Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and letters of Charles Sumner: volume 4

Chapter 50: last months of the Civil War.—Chase and Taney, chief-justices.—the first colored attorney in the supreme court —reciprocity with Canada.—the New Jersey monopoly.— retaliation in war.—reconstruction.—debate on Louisiana.—Lincoln and Sumner.—visit to Richmond.—the president's death by assassination.—Sumner's eulogy upon him. —President Johnson; his method of reconstruction.—Sumner's protests against race distinctions.—death of friends. —French visitors and correspondents.—1864-1865.

I learn that you have already left us, and that you are unwell. I am very sorry on both accounts. Yours has been a most eventful service among us. Few ministers are called to perform in a whole life what you have been obliged to crowd into a brief term. It is well known that you have enjoyed in no common degree the confidence of your own government; while all on our side familiar with your conduct bear witness to the uniform kindness, courtesy, and forbearance by which it has been distinguished. To perform so successfully all the duties of your most difficult post in these terrible days, when strife and conflict seemed ready to embroil everything, was calculated to task the best powers of mind and body; and I am more pained than astonished to learn that your health has failed under the severe trial. But I trust that a vacation, and the welcome which awaits you from your own government, which you have served so well, will renew your strength, and that you will be disposed to come to us again. In any event, I can never forget the pleasant hours which it has been my fortune to have with you. My best wishes will follow you wherever you may be, and I pray you now to accept the expression of my friendship.

To Lieber, December 27:—

What say you to Dix's order? There can be no question that any general on the frontier might follow invaders back into Canada if the Canadian government should fail in its duties; but a deliberate order in advance to invade neutral territory is a grave step.² [205]

I have presented to the President the duty of harmony between Congress and the Executive. He is agreed. It is proposed to admit Louisiana (which ought not to be done), and at the same time pass the reconstruction bill for all the other States, giving the electoral franchise to ‘all citizens’ without distinction of color. If this arrangement is carried out, it will be an immense political act.

‘I have great questions for the committee [on foreign relations]: (1) The termination of the reciprocity treaty; (2) Armaments on the lakes; (3) The Canadian complications; (4) Mexico; (5) Arguelles case; (6) Claims of England growing out of the war; (7) Florida case; (8) Question of belligerent rights. Anything on these matters will be welcome.’

To Mr. Bright, February 15, 1865:—

I am glad of your assurance, in harmony with Mr. Cobden's, that intervention is played out. I am glad also of your speech. It amuses me to read the criticisms, which I can appreciate at their value, as I have been exposed to the same. For years it was said I was governed by hatred for the slave-masters, and did not care at all for the slaves. Oh, no! not at all.

You will read the report of the conferences.³ It appears that the President was drawn into them by the assurances of General Grant, who was led to expect something.⁴ Perhaps the country sees now more clearly than ever that the war must be pushed to the entire overthrow of the rebel armies. The interview was pleasant. Seward sent the commissioners on their arrival three bottles of choice whiskey, which it was reported they drank thirstily. As they were leaving, he gave them a couple of bottles of champagne for their dinner. Hunter, who is a very experienced politician, and had been all his life down to the rebellion, in Washington, said, after the discussions were closed, “Governor, how is the Capitol? Is it finished?” This gave Seward an opportunity of picturing the present admired state of the works, with the dome completed, and the whole constituting one of the most magnificent edifices of the world. Campbell, formerly of the Supreme Court of the United States, and reputed the ablest lawyer in the slave States, began the conference by suggesting peace on the basis of a Zollverein, and continued free-trade between the two sections, which he thought might pave the way to something hereafter; but he could not promise anything. This was also the theory of the French minister here, M. Mercier, now at Madrid, who insisted that the war must end in that way. It was remarked that the men had nothing of the haughty and defiant way which they had in Washington formerly. Mr. Blair, who visited Richmond, still insists that peace is near. He says that the war cannot go on another month on their side unless they have help from Louis Napoleon. But here the question of a monarchical government may arise. Jefferson Davis, whom he describes as so emaciated and altered as not to be recognized, sets his face against it. He said to Mr. Blair that “there was a Brutus who would brook the eternal devil as easily as a king in Rome;” and he was that Brutus in Richmond. [206]

Meanwhile the war goes on with converging forces. Mr. Stanton was with me yesterday, and gave me fully his expectations. He thinks that peace can be had only when Lee's army is beaten, captured, or dispersed; and there I agree with him. To that end all our military energies are now directed. Lee's army is sixty-five thousand men. Against him is Grant at Petersburg, a corps now demonstrating at Wilmington, and Sherman marching from Georgia. The latter will not turn aside for Augusta or Charleston, or any fortified place, but will traverse the Carolinas until he is able to co-operate with Grant. You will see from this statement something of the nature of the campaign. Mr. Stanton thinks it ought to be finished before May. I have for a long time been sanguine that after Lee's army is out of the way the whole rebellion will disappear. While that is in a fighting condition there is still a hope for the rebels, and the Unionists of the South are afraid to show themselves.

I am sorry that so great and good a man as Goldwin Smith, who has done so much for us, should fall into what Mr. Canning would call “cantanker.” He rushed too swiftly to his conclusion;⁵ but I hope that we shall not lose his powerful support for the good cause. I have felt it my duty to say to the British charge; here that nothing could be done to provide for British claims on our government arising out of the war, which are very numerous, until Lord Russell took a different course with regard to ours. He tosses ours aside haughtily. I am sorry, for my system is peace and good-will, which I shall try in my sphere to cultivate, but there must be reciprocity.

P. S. Did I mention, as showing the good nature of the peace conferences, that after the serious discussions were over, including allusions on the part of the rebels to what was gently called “the continental question,” Mr. Stephens asked the President to send back a nephew of his, a young lieutenant, who was a prisoner in the North? The President said at once, “Stephens, I'll do it, if you will send back one of our young lieutenants.” It was agreed; and Mr. Stephens handed the President on a slip of paper the name of his nephew, and the President handed Mr. Stephens the name of an officer of corresponding rank. This was the only stipulation on that occasion; and the President tells me it has been carried out on each side. Mr. Schleiden, the new minister of the Hanse Towns to London, has been long in Washington, and knows us well. Few foreigners have ever studied us more. I commend him to you and Mr. Cobden.

To Lieber, February 18:—

The President was exhausted a few days ago; but yesterday he made an appointment with me for eleven o'clock in the evening, and I did not leave him till some time after midnight. I hope you do not dislike the new judge⁶ I made in Boston. What pleasure I should have had in placing Hillard in some post of comfort and honor, if he had not made it impossible!⁷

The death of Chief-Justice Taney, which had been anticipated for some months, took place October 10, 1864. Sumner had regarded his friend and coadjutor, S. P. Chase, as the fittest person for the place, and had as early as the spring of the year urged the President to appoint him in the event of a vacancy. After that came the rupture between Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Chase, when the latter's resignation as Secretary of the Treasury was accepted, June 30. Other candidates were named on the death of the chief-justice—namely, Judge Swayne, already a member of the court; W. M. Evarts, who was supported by E. R. Hoar and R. H. Dana, Jr., of Massachusetts; William Curtis Noyes, who was recommended by Governor Morgan and members of the New York bar; and Montgomery Blair, who claimed to have Mr. Seward's support. Sumner, while expressing the highest respect for the character, attainments, and abilities of Mr. Noyes, whom he thought fit for any place on the bench or in the Cabinet, adhered to his conviction that the public interests, particularly the new constitutional questions arising, clearly required that Mr. Chase should be called to this high office. He so wrote to the President as soon as the vacancy was reported;⁸ and as there was delay in filling it, he renewed the recommendation as soon as he reached Washington.⁹ Some thought that except for his insistence a different appointment would have been made; but this is uncertain, as the general judgment of the country was in harmony with the President's decision, which was made December 6. When the new chief-justice took his seat, Sumner was observed among the spectators, ‘leaning against the column at the right of the justices,’ being regarded after the chief-justice himself as ‘the most interesting figure in the group of celebrated persons there.’¹⁰

Sumner wrote, October 12, to Lieber, who had urged him to visit Washington in order to press Chase's appointment:—

Last spring, after a long conversation, Mr. Lincoln promised me to tender the chief-justiceship to Chase. He has referred to that promise since his break with Chase, and declared his willingness to nominate him. I wrote to him at once on hearing of the vacancy to urge the nomination, and I assigned some [208] reasons, insisting that from this time forward the Constitution must be interpreted for liberty, as it has been thus far for slavery. I presented also the importance of having our war measures sustained. I doubt if I could add anything by a personal interview, especially after what has already passed between us.

To a friend who had expressed to him the desire that he should succeed Taney, Sumner wrote, November 20:—

I am not a candidate for the chief-justiceship, and never have been. In early days, when I still felt the “fine frenzy” for law, I might have looked that way, despairingly of course, for I never supposed that I should hold an office of any kind; but that passed away long ago. I feel the grandeur of the judicial office, now that great questions of constitutional and public law are to be decided; but I am out of the question, and would not have it otherwise. Nothing has occurred to change my fixed conviction that Mr. Chase will be chief-justice. The President, in my opinion, errs by his delay. The appointment ought to have been made on the evening of Taney's funeral; but sooner or later Mr. Chase will be nominated.

The bill to place a bust of Taney in the Supreme Court room encountered the opposition of Sumner, Wilson, Hale, and Wade, in the Senate. It was reported by Trumbull from the judiciary committee, and he was the only Republican senator who spoke for it. As busts of official persons are historical emblems rather than testimonies to merit, such a controversy would occur only where the public feeling was intense. Taney's mind, as his Dred Scot opinion shows, was perverted on the slavery question, but otherwise he stood in high repute as a jurist. Sumner applied to him severe epithets for sustaining an unrighteous judgment by falsification of history—a charge which was literally true.¹¹ Reverdy Johnson, the friend and fellow-citizen of the late chief-justice, became greatly excited, and lost the selfcontrol which he usually maintained; and the contention between him and his four antagonists became bitter in personalities. A recess suspended the debate, and the bill did not come up again at this session. Nine years later, and only two months before Sumner's death, when illness kept him from his seat, a resolution for placing the busts of both Taney and Chase (the latter having recently died) in the Supreme Court room passed the Senate unanimously and without debate.¹² [209]

It was Sumner's felicity to move, February 1, 1865, in the Supreme Court, the admission as counsellor of J. S. Rock, a colored man, the first one of his race ever admitted there—a race which was by Taney's decision excluded from citizenship, and therefore from admission to that tribunal.¹³ Sumner had advised with the new chief-justice in advance, and was assured of a favorable result. The public journals and some of his correspondents—Mr. Cobden among them-took note of the event as connected with the senator's career, and as an important step in the enfranchisement of the colored people; and Sumner himself regarded it as preparing the way for the full recognition of their rights as citizens and voters.

Sumner reported from the committee on foreign relations, Dec. 20, 1864, a resolution for giving to Great Britain notice for the termination of the Canadian reciprocity treaty. His remarks in favor of the notice took into account chiefly the derangement to our war system of taxes, resulting from the treaty, and looked to a revision and suspension of the relation of reciprocity with Canada rather than to its final terminations¹⁴ The resolution passed by a large majority, and the notice was given.¹⁵ He also reported and advocated a resolution adopting and ratifying a notice already given by the President for terminating the treaty of 1817, by which the naval forces of the two powers on the lakes were limited.¹⁶ He replied to Davis of Kentucky, who maintained that the President's act was void and incapable of ratification. A debate on the ‘St. Albans' Raid’ drew from him some remarks against any acts on our side which would furnish any seeming apology for foreign intervention.¹⁷

Sumner argued in the Senate that rich and poor, when relieving themselves from a draft by paying a sum as commutation, should be put on an equality by requiring, in addition to a fixed sum required of all, a further sum, annually, proportionate to income; but his view did not prevail, though it obtained a respectable vote.¹⁸ As the rebel debt was buoyed up in Europe [210] by the hope that it would finally be assumed by our government, he introduced and carried a resolution affirming that the United States would never recognize it in any way.¹⁹

Sumner attacked at different sessions the worst monopoly ever known in the country, which long resisted the spirit of the age—the pretension of the State of New Jersey to levy exceptional tolls on passengers and freight passing through it, between New York and Philadelphia, which were not levied on passengers and freight passing from point to point within the State,²⁰ Its legislature also invested one corporation with the exclusive power of maintaining a railway within the State between those two cities. This corporation pushed its pretension to the extent of denying the right of the United States to transport between those cities soldiers and military stores over other railways. The monopoly sheltered itself behind State rights; it had at its command ample capital, and could always enlist able lawyers in the Senate, at the head of whom was Reverdy Johnson. The power of Congress ‘to regulate commerce between the States,’ since greatly developed, was then latent and untried. Nevertheless, Sumner was determined to make the issue, without calculating closely the chances of success. He called attention to the obstruction of travel and trade by resolutions in 1862 and 1863, and introduced in 1864 a resolution authorizing any railway company to carry the government's supplies and troops from State to State. Before it could be reached in the Senate, a bill of similar purport passed the House; but he could not, against the obstruction of interested parties, get his resolution or the House bill before the Senate.²¹ The next session he made, February 14, 1865, an elaborate argument against the monopoly, exposing its character, and treating the constitutional points raised in its defence.²² [211]

The attempt was made at this session to establish a system of retaliation in kind on rebel prisoners of war, even to the extent of starvation and denial of clothing and medicines in return for like treatment inflicted on our soldiers in Southern prisons— the retaliatory treatment to be inflicted by Union officers and soldiers who had suffered in such prisons. Sumner encountered the resolutions to that end, which had been reported by Howard of Michigan from the committee on military affairs, with a series of propositions, in which, while recognizing retaliation as an admitted right under the laws of war, he insisted that its methods must conform to the usages of civilized society, and that barbarous conduct in the enemy could not be imitated by the country without degrading the national character. His last resolution, while testifying the sympathy of the United States with their officers and soldiers in prison, ‘called upon all to bear witness that in this necessary warfare with barbarism, they renounce all vengeance and every evil example, and plant themselves firmly on the sacred landmarks of Christian civilization, under the protection of that God who is present with every prisoner, and enables heroic souls to suffer for their country.’ The committee's report found its most earnest support in the Western senators, Wade, Chandler, Harlan, Howe, Lane, Wilkinson, and Brown—the first two of whom forgot in this debate the requirements of good manners. When Sumner suggested on the first day that the resolutions came up that it was not best to go on with them then, Wade ejaculated, ‘You would if you were in prison.’ Chandler expressed surprise that Sumner thought it ‘inexpedient to protect our suffering prisoners,’ though expecting such conduct from those who desired the success of the rebellion, described the latter's substitute as ‘a sublimated specimen of humanitarianism that does not apply to these accursed rebels at this time,’ and, resorting to threats, proposed to hold Sumner and Wilson responsible before their constituents and the people of the United States for ‘the blood of every single man who is murdered by these barbarities.’ [212] Wilson, who took a middle course, resented their style of debate, and said that as he listened to them he thought ‘the old slave masters had come back again, . . . with all their insolence, and something more than their coarseness.’ Three Republican senators—Foster, Sprague, and Doolittle—joined with Sumner in opposition to the committee's report; but his allies were mostly Democrats—two of them, Hendricks and Davis, usually his antagonists, warmly commending the stand he had taken. Sumner was never disturbed by finding himself in strange company when he held positions sustained by principles of humanity and public law. The brunt of Republican opposition to retaliation fell upon him. He spoke twice very earnestly, supporting himself with the citation of authorities and a letter from Dr. Lieber. Wade was driven to accept some amendments, and Sumner carried another against his resistance, which required ‘conformity with the laws and usages of war among civilized nations.’²³ Henderson's amendment, requesting the President to procure a cartel which would allow commissioners of Union prisoners to visit them in their places of confinement, was carried against Wade's protest. The committee's resolutions, thus modified and reduced, passed the Senate without a division, but were not acted on in the House. In view of the profound feeling which was urging retaliation, Sumner's courage, breadth of view, and loyalty to great principles were never more conspicuous. His resolutions were commended by numerous correspondents, including Gen. Robert Anderson, the former commander at Fort Sumter, and General Donaldson of the Army of the Cumberland.

