Twenty Years of Congress Volume Ii Part 1

Twenty Years of Congress.

Volume 2.

by James Gillespie Blaine.

CHAPTER I.

Abraham Lincoln expired at twenty-two minutes after seven o'clock on the morning of April 15, 1865. Three hours later, in the presence of all the members of the Cabinet except Mr. Seward who lay wounded and bleeding in his own home, the oath of office, as President of the United States, was administered to Andrew Johnson by Chief Justice Chase. The simple but impressive ceremony was performed in Mr.

Johnson's lodgings at the Kirkwood Hotel; and besides the members of the Cabinet, who were present in their official character, those senators who had remained in Washington since the adjournment of Congress were called in as witnesses. While the death of Mr. Lincoln was still unknown to the majority of the citizens of the Republic, his successor was installed in office, and the administration of the Federal Government was radically changed. It was especially fortunate that the Vice-President was at the National Capital. He had arrived but five days before, and was intending to leave for his home in Tennessee within a few hours. His prompt invest.i.ture with the Chief Executive authority of the Nation preserved order, maintained law, and restored confidence to the people. With the defeat and disintegration of the armies of the Confederacy, and with the approaching disbandment of the armies of the Union, constant watchfulness was demanded of the National Executive. It is a striking tribute to the strength of the Const.i.tution and of the Government that the orderly administration of affairs was not interrupted by a tragedy which in many countries might have been the signal for a b.l.o.o.d.y revolution.

The new President confronted grave responsibilities. The least reflecting among those who took part in the mighty struggle perceived that the duties devolved upon the Government by victory--if less exacting and less critical than those imposed by actual war--were more delicate in their nature, and required statesmanship of a different character. The problem of reconstructing the Union, and adapting its varied interests to its changed condition, demanded the highest administrative ability. Many of the questions involved were new, and, if only for that reason, perplexing. No experience of our own had established precedents; none in other countries afforded even close a.n.a.logies. Rebellions and civil wars had, it is true, been frequent, but they had been chiefly among peoples consolidated under one government, ruled in all their affairs, domestic and external, by one central power. The overthrow of armed resistance in such cases was the end of trouble, and political society and public order were rapidly re-formed under the restraint which the triumphant authority was so easily able to impose.

A prompt adjustment after the manner of consolidated governments was not practicable under our Federal system. In the division of functions between the Nation and the State, those that reach and affect the citizen in his every-day life belong princ.i.p.ally to the State. The tenure of land is guaranteed and regulated by State Law; the domestic relations of husband and wife, parent and child, guardian and ward, together with the entire educational system, are left exclusively to the same authority, as is also the preservation of the public peace by proper police-systems--the National Government intervening only on the call of the State when the State's power is found inadequate to the suppression of disorder. These leading functions of the State were left in full force under the Confederate Government; and the Confederate Government being now destroyed, and the States that composed it being under the complete domination of the armies of the Union, the whole framework of society was in confusion, if not indeed in chaos. To restore the States to their normal relations to the Union, to enable them to organize governments in harmony with the fundamental changes wrought by the war, was the embarra.s.sing task which the Administration of President Johnson was compelled to meet on the very threshold of its existence.

The successful issue of these unprecedented and complicated difficulties depended in great degree upon the character and temper of the Executive. Many wise men regarded it as a fortunate circ.u.mstance that Mr. Lincoln's successor was from the South, though a much larger number in the North found in this fact a source of disquietude. Mr.

Johnson had the manifest disadvantage of not possessing any close or intimate knowledge of the people of the Loyal States. It was feared moreover, that his relations with the ruling spirits of the South in the exciting period preceding the war specially unfitted him for harmonious co-operation with them in the pending exigencies.

The character and career of Mr. Johnson were anomalous and in many respects contradictory. By birth he belonged to that large cla.s.s in the South known as "poor whites,"--a cla.s.s scarcely less despised by the slave-holding aristocracy than were the human chattels themselves.

Born in North Carolina, and bred to the trade of a tailor, he reached his fifteenth year before he was taught even to read. In his eighteenth year he migrated to Tennessee, and established himself in that rich upland region on the eastern border of the State, where by alt.i.tude the same agricultural conditions are developed that characterize the land which lies several degrees further North.

Specially adapted to the cereals, the gra.s.ses, and the fruits of Southern Pennsylvania and Ohio, East Tennessee could not employ slave-labor with the profit which it brought in the rich cotton-fields of the neighboring lowlands, and the result was that the population contained a large majority of whites.

