Category Archives: Politics

Republicans Press Lincoln for Peace

Politics August 17, 2019 Leave a comment

August 17, 1864 – Plummeting northern morale put President Abraham Lincoln under intense pressure to save his reelection hopes by renewing peace negotiations with the Confederacy.

President Abraham Lincoln | Image Credit: Wikimedia.org

The Federal military’s slow progress and high casualties, along with recent failed peace talks, made this the most demoralizing month of the war for the North. While the Radical Republicans condemned Lincoln for not waging harsher war on the South, conservative Republicans and pro-war Democrats urged Lincoln to try negotiating peace once more.

War Democrats argued that the Confederates would be willing to discuss restoring the Union if Lincoln would only drop his insistence on slave emancipation, but they ignored Jefferson Davis’s insistence on Confederate independence. An editorial in a Democratic newspaper declared, “Tens of thousands of white men must yet bite the dust to allay the negro mania of the President.” A Connecticut soldier voiced the sentiment of many comrades by writing, “Is there any man that wants to be shot down for a niger? That is what we are fighting for now and nothing else.”

Even fellow Republicans called making emancipation “a fundamental article” for peace a “blunder” because it “has given the disaffected and discontented a weapon that doubles their power of mischief.” Knowing that he needed conservatives and War Democrats for reelection, Lincoln wrote a letter stating, “If Jefferson Davis… wishes to know what I would do if he were to offer peace and re-union, saying nothing about slavery, let him try me.” However, Lincoln ultimately decided not to publish this letter.

The National Union Executive Committee, which had nominated Lincoln for reelection, met in New York City and issued a statement to Lincoln through Chairman Henry J. Raymond, editor of the New York Times. Raymond wrote:

“I feel compelled to drop you a line concerning the political condition of the country as it strikes me. I am in active correspondence with your staunchest friends in every state, and from them all I hear but one report. The tide is setting strongly against us…”

Raymond told Lincoln that Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania, Oliver Morton of Indiana, and Elihu Washburne of Illinois all reported that their states would vote against him, and Raymond’s home state of New York “would go 50,000 against us tomorrow… Two special causes are assigned to this great reaction in public sentiment, –the want of military success, and… fear and suspicion… that we are not, to have peace in any event under this Administration until Slavery is abandoned.”

“Nothing but the most resolute and decided action on the part of the Government and its friends can save the country from falling into hostile hands,” wrote Raymond. As such, he urged Lincoln to send a commissioner “to make distinct proffers of peace of Davis…on the sole condition of acknowledging the supremacy of the constitution,–all the other questions to be settled in a convention of the people of all the States.”

Raymond argued that this offer would not mean abandoning emancipation because “if it should be rejected, (as it would be,) it would plant seeds of disaffection in the south, dispel all the delusions about peace that prevail in the North… reconcile public sentiment to the War, the draft, & the tax as inevitable necessities.”

Lincoln read the letter and then authorized Raymond himself to go to Richmond and “propose, on behalf (of) this government, that upon the restoration of the Union and the national authority, the war shall cease at once, all remaining questions to be left for adjustment by peaceful modes.”

Raymond read Lincoln’s message and finally realized that such an effort would be futile. He told Lincoln that “to follow his plan of sending a commission to Richmond would be worse than losing the Presidential contest–it would be ignominiously surrendering it in advance.” Consequently, Lincoln withdrew both the letter and his authorization for Raymond to go to Richmond. From this point forward, Lincoln would insist on both reunion and emancipation as conditions of peace, even if they cost him the election.