For continuity of narrative the proceedings for reconstruction, which belong to an earlier date, have been reserved for this chapter. The restoration of the revolted States to the Union—the time and manner of making it—had, from the beginning of the Civil War, been a subject of reflection with thoughtful citizens. The Constitution did not contemplate such an extraordinary rupture—indeed, no government can contemplate its own dissolution—and therefore no specific remedy or method of [213] restoration was provided. In the absence of a prescribed process, the great function of re-establishing rightful government in one half of the country belonged to the people, acting through their representative body—Congress. Clearly it was not one to be assumed by the President, acting as executive in civil matters, or as commander-in-chief. The trust is safer in the long run with the representatives of the people than with one man; for though the President for the time being may be wiser and better than Congress, he may be the reverse. The right of one President to do it in one way implies the right of another President to do it in another.

The question of reconstruction was not yet ripe for action at any time during the war. Even after the capture of Vicksburg in July, 1863, which broke up the military power of the Confederacy west of the Mississippi, the national troops held securely only sections of any of the revolted States, while other sections were still battle-grounds, or exposed to guerilla warfare; the larger part of the population lately in rebellion, though within our lines, was still hoping for the success of the Confederacy, and was in no mood to accept, in a genuinely loyal spirit, the obligations of citizens of the United States; and civil governments, if created on paper, would fail for want of respect and authority when resting, as they must rest at such a time, on a small fraction of the people. That part of the South which had been recovered, being still under military occupation and martial law, was too much a field of war to admit of the free action of citizens, or to allow civil authority to be more than nominal. Such governments if good for one purpose must be good for all—for representation in Congress and in the electoral college, as well as for State autonomy. After all the struggle to create them, beginning in 1862, Congress (the President signing with a caveat) recognized that they had no substantial basis or title to respect by the joint resolution adopted Feb. 8, 1865, which declared that the eleven rebel States, including Virginia, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee, were in such a condition at the time of the national election, Nov. 8, 1864, that no valid election for electors was held in them, and therefore no electoral votes from them should be received or counted. Clearly, therefore, they were not then, and had not been since the secession, in a condition to carry on State governments, or to be represented in Congress. [214]

The premature attempts at reconstruction had, however, one justification. It was a common thought in Europe that though the Southern armies might be overcome, the Southern people, being united and determined in their hostility, could never be governed except as a subjugated people, and by arbitrary methods disowned by modern civilization.²⁴ That thought disturbed also some of our own people. The erection of almost any kind of local government, supported by a respectable portion of the inhabitants, and giving reasonable promise of accessions, would, as it was hoped, help to counteract that discouraging conviction or apprehension, whether existing abroad or at home, and thereby strengthen the government in its contest with the rebellion.²⁵

The subject of reconstruction began at an early date in the war to occupy the President's thoughts. It was one for which he felt naturally a much greater aptitude than for the military operations then engrossing the public mind. In the spring of 1862 he appointed military governors for Tennessee, North Carolina, Arkansas, and Louisiana, only sections of each of which were as yet within our lines. Their commissions, while contemplating the restoration of civil order, conferred no authority for the initiation of State governments, or of representation in Congress. In the autumn, however, he began action in that direction by instructions to Shepley, colonel and military governor, which eventuated in the election, December 3, of Hahn and Flanders as members of Congress from Louisiana, when New Orleans and its suburbs only were within our lines, and these places were held under the protection of gunboats.²⁶ The time and manner of the election were fixed by military orders, and the commissions of the two candidates were signed by Shepley. Hahn and Flanders were admitted to scats in the House, but ‘not without contention and misgiving.’²⁷ The Senate had no opportunity to pass upon the proceedings. The President resumed his active interest in the reconstruction of Louisiana in June, 1863, and from that time pressed it with great earnestness in his correspondence with the military officers of that department—with [215] Banks, who had succeeded Butler in command, and Shepley, still military governor. He gave them clearly to understand that there must be no delay arising from conflict of jurisdiction or misconception of their instructions.²⁸ Meantime, in his annual message, December, 1863, and an accompanying proclamation, he defined a comprehensive scheme of reconstruction, which authorized the re-establishment of State governments on the basis of one-tenth at least of the number of votes cast at the last national election, requiring from the voters an oath to support the Constitution and laws and the proclamations concerning slaves.²⁹ The old basis of suffrage, excluding colored persons, was maintained. Under orders from General Banks, issued in January and February, 1864, which prescribed the conditions of suffrage (one limiting it to ‘male white citizens’) and other details of the elections, State officers and delegates to a constitutional convention were chosen and a constitution adopted. Some of these orders were curious specimens of mixed civil and military pretensions—one of them forbidding ‘open hostility’ to the proceedings, and declaring that ‘indifference will be treated as crime, and faction as treason.’ The orders had no warrant in any Act of Congress, and did not conform even to the statutes and constitution of the State existing before the rebellion.³⁰ The vote was largely confined to the city of New Orleans; and out of sixty thousand voters in the State, less than eleven thousand and five hundred, including soldiers, voted for State officers, and only eight thousand and four hundred voted on the constitution, which was ratified September 5. Similar proceedings and elections took place contemporaneously in Arkansas under the lead and direction of military officers who received their orders immediately from the President.³¹

Sumner had from the first, even before the subject had enlisted the President's attention, insisted on the exclusive power of Congress to regulate and determine the restoration of the [216] seceded States, and initiate the preliminary process.³² He believed that the President's authority in the insurgent districts was purely military, derived from martial law, and did not include the power to appoint military governors,³³—still less the power to regulate elections for members of Congress and State officers, to initiate constitutional conventions, and, above all, to prescribe the conditions of suffrage.³⁴ But he did not at once enter on a controversy, thinking it wiser to wait, and hopeful that the President's plan would go no further than the message.³⁵ He wrote to Mr. Bright, December 15:—

The President's proclamation of reconstruction has two essential features—（1) The irreversibility of emancipation, making it the corner-stone of the new order of things; (2) The reconstruction or revival of the States by preliminary process before they take their place in the Union. I doubt if the detail will be remembered a fortnight from now. Any plan which fastens emancipation beyond recall will suit me.

The President's proceedings for reconstruction did not meet with favor in Congress. A few days after his message in December, 1863, the subject was referred in the House to a select committee, of which Henry Winter Davis was appointed chairman. Their bill, which came under debate in March, 1864, authorized the appointment of provisional governors for each of the States in rebellion, and as soon as military resistance had been suppressed, and the people had sufficiently returned to their obedience to the Constitution and laws, the calling of constitutional conventions and the organization of State governments. It adopted the President's limitation of suffrage in the initiation of the State government to ‘white male citizens,’ and required the participation of one-half of the registered voters where he [217] had required only one-tenth. Its exclusions from voting and holding office on account of participation in the rebellion were substantially the same as those prescribed by the President. It required the constitutional convention in each State to prohibit slavery forever, and to guarantee the freedom of all persons therein; while the President's plan on this point only prescribed and made known that a provision ‘recognizing and declaring the permanent freedom of the freed people . . . would not be objected to by the national executive.’ The bill was in all respects as liberal as the President's scheme, carrying restrictions and disabilities no further;³⁶ while it was more conservative in requiring a larger proportion of the voters as the basis of the new governments, and wiser as well as juster in enforcing as a peremptory condition of restoration the perpetual prohibition of slavery in the constitutions of the restored States. In details it was more methodical and complete than the President's plan. Both schemes excluded the colored people from suffrage in the initiation of the new governments. In the House, May 4, a motion to strike out the word ‘white’ was cut off by the previous question.³⁷ When the Senate had under consideration, July 1, the House bill, Wade, chairman of the committee which had reported the bill with an amendment striking out the word ‘white,’ declared against the amendment as likely to involve a sacrifice of the bill, and it received only five votes—those of Brown, Lane of Kansas, Morgan, Pomeroy, and Sumner. Even Hale ‘waived his conscientious scruples and went for expediency,’ and Wilson also voted against the amendment. After the Senate had passed Brown's substitute, which omitted the emancipation clause of the House bill, Sumner moved an amendment confirming and enacting the President's proclamation of Jan. 1, 1863; but it was thought untimely, and was rejected,³⁸ and became unimportant by the Senate's action in receding. Sumner voted for the House bill, although dissatisfied with the basis of suffrage, waiving the point because it secured the abolition of slavery, and asserted the power of Congress over the seceded [218] States. The carrying of these points seemed to him so urgent then, that, strongly as he was for equality of suffrage, he waived it now and for the last time as a condition of reconstruction. The President neither vetoed nor signed the bill;³⁹ but under the provision of the Constitution allowing him ten days in which to approve or return a bill, he suffered it to fall with the session just expiring. Immediately after the adjournment of Congress he issued a proclamation stating as reasons for his action his unwillingness, ‘by a formal approval of the bill, to be inflexibly committed to any single plan of restoration,’ to set aside and hold for naught free State constitutions and governments already adopted and installed in Arkansas and Louisiana, ‘or to declare a constitutional competency in Congress to abolish slavery in States,’⁴⁰—at the same time approving ‘the system of restoration contained in the bill as one very proper for the loyal people of any State choosing to adopt it.’ This explanatory proclamation called out an energetic protest from Wade of the Senate and Henry Winter Davis of the House, and the President's treatment of the bill encountered almost unanimous dissent among Republican members of Congress.⁴¹ The result was, however, that he carried his point and kept the process of reconstruction in his own hands, to be worked out through the agency of military officers, without Congressional interference.

The President sincerely felt that one mind, and that his own, would reach a better or a speedier result than many minds— those of senators and representatives—with chances of disagreement, or of going wrong in the end. The key to his view is found in his instructions to military officers in Louisiana and Arkansas, charged by him with the proceedings for reconstruction, in which he expressed his intention that the officer was to be ‘the master,’—adding, in a letter to one, ‘Some single mind must be master, else there will be no agreement in anything;’⁴² and in each case he was himself the master of the officer. He was careful to reserve to each house full control over the admission of members from the State; but that power was already secured to those bodies by the Constitution. Its free exercise did not, however, prevent the President's action forestalling that of Congress—as it would be an anomaly in our system, and greatly embarrass its working, to have State governments in existence which were recognized by one department (the executive) and repudiated by another (the legislative).

Against Sumner and others, who insisted on grounds of policy and justice upon the inclusion of negroes in the voting body of the returning States, Mr. Lincoln contended that they were attempting ‘to change this government from its original form and make it a strong centralized power.’⁴³ This contention, adverse to national power, was not in logical conformity with his own method; and it was afterwards altogether discarded by his party and by Congress. When he as well as his successor in their respective proclamations deviated, as each did radically, from the ante bellum statutes of Louisiana and the other States in question, making peremptory conditions and novel regulations, and excluding classes of voters, they thereby admitted the right and duty of the United States government to require of the returning States, in its discretion, any basis of suffrage, as well as all other securities which seemed necessary for the permanent peace and welfare of all their inhabitants and of the whole country.

No part of President Lincoln's entire official course was so open to exception as that which he pursued on this subject of reconstruction, where he seemed to assert power for himself, to the exclusion of the people of the United States and of Congress. His attempt, as the event showed, was premature, as no loyal population sufficient in number was found to exist in Louisiana where it was first made; and the history of that [220] people for the next ten years did not exhibit them as the most hopeful subjects of the first experiment. It proved to be a bad precedent, which, adopted by his successor, brought on a memorable conflict with Congress.

