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“Lincoln Had Stood By Him”
John Hay returned from Illinois just at the time of Blair’s resignation. He noted that Blair was behaving “very handsomely and is doing his utmost” to reelect Lincoln. Monty would never forget that Lincoln had stood by him after the mortifying publication of his private letter to Frémont three years earlier, which contained passages demeaning the president. He knew that his father had never been turned away when he requested a private audience with Lincoln, and that his sister, Elizabeth, was always welcome at the White House. His entire family would forever appreciate Lincoln’s support for Frank during his continuing battle with the radicals in Congress. Indeed, Lincoln’s countless acts of generosity and kindness had cemented a powerful connection with the close-knit Blair family that even Monty’s forced resignation could not break. In the end, Lincoln gained the withdrawal of Frémont and the backing of the radicals without losing the affection and support of the conservative and powerful Blairs.
By Doris Kearns Goodwin，“Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln”，Goodwin-627-428-135
March 27, 1861
Still, Seward was recognized as the man who had the president’s ear. William Russell of The Times in London capitalized on this intimacy when he first arrived in Washington. Russell was then forty-one, a spectacled, lively, rotund Englishman whose sparkling reports from the Crimean War had made him a celebrity in London. At a dinner party on March 26, he was fascinated by Seward, “a subtle, quick man, rejoicing in power…fond of badinage, bursting with the importance of state mysteries.” The next day, Seward arranged for Russell to slip into a White House reception for the Italian minister. Russell recalled that Lincoln “put out his hand in a very friendly manner, and said, ‘Mr. Russell, I am very glad to make your acquaintance, and to see you in this country. The LondonTimes is one of the greatest powers in the world-in fact, I don’t know anything which has much more power-except perhaps the Mississippi.’”
Russell attended the Lincolns’ first state dinner that evening. Arriving at the White House, he noted that Mary “was already seated to receive her guests.” He found her features “plain, her nose and mouth of an ordinary type, and her manners and appearance homely, stiffened, however, by the consciousness that her position requires her to be something more than plain Mrs. Lincoln, the wife of the Illinois lawyer; she is profuse in the introduction of the word ‘sir’ in every sentence.”
At the formal dinner, “there was a Babel of small talk,” Russell observed, “except when there was an attentive silence caused by one of the President’s stories… for which he is famous.” As he reeled off one humorous anecdote after another, no one could have guessed that earlier that day, Lincoln had received devastating news from General Scott. In a written memorandum, Scott had advised that it was now unlikely, “according to recent information from the South, whether the voluntary evacuation of Fort Sumter alone would have a decisive effect upon the States now wavering between adherence to the Union and secession.” Fort Pickens would also have to be abandoned, Scott argued, in order to “give confidence to the eight remaining slave-holding States.”
Shortly before the state dinner ended, Lincoln called his cabinet colleagues aside and asked them to follow him into a different room. Montgomery Blair would long remember Lincoln’s agitation as he revealed the contents of Scott’s report. “A very oppressive silence succeeded,” Blair recalled, interrupted only by his own angry retort that Scott was playing “politician and not General,” a comment directed at Seward’s influence with Scott. Like his son, Blair Senior had long believed that Lincoln should have announced the reinforcement of Sumter at the time of his inauguration and he blamed Seward for Lincoln’s “timid temporizing policy.” It was Andrew Jackson’s motto, he reminded, that “if you temporize, you are lost.”
THAT NIGHT, Lincoln was unable to sleep. The time for musing and assessment was at an end. He must make the decision between a surrender that might compromise the honor of the North and tear it apart, or a reinforcement that might carry the country into civil war. Later he confessed to Browning, “of all the trials I have had since I came here, none begin to compare with those I had between the inauguration and the fall of Fort Sumpter. They were so great that could I have anticipated them, I would not have believed it possible to survive them.”
By Doris Kearns Goodwin，“Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln”，Goodwin-323-221-62,63,65,68
“Mr. Lincoln’s unselfish magnanimity”
Executive Mansion
April 1, 1861
Hon. W. H. Seward
My dear Sir:
Since parting with you I have been considering your paper dated this day, and entitled “Some thoughts for the President’s consideration.” The first proposition in it is, “1st. We are at the end of a month’s administration, and yet without a policy, either domestic or foreign.”