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References

Donald, David Herbert, Lincoln (Simon & Schuster, Kindle Edition, 2011), Loc 11268, 11334-46; Foote, Shelby, The Civil War: A Narrative: Volume 3: Red River to Appomattox (Vintage Civil War Library, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Kindle Edition, 2011), Loc 11511-42; Goodwin, Doris Kearns, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2005), p. 647-48; Long, E.B. with Long, Barbara, The Civil War Day by Day (New York: Da Capo Press, Inc., 1971), p. 560; McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States Book 6, Oxford University Press, Kindle Edition, 1988), p. 768-70

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The Wade-Davis Manifesto

Politics, Reconstruction August 5, 2019 Leave a comment

August 5, 1864 – Senator Benjamin F. Wade of Ohio and Representative Henry W. Davis of Maryland bitterly denounced President Abraham Lincoln’s veto of a bill designed to give Congress the authority to impose a harsh reconstruction program on the Confederate states.

Sen. B.F. Wade and Rep. H.W. Davis | Image Credit: Wikipedia.org

In July, Lincoln had pocket-vetoed the Wade-Davis Reconstruction Bill. Lincoln justified this by asserting that a punitive congressional plan would undermine the restoration of some Confederate states already begun under Lincoln’s more moderate presidential plan. This enraged the Radical Republicans in his party, which included the bill’s sponsors, Wade and Davis. They responded to Lincoln by writing a provocative op-ed in the influential New York Tribune that became known as the “Wade-Davis Manifesto.”

“This rash and fatal act of the President,” they declared, was “a blow at the friends of his Administration, at the rights of humanity, and at the principles of Republican Government.” In vetoing the Wade-Davis bill, Lincoln subjected “the loyal men of the nation” to the “great dangers” of a “return to power of the guilty leaders of the rebellion” and “the continuance of slavery.”

Wade and Davis argued that “it is their right and duty to check the encroachments of the Executive on the authority of Congress, and to require it to confine itself to its proper sphere.” They asserted that “a more studied outrage on the legislative authority of the people has never been perpetrated,” and declared that “the authority of Congress is paramount and must be respected.” In addition, Wade and Davis demanded that Lincoln “understand that our support is of a cause and not of a man,” implying that Lincoln had vetoed the bill for political reasons at the expense of the general welfare.

This internal conflict between fellow Republicans delighted the pro-Democratic press as the presidential election approached. The New York World called the manifesto “a blow between the eyes which will daze the President,” and the New York Herald cited the message as proof that Lincoln was “an egregious failure” who should “retire from the position to which, in an evil hour, he was exalted.”

The Wade-Davis Manifesto threatened to split the Republican Party just months before the election between Radicals backing Wade and Davis, and conservatives backing Lincoln. However, most Republican newspapers ultimately condemned the manifesto’s spiteful tone and voiced support for Lincoln, thus forcing the Radicals to reluctantly fall back into the party line.

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References

Donald, David Herbert, Lincoln (Simon & Schuster, Kindle Edition, 2011), Loc 10887-98, 11155; Faust, Patricia L., Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War (New York: Harper & Row, 1986, Patricia L. Faust ed.), p. 794-95; Foote, Shelby, The Civil War: A Narrative: Volume 3: Red River to Appomattox (Vintage Civil War Library, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Kindle Edition, 2011-01-26), Kindle Locations 9705-25; Fredriksen, John C., Civil War Almanac (New York: Checkmark Books, 2007), p. 480; Goodwin, Doris Kearns, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2005), p. 640; Long, E.B. with Long, Barbara, The Civil War Day by Day (New York: Da Capo Press, Inc., 1971), p. 535, 551-52; McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States Book 6, Oxford University Press, Kindle Edition, 1988), p. 713

 

Jefferson Davis Discusses Peace

Politics July 16, 2019 Leave a comment

July 16, 1864 – Two Federal operatives were permitted to go to Richmond to negotiate a possible peace with President Jefferson Davis.

President Abraham Lincoln | Image Credit: Wikimedia.org

While Federal and Confederate agents discussed peace at Niagara Falls, a more clandestine meeting took place in Richmond for the same purpose. Colonel James F. Jaquess of the 78th Illinois Infantry and New York merchant James R. Gilmore were allowed through the Federal lines by President Abraham Lincoln to discuss the possibility of ending the war with Confederate officials in Richmond.

