The Life of Lyman Trumbull

Seward's unlucky letter, which formed the occasion of Judge White's communication to Trumbull, was written shortly before Lincoln's preliminary proclamation of emancipation as to slaves in the rebel states was published. Senator Sumner took the letter to the President and asked if he had ever given his sanction to it. He replied that he had never seen it before. The newspapers got hold of this fact and made it hot for Seward. The New York Times, however, denied, apparently by authority, that Seward had ever sent any dispatch to a foreign minister without first submitting it to the President and getting his approval of it. Such a denial would be technically correct if this letter were a private communication, not intended for the public archives. Judge White, in a public letter, maintained that Seward never had submitted this letter to his chief, thus raising a question of veracity with the Times. So he wrote the foregoing letter to Trumbull hoping to find a backer in him. Trumbull replied in the following terms:

Pressing engagements and an indisposition to become involved in the controversy to which your letter of the 6th alludes must be my apology for not sooner replying to your inquiries. The want of harmony, not to say the antagonism, between some of the dispatches referred to and the avowed policy of the President would seem to afford sufficient evidence to a discerning public that both could not have emanated from the same mind. In view, therefore, of the manner in which the information in my possession was obtained, and not perceiving at this time that the public good would be subserved by any disclosure I could make, I must be excused for not undertaking to furnish extraneous evidence in the matter.

The accusations of the senatorial committee against Seward were summarized by Lincoln truthfully and with a touch of humor. "While they seemed to believe in my honesty," he said, "they also appeared to think that whenever I had in me any good purpose Seward contrived to suck it out unperceived." Seward was no more to blame for the ill success of the Union armies than any other member of the Cabinet. The inefficiency in our armies, according to Gideon Welles, resided in the President's chief military adviser, General Halleck. However that may have been, it is well that the errand of the Republican Senators to the White House proved fruitless, since, if successful, it might have created a precedent which would have upset our form of government.

G. Koerner, Minister to Spain, writes from Madrid, March 22, 1863, that he is very much discouraged about the prospects of the war. He trusts more to the exhaustion of the South than to the victories of the North.

My situation, under the circumstances, has been a very unpleasant one. For days and weeks I have avoided meetings and reunions where I would have had to answer questions, often meant in a very friendly manner, but still embarrassing to me. My family has also lived very retired, for the additional reason that we are not able to return the many hospitalities to which we are invited constantly. We have the greatest trouble in the world to live here in the most modest manner within our means. We forego many, very many, of the comforts we were accustomed to at home.

From Columbus, Georgia, October 26, 1863, Alfred Iverson (former Senator), trusting that the difficulties in which the two sections are involved may not have extinguished the feelings of courtesy and humanity in the hearts of individual gentlemen, writes, at the instance of an anxious mother, to make inquiries in reference to Charles G. Flournoy, supposed to have been captured with other Confederate soldiers by General Grant's forces in the vicinity of Vicksburg, and to be confined in a military prison at Alton, Illinois.

Walter B. Scates (former judge of the supreme court of Illinois, Democrat, now serving as assistant adjutant-general in the Thirteenth Army Corps) writes from New Orleans, November 14, 1863, that he is thoroughly convinced of the propriety and necessity of destroying slavery as a means of ending this most wicked war and preventing a recurrence of a like misfortune; is ready to take an active part in the organization of colored regiments, that they may assist in maintaining the Government and winning their own freedom.

From Topeka, Kansas, November 16, John T. Morton remonstrates against the appointment of M. W. Delahay as judge of the United States District Court, because he is utterly incompetent. Says he gave up the practice of his profession in Illinois because he was so ignorant that nobody would employ him. O. M. Hatch confirms Morton; says the appointment is unfit to be made; has known Delahay personally for twenty years. Jesse K. Dubois and D. L. Phillips confirm Hatch.