At the beginning of that month, in the inaugeral, I said “The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy and possess the property and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties, and imposts.” This had your distinct approval at the time; and, taken in connection with the order I immediately gave General Scott, directing him to employ every means in his power to strengthen and hold the forts, comprises the exact domestic policy you now urge, with the single exception, that it does not propose to abandon Fort Sumpter.
Again, I do not perceive how the re-inforcement of Fort Sumpter would be done on a slavery, or party issue, while that of Fort Pickens would be on a more national, and patriotic one.
The news received yesterday in regard to St. Domingo, certainly brings a new item within the range of our foreign policy; but up to that time we have been preparing circulars, and instructions to ministers, and the like, all in perfect harmony, without even a suggestion that we had no foreign policy.
Upon your closing propositions, that “whatever policy we adopt, there must be an energetic prossecution of it”
“For this purpose it must be somebody’s business to pursue and direct it incessantly”
“Either the President must do it himself, and be all the while active in it, or”
“Devolve it on some member of his cabinet”
“Once adopted, debates on it must end, and all agree and abide” I remark that if this must be done, I must do it. When a general line of policy is adopted, I apprehend there is no danger of its being changed without good reason, or continuing to be a subject of unnecessary debate; still, upon points arising in its progress, I wish, and suppose I am entitled to have the advice of all the cabinet.
Your Obt. Servt.
A. LINCOLN
On April 1, Secretary of State Seward handed Lincoln a memorandum setting forth a number of most extraordinary propositions. ……. but the principal points for which it had evidently been written and presented can be given in a few sentences. A month has elapsed, and the administration has neither a domestic nor a foreign policy. The administration must at once adopt and carry out a novel, radical, and aggressive policy. It must cease saying a word about slavery, and raise a great outcry about Union. It must declare war against France and Spain, and combine and organize all the governments of North and South America in a crusade to enforce the Monroe Doctrine. This policy once adopted, it must be the business of some one incessantly to pursue it. “It is not in my especial province,” wrote Mr. Seward; “but I neither seek to evade nor assume responsibility.” This phrase, which is a key to the whole memorandum, enables the reader easily to translate its meaning into something like the following:
After a month’s trial, you, Mr. Lincoln, are a failure as President. The country is in desperate straits, and must use a desperate remedy. That remedy is to submerge the South Carolina insurrection in a continental war. Some new man must take the executive helm, and wield the undivided presidential authority. I should have been nominated at Chicago, and elected in November, but am willing to take your place and perform your duties.
Why William H. Seward, who is fairly entitled to rank as a great statesman, should have written this memorandum and presented it to Mr. Lincoln, has never been explained; nor is it capable of explanation. Its suggestions were so visionary, its reasoning so fallacious, its assumptions so unwarranted, its conclusions so malapropos, that it falls below critical examination. Had Mr. Lincoln been an envious or a resentful man, he could not have wished for a better occasion to put a rival under his feet.
The President doubtless considered the incident one of phenomenal strangeness, but it did not in the least disturb his unselfish judgment or mental equipoise. There was in his answer no trace of excitement or passion. He pointed out in a few sentences of simple, quiet explanation that what the administration had done was exactly a foreign and domestic policy which the Secretary of State himself had concurred in and helped to frame. Only, that Mr. Seward proposed to go further and give up Sumter. Upon the central suggestion tliat some one mind must direct, Mr. Lincoln wrote with simple dignity:
“If this must be done, I must do it. When a general line of policy is adopted, I apprehend there is no danger of its being changed without good reason, or continuing to be a subject of unnecessary debate; still, upon points arising in its progress I wish, and suppose I am entitled to have, the advice of all the cabinet.”
Mr. Lincoln’s unselfish magnanimity is the central marvel of the whole affair. His reply ended the argument. Mr. Seward doubtless saw at once how completely he had put himself in the President’s power. Apparently, neither of the men ever again alluded to the incident. No other persons except Mr. Seward’s son and the President’s private secretary ever saw the correspondence, or knew of the occurrence. The President put the papers away in an envelop, and no word of the affair came to the public until a quarter of a century later, when the details were published in Mr. Lincoln’s biography. In one mind, at least, there was no further doubt that the cabinet had a master, for only some weeks later Mr. Seward is known to have written:”There is but one vote in the cabinet, and that is cast by the President.” This mastery Mr. Lincoln retained with a firm dignity throughout his administration. When, near the close of the war, he sent Mr. Seward to meet the rebel commissioners at “the Hampton Roads conference, he finished his short letter of instructions with the imperative sentence: “You will not assume to definitely consummate anything.”