The Federals had no official authority, “but were fully possessed of the views of the United States government, relative to an adjustment of the differences existing between the North and the South.” They sought to learn specifically what terms the Confederates wanted for peace.

Judge Robert Ould, the Confederate commissioner for prisoner exchange, met the two men and escorted them to the Confederate capital, where they stayed at the Spotswood Hotel on the night of the 16th. The next day, they met with Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin. President Davis joined them at the State Department that night, where they discussed the terms.

Confederate President Jefferson Davis | Image Credit: Wikipedia.org

Davis said that the war could end “In a very simple way. Withdraw your armies from our territory, and peace will come of itself.” When the Federals suggested that the Confederates could return to the Union under Lincoln’s amnesty program, Davis said:

“Amnesty, sir, applies to criminals. We have committed no crime… At your door lies all the misery and crime of this war… We are fighting for INDEPENDENCE and that, or extermination, we will have… You may ‘emancipate’ every negro in the Confederacy, but we will be free. We will govern ourselves…if we have to see every Southern plantation sacked, and every Southern city in flames.”

Gilmore proposed a ceasefire while a popular referendum was held on the matter. Davis said that this would result in southern defeat because northerners outnumbered southerners. He said, “That the majority shall decide it, you mean. We seceded to rid ourselves of the rule of the majority, and this would subject us to it again.” Gilmore declared that the issue involved simply “Union or Disunion,” and Davis countered that it involved “Independence or Subjugation.” Davis explained:

“I tried in all my power to avert this war. I saw it coming, and for 12 years I worked night and day to prevent it, but I could not. And now it must go on till the last man of this generation falls in his tracks, and his children seize his musket and fight his battle, unless you acknowledge our right to self-government… We are fighting for independence–and that, or extermination, we will have.”

When Jaquess and Gilmore mentioned slavery, Davis argued that it was not an “essential element… only a means of bringing other conflicting elements to an earlier culmination.” Davis also maintained that he had no authority over slavery because it was a state, not a national, issue. He concluded, “Say to Mr. Lincoln, from me, that I shall at any time be pleased to receive proposals for peace on the basis of our independence. It will be useless to approach me with any other.” With this, the meeting ended and the Federals were sent back north.

Lincoln allowed an edited version of this meeting to be published in the Boston Evening Transcript. This convinced many northerners, including the Copperheads working with Confederate agents to negotiate a peace, that the Confederate government would not accept any peace terms except those that granted their independence. Lincoln summed up his interpretation of this by stating that Davis–

“… does not attempt to deceive us. He affords us no excuse to deceive ourselves. He cannot voluntarily reaccept the Union; we cannot voluntarily yield it. Between him and us the issue is distinct, simple, and inflexible. It is an issue which can only be tried by war, and decided by victory.”

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References

Davis, Jefferson, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government: All Volumes (Heraklion Press, Kindle Edition 2013, 1889), Loc 21709-27; Foote, Shelby, The Civil War: A Narrative: Volume 3: Red River to Appomattox (Vintage Civil War Library, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Kindle Edition, 2011), Loc 9749-801; Long, E.B. with Long, Barbara, The Civil War Day by Day (New York: Da Capo Press, Inc., 1971), p. 541-42; McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States Book 6, Oxford University Press, Kindle Edition, 1988), p. 766-68

The Niagara Peace Talks

Politics July 5, 2019 Leave a comment

July 5, 1864 – Influential newspaper editor Horace Greeley begged President Abraham Lincoln to meet with Confederate agents who were supposedly willing to discuss ways of ending the war.

The War Department had censored the press since Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant began his grand offensive in May, leading most northerners to believe that the Federals were on the verge of winning the war. But after two months, the truth could no longer be hidden. The Confederate armies had not been destroyed, neither Richmond nor Atlanta had been captured, and the horrific number of casualties sparked calls to stop the conflict.

