Tag: Determination

Reverdy Johnson to Abraham Lincoln, July 16, 1862

Other Primary Sources

Reverdy Johnson to Abraham Lincoln, September 5, 1862

Abraham Lincoln to George Shepley, November 21, 1862

The Daily Picayune, “Notice of Election,” December 2, 1862

George Shepley to Abraham Lincoln, December 9, 1862

How Historians Interpret

“The failure of the Peninsular campaign marked a key turning point in the war. If McClellan had won, his triumph – combined with other successes of Union arms that spring, including the capture of New Orleans, Memphis, and Nashville – might well have ended the war with slavery virtually untouched. But in the wake of such a major Union defeat, Lincoln decided that the peculiar institution must no longer be treated gently. It was time, the thought, to deal with it head-on. As he told the artist Francis B. Carpenter in 1864, ‘ It had got to be midsummer, 1862. Things had gone from bad to worse, until I felt that we had reached the end of our rope on the plan of operations we had been pursuing; that we had about played our last card, and must change our tactics, or lose the game! I now determined upon the adoption of the emancipation policy.’ On July 26, the president used similar language in warning Reverdy Johnson that his forbearance was legendary but finite. To New York attorney Edwards Pierrepont, Lincoln similarly explained: ‘It is my last trump card, Judge. If that don’t do, we must give up.’ By playing it he said he hoped to ‘win the trick.’ To pave the way for an emancipation proclamation, Lincoln during the first half of 1862 carefully prepared the public mind with both words and deeds.”

— Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (2 volumes, originally published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008) Unedited Manuscript By Chapter, Lincoln Studies Center, Volume 2, Chapter 27 (PDF), pp. 2982

“If Lincoln’s endorsement of [John W.] Phelps indicated the direction the government was taking, an even clearer indication was Lincoln’s response to the Maryland unionist Reverdy Johnson. Back in June, acting on diplomatic complaints about Butler’s treatment of foreign consuls in New Orleans, the State Department had dispatched Johnson to Louisiana to investigate the matter. Overstepping his mission, Johnson reported back to Lincoln on July 16 that Louisiana unionists were becoming alienated by the drift toward emancipation, especially by the policies of General Phelps – which Lincoln had already effectively endorsed. Loyal Louisianans were beginning to worry that it was the ‘purpose of the Govt to force the Emancipation of the slaves.’ Johnson warned Lincoln that if Phelps was allowed to proceed unchecked, ‘this State cannot be, for years, if ever, re-instated in the Union.’ Lincoln’s answer to Johnson was uncharacteristically blunt. He dismissed Johnson’s claim that unionist sentiment in Louisiana was being ‘crushed out’ by Phelp’s policy. All they had to do to stop Phelps was stop the rebellion, he noted … Then he made it unmistakably clear that the time for a more concerted assault on slavery had come. ‘I am a patient man,’ Lincoln told Johnson, ‘but it may as well be understood, once for all, that I shall not surrender this game leaving any available card unplayed.'”

— James Oakes, Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery In The United States, 1861-1865, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013), 249-250

“When Reverdy Johnson complained about the abrasive announcements coming from General John W. Phelps, Benjamin Butler’s abolitionist lieutenant who was now overseeing the military occupation of New Orleans, Lincoln snapped back that any Louisianans who were ‘annoyed by the presence of General Phelps’ had only to recall that Phelps was there because of them. And if they thought Phelps was bad, they should consider what Lincoln might do next. ‘If they can conceive of anything worse than General Phelps, within my power, would they not better be looking out for it?’ Wisdom should tell them that ‘the way to avert all this is simply to take their place in the Union upon the old terms.’ If they refused, they shouldn’t be surprised if they ‘receive harder blows than lighter ones.'”

— Allen C. Guelzo, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004), 140

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PRIVATE

Executive Mansion, Washington, July 26, 1862.

Hon Reverdy Johnson

My Dear Sir.

Yours of the 16th. by the hand of Governor Shepley is received. It seems the Union feeling in Louisiana is being crushed out by the course of General Phelps. Please pardon me for believing that is a false pretense. The people of Louisiana—all intelligent people every where—know full well, that I never had a wish to touch the foundations of their society, or any right of theirs. With perfect knowledge of this, they forced a necessity upon me to send armies among them, and it is their own fault, not mine, that they are annoyed by the presence of General Phelps. They also know the remedy—know how to be cured of General Phelps. Remove the necessity of his presence. And might it not be well for them to consider whether they have not already had time enough to do this? If they can conceive of anything worse than General Phelps, within my power, would they not better be looking out for it? They very well know the way to avert all this is simply to take their place in the Union upon the old terms. If they will not do this, should they not receive harder blows rather than lighter ones?