Owing much to a wise marriage, pursuing his trade with skill and industry, Johnson gained steadily in knowledge and in influence.

Ambitious, quick to learn, honest, necessarily frugal, he speedily became a recognized leader of the cla.s.s to which he belonged.

Before he had attained his majority he was chosen to an important munic.i.p.al office, and at twenty-two he was elected mayor of his town.

Thenceforward his promotion was rapid. At twenty-seven he was sent to the Legislature of his State; and in 1840, when he was in his thirty-second year, he was nominated for the office of Presidential elector and canva.s.sed that State in the interest of Mr. Van Buren.

Three years later he was chosen representative in Congress where he served ten years. He was then nominated for governor, and in the elections of 1853 and 1855 defeated successively two of the most popular Whigs in Tennessee, Gustavus A. Henry and Meredith P. Gentry.

In 1857 he was promoted to the Senate of the United States, where he was serving at the outbreak of the civil war.

While Mr. Johnson had been during his entire political life a member of the Democratic party, and had attained complete control in his State, the Southern leaders always distrusted him. Though allied to the interests of slavery and necessarily drawn to its defense, his instincts, his prejudices, his convictions were singularly strong on the side of the free people. His sympathies with the poor were acute and demonstrative--leading him to the advocacy of measures which in a wide and significant sense were hostile to slavery. In the early part of his career as a representative in Congress, he warmly espoused, if indeed he did not originate, the homestead policy. In support of that policy he followed a line of argument and ill.u.s.tration absolutely and irreconcilably antagonistic to the interests of the slave system as those interests were understood by the ma.s.s of Southern Democratic leaders.

The bestowment of our public domain in quarter-sections (a hundred and sixty acres of land) upon the actual settler, on the simple condition that he should cultivate it and improve it as his home, was a more effective blow against the spread of slavery in the Territories than any number of legal restrictions or _provisos_ of the kind proposed by Mr. Wilmot. Slavery could not be established with success except upon the condition of large tracts of land for the master, and the exclusion of the small farmer from contact and from compet.i.tion.

The example of the latter's manual industry and his consequent thrift and prosperity, must ultimately prove fatal to the entire slave system.

It may not have been Mr. Johnson's design to injure the inst.i.tution of slavery by the advocacy of the homestead policy; but such advocacy was nevertheless hostile, and this consideration did not stay his hand or change his action.

Mr. Johnson' mode of urging and defending the homestead policy was at all times offensive to the ma.s.s of his Democratic a.s.sociates of the South, many of whom against their wishes were compelled to support the measure on its final pa.s.sage, for fear of giving offense to their landless white const.i.tuents, and in the still more pressing fear, that if Johnson should be allowed to stand alone in upholding the measure, he would acquire a dangerous ascendency over that large element in the Southern population. Johnson spoke with ill-disguised hatred of "an inflated and heartless landed aristocracy," not applying the phrase especially to the South, but making an argument which tended to sow dissension in that section. He declared that "the withholding of the use of the soil from the actual cultivator is violative of the principles essential to human existence," and that when "the violation reaches that point where it can no longer be borne, revolution begins."

His argument startlingly outlined a condition such as has long existed in Ireland, and applied it with suggestive force to the possible fate of the South.

He then sketched his own ideal of a rural population, an ideal obviously based on free labor and free inst.i.tutions. "You make a settler on the domain," said he, "a better citizen of the community.

He becomes better qualified to discharge the duties of a freeman. He is, in fact, the representative of his own homestead, and is a man in the enlarged and proper sense of the term. He comes to the ballot-box and votes without the fear or the restraint of some landlord. After the hurry and bustle of election day are over, he mounts his own horse, returns to his own domicil, goes to his own barn, feeds his own stock.

His wife turns out and milks their own cows, churns their own b.u.t.ter; and when the rural repast is ready, he and his wife and their children sit down at the same table together to enjoy the sweet product of their own hands, with hearts thankful to G.o.d for having cast their lots in this country where the land is made free under the protecting and fostering care of a beneficent Government."

