Every measure to convert the war against armed rebellion into one against private property and personal rights at the South, he continued, has been accompanied by claims to exercise military power in the North. The proclamation of emancipation at the South, and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus at the North; the confiscation of private property in the seceding States, and the arbitrary arrests, imprisonment, and banishment of the citizens of loyal States; the claim to destroy political organization at the South, and the armed interference by Government in local elections at the North, have been contemporaneous events. We now find that as the strength of rebellion is broken, new claims to arbitrary power are put forth. More prerogatives are asserted in the hour of triumph than were claimed in days of disaster. The war is not to be brought to an end by the submission of States to the Constitution and their return to the Union, but to be prolonged until the South is subjugated and accepts such terms as may be dictated. This theory designs a sweeping revolution and the creation of a new political system. There is but one course, he concluded, which will now save us from such national ruin—we must use every influence of wise statesmanship to bring back the States which now reject their constitutional obligations. The triumphs won by the soldiers in the field should be followed up by the peacemaking policy of the statesmen in the Cabinet. In no other way can we save our Union.[210]
Seymour's claims and portents were in amazing contrast to his proposed measures of safety. Nevertheless he did his work well. It was his intention clearly to develop the ultimate tendencies of the war, and, in a paper of great power and interest, without invective or acerbity, he did not hesitate to alarm the people respecting the jeopardy of their own liberties. Indeed, his message had the twofold purpose of drawing the line distinctly between Administration and anti-Administration forces, and of concentrating public attention upon himself as a suitable candidate for President.[211] Seymour was never without ambition, for he loved politics and public affairs, and the Presidency captivated him. With deepest interest he watched the play at Charleston and at Baltimore in 1860, and had the nomination come to him, Lincoln's election, depending as it did upon New York, must have given Republicans increased solicitude. Developments during the war had stimulated this ambition. The cost of blood and treasure, blended with arbitrary measures deemed necessary by the Government, pained and finally exasperated him until he longed to possess the power of an Executive to make peace. He believed that a compromise, presented in a spirit of patriotic clemency, with slavery undisturbed, would quickly terminate hostilities, and although he made the mistake of surrounding himself with men whose influence sometimes betrayed him into weak and extreme positions, his ability to present his views in a scholarly and patriotic manner, backed by a graceful and gracious bearing, kept him in close touch with a party that resented methods which made peace dependent upon the abolition of slavery. He never provoked the criticism of those whom he led, nor indulged in levity and flippancy. But he was unsparing in his lectures to the Administration, admonishing it to adopt the principles of government which prevailed when happiness and peace characterised the country's condition, and prophesying the ruin of the Union unless it took his advice. While, therefore, his eulogy of the flag, the soldiers, the Union, and the sacrifices of the people won him reputation for patriotic conservatism, his condemnation of the Government brought him credit for supporting and promoting all manner of disturbing factions and revolutionary movements.
The Regency understood the Governor's ambition, and the Democratic State convention, assembling at Albany on February 24 to designate delegates to Chicago, opened the way for him as widely as possible. It promulgated no issues; it mentioned no candidate; it refused to accept Fernando Wood and his brother as delegates because of their pronounced advocacy of a dishonourable peace; and it placed Seymour at the head of a strong delegation, backed by Dean Richmond and August Belmont, and controlled by the unit rule. It was a remarkable coincidence, too, that the New York Herald, which had pursued the Governor for more than a year with bitter criticism, suddenly lapsed into silence. Indeed, the only shadow falling upon his pathway in the Empire State reflected the temporary anger of Tammany, which seceded from the convention because the McKeon delegation, an insignificant coterie of advocates of peace-on-any-conditions, had been admitted on terms of equality.
As the summer advanced political conditions seemed to favour Seymour. During the gloomy days of July and August the people prayed for a cessation of hostilities. "The mercantile classes are longing for peace," wrote James Russell Lowell,[212] and Horace Greeley, in a letter of perfervid vehemence, pictured to the President the unhappy condition. "Our bleeding, bankrupt, almost dying country," he said, "longs for peace, shudders at the prospect of fresh conscriptions, or further wholesale devastations, and of new rivers of human blood."[213] The President, also yearning for peace and willing to accept almost any proposition if it included the abolition of slavery, waited for a communication from some agent of the Confederacy authorised to treat with him; but such an one had not appeared, although several persons, safely sheltered in Canada, claimed authority. One of these, calling himself William C. Jewett of Colorado, finally convinced Horace Greeley that Clement C. Clay of Alabama and Jacob Thompson of Mississippi, two ambassadors of Jefferson Davis, were ready at Niagara Falls to meet the President whenever protection was afforded them. Upon being informed by Greeley of their presence, Lincoln replied (July 9): "If you can find any person, anywhere, professing to have any proposition of Jefferson Davis in writing for peace, embracing the restoration of the Union and abandonment of slavery, whatever else it embraces, say to him he may come to me with you."[214]
While Greeley, hesitating to undertake the mission himself, indulged in further correspondence with the President, James P. Jaquess, a Methodist clergyman and colonel of an Illinois regiment, with the knowledge of Lincoln, but without official authority except to pass the Union lines, obtained (July 17) an audience with Jefferson Davis, to whom he made overtures of peace. In the interview Davis declared that "we are not fighting for slavery. We are fighting for independence, and that or extermination we will have. We will be free. We will govern ourselves. We will do it if we have to see every Southern plantation sacked and every Southern city in flames.... Say to Mr. Lincoln from me that I shall at any time be pleased to receive proposals for peace on the basis of our independence. It will be useless to approach me with any other."[215] It is known now that Jaquess' report was substantially correct, but at the time the peace advocate defiantly challenged its truth and the conservative was incredulous.