Jackson Grimshaw writes from Quincy, December 3:

Will the Senate confirm that miserable man Delahay for Judge in Kansas? The appointment is disgraceful to the President, who knew Delahay and all his faults, but the disgrace to the Administration will be greater if the Senate confirms him. He is no lawyer, could not try a case properly even in a Justice's court and has no character. Mr. Buchanan in his worst days never made so disgraceful an appointment to the bench.

Herndon relates that Delahay's expenses to the Chicago nominating convention, as an expected delegate from Kansas, were promised by Lincoln. He was not a delegate and never had the remotest chance of being one, but he came as a "hustler" and Lincoln paid his expenses all the same. He was nevertheless appointed judge, was impeached by Congress in 1872 under charges of incompetency, corruption, and drunkenness on and off the bench, and resigned while the impeachment committee was taking testimony.

Major-General John M. Palmer writes from Chattanooga, December 18, 1863:

The Illinois troops (now voters) are beginning to talk about the Presidency. Mr. Lincoln is by far the strongest man with the army, and no combination could be made which would impair his strength with this army unless, perhaps, Grant's candidacy would. The people of Tennessee would now vote for Lincoln, it is thought by many. Andy Johnson is understood to be a Presidential aspirant by most people in this state. He is not as popular as I once thought he was, though if he will exert himself to do so he can be Governor, or Senator, when the state is reorganized. He is understood to favor emancipation, and the people are prepared for it, but I fear personal questions will complicate the matter. The truth is all these Southern politicians are behind the times sadly. There is nothing practical about them. Now, when the whole social and political fabric is broken up, new foundations might be laid for institutions which would in their effects within twenty years compensate the State for all its losses, heavy as they are. But not much will be done, I fear, because the politicians don't seem to know what is required. One fourth of the people are destitute, and yet the leaders have not humanity and energy enough to induce them to organize for mutual assistance. There are farms enough in middle Tennessee deserted by their rebel owners to give temporary homes to thousands, and yet no one will take the responsibility of putting them in possession, but the leaders quietly suffer the poor to wander homeless all over the country.

Colonel Fred Hecker writes from Lookout Valley, Tennessee, December 21:

Again we are encamped in Lookout Valley after heavy fighting and marching from November 22 to December 16, stopping a victorious march at the gates of Knoxville, returning with barefooted, ragged men, but cheerful hearts. This was more than a fight. It was a wild chase after an enemy making no stand, leaving everywhere in our hands, muskets, cannon, ammunition, provisions, stores, etc., and large numbers of prisoners. These, as well as the populations, were unanimous in declaring that the people of the South are tired of the war and rebellion and are in earnest in the desire for peace and order. I conversed much with men of different positions in life, education, and political parties, from the enraged secessionist to the unwavering Union man just returning from his hiding-place, and I am fully convinced that most of the work is done. A great many had no idea what war was till both armies, passing over the country, had taught them the lesson, and there is such a prevailing union feeling in North Carolina, northern Alabama, and Georgia, as I have ascertained in a hundred conversations with men of that section of the country, that the result of the next campaign is not the least doubtful. You remember what I told you about General Grant at a time when this excellent man was pursued by malice and slander. I feel greatly satisfied that his enemies are now forced to do him justice. The battle of Chattanooga, with all its great consequences, was a masterpiece of planning and manœuvring, and every man of us is proud to have been an actor in this ever memorable action. Revolution and war sift men and consume reputations with the voracity of Kronos, and it is good that it is so.