The picture thus presented by Johnson was not the picture of a home in the slave States, and no one knew better than he that it was a home which could not be developed and established amid the surroundings and the influences of slavery. It was a home in the North-West, and not in the South-West. Proceeding in his speech Johnson became still more warmly enamored of his hero on the homestead, and with a tongue that seemed touched with the gift of prophecy he painted him in the possible career of a not distant future. "It has long been near my heart," said he in the House of Representatives in July, 1850, "to see every man in the United States domiciled. Once accomplished, it would create the strongest tie between the citizen and the Government; what a great incentive it would afford to the citizen to obey every call of duty!

At the first summons of the note of war you would find him leaving his plow in the half-finished furrow, taking his only horse and converting him into a war-steed: his scythe and sickle would be thrown aside, and with a heart full of valor and patriotism he would rush with alacrity to the standard of his country."

Such appeals for popular support subjected Johnson to the imputation of demagogism, and earned for him the growing hatred of that dangerous cla.s.s of men in the South who placed the safety of the inst.i.tution of slavery above the interest and the welfare of the white laborer. But if he was a demagogue, he was always a brave one. In his early political life, when the mere nod of President Jackson was an edict in Tennessee, Johnson did not hesitate to espouse the cause of Hugh L.

White when he was a candidate for the Presidency in 1836, nor did he fear to ally himself with John Bell in the famous controversy with Jackson's _protege_, James K. Polk, in the fierce political struggle of 1834-5. Though he returned to the ranks of the regular Democracy in the contest between Harrison and Van Buren, he was bold enough in 1842 to propose in the Legislature of Tennessee that the apportionment of political power should be made upon the basis of the white population of the State. He saw and keenly felt that a few white men in the cotton section of the State, owning many slaves, were usurping the power and trampling upon the rights of his own const.i.tuency, among whom slaves were few in number and white men numerous. Those who are familiar with the savage intolerance which prevailed among the slave-holders can justly measure the degree of moral and physical courage required in any man who would a.s.sail their power at a vital point in the framework of a government specially and skilfully devised for their protection.

In all the threats of disunion, in all the plotting and planning for secession which absorbed Southern thought and action between the years 1854 and 1861, Mr. Johnson took no part. He had been absent from Congress during the exciting period when the Missouri Compromise was overthrown; and though, after his return in 1857, he co-operated generally in the measures deemed essential for Southern interests, he steadily declared that a consistent adherence to the Const.i.tution was the one and the only remedy for all the alleged grievances of the slave-holders. It was natural therefore, that when the decisive hour came, and the rash men of the South determined to break up the Government, Johnson should stand firmly by the Union.

Of the twenty-two senators from the eleven States that afterwards composed the Confederacy, Johnson was the only one who honorably maintained his oath to support the Const.i.tution; the only one who did not lend his aid and comfort to the enemies of the Union. He remained in his seat in the Senate, loyal to the Government, and resigned a year after the outbreak of the war (in March, 1862), upon Mr. Lincoln's urgent request that he should accept the important post of Military Governor of Tennessee. His administration of that office and his firm discharge of every duty under circ.u.mstances of great exigency and oftentimes of great peril, gave to him an exceptional popularity in all the Loyal States, and led to his selection for the Vice-Presidency in 1864. The national calamity had now suddenly brought him to a larger field of duty, and devolved upon him the weightiest responsibility.

The a.s.sa.s.sination of Mr. Lincoln naturally produced a wide-spread depression and dread of evil. His position had been one of exceptional strength with the people. By his four years of considerate and successful administration, by his patient and positive trust in the ultimate triumph of the Union--realized at last as he stood on the edge of the grave--he had acquired so complete an ascendancy over the public mind in the Loyal States that any policy matured and announced by him would have been accepted by a vast majority of his countrymen. But the same degree of faith could not attach to Mr. Johnson; although after the first shock of the a.s.sa.s.sination had subsided, there was a generous revival of trust, or at least of hope, that the great work which had been so faithfully prosecuted for four years would be faithfully carried forward in the same lofty spirit to the same n.o.ble ends. The people of the North waited with favorable disposition and yet with balancing judgment and in exacting mood. They had enjoyed abundant opportunity to acquaint themselves with the principles and the opinions of the new President, and confidence in his future policy was not unaccompanied by a sense of uncertainty and indeed by an almost painful suspense as to his mode of solving the great problems before him. As has already been indicated, the more radical Republicans of the North feared that his birth and rearing as a Southern man and his long identification with the supporters of the slave system might blind him to the most sacred duties of philanthropy, while the more conservative but not less loyal or less humane feared that from the personal antagonisms of his own stormy career he might be disposed to deal too harshly with the leaders of the conquered rebellion. The few words which Mr. Johnson had addressed to those present when he took the oath of office were closely scanned and carefully a.n.a.lyzed by the country, even in the stunning grief which Mr. Lincoln's death had precipitated.