Horace Greeley | Image Credit: Wikimedia.org

This outcry was led by Greeley of the New York Tribune. Greeley wrote Lincoln that his “irrepressible friend” William “Colorado” Jewett had informed him that “two Ambassadors” representing President Jefferson Davis on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls had “full & complete powers for a peace.” Greeley pleaded with Lincoln to meet with them because:

“Confederates everywhere (are) for peace. So much is beyond doubt. And therefore I venture to remind you that our bleeding, bankrupt, almost dying country also longs for peace–shudders at the prospect of fresh conscription, of further wholesale devastations, and of new rivers of human blood. And a wide-spread conviction that the Government and its prominent supporters are not anxious for Peace, and do not improve proffered opportunities to achieve it, is doing great harm.”

Greeley wrote, “I entreat you to submit overtures for pacification to the Southern insurgents.” Lincoln believed that Greeley was being duped by Confederates seeking to stir up antiwar passions and influence the upcoming elections. In fact, Federal agents had reported that Copperheads were in direct contact with Confederate agents in Canada to try forming a Midwestern alliance with the Confederacy. This became known as the “Northwest Conspiracy.”

Nevertheless, Lincoln authorized Greeley to escort to Washington “any person anywhere professing to have any proposition of Jefferson Davis in writing, for peace, embracing the restoration of the Union and abandonment of slavery.”

Three Confederate agents arrived at Niagara Falls on the 12th–Clement C. Clay of Alabama, James Holcombe of Virginia, and Jacob Thompson of Mississippi. These men had numerous contacts among the Copperheads in the northern states, and now they communicated through Greeley to try to get the Federal government to negotiate peace.

Greeley objected to being Lincoln’s envoy, and so the president dispatched his secretary John Hay to travel with Greeley to Niagara Falls. The men delivered a message written by Lincoln and endorsed by Secretary of State William H. Seward:

“To Whom it may concern: Any proposition which embraces the restoration of peace, the integrity of the whole union, and the abandonment of slavery, and which comes by and with an authority that can control the armies now at war against the United States, will be received and considered by the Executive Government of the United States, and will be met by liberal terms on other substantial and collateral points, and the bearer or bearers thereof shall have safe conduct both ways.”

The Confederates expected Lincoln to insist on restoring the Union, but they were surprised by his insistence on ending slavery because it exceeded his Emancipation Proclamation and all congressional legislation. Lincoln added this requirement for peace knowing that the Confederates would find it unacceptable; he could then announce that he tried negotiating a settlement but the Confederacy refused.

Greeley and Hay delivered Lincoln’s message to the Confederate agents, who read it and explained that they were not prepared to negotiate a peace based on these terms because that would signify a Confederate surrender. The Confederates sent a transcript of the meeting to the Associated Press, “throw(ing) upon the Federal Government the odium of putting an end to all negotiation.”

They wrote, “If there be any citizen of the Confederate States who has clung to the hope that peace is possible,” Lincoln’s terms “will strip from their eyes the last film of such delusion.” As for “any patriots or Christians” in the North “who shrink appalled from the illimitable vistas of private misery and public calamity,” they should “recall the abused authority and vindicate the outraged civilization of their country.”

Lincoln’s message was nothing more than a political maneuver, which backfired when the anti-administration press published it and condemned him for refusing to end the carnage without freeing the slaves. Democrats railed that if Lincoln would simply abandon emancipation, the war could end. But they did not seem to understand that the Confederates would not agree to restoring the Union on any terms.

Both the Confederates and the Copperheads wanted an armistice, but for different reasons. Copperheads believed it would lead to negotiations that would ultimately bring the South back into the Union. Confederates believed it would lead to their independence, and they humored the Copperheads’ “fond delusion” of restoration as a means to their end.

The Niagara Falls meeting proved to Greeley that the Confederates would not negotiate based on either restoration or emancipation. However, the Confederates continued encouraging the antiwar movement, and the military stalemate in Virginia and Georgia made Lincoln’s reelection prospects seem increasingly bleak.