You are ready to say I apply to friends what is due only to enemies. I distrust the wisdom if not the sincerity of friends, who would hold my hands while my enemies stab me. This appeal of professed friends has paralyzed me more in this struggle than any other one thing. You remember telling me the day after the Baltimore mob in April 1861, that it would crush all Union feeling in Maryland for me to attempt bringing troops over Maryland soil to Washington. I brought the troops notwithstanding, and yet there was Union feeling enough left to elect a Legislature the next autumn which in turn elected a very excellent Union U. S. Senator!

I am a patient man—always willing to forgive on the Christian terms of repentance; and also to give ample time for repentance. Still I must save this government if possible. What I cannot do, of course I will not do; but it may as well be understood, once for all, that I shall not surrender this game leaving any available card unplayed.

Yours truly

A LINCOLN

Letter to Lyman Trumbull (December 10, 1860)

“Stand firm. The tug has to come, & better now, than any time hereafter.”

On June 28, 2013

In Savior of the Union

Contributing Editors for this page include Annemarie Gray and Susan Williams Phelps

Ranking

#45 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

Audio Version

On This Date

HD Daily Report, December 10, 1860

The Lincoln Log, December 10, 1860

Close Readings

Posted at YouTube by “Understanding Lincoln” participant Annemarie Gray, November 15, 2013

Susan Williams Phelps, “Understanding Lincoln” blog post (via Quora), September 9, 2013

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How Historians Interpret

“Discarding his longtime Whiggish belief in congressional supremacy, Lincoln forcefully interjected himself into the congressional debate. No previous president-elect ever made such a show of power and influence before his swearing in. He delivered no public speeches and issued no state papers on the compromise issue – to do so, he still believed, would only exacerbate matters by angering both anti-slavery men and border state conservatives. Instead, he made his views clear in a series of remarkably tough letters to key allies on Capitol Hill, which he knew would be widely shared with other Republicans. Hoping still to embolden Southern Unionists, or at best steel the rest of the country for the possible use of force to protect federal property and collect revenues, he now made it clear he would reject fundamental concessions that might guarantee both, but at the expense of slavery expansion. Lincoln’s reply to Trumbull left little doubt where he stood. ‘Let there be no compromise on the question of extending slavery,’ came the pointed instructions. ‘If there be, all our labor is lost, and ere long, must be done again. The dangerous ground – that into which some of our friends have a hankering to run – is Pop[ular]. Sov[reignty]. Have none of it. Stand firm. The tug has to come, & better now, than any time hereafter.”

— Harold Holzer, Lincoln President-Elect: Abraham Lincoln and the Great Secession Winter 1860-1861 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008), 158.)

“The symbolic significance of the issue of slavery in the territories, as well as its practical implications, dominated his thinking in the winter of 1860-61… On December 10, he wrote Trumbull in the same vein: ‘Let there be no compromise on the question of extending slavery. If there be, all our labor is lost, and, ere long, must be done again. The dangerous ground – that into which some of our friends have a hankering to run – is Pop. Sov. Have none of it. Stand firm. The tug has to come, & better now, than any time hereafter.’ A week later, he reiterated to Trumbull his firm stance: ‘If any of our friends do prove false, and fix up a compromise on the territorial question, I am for fighting again.’” 1938-1940

–Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (2 volumes, originally published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008) Unedited Manuscript by Chapter, Lincoln Studies Center, Volume 1, Chapter 17 (PDF), 1938-1940.

NOTE TO READERS

This page is under construction and will be developed further by students in the new “Understanding Lincoln” online course sponsored by the House Divided Project at Dickinson College and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. To find out more about the course and to see some of our videotaped class sessions, including virtual field trips to Ford’s Theatre and Gettysburg, please visit our Livestream page at http://new.livestream.com/gilderlehrman/lincoln

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Private & confidential.

Dec. 10, 1860

Hon. L.Trumbull. Springfield, Ills.

My dear Sir:

Let there be no compromise on the question of extending slavery. If there be, all our labor is lost, and, ere long, must be done again. The dangerous ground—that into which some of our friends have a hankering to run—is Pop. Sov. Have none of it. Stand firm. The tug has to come, & better now, than any time hereafter.