It was especially noted that he refrained from declaring that he should continue the policy of his predecessor. By those who knew Mr.

Johnson's views intimately, the omission was understood to imply that Mr. Lincoln had intended to pursue a more liberal and more generous policy with the rebels than his successor deemed expedient or prudent.

It was known to a few persons that when Mr. Johnson arrived from Fortress Monroe on the morning of April 10, and found the National Capital in a blaze of patriotic excitement over the surrender of Lee's army the day before at Appomattox, he hastened to the White House, and addressed to the unwilling ears of Mr. Lincoln an earnest protest against the indulgent terms conceded by General Grant. Mr. Johnson believed that General Lee should not have been permitted to surrender his sword as a solider of honor, but that General Grant should have received the entire command as prisoners of war, and should have held Lee in confinement until he could receive instructions from the Administration at Washington. The spirit which these views indicated was understood by those who knew Mr. Johnson to be contained, if not expressed, in this declaration of his first address: "As to an indication of any policy which may be pursued by me in the conduct of the Government, I have to say that that must be left for development as the Administration progresses. The message or the declaration must be made by the acts as they transpire. The only a.s.surance I can now give of the future is by reference to the past."

The effect produced upon the public by this speech, which might be regarded as an Inaugural address, was not happy. Besides its evasive character respecting public policies which every observing man noted with apprehension, an unpleasant impression was created by its evasive character respecting Mr. Lincoln. The entire absence of eulogy of the slain President was remarked. There was no mention of his name or of his character or of his office. The only allusion in any way whatever to Mr. Lincoln was Mr. Johnson's declaration that he was "almost overwhelmed by the announcement of the sad event which has so recently occurred." While he found no time to praise one whose praise was on every tongue, he made ample reference to himself and his own past history. Though speaking not more than five minutes, it was noticed that "I" and "my" and "me" were mentioned at least a score of times.

A boundless egotism was inferred from the line of his remarks: "My past public life which has been long and laborious has been founded, as I in good conscience believe, upon a great principle of right which lies at the basis of all things." "I must be permitted to say, if I understand the feelings of my own heart, I have long labored to ameliorate and alleviate the condition of the great ma.s.s of the American people." "Toil and an honest advocacy of the great principles of free government have been my lot. The duties have been mine, the consequences G.o.d's." Senator John P. Hale of New Hampshire, who was present on the occasion, said with characteristic wit, that "Johnson seemed willing to share the glory of his achievements with his Creator, but utterly forgot that Mr. Lincoln had any share of credit in the suppression of the Rebellion."

Three days later (April 18) a delegation of distinguished citizens of Illinois called upon Mr. Johnson under circ.u.mstances at once extraordinary and touching. The dead President still lay in the White House. Before the solemn and august procession should leave the National Capital to bear his mortal remains to the State which had loved and honored him, the Illinois delegation called to a.s.sure his successor of their respect and their confidence. Governor Oglesby who spoke for his a.s.sociates, addressed the President in language eminently befitting the occasion. "In the midst of this sadness," said he, "through the oppressive gloom that surrounds us, we look to you and to a brighter future for our country. . . . The record of your past life, familiar to all, your n.o.ble efforts to stay the hand of treason and restore our flag to the uttermost bounds of the Republic, give a.s.surance to the great State we represent that we may safely trust the nation's destinies in your hands."

Mr. Johnson responded in a speech of much greater length than his first, embodying a wider range of topics than seemed to be demanded by the proprieties of the occasion. He evidently strove to repair the error of his former address. He now diminished the number of gratulatory allusions to his own career, and made appropriate and affecting reference to his predecessor. He spoke with profound emotion of the tragical termination of Mr. Lincoln's life: "The beloved of all hearts has been a.s.sa.s.sinated." Pausing thoughtfully he added, "And when we trace this crime to its cause, when we remember the source whence the a.s.sa.s.sin drew his inspiration, and then look at the result, we stand yet more astounded at this most barbarous, most diabolical act. . . . We can trace its cause through successive steps back to that source which is the spring of all our woes. No one can say that if the perpetrator of this fiendish deed be arrested, he should not undergo the extremest penalty of the law known for crime; none will say that mercy should interpose. But is he alone guilty? Here, gentlemen, you perhaps expect me to present some indication of my future policy. One thing I will say: every era teaches its lesson. The times we live in are not without instruction. The American people must be taught--if they do not already feel--that treason is a crime and must be punished.

