father's house, instead of taking his place at the table, he insisted upon acting as waiter. This led to an explosion, and to his expulsion from home. For the last two years he had been wandering among the various communities, and during that winter had been living in Boston, in the houses of various gentlemen on whom he had intruded himself without invitation, taking care, with commendable good taste, to select the best houses in the city. In pursuance of his system, he had now come to spend a few days with Mrs. Sturgis. When dinner was served he went with me to the table, but declined to eat anything except apples, of which, fortunately, we had a good store in the house. A plate of these was set before him, which he peeled and ate very contentedly, refusing to partake of anything else, but lecturing us earnestly on the atrocity of our habits in eating beef, salt, and butter, and drinking wine and coffee. He himself did not drink at all, not even water. He staid with us a few days, during which I found him a very agreeable companion; and when he went away I accompanied him to Boston to attend an Abolition convention which was then in session in the city, at which he was desirous of speaking. When the convention adjourned for dinner he asked me to go with him to the house of Francis Jackson, one of the leading Abolitionists of Boston. As I had no acquaintance with Mr. Jackson, I declined to intrude myself upon his hospitality, and was about to set out upon my return to Brookline, which I could reach in time for dinner, when Larned insisted that if I would not go to Jackson's to dinner I must at least go and dine with him at an eating-house. We went accordingly to a place near by, where I got a dinner of the usual kind, while my companion, in default of apples, ate an apple-pie, which he said came within the limits of his dietetic system. After dinner, it suddenly occurred to me to inquire if he had any means of paying. "Not a cent." I was nearly in the same condition, having only just money enough to pay my fare out in the omnibus to Brookline. I told him he must get out of the scrape without involving me. To this he assented, saying that he was used to such things and had great confidence in human nature. I accordingly walked directly out, leaving him to settle at the counter. He came out presently, triumphant. The restaurant keeper was indeed human, and had agreed to give him credit till that indefinite period, "the next time he came." I then parted with him in the street, with my friendship for him a little cooled by this untoward incident, and did not see him again for about three years, when he suddenly called at my lodgings one day, fashionably dressed, and acting and talking like other people. I soon learned that he had renounced all his vagaries, was settled in the South as a Unitarian minister, and had married a lady who owned a number of slaves, whom he did not think it necessary to emancipate. The "Newness" with him was completely "played out," and after Brook Farm exploded in 1847 and Margaret Fuller went to Europe, I think it had very little distinctive existence in New England. The aspiring youth of New England seem now to be contented with making their way in the world very much as other people make it, without seeking for any fundamental change in the established order of society. ABRAHAM LINCOLN: A HISTORY." THE SECOND INAUGURAL-FIVE FORKS-APPOMATTOX. BY JOHN G. NICOLAY AND JOHN HAY, PRIVATE SECRETARIES TO THE PRESIDENT. THE SECOND INAUGURAL. E have seen what effect the written during the day, and upon which he invited their opinion and advice: Fellow-citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives: I respectfully recommend that a joint resolution, substantially as follows, be adopted, so soon as practicable, by your honorable bodies: "Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the President of the United States is hereby empowered, in his discretion, to pay four Hampton Roads conference produced upon Jefferson Davis, and to what intemperate and wrathful utterance it provoked him. Its effect upon President Lincoln was almost directly the reverse. His interview with the rebel commissioners doubtless strengthened his former convictions that the rebellion was waning in enthusiasm and resources, and that the Union cause must triumph at no distant day. Secure in his renewal of four years' personal leadership, and hopefully inspirited by every sign of early victory in the war, his only thought was to shorten, by generous conciliation, the period of the dreadful conflict. His temper was not one of exultation, but of broad patriotic charity, and of keen, sensitive personal sympathy for the whole country and all its people, South as well as North. His conversation with Stephens, Hunter, and Campbell had probably revealed to him glimpses of the undercurrent of their anxiety that fraternal bloodshed and the destructive ravages of war might somehow come to an end. To every word or tone freighted with this feeling, the sincere, magnanimous, and tender heart of President Lincoln responded with bounding impulses. As a ruler and a statesman, he was clear in his judgment and inflexible in his will to reestablish union and maintain freedom for all who had gained it by the chances of war; but also as a statesman and a ruler, he was ready to lend his individual influence and his official discretion to any measure of mitigation and manifestation of good-will that, without imperiling the union of the States, or the liberty of the citizen, might promote acquiescence in impending political changes, and abatement and reconcilement of hostile sectional feelings. Filled with such thoughts and purposes, he spent the day after his return from Hampton Roads in considering and perfecting a new proposal, designed as a peace-offering to the States in rebellion. On the evening of February 5, 1865, he called his Cabinet together and read to them the following draft of a