On Colonel Halpine trying to make the chief see that even indoors there was danger, he debated about the two menaces--violence of "cranks" and of a political fanatic. He thought too well of the sense of the "people at Richmond," some of whom had been colleagues of his in his first stay in Washington as congressman.
"Do you think that they would like to have Hannibal Hamlin--his first vice-president--here any better than myself?"
The story is repeated with his second Vice substituted for the first, with the more justification, as "Andy" Johnson was impeached for his incompetency. Detective Baker put it this way: "As to the crazy folks, I must take my chances. The most crazy people being, I fear, some of my own too zealous adherents."
(He had the same idea as in an ancient Chinese proverb: "You may steal the captain out of his castle, but you cannot steal the castle.")
"I am but a single individual, and it would not help their cause, or make the least difference in the progress of the war." [Footnote: He might have said, as truly as his predecessor, John Tyler, reproached also for going about unguarded: "My body-guard is the people who elected me.">[--(Cited by F. B. Carpenter.)
THE FEARLESSNESS OF THE GOD-FEARING.
Lincoln said that by the death of his son Willie he was touched; by the victory of Gettysburg made a believer. It is plain that, after this, a fortitude replaced the despondency stamping him. It may be due to this conviction of being one of the chosen, like Cromwell and Gordon, soldiers of Christ, that he met all adjurations for him to take care of his precious life with fanatical unconcern. He communicated to the Cabinet, at the close of the conflict, how he had appointed to confer alone and without guards to terrify the emissary, a noted Confederate. They were to discuss peace--and by that word, Lincoln was drawn to any one. He answered the cautions with the simple saying:
"I am but an individual, and my removal will not in any way advance the other folks in their endeavors."
In fact, it was so--the misdeed was a double-edged blade which cut both ways. It will never be known, probably, how near a massacre followed the explosion of indignation at that maniac's murder of the Emancipator. Fortunately for the unsullied robe of Columbia, a hundred advocates of leaving retribution to Heaven echoed Garfield's appeasing address.
Lincoln met the intermediator, but the ultimate negotiation fell through, like the others all. He came home from City Point with sadness, but from his seed has outcome the Universal Peace Tribunal of The Hague. Professor Martens based his original plea of the czar's on the Lincolnian guide for the soldiers in our war.