Yours as ever

A. LINCOLN.

Letter to Hannibal Hamlin (September 28, 1862)

In Great Emancipator

Ranking

#85 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

How Historians Interpret

“Not too many days after the preliminary proclamation was issued, Vice President Hannibal Hamlin wrote a letter to the president to express his ‘undissembled and sincere thanks for your Emancipation proclamation,’ which he predicted would ‘stand as the great act of the age… wise in Statesmanship as it is Patriotic.’ But Lincoln was not so sure. In a reply he labeled ‘strictly private,’ the president poured out his fears and frustrations over the early public response to his document. The fascinating letter reveals a chief executive who knows he will be judged not just by history but by his public constituency – and is clearly not at all sure he will emerge a winner. Modern Americans who doubt the revolutionary impetus and grand daring behind Lincoln’s most famous act will understand from the Hamlin letter how unpredictable its author believed its impact would be.”

— Frank J. Williams, “’Doing less’ and ‘Doing more’: The president and the Proclamation – Legally, Militarily, and Politically,” in The Emancipation Proclamation: Three Views ed. Harold Holzer, Edna Greene Medford, Frank J. Williams (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006), 66.

“Public response to emancipation did not encourage Lincoln. On September 28, he told his vice-president that ‘while I hope something from the proclamation, my expectations are not as sanguine as are those of some friends. The time for its effect southward has not come; but northward the effect should be instantaneous. It is six days old, and while commendation in newspapers and by distinguished individuals is all that a vain man could wish, the stocks have declined, and troops come forward more slowly than ever. This, looked soberly in the face, is not very satisfactory. We have fewer troops in the field at the end of six days than we had at the beginning – the attrition among the old outnumbering the addition by the new. The North responds to the proclamation sufficiently in breath; but breath alone kills no rebels.’”

— Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (2 volumes, originally published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008) Unedited Manuscript by Chapter, Lincoln Studies Center, Volume 2, Chapter 28 (PDF), 3530.

NOTE TO READERS

This page is under construction and will be developed further by students in the new “Understanding Lincoln” online course sponsored by the House Divided Project at Dickinson College and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. To find out more about the course and to see some of our videotaped class sessions, including virtual field trips to Ford’s Theatre and Gettysburg, please visit our Livestream page at http://new.livestream.com/gilderlehrman/lincoln

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(Strictly private.)

Executive Mansion,

Washington,

September 28, 1862.

My Dear Sir:

Your kind letter of the 25th is just received. It is known to some that while I hope something from the proclamation, my expectations are not as sanguine as are those of some friends. The time for its effect southward has not come; but northward the effect should be instantaneous.

It is six days old, and while commendation in newspapers and by distinguished individuals is all that a vain man could wish, the stocks have declined, and troops come forward more slowly than ever. This, looked soberly in the face, is not very satisfactory. We have fewer troops in the field at the end of six days than we had at the beginning—the attrition among the old outnumbering the addition by the new. The North responds to the proclamation sufficiently in breath; but breath alone kills no rebels.

I wish I could write more cheerfully; nor do I thank you the less for the kindness of your letter.

Yours very truly,

A. LINCOLN.

To John Johnston (December 24, 1848)

“Your request for eighty dollars, I do not think it best, to comply with now. At the various times when I have helped you a little, you have said to me “We can get along very well now” but in a very short time I find you in the same difficulty again. Now this can only happen by some defect in your conduct.What that defect is I think I know. You are not lazy, and still you are an idler.”

In The Railsplitter

Ranking

#93 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

On This Date

HD Daily Report, December 24, 1848

The Lincoln Log, December 24, 1848

Custom Map

How Historians Interpret

“Abraham Lincoln’s view of his father’s indolence is unrecorded, but he did scold his stepbrother John D. Johnston for that flaw in letters which may reflect his attitude not only toward Johnston but also toward Thomas Lincoln”

—Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Vol. 1 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012).

“A volume of disquisition could not put more clearly before the reader the difference between Abraham Lincoln and the common run of Southern and Western rural laborers. He had the same disadvantages that they had. He grew up in the midst of poverty and ignorance; he was poisoned with the enervating malaria of the Western woods, as all his fellows were, and the consequences of it were seen in his character and conduct to the close of his life. But he had, what very few of them possessed any glimmering notion of, a fixed and inflexible will to succeed. He did not love work, probably, any better than John Johnston; but he had an innate self-respect, and a consciousness that his self was worthy of respect, that kept him from idleness as it kept him from all other vices, and made him a better man every year that he lived.”

