War Democrat and Border State man.1 It was entirely in line with the policy of Republicans to nominate War Democrats for important positions, thereby giving significance to the name Union party and strengthening their ticket with the people.2 Another sentiment unquestionably had influence. The Republicans were still disturbed at the taunt that theirs was a sectional party, that both their candidates in 1860 had come from the North; and here was an opportunity to end that reproach by choosing for Vice-President a man from the South who had done good service for the Union cause.3 A severe scrutiny of Johnson's personal character would have prevented this nomination, and either of his competitors was fitter for the place, but the ballot for Vice-President was a rush to the rising man. Johnson had 200 votes, Hamlin1 150, Dickinson of New York 108, various other candidates an aggregate of 61; but before the result was announced all of the delegates except twenty-six changed their votes to Johnson, whose nomination was thus made almost unanimous.5 In his reply to a delegation from the National Union League, who congratulated him, Lincoln made use of apt and memorable words. "I do not allow myself," he said, "to suppose that either the convention or the League have concluded to decide that I am either the greatest or best man in America, but rather they have concluded it is not best to swap horses while crossing the river, and have further concluded that I am not so poor a horse that they might not make a botch of it in trying to swap."6 1 Lincoln, Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 528; Nicolay and Hay, vol. ix. p. 72. For the Nicolay-McClure controversy see McClure, Lincoln and Men of War Times, appendix; Life of Hannibal Hamlin, C. E. Hamlin, chap. xxxvi and Supplement; Morse's Lincoln, p. 264. 2 "We were accustomed during the war to turning down our own men for Democrats who were not so good, but who were better than the majority of their party."- Riddle, Recollections of War Times, p. 282. 3 Johnson was military governor of Tennessee. • Hamlin was the actual Vice-President. 5 Greeley's Amer. Conflict, vol. ii. p. 660; Stanwood, A Hist. of the Pres., p. 303. • Lincoln, Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 532. The remarks are somewhat CH. XXIII.] THE FRENCH OCCUPATION OF MEXICO 471 During the military and political campaigns Congress was in session. The House of Representatives attempted to interfere with the management of foreign relations by the Executive, and, April 4, under the leadership of Henry Winter Davis, of Maryland, adopted unanimously a resolution expressing in substance its disapproval of the occupation of Mexico by France, and declaring that the establishment of any monarchical government in America by overthrowing a republic, did not accord with the policy of the United States. The House spoke indubitably the public opinion of the country, but it was, nevertheless, an injudicious utterance. Our democracy and our representatives in Congress probably will never learn that the delicate questions of diplomacy, until they reach the point where constitutionally the Senate and the House must be partakers in the action, ought to be left to the executive. It will prove generally, as it did certainly in this case, that the President and the Secretary of State can deal with such matters with greater foresight and wisdom. The course differently given in Appleton's Annual Cyclopædia, 1864, p. 789. Touching the nomination of Lincoln and Johnson, I will give two citations from the N. Y. World, which was the ablest and most influential Democratic journal in the country, the organ of the high-toned Democrats of New York City and State, and which inspired throughout the country the most respectable opposition to the administration. It said, June 9: "The age of statesmen is gone; the age of rail-splitters and tailors, of buffoons, boors, and fanatics, has succeeded. . . . In a crisis of the most appalling magnitude, requiring statesmanship of the highest order, the country is asked to consider the claims of two ignorant, boorish, third-rate backwoods lawyers, for the highest stations in the government. Such nominations, in such a conjuncture, are an insult to the common-sense of the people. God save the Republic!" It said, June 20: "A leading member of one of the great religious organizations which have recently been passing resolutions and sending deputations to the White House, and who was intrusted with the speech-making part of the business, publicly describes the demeanor of Mr. Lincoln on this occasion as a buffoon and gawk-disgracefully unfit for the high office' to which he again aspires. He says that he departed from the East Room with a sickening sense of hopelessness of our cause which has never left him since. . . . Here again is a Republican Senator honored by the Empire State, and held in high esteem by the religious denomination of which he is a member, reported to have left the President's presence because his self-respect would not permit him to stay and listen to the language which he employed." of our diplomacy and the result in Mexico show with what patience and discretion Lincoln and Seward handled this affair, preserving peace with France during our critical period, and gaining in the end all that the most ardent shouter for war could have desired, with a moral influence worth troops of soldiers and many battle-ships. Sumner deserves credit for his part in the transaction. When the resolution went to the Senate, it was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations, where his influence and power as chairman were sufficient to keep it slumbering the rest of the session.2 An additional evidence that the public mind was stirred by the French invasion is one of the resolutions adopted by the Union National Convention. Ostensibly an approval of the position of the government, the spirit of it was the same as that of the resolve of the House of Representatives. That Lincoln clung to his prerogative is evident from his reference to this resolution in his brief letter accepting his renomination, which is the more significant because he alluded to no other but the formal tribute to the soldiers and sailors. "While," he wrote, "the resolution in regard to the supplanting of republican government upon the western continent is fully concurred in, there might be misunderstanding were I not to say that the position of the government in relation to the action of France in Mexico, as assumed through the State Department and approved and indorsed by the convention, among the measures and acts of the executive, will be faithfully maintained so long as the state of facts shall leave that position pertinent and applicable."8 Slavery was virtually dead, but it was not legally abolished. To the congressional acts dealing with it, to the President's 1 Edward Everett wrote Motley, April 11: "Mr. Seward has certainly managed the delicate affair with discretion, as he has many others. Our House of Representatives have, by a unanimous vote, passed a resolution couched in moderate terms, but of pretty significant import."