In view of the proceedings in Louisiana and Arkansas, and to prevent such exceptional and inconsiderate action as the House took in the admission of Hahn and Flanders from Louisiana, Sumner introduced a resolution, May 27, 1864, declaring that States pretending to secede, and still battling against the national government, must be regarded as rebel States, not to be readmitted to representation until after a vote of both houses,⁴⁴—a precaution against hasty and exceptional action by one body without the other's concurrence, which Congress two years later found it wise to adopt.⁴⁵ A few days later the question came up directly on a resolution introduced by Lane of Kansas, to recognize the State government of Arkansas initiated under the President's direction, when Sumner addressed the Senate. He set forth as objections, that the proposed government was organized irregularly under a military order, and by only a small minority of the people, and within a territory still under military occupation, subject to hostile raids, and excluded by law from ordinary commercial intercourse; but the stress of his argument was on his chief proposition, that Congress alone—that is, the two houses (the President in this, as in other legislation, holding the veto power)—could readmit the revolted States.⁴⁶ The speech was a strong statement, briefer than most of his speeches on important topics, and it avoided any direct issue with the President. It was an appeal for caution and prudence in a first step of vast consequence, and for waiting on events. Both resolutions—Sumner's and Lane's—went to the judiciary committee, and were reported adversely by Trumbull its chairman; and the credentials of the persons claiming to be senators from the State met the same fate. This was equivalent to a decision [221] against the validity of the proceedings in Arkansas. The President, however, two days after the report was made, instructed the officer in command, notwithstanding the adverse action in Congress, to continue to support the State government which had been instituted under his direction.⁴⁷

General Banks came to Washington in the autumn of 1864, and remained some months even after the session began, in order to press the recognition of the Louisiana State government.⁴⁸

From the beginning of the session Sumner had personally urged the President to avoid controversy with Congress on reconstruction. He wrote to Mr. Bright, Jan. 1, 1865–

Meanwhile the questions of statesmanship press for decision. The President is exerting every force to bring Congress to receive Louisiana under the Banks government. I do not believe Louisiana is strong enough in loyalty and freedom for an independent State. The evidence on this point seems overwhelming. I have discussed it with the President, and have tried to impress on him the necessity of having no break between him and Congress on such questions. Much as I am against the premature recognition of Louisiana, I will hold my peace if I can secure a rule for the other States, so that we may be saved from daily anxiety with regard to their condition.⁴⁹

The narrative now reaches, so far as the Senate is concerned, the debate on Trumbull's resolution reported Feb. 18, 1865, from the committee on the judiciary, recognizing as the legitimate government of Louisiana the one formed under Mr. Lincoln's direction and supervision.⁵⁰ The manner in which the organization had been made was unsatisfactory to many Republican senators; but with the President earnestly enlisted in its behalf, opposition to the resolution put them in an embarrassing position, and most of them were disposed to overlook the illegal [222] and irregular origin of the movement. Trumbull's course was a surprise, as he had at the last session opposed the recognition of the Arkansas government, and had at the present session opposed the counting of the electoral votes of Louisiana, as well as of the other States in rebellion. His change of front was referred to in the debate.⁵¹ The other Republican senators, who joined in resisting the recognition of Louisiana, put their opposition on the ground of the initiation of the government by executive and military orders, and an insufficient voting population. Sumner, while insisting on these objections, alone stood inexorable in his demand that all men, irrespective of color, should be equal as citizens in the reorganized States. In this stand, now and in later controversies, he would yield to no asserted urgency, no supposed adverse public opinion, no technical point of constitutional inability, no vote of caucus, no defeats in either house, not even to the pressure and prestige of the President himself. He made up his mind to stop the admission of rebellious States to the Union without absolute guaranties of freedom and equality, including the admission of the colored people to the right of suffrage upon precisely the same terms as were to be applied to white men. In effecting that purpose, the session being near its end, he was determined to avail himself of all the resources of parliamentary law to defeat the measure, even if, by its promoters refusing to yield, the revenue and appropriation bills should be lost. He believed that a first false step would be fatal; and with that conviction he did not hesitate to take the responsibility, cost what it might. As he said in the debate: ‘I think it [the measure] dangerous; and thinking it dangerous, I am justified in opposing it, and justified, too, in employing all the instruments that I can find in the arsenal of parliamentary warfare.’⁵²

The President was not, however, at any time personally opposed to the admission of the colored people to the elective franchise, and privately and publicly expressed his hope and desire that the very intelligent, and those who had served as soldiers, should be admitted to it; but he was firmly of opinion that the decision, as to whether they should have the right or not, must be left with the class of voters qualified before the war.⁵³ [223]

The struggle began Thursday, February 23, when Trumbull moved to take up the resolution concerning Louisiana, and Sumner urged instead the consideration of the interstate commerce bill, which, as he said, was a practical measure, unlike the Louisiana resolution, which would prove ‘merely a dance of debate.’ Trumbull reminded the Senate that ‘if a single negro is expelled from the cars in the District of Columbia the voice of the senator from Massachusetts is heard in this hall. He will repeal charters and take up the time of Congress about the rights of the negro,’ but he would not give a hearing to the ten thousand loyal men of Louisiana. Doolittle claimed that the vote of Louisiana was needed to ratify the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution; and Sumner replied that only nineteen loyal States were required to ratify it, rejecting from the whole number the States in rebellion,⁵⁴ at the same time charging Doolittle with ‘again setting himself upon the side of slavery, and by his interpretation seeking to arrest the great march of human freedom.’ Doolittle retorted that Sumner had opposed the thirteenth amendment—a charge which the latter repelled with emphasis, declaring that he had given that measure his most ardent support. The Senate voted to take up the resolution; and Sumner moved a substitute, forbidding elections in any insurgent State until the President by proclamation shall have declared that armed hostility within it had ceased, and Congress shall have declared it entitled to representation; but it obtained only eight votes—those of Brown, Conness, Grimes, Howard, Sprague, Stewart, Sumner, and Wade. On the 24th Sumner renewed his effort to displace the resolution with other business, but not with success. When asked not to waste time, and senators said from their seats, ‘Give up!’ he replied, ‘That is not my habit.’ Conness said, ‘We know that,’ and there was laughter. The debate proceeded. Powell of Kentucky, from a Southern standpoint, opposed the resolution. A motion from Chandler to take up another bill, which was lost, called from Sumner the remark, ‘The measure that the senator from Michigan has in charge is a reality; the measure that the senator from Illinois has in charge is a shadow.’ Doolittle thought it unbecoming in Sumner, with all his professions for freedom and free States, to [224] join hands with the Senator from Kentucky in undertaking to prevent the recognition of the free State of Louisiana. Henderson, speaking in irony, thought that the rebellion was about at an end, in view of ‘the close alliance and affiliation of the senators’ from Massachusetts and Kentucky, and that ‘the lion and the lamb had lain down together.’ He reviewed at length the proceedings in Louisiana, and supported the resolution.

When the resolution came up at noon on Saturday, the 25th, Sumner sent to the chair, as a substitute, a series of propositions affirming the duty of the United States by Act of Congress to re-establish republican governments in place of those vacated by the rebellion—denying that the power could be intrusted to any military commander or executive officer, and declaring that such new governments should not be founded on an ‘oligarchical class,’ with the disfranchisement of loyal people, and that the cause of human rights and of the Union needed the ballots as well as the muskets of colored men.⁵⁵ Another amendment which he offered imposed equal suffrage as a fundamental condition on the reconstructed States. Howard maintained the right of Congress to initiate the proceedings, and contended at length that the President's action was premature and illegal. Reverdy Johnson divided from his Southern associates and supported the resolution.⁵⁶ There was a colloquy between Sumner and Johnson as to the power of a State to establish slavery— the former denying and the latter affirming it. The supporters of the resolution were determined to force a final vote on that day. Trumbull called upon senators, in order to dispose of the matter, to attend at a night session to hear all the senator from Massachusetts had to say, and then vote on his amendments. The principal debaters at the evening session, which began at seven, were the same as before, with the addition of Clark of New Hampshire, who came to the support of the committee. Henderson had denied that Congress had the right to impose conditions of suffrage on the returning States; and even Pomeroy, usually voting, as he said, for Sumner's antislavery propositions, took the same view. Sumner maintained stoutly and broadly that ‘Congress, when reconstructing rebel States, can stamp upon them freedom in all respects, and remove absolutely [225] all disabilities on account of color.’ Motions by Wade, Chandler, Howard, and Sumner to adjourn or postpone or lay on the table were voted down, and even a motion from Wilson to adjourn met the same fate. The contest went on. Trumbull pushed personalities further than before, calling Sumner to account for ‘lecturing other senators’ and ‘associating with those he had often denounced,’ for making obstructive motions and delaying the important business of the country, and for determining, in combination with other senators, to browbeat the Senate. Sumner repelled the charge of ‘browbeating’ as more appropriate to Trumbull himself, declaring his purpose and maintaining his right to employ all the instruments of parliamentary warfare to defeat a measure which he believed to be dangerous. He counselled the senator from Illinois to look at the clock and note that it was twenty-five minutes to eleven, with Sunday morning near, and that efforts to force a vote would be fruitless, like ‘sowing salt in the sand by the seashore.’ He compared Trumbull's attempt ‘to cram the resolution down the throats of the Senate’ to that of another senator from Illinois (Douglas), who brought in his Kansas-Nebraska bill in precisely the same manner—‘proudly, confidently, almost menacingly,’ with the declaration that it was to pass in twenty-four hours, ‘precisely as the senator from Illinois now speaks;’ and he invoked the Senate to devote the remnant of the session to practical measures instead of consuming it with ‘a bantling not a week old.’ Doolittle called the American people to witness the scene in the Senate, and particularly the senator from Massachusetts—one of five only among the Administration senators who had kept up a factious resistance, and usurped authority over their eighteen Republican associates, rebuking Sumner for ‘his arrogance and assumed superiority over his equals and his peers,’ and his attempt ‘to break down the right of every State to judge upon its own suffrage.’ Several passages took place between the two senators, in which each treated the other's position as hostile to freedom. Now and then a Democrat intervened briefly; and this time Hendricks, who said that ‘the senator from Massachusetts is determined that none of these States shall ever be heard in the halls of Congress until the men who speak from those States speak the voice of the negroes as well as of the white men.’ Trumbull admitted that a vote could not be reached against such ‘a factious opposition,’ and [226] Sumner replied, ‘I told you so some hours ago;’ and finally, half an hour before midnight, the Senate adjourned. Five days only of the session remained, and the appropriation as well as revenue bills were to be debated. On Monday morning, with the first suggestion of taking a vote, Sumner assured the senator making it that it was ‘utterly impossible to take the vote.’ Trumbull renewed, with repetition, the charge of ‘factious opposition.’ Sherman now interposed with a plea for immediate attention to the revenue and appropriation bills, which required the remaining five days, disclaiming at the same time any censure on senators who had in the discussion of the Louisiana question been performing what they believed to be their conscientious duty; and he moved to take up a revenue bill. Wade, who with intense feeling on the subject had hitherto kept out of the debate, now entered on a fierce denunciation of the pretended State government as ‘a mockery—a miserable mockery,’ like the Lecompton constitution for Kansas; taunted Trumbull for ‘his miraculous conversion’ on the Louisiana question; protested against the President's claim of authority, acting through his major-generals, to initiate a State government; repudiated the one formed as based on voters ‘drummed up from the riff-raff of New Orleans;’ and denounced ‘the ten per cent principle as absurd, monarchical, and anti-American.’ Howard returned to the contest, and repelled ‘the unfounded, the ungentlemanly charges of the arrogant senator from Illinois,’ reminding him again of his sudden conversion to the measure. Grimes and Sprague briefly supported Sumner with statements as to the proceedings in Louisiana. The debate had gone on thus far since noon on Sherman's motion to take up a revenue bill, each senator, contrary to strict rule, discussing the main question. Sumner again rose and proceeded to denounce the pretended State government as ‘a mere seven months abortion, begotten by the bayonet, in criminal conjunction with the spirit of caste, and born before its time, rickety, unformed, unfinished, whose continued existence will be a burden, a reproach, and a wrong.’ At the end of his next sentence, which was pointed at Trumbull, Sherman insisted on conforming the debate strictly to his motion to take up a revenue bill. Senators at last recognized the impossibility of reaching a vote on the pending resolution, and Sherman's motion was carried by a vote of thirty-four to twelve.⁵⁷ [227]

The five Republican senators (Brown, Chandler, Howard, Sumner, and Wade) and seven Democratic senators voted together on the dilatory motions against eighteen or twenty Republican senators who were in favor of recognizing the proposed State government of Louisiana. As many as twenty senators were silent on successive calls of the yeas and nays,⁵⁸ of whom a considerable majority were Republicans; and the larger number of the Republicans not answering were in sympathy with Sumner, though indisposed to an open stand against a measure which the President had greatly at heart.⁵⁹

If the President's plan had prevailed for Louisiana and the other rebel States, it would have resulted in the permanent exclusion of the colored people from the suffrage in all the old slave States. It was clear to Sumner then that equal suffrage, without distinction of color or race, was to be established with reconstruction or not at all; and subsequent events—the stern contest under Johnson and all that has followed—have demonstrated his foresight. The white population, separated not only by the memories of the slave relation, but as well by the indelible brand of color, would never without national intervention have conferred the boon; and in this they would have been neither better nor worse than master races so separated have always been.

This was Sumner's hardest parliamentary contest, and he carried his point. He had earnest coadjutors in Howard and Wade; but it was admitted in unfriendly quarters that his masterful spirit alone defeated the recognition of the State government of Louisiana.⁶⁰ He stood alike for reconstruction by the people through Congress, and for the complete citizenship of a race; and on this last ground he stood alone. His resistance rallied the antislavery masses to his advanced position, to which [228] after agitation and contention the people were yet to come. For weal or woe, whether it was well or not for the black man and the country, it is to Sumner's credit or discredit as a statesman that suffrage, irrespective of color or race, became fixed and universal in the American system.

The heated debate left some griefs behind. Sumner and Trumbull, though often co-operating, were not cordial for some years; but when Sumner was removed from the committee on foreign relations in 1871, one of his ablest defenders was the senator from Illinois; and when he left the Senate finally, Sumner parted from him with sincere regret.

The President had set his heart on the project, and was sorely disappointed at its failure. To friends, and even to strangers, he talked freely of Sumner's course, and some thought that the relations of confidence between them heretofore would now end; but those who thought thus did not understand Mr. Lincoln's largeness of soul. He was tolerant; and while tenacious of his rights as President, he respected the rights of a senator.⁶¹ Besides, Sumner, while maintaining the sole right of Congress to initiate reconstruction, had avoided all direct reflection on the President's action. In the few weeks of life which remained to him, Mr. Lincoln bestowed more tokens of good — will on Sumner than on any senator.

The public attention was not diverted from the triumphs of the army by this contest in the Senate; nor had the masses of the people yet taken a practical interest in reconstruction. Sumner's chief congratulations came therefore from the distinctively antislavery men—such as Wendell Phillips, Parker Pillsbury, F. W. Bird, F. B. Sanborn, Rev. George B. Cheever, and Frederick Douglass. A letter from the writer, March 4, who little thought then of his future connection with the memory of the statesman, said:—

God bless you a thousand times for your indomitable resistance to the admission of Louisiana, with her caste system! This afternoon some forty gentlemen dined at Bird's room,⁶² and all, nemine dissentiente, approved it, and with full praise.

The friends of freedom all over the country have looked to you and confided in you, of all men in the United States Senate, during all this terrible war. They will look to you all the more now that peace dawns, and the final settlement of our national troubles is at hand. God grant you strength equal to your day and your duties, is my prayer and that of millions!

