14: Lincoln's Final Intentions
<< 13: The Plebiscite of 1864 || Bibliographical Note
The victory of the Union Party in November enabled Lincoln to
enjoy for a brief period of his career as President what may be
thought of as a lull in the storm. He knew now that he had at
last built up a firm and powerful support. With this assured,
his policy, both domestic and foreign—the key to which was still
the blockade—might be considered victorious at all points.
There remains to be noticed, however, one event of the year 1864
which was of vital importance in maintaining the blockade.
It is a principle of international law that a belligerent must
itself attend to the great task of suppressing contraband trade
with its enemy. Lincoln was careful to observe this principle.
Though British merchants were frankly speculating in contraband
trade, he made no demand upon the British Government to relieve
him of the difficulty of stopping it. England also took the
legitimate position under international law and warned her
merchants that, while it was none of the Government's business to
prevent such trade, they practised it at their own risk, subject
to well-understood penalties agreed upon among nations. The
merchants nevertheless continued to take the risk, while both
they and the authorities of the Confederacy thought they saw a
way of minimizing the danger. Instead of shipping supplies
direct to the Confederate ports they shipped them to Matamoros,
in Mexico, or to the West Indies. As these ports were in neutral
territory, the merchants thought their goods would be safe
against capture until they left the Mexican or West Indian port
on their brief concluding passage to the territory of the
Confederacy. Nassau, then a petty West India town, was the chief
depot of such trade and soon became a great commercial center.
To it came vast quantities of European goods which were then
transferred to swift, small vessels, or "blockade-runners," which
took a gambler's chance and often succeeded in eluding the
Federal patrol ships and in rushing their cargoes safe into a
Confederate port.
Obviously, it was a great disadvantage to the United States to
allow contraband supplies to be accumulated, without
interference, close to the blockaded coast, and the Lincoln
Government determined to remove this disadvantage. With this end
in view it evoked the principle of the continuous voyage, which
indeed was not new, but which was destined to become fixed in
international law by the Supreme Court of the United States.
American cruisers were instructed to stop British ships sailing
between the British ports of Liverpool and Nassau; they were to
use the recognized international rights of visit and search; and
if there was evidence that the cargo was not destined for actual
consumption at Nassau, they were to bring the ship into an
American port to be dealt with by an American prize court. When
such arrests began, the owners clamored to the British
Government, and both dealers in contraband and professional
blockade-runners worked themselves into a fury because American
cruisers watched British ports and searched British ships on the
high seas. With regard to this matter, the British Government
and the Government at Washington had their last important
correspondence during the war. The United States stood firm for
the idea that when goods were ultimately intended for the
Confederacy, no matter how roundabout the journey, they could be
considered as making a single continuous voyage and were liable
to capture from the day they left Liverpool. Early in 1865, the
Supreme Court of the United States fully developed the principle
of continuous voyage in four celebrated cases that are now among
the landmarks of international law.1
This was the last step in making the blockade effective.
Thereafter, it slowly strangled the South. The Federal armies
enormously overmatched the Southern, and from November, 1864,
their continuance in the field was made sure. Grim work still
lay before Lincoln, but the day of anxiety was past. In this
moment of comparative ease, the aged Chief Justice Taney died,
and Lincoln appointed to that high position his ungenerous rival,
Chase.
Even now Lincoln had not established himself as a leader superior
to party, but he had the satisfaction, early in 1865, of seeing
the ranks of the opposition begin to break. Naturally, the
Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery
throughout the United States, appeared to Lincoln as in a way the
consummation of his labors. When the House voted on the
resolution to send this amendment to the States, several
Democrats joined the government forces. Two nights afterward,
speaking to a serenading party at the White House, Lincoln made a
brief speech, part of which is thus reported by his secretaries:
"He thought this measure was a very fitting if not an
indispensable adjunct to the winding up of the great difficulty.
He wished the reunion of all the States perfected, and so
effected as to remove all causes of disturbance in the future;
and to attain this end, it was necessary that the original
disturbing cause should, if possible, be rooted out."
