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CHAPTER XXXIX.

MILITARY POLITICS.

Reconstruction-Jarring Counsels-Gen. John C. Frémont-A Premature Proclamation-A Modification-Another Subordinate laying down the Law to the President—A New Secretary of War-A Human Library.

THE shattered aggregate of rusty political machinery which fell into Mr. Lincoln's hands, at the close of the Buchanan Administration, was not a "government."

The tumultuous mass of factions and local organisms under his nominal chief magistracy was not a "nation."

What he would make of the one and what would become of the other were open questions in the minds of all men, of all parties, in this and other countries, and they were very freely debated in public and in private.

The post to which Abraham Lincoln was really elected, and the position he proceeded to occupy and fill, was that of an expression of the deeply rooted and tenacious popular will that there should be a government, and a strong one, and that this government should organize and perpetuate a nation.

His whole life had prepared him for the task. The causes which prepared the task for him had been subjects of his study from boyhood. He met all difficulties, as they arose, in a manner which testified what familiar acquaintances they were and how much he had been thinking that they might visit him some day.

As has been seen, the new government took form rapidly, and the solid ground of the new nation began to arise with a very permanent look, through and above the turbulent political

flood.

It was not as yet easy to designate or limit the powers of the government in "war time," but the ideas of other men as to the extent and nature of these powers were more vague than were those of the ruler himself. He saw that he had, as President, and acting as Dictator in many relations, the power to do anything which the people could be made to see it was needful or best that he should do. He had no more, because that and no other is always the limit of the power of a revolutionary autocrat. The people had many ways of expressing their approval, and their faithful servant had little need to regard the vagaries of individuals, so long as he was devotedly doing his duty.

It was essential to the performance of Mr. Lincoln's task that no element of substantial power should be permitted to slip away from him or from either branch of the central gov ernment which he represented. Congress and the Judiciary and the Executive were bound together as a unit. It was natural, however, and was a difficulty which came early and never departed, that the President should find himself in continual collision with the political views, the aspirations and ambitions, of the able men around him. That these all had views, aspirations, and ambitions, is to be mentioned in their praise and not in blame.

The difficulty arising from this source was aggravated by the fact that every general in the army, whether he would or no, was also in some degree a political general and possible leader. It was of course that many of even the best should be aware of this and should cultivate "doctrinal views" of their own, and by these should at times be influenced, more or less, in their uses of the powers they derived from the central authority at Washington. Almost the first military officers to whom high commands were assigned at once began to administer those commands in accordance with their political leanings and lookings forward. It was safe to prophesy that the country would select its party idols and rulers, for a gen

eration or so after the war, from among those who should come out of it in the character of "heroes." Had the South succeeded, the Confederacy would necessarily have become a sort of military despotism, sustained and governed by an epauletted and army-titled aristocracy. Only the firmness and wisdom of Mr. Lincoln prevented the Federal government from drifting, at an early day, under the control of the ranking officers of its first military organization. That, too, with these very officers at wide variance among themselves as to vital questions of policy and statesmanship.

Two instances suffice to illustrate the situation and vindicate the course pursued by Mr. Lincoln: and it is not at all necessary to claim for him perfection of wisdom or of conduct in either case. It is necessary to say, however, that Mr. Lincoln did not act from personal motives in either, and that least of all did he act from jealousy or unkindly feeling.

On the same day in which General McClellan assumed command of the troops in front of Washington, General John C. Frémont arrived in St. Louis, Missouri, to take command of the Department of the West. There was as yet very little for him to take command of, and two thirds of the populations of Southern Illinois, Missouri, and Kentucky, including many thousands who afterwards became devoted supporters of the national government, were wavering in almost helpless indecision as to which way they should go, to the Confederacy or to the Union. In the city of St. Louis itself leading business men were contributing timidly to the military funds of both Rebel and Union undertakings, and begging the agents of either side not to make public their names or their payments. In the rural districts of Missouri the loyal people were generally overawed by their more violent as well as better prepared and organized antagonists. In Southern Illinois the majority of the people were from Southern States, densely ignorant and strongly pro-slavery in sentiment. Their geographical position and little more, as yet, retained them under

the sway of an "Abolition government." Kentucky was still occupying an attitude of "neutrality" which was repudiated by Mr. Lincoln, but which answered a most important purpose in keeping the State out of the first mad rush of the Rebellion. Its people were having time given them to think the matter over and, in due season, to welcome Federal armies as deliverers and defenders.

General Frémont was a brave and intelligent officer, doubtless, although he never at any time established a reputation as "general." It is fair to say that he never had a good opportunity. He had qualities of mind which prevented him from being a successful "statesman.” He was a man of reckless daring, undisguised ambition, strong imagination, and was already prominent as a political leader. He had been the "standard-bearer" selected by the People's party for their hopeless, but earnest and first aggressive campaign of 1856, and a good deal of the popular enthusiasm aroused for him then, as a candidate for the Presidency, still clung to his name in 1861. The romance of his early achievements as an explorer of the Rocky Mountains, and of his dashing military exploits in California, had been made widely known during his presidential campaign. There were many, indeed, who regarded him as in some inscrutable way the "founder" of the party which had nominated him, and which was so speedily reorganized as the Republican party after its first brilliant struggle.

General Frémont was a Radical, with an opportunity in his hands for making himself the representative man and leader of all the Radicals of the North. He took the opportunity very sincerely but very humanly. His immediate ambition, beyond doubt, was patriotic and military; but it naturally, inevitably, had a political horizon beyond and all around it. There is no need of flinching a fact so entirely devoid of anything blameworthy. He had, at the outset, several difficulties with the War Office at Washington, and in some of these the record

favors him decidedly. He took hold of his work with characteristic promptness and vigor, and, under many disadvantages, began to collect and arm troops. He also began to fortify his base of action, St. Louis, so that it might be safely left in subsequent operations. So far all was well; but before he had forces enough to make sure of any part of his infant department, on the 31st of August, 1861, he issued a proclamation, altogether on his own account. He declared martial law within specified limits, and threatened instant death to all rebels found within those lines with arms in their hands. He declared all real and personal property of all persons taking up arms against the government confiscated to the public use, and their slaves, if they had any, were declared free.

It was a curious document, in which a subordinate army officer, in charge of a department under Mr. Lincoln, assumed to exercise the joint and several powers of the President, Congress, and the Judiciary. It was doubtless intended as a military measure, to awe the rebel elements around him and improve the morals of his own little army; but it was, in fact, something more. It was a political firebrand hurled among the combustible populations above described, and the effect threatened to be disastrous, both there and elsewhere. The effect upon General Frémont's personal popularity with the most loyal elements of the populations of the free States was, for the moment, all he could have asked for. He had appealed, in one breath, to patriotism, hatred of slavery, and to the vague, popular lust for more vigorous measures. A great many excellent people were temporarily misled into loud approval of his usurpation of authority over life and property, and failed to see the mad impolicy of his really empty threats. The general thus presented the President with a problem of more than common difficulty; but, at the same time, he performed an important service. He at least warned the waverers in the doubtful districts that there might be a wrath to come, and many of them needed such a warning. Even in overstepping

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