Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

When the counting of the votes began, the members of the Senate and House did not know whether Mr. Lincoln had signed the resolution or not; and therefore, in the doubt as to what his action would be, the famous twenty-second joint rule, regulating the counting of electoral votes, was drawn in haste and passed with precipitation.1 It was an instance of angry partisan legislation, which threatened trouble afterward and was useless at the time. No attempt was made to present or count the votes of Arkansas and Tennessee, and the President of the Senate acted under the joint resolution and not under the joint rule. Yet the vote of West Virginia was counted, and it was not easy to show that her title was not under a legal cloud fully as dark as that which shadowed Arkansas and Tennessee.

When Mr. Lincoln said concerning his reëlection, that the element of personal triumph gave him no gratification, he spoke far within the truth. He was not boasting of, but only in an unintentional way displaying, his dispassionate and impersonal habit in all political relationships, a distinguishing trait, of which history is so chary of parallels that perhaps no reader will recall even one. A striking instance of it occurred in this

[ocr errors]

1 This was the rule which provided that if, at the count, any question should arise as to counting any vote offered, the Senate and House should separate, and each should vote on the question of receiving or not receiving the vote; and it should not be received and counted except by concurrent assent.

same autumn.

On October 12, 1864, the venerable Chief Justice Taney died, and at once the friends of Mr. Chase named him for the succession. There were few men whom Mr. Lincoln had less reason to favor than this gentleman, who had only condescended to mitigate severe condemnation of his capacity by mild praise of his character, who had hoped to displace him from the presidency, and who, in the effort to do so, had engaged in what might have been stigmatized even as a cabal. Plenty of people were ready to tell him stories innumerable of Chase's hostility to him, and contemptuous remarks about him; but to all such communications he quietly refused to give ear. What Mr. Chase thought or felt concerning him was not pertinent to the question whether or not Chase would make a good Chief Justice. Yet it was true that Montgomery Blair would have liked the place, and the President had many personal reasons for wishing to do a favor to Blair. It was also true that the opposition to Mr. Chase was so bitter and came from so many quarters, and was based on so many alleged reasons, that had the President chosen to prefer another to him, it would have been impossible to attribute the preference to personal prejudice. In his own mind, however, Mr. Lincoln really believed that, in spite of all the objections which could be made, Mr. Chase was the best man for the position; and his only anxiety was that one so restless and ambitious might still scheme for the presidency to the inev

itable prejudice of his judicial duties. He had some thought of speaking frankly with Chase on this subject, perhaps seeking something like a pledge from him; but he was deterred from this by fear of misconstruction. Finally having, after his usual fashion, reached his own conclusion, and communicated it to no one, he sent the nomination to the Senate, and it received the honor of immediate confirmation without reference to a committee.

CHAPTER XI.

THE END COMES INTO SIGHT: THE SECOND

INAUGURATION.

WHEN Congress came together in December, 1864, the doom of the Confederacy was in plain view of all men, at the North and at the South. If General Grant had sustained frightful losses without having won any signal victory, yet the losses could be afforded; and the nature of the man and his methods in warfare were now understood. It was seen that, with or without victory, and at whatever cost, he had moved relentlessly forward. His grim, irresistible persistence oppressed, as with a sense of destiny, those who tried to confront it; every one felt that he was going to “end the job.” He was now beleaguering Petersburg, and few Southerners doubted that he was sure of taking it and Richmond. In the middle country Sherman, after taking Atlanta, had soon thereafter marched cheerily forth on his imposing, theatrical, holiday excursion to the sea, leaving General Thomas behind him to do the hard fighting with General Hood. The grave doubt as to whether too severe a task had not been placed upon Thomas was dispelled by the middle of the month,

when his brilliant victory at Nashville so shattered the Southern army that it never again attained important proportions. In June preceding, the notorious destroyer, the Alabama, had been sunk by the Kearsarge. In November the Shenandoah, the last of the rebel privateers, came into Liverpool, and was immediately handed over by the British authorities to Federal officials; for the Englishmen had at last found out who was going to win in the struggle. Albemarle was destroyed by the superb gallantry

In October the rebel ram

of Lieutenant Cushing. Thus the rebel flag ceased to fly above any deck. Along the coast very few penetrable crevices could still be found even by the most enterprising blockade-runners; and already the arrangements were making which brought about, a month later, the capture of Fort Fisher and Wilmington.

pace

Under these circumstances the desire to precipitate the and to reach the end with a rush possessed many persons of the nervous and eager type. They could not spur General Grant, so they gave their vexatious attention to the President, and endeavored to compel him to open with the Confederate government negotiations for a settlement, which they believed, or pretended to believe, might thus be attained. But Mr. Lincoln was neither to be urged nor wheedled out of his simple position. In his Message to Congress he referred to the number of votes cast at the recent election as indicating that, in spite of the drain of war, the

« AnteriorContinuar »