Abraham Lincoln, Volume I

by Jr. John T. Morse

CHAPTER IX

A REAL PRESIDENT, AND NOT A REAL BATTLE

The capture of Fort Sumter and the call for troops established one fact. There was to be a war. The period of speculation was over and the period of action had begun. The transition meant much. The talking men of the country had not appeared to advantage during the few months in which they had been busy chiefly in giving weak advice and in concocting prophecies. They now retired before the men of affairs, who were to do better. To the Anglo-Saxon temperament it was a relief to have done with waiting and to begin to do something. Activity cleared the minds of men, and gave to each his appropriate duty.

The gravity of the crisis being undeniable, the people of the North queried, with more anxiety than ever before, as to what kind of a chief they had taken to carry them through it. But the question which all asked none could answer. Mr. Lincoln had achieved a good reputation as a politician and a stump speaker. Whatever a few might think, this was all that any one knew. The narrow limitations of his actual experience certainly did not encourage a belief in his probable fitness to

encounter duties more varied, pressing, numerous, novel, and difficult than had ever come so suddenly to confound any ruler within recorded time. Later on, when it was seen with what rare capacity he met demands so exacting, many astonished and excitable observers began to cry out that he was inspired. This, however, was sheer nonsense. That the very peculiar requirements of these four years found a president so well responding to them may be fairly regarded, by those who so please, as a specific Providential interference,—a striking one among many less striking. But, in fact, nothing in Mr. Lincoln's life requires, for its explanation, the notion of divine inspiration. His doings, one and all, were perfectly intelligible as the outcome of honesty of purpose, strong common sense, clear reasoning powers, and a singular sagacity in reading the popular mind. Intellectually speaking, a clear and vigorous thinking capacity was his chief trait. This sounds commonplace and uninteresting, but a more serviceable qualification could not have been given him. The truth is, that it was part of the good fortune of the country that the President was not a brilliant man. Moreover, he was cool, shrewd, dispassionate, and self-possessed, and was endowed really in an extraordinary degree with an intermingling of patience and courage, whereby he was enabled both to await and to endure results. Above all he was a masterful man; not all the time and in small matters, and not often in an opinionated way; but, from beginning

to end, whenever he saw fit to be master, master he was.[^[143]]

This last fact, when it became known, answered another question which people were asking: In whose hands were the destinies of the North to be? In those of Mr. Lincoln? or in those of the cabinet? or in those of influential advisers, something like what have been called "favorites" in Europe, and "kitchen cabinet" in the more homely phrase of the United States? The early impression was that Mr. Lincoln did not know a great deal. How could he? Where and how could he have learned much? It must be admitted that it was entirely natural that his advisers, and other influential men concerned in public affairs, should adopt and act upon the theory that Mr. Lincoln, emerging so sharply from such a past as his had been, into such a crisis as was now present, must need a vast amount of instruction, guidance, suggestion. Accordingly there were many gentlemen who stood ready, not to say eager, to supply these fancied wants, and who could have supplied them very well had they existed. Therefore one of the first things which Mr. Lincoln had to do was, without antagonizing Mr. Seward and Mr. Chase, to indicate to them that they were to be not only in name but also in rigid fact his secretaries, and that he was in fact as well as by title President. This

delicate business was done so soon as opportunity offered, not in any disguised way but with plain simplicity. Mr. Chase never took the disposition quite pleasantly. He managed his department with splendid ability, but in the personal relation of a cabinet adviser upon the various matters of governmental policy he was always somewhat uncomfortable to get along with, inclined to fault-finding, ever ready with discordant suggestions, and in time also disturbed by ambition.