Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 / From Lincoln to Garfield, with a Review of the Events Which Led to the Political Revolution of 1860

by James Gillespie Blaine

As soon as the Illinois delegation had retired, the members of the Christian Commission then in session at Washington called upon the President. In reply to their earnest address, he begged them as intelligent men representing the power of the Christian Church, to exert their moral influence "in erecting a standard by which everybody should be taught to believe that treason is the highest crime known to the laws, and that the perpetrator should be visited with the punishment which he deserves." This substantial repetition of the views expressed in his Illinois speech derived significance from the fact that the clergyman who spoke for the Christian Commission (Rev. Dr. Borden of Albany) had expressed the hope in his address to the President that "in the administration of justice, mercy would follow the success of arms."

While the remains of the late President were yet reposing in the National Capital, and still more while his funeral-train was on the way to his tomb, the reception of official deputations and political bodies was continued by his successor. Mr. Johnson was always ready to explain with some iteration and with great emphasis his views of the Government's duty respecting those who had been engaged in rebellion against its authority. To a representative body of loyal Southerners who by reason of their fidelity to the Union had been compelled to flee from home, Mr. Johnson was especially demonstrative in his sympathy, and positive in his assurances. In reply to their address he said: "It is hardly necessary for me on this occasion to declare that my sympathies and impulses in connection with this nefarious rebellion beat in unison with yours. Those who have passed through this bitter ordeal and who participated in it to a great extent, are more competent, as I think, to judge and determine the true policy that should be pursued. I know how to appreciate the condition of being driven from one's home. I can sympathize with him whose all has been taken from him: I can sympathize with him who has been driven from the place that gave his children birth. . . . I have become satisfied that mercy without justice is a crime, and that when mercy and clemency are exercised by the Executive it should always be done in view of justice. In that manner alone the great prerogative of mercy is properly exercised. The time has come, as you who have had to drink this bitter cup are fully aware, when the American people should be made to understand the true nature of crime. Of crime generally our people have a high understanding as well as of the necessity of its punishment; but in the catalogue of crimes there is one, and that the highest known to the laws and the Constitution, of which since the days of Aaron Burr they have become oblivious. That crime is treason. The time has come when the people should be taught to understand the length and breadth, the height and depth, of treason. One who has become distinguished in the rebellion says that 'when traitors become numerous enough, treason becomes respectable, and to become a traitor is to constitute a portion of the aristocracy of the country.' God protect the American people against such an aristocracy! . . . When the Government of the United States shall ascertain who are the conscious and intelligent traitors the penalty and the forfeit should be paid."

A delegation of Pennsylvanians called upon him with ex-Secretary Simon Cameron as their spokesman. In reply Mr. Johnson said, "There has been an effort since this rebellion began, to make the impression that it was a mere political struggle, or, as I see it thrown out in some of the papers, a struggle for the ascendency of certain principles from the dawn of the government to the present time, and now settled by the final triumph of the Federal arms. If this is admitted, the Government is at an end; for no question can arise but they will make it a party issue, and then to whatever length they carry it, the party defeated will only be a party defeated, with no crime attaching thereto. But I say that treason is a crime, the very highest crime known to the law, and there are men who ought to suffer the penalty of their treason! . . . To the unconscious, the deceived, the conscripted, in short, to the great mass of the misled, I would say mercy, clemency, reconciliation, and the restoration of their government. But to those who have deceived, to the conscious, intelligent, influential traitor who attempted to destroy the life of a nation, I would say, on you be inflicted the severest penalties of your crime."

The inflexible sternness of Mr. Johnson's tone and the frequent repetition of his intention to inflict the severest penalty of the law upon the leading traitors, began to create apprehension in the North. It was feared that the country might be called upon to witness, after the four years' carnival of death on the battle-field and in the hospital, an era of "bloody assizes," made the more rigorous and revengeful from the peculiar sense of injury which the President, as a loyal Southerner, had realized in his own person. This feeling was probably still further aggravated by his avowed sympathy with the thousands in the South who had been maimed, driven from home, stripped of all their property, simply because of the fidelity to the Constitution and the Union of their fathers. The spirit of the Vendetta, unknown in the Northern States, was frequently shown in the South, where it had long been domesticated with all its Corsican ferocity. It had raged in many instances to the extermination of families, and in many localities to the destruction of peace and the utter defiance of law—not infrequently indeed paralyzing the administration of justice in whole counties. Often seeking and waging open combat with ferocious courage, it did not hesitate at secret murder, at waylaying on lonely roads with superior numbers, and it sometimes went so far as to torture an unhappy victim before the final death-blow. The language of Mr. Johnson was interpreted by the merciful in the North as indicating that his own injuries and fierce conflicts during the war has possibly inspired him with the fell spirit of revenge, which in his zeal he might mistake for the rational demands of justice.