message and proclamation, which he had 1 Copyright by J. G. Nicolay and John Hay, 1886. All rights reserved. hundred millions of dollars to the States of Alabama, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia, in the manner and on the conditions following, to wit: The payment to be made in six per cent. Government bonds, and to be distributed among said States pro rata on their respective slave populations as shown by the census of 1860, and no part of said sum to be paid unless all resistance to the national authority shall be abandoned and cease, on or before the first day of April next; and upon such abandonment and ceasing of resistance one-half of said sum to be paid, in manner aforesaid, and the remaining half to be paid only upon the amendment of the national Constitution recently proposed by Congress becoming valid law, on or before the first day of July next, by the action thereon of the requisite number of States." view to embody it, with other propositions, in a The adoption of such resolution is sought with a proclamation looking to peace and reunion. Whereas, a joint resolution has been adopted by Congress, in the words following, to wit: Now therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do proclaim, declare, and make known, that on the conditions therein stated, the power conferred on the Executive in and by said joint resolution will be fully exercised; that war will cease and armies be reduced to a basis of peace; that all political offenses will be pardoned; that all property, except slaves, liable to confiscation or forfeiture, will be released therefrom, except in cases of intervening interests of third parties; and that liberality will be recommended to Congress upon all points not lying within Executive control.2 It may be said with truth that this was going to the verge of magnanimity towards a foe already in the throes and helplessness of overwhelming defeat-a foe that had rebelled without adequate cause and maintained the contest without reasonable hope. But Mr. Lincoln remembered that the rebels, notwithstanding all their offenses and errors, were yet American citizens, members of the same 2 Unpublished MS. nation, brothers of the same blood. He remembered, too, that the object of the war, equally with peace and freedom, was the maintenance of one government and the perpetuation of one Union. Not only must hostilities cease, but dissension, suspicion, and estrangement be eradicated. As it had been in the past, so it must again become in the future-not merely a nation with the same Constitution and laws, but a people united in feeling, in hope, in aspiration. In his judgment, the liberality that would work reconciliation would be well employed. Whether their complaints for the past were well or ill founded, he would remove even the temptation to complain in the future. He would give them peace, reunion, political pardon, remission of confiscation wherever it was in his power, and securing unquestioned and universal freedom through the constitutional amendment, he would at the same time compensate their loss of slavery by a direct money equivalent. It turned out that he was more humane than his constitutional advisers. The indorsement of his own handwriting on the manuscript draft of his proposed message records the result of his appeal and suggestion: "FEBRUARY 5, 1865. To-day these papers, which explain themselves, were drawn up and submitted to the Cabinet and unanimously disapproved by them.-A. LINCOLN." 1 It would appear that there was but little discussion of the proposition. The President's evident earnestness on the one side, and the unanimous dissent of the Cabinet on the other, probably created an awkward situation which could be best relieved by silence on each hand. The diary of Secretary Welles gives only a brief mention of the important incident, but it reflects the feeling which pervaded the Cabinet chamber: MONDAY, February 6, 1865. There was a Cabinet meeting last evening. The President had matured a scheme which he hoped would be successful in promoting peace. It was a proposition for paying the expense of the war for two hundred days, or four hundred millions to the rebel States, to be for the extinguishment of slavery or for such purpose as the States were disposed. This, in few words, was the scheme. It did not meet with favor, but was dropped. The earnest desire of the President to conciliate and effect peace was manifest, but there may be such a thing as so overdoing as to cause a distrust or adverse feeling. In the present temper of Congress the proposed measure, if a wise one, could not be carried through successfully; I do not think the scheme could accomplish any good results. The rebels would misconstrue it if the 1 Unpublished MS. 2 Unpublished MS. offer were made. If attempted and defeated it would do harm.2 The statement of Secretary Usher, written many years afterwards from memory, also records the deep feeling with which the President received the non-concurrence of his Executive Council: The members of the Cabinet were all opposed. He seemed somewhat surprised at that and asked, "How long will the war last?" No one answered, but he soon said: "A hundred days. We are spending now in carrying on the war three millions a day, which will amount to all this money, besides all the lives." With a deep sigh he added, "But you are all opposed to me, and I will not send the message."3 The entry made by Secretary Welles in his diary on the morning after the Cabinet meeting, as to the amount and time, is undoubtedly the correct one, coinciding as it does with the President's manuscript. But the discrepancy in the figures of the two witnesses is of little moment. Both accounts show us that the proposal was not based on sentiment alone, but upon a practical arithmetical calculation. An expenditure of three or four hundred millions was inevitable; but his plan would save many precious lives, would shield homes and hearths