第107章 CATASTROPHE(1)

If the politicians needed a definite warning,in addition to what the ground was saying,it was given by an incident that centered upon Chase.A few bold men whose sense of the crowd was not so acute as it might have been,attempted to work up a Chase boom.At the instance of Senator Pomeroy,a secret paper known to-day as the Pomeroy Circular,was started on its travels.The Circular aimed to make Chase the Vindictive candidate.Like all the other anti-Lincoln moves of the early part of 1864,it was premature.The shrewd old Senators who were silently marshaling the Vindictive forces,let it alone.

Chase's ambition was fully understood at the White House.

During the previous year,his irritable self-consciousness had led to quarrels with the President,generally over patronage,and more than once he had offered his resignation.On one occasion,Lincoln went to his house and begged him to reconsider.Alone among the Cabinet,Chase had failed to take the measure of Lincoln and still considered him a second-rate person,much his inferior.He rated very high the services to his country of the Secretary of the Treasury whom he considered the logical successor to the Presidency.

Lincoln refused to see what Chase was after."I have determined,"he told Hay,"to shut my eyes as far as possible to everything of the sort.Mr.Chase makes a good secretary and I shall keep him where he is."[1]In lighter vein,he said that Chase's presidential ambition was like a "chin fly"pestering a horse;it led to his putting all the energy he had into his work.[2]

When a copy of the Circular found its way to the White House,Lincoln refused to read it.[3]Soon afterward it fell into the hands of an unsympathetic or indiscreet editor and was printed.

There was a hubbub.Chase offered to resign.Lincoln wrote to him in reply:

"My knowledge of Mr.Pomeroy's letter having been made public came to me only the day you wrote but I had,in Spite of myself,known of its existence several days before.I have not yet read it,and I think I shall not.I was not shocked or surprised by the appearance of the letter because I had had knowledge of Mr.Pomeroy's committee,and of secret issues which I supposed came from it,and of secret agents who Isupposed were sent out by it,for several weeks.I have known just as little of these things as my friends have allowed me to know.They bring the documents to me,but I do not read them;they tell me what they think fit to tell me,but I do not inquire for more.I fully concur with you that neither of us can be justly held responsible for what our respective friends may do without our instigation or countenance;and I assure you,as you have assured me,that no assault has been made upon you by my instigation or with my countenance.Whether you shall remain at the head of the Treasury Department is a question which I will not allow myself to consider from any standpoint other than my judgment of the public service,and in that view,I do not perceive occasion for a change."[4]But this was not the end of the incident.The country promptly repudiated Chase.His own state led the way.A caucus of Union members of the Ohio Legislature resolved that the people and the soldiers of Ohio demanded the reelection of Lincoln.

In a host of similar resolutions,Legislative caucuses,political conventions,dubs,societies,prominent individuals not in the political machine,all ringingly declared for Lincoln,the one proper candidate of the "Union party"-as the movement was labeled in a last and relatively successful attempt to break party lines.

As the date of the "Union Convention"approached,Lincoln put aside an opportunity to gratify the Vindictives.Following the Emancipation Proclamation,the recruiting offices had been opened to negroes.Thereupon the Confederate government threatened to treat black soldiers as brigands,and to refuse to their white officers the protection of the laws of war.Acry went up in the North for reprisal.It was not the first time the cry had been raised.In 1862Lincoln's spokesman in Congress,Browning,had withstood a proposal for the trial of General Buckner by the civil authorities of Kentucky.Browning opposed such a course on the ground that it would lead to a policy of retaliation,and make of the war a gratification of revenge.[5]The Confederate threat gave a new turn to the discussion.Frederick Douglas,the most influential negro of the time,obtained an audience with Lincoln and begged for reprisals.Lincoln would not consent.So effective was his argument that even the ardent negro,convinced that his race was about to suffer persecution,was satisfied.

"I shall never forget,"Douglas wrote,"the benignant expression of his face,the tearful look of his eye,the quiver in his voice,when he deprecated a resort to retaliatory measures.'Once begun,'said he,'I do not know where such a measure would stop.'He said he could not take men out and kill them in cold blood for what was done by others.If he could get hold of the persons who were guilty of killing the colored prisoners in cold blood,the case would be different,but he could not kill the innocent for the guilty."[6]

In April,1864,the North was swept by a wild rumor of deliberate massacre of prisoners at Fort Pillow.Here was an opportunity for Lincoln to ingratiate himself with the Vindictives.The President was to make a speech at a fair held in Baltimore,for the benefit of the Sanitary Commission.The audience was keen to hear him denounce the reputed massacre,and eager to applaud a promise of reprisal.Instead,he deprecated hasty judgment;insisting that the rumor had not been verified;that nothing should be done on the strength of mere report.

"It is a mistake to suppose the government is indifferent in this matter,or is not doing the best it can in regard to it.