During the five weeks which remained to Lincoln on earth,the army was his most obvious concern.He watched eagerly the closing of the enormous trap that had been slowly built up surrounding Lee.Toward the end of March he went to the front,and for two weeks had his quarters on a steamer at City Point.
It was during Lincoln's visit that Sherman came up from North Carolina for his flying conference with Grant,in which the President took part.Lincoln was at City Point when Petersburg fell.Early on the morning of April third,he joined Grant who gives a strange glimpse in his Memoirs of their meeting in the deserted city which so recently had been the last bulwark of the Confederacy.[1]The same day,Richmond fell.Lincoln had returned to City Point,and on the following day when confusion reigned in the burning city,he walked through its streets attended only by a few sailors and by four friends.He visited Libby Prison;and when a member of his party said that Davis ought to be hanged,Lincoln replied,"Judge not that ye be not judged."[2]His deepest thoughts,however,were not with the army.The time was at hand when his statesmanship was to be put to its most severe test.He had not forgotten the anxious lesson of that success of the Vindictives in balking momentarily the recognition of Louisiana.it was war to the knife between him and them.Could he reconstruct the Union in a wise and merciful fashion despite their desperate opposition?
He had some strong cards in his hand.First of all,he had time.Congress was not in session.He had eight months in which to press forward his own plans.If,when Congress assembled the following December,it should be confronted by a group of reconciled Southern States,would it venture to refuse them recognition?No one could have any illusions as to what the Vindictives would try to do.They would continue the struggle they had begun over Louisiana;and if their power permitted,they would rouse the nation to join battle with the President on that old issue of the war powers,of the dictatorship.
But in Lincoln's hand there were four other cards,all of which Wade and Chandler would find it hard to match.He had the army.In the last election the army had voted for him enthusiastically.And the army was free from the spirit of revenge,the Spirit which Chandler built upon.They had the plain people,the great mass whom the machine politicians had failed to judge correctly in the August Conspiracy.Pretty generally,he had the Intellectuals.Lastly,he had--or with skilful generalship he could have--the Abolitionists.
The Thirteenth Amendment was not yet adopted.The question had been raised,did it require three-fourths of all the States for its adoption,or only three-fourths of those that were ranked as not in rebellion.Here was the issue by means of which the Abolitionists might all be brought into line.It was by no means certain that every Northern State would vote for the amendment.In the smaller group of States,there was a chance that the amendment might fail.But if it were submitted to the larger group;and if every Reconstructed State,before Congress met,should adopt the amendment;and if it was apparent that with these Southern adoptions the amendment must prevail,all the great power of the anti-slavery sentiment would be thrown on the side of the President in favor of recognizing the new State governments and against the Vindictives.Lincoln held a hand of trumps.Confidently,but not rashly,he looked forward to his peaceful war with the Vindictives.
They were enemies not to be despised.To begin with,they were experienced machine politicians;they had control of well-organized political rings.They were past masters of the art of working up popular animosities.And they were going to use this art in that dangerous moment of reaction which invariably follows the heroic tension of a great war.The alignment in the Senate revealed by the Louisiana battle had also a significance.The fact that Sumner,who was not quite one of them,became their general on that occasion,was something to remember.They had made or thought they had made other powerful allies.The Vice President,Andrew Johnson-the new president of the Senate-appeared at this time to be cheek by jowl with the fiercest Vindictives of them all.It would be interesting to know when the thought first occurred to them:
"If anything should happen to Lincoln,his successor would be one of us!"The ninth of April arrived and the news of Lee's surrender.
"The popular excitement over the victory was such that on Monday,the tenth,crowds gathered before the Executive Mansion several times during the day and called out the President for speeches.Twice he responded by coming to the window and saying a few words which,however,indicated that his mind was more occupied with work than with exuberant rejoicing.As briefly as he could he excused himself,but promised that on the following evening for which a formal demonstration was being arranged,he would be prepared to say something."[3]
The paper which he read to the crowd that thronged the grounds of the White House on the night of April eleventh,was his last public utterance.It was also one of his most remarkable ones.
In a way,it was his declaration of war against the Vindictives.[4]It is the final statement of a policy toward helpless opponents--he refused to call them enemies--which among the conquerors of history is hardly,if at all,to be paralleled.[5]