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References

Davis, Jefferson, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government: All Volumes (Heraklion Press, Kindle Edition 2013, 1889), Loc 21727-42; Denney, Robert E., The Civil War Years: A Day-by-Day Chronicle (New York: Gramercy Books, 1992 [1998 edition]), p. 433-34, 437; Donald, David Herbert, Lincoln (Simon & Schuster, Kindle Edition, 2011), Loc 10930, 11089-133; Foote, Shelby, The Civil War: A Narrative: Volume 3: Red River to Appomattox (Vintage Civil War Library, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Kindle Edition, 2011), Loc 9717-37; Fredriksen, John C., Civil War Almanac (New York: Checkmark Books, 2007), p. 465; Goodwin, Doris Kearns, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2005), p. 646-47; Long, E.B. with Long, Barbara, The Civil War Day by Day (New York: Da Capo Press, Inc., 1971), p. 533-34, 540-42; McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States Book 6, Oxford University Press, Kindle Edition, 1988), p. 761-63, 766; Ward, Geoffrey C., Burns, Ric, Burns, Ken, The Civil War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990), p. 351

The Wade-Davis Bill: Executive Response

Politics, Reconstruction July 4, 2019 Leave a comment

July 4, 1864 – President Abraham Lincoln was presented with a bill outlining the congressional plan for reconstructing the Union, and his reaction outraged many.

After the Wade-Davis Reconstruction Bill passed both chambers of Congress, Radical Congressmen Thaddeus Stevens, Elihu Washburne, and John L. Dawson visited Lincoln at the White House to urge him to sign it into law. They returned to the Capitol and informed their fellow Radicals there was a good chance that Lincoln would not. An old friend from Illinois, Radical Congressman Jesse O. Norton, felt the same way after speaking with Lincoln, but there was “no use trying to prevent it.”

16th U.S. President Abraham Lincoln | Image Credit: histmag.org

On the last day of the congressional session, Lincoln went to his Capitol office to sign the last-minute bills into law. He signed several, including a repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act and a repeal of the Enrollment Act provision allowing draftees to pay $300 to avoid conscription. But he set the Wade-Davis bill aside. Senator Zachariah Chandler of Michigan asked him if he would sign it. Lincoln replied, “Mr. Chandler, this bill was placed before me a few minutes before Congress adjourns. It is a matter of too much importance to be swallowed in that way.”

Chandler warned, “If it is vetoed, it will damage us fearfully in the Northwest. The important point is the one prohibiting slavery in the reconstructed states.” Lincoln said, “That is the point on which I doubt the authority of Congress to act.” Chandler countered, “It is no more than you have done yourself.” Lincoln replied, “I conceive that I may in an emergency do things on military grounds which cannot be done constitutionally by Congress.” Chandler angrily left. Lincoln then explained to the remaining congressmen in the room his chief objection to the measure:

“This bill and the position of these gentlemen seem to me, in asserting that the insurrectionary States are no longer in the Union, to make the fatal admission that States, whenever they please, may of their own motion dissolve their connection with the Union. Now we cannot survive that admission, I am convinced.

“If that be true, I am not President; these gentlemen are not Congress. I have laboriously endeavored to avoid that question ever since it first began to be mooted, and thus to avoid confusion and disturbance in our own councils. It was to obviate this question that I earnestly favored the movement for an amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery, which passed the Senate and failed in the House.

“I thought it much better, if it were possible, to restore the Union without the necessity of a violent quarrel among its friends as to whether certain States have been in or out of the Union during the war–a merely metaphysical question, and one unnecessary to be forced into discussion.”

Leaving the Capitol, Lincoln was warned that failing to endorse the bill might cost him reelection in November. He responded, “If they choose to make a point upon this I do not doubt that they can do harm. They have never been friendly to me and I don’t know that this will make any special difference as to that. At all events, I must keep some consciousness of being somewhere near right; I must keep some standard of principle fixed within myself.” The congressional session ended without Lincoln’s signature on the Wade-Davis bill, thus killing the measure via a pocket veto.