Singularly enough, another Abolitionist (Garrison) failed to support the negro's cause at this initial stage of the struggle for his political enfranchisement, and heartily sustained the proceedings which excluded him.⁶³ Wendell Phillips, however, stood firmly against his old leader, and carried with him the mass of the Abolitionists.

Sumner wrote to Mr. Bright, March 13:—

I have your good and most suggestive letter. I concur in it substantially. A practical difficulty is this: Can emancipation be carried out without using the lands of the slave-masters? We must see that the freedmen are established on the soil, and that they may become proprietors. From the beginning I have regarded confiscation only as ancillary to emancipation. The great plantations, which have been so many nurseries of the rebellion, must be broken up, and the freedmen must have the pieces. It looks as if we were on the eve of another agitation. I insist that the rebel States shall not come back except on the footing of the Declaration of Independence, with all persons equal before the law, and government founded on the consent of the governed. In other words, there shall be no discrimination on account of color. If all whites vote, then must all blacks; but there shall be no limitation of suffrage for one more than the other. It is sometimes said, “What! Let the freedman, yesterday a slave, vote?” I am inclined to think that there is more harm in refusing than in conceding the franchise. It is said that they are as intelligent as the Irish just arrived; but the question has become immensely practical in this respect: Without their votes we cannot establish stable governments in the rebel States. Their votes are as necessary as their muskets; of this I am satisfied. Without them, the old enemy will re-appear, and under the forms of law take possession of the governments, choose magistrates and officers, and in alliance with the Northern democracy, put us all in peril again, postpone the day of tranquillity, and menace the national credit by assailing the national debt. To my mind, the nation is now bound by self-interest—ay, self-defence — to be thoroughly just. The Declaration of Independence has pledges which have never been redeemed. We must redeem them, at least as regards the rebel States which have fallen under our jurisdiction. Mr. Lincoln is slow in accepting truths. I have reminded him that if he would say the word we might settle this question promptly and rightly. He hesitates. Meanwhile I felt it my duty to oppose his scheme of government in Louisiana, which for the present is defeated in Congress.

Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated, for his second term, March 4, and on that occasion delivered-save the one at Gettysburg—is most impressive address, closing it with the paragraph which began ‘with malice towards none, with charity for all.’ The same day the Vice-President elect, Andrew Johnson, appeared in the Senate chamber to take his oath, in a state of intoxication. Senators and citizens witnessed the strange scene with a sense of humiliation. This condition was prolonged for some days, during which he was taken from his hotel by Preston King, late senator from New York, and Montgomery Blair, to the house of Mr. Blair, Sr., at Silver Springs, near Washington. His unseemly exhibition of himself in the presence of the nation was the subject of discussion in a meeting of Republican senators held shortly after, in which Sumner, who was always sensitive to whatever concerned the dignity of high office, advised that he be waited upon with a request for his resignation. His consciousness that he had exposed himself in a disgusting plight, and that notice had been taken of it by leading Republicans, is thought to have had something to do with his speedy alienation from the best people of the country.⁶⁴

These ceremonies, which took place on Saturday, were followed by the inauguration ball on Monday. On the intervening day Mr. Lincoln sent Sumner an autograph note,⁶⁵ as follows;

Executive Mansion, Washington, March 5, 1865.
H. C. Sumner.

My dear Sir—I should be pleased for you to accompany us to-morrow evening, at ten o'clock, on a visit of half an hour to the Inaugural Ball. I enclose a ticket. Our carriage will call for you at half-past 9.

Yours truly,

A. Lincoln.

The President's carriage was at Sumner's lodgings at the time named. On entering the ball-room, Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Colfax (the Speaker) led; next followed Sumner escorting Mrs. Lincoln; and then Mr. Seward and daughter, Secretary Usher and wife, Senator Wilson and wife, and others.⁶⁶ [231]

Mrs. Lincoln had some time before conceived an admiration for Sumner's personal qualities and public work. It was shown not only in counsels with him on pending questions, but in friendly acts—sometimes in flowers sent to his lodgings, and again in invitations to meet other guests informally at the White House. Notwithstanding her Southern origin, she had come, perhaps partly under Sumner's influence, to be in sympathy, more than her husband, with a radical antislavery policy. Before coming to Washington her social advantages had not been large, and her early training was not complete; but her education was beyond that of the people among whom she was born or had lived. She could read French fairly well, and was renewing the study of the language during her last days in Washington. Her notes to Sumner betoken a lady, kindly, refined, and of intellectual tastes.

The extra session of the Senate following the inauguration ended March 11. Sumner was again appointed chairman of the committee on foreign relations, and took also the second place on the committee on enrolled bills. The reconstruction of Arkansas and Louisiana was debated on propositions to receive credentials and pay mileage. Sumner spoke only briefly, but offered a resolution stating the conditions for the admission of senators from the rebel States; namely, the cessation of hostilities, the adoption of a republican form of government by the State, and an affirmative act of Congress recognizing its right to representation.⁶⁷ Lane of Kansas, who was the partisan of the senators seeking admission, referring to Sumner's opposition to the admission of the Louisiana senators, said he had a few days before worn out senators physically, and secured a postponement. Sumner kept out of the debate, and the credentials were referred, but no further action was taken.

He wrote to Mrs. L. M. Child, April 2:—

I trust that the letter to the emperor of Brazil, with the excellent tract,⁶⁸ is already far on the way. I gave them to the Brazilian minister here, with the request that he would have the goodness to forward them. I count much upon the enlightened character of the emperor. Of course, slavery must cease everywhere when it ceases among us. Its neck is in our rebellion, which we are now sure to cut. Cuba, Porto Rico, and Brazil must do as we do, without our terrible war, I trust.

Sumner remained in Washington two months longer. It was, as already seen, his custom to linger there after the close of a session in order to bring up arrears of business and correspondence, and to prosecute studies on questions pending or at hand; but he had a particular purpose now, when projects of reconstruction, in view of the approaching end of the rebellion, were rife. During these weeks he saw much of the President in friendly calls at the White House and in conference on business of different kinds. He accompanied Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln sometimes to the theatre or opera—once on the President's visit next preceding the fatal one.⁶⁹

Sumner had occasion soon after the adjournment of Congress to see the President with reference to the case of two Boston merchants, who had been prosecuted by the navy department on the charge of fraud, and after trial by court-martial, were sentenced to imprisonment and fine. He appealed directly to the President to annul the sentence, and at the latter's request prepared an Opinion⁷⁰ reviewing the report of the Secretary of the Navy, who had approved the proceedings of the court-martial. Sumner sought the President with his Opinion as soon as it was finished, Friday, March 17; and the next day the President, in a sententious indorsement on the papers characteristic in style, entirely annulled the proceedings. Sumner's account of what took place after he prepared his Opinion is interesting:—

It was late in the afternoon, and the latter [the President] was about entering his carriage for a drive, when Mr. Sumner arrived with the papers in his hand. He at once mentioned the result he had reached, and added that it was a case for instant action. The President proposed that he should return the next day, when he would consider it with him. Mr. Sumner rejoined that in his opinion the President ought not to sleep on the case; that he should interfere promptly for the relief of innocent fellow-citizens, and urged that if Abraham Lincoln had suffered unjust imprisonment as a criminal, with degradation before his neighbors, an immense bill of expense, a trial by courtmartial, and an unjust condemnation, he would cry out against any postponement of justice for a single day. The President, apparently impressed by Mr. Sumner's earnestness and his personal appeal, appointed eleven o'clock that evening, when he would go over the case and hear Mr. Sumner's Opinion. Accordingly, at eleven o'clock that evening, in the midst of a thunder-storm filling the streets with water and threatening chimneys, Mr. Sumner made his way to the Presidential mansion. At the very hour named he was received, and at the request of the President proceeded to read his Opinion. [233] The latter listened attentively, with occasional comments, and at the close showed his sympathy with the respondents. It was now twenty minutes after midnight, when the President said that he would write his conclusion at once, and that Mr. Sumner must come and hear it the next morning— “when I open shop,” said he. “And when do you open shop?” Mr. Sumner inquired. “At nine o'clock,” was the reply. At that hour Mr. Sumner was in the office he had left after midnight, when the President came running in, and read at once the indorsement in his own handwriting, as follows:—

I am unwilling for the sentence to stand and be executed, to any extent, in this case. In the absence of a more adequate motive than the evidence discloses, I am wholly unable to believe in the existence of criminal or fraudulent intent on the part of one of such well-established good character as the accused. If the evidence went as far toward establishing a guilty profit of one or two hundred thousand dollars, as it does of one or two hundred dollars, the case would, on the question of guilt, bear a far different aspect. That on this contract, involving from one million to twelve hundred thousand dollars, the contractors should attempt a fraud which at the most could profit them only one or two hundred, or even one thousand, dollars, is to my mind beyond the power of rational belief. That they did not, in such a case, strike for greater gains proves that they did not, with guilty or fraudulent intent, strike at all. The judgment and sentence are disapproved and declared null, and the accused ordered to be discharged.

A. Lincoln. March 18, 1865.

Then followed an incident as original as anything in the life of Henry IV. of France, or of a Lacedaemonian king. As Mr. Sumner was making an abstract of the indorsement for communication by telegraph to the anxious parties, the President broke into quotation from Petroleum V. Nasby; and seeing that his visitor was less at home than himself in this patriotic literature, he said, “I must initiate you,” and then repeated with enthusiasm the message he had sent to the author: “For the genius to write these things I would gladly give up my office!” Then rising and turning to a standing-desk behind, he opened it, and took out a pamphlet collection of the letters already published, which he proceeded to read aloud, evidently enjoying it much. For the time he seemed to forget the case he had just decided, and Presidential duties. This continued more than twenty minutes, when Mr. Sumner, thinking there must be many at the door waiting to see the President on graver matters, took advantage of a pause, and, thanking him for the lesson of the morning, left. Some thirty persons, including senators and representatives, were in the anteroom as he passed out. Though with the President much during the intervening days before his death, this was the last business Mr. Sumner transacted with him.

The rebellion had now reached its last stage. The President left Washington by boat on the Potomac, Thursday, March 23, for City Point, the headquarters of the army of Virginia, and did not return to Washington till Sunday evening, April 9. Mrs. Lincoln, who went with him, expecting their return to be earlier than it proved to be, invited Sumner by note, as they were [234] leaving, to accompany them the next Wednesday evening to the Italian opera—at the same time promising to send him her copy of Louis Napoleon's ‘Caesar,’ just received from Paris. She reached Washington from the headquarters on Sunday, April 2, leaving, however, Mr. Lincoln behind, and as soon as she arrived invited Sumner to join her on her return to City Point. The next morning she sent him from the Executive Mansion the tidings of the evacuation of Richmond, just received from the Secretary of War. She left Washington again, Wednesday, April 5, accompanied by Sumner, the Marquis de Chambrun (who was invited at the senator's suggestion), Secretary Harlan,⁷¹ Mrs. and Miss Harlan, Mr.Speed and Mrs. James Speed, and Judge Otto. At Fort Monroe, in the night or early morning, they heard by telegraph of Mr. Seward's serious injury received in a fall from his carriage. At City Point, where they arrived about noon on the 6th, they found Mr. Lincoln.⁷² They visited him on board the ‘River Queen,’ where there was a pleasant conversation, in which the President indicated the places where the Confederate commissioners sat in the saloon of the steamer at the Hampton Roads conference, February 3, and with maps before him explained General Grant's present movements. The party, leaving Mr. Lincoln, went on to Richmond that afternoon (Thursday), and drove with an escort of cavalry to noted places—among them the capitol, where Sumner sought for the ancient archives, and inquired about certain public men, particularly Hunter, formerly senator.⁷³ They returned to the boat, where they remained till morning.⁷⁴ The night was weird, with Manchester still burning, and the flames visible from the boat, but Richmond lying in darkness. The next morning (Friday) the party returned to City Point, and (the President joining them) they went to Petersburg, going and returning by [235] rail, and on Saturday visited the tent hospitals at City Point, where the President shook hands with five thousand sick and wounded soldiers, saying to Sumner that his arm was not tired.⁷⁵ Late that evening they left, the President with them, to return in the ‘River Queen’ to Washington. The company was a small one; their meals were taken at one table, and they were thrown familiarly together.⁷⁶ Conversation flowed freely, and all were happy, full of rejoicing and hope. The recent successes, the sure and speedy end of the rebellion, and the coming of peace were the topics.⁷⁷ The President's mind was upon the subject of reconstruction; but he made no confidential communication to Sumner upon it, as each had fixed ideas not accepted by the other. In the course of the day the President read to the few friends about him, with a beautiful quarto copy of Shakspeare in his hands, the tribute to the murdered Duncan——‘Macbeth’ being his favorite play,—and ‘impressed by the beauty of the words, or by some presentiment unuttered,’ he read the passage aloud a second time.⁷⁸ He repeated also from memory some lines from Longfellow's ‘Resignation.’⁷⁹ It was probably the same day that Sumner asked him if he had ever had any doubt about his declaration made in 1858, when he opened his campaign with Douglas,—‘A house divided against itself cannot stand;’ and he answered, ‘Not in the least; it was clearly true, and time has justified me.’⁸⁰

The party arrived in Washington at six P. M., Sunday, the 9th, and the President at once sought Mr. Seward, who had been kept in bed by his injury. It is not certain that Sumner saw the President again until he stood at his bedside on the night of the 14th. On the 10th a message from the White House, accompanied with a bunch of flowers, communicated to Sumner the surrender of Lee's army. On Tuesday evening, the 11th, the [236] city was illuminated in honor of the final victory. A note from Mrs. Lincoln invited Sumner to come to the White House, bringing his friend the marquis to witness the spectacle, and mentioned that ‘a little speech’ from Mr. Lincoln was expected.⁸¹ It was the President's last public utterance; and the subject of reconstruction was absorbing his thoughts. He defended at length what had been done in Louisiana, apparently with Sumner's opposition in mind.⁸² As in his letter to Hahn, a year before, he signified his own personal desire to have the suffrage conferred on some of the colored people, ‘on the very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as soldiers,’ but he preferred (such was the tenor of his speech) to have that question left to events, and not to insist on their admission at the outset, and thereby arrest the process of reconstruction.⁸³ Sumner was called for by the crowd, but he was not present. The speech was not in keeping with what was in men's minds. The people had gathered, from an instinctive impulse, to rejoice over a great and final victory; and they listened with respect, but with no expressions of enthusiasm, except that the quaint simile of ‘the egg’ drew applause.⁸⁴ The more serious among them felt that the President's utterances on the subject were untimely, and that his insistence at such an hour on his favorite plan was not the harbinger of peace among the loyal supporters of the government. Sumner was thoughtful and sad when the speech was reported to him; for he saw at hand another painful contest with a President whom he respected, on a question where he felt it his duty to stand firm, whatever might be the odds against him.⁸⁵ He wrote at once to Lieber: ‘The President's speech and other things augur confusion and uncertainty in the future, with hot controversy. Alas! alas!’ [237]