—John M. Hay and John G. Nicolay, Abraham Lincoln (Orig. Ed. 1890; New York: Cosimo Inc., 2009), 77.

NOTE TO READERS

This page is under construction and will be developed further by students in the new “Understanding Lincoln” online course sponsored by the House Divided Project at Dickinson College and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. To find out more about the course and to see some of our videotaped class sessions, including virtual field trips to Ford’s Theatre and Gettysburg, please visit our Livestream page at http://new.livestream.com/gilderlehrman/lincoln

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Washington, December 24, 1848

Dear Johnston:

Your request for eighty dollars, I do not think it best, to comply with now. At the various times when I have helped you a little, you have said to me “We can get along very well now” but in a very short time I find you in the same difficulty again. Now this can only happen by some defect in your conduct. What that defect is I think I know. You are not lazy, and still you are an idler. I doubt whether since I saw you, you have done a good whole day’s work in any one day. You do not very much dislike to work; and still you do not work much, merely because it does not seem to you that you could get much for it. This habit of uselessly wasting time, is the whole difficulty; and it is vastly important to you, and still more so to your children that you should break this habit. It is more important to them, because they have longer to live, and can keep out of an idle habit before they are in it; easier than they can get out after they are in.

You are now in need of some ready money; and what I propose is, that you shall go to work, “tooth and nails” for some body who will give you money [for] it. Let father and your boys take charge of things at home—prepare for a crop, and make the crop; and you go to work for the best money wages, or in discharge of any debt you owe, that you can get. And to secure you a fair reward for your labor, I now promise you, that for every dollar you will, between this and the first of next May, get for your own labor, either in money, or in your own indebtedness, I will then give you one other dollar. By this, if you hire yourself at ten dolla[rs] a month, from me you will get ten more, making twenty dollars a month for your work. In this, I do not mean you shall go off to St. Louis, or the lead mines, or the gold mines, in Calif[ornia,] but I [mean for you to go at it for the best wages you] can get close to home [in] Coles county. Now if you will do this, you will soon be out of debt, and what is better, you will have a habit that will keep you from getting in debt again. But if I should now clear you out, next year you will be just as deep in as ever. You say you would almost give your place in Heaven for $70 or $80. Then you value your place in Heaven very cheaply for I am sure you can with the offer I make you get the seventy or eighty dollars for four or five months work. You say if I furnish you the money you will deed me the land, and, if you dont pay the money back, you will deliver possession. Nonsense! If you cant now live with the land, how will you then live without it? You have always been [kind] to me, and I do not now mean to be unkind to you. On the contrary, if you will but follow my advice, you will find it worth more than eight times eighty dollars to you.

Affectionately Your brother

A. LINCOLN

Letter to Elihu Washburne (February 9, 1855)

“The agony is over at last; and the result you doubtless know. I write this only to give you some particulars to explain what might appear difficult of understanding. I began with 44 votes, Shields 41, and Trumbull 5—yet Trumbull was elected. In fact 47 different members voted for me—getting three new ones on the second ballot, and losing four old ones. How came my 47 to yield to T’s 5? It was Govr. Matteson’s work.”

In The Railsplitter

Ranking

#94 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

On This Date

HD Daily Report, February 9, 1855

The Lincoln Log, February 9, 1855

Custom Map

— Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (2 volumes, originally published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008) Unedited Manuscript By Chapter, Lincoln Studies Center, Volume 1, Chapter 10 (PDF), pp. 1148-1149.

How Historians Interpret

“Despite the dignity of Lincoln’s public demeanor, he privately suffered a brutal disappointment, describing the ordeal as an “agony.” Though he had engineered Trumbull’s victory for the sake of the anti-Nebraska cause it was difficult to accept the manner of his loss. ‘He could bear defeat inflicted by his enemies with a pretty good grace,’ he told his friend Gillespie, ‘but it was hard to be wounded in the house of his friends.’ After all the hard work, the interminable nights and weekends on the hustings, conversations with fellow politicians, the hours spent writing letters to garner support, after so many years of patient waiting and hopefulness, he seemed as far from realizing his ambition as ever. Fate seemed to take a curious delight in finding new ways to shatter his dreams.”

—Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006), 173.