On the 8th, Lincoln issued a public statement explaining why he refused to sign the bill into law. He wrote that he would not “be inflexibly committed to any single plan of restoration,” nor would he accept “that the free-state constitutions and governments, already adopted and installed in Arkansas and Louisiana, shall be set aside and held for naught, thereby repelling and discouraging the loyal citizens who have set up the same, as to further effort.”

Lincoln also refused to acknowledge “a constitutional competency in Congress to abolish slavery in States,” instead “sincerely hoping and expecting that a constitutional amendment, abolishing slavery throughout the nation, may be adopted.”

To appease the Radicals, Lincoln wrote that he was “fully satisfied with the system for restoration contained in the Bill, as one very proper plan for the loyal people of any State choosing to adopt it,” and he offered to provide “Executive aid and assistance to any such people, so soon as the military resistance to the United States shall have been suppressed in any such State.”

This was meaningless because no state would voluntarily choose to adopt the punitive Wade-Davis bill on its own. Radicals already outraged by Lincoln’s veto became even more incensed by Lincoln’s empty pledge to enforce the bill in states that voluntarily adopted it. Thaddeus Stevens fumed, “What an infamous proclamation! The idea of pocketing a bill and then issuing a proclamation as to how far he will conform to it!”

The congressional recess would not stop the Radicals from plotting revenge against the president.

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References

CivilWarDailyGazette.com; Denney, Robert E., The Civil War Years: A Day-by-Day Chronicle (New York: Gramercy Books, 1992 [1998 edition]), p. 432; Donald, David Herbert, Lincoln (Simon & Schuster, Kindle Edition, 2011), Loc 10855-98; Faust, Patricia L., Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War (New York: Harper & Row, 1986, Patricia L. Faust ed.), p. 794-95; Foote, Shelby, The Civil War: A Narrative: Volume 3: Red River to Appomattox (Vintage Civil War Library, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Kindle Edition, 2011), Loc 9674-715; Fredriksen, John C., Civil War Almanac (New York: Checkmark Books, 2007), p. 464, 466; Goodwin, Doris Kearns, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2005), p. 639; Long, E.B. with Long, Barbara, The Civil War Day by Day (New York: Da Capo Press, Inc., 1971), p. 532-33, 535; McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States Book 6, Oxford University Press, Kindle Edition, 1988), p. 712-13; Murphy, Richard W., The Nation Reunited: War’s Aftermath (Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1983), p. 30

The Wade-Davis Bill: Congressional Reconstruction

Politics, Reconstruction July 3, 2019 Leave a comment

July 3, 1864 – The U.S. Congress passed a measure that aimed to supersede President Abraham Lincoln’s “Ten Percent Plan” for bringing Confederate states back into the Union after the war.

In December 1863, Lincoln had presented a plan whereby Confederate states could return to the Union if 10 percent of their registered voters swore loyalty to the Union and elected delegates to a constitutional convention that would abolish slavery and repudiate secession. Many members of Congress, especially the Radical Republicans, denounced this plan as too lenient for the “treasonous rebels.” Perhaps more importantly, they opposed any plan that would allow the president, and not Congress, to make the rules.

Congressman Henry W. Davis of Maryland, chairman of the House Committee on the Rebellious States, introduced a congressional reconstruction measure in January. Davis, who feuded with the prominent Blair family (which supported Lincoln) over political power in Maryland, sought to place Congress in charge of restoring the Union. And while Lincoln sought to begin the restoration process immediately, Davis’s plan would not go into effect until the war ended.

Sen. B.F. Wade and Rep. H.W. Davis | Image Credit: Wikipedia.org

Under this plan, a state could begin its restoration process only after 50 percent of its registered voters swore loyalty. And while Lincoln’s oath involved promising prospective loyalty to the Union, Davis’s oath required men to swear they had never voluntarily supported the Confederacy. This meant that northerners would have to move into these states because none of them had half their voters oppose the Confederacy from the beginning.

Davis’s bill called for the president to appoint military governors to rule the Confederate states until the loyal registered voters elected delegates to constitutional conventions. These conventions were required to abolish slavery, and repudiate secession and the war debt.

