. He was now in Washington, criticising the slow conduct of the war with that explosive fury and scorn which led him to commit frequent injustice (at the very end of the war he publicly and monstrously accused Sherman of being bribed into terms of peace by Southern gold), which concealed from most eyes his real kindness and a lurking tenderness of heart, but which made him a vigorous administrator intolerant of dishonesty and inefficiency. He was more contemptuous of Lincoln than ever, he would constantly be denouncing his imbecility, and it is incredible that kind friends were wanting to convey his opinion to Lincoln. Lincoln made him Secretary of War.

Since the summer, to the impatient bewilderment of the Northern people, of Congress, now again in session, and of the President himself, their armies in the field were accomplishing just nothing at all, and, as this agitating year, 1861, closed, a deep gloom settled on the North, to be broken after a while by the glare of recurrent disaster.