If Matteson and his friends did resort to bribery, which seems highly likely, then it is easy to understand why Lincoln rejoiced at thwarting the governor’s scheme. “I regret my defeat moderately,” he told Washburne, “but I am not nervous about it. I could have headed off every combination and been elected, had it not been for Matteson’s double game – and the governor’s defeat now gives me more pleasure than my own gives me pain.” Lincoln was not gloating or being vindictive; he was genuinely offended by Matteson’s tactics and regarded the governor’s defeat as an ideological triumph, a rebuke to Democrats who had supported the Kansas-Nebraska Act. “On the whole,” he mused to Washburne, “it is perhaps as well for our general cause that Trumbull is elected. The Neb[raska] men confess that they hate it worse than any thing that could have happened. It is a great consolation to see them worse whipped than I am. I tell them it is their own fault – that they had abundant opertunity to choose between him & me, which they declined, and instead forced it on me to decide between him & Matteson.” Trumbull confirmed Lincoln’s observation, reporting that the pro-Nebraska Democrats “are exhibiting towards me a great deal of ill natured & malignant feeling.” The editor of the Chicago Times told Douglas that Trumbull’s election constituted “the severest blow we could have received.”

“‘There is a long and painful history of that senatorial contest yet to be written,’ insisted Elihu B. Washburne, one of the key figures in the campaign, ‘and when the whole truth is disclosed it will throw a flood of new light on the character of Mr. Lincoln.’ While an examination of the 1855 contest may not ‘throw a flood of new light’ on Lincoln, it does present one of the fullest and most striking portraits yet available of Lincoln as a political leader. Start with his decision to elect Trumbull, which was not simply a selfless gesture. Lincoln helped elect a man whose own supporters had betrayed him. Some overlooked recollections of the contest, plus a letter Lincoln wrote after the election but not discovered until 1989, suggest that Governor Joel A. Matteson (another candidate in the race) was arranging to buy votes in the Trumbull camp when Lincoln intervened. Lincoln had entered the ballot expecting to lose and hoping only to prevent anyone else, including Trumbull, from winning; he switched gears only when he discovered that Matteson was cheating. Yet Lincoln achieved more than just revenge. By supporting a former Democrat, he finished laying the foundation for what would become the Republican party of Illinois—a job he had pursued since the beginning of his campaign the previous November.”

—Matthew Pinsker, “Senator Abraham Lincoln”, Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 14, 1993.

NOTE TO READERS

This page is under construction and will be developed further by students in the new “Understanding Lincoln” online course sponsored by the House Divided Project at Dickinson College and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. To find out more about the course and to see some of our videotaped class sessions, including virtual field trips to Ford’s Theatre and Gettysburg, please visit our Livestream page at http://new.livestream.com/gilderlehrman/lincoln

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Springfield, Feby. 9-1855

Hon: E. B. Washburne

My dear Sir:

The agony is over at last; and the result you doubtless know. I write this only to give you some particulars to explain what might appear difficult of understanding. I began with 44 votes, Shields 41, and Trumbull 5—yet Trumbull was elected. In fact 47 different members voted for me—getting three new ones on the second ballot, and losing four old ones. How came my 47 to yield to T’s 5? It was Govr. Matteson’s work. He has been secretly a candidate every since (before even) the fall election. All the members round about the canal were Anti-Nebraska; but were, nevertheless nearly all democrats, and old personal friends of his. His plan was to privately impress them with the belief that he was as good Anti-Nebraska as any one else—at least could be secured to be so by instructions, which could be easily passed. In this way he got from four to six of that sort of men to really prefer his election to that of any other man—all “sub rosa” of course. One notable instance of this sort was with Mr. Strunk of Kankakee. At the beginning of the session he came a volunteer to tell me he was for me & would walk a hundred miles to elect me; but lo, it was not long before he leaked it out that he was going for me the first few ballots & then for Govr. Matteson.