Mrs. Lincoln invited Sumner to witness from the White House, on Thursday evening, the illuminations, in company with General Grant, who was expected to arrive that evening; but it is not known that he accepted. The next day (Friday, the 14th, ever memorable in American annals), at a meeting of the Cabinet, the President resumed the question of reconstruction, repeating the views he had already expressed, mentioning Sumner's opposite view, and adjourning the discussion to a day of the next week, when he was not to meet them.⁸⁶ On the evening of that Friday, at or about twenty minutes past ten, he was assassinated at Ford's Theatre by John Wilkes Booth. He became instantly senseless, and did not recover consciousness. Sumner was at the time at the house of Senator Conness, in company with him and Senator Stewart; and being told what had occurred by some one rushing in from the street, they went quickly to the White House, and then to the theatre, reaching Mr. Lincoln, who was already in the house opposite, about half an hour after the fatal shot had been fired. There Sumner remained till the President's last breath, at twenty-two minutes past seven, the next morning.⁸⁷ A bystander, at one in the night, wrote: ‘Senator Sumner was seated on the right of the President's couch, near the head, holding the right hand of the President in his own. He was sobbing like a woman, with his head bowed down almost on the pillow of the bed on which the President was lying.’⁸⁸ A witness, in describing the last moment of the scene, said: ‘Senator Sumner, General Todd, Robert Lincoln, and Rufus Andrews stood leaning over the headboard, watching every motion of the beating heart of the dying President. Robert Lincoln was resting on the arm of Senator Sumner.’⁸⁹ At the moment of death Sumner was at the head of the bed, by the side of Robert Lincoln.⁹⁰ As soon as Mr. [238] Lincoln breathed his last, Sumner drove with General Halleck to Mr. Seward's, whose murder had been attempted by another assassin, an accomplice of Booth. He spoke words of consolation to Mrs. Seward, whom he was not to meet again, and then went to his lodgings, which he reached at eight o'clock, finding them guarded by soldiers under orders from the Secretary of War, in consequence of rumors of meditated violence on him as well as others.⁹¹ His friend and former secretary, A. B. Johnson, has described his manner and conversation at this time, while ‘he sat stern and haggard over his untasted breakfast,’ but ‘steady in mind and unshaken in courage,’ as he contemplated ‘the rebellion defeated and degraded to assassination.’⁹²

The senators and representatives who were in Washington met at noon on Monday, the 17th, and after the choice of a chairman and secretary, and a statement by Senator Foot of Vermont, Sumner moved a committee of five to report at four in the afternoon the action proper for the meeting. The committee (Sumner chairman) reported a list of pall-bearers, and a committee of one from each State to accompany the remains to Illinois, and resolutions, and the report was agreed to without dissent. The resolutions (drawn by Sumner), confessing ‘the dependence of those present upon Almighty God, who rules all that is done for human good,’ bore ‘testimony of their veneration and affection for the illustrious dead,’ and recognized in his life ‘an example of purity, simplicity, and virtue which should be a lesson to mankind,’ and in his death ‘a martyr whose memory will become more precious as men learn to prize those principles of constitutional order, and those rights, civil, political, and human, for which he was made a sacrifice.’ They proposed also a day to be named by the President (Andrew Johnson) for commemorating the deceased.⁹³

Sumner called on Mrs. Lincoln several times to give her his sympathies in her terrible sorrow. She sent him, before she left Washington, two souvenirs of the late President—one a likeness of John Bright, which Mr. Lincoln had prized ‘as representing so noble and so good a friend of our cause,’ and the [239] other the President's cane. This last gift was accompanied with this note:—

Executive Mansion, Tuesday Morning, May 9, 1865.

My dear Mr. Sumner—Your unwavering kindness to my idolized husband, and the great regard he entertained for you, prompts me to offer for your acceptance this simple relic, which being connected with his blessed memory I am sure you will prize. I am endeavoring to regain my strength sufficiently to be able to leave here in a few days. I go hence broken-hearted, with every hope almost in life crushed. Notwithstanding my utter desolation through life, the memory of the cherished friend of my husband and myself will always be most gratefully remembered.

With kindest regards, I remain always

Yours very truly,

Mary Lincoln.

Not even the tragedy here can make me indifferent to the death of Richard Cobden, who was my personal friend and the friend of my country. I felt with you entirely in the touching words which you uttered in Parliament. I wish he could have lived to enjoy our triumph and to continue his counsels. His name will be cherished here as in England. History will be for him more than Westminster Abbey. You will be shocked by the crime in which belligerent slavery, crushed in arms, has sought to revenge itself; but your confidence in the people and popular institutions will not, I am sure, be shaken for a moment. Our government will continue tranquilly, according to the requirements of fundamental law. It is probable that the policy towards leading rebels will be modified. President Lincoln was so essentially humane and gentle that he could not make up his mind to any severity, even to Jefferson Davis. I was with him for four days, shortly before his death, on an excursion to the front; and during all this period he was not for a moment tempted into any remark indicating any desire to punish even Jefferson Davis. When a person of his family said, “He must be hanged,” the President repeated again and again, “Judge not, that ye be not judged.” President Johnson is in a different mood. My own line, so far as I can now see the true course, would be between the two. I confess my desire that our terrible rebellion should close without a capital punishment. Of course, I do not allude to military courts; but the men who have made so many tombs and vacant chairs must not be allowed to govern us again, and the colored people must be protected. To this end we must drive all the leaders out of the country.⁹⁴ President Lincoln's policy with regard to foreign powers was fixed; that of his successor is less certain. But I trust that the sense of responsibility and trust will make him wise; and there can be no wisdom in war. There are some who have supposed that Congress would be convened at once. I hope not. President Lincoln had determined not to convene it. We are not ready for the discussions on domestic policy; while on foreign policy, I think it probable the House of Representatives would, by resolutions passed without debate, call at once for the withdrawal of Maximilian from Mexico, and the payment of our claims [240] by England. . . . Mr. Seward is better daily. His escape is a marvel. No less than six persons were wounded in his house by a single assassin. His son, the assistant secretary, has been insensible till last evening, when he asked for something to eat. His skull is fractured in two places, and his case is critical, but there is hope now that he will recover. The new President has asked the late Cabinet to remain. This was natural and proper. Of course, his first policy must be to secure public confidence; but there is an impression that sooner or later there will be a change. Among the aspirants is General Butler. He cannot be expected to succeed so long as Mr. Adams is in London, as they are both from Massachusetts. Our people continue to be moved. They are now thronging the streets to visit the remains of the late President, at the Executive Mansion.

This letter, written as soon as tidings of the assassination reached England, was received from Mr. Bright:—

Rochdale, April 29, 1865.

dear Mr. Sumner—How can I write to you, and what can I say For fifty years, I think, no other event has created such a sensation in this country as the great crime which has robbed you of your President. The whole people positively mourn, and it would seem as if again we were one nation with you, so universal is the grief and the horror at the deed of which Washington has been the scene. I have had a month of extraordinary suffering—the death of Mr. Cobden; then the death of my brother-in-law, Mr. Lucas, of the ‘Morning Star;’ then this new and inconceivable calamity. I feel as if all was unstable, and that nothing can stand.

When I read that the President had gone to Richmond without a guard, I felt that he ran a risk to which he ought not to have subjected himself. In times of great excitement dangerous men become more dangerous, partly vicious and partly mad; and men of great mark become the objects of their hate and passion. The deed is done, and it is now too late to take precautions. It is easy to kill a President, but it is not easy to destroy a nation.

We await the arrival of the boat with great anxiety; she was expected yesterday. I hope she may tell us that no other victim has fallen, and that Mr. Seward is recovering. If you have an opportunity of doing so, tell him how much I long to hear that he is safe; and if it be proper, convey to Mrs. Lincoln the assurance that we all grieve for her, and mourn for the noble life that has been cruelly taken from her and from the nation. In this great sorrow I hope that the two nations may forget what is irritating and evil in the past.

Forgive this short and hurried note. I feel unable to write what I wish and what I feel.

Always with much sympathy,

Your sincere friend,

John Bright.

Sumner wrote to the Duchess of Argyll, April 24:—

The Sewards, father and son, have rallied to-day, and seem to be doing well. The conspirators will be caught. Perhaps you will not be offended if I let you know that I showed the late President, at his request, your letter [241] of March 2, in which you express the confidence in him and speak of the distrust of me.⁹⁵ I was at the theatre with him the last time he had been there before his assassination. I mentioned to him the purport of your letter. He at once said, “I wish you would show me that letter.” I sent it to him, and he returned it in an envelope on which he had written your name and under cover to my address, with his frank in the upper right-hand corner, where with us the frank is written. I send them as autographs, which may interest some of your friends.

To F. W. Bird, April 25:—

I have seen a good deal of the new President, and have conversed on questions of business and of general policy. His manner has been excellent, and even sympathetic, without any uncomfortable reticence. On Saturday the chief-justice and myself visited him in the evening, especially with the view of conversing on negro suffrage. Suffice it to say that he is well disposed, and sees the rights and necessities of the case, all of which I urged earnestly. Both of us left him light-hearted. Wade has also seen a good deal of him. He tells me that the President does not disguise his hostility to the Louisiana scheme. I am confident that our ideas will prevail; therefore, be not disheartened, nor in any way relax your energies. Forward!

To Mr. Bright, May 1:—

Just this moment I have read your letter of April 14, sent to me at Boston, in which you tell me something of the last hours of our good friend. Now that he is gone, we long for his voice and his thoughts more than ever before. I wish he could have spoken on the Canada question, and touched again the chords of justice. I do not doubt that Richard Cobden will be placed very soon among England's greatest men. He will be known now better than ever, as the prejudices of life will be hushed. Your letter is dated the very day when our President was assassinated. Now while I write you we are filled with the emotion which that transcendent event is calculated to excite. Family and friends may mourn; but his death will do more for the cause than any human life, for it will fix the sentiments of the country, perhaps of mankind. In my mind, few have been happier. You will note the tranquillity with which the vast power he held passed to his successor. Mr. Johnson was at the bedside of the dying President only two minutes, about two o'clock in the morning. The heart of Mr. Lincoln ceased to beat at twenty-two minutes after seven o'clock in the morning. I left the bedside at once, and going to the door in the gray of a drizzling morning found General Halleck just getting into his carriage, which had been within call all night. I got in with him, and asked him to set me down at Mr. Seward's. He said that he must first stop at Mr. Johnson's. Here the general went in to tell the new President that he “must not go out without a guard;” and this was the way he first knew of the post he then occupied. A few hours later he took the oath before the chief-justice. [242] In the evening I had an interview with him on public business;⁹⁶ this was in the common room of the hotel where he was staying. I mention these things to illustrate the simplicity with which his accession was marked. Since then I have seen him repeatedly. Last evening I had a long conversation with him, mainly on the rebel States and how they shall be tranquillized. Of course my theme is justice to the colored race. He accepted this idea completely, and indeed went so far as to say that there is no difference between us. You understand that the question whether rebel States shall be treated as military provinces or territories is simply one of form, with a view to the great result. It is the result that I am at; and I shall never stickle on any intermediate question if that is secured. He deprecates haste; is unwilling that States should be precipitated back; think there must be a period of probation, but that meanwhile all loyal people, without distinction of color, must be treated as citizens, and must take part in any proceedings for reorganization. He doubts at present the expediency of announcing this from Washington lest it should give a handle to party, but is willing it should be made known to the people in the rebel States. The chief-justice started yesterday on a visit to North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, and New Orleans, and will on his way touch the necessary strings, so far as he can. I anticipate much from this journey. His opinions are fixed, and he is well informed with regard to those of the President. I would not be too sanguine, but I should not be surprised if we had this great question settled before the next meeting of Congress—I mean by this that we had such expressions of opinion and acts as will forever conclude it. My confidence is founded in part upon the essential justice of our aims and the necessity of the case. With the President as well disposed as he shows himself, and the chief-justice as positive, we must prevail. Will not all this sanctify our war beyond any in history? The President has not yet approached foreign questions. Last evening he said to me with reference to our claims on England, that he thought the time had come when we could insist on having then settled on correct principles.

To R. Schleiden, May 1⁹⁷:—

At last the military power of the rebellion is broken, and we are dismissing our troops. But, say the doubters, you cannot establish peace and tranquillity. This is the second line of diplomacy. Here again I reply confidently, as I once replied on the other question, We can. This will be by calling the colored population to the elective franchise. You know that for some tine this has been my demand, so that all shall be equal before the law. Our late President accepted the principle, but hesitated in the application. You may remember the same hesitation with regard to emancipation, to which he finally consented. Our new President accepts the principle and the application. Our excellent chief-justice is, of course, very ardent and decided. I feel that at last I can see the end, when this terrible war will be justified.

I am much interested to note in Europe the contre-coup of the great events of the last month, with the tragic death of the President. I trust that [243] in England that perverse spirit, which has caused so much mischief, will be crushed, and that Lord Russell will become amiable and just. Alas! alas! You know my opinion of his course. I cannot see it except in the most painful light. Congress is not in session, so that the House of Representatives will not make a demand for the instant payment of our claims; but I trust this question will in some way be put in train of settlement before the next session.

Mr. Seward shows considerable vitality. The broken jaw is now the troublesome part of his case. Poor Frederick is well for one who has been so low; but his case is still doubtful. He speaks very little, and of course the extent of his injuries cannot be measured. Cruel devil—that assassin!