Quoted in John G. Nicolay, A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln, pp. 184-187.
“Lincoln, Once More, Assumed the Blame”
Assistant Navy Secretary Gustavus Fox
Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 4.
To Gustavus V. Fox
Capt. G. V. Fox Washington, D. C.
My dear Sir May 1, 1861
I sincerely regret that the failure of the late attempt to provision Fort-Sumpter, should be the source of any annoyance to you. The practicability of your plan was not, in fact, brought to a test. By reason of a gale, well known in advance to be possible, and not improbable, the tugs, an essential part of the plan, never reached the ground; while, by an accident, for which you were in no wise responsible, and possibly I, to some extent was, you were deprived of a war vessel with her men, which you deemed of great importance to the enterprize.
I most cheerfully and truly declare that the failure of the undertaking has not lowered you a particle, while the qualities you developed in the effort, have greatly heightened you, in my estimation. For a daring and dangerous enterprize, of a similar character, you would, to-day, be the man, of all my acquaintances, whom I would select.
You and I both anticipated that the cause of the country would be advanced by making the attempt to provision Fort-Sumpter, even if it should fail; and it is no small consolation now to feel that our anticipation is justified by the result.
Very truly your friend A. LINCOLN
Captain Fox was inconsolable. Convinced that his mission would have been successful with the missingPowhatan, he believed that for a failure that was not his fault, he had lost his “reputation with the general public.” Lincoln, once more, assumed the blame, assuring him that “by an accident, for which you were in no wise responsible, and possibly I, to some extent was, you were deprived of a war vessel with her men, which you deemed of great importance to the enterprize. I most cheerfully and truly declare that the failure of the undertaking has not lowered you a particle, while the qualities you developed in the effort, have greatly heightened you, in my estimation.
By Doris Kearns Goodwin，“Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln”，Goodwin-323-221-91
“Lincoln Took Upon Himself The Whole Blame”
To the astonishment of Welles, Lincoln “took upon himself the whole blame-said it was carelessness, heedlessness on his part-he ought to have been more careful and attentive.” In fact, Welles continued, Lincoln “often declared that he, and not his Cabinet, was in fault for errors imputed to them.” Seward reluctantly sent the telegram; but Porter had already set sail for Florida. A fast ship was dispatched to catch up with the Powhatan, but when Porter read the telegram, bearing Seward’s signature instead of the president’s, he continued to Florida, on the assumption that the previous order signed by the president had priority.
By Doris Kearns Goodwin，“Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln”，Goodwin-323-221-88
“Not To Be Making Points Of Etiquette Personal Dignity”
On Wednesday night, November 13, Lincoln went with Seward and Hay to McClellan’s house. Told that the general was at a wedding, the three waited in the parlor for an hour. When McClellan arrived home, the porter told him the president was waiting, but McClellan passed by the parlor room and climbed the stairs to his private quarters. After another half hour, Lincoln again sent word that he was waiting, only to be informed that the general had gone to sleep. Young John Hay was enraged. “I wish here to record what I consider a portent of evil to come,” he wrote in his diary, recounting what he considered an inexcusable “insolence of epaulettes,” the first indicator “of the threatened supremacy of the military authorities.” To Hay’s surprise, Lincoln “seemed not to have noticed it specially, saying it was better at this time not to be making points of etiquette & personal dignity.” He would hold McClellan’s horse, he once said, if a victory could be achieved.
Though Lincoln, the consummate pragmatist, did not express anger at McClellan’s rebuff, his aides fumed at every instance of such arrogance. Lincoln’s secretary, William Stoddard, described the infuriating delay when he accompanied Lincoln to McClellan’s anteroom. “A minute passes, then another, and then another, and with every tick of the clock upon the mantel your blood warms nearer and nearer its boiling-point. Your face feels hot and your fingers tingle, as you look at the man, sitting so patiently over there…and you try to master your rebellious consciousness.” As time went by, Lincoln visited the haughty general less frequently. If he wanted to talk with McClellan, he sent a summons for him to appear at the White House.