from further sorrow and desolation, would dissolve sectional hatred, and plant fraternal goodwill. Though overborne in opinion, clearly he was not convinced. With the words, "You are all opposed to me," sadly uttered, Mr. Lincoln folded up the paper and ceased the further discussion of what was doubtless the project then nearest his heart. We may surmise, however, that, as he wrote upon it the indorsement we have quoted and laid it away, he looked forward to a not distant day when, in the new term of the Presidency to which he was already elected, the Cabinet, with new and more liberal views, would respond more charitably to his own generous impulses. Few Cabinet secrets were better kept than this proposal of the President and its discussion. Since the subject was indefinitely postponed, it was, of course, desirable that it should not come to the knowledge of the public. Silence was rendered easier by the fact that popular attention in the North busied itself with rumors concerning the Hampton Roads conference. To satisfy this curiosity, a resolution of the House of Representatives, passed on February 8, requested the President to communicate such information respecting it as he might deem not incompatible with the public interest. With this request Mr. Lincoln complied on the 10th, by a message in which all the correspondence was printed, followed by a brief report touching the points of conference: On the morning of the 3d [wrote Mr. Lincoln] the three gentlemen, Messrs. Stephens, Hunter, and Campbell, came aboard of our steamer, and had an interview with the Secretary of State and myself of several hours' duration. No question of preliminaries to the meeting was then and there made or mentioned. No other person was present; no papers were exchanged or produced; and it was, in advance, agreed that the conversation was to be informal and verbal merely. On our part, the whole substance of the instructions to the Secretary of State, hereinbefore recited, was stated and insisted upon, and nothing was said inconsistent therewith; while, by the other party, it was not said that in any event or on any condition they ever would consent to reunion; and yet they equally omitted to declare that they never would so consent. They seemed to desire a postponement of that question, and the adoption of some other course first, which, as some of them seem to argue, might or might not lead to reunion; but which course, we thought, would amount to an indefinite postponement. The conference ended without result.1 A short discussion occurred in the House on the motion to print this message, but it did not rise above the ordinary level of a party wrangle. The few Democrats who took part in it complained of the President for refusing an armistice, while the Republicans retorted with Jefferson Davis's condition about the "two countries" and the more recent declarations of his Richmond harangue, announcing his readiness to perish for independence. On the whole, both Congress and the country were gratified that the incident had called out Mr. Lincoln's renewed declaration of an unalterable resolve to maintain the Union. Patriotic hope was quickened and public confidence strengthened by noting once more his singleness of purpose and steadfastness of faith. No act of his could have formed a more fitting prelude to his second inauguration, which was now rapidly approaching, and the preliminary steps of which were at this time being consummated. A new phase of the reconstruction question was developed in the usual congressional routine of counting the electoral votes of the late presidential election. Former chapters have set forth the President's general views on reconstruction, and shown that though the executive and legislative branches of the Government differed as to the theory and policy of restoring insurrectionary States to their normal federal functions, such difference had not reached the point of troublesome or dangerous antagonism. Over the new question also dissension and conflict were happily avoided. By instruction to his military commanders and in private letters to prominent citizens Mr. Lincoln had strongly advised and actively promoted the formation of loyal State governments in Louisiana, Tennessee, and Arkansas, and had maintained the restored government of Virginia after the division of that State and the admission of West Virginia into the Union, and had officially given them the recognition of the Executive Department of the Government. The Legislative Department, however, had latterly withheld its recognition, and refused them representation in Congress. The query now arose whether the popular and electoral votes of some of those States for President should be allowed and counted. The subject was taken up by the House, which the insurrectionary States, declaring them to on January 30 passed a joint resolution naming have been "in armed rebellion" on the 8th of November, 1864, and not entitled to representation in the electoral college. A searching debate on this resolution arose in the Senate, which called out the best legal talent of that body. It could not very consistently be affirmed that Louisiana, Tennessee, and Arkansas, held by Federal troops and controlled by Federal commanders in part at least, were "in armed rebellion" on election day, under whatever constitutional theory of reconstruction. The phraseology was finally amended to read that the rebel States "were in such condition on the 8th day of November, 1864, that no valid election for electors of President and VicePresident of the United States, according to the Constitution and laws thereof, was held therein on said day," and in this form the joint resolution was passed by both houses. Joint resolutions of Congress have all the force and effect of laws, and custom requires the President to approve them in the same manner as regular acts. His signature in this case might therefore be alleged to imply that he consented