The Nebraska men, of course, were not for Matteson; but when they found they could elect no avowed Nebraska man they tardily determined, to let him get whomever of our men he could by whatever means he could and ask him no questions. In the mean time Osgood, Don. Morrison & Trapp of St. Clair had openly gone over from us. With the united Nebraska force, and their recruits, open & covert, it gave Matteson more than enough to elect him. We saw into it plainly ten days ago; but with every possible effort, could not head it off. All that remained of the Anti Nebraska force, excepting Judd, Cook, Palmer[,] Baker & Allen of Madison, & two or three of the secret Matteson men, would go into caucus, & I could get the nomination of that caucus. But the three Senators & one of the two representatives above named “could never vote for a whig” and this incensed some twenty whigs to “think” they would never vote for the man of the five. So we stood, and so we went into the fight yesterday; the Nebraska men very confident of the election of Matteson, though denying that he was a candidate; and we very much believing also, that they would elect him. But they wanted first to make a show of good faith to Shields by voting for him a few times, and our secret Matteson men also wanted to make a show of good faith by voting with us a few times. So we led off. On the seventh ballot, I think, the signal was given to the Neb. men, to turn on to Matteson, which they acted on to a man, with one exception; my old friend Strunk going with them giving him 44 votes. Next ballot the remaining Neb. man, & one pretended Anti- went on to him, giving him 46. The next still another giving him 47, wanting only three of an election. In the mean time, our friends with a view of detaining our expected bolters had been turning from me to Trumbull till he he [sic] had risen to 35 & I had been reduced to 15. These would never desert me except by my direction; but I became satisfied that if we could prevent Matteson’s election one or two ballots more, we could not possibly do so a single ballot after my friends should begin to return to me from Trumbull. So I determined to strike at once; and accordingly advised my remaining friends to go for him, which they did & elected him on that the 10th. ballot.

Such is the way the thing was done. I think you would have done the same under the circumstances; though Judge Davis, who came down this morning, declares he never would have consented to the 47 men being controlled by the 5. I regret my defeat moderately, but I am not nervous about it. I could have headed off every combination and been elected, had it not been for Matteson’s double game—and his defeat now gives me more pleasure than my own gives me pain. On the whole, it is perhaps as well for our general cause that Trumbull is elected. The Neb. men confess that they hate it worse than any thing that could have happened. It is a great consolation to see them worse whipped than I am. I tell them it is their own fault—that they had abundant opertunity [sic] to choose between him & me, which they declined, and instead forced it on me to decide between him & Matteson.

With my grateful acknowledgments for the kind, active, and continued interest you have taken for me in this matter, allow me to subscribe myself

Yours forever

A. LINCOLN—

Letter to Cuthbert Bullitt (July 28, 1862)

“If they will not do this, if they prefer to hazard all for the sake of destroying the government, it is for them to consider whether it is probable I will surrender the government to save them from losing all. If they decline what I suggest, you scarcely need to ask what I will do. What would you do in my position? Would you drop the war where it is? Or, would you prosecute it in future, with elder-stalk squirts, charged with rose water? Would you deal lighter blows rather than heavier ones? Would you give up the contest, leaving any available means unapplied.”

In Father Abraham

Ranking

#112 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

On This Date

HD Daily Report, July 28, 1862

The Lincoln Log, July 28, 1862

Custom Map

–Elizabeth Brown Pryor, “Brief Encounter: A New York Cavalryman’s Striking Conversation with Abraham Lincoln,” Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 30.2 (2009)

How Historians Interpret

“Lincoln had no intention of feeding the robust Washington rumor mill by letting his plan out piecemeal. Rather he was looking to shape a platform that could be widely accepted in the spirit of national interest. To consolidate support he often floated positions that rose above parochialism, promoting a larger ideal that could be embraced by everyone. Sometimes he did it through his famous cornpone parables, and sometimes by directly challenging his interlocutors to view a situation from his perspective. He used this latter ploy a few days before he encountered Lucien Waters. When Cuthbert Bullitt, the U.S. marshal for Louisiana, passed on complaints that the administration’s contraband policies were disadvantaging Unionist slaveholders in the state, the president retorted: ‘What would you do in my position? … Would you give up the contest leaving any available means unapplied?’ Then, in a masterful argument, he subordinated all other interests to the prime goal. Everything he did, Lincoln protested, was done for one reason: to uphold the Union. ‘The truth is, that what is done, and omitted, about the slaves, is done and omitted on the same military necessity. … I shall not do more than I can, and I shall do all I can to save the government, which is my sworn duty as well as my personal inclination.’ A few weeks later, Lincoln again moved to manage the public mindset when he published a similar response to a particularly critical New York Tribune piece by Horace Greeley, once more raising the Union above any other consideration. Understanding that much of the citizenry needed justification for an action as bold as liberating the slaves, Lincoln made the one argument with which most everyone could agree.”

NOTE TO READERS

This page is under construction and will be developed further by students in the new “Understanding Lincoln” online course sponsored by the House Divided Project at Dickinson College and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. To find out more about the course and to see some of our videotaped class sessions, including virtual field trips to Ford’s Theatre and Gettysburg, please visit our Livestream page at http://new.livestream.com/gilderlehrman/lincoln

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PRIVATE

Washington D.C. July 28. 1862

Cuthbert Bullitt Esq

New Orleans La.

