CHAPTER VII THE SECOND INAUGURAL CHAP. VII. Feb., 1865. E have seen what effect the 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 magnanimous and tender heart of Presi dent Lincoln sincerely responded. As a ruler and CHAP. VII. a statesman, he was clear in his judgment and inflexible in his will to reëstablish 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 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 practi- Feb. 5, 1865. cable, 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 hundred millions of dollars to the States of Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North 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 CHAP. VII. MS. Feb., 1864. 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." The adoption of such resolution is sought with a view to embody it, with other propositions, in 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. It may be said with truth that this was going to the extreme of magnanimity toward a foe already in the throes and helplessness of overwhelming defeat a foe that had rebelled without adequate cause and was maintaining 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 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 1865. Union. Not only must hostilities cease, but dis- CHAP. VIL sension, 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 and liberal 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." 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: MS. CHAP. VIL MS. 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 offer were made. If attempted and defeated it would do harm. The statement of Secretary Usher, written many years afterward 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, "New York 'But you are all opposed to me, and I will not send the message."" Tribune," Sept. 13, 1885. 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 ac |