From Chattanooga, January 24, 1864, Major-General John M. Palmer writes:

I saw Grant yesterday and had a conversation with him. Peace-at-any-price men would have a hard bargain in him as their candidate. He is a soldier and, of course, regards negroes at their value as military materials. He has just enough sentiment and humanity about him to make him a careful general, and he esteems men, black or white, as too valuable to be wasted. He does not desire to be a candidate for the Presidency; prefers his present theatre of service to any other. Nor will the officers of the army willingly give him up. He has no enemies, and it is very difficult to understand how he can have any. He is honest, brave, frank, and modest. Is perfectly willing that his subordinates shall win all the reputation and glory possible; will help them when he can, with the most unselfish earnestness. He demands no adulation, and gives credit for every honest effort, and if efforts are unsuccessful he has the sense, and the sense of justice, to understand the reasons for failure and to attach to them their proper importance. Nobody is jealous of Grant and he is jealous of no one. He is not a great man. He is precisely equal to his situation. His success has been wonderful and must be attributed, I think, to his fine common sense and the faculty he possesses in a wonderful degree of making himself understood. I do not think he will be anybody's candidate for the Presidency this time, but after that his stock will be at a premium for anything he wants. Mr. Lincoln is popular with the army, and will, as far as the soldiers can vote, beat anything the Copperheads can start. No civilian or mere book-making general can get votes in the army against him.

J. K. Dubois, Springfield, January 30, says:

We are receiving daily old regiments who are reënlisting and are sent home on furlough for thirty days to see their friends and recruit. This is very damaging to the Copperhead crew of our state. They swear and groan over this fact, for they have preached and affirmed that the soldiers were held in subjection by their officers, and that as soon as their time was up they would show their officers and the President that they would have nothing more to do with this Abolition crusade. And so when these same men's time will have expired, commencing next June, they say to rebels both front and rear: "We were at the beginning of this fight and we intend also to be at the end." All honor to these brave and loyal men.

Israel B. Bigelow, Brownsville, Texas, May 5, 1864, says that before the war it was commonly said that soil and climate would regulate slavery.

In theory this was right if slavery was right, and whether right or wrong, slavery is declining, and with my very hearty concurrence—to my own astonishment. No man ever regarded a Massachusetts Abolitionist with greater abhorrence than myself, and yet I have subscribed to Mr. Lincoln's ironclad oath. Time works wondrous changes in men's feelings, and there are thousands of slaveholders in this state who, two years ago, cursed Mr. Lincoln and his Government, who are now willing to have their slaves freed if the war can be brought to an end.

We now come upon the first evidence of any difference, of a personal kind, existing between Senator Trumbull and President Lincoln. Opposing views on questions of public policy, such as the Confiscation Bill and arbitrary arrests, have already been noted. A difference of another kind is disclosed in a letter from N. B. Judd, Minister to Prussia. Judd had returned to his post after a visit to this country. He wrote to Trumbull under date, Berlin, January, 1864:

When I last saw you your conviction was that L. would be reëlected. I tell you combinations can't prevent it. Events possibly may. But until some event occurs, is it wise or prudent to give an impression of hostility for no earthly good? Usually your judgment controls your feelings. Don't let the case be reversed now. Although a severe thinker you are not constitutionally a croaker. Excuse the freedom of my writing. I have given you proofs that I am no holiday friend of yours.

The next piece of evidence found is a letter from Trumbull himself to H. G. McPike, of Alton, Illinois, one of the few letters of which he kept a copy in his own handwriting:

Washington, Feb. 6, 1864.

The feeling for Mr. Lincoln's reëlection seems to be very general, but much of it I discover is only on the surface. You would be surprised, in talking with public men we meet here, to find how few, when you come to get at their real sentiments, are for Mr. Lincoln's reëlection. There is a distrust and fear that he is too undecided and inefficient to put down the rebellion. You need not be surprised if a reaction sets in before the nomination, in favor of some man supposed to possess more energy and less inclination to trust our brave boys in the hands and under the leadership of generals who have no heart in the war. The opposition to Mr. L. may not show itself at all, but if it ever breaks out there will be more of it than now appears. Congress will do its duty, and it is not improbable we may pass a resolution to amend the Constitution so as to abolish slavery forever throughout the United States.

