. XXIII]

LINCOLN AND THE RADICALS

485

e State."1 The radical Republicans objected to this heme, and gave their adherence to one reported in the form f a bill in February, 1864, by Henry Winter Davis, which equired a majority of the white male citizens to constitute he new State, and exacted that their Constitution should rohibit slavery forever. Neither plan made any provision for negro suffrage, but in addition to the other differences. there was a germ of variance regarding the treatment of the freedmen, which, though playing no part in the present disagreement, was ominous of future dissension. The President, in writing to Michael Hahn, the newly elected governor of Louisiana under his plan of reconstruction, said: "Now you are about to have a convention, which, among other things, will probably define the elective franchise. I barely suggest for your private consideration, whether some of the colored people may not be let in-as, for instance, the very intelligent, and especially those who have fought gallantly in our ranks. They would probably help, in some trying time to come, to keep the jewel of liberty within the family of freedom." The feeling of many, if not all, of the radical Republicans was that the negroes ought to be admitted to the suffrage on an equal footing with the whites.3

March 22 Davis, an orator, and a man of brilliant parts, who thought the President's scheme neither coherent nor orderly, and objected to it strongly because it did not contain a sufficient guarantee for the abolition of slavery, made an energetic speech in the House, advocating the plan of his committee and of the radicals. May 4 this bill passed the House by a vote of 73 to 59, and, July 2, after a disagreement and a conference, it received the assent of the Senate. On July 4, the day on which Congress was to adjourn, it

1 Certain persons were exempted from the benefit of these provisions.— Lincoln, Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 443.

2 March 13, ibid., p. 496.

See proceedings on the Reconstruction bill, Senate, July 1. - Globe, p 3449; Pierce's Sumner, vol. iv. p. 217.

At half-past twelve.

reached the President, when he was in his room at the Capitol, signing bills. He laid it aside; but Sumner, Boutwell, and others were there, solicitous as to the fate of the bill, and Senator Zachariah Chandler asked the President if he intended signing it. Lincoln replied: "This bill has been placed before me a few moments before Congress adjourns. It is a matter of too much importance to be swallowed in that way.' "If it is vetoed," exclaimed Chandler, "it will damage us fearfully in the Northwest. The important point is that one prohibiting slavery in the reconstructed States." "That is the point," said the President, "on which I doubt the authority of Congress to act." "It is no more than you have done yourself," retorted the Senator. Lincoln rejoined: "I conceive that I may, in an emergency, do things on military grounds which cannot be done constitutionally by Congress;" and when Chandler, deeply chagrined, went out, he Isaid to the members of the cabinet who were with him: "I do not see how any of us now can deny and contradict what we have always said, that Congress has no constitutional power over slavery in the States."1

66

66

All the members of the cabinet 2 agreed with him, but the dissent among the Republican members of Congress was almost unanimous.3 Chase, in his diary, spoke for this feeling with a lack of candor. "The President," he wrote, 'pocketed the great bill providing for the reorganization of the rebel States as loyal States. He did not venture to veto, and so put it in his pocket. It was a condemnation of his Amnesty Proclamation and of his general policy of reconstruction, rejecting the idea of possible reconstruction with slavery, which neither the President nor his chief advisers

1 Diary of John Hay, Nicolay and Hay, vol. ix. pp. 120, 121.

2 Ibid., p. 122. Fessenden said: "I have even had my doubts as to the constitutional efficacy of your own decree of emancipation, in those cases where it has not been carried into effect by the actual advance of the army." - Ibid., p. 121.

Pierce's Sumner, vol. iv. p. 218; Blaine, Twenty Years in Congress, vol. ii. p. 43; Wilson, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, vol. iii. pp. 525,

CH. XXIII.]

RADICALS ATTACK THE PRESIDENT

487

have, in my opinion, abandoned."1 July 5 he returned to the subject, making this entry: "Garfield, Schenck, and Wetmore... were bitter against the timid and almost proslavery course of the President."2

July 8 the President, in a public proclamation, gave his reasons for not signing the bill, and went on to say: "Nevertheless, I am fully satisfied with the system for restoration contained in the bill as one very proper plan for the loyal people of any State choosing to adopt it, and I am, and at all times shall be, prepared to give the executive aid and assistance to any such people." 3

The convictions of the extremest radicals found expression in a Protest signed by Wade, who had charge of the Reconstruction bill in the Senate, and Henry Winter Davis, which was published, August 5, in the New York Tribune, and is known as the Wade-Davis manifesto. It is a bitter attack on the President, remarkable as coming from leaders of his own party after he had received a unanimous nomination from a convention that had made no pronouncement on the question at issue.4

1 Warden, p. 623.

2 Ibid., p. 625.

3 Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 545.

...

