“And now, Mr. President,” I asked, “in the name of God, what doth hinder? In view of all these things, does it not seem that you are the lion in the path? Please tell me who was benefited by Mr. Lincoln’s death? Was it Clement C. Clay? What good accrued to him from the murder? He was the loved representative of a proud constituency. He is now pining in solitary confinement. You, Mr. Johnson, are the one man benefited! You have succeeded to the highest office in the gift of the people! You, through this elevation, have become the centre of a nation’s hopes, the arbiter of life and death!” I paused in my plea, at a movement of deprecation made by the President, but I would not be halted.
“You have promised me,” I continued, “and Heaven knows how I thank you for it, that never while you sit in the Presidential chair will you surrender to the Military Commission the two prisoners in Fortress Monroe. In that, you have saved their lives! I have not the shadow of a doubt but that execution, and that in chains, as in Mrs. Surratt’s case, might have taken place. But, when, notwithstanding the recommendations of such men as General Grant, Thaddeus Stevens, Judge Walker, and Henry Wilson, I see you waiting for ‘public clamour’ to subside, and, at the same time, in counsel with your Secretary of War, I am afraid. Again I implore you to stand firmly, my friend; thus far, at least, by not yielding to the desires of that wicked Commission and staining your soul with innocent blood!”
Turning, my eyes rested upon the marble bust of the late President, and I said, “Whose bust is that?”
“Mr. Lincoln’s,” was the surprised reply.
“I know it!” I answered. “But is he not a dead President? And why, may I ask, do you, a living one, stand surrounded by his Cabinet? Why do you not reach out to the great conservative heart of this Nation and select your own Cabinet? Why not become the popular head, as you can become? So long as you stand, Mr. President, as the barrier between your Military Commission and my husband and Mr. Davis, so long will I dare to be your friend to the extent of telling you what the people say of you!”
“Well, what do they say?” asked the President, with an air of indifference which, it was obvious, was assumed.
“They say,” I replied, “that you should get rid of Mr. Lincoln’s Cabinet; that you should surround yourself with a Cabinet of your own! Why do you hobble yourself with a dead man’s advisers? They say, too, you are swinging in too circumscribed a circle! I have even heard,” I added, “hints of ‘impeachment’ uttered in connection with the dissatisfaction resulting from your administration!”
During my bold speech the President gave evidence of being deeply moved, if not irritated, by my revelations; and, feeling that I had said enough, if, indeed, not too much, in the intensity of my feelings, Mrs. Bouligny and I withdrew. Ere we left him, however, the President assured me, as he so often had done (though he said the words over each time with an earnest gravity that was void of consciousness of his repetition), that he would “confer as to the release in our next Cabinet meeting!”
CHAPTER XXX
The Government Yields Its Prisoner
By the early spring of ’6 the faces of old friends began to reappear in the Northern cities. New York, which I necessarily visited at times during those eventful months, when not at the Fort with Mr. Clay or beseeching the President on his behalf, was crowded with Southern people, many of whom were returning from abroad, or were industriously seeking to reëstablish business connections. In the capital one met on every hand friends of the ante-bellum days, saddened and changed, it might be, in fortune, but brave-spirited and walking with heads upright and hearts strong to meet the future. “I am persuaded that our States and people are to be prosperous, despite the portentous clouds which are now around us,” wrote Mr. Mallory, from Bridgeport, Connecticut, where, now an invalid, he was constrained to remain; “and that the day is not far distant when you and your incomparable lord, with other congenial spirits, will smile at fate and look back to the paths we are now treading with more of pride than of sorrow! My love to Clay. God love him! What would I not give to be able to serve him!”