The Government must be strong not only to protect but to punish. When we turn to the criminal code we find arson laid down as a crime with the appropriate penalty. We find theft and murder denounced as crimes, and their appropriate penalty prescribed; and there, too, we find the last and highest of crimes,--treason. . . . The people must understand that treason is the blackest of crimes and will surely be punished . . . . Let it be engraven on every mind that treason is a crime and traitors shall suffer its penalty. . . . I do not harbor bitter or resentful feelings towards any. . . . When the question of exercising mercy comes before me it will be considered calmly, judicially-- remembering that I am the Executive of the Nation. I know men love to have their names spoken of in connection with acts of mercy, and how easy it is to yield to that impulse. But we must never forget that what may be mercy to the individual is cruelty to the State."

This speech was reported by an accomplished stenographer, and was submitted to Mr. Johnson's inspection before publication. It contained a declaration intimating to his hearers, if not explicitly a.s.suring them, that "the policy of Mr. Lincoln in the past shall be my policy in the future." When in reading the report he came to this pa.s.sage, Mr.

Johnson queried whether his words had not been in some degree misapprehended; and while he was engaged with the stenographer in modifying the form of expression, Mr. Preston King of New York, who was constantly by his side as adviser, interposed the suggestion that all reference to the subject be stricken out. To this Mr. Johnson promptly a.s.sented. He had undoubtedly gone farther than he intended in speaking to Mr. Lincoln's immediate friends, and the correction--inspired by one holding the radical views of Mr. King--was equivalent to a declaration that the policy of Mr. Lincoln had been more conservative than that which he intended to pursue. By those who knew the character of Mr.

Johnson's mind, the ascendancy of Mr. King in his councils, and the retirement of Mr. Seward from the State Department were foregone conclusions. The known moderation of Mr. Seward's views would not consist with the fierce vigor of the new administration as now clearly foreshadowed. Mr. Seward and Mr. King, moreover, were not altogether in harmony in New York; and this was so far recognized by the public that Mr. King's displacement from the Senate by the election of Governor Morgan two years before was universally attributed to the Seward influence skilfully directed by Mr. Thurlow Weed. The resentment felt by Mr. King's friends had been very deep, and the opportunity to gratify it seemed now to be presented.

As soon as the Illinois delegation had retired, the members of the Christian Commission then in session at Washington called upon the President. In reply to their earnest address, he begged them as intelligent men representing the power of the Christian Church, to exert their moral influence "in erecting a standard by which everybody should be taught to believe that treason is the highest crime known to the laws, and that the perpetrator should be visited with the punishment which he deserves." This substantial repet.i.tion of the views expressed in his Illinois speech derived significance from the fact that the clergyman who spoke for the Christian Commission (Rev.

Dr. Borden of Albany) had expressed the hope in his address to the President that "in the administration of justice, mercy would follow the success of arms."

While the remains of the late President were yet reposing in the National Capital, and still more while his funeral-train was on the way to his tomb, the reception of official deputations and political bodies was continued by his successor. Mr. Johnson was always ready to explain with some iteration and with great emphasis his views of the Government's duty respecting those who had been engaged in rebellion against its authority. To a representative body of loyal Southerners who by reason of their fidelity to the Union had been compelled to flee from home, Mr. Johnson was especially demonstrative in his sympathy, and positive in his a.s.surances. In reply to their address he said: "It is hardly necessary for me on this occasion to declare that my sympathies and impulses in connection with this nefarious rebellion beat in unison with yours. Those who have pa.s.sed through this bitter ordeal and who partic.i.p.ated in it to a great extent, are more competent, as I think, to judge and determine the true policy that should be pursued. I know how to appreciate the condition of being driven from one's home. I can sympathize with him whose all has been taken from him: I can sympathize with him who has been driven from the place that gave his children birth. . . . _I have become satisfied that mercy without justice is a crime,_ and that when mercy and clemency are exercised by the Executive it should always be done in view of justice. In that manner alone the great prerogative of mercy is properly exercised. The time has come, as you who have had to drink this bitter cup are fully aware, when the American people should be made to understand the true nature of crime. Of crime generally our people have a high understanding as well as of the necessity of its punishment; but in the catalogue of crimes there is one, and that the highest known to the laws and the Const.i.tution, of which since the days of Aaron Burr they have become oblivious. That crime is _treason_. The time has come when the people should be taught to understand the length and breadth, the height and depth, of treason.