An event which in its full detail belongs to Confederate rather
than to Union history took place soon after this. At Hampton
Roads, Lincoln and Seward met Confederate commissioners who had
asked for a parley—with regard to peace. Nothing came of the
meeting, but the conference gave rise to a legend, false in fact
and yet true in spirit, according to which Lincoln wrote on a
sheet of paper the word "Union," pushed it across to Alexander H.
Stephens and said, "Write under that anything you please."
This fiction expresses Lincoln's attitude toward the sinking
Confederacy. On his return from Hampton Roads he submitted to
his Cabinet a draft of a message which he proposed to send to
Congress. He recommended the appropriation of $400,000,000 to be
distributed among the slave states on condition that war cease
before April 1, 1865. Not a member of the Cabinet approved. His
secretary, Mr. Nicolay, writes: "The President, in evident
surprise and sorrow at the want of statesmanlike liberality shown
by his executive council, folded and laid away the draft of his
message...." With a deep sigh he added, "But you are all opposed
to me, and I will not send the message."
His second inauguration passed without striking incidents.
Chase, as Chief Justice, administered the oath. The second
inaugural address contained words which are now famous: "With
malice towards none; with charity for all; with firmness in the
right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to
finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to
care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow,
and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just
and a lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations."
That gigantic system of fleets and armies, the creation of which
was due to Lincoln, was closing tight around the dying
Confederacy. Five weeks after the inauguration Lee surrendered,
and the war was virtually at an end. What was to come after was
inevitably the overshadowing topic of the hour. Many anecdotes
represent Lincoln, in these last few days of his life, as
possessed by a high though melancholy mood of extreme mercy.
Therefore, much has been inferred from the following words, in
his last public address, made on the night of the 11th of April:
"In the present situation, as the phrase goes, it may be my duty
to make some new announcement to the people of the South. I am
considering and shall not fail to act when action shall be
proper."
What was to be done for the South, what treatment should be
accorded the Southern leaders, engrossed the President and his
Cabinet at the meeting on the 14th of April, which was destined
to be their last. Secretary Welles has preserved the spirit of
the meeting in a striking anecdote. Lincoln said that no one
need expect he would "take any part in hanging or killing those
men, even the worst of them. Frighten them out of the country,
open the gates, let down the bars, scare them off;" said he,
throwing up his hands as if scaring sheep. "Enough lives have
been sacrificed; we must extinguish our resentments if we expect
harmony and union."
While Lincoln was thus arming himself with a valiant mercy, a
band of conspirators at an obscure boardinghouse in Washington
were planning his assassination. Their leader was John Wilkes
Booth, an actor, brother of the much abler Edwin Booth. There
seems little doubt that he was insane. Around him gathered a
small group of visionary extremists in whom much brooding upon
Southern wrongs had produced an unbalanced condition. Only a
morbid interest can attach today to the strange cunning with
which Booth laid his plans, thinking of himself all the while as
a reincarnation of the Roman Brutus.
On the night of the 14th of April, the President attended a
performance of "Our American Cousin". While the play was in
progress, Booth stole into the President's box, came close behind
him, and shot him through the head. Lincoln never spoke again
and, shortly after seven next morning, ceased breathing.
At the same time, a futile attempt was made upon the life of
Seward. Booth temporarily escaped. Later he was overtaken and
shot. His accomplices were hanged.
The passage of sixty years has proved fully necessary to the
placing of Lincoln in historic perspective. No President, in his
own time, with the possible exception of Washington, was so
bitterly hated and so fiercely reviled. On the other hand, none
has been the object of such intemperate hero-worship. However,
the greatest of the land were, in the main, quick to see him in
perspective and to recognize his historic significance. It is
recorded of Davis that in after days he paid a beautiful tribute
to Lincoln and said, "Next to the destruction of the Confederacy,
the death of Abraham Lincoln was the darkest day the South has
known."
1 The Great war has once again led to controversy over this
subject, so vital to neutral states.
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