To Lieber, May 2:—

I read to President Johnson Colonel Baker's letter,⁹⁸ with your introduction. He said at once that he accepted every word of it; that colored persons are to have the right of suffrage; that no State can be precipitated into the Union; that rebel States must go through a term of probation. All this he had said to me before. Ten days ago the chief-justice and myself visited him in the evening to speak of these things. I was charmed by his sympathy, which was entirely different from his predecessor's. The chief-justice is authorized to say wherever he is what the President desires, and to do everything he can to promote organization without distinction of color. The President desires that the movement should appear to proceed from the people. This is in conformity with his general ideas; but he thinks it will disarm party at home. I told him that while I doubted if the work could be effectively done without federal authority, I regarded the modus operandi as an inferior question; and that I should be content, provided equality before the law was secured for all without distinction of color. I said during this winter that the rebel States could not come back, except on the footing of the Declaration of Independence and the complete recognition of human rights. I feel more than ever confident that all this will be fulfilled. And then what a regenerated land! I had looked for a bitter contest on this question; but with the President on our side, it will be carried by simple avoirdupois.

To Mr. Bright, May 16:—

Just before starting for Boston, I acknowledge yours of April 29. The feeling in England is not greater than I anticipated. I hope it will make your government see the crime with which for four years it has fraternized. Mr. Seward's disability causes a suspension of our diplomatic discussions, which I think he is anxious to resume. He was aroused to great indignation when he heard that the British authorities at Nassau had been receiving the pirate “Stonewall.” A proclamation was sent to him yesterday, in the draft which concluded with something about the “peace and safety of the United States.” He speaks with difficulty, but he stammered forth not “safety, but dignity; the United States are safe enough.” I have been pained by seeing him, as he shows so many signs of the terrible hazards he has passed. I am sorry that Jeff. Davis is caught; if not shot in pursuit, I wish he had escaped. Grant was anxious to keep him out of Mexico.

At the meeting of the Cabinet with Mr. Lincoln on the last day of his life, Friday, April 14, Mr. Stanton submitted the draft of an ordinance for the restoration of order and the establishment of governments in the States lately in rebellion—the draft applying expressly to two States, but intended as a model for the others. The President suggested a revision, and the subject went over to be resumed the next Tuesday, the 18th.⁹⁹ On Sunday, the 16th (Andrew Johnson now being President), Stanton read his draft at the war department to Sumner and other gentlemen, members of the House, and to Mr. Welles. Sumner interrupted the reading with the inquiry ‘whether any provision was made for enfranchising the colored man,’ saying, also, that ‘unless the black man is given the right to vote his freedom is mockery.’ Stanton deprecated the agitation of the subject on account of differences among the supporters of the Administration, but Sumner insisted that the black man's right to vote was ‘the essence—the great essential.’ Stanton's draft, now confined to North Carolina, was considered in the Cabinet May 9, when it appeared with a provision for suffrage in the election of members of a constitutional convention for the State. It included ‘the loyal citizens of the United States residing within the State.’ Tills paragraph, it appears, Stanton had accepted April 16 as an amendment from Sumner and Colfax. Being now questioned as to its purport, he admitted that it was intended to include negroes as well as white men. He objected to a discussion, but invited an expression of opinion and the members (Seward absent) were equally divided—Stanton, Dennison, and Speed for the inclusion, and McCulloch, Welles, and Usher against it. The President took the papers without expressing an opinion. Sumner was quickly informed of what had transpired in the Cabinet— as appears by his interview the next day with Welles—and he counted at this time on the President's decision in favor of equal suffrage, irrespective of race.¹⁰⁰ [245]

Mr. Johnson was, during the weeks following his accession, waited upon by delegations to express their sympathy and confidence. To these he talked with a certain vigor, but with looseness, declaring, with repetition, that ‘treason is a crime’ and ought to be punished. His apparent ardor in this direction caused apprehension among thoughtful men, even among those who favored radical measures of reconstruction, but who dreaded a period of vengeance and retaliation as a sequel of the Civil War. A marked feature of these wordy addresses, as well as of his conversation, was the inordinate vanity with which he dwelt upon his own career. Chase and Sumner were impressed with the exhibition of this quality, and the former said, ‘Let us see the President, and try to give him another topic.’ The President's first strong expressions against treason led some earnest men to believe that the reconstruction of the Southern States was now in safer hands than it would have-been in Mr. Lincoln's; but in a few weeks they were to be undeceived.

Sumner remained in Washington till the middle of May. The President, since Mr. Lincoln's death, had been lodging in Mr. Hooper's house, and occupying temporarily as his office a room in the treasury department. Sumner had waited on him almost daily, calling often on public business, and had at several of these interviews pressed his views of reconstruction, particularly as to the justice and policy of suffrage for the colored people. On the evening of Saturday, April 22, just a week after he took his oath, Chase (the chief-justice) and Sumner had an interview with him, in which they urged him to say something for the equal rights of the colored people. He was sympathetic in manner, and while reserved, was no more so than his position justified.¹⁰¹ Both left him ‘light-hearted.’ A few days later, when the President and senator were alone together, the former said to the latter, ‘On this question [that of suffrage] there is no difference between us; you and I are alike.’ Sumner expressed his joy and gratitude that the President had taken this position, and that as a consequence there would be no division in the Union party; and the President replied, ‘I mean to keep you all together.’ As he walked away that evening, Sumner felt that the battle of his own life was ended. In another interview the President's unwillingness to interfere in Tennessee for impartial suffrage—saying that he would do so if he were at [246] Nashville—disturbed Sumner; but the senator suspected no change of front, attributing the hesitation to unnecessary caution rather than to infidelity.¹⁰² Just before leaving Washington, Sumner had a final interview with the President, in which the latter's manner and expressions remained the same. The senator apologizing for his repetition of views expressed in former meetings, Mr. Johnson said pleasantly, and with a smile, ‘Have I not always listened to you?’ Before he went home, as well as for a week after, the senator assured his friends and correspondents that the cause he had at heart was safe with the new President.¹⁰³

On June 1, the day appointed by President Johnson to be observed throughout the country in commemoration of Mr. Lincoln, Sumner, by invitation of the municipal authorities, delivered the eulogy upon him in Boston.¹⁰⁴ The services were held in the Music Hall. A colored clergyman, by the expressed preference of the orator, served as one of the chaplains.¹⁰⁵ The delivery began late in the afternoon, and occupied nearly two hours. The tone of the eulogy was solemn, beginning, ‘In the universe of God there are no accidents,’ and recognizing the divine Providence¹⁰⁶ which had watched over the nation and the career of him who had been so lately its chief. The style was calm and restrained. The life of Lincoln from lowly condition to exalted place was drawn with happy touches of comparison and contrast. He was fitly placed in history among the noblest characters, with no stint of tribute, and yet with discrimination—the orator bearing testimony to his great qualities, most of all to his essential integrity of purpose, and his freedom from all envy and malice and unworthy ambition. The only limitation suggested was a certain slowness and hesitation in taking positions—compensated, however, by firmness in maintaining them. In no study of Mr. Lincoln is there so fine a statement [247] of his simplicity in character and habit—carried, as with Saint Louis of France,¹⁰⁷ into public business—or of the qualities of his style, suggesting Bacon as well as Franklin, and distinguishing his state papers, as well as his conversation and speeches— ‘argumentative, logical, and spirited, with quaint humor and sinewy sententiousness.’ Sumner's personal intercourse with the late President, particularly in his last days, gave a color to the most impressive passages.

The oration was, however, wanting in artistic unity. In parts a sense of due proportion was disregarded; and at the end there was a digression which seriously marred the effect. Suffrage for the freedmen had been for some months a burden on Sumner's mind, now all the heavier on account of proceedings just instituted by the new President; and he was determined to improve the opportunity to make his appeal to the country. With him a moral purpose always overrode artistic limitations. He found at hand Mr. Lincoln's constant insistence, in debates with Douglas and in later speeches and papers, upon the equal rights of all men, without exception of race; and he read a number of extracts from them, some quite long, where one, with a mere reference to the others, would have sufficed. Pregnant as the quoted sentences were, the orator, in applying them to political rights, gave them a significance which was not in the mind of their author. He dwelt longer on Great Britain's recognition of rebel belligerency than was fitting on a commemorative occasion¹⁰⁸ but he could not forego the opportunity to renew his protest against an act which signified to him moral obliquity as well as indifference to the claims of national good fellowship. When he had reached the natural end of the eulogy, he began, with an abrupt transition, an argument for colored suffrage, which he continued for some minutes. Even those in the audience who were altogether sympathetic with him on this subject were quite disturbed at the incongruity. About one fourth of the oration was in this way a departure from the main subject, arising from an earnest desire to give a right direction to public opinion at a critical moment. [248]

It was noted on that day that something of the former fascination of Sumner's oratory had gone.¹⁰⁹ His voice was still resonant, but no longer so rich and varied; and there was a certain heaviness in his manner. He read from his manuscript, and many times paused to adjust his glasses, which kept falling. Once with some effort he read the President's address at Gettysburg, which, printed in large letters, hung in front across the hall. He seemed to take little interest in the audience before him, being in this respect quite unlike Mr. Everett, who to the last was intent on oratorical effect. As observed in a previous chapter, he had for some years cared chiefly in speaking to reach through the press the American people, and had become to a degree indifferent to the impression on his hearers.¹¹⁰

Mrs. Lincoln wrote from the neighborhood of Chicago, whither she had gone, a letter of gratitude for the truthful and eloquent eulogy on her ‘lamented husband by a friend so cherished as you were by the great and good man who has been called away. Your words as testimonials in his praise are very welcomely received.’

Robert T. Lincoln wrote, July 5:—

I desire to assure you that I have been deeply gratified by your oration. I have seen no eulogy out of all that have been delivered that has so well expressed what all two knew my father feel, but cannot say.

Isaac N. Arnold, the biographer of Mr. Lincoln, wrote, June 8:—

I have just finished reading your most comprehensive, appreciative, and grand eulogy upon our great and good Lincoln. As one of his humble friends—one who, while reverencing him as one of the greatest of men, loved him as a brother—I desire to thank you for this noble effort of genius.

Sumner had not been ten days at home before all his hopes for a just and speedy reconstruction on the basis of equal rights were dashed by the President's proclamations, May 29—one of amnesty, with various exceptions, and the other prescribing in detail a method of reconstruction for North Carolina, including a constitutional convention, and confining suffrage to the class of voters qualified by the Constitution and laws of that State [249] before secession, thus excluding, as Mr. Lincoln had done, the colored people from the qualified body. Similar proclamations were shortly issued for reconstructing the other Southern States, and affirming the validity of the proceedings which had been taken in Tennessee, Louisiana, and Arkansas.

The change of mind which the President underwent during the last ten days of May has been attributed to his egotism, which was plied by the flatteries of Southern leaders;¹¹¹ to the notice that was taken of his condition in the Senate when he took his oath;¹¹² to the plausible counsels of persons who had screened him at the time of this exposure of himself—Preston King and the Blairs, always irrepressible and indefatigable in political scheming; and above all to Mr. Seward, who, partly recovered from his wounds, had resumed his official work.¹¹³

Carl Schurz, to whom the President showed his proclamation for North Carolina before it was issued, urged him to modify it so as to include the colored people as voters. In July General Schurz visited, by commission from the President, the Southern States to examine their condition; but when he returned in October he was received by the President without welcome, hardly with civility. His report is an important historical document, giving a truthful survey of the South at that time. During his absence in that section, and after his return, he was in frequent communication with Sumner.

While at home in the summer the burden of this question was all the time on Sumner's mind. Wherever he met citizens—on the street, at club dinners, or in society—he let slip no opportunity to urge them to action. A large edition of a pamphlet, containing his article in the Atlantic Monthly, already referred to, as well as several resolutions introduced by him in Congress, and his speeches on the proceedings in Arkansas and Louisiana, was distributed among the people. In Boston there was a quick response in a meeting held June 21, 1865, to maintain equal suffrage, at which Theophilus Parsons was in the chair, and Richard H. Dana, Jr., made the principal speech.¹¹⁴ [250] Authentic reports from the South were in the mean time arriving, which verified the worst apprehensions concerning the President's policy, showing that it had revived the old slaveholding spirit, and was pressing heavily on Unionists, white and black.

Sumner wrote very earnest letters to members of the Cabinet, urging them to arrest the President's course; but none of them in their replies gave him any satisfaction¹¹⁵.The President was doing what Seward had advised, and what Welles and McCulloch cordially approved. Stanton was friendly enough to the principle of equal suffrage, without regard to color, but, as already seen, was unwilling to bring it to the front and make it an issue which would divide Republicans. Speed also was friendly to it, but was opposed to dictating conditions of suffrage to the returning States. Harlan thought the triumph of the President's plan inevitable, and counselled trust ‘in an overruling Providence,’ adding, ‘I know the potency of your great idea of the duty of a statesman to create rather than to be controlled by circumstances; but this creation requires time.’ Three members of the Cabinet—Speed, Harlan, and Dennison—who were then deaf to Sumner's entreaties, retired from it in a twelve month, unwilling to compromise themselves by further association with the Administration.

Sumner wrote to Lieber, August 11:—

The attorney-general (Speed) is the best of the Cabinet; but they are all courtiers, unhappily, as if they were the counsellors of a king. Preston King and Mr. Blair went to the President when he was intoxicated, and took him away from the hotel and sheltered him at the house of Mr. Blair. Hinc amicitia!

