As illustrative of the amenities of language with which, at this epoch of his life, the Chief Magistrate of our Republic was habitually characterized, it will suffice to adduce such an expression as this,—"That hideous baboon at the other end of the Avenue, whom Barnum should exhibit as a zoölogical curiosity." Mr. Lincoln's existence was so cruelly embittered by these and other expressions quite as virulent, that I have often heard him declare, "I would rather be dead than, as President, thus abused in the house of my friends."
In the summer of 1861, shortly after the inglorious repulse of the Union army at Bull Run, Rev. Robert Collyer, the eminent divine, was on a visit to the federal capital. Participating in the prevailing sentiment in regard to the incapacity or inefficiency of the general government in the conduct of military affairs, he chanced to pass through the White House grounds on his way to the War Department. Casting a cursory glance at the Executive Mansion as he passed, his attention was suddenly arrested by the apparition of three pairs of feet, resting on the ledge of an open window, in one of the apartments of the second story, and plainly visible from below. The reverend gentleman paused, calmly surveyed the grotesque spectacle, and mentally addressed to himself the inquiry whether the feet, and boots belonging to them, were the property of officers of the Executive government,—at the same time thinking that if not, they would have proved sturdy pedestals to the bearers of muskets upon the recent battle-field. Resuming his walk, he accosted a rustic employee whom he found at work about the grounds, and pointing to the window, with its incongruous adjuncts, he requested of the man what that meant. "Why, you old fool," replied the rustic, "that's the Cabinet that is a settin'; and them thar big feet's old Abe's."
Some time after, in referring to this experience of his visit to the national capital in a lecture at Boston, the reverend gentleman commented on the imbecility of the government, and satirically added: "That's about all they are good for in Washington,—to project their feet out of windows and jabber away; but they go nowhere, and accomplish nothing." But he subsequently, on more than one occasion, rendered full justice to the President's able and zealous discharge of his high trust, saying: "I abused poor Lincoln, like the fool that the rustic called me, while his heart was even then breaking with the anxieties and responsibilities of his position."
CHAPTER XVII.
PLOTS AND ASSASSINATION.
The fact that we have in this country a literature of assassination, "voluminous and vast," suggests a melancholy reflection on the disordered spirit of the times through which we have passed, and on the woful perversity of human nature even under conditions most favorable to intellectual progress and Christian civilization. It is hurtful to our pride as Americans to confess that our history is marred by records so repugnant to the spirit of our liberal institutions, and to the good fellowship which ought to characterize both individual and national life in a free republic. But the appalling fact remains that two of our Chief Magistrates, within as many decades, were murdered in cold blood, and that bulky volumes have been filled with circumstantial accounts of plots and conspiracies by and against men born upon our soil and enjoying the full protection of our laws; and yet, voluminous and extensive as these records are, they are by no means complete.
One most daring attempt upon the life of Mr. Lincoln—the boldest of all attempts of that character, and one which approached shockingly near to a murderous success—was never made public. For prudential reasons details were withheld from the press; but as the motives which imposed silence respecting a strange freak of homicidal frenzy no longer exist, it is perhaps a matter of duty to make public the story, together with certain documents which show in what deadly peril Mr. Lincoln stood during the ceremonies attending his second inauguration at the Capitol in March, 1865. A glance at prior conspiracies will lead to a better understanding of the event to which these documents relate.
The first conspiracy, from motives of policy, had for its object the abduction of President Buchanan. There was intense disgust on the part of certain fiery and ferocious leaders in the secession movement with the conservative temper of the Executive and of the ruling members of his Cabinet. After fruitless attempts to bully the Administration into a change of policy in harmony with his revolutionary scheme, Mr. Wigfall, some time in the month of December, 1860, formed a plan for kidnapping Mr. Buchanan. A number of desperate men were banded together by him at Washington, and the details of the plot were discussed and agreed upon. The plan was to spirit Mr. Buchanan away, install Mr. Breckenridge in the White House, and hold the captive President as a hostage until terms of compromise could be proposed to conservative Democrats and Republicans in the North. Mr. Wigfall and other choice spirits had no doubt that their plan of accommodation could be enforced through the ad interim Executive. The scheme, however, could not be executed, in its first stage, without the concurrence and co-operation of Mr. Floyd, who threw Wigfall into a paroxysm of explosive wrath by flatly refusing to have anything to do with the enterprise. It was accordingly abandoned, so far as Mr. Buchanan was concerned.