- Motley's Letters, vol. ii. p. 159. 2 Pierce's Sumner, vol. iv. p. 118. Сн. ХХІІІ.] AMENDMENT ABOLISHING SLAVERY 473 Proclamation of Emancipation, there were exceptions, while there were differences of opinion as to their scope. To make freedom sure, to rest it on an impregnable legal base, to "meet and cover all cavils," 1 a constitutional amendment was necessary, abolishing slavery forever.2 A movement with this end 1 Lincoln's words, June 9, ibid., p. 529. 2 Senator Trumbull, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, one of the ablest lawyers of the Senate, in reporting such a constitutional amendment, March 28, stated with clearness this point. After speaking of the congressional enactments against slavery, he considered the proclamation, saying: "The force and effect of this proclamation are understood very differently by its advocates and opponents. The former insist that it is and was within the constitutional power of the President, as commander-in-chief, to issue such a proclamation; that it is the noblest act of his life or the age; and that by virtue of its provisions all slaves within the localities designated become, ipso facto, free; while others declare that it was issued without competent authority, and has not and cannot effect the emancipation of a single slave. These latter insist that the most the President could do, as commander of the armies of the United States, would be, in the absence of legislation, to seize and free the slaves which came within the control of the army; that the power exercised by the commander-in-chief, as such, must be a power exercised in fact, and that beyond his lines where his armies cannot go, his orders are mere brutum fulmen, and can neither work a forfeiture of property nor freedom of slaves; that the power of Frémont and Hunter, commanders-in-chief for a certain time in their departments, who assumed to free the slaves within their respective commands, was just as effective within the boundaries of their commands as that of the commander-in-chief of all the departments, who as commander could not draw to himself any of his presidential powers; and that neither had or could have any force except within the lines and where the army actually had the power to execute the order; that to that extent the previous acts of Congress would free the slaves of rebels, and if the President's proclamation had any effect it would only be to free the slaves of loyal men, for which the laws of the land did not provide. I will not undertake to say which of these opinions is correct, nor is it necessary for my purposes to decide. It is enough for me to show that any and all these laws and proclamations, giving to each the largest effect claimed by its friends, are ineffectual to the destruction of slavery. The laws of Congress, if faithfully executed, would leave remaining the slaves belonging to loyal masters, which, considering how many are held by children and females not engaged in the rebellion, would be no inconsiderable number, and the President's proclamation excepts from its provisions all of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, and a good portion of Louisiana and Virginia — almost half the slave States. If then we are to get rid of the institution, we must have some more efficient way of doing it than by the proclamations that have been in view began at this session of Congress. December 14, 1863, Representatives Ashley of Ohio and Wilson of Iowa each introduced into the House such an amendment. Somewhat later similar propositions differing in phraseology were brought before the Senate by Henderson of Missouri and Sumner, and were referred to the Judiciary Committee, whose chairman, Trumbull, reported as the joint resolution to be considered what is now the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution. April 8 this passed the Senate by a vote of 38 to 6. June 15 the House voted on it; the yeas were 93, the nays 65, not voting 23; lacking the requisite two-thirds, it was lost. In order to be able to move a reconsideration of the amendment, Ashley changed his vote to the negative, and later made the proper motion, which was entered on the journal and gave him the opportunity to call up the resolution at some future day. Here the matter rested for this session.1 The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and such parts of the Act issued or the acts of Congress which have been passed. . . . In my judgment, the only effectual way of ridding the country of slavery, and so that it cannot be resuscitated, is by an amendment of the Constitution forever prohibiting it within the jurisdiction of the United States. This amendment adopted, not only does slavery cease, but it can never be re-established by State authority, or in any other way than by again amending the Constitution. Whereas, if slavery should now be abolished by act of Congress or proclamation of the President, assuming that either has the power to do it, there is nothing in the Constitution to prevent any State from re-establishing it." — Globe, pp. 1313, 1314. Reverdy Johnson, another able lawyer, said, April 5, in the debate on the constitutional amendment: "In my judgment, if the war was to terminate to-day, or whenever it shall terminate, without any provision being made for the condition of the slaves who have not come within the actual control of the military authority of the United States, they will be decided by the courts of the United States to be slaves still. If the rebellion was terminated to-morrow, and the authority of the United States was reinstated in every one of the States now in rebellion, the proclamation would have no influence at all upon the status of those bondsmen who were not brought antecedently under the influence and control of the military power." — Ibid., p. 1421. See Dunning, Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction, p. 50 et seq. 1 A good account of this movement may be found in Sumner's Works, vol. viii. p. 351 et seq.; Pierce's Sumner, vol. iv. p. 183. |