Sir:

The copy of a letter addressed to yourself by Mr. Thomas J. Durant, has been shown to me. The writer appears to be an able, a dispassionate, and an entirely sincere man. The first part of the letter is devoted to an effort to show that the Secession Ordinance of Louisiana was adopted against the will of a majority of the people. This is probably true; and in that fact may be found some instruction. Why did they allow the Ordinance to go into effect? Why did they not assert themselves? Why stand passive and allow themselves to be trodden down by a minority? Why did they not hold popular meetings, and have a convention of their own, to express and enforce the true sentiment of the state? If preorganization was against them then, why not do this now, that the United States Army is present to protect them? The paralysis –the dead palsy-of the government in this whole struggle is, that this class of men will do nothing for the government, nothing for themselves, except demanding that the government shall not strike its open enemies, lest they be struck by accident!

Mr. Durant complains that in various ways the relation of master and slave is disturbed by the presence of our Army; and he considers it particularly vexatious that this, in part, is done under cover of an act of Congress, while constitutional guaranties are suspended on the plea of military necessity. The truth is, that what is done, and omitted, about slaves, is done and omitted on the same military necessity. It is a military necessity to have men and money; and we can get neither, in sufficient numbers, or amounts, if we keep from, or drive from, our lines, slaves coming to them. Mr. Durant cannot be ignorant of the pressure in this direction; nor of my efforts to hold it within bounds till he, and such as he shall have time to help themselves.

I am not posted to speak understandingly on all the police regulations of which Mr. Durant complains. If experience shows any one of them to be wrong, let them be set right. I think I can perceive, in the freedom of trade, which Mr. Durant urges, that he would relieve both friends and enemies from the pressure of the blockade. By this he would serve the enemy more effectively than the enemy is able to serve himself. I do not say or believe that to serve the enemy is the purpose of Mr. Durant; or that he is conscious of any purpose, other than national and patriotic ones. Still, if there were a class of men who, having no choice of sides in the contest, were anxious only to have quiet and comfort for themselves while it rages, and to fall in with the victorious side at the end of it, without loss to themselves, their advice as to the mode of conducting the contest would be precisely such as his is. He speaks of no duty—apparently thinks of none—resting upon Union men. He even thinks it injurious to the Union cause that they should be restrained in trade and passage without taking sides. They are to touch neither a sail nor a pump, but to be merely passengers,—dead-heads at that—to be carried snug and dry, throughout the storm, and safely landed right side up. Nay, more; even a mutineer is to go untouched lest these sacred passengers receive an accidental wound.

Of course the rebellion will never be suppressed in Louisiana, if the professed Union men there will neither help to do it, nor permit the government to do it without their help.

Now, I think the true remedy is very different from what is suggested by Mr. Durant. It does not lie in rounding the rough angles of the war, but in removing the necessity for the war. The people of Louisiana who wish protection to person and property, have but to reach forth their hands and take it. Let them, in good faith, reinaugurate the national authority, and set up a State Government conforming thereto under the constitution. They know how to do it, and can have the protection of the Army while doing it. The Army will be withdrawn so soon as such State government can dispense with its presence; and the people of the State can then upon the old Constitutional terms, govern themselves to their own liking. This is very simple and easy.

If they will not do this, if they prefer to hazard all for the sake of destroying the government, it is for them to consider whether it is probable I will surrender the government to save them from losing all. If they decline what I suggest, you scarcely need to ask what I will do. What would you do in my position? Would you drop the war where it is? Or, would you prosecute it in future, with elder-stalk squirts, charged with rose water? Would you deal lighter blows rather than heavier ones? Would you give up the contest, leaving any available means unapplied.

I am in no boastful mood. I shall not do more than I can, and I shall do all I can to save the government, which is my sworn duty as well as my personal inclination. I shall do nothing in malice. What I deal with is too vast for malicious dealing.

Yours truly

A. LINCOLN

Letter to Isaac Arnold (May 26, 1863)

“Without claiming to be your superior, which I do not, my position enables me to understand my duty in all these matters better than you possibly can, and I hope you do not yet doubt my integrity.”