to or adopted a theory of reconstruction at variance with his former recommendation and action. To avoid the possibility of such misconstruction, Mr. Lincoln sent Congress a short message, in which he said: The joint resolution, entitled "Joint resolution declaring certain States not entitled to representation in the electoral college," has been signed by the Executive, in deference to the view of Congress implied in its passage and presentation to him. In his own view, however, the two houses of Congress, convened under the twelfth article of the counting all'electoral votes deemed by them to be Constitution, have complete power to exclude from illegal; and it is not competent for the Executive to defeat or obstruct that power by a veto, as would be the case if his action were at all essential in the matter. He disclaims all right of the Executive to interfere in any way in the matter of canvassing or counting electoral votes; and he also disclaims that, by signing said resolution, he has expressed any judgment of his own upon the subject of the resoopinion on the recitals of the preamble, or any lution.2 1 "House Journal," Feb. 10, 1865, p. 237. 2 Lincoln, Message, Feb. 8, 1865. "House Journal," p. 213. In anticipation of possible debate and contention on the subject of counting the electoral votes of reconstructed States, Congress had, on February 6, adopted what afterwards became famous as the Twenty-second Joint Rule, which directed in substance that all such questions should be decided, not by the joint convention of the two houses, but by each house for itself without debate, the two houses having temporarily separated for that purpose; and requiring the concurrence of both for any affirmative action, or to count a vote objected to. When the two houses met in joint convention on the eighth day of February, mention was made by the Vice-President, presiding, that "The Chair has in his possession returns from the States of Louisiana and Tennessee; but in obedience to the law of the land, the Chair holds it to be his duty not to present them to the convention."1 No member insisted on having these returns opened, since they could not possibly change the result. Only the returns therefore from the loyal States, including West Virginia, were counted, showing two hundred and twelve electoral votes for Lincoln, and twenty-one for McClellan. The Vice-President thereupon announced "that Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, having received a majority of the whole number of electoral votes, is duly elected President of the United States for four years, commencing on the fourth day of March, 1865." 2 The usual committee was appointed to wait upon Mr. Lincoln and notify him of his second election; and in response to their announcement, he read the following brief address: With deep gratitude to my countrymen for this mark of their confidence; with a distrust of my own ability to perform the duty required, under the most favorable circumstances, and now rendered doubly difficult by existing national perils; yet with a firm reliance on the strength of our free Government and the eventual loyalty of the people to the just principles upon which it is founded, and, above all, with an unshaken faith in the Supreme Ruler of Nations, I accept this trust. Be pleased to signify this to the respective houses of Congress.3 In the informal friendly conversation which followed, the President said to the committee, in substance: Having served four years in the depths of a great and yet unended national peril, I can view this call to a second term in nowise more flatteringly to my self than as an expression of the public judgment that I may better finish a difficult work in which I have labored from the first than could any one less severely schooled to the task.4 1 "Globe," Feb. 8, 1865, p. 668. 2 Ibid., p. 669. 3 Unpublished MS. The reply reported by the notification committee is incorrect, having apparently The formal inauguration of Mr. Lincoln for his second presidential term took place at the appointed time, March 4, 1865. There is little variation in the simple but impressive pageantry with which this official ceremony is celebrated. The principal novelty commented upon by the newspapers was the share which the hitherto enslaved race had, for the first time, in this public and political drama. Civic associations of negro citizens joined in the procession, and a battalion of negro soldiers formed part of the military escort. The weather was sufficiently favorable to allow the ceremonies to take place on the eastern portico, in view of a vast throng of spectators. Imaginative beholders, who were prone to draw augury and comfort from symbols, could rejoice that the great bronze statue of Freedom now crowned the dome of the Capitol, and that her guardianship was justified by the fact that the Thirteenth Amendment virtually blotted slavery from the Constitution. The central act of the occasion was President Lincoln's second inaugural address, which enriched the political literature of the Union with another masterpiece, and which deserves to be quoted in full. He said: FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN: At this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then, a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the on every point and phase of the great contest energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured. On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an All dreaded it—all sought impending civil war. to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agen's were in the city seeking to destroy it without war— seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came. One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend been written out from memory, intermingling an abstract of the formal paper which the President read with the informal conversation that succeeded. 4 "Globe," March 1, 1865, pp. 1236 and 1263. |