It also called for the abolition of slavery, even though a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery (which Lincoln supported) was defeated in June. But the bill did not go as far as some Radicals went in calling for giving freed slaves the right to vote. In fact, Lincoln had already urged Governor Michael Hahn of Louisiana to consider granting suffrage to slaves and free blacks in his state.

The measure also banned all Confederate officials and military personnel from voting or holding public office. Only when all these conditions were met could the president declare the state restored the Union, and the declaration required congressional consent. Once restored, the state would be granted its representation in Congress and the Electoral College.

The bill came under House debate in March, when Davis railed against Lincoln and his Ten Percent Plan. Davis declared that until Congress recognized “a state government organized under its auspices, there is no government in the rebel states except the authority of Congress.” Davis also condemned Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which he called “a political trick” because it technically freed no slaves.

The House, divided between Radicals supporting Davis and conservatives supporting Lincoln (as well as a small group of Democrats both for and against the war) passed the bill in May by a vote of 73 to 59. Leading Radical Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania voted against the measure because he thought it too lenient.

The bill next went to the Senate, where it was taken up by a committee chaired by Radical Republican Benjamin Wade of Ohio. As the congressional session was set to expire on July 3, Wade scrambled to bring the bill to the Senate floor on the 1st for debate. By that time, many senators had already returned to their home states; 20 were absent when the bill passed in the late hours of the 3rd by a vote of 18 to 14. All non-Republicans opposed the measure.

The bill reflected the Radicals’ continuing opposition not only to Lincoln’s view of reconstruction, but also to Lincoln’s reelection, which could be secured by the electoral votes of the three states that had been restored to the Union according to Lincoln’s Ten Percent Plan (Tennessee, Louisiana, and Arkansas). Both the executive and legislative reconstruction plans called into question whether the Federal government had the authority to force states to amend their constitutions.

Since the bill passed both chambers of Congress by far less than the two-thirds majority needed to override a presidential veto, it would require Lincoln’s signature to become law.

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References

CivilWarDailyGazette.com; Donald, David Herbert, Lincoln (Simon & Schuster, Kindle Edition, 2011), Loc 10855-77; Faust, Patricia L., Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War (New York: Harper & Row, 1986, Patricia L. Faust ed.), p. 794-95; Foote, Shelby, The Civil War: A Narrative: Volume 3: Red River to Appomattox (Vintage Civil War Library, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Kindle Edition, 2011), Loc 9674-715; Goodwin, Doris Kearns, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2005), p. 639; Long, E.B. with Long, Barbara, The Civil War Day by Day (New York: Da Capo Press, Inc., 1971), p. 532-33; McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States Book 6, Oxford University Press, Kindle Edition, 1988), p. 706; Murphy, Richard W., The Nation Reunited: War’s Aftermath (Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1983), p. 30; Wert, Jeffry D., Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War (New York: Harper & Row, 1986, Patricia L. Faust ed.), p. 618

The Resignation of Salmon P. Chase

Politics June 30, 2019 Leave a comment

June 30, 1864 – Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase submitted his fourth letter of resignation, but this time President Abraham Lincoln surprised him by accepting.

Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase | Image Credit: Wikimedia.org

There had long been tension between Lincoln and Chase. The Radical Republicans had backed Chase for president over Lincoln, but an embarrassing situation was averted when Chase quietly ended his candidacy and Lincoln was nominated earlier this month for a second term. But in May, Chase expressed some regret at not trying harder to wrest the presidential nomination from Lincoln. Ever since Chase had been Lincoln’s rival in the contest for the Republican presidential nomination in 1860, he believed himself intellectually and morally superior to the president.

But troubles plagued Chase’s Treasury Department. The new taxes and tariffs were not enough to fund the war, and Chase could not get reauthorization to hire financier Jay Cooke to sell more war bonds. Printing paper money not backed by gold caused rampant inflation, and reports of corruption in the selling and trading of confiscated southern cotton abounded.