4 This is printed in full in Appleton's Annual Cyclopædia for 1864, p. 307. It is the right and duty of the supporters of the administration, they said, "to check the encroachments of the Executive on the authority of Congress, and to require it to confine itself to its proper sphere." The President's proclamation of July 8 is a "political manifesto" proposing "a grave Executive usurpation." Then follows a minute scathing and unreasonable criticism of the proclamation. "The President," they continued, "by preventing this bill from becoming a law holds the electoral votes of the rebel States at the dictation of his personal ambition. . . . He strides headlong toward the anarchy his proclamation of the 8th of December inaugurated. . . . A more studied outrage on the legislative authority of the people has never been perpetrated. . . . The President has greatly presumed on the forbearance which the supporters of his Administration have so long practised, in view of the arduous conflict in which we are engaged, and the reckless ferocity of our political opponents. But he must understand that our support is of a cause and not of a man; that the authority of Congress is paramount and must be respected; that the whole body of the Union men of Congress will not submit to be impeached by him of rash

We left the Army of the Potomac marching from Cold Harbor to the James River. Grant had hoped to destroy or defeat totally Lee's army north of Richmond, and, failing to do either, had decided to transfer his troops to the south side of the James, and from that quarter besiege the Confederates in their capital.1 This movement, which began June 12 and ended the 16th, was very successfully accomplished. The precision of the march, the skilful work of the engineers in bridging the river, the orderly crossing showed how like a fine machine the Army of the Potomac, even in its crippled state, responded to efficient direction. The strategy of Grant had deceived Lee, who failed to divine the movement, and did nothing, therefore, to impede it. The capture of Petersburg, the possession of which would undoubtedly within a brief period compel the fall of the Confederate capital, was included in the plan of the Union general, and was within his grasp. "The enemy shows no signs yet of having brought troops to the south side of Richmond," is his despatch of June 14 to Halleck. "I will have Petersburg secured, if possible, before they get there in much force. Our movement from Cold Harbor to the James River has been made with great celerity, and so far without loss or accident." 3 Sending W. F. Smith with his corps to Bermuda Hundred, Grant despatched at the same time to Butler, there in command of the Army of the James, a conditional order "to seize and hold Petersburg." This he followed up by a personal visit three days later, and an order for its immediate

and unconstitutional legislation; and if he wishes our support he must confine himself to his Executive duties to obey and execute, not make the laws to suppress by arms armed rebellion, and leave political reorganization to Congress."

1 Grant's despatch of June 5, also report July 22, 1865, O. R., vol. xxxvi. part i. pp. 11, 22. 2 Humphreys, pp. 202, 209; Walker's Hancock, p. 230. "A plan of campaign should anticipate everything which the enemy can do, and contain within itself the means of baffling him." - Military Maxims of Napoleon, p. 5.

8 O. R., vol. xl. part i. p. 12.

June 11, ibid., vol. xxxvi. part iii. p. 754.

CH. XXIII.]

FAILURE TO TAKE PETERSBURG

489

capture,1 and forthwith returned to the Army of the Potomac to hasten its crossing, and throw it forward by divisions to support this attack. If Butler had been a soldier, he would have led out all his available force and captured Petersburg the next day, knowing, as he did, that its garrison was weak, amounting to about 2500 men.2 By Grant's orders he sent forward Smith, who, by nine o'clock on the evening of June 15, had carried the formidable works to the northeast of Petersburg, gaining, in the opinion of Grant, important advantages; and if everything had been properly ordered and carried out, the city itself might that day have been captured and the Appomattox River reached.3

Beauregard

But the golden opportunity was let slip. ordered all the available troops in his department to Petersburg, and on June 16 had the works pretty well manned. He asked reinforcements from Lee, but did not get them, for he was unable to convince his commander that the Army of the Potomac had crossed the James, and was thundering at the gates of the city. Grant and Meade were now on the ground, and on June 16, 17, and 18 ordered successive assaults, which failed to take Petersburg, and resulted in a loss of about

1 June 14, Report, ibid. part i. p. 25.

2 Beauregard, who was in command, says an effective of 2200. - Century War Book, vol. iv. p. 540; see, also, Humphreys, p. 213, note 1; Nicolay and Hay, vol. ix. p. 409; O. R., vol. xl. part ii. p. 675.

8 See Grant's report, O. R., vol. xxxvi. part i. p. 25; Humphreys, pp. 210, 212, 213; letter of Hancock, June 26, Meade to Grant, June 27, unsigned and unsent letter of Grant to Meade in his handwriting, June 28, O. R., vol. xl. part i. pp. 314, 315; Hancock's report, Sept. 21, 1865, ibid., p. 304; Grant, Personal Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 293 et seq.; W. F. Smith, From Chattanooga to Petersburg, pp. 60-134; Smith's report, June 16, O. R. vol. xl. part i. p. 705; Walker, Life of Hancock, p. 231 et seq., The Second Army Corps, p. 527; Beauregard's article, Century War Book, vol. iv. p. 541; Wilkeson, Rec. of a Private, p. 156 et seq.; Life of Lee, Fitzhugh Lee, pp. 346, 347; Long's Lee, p. 373; Butler's Book, p. 687 et seq.

In the Nation of June 9, 1898, p. 445, Gen. J. D. Cox has skilfully analyzed the evidence and thrown new light upon these operations.

4 Beauregard's article, Century War Book, vol. iv. p. 541; Fitzhugh Lee, p. 348; incidentally the Confed. corr., O. R.; see, also, Humphreys, p. 213 et seq.