One who has become distinguished in the rebellion says that 'when traitors become numerous enough, treason becomes respectable, and to become a traitor is to const.i.tute a portion of the aristocracy of the country.' G.o.d protect the American people against such an aristocracy!

. . . When the Government of the United States shall ascertain who are the conscious and intelligent traitors the penalty and the forfeit should be paid."

A delegation of Pennsylvanians called upon him with ex-Secretary Simon Cameron as their spokesman. In reply Mr. Johnson said, "There has been an effort since this rebellion began, to make the impression that it was a mere political struggle, or, as I see it thrown out in some of the papers, a struggle for the ascendency of certain principles from the dawn of the government to the present time, and now settled by the final triumph of the Federal arms. If this is admitted, the Government is at an end; for no question can arise but they will make it a party issue, and then to whatever length they carry it, the party defeated will only be a party defeated, with no crime attaching thereto. But I say that treason is a crime, the very highest crime known to the law, and there are men who ought to suffer the penalty of their treason!

. . . To the unconscious, the deceived, the conscripted, in short, to the great ma.s.s of the misled, I would say mercy, clemency, reconciliation, and the restoration of their government. But to those who have deceived, to the conscious, intelligent, influential traitor who attempted to destroy the life of a nation, I would say, on you be inflicted the severest penalties of your crime."

The inflexible sternness of Mr. Johnson's tone and the frequent repet.i.tion of his intention to inflict the severest penalty of the law upon the leading traitors, began to create apprehension in the North.

It was feared that the country might be called upon to witness, after the four years' carnival of death on the battle-field and in the hospital, an era of "b.l.o.o.d.y a.s.sizes," made the more rigorous and revengeful from the peculiar sense of injury which the President, as a loyal Southerner, had realized in his own person. This feeling was probably still further aggravated by his avowed sympathy with the thousands in the South who had been maimed, driven from home, stripped of all their property, simply because of the fidelity to the Const.i.tution and the Union of their fathers. The spirit of the _Vendetta_, unknown in the Northern States, was frequently shown in the South, where it had long been domesticated with all its Corsican ferocity. It had raged in many instances to the extermination of families, and in many localities to the destruction of peace and the utter defiance of law--not infrequently indeed paralyzing the administration of justice in whole counties. Often seeking and waging open combat with ferocious courage, it did not hesitate at secret murder, at waylaying on lonely roads with superior numbers, and it sometimes went so far as to torture an unhappy victim before the final death-blow. The language of Mr. Johnson was interpreted by the merciful in the North as indicating that his own injuries and fierce conflicts during the war has possibly inspired him with the fell spirit of revenge, which in his zeal he might mistake for the rational demands of justice.

A personal and somewhat curious ill.u.s.tration of Mr. Johnson's temper and purpose at the time is afforded by a conference between himself and Senator Wade of Ohio. Mr. Wade was widely known as among the radical and progressive members of the Republican party. His immediate const.i.tuents of the Western Reserve were a just and G.o.d-fearing people, amply endowed with both moral and physical courage; but they were not men of blood, and they were not in sympathy with the apparent purposes of the President. It is not improbable that Mr. Wade's views were somewhat in advance of those held by the majority of the people he represented, but he was evidently not in accord with the threatenings and slaughter breathed out by the President.

"Well, Mr. Wade, what would you do were you in my place and charged with my responsibilities?" inquired the President. "I think," replied the frank and honest old senator from Ohio, "I should either force into exile or hang about ten or twelve of the worst of those fellows; perhaps by way of full measure, I should make it thirteen, just a baker's dozen."--"But how," rejoined the President, "are you going to pick out so small a number and show them to be guiltier than the rest?"

--"It won't do to hang a very large number," rejoined Wade, "and I think if you would give me time, I could name thirteen that stand at the head in the work of rebellion. I think we would all agree on Jeff Davis, Toombs, Benjamin Slidell, Mason, and Howell Cobb. If we did no more than drive those half-dozen out of the country, we should accomplish a good deal."