Chase blamed political enemies for highlighting these problems, especially the influential Blair family. Congressman Francis P. Blair, Jr., a staunch Lincoln ally, had excoriated Chase in the House of Representatives for mismanaging the department, and Chase condemned Lincoln for not distancing himself from the Blairs.

In late June, John J. Cisco resigned from the highly important post of assistant Federal treasurer in New York City. Chase proposed to replace Cisco with Maunsell B. Field, a man who knew little of finance but was loyal to Chase. New York politicians, including both U.S. Senators Edwin D. Morgan and Ira Harris, opposed the appointment, with Morgan giving Lincoln a list of three alternatives.

Lincoln wrote to Chase on the 28th, “I cannot, without much embarrassment, make this appointment.” Explaining the political dilemma that it would cause, Lincoln forwarded Morgan’s list to him and asked, “It will really oblige me if you will make a choice among these three.”

Chase requested a personal meeting to discuss the matter, but Lincoln declined “because the difficulty does not, in the main part, lie within the range of a conversation between you and me. As the proverb goes, no man knows so well where the shoe pinches as he who wears it.” Lincoln also noted that he had approved most of Chase’s other recommendations in the past, even when they caused “great burden” among political rivals.

Refusing to pick any of Morgan’s three choices, Chase persuaded Cisco to stay in his post. Chase then tendered his resignation a fourth time, adding, “I shall regard it as a real relief if you think proper to accept it.” Although Lincoln had refused it three times before, he astounded Chase by replying:

“Your resignation for the office of Secretary of the Treasury sent me yesterday is accepted. Of all I have said in commendation of your ability and fidelity I have nothing to unsay; and yet you and I have reached a point of mutual embarrassment in our official relations which it seems cannot be overcome, or longer sustained, consistently with the public service.”

At the same time, Lincoln sent this message to Chase and submitted the name of Ohio Governor David Tod to replace Chase as head of the Treasury Department to the Senate. The anti-Lincoln press immediately panned the move, with the New York Herald opining that Tod knew “no more of finances than a post.”

The message to the Senate arrived first, prompting Finance Committee Chairman William P. Fessenden to ask Chase in a meeting, “Have you resigned? I am called to the Senate and told that the President has sent in the nomination of your successor.”

Stunned, Chase later wrote of Lincoln’s response in his diary, “I had found a good deal of embarrassment from him; but what he had found from me I could not imagine, unless it has been caused by my unwillingness to have offices distributed as spoils or benefits, with more regard to the claims of divisions, factions, cliques, and individuals, than to fitness of selection.”

What Chase failed to understand was that Lincoln merely kept him in the cabinet to prevent him from openly opposing his presidency. Now that Lincoln had secured the nomination for a second term, Chase’s usefulness had run out.

Members of the Senate Finance Committee, many of whom supported Chase, called on Lincoln to protest his removal. Lincoln showed them all four of Chase’s resignation letters, explaining that this had been coming for some time. Some still complained, but none insisted on reinstating Chase.

Lincoln also refused the senators’ urgings to withdraw Tod’s name as treasury secretary. But Tod declined the job due to poor health, prompting Lincoln to then nominate Fessenden. No Republican could object to him, even Chase, who called the appointment “a wise selection.”

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References

CivilWarDailyGazette.com; Denney, Robert E., The Civil War Years: A Day-by-Day Chronicle (New York: Gramercy Books, 1992 [1998 edition]), p. 431; Donald, David Herbert, Lincoln (Simon & Schuster, Kindle Edition, 2011), Loc 10790-833; Foote, Shelby, The Civil War: A Narrative: Volume 3: Red River to Appomattox (Vintage Civil War Library, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Kindle Edition, 2011), Loc 9642-62; Fredriksen, John C., Civil War Almanac (New York: Checkmark Books, 2007), p. 463; Goodwin, Doris Kearns, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2005), p. 631-33; Long, E.B. with Long, Barbara, The Civil War Day by Day (New York: Da Capo Press, Inc., 1971), p. 530