The third scrap is a letter from Governor Yates to Trumbull dated Springfield, February 26, to whom, perhaps, McPike showed Trumbull's letter quoted above. Yates writes:

As you are a Senator from Illinois, the state of Mr. Lincoln, please be cautious as to your course till I see you. I have such strong regard for you personally that I do not wish either enemies or friends on our side, who would like to supplant you, to get any undue advantage over you.

Trumbull believed there was a lack of efficiency in the use made, by the executive branch of the Government, of the means placed at its disposal for putting down the rebellion. That such was his opinion was made clear by his participation in the anti-Seward movements of the previous year. Whether the opinion was justified or not, it was so generally entertained in Washington that if the nomination had rested in the hands of the Senators and Representatives in Congress, Lincoln would have had very few votes in the Baltimore Convention. Albert G. Riddle describes a scene in the White House in February, 1864, illustrative of public sentiment in Washington at that time. The reception room of the Executive Mansion was filled with persons, most of whom were inveighing against Lincoln, who was not present. The one most loud and bitter against the President was Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts. His assaults were so amazing that Riddle cautioned him to choose some other place than the Executive Mansion for uttering them; advised him to make his speeches in the Senate, or get himself elected to the coming National Union Convention and then denounce Lincoln, where his words might have some effect. Wilson replied that he knew the people were for Lincoln and that nothing could prevent his renomination.67

The opposition was based wholly upon charges of inefficiency and lack of earnestness and vigor in the prosecution of the war. But the feeling, both among the people at home and the soldiers in the field, was so overwhelmingly for Lincoln, that when the delegates came together in convention the opposition in Congress was silenced. After the nominations of both parties had been made, however, the previous distrust reappeared on a larger scale and became so pronounced that Lincoln himself thought that he was about to be defeated and took steps to turn the Government over to McClellan practically before the constitutional period for his own retirement.68 If Lincoln himself was in despair, other persons who shared his gloom might be excused.

The radicals who were opposed to Lincoln held a convention in the city of Cleveland on the 31st of May, 1864, and nominated General John C. Frémont for President and General John Cochrane for Vice-President. Among the leaders in this movement were B. Gratz Brown, of Missouri, Wendell Phillips, of Massachusetts, and Rev. George B. Cheever, of New York. They had the sympathy of Ben Wade, of Ohio, and Henry Winter Davis, of Maryland, and they reckoned upon the support of many radical Germans of the fiery type, perhaps sufficiently numerous to turn the votes of some important Western States. On the 21st of September, Frémont withdrew as a candidate and on the 23d the President asked for the resignation of Montgomery Blair as Postmaster-General, which the latter immediately gave. The simultaneous retirement of Frémont and Blair, who were known to be enemies to each other, led to a suspicion that there was some connection between the two events. The account given by Nicolay and Hay conveys no hint of this, but is confused and self-contradictory. Evidence is available to indicate that Frémont made his retirement conditional upon the removal of Blair from the Cabinet, and that Lincoln, although reluctant to lose Blair from his official family, deemed it a necessity to get the third ticket out of the presidential contest, for public reasons.69

In the Senatorial contest of 1867 the false accusation was made that Trumbull had refused to make speeches in favor of Lincoln's reëlection; whereas he was the leading speaker at the great Union Mass Meeting at Springfield on the 5th of October, 1864, which was addressed by Doolittle, Yates, and Logan also. His correspondence shows that he spoke at several other places during that month.

But speech-making did not gain the victory in the election of 1864. That fight was won by General Sherman at Atlanta, aided by General Sheridan in the Valley of Virginia, and by Admiral Farragut at Mobile.

CHAPTER XIV

THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION

Donn Piatt, meeting William H. Seward on the street on the morning immediately after the issuing of the preliminary proclamation of emancipation, complimented him for his share in the act, whereupon the following colloquy ensued:

"Yes," said Seward, "we have let off a puff of wind over an accomplished fact."

"What do you mean, Mr. Seward?"