Meantime Greeley (July 16) proceeded to Niagara Falls. Thompson was not there and Clay had no authority to act. When the famous editor asked fresh instructions Lincoln sent John Hay, his private secretary, with the historic paper of July 18, which stopped further negotiations.[216] In this well-meant effort the President desired to convince his own party of the hopelessness of any satisfactory peace until the surrender of Lee's and Johnston's armies; but to the people, grieved by the death of loved ones, or oppressed by constant anxiety, his brief ultimatum seemed maladroit, while the men who favoured peace simply on condition of the restoration of the Union, without the abolition of slavery, resented his course as arbitrary and needlessly cruel.
Lincoln's unpopularity touched bottom at this moment. The dissatisfaction found expression in a secret call for a second national convention, to be held at Cincinnati on September 28, to nominate, if necessary, a new candidate for President.[217] This movement, vigorously promoted in Ohio by Salmon P. Chase, received cordial support in New York City. George Opdyke directed it, Horace Greeley heartily endorsed it, Daniel S. Dickinson favoured it, and Lucius Robinson and David Dudley Field sympathised with it.[218] Parke Godwin and William Curtis Noyes, if unwilling to go as far as Opdyke and Greeley, would have welcomed Lincoln's withdrawal.[219] Roscoe Conkling, being advised of the scheme, promptly rejected it. "I do not approve of the call or of the movement," he wrote, "and cannot sign it. For that reason it would not be proper or agreeable that I should be present at the conference you speak of."[220]
It is doubtful if Lincoln knew of this conspiracy, but his friends informed him of the critical condition of affairs. "When, ten days ago, I told Mr. Lincoln that his re-election was an impossibility," Weed wrote Seward on August 22, "I told him the information would also come through other channels. It has doubtless reached him ere this. At any rate nobody here doubts it, nor do I see anybody from other States who authorises the slightest hope of success. The people are wild for peace. They are told the President will only listen to terms of peace on condition that slavery be abandoned."[221] Weed's "other channels" meant a report from the Republican National Executive Committee, which Raymond, then its chairman, submitted to Lincoln on August 22. "The tide is setting strongly against us," he wrote. "Hon. E.B. Washburn writes that 'were an election to be held now in Illinois we should be beaten.' Mr. Cameron says that Pennsylvania is against us. Governor Morton writes that nothing but the most strenuous efforts can carry Indiana. This State, according to the best information I can get, would go 50,000 against us to-morrow. And so of the rest. Two special causes are assigned for this great reaction in public sentiment—the want of military successes, and the impression in some minds, the fear and suspicion in others, that we are not to have peace in any event under this Administration until slavery is abandoned. In some way or other the suspicion is widely diffused that we can have peace with Union if we would. It is idle to reason with this belief—still more idle to denounce it. It can only be expelled by some authoritative act at once bold enough to fix attention, and distinct enough to defy incredulity and challenge respect."[222]
In December, 1860, in the presence of threatened war Lincoln refused to yield to a compromise that would extend slavery into free territory; now, in the presence of failure at the polls, he insisted upon a peace that would abolish slavery. In 1860 he was flushed with victory; in 1864 he was depressed by the absence of military achievement. But he did not weaken. He telegraphed Grant to "hold on with a bulldog grip, and chew and choke as much as possible,"[223] and then, in the silence of early morning, with Raymond's starless letter on the table before him, he showed how coolly and magnanimously a determined patriot could face political overthrow. "This morning, as for some days past," he wrote, "it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be my duty to so coöperate with the President-elect as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration, as he will have secured his election on such ground that he cannot possibly save it afterwards."[224]
The influence of this popular discouragement exhibited itself in a mass peace convention, called by Fernando Wood and held at Syracuse on August 18. Its great attraction was Clement L. Vallandigham of Ohio, its platform favoured an armistice and a convention of States, and its purpose was the selection of a delegation to Chicago, which should adequately represent the peace faction of the State. The absence of military achievement and the loud cries for peace, it was claimed, had changed the conditions since the adjournment of the Democratic State convention in February, and the necessity for a third party was conceded should the existing peace sentiment be ignored in the formulation of a platform and the selection of candidates at Chicago. Although the assembly indicated no preference for President, its known partiality for Seymour added to its strength. Through the manipulation of Richmond and the Regency, Wood failed to secure the appointment of delegates, but he claimed, with much show of truth, that the meeting represented the sentiment of a great majority of the party. Wood had become intolerable to Dean Richmond and the conservative Democracy, whose withering opposition to his candidacy for the United States Senate in the preceding February had made him ridiculous; but he could not be muzzled, and although his influence rarely disturbed the party in the up-State counties, he was destined to continue in Congress the rest of his life, which ended in 1881.