The interview was long, and at its close Mr. Johnson expressed surprise that Wade was willing to let "the traitors," as he always styled them, "escape so easily." He said that he had expected the heartiest support from Wade in a policy which, as he outlined it to the senator, seemed in _thoroughness_ to rival that of Strafford. Mr. Wade left the Executive Mansion with his mind divided between admiration for the stern resolve and high courage of the President on the one hand, and his fear on the other that a policy so determined and aggressive as Mr.

Johnson seemed bent on pursuing might work a re-action in the North, and that thus in the end less might be done in providing proper safeguards against another rebellion, than if too much had not been attempted.

The remains of the late President lay in state at the Executive Mansion for four days. The entire city seemed as a house of mourning. It was remarked that even the little children in the streets wore no smiles upon their faces, so deeply were they impressed by the calamity which had brought grief to every loyal heart. The martial music which had been resounding in glad celebration of the national triumph had ceased; public edifice and private mansion were alike draped with the insignia of grief; the flag of the Union, which had been waving more proudly than ever before, was now lowered to half-mast, giving mute but significant expression to the sorrow that was felt wherever on sea or land that flag was honored.

Funeral services, conducted by the leading clergymen of the city, were held in the East Room on Wednesday the 19th of April. Amid the solemn tolling of church-bells, and the still more solemn thundering of minute-guns from the vast line of fortifications which had protected Washington, the body, escorted by an imposing military and civic procession, was transferred to the rotunda of the Capitol. The day was observed throughout the Union as one of fasting, humiliation, and prayer. The deep feeling of the people found expression in all the forms of religious solemnity. Services in the churches throughout the land were held in unison with the services at the Executive mansion, and were everywhere attended with exhibition of profound personal grief. In all the cities of Canada business was suspended, public meetings of condolence with a kindred people were held, and prayers were read in the churches. Throughout the Confederate States where war had ceased but peace had not yet come, the people joined in significant expressions of sorrow over the death of him whose very name they had been taught to execrate.

Early on the morning of the 21st the body was removed from the Capitol and placed on the funeral-car which was to transport it to its final resting-place in Illinois. The remains of a little son who had died three years before, were taken from their burial-place in Georgetown and borne with those of his father for final sepulture in the stately mausoleum which the public mind had already decreed to the ill.u.s.trious martyr. The train which moved from the National Capital was attended on its course by extraordinary manifestations of grief on the part of the people. Baltimore, which had reluctantly and sullenly submitted to Mr. Lincoln's formal inauguration and to his authority as President, now showed every mark of honor and of homage as his body was borne through her streets, Confederate and Unionist alike realizing the magnitude of the calamity which had overwhelmed both North and South.

In Philadelphia the entire population did reverence to the memory of the murdered patriot. A procession of more than a hundred thousand persons formed his funeral _cortege_ to Independence Hall, where the body remained until the ensuing day. The silence of the sorrowful night was in strange contrast with the scene in the same place, four years before, when Mr. Lincoln, in the anxieties and perils of the opening rebellion, hoisted the National flag over our ancient Temple of Liberty, and before a great and applauding mult.i.tude defended the principles which that flag typifies. He concluded in words which, deeply impressive at the time, proved sadly prophetic now that his dead body lay in a b.l.o.o.d.y shroud where his living form then stood: _"Sooner than surrender these principles, I would be a.s.sa.s.sinated on this spot."_

In the city of New York the popular feeling was, if possible, even more marked than in Philadelphia. The streets were so crowded that the procession moved with difficulty to the City Hall, where amid the chantings of eight hundred singers, the body was placed upon the catafalque prepared for it. Throughout the day and throughout the entire night the living tide of sorrowful humanity flowed past the silent form. At the solemn hour of midnight the German musical societies sang a funeral-hymn with an effect so impressive and touching that thousands of strong men were in tears. Other than this no sound was heard throughout the night except the footsteps of the advancing and receding crowd. At sunrise many thousands still waiting in the park were obliged to turn away disappointed. It was observed that every person who pa.s.sed through the hall, even the humblest and poorest, wore the insignia of mourning. In a city accustomed to large a.s.semblies and to unrestrained expressions of popular feeling, no such scene had ever been witnessed. On the afternoon appointed for the procession to move Westward, all business was suspended, and the grief of New York found utterance in Union Square before a great concourse of people in a funeral oration by the historian Bancroft and in an elegiac ode by William Cullen Bryant.