In Father Abraham

Ranking

#146 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

On This Date

HD Daily Report, May 26, 1863

The Lincoln Log, May 26, 1863

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How Historians Interpret

“In May, as Grant daringly marched his army from triumph to triumph in Mississippi, Lincoln said: ‘I have had stronger influence brought against Grant, praying for his removal, since the battle of Pittsburg Landing, than for any other object, coming too from good men.’ (A year earlier, when Grant was caught unprepared for the Confederate onslaught at Shiloh — also known as Pittsburg Landing — he was roundly criticized, even though the Rebels were eventually driven from the field.) But, Lincoln added, ‘now look at his campaign since May 1. Where is anything like it in the Old World that equals it? It stamps him as the greatest general of the age, if not of the world.’ On May 23, he wrote that Grant’s campaign was ‘one of the most brilliant in the world.’”

–Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (2 volumes, originally published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008) Unedited Manuscript by Chapter, Lincoln Studies Center, Volume 2, Chapter 30 (PDF), 3360.

“The climactic battles of 1863, despite stunning Union victories, had failed to resolve the outcome of the Civil War. The fall of Vicksburg in the west delivered a devastating blow to the Confederacy in that region and enhanced Major General Ulysses S. Grant’s growing reputation and stature. Lincoln had watched Grant’s campaign unfold with both approval and reservations. The more Grant’s plans unfolded, however, the more impressed Lincoln became, asserting in May that the general’s strategy was ‘one of the most brilliant in the world.’”

Richard R. Duncan, Lee’s Endangered Left: The Civil War in Western Virginia Spring of 1864 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1998), 1.

NOTE TO READERS

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Private & confidential

Executive Mansion,

Washington, May 26. 1863.

Hon. I. N. Arnold.

My dear Sir:

Your letter advising me to dismiss Gen. Halleck is received. If the public believe, as you say, that he has driven Fremont, Butler, and Sigel from the service, they believe what I know to be false; so that if I were to yield to it, it would only be to be instantly beset by some other demand based on another falsehood equally gross. You know yourself that Fremont was relieved at his own request, before Halleck could have had any thing to do with it— went out near the end of June, while Halleck only came in near the end of July. I know equally well that no wish of Halleck’s had any thing to do with the removal of Butler or Sigel. Sigel, like Fremont, was relieved at his own request, pressed upon me almost constantly for six months, and upon complaints that could have been made as justly by almost any corps commander in the army, and more justly by some. So much for the way they got out. Now a word as to their not getting back. In the early Spring, Gen. Fremont sought active service again; and, as it seemed to me, sought it in a very good, and reasonable spirit. But he holds the highest rank in the Army, except McClellan, so that I could not well offer him a subordinate command. Was I to displace Hooker, or Hunter, or Rosecrans, or Grant, or Banks? If not, what was I to do? And similar to this, is the case of both the others. One month after Gen. Butler’s return, I offered him a position in which I thought and still think, he could have done himself the highest credit, and the country the greatest service, but he declined it. When Gen. Sigel was relieved, at his own request as I have said, of course I had to put another in command of his corps. Can I instantly thrust that other out to put him in again?

And now my good friend, let me turn your eyes upon another point. Whether Gen. Grant shall or shall not consummate the capture of Vicksburg, his campaign from the beginning of this month up to the twenty second day of it, is one of the most brilliant in the world. His corps commanders, & Division commanders, in part, are McClernand, McPherson, Sherman, Steele, Hovey, Blair, & Logan. And yet taking Gen. Grant & these seven of his generals, and you can scarcely name one of them that has not been constantly denounced and opposed by the same men who are now so anxious to get Halleck out, and Fremont & Butler & Sigel in. I believe no one of them went through the Senate easily, and certainly one failed to get through at all. I am compelled to take a more impartial and unprejudiced view of things. Without claiming to be your superior, which I do not, my position enables me to understand my duty in all these matters better than you possibly can, and I hope you do not yet doubt my integrity.

Your friend, as ever

A. LINCOLN

Letter to Horatio Seymour (August 7, 1863)

“…I do not object to abide a decision of the United States Supreme Court, or of the judges thereof, on the constitutionality of the draft law. In fact, I should be willing to facilitate the obtaining of it; but I can not consent to lose the time while it is being obtained.”

In Savior of the Union

Contributing Editors for this page include Susan Segal

Ranking

#147 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

On This Date

HD Daily Report, August 7, 1863

The Lincoln Log, August 7, 1863

Close Readings

Posted at YouTube by “Understanding Lincoln” participant, Susan Segal, October 18, 2013

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