Abraham Lincoln, Volume II

by Jr. John T. Morse

into lending himself to the schemes of some Southerners at Niagara Falls, who threw out intimations that they were emissaries from the Confederacy and authorized to treat for peace. He believed these men, and urged that negotiations should be prosecuted with them. By the publicity which he gave to the matter he caused much embarrassment to Mr. Lincoln, who saw at once that the whole business was certainly absurd and probably treacherous. The real purpose of these envoys, he afterwards said, was undoubtedly "to assist in selecting and arranging a candidate and a platform for the Chicago Convention." Yet clearly as he understood this false and hollow scheme, he could not altogether ignore Greeley's demands for attention to it without giving too much color to those statements which the editor was assiduously scattering abroad, to the effect that the administration did not desire peace, and would not take it when proffered. So there were reasons why this sham offer must be treated as if it were an honest one, vexatious as the necessity appeared to the President. Perhaps he was cheered by the faith which he had in the wisdom of proverbs, for now, very fortunately, he permitted himself to be guided by a familiar one; and he decided to give to his annoyer liberal rope. Accordingly he authorized Mr. Greeley himself to visit in person these emissaries, to confer with them, and even to bring them to Washington in case they should prove really to have from Jefferson Davis any written

proposition "for peace, embracing the restoration of the Union and abandonment of slavery." It was an exceedingly shrewd move, and it seriously discomposed Mr. Greeley, who had not counted upon being so frankly met, and whose disquietude was amusingly evident as he reluctantly fluttered forth to Niagara upon his mission of peace, less wise than a serpent and unfortunately much less harmless than a dove.

There is no room here to follow all the intricacies of the ensuing "negotiations." The result was an utter fiasco, fully justifying the President's opinion of the fatuity of the whole business. The so-called Southern envoys had no credentials at all; they appeared to be mere adventurers, and members of that Southern colony in Canada which became even more infamous by what it desired to do than mischievous by what it actually did during the war. If they had any distinct purpose on this occasion, it was to injure the Republican party by discrediting its candidate in precisely the way in which Mr. Greeley was aiding them to do these things. But he never got his head sufficiently clear to appreciate this, and he faithfully continued to play the part for which he had been cast by them, but without understanding it. He persistently charged the responsibility for his bootless return and ignominious situation upon Mr. Lincoln; and though his errand proved conclusively that the South was making no advances,[^[72]] and

though no man in the country was more strictly affected with personal knowledge of this fact than he was, yet he continued to tell the people, with all the weight of his personal authority, that the President was obstinately set against any and all proffers of peace. Mr. Lincoln, betwixt mercy and policy, refrained from crushing his antagonist by an ungarbled publication of all the facts and documents; and in return for his forbearance he long continued to receive from Mr. Greeley vehement assurances that every direful disaster awaited the Republican party. The cause suffered much from these relentless diatribes of the "Tribune's" influential manager, for nothing else could make the administration so unpopular as the belief that it was backward in any possible exertion to secure an honorable peace.

If by sound logic the Greeley faction should have voted with the Democrats,—since in the chief point in issue, the prosecution of the war, they agreed with the Democracy,—so the war Democrats, being in accord with the Republicans, upon this same overshadowing issue should, at the coming election at least, have voted with that party. Many of them undoubtedly did finally prefer Lincoln, coupled with Andrew Johnson, to McClellan. But they also had anxieties, newly stirred, and entirely reasonable in men of their political faith. It was plain to them that Mr.

Lincoln had been finding his way to the distinct position that the abolition of slavery was an essential condition of peace. Now this was undeniably a very serious and alterative graft upon the original doctrine that the war was solely for the restoration of the Union. The editor of a war-Democratic newspaper in Wisconsin sought information upon this point. In the course of Mr. Greeley's negotiatory business Mr. Lincoln had offered to welcome "any proposition which embraces the restoration of peace, the integrity of the whole Union, and the abandonment of slavery." Now this, said the interrogating editor, implies "that no steps can be taken towards peace ... unless accompanied with an abandonment of slavery. This puts the whole war question on a new basis and takes us war Democrats clear off our feet, leaving us no ground to stand upon. If we sustain the war and war policy, does it not demand the changing of our party politics?" Nicolay and Hay print the draft of a reply by Mr. Lincoln which, they say, was "apparently unfinished and probably never sent." In this he referred to his past utterances as being still valid. But he said that no Southerner had "intimated a willingness for a restoration of the Union in any event or on any condition whatever.... If Jefferson Davis wishes for himself, or for the benefit of his friends at the North, to know what I would do if he were to offer peace and reunion, saying nothing about slavery, let him try me." It must be admitted

that this was not an answer, but was a clear waiver of an answer. The President could not or would not reply categorically to the queries of the editor. Perhaps the impossibility of doing so both satisfactorily and honestly may explain why the paper was left unfinished and unsent. It was not an easy letter to write; its composition must have puzzled one who was always clear both in thought and in expression. Probably Mr. Lincoln no longer expected that the end of the war would leave slavery in existence, nor intended that it should do so; and doubtless he anticipated that the course of events would involve the destruction of that now rotten and undermined institution, without serious difficulty at the opportune moment. The speeches made at the Republican nominating convention had been very outspoken, to the effect that slavery must be made to "cease forever," as a result of the war. Yet a blunt statement that abolition would be a sine qua non in any arrangements for peace, emanating directly from the President, as a declaration of his policy, would be very costly in the pending campaign, and would imperil rather than advance the fortunes of him who had this consummation at heart, and would thereby also diminish the chance for the consummation itself. So at last he seems to have left the war Democrats to puzzle over the conundrum, and decide as best they could. Of course the doubt affected unfavorably the votes of some of them.

A measure of the mischief which was done by

these suspicions and by Greeley's assertions that the administration did not desire peace, may be taken from a letter, written to Mr. Lincoln on August 22 by Mr. Henry J. Raymond, chairman of the National Executive Committee of the Republican party. From all sides, Mr. Raymond says, "I hear but one report. The tide is setting strongly against us." Mr. Washburne, he writes, despairs of Illinois, and Mr. Cameron of Pennsylvania, and he himself is not hopeful of New York, and Governor Morton is doubtful of Indiana; "and so of the rest." For this melancholy condition he assigns two causes: the want of military successes, and the belief "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." Then even this stanch Republican leader suggests that it might be good policy to sound Jefferson Davis on the feasibility of peace "on the sole condition of acknowledging the supremacy of the Constitution,—all other questions to be settled in a convention of the people of all the States." The President might well have been thrown into inextricable confusion of mind, betwixt the assaults of avowed enemies, the denunciations and predictions of inimical friends, the foolish advice of genuine supporters. It is now plain that all the counsel which was given to him was bad, from whatsoever quarter it came. It shows the powerfulness of his nature that he

retained his cool and accurate judgment, although the crisis was such that even he also had to admit that the danger of defeat was imminent. To Mr. Raymond's panic-stricken suggestions he made a very shrewd response by drafting some instructions for the purpose of sending that gentleman himself on the mission to Mr. Davis. It was the same tactics which he had pursued in dispatching Mr. Greeley to meet the Southerners in Canada. The result was that the fruitlessness of the suggestion was admitted by its author.