All this, it is well enough to remember, was long after the President's Emancipation Proclamation had appeared.
There was, however, another manifestation of the antagonism spoken of which the public, for some reason, never seemed to "get on to," that at one time threatened very serious consequences, and which, if it had gone a little farther, might have materially changed the history of the country. That was a movement, after Mr. Lincoln's nomination, to compel him to retire from the ticket, or to confront him with a strong independent Republican candidate. According to Messrs. Nicolay and Hay, Mr. Lincoln's private secretaries and his biographers, the movement started in New York City and had its ramifications in many parts of the country. One meeting was held at the residence of David Dudley Field, and was attended by such men as George William Curtis, Noyes, Wilkes, Opdyke, Horace Greeley, and some twenty-five others. In the movement were such prominent people as Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts, and Benjamin F. Wade, of Ohio. One of the men favorable to the proposition was Governor Andrew of Massachusetts. "He," says his biographer, Peleg W. Chandler, "was very busy in the movement in 1864 to displace the President." "The secrecy," he adds, "with which this branch of the Republican politics of that year has been ever since enveloped is something marvelous; there were so many concerned in it. When it all comes out, if it ever does,
it will make a curious page in the history of the time." The signal for the abandonment of the movement, according to Mr. Chandler, was given by Mr. Chase.
Almost at the beginning of the movement the Missouri Democrat, doubtless because of its supposed opposition to Mr. Lincoln, was approached on the subject. If the statements made to it were anywhere near correct, the conspiracy, as it might be called, had the countenance of a surprisingly great number of weighty Republicans. The Democrat declined to become a party to the proposed insurrection. It held that after what had occurred in the Baltimore convention, it could not consistently and honorably do so.
There was another reason why it stood aloof. Before the nomination it was, naturally enough, looking out for some one who might be urged as a suitable competitor for Mr. Lincoln's place. Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, was then quite popular with a good many people of radical views. The writer prepared an article discussing his availability as presidential timber and suggested him as a good man for the nomination. The article appeared as a leader in the Democrat, and was followed by others in the same vein. The suggestion attracted attention and led to a good deal of newspaper discussion. Herein we have, according to the writer's opinion, the leading cause of Johnson's nomination for the Vice-Presidency. At all events, he was on the ticket with Lincoln, and the Democrat could not very well go back on its own man.
The new departure, as the proposition for another
Republican candidate in case Mr. Lincoln resolved to stick might be called, that appeared so formidable at one time, faded away without the public knowing anything of its existence. The reason was that it had no candidate. It had relied on Chase, knowing the unfriendliness there was between him and the President, but Chase said "No," and that was the end of it.
The nomination of Mr. Chase for the Chief Justiceship has always been regarded as an act of great magnanimity on Mr. Lincoln's part, as well as a clear perception of merit. It was doubtless all that, but the actions of the two men at this time certainly make out a case of striking coincidence. Such things rarely come by accident.
From what has been stated, it will be seen that the Missouri Radicals were by no means alone in their opposition to the President's nomination, for which they are so sharply taken to task by some of his biographers and eulogists. They had plenty of company, the only difference being that they stood out in the open while the others acted covertly.
The Missouri Germans, who mostly approved the candidature of Frémont, and some of whom refused to vote for Lincoln, have been particularly assailed. Messrs. Nicolay and Hay, in their Lincoln biography, even go so far as to attack them on the ground of their religious, or rather anti-religious, beliefs, calling them "materialist Missourians," "Missouri agnostics," etc., etc.