A personal and somewhat curious illustration of Mr. Johnson's temper and purpose at the time is afforded by a conference between himself and Senator Wade of Ohio. Mr. Wade was widely known as among the radical and progressive members of the Republican party. His immediate constituents of the Western Reserve were a just and God-fearing people, amply endowed with both moral and physical courage; but they were not men of blood, and they were not in sympathy with the apparent purposes of the President. It is not improbable that Mr. Wade's views were somewhat in advance of those held by the majority of the people he represented, but he was evidently not in accord with the threatenings and slaughter breathed out by the President.

"Well, Mr. Wade, what would you do were you in my place and charged with my responsibilities?" inquired the President. "I think," replied the frank and honest old senator from Ohio, "I should either force into exile or hang about ten or twelve of the worst of those fellows; perhaps by way of full measure, I should make it thirteen, just a baker's dozen."—"But how," rejoined the President, "are you going to pick out so small a number and show them to be guiltier than the rest?" —"It won't do to hang a very large number," rejoined Wade, "and I think if you would give me time, I could name thirteen that stand at the head in the work of rebellion. I think we would all agree on Jeff Davis, Toombs, Benjamin Slidell, Mason, and Howell Cobb. If we did no more than drive those half-dozen out of the country, we should accomplish a good deal."

The interview was long, and at its close Mr. Johnson expressed surprise that Wade was willing to let "the traitors," as he always styled them, "escape so easily." He said that he had expected the heartiest support from Wade in a policy which, as he outlined it to the senator, seemed in thoroughness to rival that of Strafford. Mr. Wade left the Executive Mansion with his mind divided between admiration for the stern resolve and high courage of the President on the one hand, and his fear on the other that a policy so determined and aggressive as Mr. Johnson seemed bent on pursuing might work a re-action in the North, and that thus in the end less might be done in providing proper safeguards against another rebellion, than if too much had not been attempted.

The remains of the late President lay in state at the Executive Mansion for four days. The entire city seemed as a house of mourning. It was remarked that even the little children in the streets wore no smiles upon their faces, so deeply were they impressed by the calamity which had brought grief to every loyal heart. The martial music which had been resounding in glad celebration of the national triumph had ceased; public edifice and private mansion were alike draped with the insignia of grief; the flag of the Union, which had been waving more proudly than ever before, was now lowered to half-mast, giving mute but significant expression to the sorrow that was felt wherever on sea or land that flag was honored.

Funeral services, conducted by the leading clergymen of the city, were held in the East Room on Wednesday the 19th of April. Amid the solemn tolling of church-bells, and the still more solemn thundering of minute-guns from the vast line of fortifications which had protected Washington, the body, escorted by an imposing military and civic procession, was transferred to the rotunda of the Capitol. The day was observed throughout the Union as one of fasting, humiliation, and prayer. The deep feeling of the people found expression in all the forms of religious solemnity. Services in the churches throughout the land were held in unison with the services at the Executive mansion, and were everywhere attended with exhibition of profound personal grief. In all the cities of Canada business was suspended, public meetings of condolence with a kindred people were held, and prayers were read in the churches. Throughout the Confederate States where war had ceased but peace had not yet come, the people joined in significant expressions of sorrow over the death of him whose very name they had been taught to execrate.

Early on the morning of the 21st the body was removed from the Capitol and placed on the funeral-car which was to transport it to its final resting-place in Illinois. The remains of a little son who had died three years before, were taken from their burial-place in Georgetown and borne with those of his father for final sepulture in the stately mausoleum which the public mind had already decreed to the illustrious martyr. The train which moved from the National Capital was attended on its course by extraordinary manifestations of grief on the part of the people. Baltimore, which had reluctantly and sullenly submitted to Mr. Lincoln's formal inauguration and to his authority as President, now showed every mark of honor and of homage as his body was borne through her streets, Confederate and Unionist alike realizing the magnitude of the calamity which had overwhelmed both North and South. In Philadelphia the entire population did reverence to the memory of the murdered patriot. A procession of more than a hundred thousand persons formed his funeral cortége to Independence Hall, where the body remained until the ensuing day. The silence of the sorrowful night was in strange contrast with the scene in the same place, four years before, when Mr. Lincoln, in the anxieties and perils of the opening rebellion, hoisted the National flag over our ancient Temple of Liberty, and before a great and applauding multitude defended the principles which that flag typifies. He concluded in words which, deeply impressive at the time, proved sadly prophetic now that his dead body lay in a bloody shroud where his living form then stood: "Sooner than surrender these principles, I would be assassinated on this spot."