"I mean that the emancipation proclamation was uttered in the first gun fired at Sumter and we have been the last to hear it. As it is, we show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free."70

Seward did not say this in a censorious spirit, but what he did say was true. The proclamation applied only to states and parts of states under rebel control. It did not emancipate any slaves within the emancipator's reach. Whether it freed anybody anywhere was a matter of dispute. What its legal effect would be after the war should cease, no one could say. Moreover, if the President had legal authority to issue the proclamation, then he, or a successor in office, could revoke it.

The Constitution had not given to the Federal Government power to emancipate slaves. The proclamation did not purport to rest upon any constitutional power, but upon war powers solely. But war powers last only while war lasts, and when it comes to an end, all sorts of people have all sorts of opinions as to the validity of acts done under them.

Public opinion at the time was keenly alive to doubts regarding the President's powers in this particular. Congress was flooded with petitions calling for action to confirm and validate the proclamation, but the way was beset with difficulties. Should the Constitution be amended, or would an act of Congress suffice? If the Constitution should be amended, should it abolish slavery everywhere or only in the places designated by the President? Should loyal slave-owners be compensated, as Lincoln desired? What were the chances of getting such an amendment ratified by three fourths of the states? And for this purpose should the rebel states be counted as still in the Union? If so, the requisite number might not be obtained.

The first resolution offered in Congress for such an amendment of the Constitution was proposed in the House on the 14th of December, 1863, by Representative James F. Wilson of Iowa, in these words:

Section 1. Slavery being incompatible with a free government is forever prohibited in the United States; and involuntary servitude shall be permitted only as a punishment for crime.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce the foregoing section by appropriate legislation.

On the 13th of January, 1864, Senator Henderson, of Missouri, offered a resolution to amend the Constitution by adding thereto the following article:

Slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, shall not exist in the United States.

These resolutions were referred to the Judiciary Committees of the respective houses.

On the 10th of February, Trumbull reported the Henderson Resolution from the Committee on the Judiciary, with an amendment in the nature of a substitute in the following terms:

Article XIII

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

The phraseology followed pretty closely that of the Ordinance of 1787. Trumbull adopted it because it was among the household words of the nation. To become effective as a part of the Constitution, this article required the votes of two thirds of each branch of Congress and ratification by the legislatures of three fourths of the States.

Presenting the resolution to the Senate, Trumbull said that nobody could doubt that the conflict then raging, and all the desolation and death consequent thereon, had their origin in the institution of slavery; that even those who contended that the trouble was due to the agitators and abolitionists of the North must admit that if there were no slavery there would be no abolitionists. So also it must be admitted that if there had been no slavery there would have been no secession and no civil war. All the strife that had ever afflicted the nation, or all that could be considered menacing to the country's peace, had had its source in that institution. Various laws had been passed by Congress to give freedom to slaves of rebel owners and even these laws had not been executed properly. The President of the United States had issued a preliminary proclamation in September, 1862, and a final one in January, 1863, declaring all slaves under rebel control free, but not those under our control. The legal effect of such a proclamation had been a matter of dispute. Some persons held that the President had the constitutional power to issue it and that all the slaves designated were free, or would become so whenever the rebellion should be crushed; while others contended that it had no effect either de jure or de facto. It was the duty of the lawmaking power to put an end to this uncertainty by some act more comprehensive than any that had yet been adopted. Would a mere act of Congress suffice? It had been an axiom of all parties from the beginning of the Government that Congress had no authority to interfere with slavery in the states where it existed. We had authority, of course, to put down the enemies of the country and the right to slay them in battle; we had authority to confiscate their property; but did that give us authority to slay the friends of the Union, to confiscate their property, or to free their slaves? In his opinion the only conclusive and irrepealable way to make an end of slavery was by an amendment of the Constitution, and the only practical question remaining was whether the resolution recommended by the committee could secure a two-thirds vote in Congress and the concurrence of three fourths of the states. There were thirty-five states, including those in rebellion, and two territories about to become states. Presumably the affirmative votes of twenty-eight states would be required for ratification.