By Doris Kearns Goodwin，“Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln”，Goodwin-377-257-022
“Lincoln Tolerated Such Flagrant Breaches Of Protocol”
For two months, Lincoln tried to restore harmony between his commanders. He spent many hours at General Scott’s headquarters, listening to the old warrior and attempting to mollify him. He made frequent visits to McClellan’s headquarters, situated in a luxurious house at the corner of Lafayette Square, not far from Seward’s new home. The upstairs rooms were reserved for McClellan’s private use. The parlors downstairs were occupied by the telegraph office, with dozens of staff “smoking, reading the papers, and writing.” Sometimes McClellan welcomed Lincoln’s visits; on other occasions, he felt them a waste of time: “I have just been interrupted here by the Presdt & Secty Seward who had nothing very particular to say, except some stories to tell.” Observers noted with consternation that McClellan often kept Lincoln waiting in the downstairs room, “together with other common mortals.” British reporter William Russell began to pity the president, who would call only to be told that the general was “lying down, very much fatigued.” Nonetheless, so long as he believed in McClellan’s positive influence on the army, Lincoln tolerated such flagrant breaches of protocol.
By Doris Kearns Goodwin，“Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln”，Goodwin-377-257-008
“Often Reading Aloud”
Before he met Kelso, Shakspere and Burns had meant little to Lincoln; they had been merely names, and vague names at that. But now as he sat listening to Jack Kelso reading “Hamlet” and reciting “Macbeth,” Lincoln realized for the first time what symphonies could be played with the English language. What a thing of infinite beauty it could be! What a whirlwind of sense and emotion!
By Dale Carnegie，“Lincoln, the Unknown” ，Carnegie-029-12
Already he possessed a vivid sensibility for the beauty of the English language. Often reading aloud, he was attracted to the sound of language along with its meaning-its music and rhythms. He found this in poetry, and to the end of his life would recite poems, often lengthy passages, from memory. He seemed especially drawn to poetry that spoke of our doomed mortality and the transience of earthly achievements. For clearly Lincoln, this acolyte of pure reason and remorseless logic, was also a romantic.
Doris Kearns Goodwin，“Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln” Goodwin-046-30-27
Though he acquired only a handful of volumes, they were seminal works of the English language. Reading the Bible and Shakespeare over and over implanted rhythms and poetry that would come to fruition in those works of his maturity that made Abraham Lincoln our only poet-president.
Doris Kearns Goodwin，“Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln” Goodwin-046-30-25
“His Love Of Fun”
“His love of the ludicrous was not the least peculiar of his characteristics. His love of fun made him overlook everything else but the point of the joke sought after. If he told a good story that was refined and had a sharp point, he did not like it any the better because it was refined. If it was outrageously vulgar, he never seemed to see that part of it, if it had the sharp ring of wit; nothing ever reached him but the wit. Almost any man that will tell a very vulgar story, has, in a degree, a vulgar mind; but it was not so with him; with all his purity of character and exalted morality and sensibility, which no man can doubt, when hunting for wit he had no ability to discriminate between the vulgar and the refined substances from which he extracted it. It was the wit he was after, the pure jewel, and he would pick it up out of the mud or dirt just as readily as he would from a parlor table.
Quoted in Herndon’s Lincoln: A True Story of a Great Life Written by William H. Herndon and Jesse W. Weik, ed.Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis, editor, Herndon’s Informants, Herndon-313-35
“repeat the substance of what he has just been reading”
What he likes better than anything else is to stretch himself on the old sofa and read. Shakespeare is continually in his hands, and he quotes out-of-the-way passages from this author. He has several editions of Byron’s “Don Juan”, and they are all freely underlined. He is extremely fond of Burns, and once he reads aloud to his partner one of the Scotsman’s poems. The early poems of young Walt Whitman are also discussed in this office. They make a strong impression on Lincoln ; he takes the book home with him, but promptly brings it back again next day, with the grim remark that it has narrowly escaped being “purified in fire”, for “the women didn’t like it.” Of other new books, he will merely flutter the leaves, let them drop on the floor, close his eyes, and murmuringly repeat the substance of what he has just been reading.
By Emil Ludwig,”Abraham Lincoln: And the Times that Tried His Soul” ,Ludwig-136-04