Sumner's correspondence at the time discloses little sympathy with his steadfast support of colored suffrage against the President's plan. Members of Congress were confused by events. Conness did not see how impartial suffrage, although he believed in it, could be imposed by Congress. Wilson,¹¹⁶ E. D. Morgan, Morrill of Maine, and Howard of Michigan were disposed to hope for the best, and to make the best of the situation, and advised a conciliatory treatment of the President. [251] Thaddeus Stevens, Henry Winter Davis, and Wade¹¹⁷ took a cheerless view of the political prospect, and saw small chance of success against Executive influence and patronage on a question where there was so much popular indifference and opposition among Republicans. Howard and Davis were averse to any direct issue with the President on negro suffrage, confident that the public mind was not ready for it, and thinking it wiser to make it on the right of Congress to control the reconstruction. B. Gratz Brown alone responded without qualification to Sumner's appeal. Of the members of the House, Boutwell¹¹⁸ of Massachusetts, Julian¹¹⁹ of Indiana, and Garfield of Ohio,¹²⁰ each addressed the people of his State in favor of admitting freedmen to the suffrage.¹²¹ But on the other hand Dawes of Massachusetts, already a leader in that body, in an address to his neighbors, which was widely read, came earnestly to the support of the President's action, and contested as unconstitutional any attempt of Congress to make suffrage for the colored people a condition precedent in the restoration of the rebel States.¹²²

Among public men not in Congress, journalists and other leaders of public opinion, Sumner's cause found little support. Governor Morton of Indiana denounced it before the people, and took issue directly with the senator.¹²³ Governor Andrew of Massachusetts felt assured of the President's honesty of purpose, and advised co-operation with him.¹²⁴ The editors of the New York Evening Post, Bryant and Godwin, usually radical in their views, contended against compulsory action by Congress in the matter of suffrage, treating it as ‘a prodigious and overwhelming [252] centralism,’ and involving ‘the danger of dangers.’¹²⁵ From this time they were often at issue with Sumner on measures of reconstruction.¹²⁶ The New York Times, in successive leaders, took positive ground against negro suffrage as any part of the reconstruction.¹²⁷ Charles A. Dana, then an editor in Chicago, wrote to Sumner that it was advisable to keep with the President as far as possible in order to prevent ‘the Democrats coming into power through any unnecessary quarrel among ourselves.’¹²⁸ John W. Forney of the Philadelphia Press, a partisan of the President, who had come also to be an admirer of Sumner, begged him, in view of all he had accomplished, to yield something of his present judgment for the sake of harmony with the vast political army of which he had ‘been a conscientious and courageous leader.’ Sumner's chief sympathizers at this time were the old Abolitionists and Free Soilers, with here and there men of radical ways of thinking, like Wayne MacVeagh and Horace Greeley. The latter advocated during the summer and autumn in the ‘Tribune,’ in able and earnest leaders,¹²⁹ the admission of the negroes to suffrage as a just and politic measure, though disclaiming the purpose to make such admission an inexorable condition in reconstruction, and avoiding any reflection on the President's proceedings.¹³⁰

Not overlooking voices in different directions which avowed the duty or expediency of admitting the emancipated race to full citizenship as a part of the reconstruction, this may be said of [253] Sumner (a repetition by way of emphasis of what has already been said in substance), that among public men and leaders of opinion at this time he was the only one who resolutely held the position—alike against one President and then another, against also resistance, hostile votes, and attempts within his own party to shift the issue—that the reconstruction should make that people finally and irrevocably citizens and voters on the same terms as white men, or it should not go on.¹³¹ Whatever at last may be the judgment of mankind on the act itself, the honor or discredit of that great enfranchisement must ever remain with him.

He wrote to Mr. Bright, June 5:—

I thank you for your letter pleading so wisely and well for the humane course towards our traitors. I agree with you entirely, and have already enforced the same views. There has been a perceptible change in the public feeling, and I do not despair to see it right if time is allowed. It was Stanton who wished to hang three or four in a State; I think that even he is more moderate now.

There has been immense disappointment in Johnson's proclamation for the reorganization of North Carolina, excluding the colored persons. This is madness. But it is also inconsistent with his sayings to the chief-justice and myself. . . . There is great tranquillity in the public mind with regard to our foreign relations, and a disposition to peace. But knowing as I do the sentiment of leading politicians, I wish to get every pending question out of the way; I mean by this that it should be put in such train of settlement as to be taken out of the sphere of congressional action, if that be possible. Therefore, Lord Russell's letter repelling our claims must be reconsidered. A resolution calling upon the government to demand the settlement of our claims and to follow the British precedent in the case of the “Trent,” would pass the House of Representatives almost unanimously. But the House is not in session, and when I left Washington the President had no idea of calling it together. Sherman¹³² has one of his paroxysms arising from his excitable organization, and is ruining himself by wild talk. Seward wishes to stay in the Cabinet long enough “to finish his work;” but he is very feeble. The centres of life have not been touched; but he speaks only a few words, and with great difficulty. There is a pressure against Stanton, in which the Blairs and the ring of cotton speculators are very active. When I left Washington there was not the least sign that the President would listen to them. There are but two questions now that interest the public: (1) The question of reconstruction, including of course the question of the suffrage; and (2) The execution of Jeff. Davis. I notice the cry for Jeff. Davis in England. This is the [254] present form of sympathy for the rebellion. He does not deserve it. And yet I wish that his life should not be touched. It was painful to read what was said in Parliament on the President's death, except by Disraeli. Derby was wicked. Russell was drivel. It was a beautiful and masterly speech which Stansfeld¹³³ made at the public meeting. That speech, if made by Russell, would have been as good as the payment of our claims. I have not the pleasure of knowing him; but I wished to thank him as I read it. The case was stated admirably.

To R. Schleiden, June 27:—--

You will be pained to hear that poor Seward has been called to bear another blow. His wife, who is now dead, was a lady of rare talent and character.¹³⁴ She was nothing of a politician. I last saw her in the gray of the morning after the assassination, when she spoke of “Henry” and of her son “Fred” as “both murdered.” I have always admired her, and have been sure of her sympathy. How Seward can travel I do not understand, or how he can converse. He still wears in his mouth that machine like a Spanish bit, which serves as a splint to the broken jaw-bone. He seemed to rally something of his old force when he wrote that brief note to Lord Russell. I think he is determined to perservere in that way. I see that the correspondent of the ‘Times’ says that as soon as the elections are over the “Alabama” claims will be paid. The lawyers here all side with Mr. Bemis, and think he has shown the shifts and, pretensions of the British government, and that the idea of the blockade is an afterthought.

On the suffrage question the President has changed. Shortly after I left Washington, Southern influences proved too strong. The ascendency is with the Blairs. I have a letter from a member of the Cabinet, telling me of a strong pressure on the President to enforce the Monroe doctrine as a safetyvalve now, and to divert attention from domestic questions. You will see at once that this comes from the Blairs. They presented it to Mr. Lincoln shortly before his death, and he spoke with me about it, although he never inclined to it for a moment.

I have always been an admirer of Lord Russell, and read his speeches with constant interest, except when he speaks of my country; and then he is so full of mistakes, and is so unjust, that he offends me. I think Seward wishes to finish the controversies growing out of the rebellion, which of course include the question of belligerency. “His work will be done,” as he expresses it, when these questions are over. He thinks Adams should stay “to finish his work.” So do I. The newspapers are all at fault about Chase. His visit to the South was not political. It was, after conference with the President, to promote the colored suffrage.

Again, August 8:—

I wish I were with you in Germany, away from these heats of weather and these cares. Your pleasant letter forgets to tell me how you like London, [255] its society, its politicians, its cabinet ministers. I imagine you already surrounded by choice spirits. But pray tell me something of the scene.

The mission to Spain was offered first to Montgomery Blair, who was indignant, saying that he had refused the post when he was a young man during the administration of Polk, and he complained to Seward that he had not pushed him for the chief-justiceship against Chase. Seward said that he had “presented his papers,” and that Blair was “his candidate.” Blair thought that if Seward had been much in earnest he could have prevented Chase's nomination. President Lincoln selected Hale for the mission to Spain] out of general kindness and good — will to the “lame ducks.” Hale had lost his seat in the Senate, and the President wished to break his fall. He had been urged for Paris. He brought a paper to me recommending him, and wished me to sign it. I said at once, “I am your friend, and shall speak to you frankly. You ought not to desire the mission to Paris.” Fifteen or twenty senators signed it. President Lincoln afterwards read to me the list of names with comments. I then pressed Mr. Everett for Paris. It was at a later day that he let me know of the treaty with Bennett of the “Herald.” ¹³⁵

To Mr. Bright, August 8:—

My early prophecy in 1862 will be fulfilled, and nobody hanged for treason . . . . Meanwhile the day of tranquillity and reconciliation is still further postponed. Some of our friends are in great despair; I am not. The good cause cannot be lost. My counsel has been to put off the question. Neither party is ready to accept in proper spirit any final settlement. The former masters are as little ready for equality as the freedmen; but the latter are the better prepared. I think Congress will be disposed to settle the great question on proper principles. Thus far there is more agreement among us than I have ever known at any other stage of our protracted controversies.

General Grant was here last week. He told me that he had mustered out eight hundred thousand men, leaving two hundred thousand still on the rolls, of whom one hundred and thirty thousand were ready for the field. On our foreign policy he was very positive. He regarded the French invasion of Mexico as “a part of the rebellion,” which ought now to cease. He kept twenty-five thousand men in Texas beyond police necessities on this account, making an annual cost of twenty-five millions of dollars, which we must charge to Louis Napoleon. He cared little whether England paid “our little bill” or not; upon the whole, he would rather she should not, as that would leave the precedent of her conduct in full force for us to follow, and he wished it understood that we should follow it. He thought that we should make more out of “the precedent” than out of “the bill,” and that Boston especially would gain. Of course, General Grant has no official connection with our foreign relations, but his weight in the country gives value to his opinion. I need not say that I dissented from his policy most resolutely. I told him that our true object should be to bring the two countries into relations of harmony and good-will; [256] that this could not be done if one nation was watching an opportunity to strike, and the other was standing on guard; that the truest statesmanship was to remove all questions, and to that end I wished the precedent rejected. But I do not see how this can be done with Lord Russell in his declared moods. Thank God! he is less supercilious. His last letter had a tone which I hail as a harbinger of better days.

To Lieber, August 14:—

All my first impressions were for the writing and reading qualification; but on reflection it seemed to me impracticable. Of course, any rule must apply to the whites as well as to the blacks. Now, you cannot get votes of Congress to disfranchise, which you must do in imposing this qualification. Providence has so arranged it that the work shall be done completely, because it must be done. Besides, there are very intelligent persons, especially among the freedmen, who cannot read or write. But we need the votes of all, and cannot afford to wait.

To the Duchess of Argyll, August 15:--

I have yours of the 4th of July, as you were about to flee to Inverary, where I trust my tree has not ceased to flourish, although I am “hostile to England.” Lady Drogheda had heard the same story. You had better judge me by what you know and by my letters. You know, my dear duchess, I have never disguised my feelings at the unexpected course of England when slavery assumed the privileges of war. I thought that at that time England was bound by all the logic of her history, and by every consideration of duty, –moral, political, and religious—to say to the representatives of rebel slavery, “Get out of my sight!” Here was a sad and terrible failure. I cannot see it otherwise. I have tried to see it as you see it; I cannot. To my mind it was direct complicity with slavery in its last diabolical struggle. Now, at home, I have denounced Administration after Administration; I have criticised friends who entered into this complicity. Should I be more lenient to England, which was doing more for slavery than any American Administration, or any friend of mine, had ever done? I know you say that the United States, under military necessity, and to soften the rigors of war, had recognized the representatives of rebel slavery as belligerents. Belligerents to a certain extent! But this cannot justify England in an act which opened work-shops and ports, and unleashed ships to be employed in the support of rebel slavery. Morally the act is utterly indefensible, and history will so write it down.

To Lieber, August 21:—

The true policy of the Administration is as plain as noonday. No path was ever clearer; and how they could get away from it is astonishing. (1) Refer the whole question of reconstruction to Congress, where it belongs. What right has the President to reorganize States(2) Meanwhile, by good government through military officers, to lead public opinion in the right direction. (3) To obey the existing laws of Congress, which expressly exclude from public service [257] any person who has sustained the rebellion. (4) To obey the Constitution, which refuses to make any distinction of color. (5) To redeem the promises of the Declaration of Independence instead of openly setting them at defiance. Why the Cabinet have not insisted upon these plain rules is very strange. I have been invited to preside at the coining Republican State convention for Massachusetts. At any other time I should not do it; but I shall now, in order to speak the voice of Massachusetts.

Sumner had already made an appeal to the public in his eulogy upon Mr. Lincoln, which immediately followed the President's proclamation for North Carolina. Another opportunity occurred September 14, when he took the chair as president of the Republican State convention at Worcester.¹³⁶ His presence and his speech on that day were greeted with applause as cordial and demonstrative as any which had ever greeted him in such meetings with his constituents. There was a popular craving for guidance on the pending question, and the Republican leaders had hitherto been generally reticent. As he began, he paid a tribute to ‘the intelligence, the heart, and the conscience of Massachusetts,—God bless her!’ He had hoped the year before that he had made his last antislavery speech; but the work of liberation was not yet completed, nor would it be ‘until the equal rights of every one once claimed as a slave are placed under the safeguard of irreversible guaranties.’ The key-note of the address was the right of the colored race to equality in suffrage as in other things, both for its own protection and for the safety of the country—to be maintained by Congress as a condition in the restoration of the rebel States, and irrevocably secured by an amendment of the Constitution forbidding any exclusion on account of race or color.¹³⁷ He rebuked haste in reconstruction, and laid emphasis on time as a helper in the process. Recognizing the reluctance among Republicans to break with the President, he avoided a direct criticism of his course, but plainly showed his opposition to it.

In conclusion, he said:—

For myself, fellow-citizens, pardon me if I say that my course is fixed. Many may hesitate; many may turn away from those great truths which make the far-reaching brightness of the republic; many may seek a temporary favor by untimely surrender. I shall not. . . . A righteous government cannot be founded on any exclusion of race. This is not the first time that I [258] have battled with the barbarism of slavery. I battle still, as the bloody monster retreats to its last citadel; and, God willing, I mean to hold on if it takes what remains to me of life.

The reception which the address met with showed clearly that whatever might be the current of opinion elsewhere, the people of Massachusetts were with Sumner. Fortunate the senator who had such a constituency!

The convention approved the admission of negroes to suffrage as a part and condition of reconstruction.¹³⁸ A similar ground was taken by the Republicans of Vermont, Iowa, and Minnesota; but generally Republican State conventions shrank from an explicit declaration. Notwithstanding the prudent reserve of politicians, there was however, during the recess of Congress, a growing conviction among the Northern people that governments at once loyal, stable, and securing the rights of all, white and black, could not be established in the rebel States without admitting the freedmen to a share in them. It was Sumner who took the lead in spreading and organizing that conviction. He wrote to Lieber, September 18:—

As to reconstruction, I know, of course, the difficulties of detail, tasking patience; but the general principles are found in national security and national faith. If the President had from the beginning seen these duties clearly, and headed that way in all that he said and did, the whole North would have been with him, and the South would not have been recalcitrant. As it is, all for the present is uncertain. Controversy is certain; division probable. But I still trust to that good Providence which has conducted us thus far safely. Meanwhile we must work. My, speech [September 14] was received with perfect harmony and assent. Perhaps I never before stated better the precise opinions of Massachusetts. Stanton is here; he thanked me very cordially for my address to him in the speech, and said that I asked him to do only what he wanted to do. I am glad that they have got over the nonsense of trying Jefferson Davis by a jury. The whole idea has been weak and impossible from the beginning.

Again, October 12:—

Send me the reference to your article on “Republican government;” also any other references to history or discussion explaining its meaning. Words receive expansion and elevation with time. Our fathers builded wiser than they knew. Did they simply mean a guarantee against a king? Something more, I believe—all of which was not fully revealed to themselves, but which we must now declare in the light of our institutions. We know more than [259] Montesquieu on this question. The time has come to fix a meaning upon those words. We cannot avoid it. Let us affix a meaning which will make us an example and will elevate mankind. To this end I spoke in my eulogy of Mr. Lincoln, and I find from all parts of the country an echo. If the President had not set himself the other way, there would have been one universal voice. What one man in the same time ever did so much to arrest a great cause? My point is that liberty, equality before the law, and the consent of the governed are essential elements of a republican government.

To Mr. Bright, November 14:—

I enclose letters just received from my correspondent, Dr. Lieber, our most learned publicist, a Prussian by birth, but for forty years a citizen here, having with us something of the position which Panizzi obtained with you. I think you will be interested in what he says about arbitration. The President's “experiment” appears to be breaking down; but at what fearful cost! The rebels have once more been put on their legs; the freedmen and the Unionists are down. This is very sad. I cannot be otherwise than unhappy as I think of it. Our session is uncertain. Nobody can tell certainly what pressure the President will bring to bear on Congress, and how Congress can stand it. I think that Congress will insist upon time—this will be our first demand; and then generally upon adequate guarantees. There are unpleasant stories from Washington; but we must persevere to the end.

To Mrs. Waterston, November 19:—

Tempted to an article in the last Atlantic¹³⁹ by its title, I read it with delight, enjoying its elegance of style, its sympathy with books, and its knowledge; and marvelling at the allusions to my small possessions, I could not imagine who wrote it. At last I saw in a newspaper that it was by you, and then I understood. Style, knowledge, sympathy with books, and kindness to me were all explained. I hope that you will write more. Such a pen ought not to be idle.

While at home Sumner prepared an article for a magazine, entitled ‘Clemency and Common Sense,’ the subject of which was a curiosity of literature: two lines from the Latin,¹⁴⁰—the first connecting clemency with stability in the State, and the second warning against extremes—which, doubtful in origin and running into variations, have obtained a remarkable currency among proverbs.¹⁴¹ It was packed with bibliographical research, [260] which was enlivened by a pleasant commentary on authors and editions—largely upon Philip Gaulthier's poem on Alexander the Great, a copy of which, once owned by John Mitford, had come into Sumner's possession. The moral at the end, for enforcing which the paper was written, was that while applying a wise clemency there must be no weak surrender of essential rights, no neglect of sacred obligations to loyal men of every race. ‘There must be no vengeance on enemies; but there must be no sacrifice of friends.’ Follow common-sense; and while escaping from the dangers of civil war, centralism, government by military power, and distrust of fellow-citizens, do not drive upon opposite perils—concessions to slavery or its spirit, or a premature restoration of the disarmed insurgents to political power without the surest guaranty of the rights of loyal persons, whether white or black, and especially the freedmen.

Between the time of Mr. Lincoln's death and the beginning of the session of Congress in December, 1865, Sumner wrote several brief letters and communications with a view to promote the cause of equal suffrage, which found their way to the public—some to colored people in the South who sought his counsel and sympathy,¹⁴² one to the mayor of Boston,¹⁴³ and another to the editor of the New York Independent.¹⁴⁴

At this period death severed Sumner's relations with several friends with whom he had been more or less intimate. Edward Everett, whom he had known from youth, died Jan. 15, 1865. Their correspondence began as early as 1833; and while they had differed in domestic politics, they were sympathetic on literary and foreign questions.¹⁴⁵ Mr. Everett supported steadily the government during the Civil War, and gave his vote as citizen and member of the electoral college to Mr. Lincoln in 1864. Shortly before Mr. Everett's death Sumner recommended his appointment as minister to Paris. On account of his duties as senator, he was obliged to decline the invitation of the Legislature of Massachusetts to deliver a eulogy upon one whom he regarded as ‘a great example of genius, learning, and eloquence, consecrated to patriotic service.’¹⁴⁶ [261]

Sumner had enjoyed a long friendship with George Livermore, a Boston merchant resident in Cambridge, a lover of books, a collector of manuscripts and rare pamphlets, and interested in historical research. He was conservative by temperament; and while withholding approval at times of Sumner's radical action against slavery, he always followed him with personal sympathy. He was an invalid at home when Sumner returned from Washington, and the latter sought his bedside, bearing to him books and pamphlets most likely to interest him. Mr. Livermore's last note to him, dated June 7, was grateful and affectionate. He died in August. Sumner at once published a tribute to his friend, in which he commemorated his refined tastes, generous sympathies, and enthusiasm in bibliography.¹⁴⁷

Sumner's early friend, the seventh Earl of Carlisle,¹⁴⁸ died Dec. 5, 1864, at Castle Howard, Yorkshire. His disease was paralysis, which had disabled him in the summer. His niece, the Duchess of Argyll, kept Sumner informed of the progress of his malady, and his brother, Charles Howard,¹⁴⁹ communicated the tidings of his death. The portraits of Prescott and Sumner hung in his chamber to the last. Sumner wrote to the duchess, December 27, when, by telegram from Cape Race, he heard of the earl's death:--

I do not think justice is done to his powers. His moral nature was so beautiful that people forget the rest; or perhaps he was to blame for not entering with more activity and directness into government. I have lost a friend; but there is no good cause which does not suffer by his death. I should like to know who was with him at Castle Howard during his last days. While I was there he took me to the tomb where he was to lie, and spoke calmly and beautifully of death.

To Charles Howard, M. P., December 27:—

I was prepared for the sad intelligence which the telegraph flashed a thousand miles from Cape Race, and which your kind letter now confirms. I had feared from the first moment when I learned the character of his illness that it could have but one end; but I hoped by every packet to hear of some favorable change—at least that he had been able to communicate freely with those about him whom he loved so well. But his nature was so gentle, his heart so warm, and his faith so perfect, that I do not doubt his [262] entire submission to the painful decree under which he suffered, or his grateful sense of all the blessings by which he was surrounded. It will be for us to imitate his example. But in life, as in death, he is an example. He was one of the best of men; I have never seen a better. Clarendon said of Falkland “that he was a person of inimitable sweetness and delight in conversation, of flowing and obliging humanity and goodness to mankind, and of primitive simplicity and integrity of life;” but I do not believe that the hero of King Charles deserved this praise more than him whom I now honor. I always looked for him to take a more active part in government, and to bring his beautiful nature to bear directly on the times. I do not doubt his powers had he been so disposed. Perhaps his hesitation may be attributed to that refined artistic sense which sought to finish whatever he touched. Many of his speeches were “gems.” I think they have been so called by others; and I remember well that Mr. Webster spoke with admiration of that made to the electors of the West Riding when he was defeated, saying that it was by far the best at that general election. It was a beautiful effort. While in the United States he mingled much with people, and I was always struck by his singular sagacity or intuition with regard to character. He seemed to know men after a brief interview, as if he had seen them habitually. He took most to the simple and retiring, and especially liked the Abolitionists; this was when Abolitionists were in very little favor. I am touched by his recollection of me, and shall cherish it always. Let me confess that from the beginning I felt for him a peculiar friendship, land he seemed to feel the same for me. While I was an invalid his sympathy was complete and constant. I cannot forget his letters then. For more than a quarter of a century this friendship has been to me a treasure and a solace. It is gone now; and England, with which he was so much associated in my mind, seems to me less England than before. I know how his family loved and cherished him, and therefore I can appreciate your sorrow. To lose his companionship is much; but on the other hand it is much to have had him so long, and still to have his example.

You are now with my venerated friend Lord Wensleydale. Pray let him know that I think of him and Lady Wensleydale, and remember me also to your son, of whose marriage I hear.

Richard Cobden died April 2, 1865. The intelligence was received in the United States immediately after the assassination of President Lincoln; and the public journals, in the same numbers which recounted the last scene in the life of Mr. Lincoln, gave their tributes to the English statesman who had befriended our cause. Sumner communicated officially to Mrs. Cobden the tribute to her husband's memory in the resolutions of the Republican convention of Massachusetts, adding the expression of his individual grief.¹⁵⁰ A friend of Cobden, who had introduced Sumner to him many years before (Joseph Parkes), died a few months later. His last letter to Sumner, April 5 of the same [263] year, gave an account of Cobden's last days and an estimate of his character.

Cobden's last letter¹⁵¹ to Sumner was written March 2, just one month before his death. He wrote:—

I feel it a pleasant duty to give you my best congratulations on the recent proceedings within and without your halls of Congress. The vote on the amendment of the Constitution was a memorable and glorious event in your history. Another incident—that of your introduction of a colored man to the Supreme Court—was hardly less interesting. In all these proceedings at Washington you ought to be allowed to indulge the feelings of a triumphant general.¹⁵² You served as a volunteer in the forlorn hope when the battle of emancipation seemed a hopeless struggle. Your position within the walls of Congress was very different from that of the agitators out of doors, meritorious as were their labors. I have served in both capacities, and know the difference between addressing an audience of partisans at a public meeting and a hostile Parliamentary assembly. The rapid progress of events and the sudden transformation of opinion must impart a constant excitement to your life; it must be something like the movements of the kaleidoscope! I heartily congratulate you, and wish I could shake hands and have a chat with you on all that is passing. Looking on from this distance, I cannot doubt that your great military operations are drawing to a close. The war is being driven into a corner. A few months must decide the fate of the armies in the field.

It is nothing but your great power that has kept the hands of Europe off you. . . . There is no denying the fact that your great struggle has demonstrated an amount of hostility on the part of the ruling class here, and the ruling powers of Europe generally, towards your democratic institutions for which none of us were prepared. Still, it must not be forgotten that the common people of England were true to the cause of freedom. It has never been possible to call a public open meeting, with notice, to pass a resolution in favor of the rebellion. It would have been voted down by the workingmen. I know you are greatly and justly angered at the conduct of our upper classes; but do not forget the attitude of the workers.

Sumner's French correspondents during the war–Circourt, Henri Martin, Laboulaye, Augustin Cochin, Laugel, Montalembert, the Count of Paris, and his old friends at Montpellier, the family Martins-Gordon—were all friendly to our country as well as opponents of the second empire.¹⁵³ There was hardly any public opinion in France, and the action of the government was the [264] expression of the emperor's will. Montalembert, whom Sumner had met on his later visits to Paris, rejoiced in our successes, and expressed in his letters his admiration of Sumner's career. The Count of Paris,¹⁵⁴ whose connection with our army led to his History of the Civil War, wrote frequently and at length. Writing from Claremont, Nov. 8, 1863, he testified his sympathy for ‘the liberal and national cause,’ and counted his conversations with the senator as among the most valued recollections of his sojourn in America. Sumner wrote to Richard Gordon, April 9, 1863:—

I am sad to think of your poor father's death. I was hoping soon for another letter from him, when your communication told the melancholy tidings. And so another of my Montpellier friends has dropped away. I took a great interest, you may remember, in M. Renouvier; but I have heard only of his death, and nothing more. He had several works in hand—one of them, Engraving in the Revolution; another, something mediaeval—which I fear are stopped. We used to talk of them when I visited him. But your father was my constant ally, and I cannot reconcile myself to the blow which we all feel. I wish you would have the goodness to write he about him and his last illness. I trust that he passed away without much suffering. And tell me also of your own family, and of the excellent, professor,¹⁵⁵ who I see by the “Moniteur” now on my table has been elected a corresponding member of the section of rural economy in the Academy. And how is M. Taillandier, whom I read occasionally in the “Revue,” ¹⁵⁶ and wish I could hear again? But those tranquil days of convalescence will never be mine again. My life at Moitpellier was an episode in contrast with all before and after. As I think of myself on those benches, a listener, it seems like a fable. But I should like a day for Montpellier, to visit again its library, its collection of pictures, its walls, its streets, and especially a few friends. It seems to me I should enjoy it now more than ever. Its streets alone, especially that street¹⁵⁷ from the hotel by the market to your father's home, haunt me now. Tell me something about it.

I was not surprised to hear of M. Abauzit's marriage. You will remember that I foretold it, to the incredulous amusement of the professor.¹⁵⁸ I hope that he and made are well. Pray, is that Serre¹⁵⁹ constructed which was promised to the Jardin? And how is M. Nevet, my host?

The young Ernest Duvergier de Hauranne came with letters to Sumner in 1864 from the Count of Paris and M. Cochin. He was with the senator familiarly in Washington and Boston, [265] and seems to have made a study of his personal qualities and position as a public man.¹⁶⁰ He quotes Sumner's remark, ‘L'homme daEtat doit se guider par la lumiere immuable des principes comme le marinier par laetoile du matin,’ adding that ‘this solemn language fell naturally from his lips as the intimate and familiar expression of his thoughts, in itself sufficient to describe him.’

Auguste Laugel, between whom and Sumner relations of confidence had subsisted since their meeting in Paris in 1857, visited the United States in 1864-1865. Their familiar intercourse was renewed at that time both in Boston and Washington. Sumner introduced M. Laugel and Madame Laugel, an American lady, at the White House a few days before the great tragedy.¹⁶¹

The Marquis de Chambrun arrived early in 1865, commended to Sumner by his father-in-law, Baron de Corcelle,¹⁶²—friend of Tocqueville, and at one time French ambassador at Rome, whose acquaintance Sumner had made in Paris. The marquis was from that time a frequent visitor at Sumner's lodgings, and he continued for many years to live in Washington.¹⁶³ [266]

Agassiz sailed in April, 1865, on his expedition to Brazil and the Amazon. Sumner entered heartily into the plans of the great naturalist. He wrote to him a God-speed¹⁶⁴ just before he sailed, and received letters in return in which Agassiz gave an account of his researches.¹⁶⁵

In the summer of 1865, Mr.Story and Mrs. William W. Story, long residents in Rome, were visiting relatives in Boston. It was pleasant for Sumner to meet again his old friends. He saw much of Story at dinners at the Saturday Club and on other days, and in drives in the suburbs of the city. Sumner always reverted with tenderness to old fellowships, and in intercourse with the son he revived the memories of the father. He kept up his interest in Story's work as a sculptor, and art as well as life in Italy were refreshing topics of conversation.

In the summer and autumn Sumner had his usual reunions with Longfellow at Nahant and Cambridge. One was a dinner at the Craigie House, where Burlingame, Palfrey, and Dana, ‘all original Free-Soilers,’ assisted.¹⁶⁶