574

Lincoln and Vallandigham

[1863 Assuming the attitude of a Confederate prisoner of war, Vallandigham went to Richmond, where he held a conference with the Confederate authorities, and about a month afterwards made his way from Wilmington to Bermuda on a blockade-runner, and from there to Canada, whence he issued an address to the people of Ohio. Meanwhile the Democratic Convention of that State had met at Columbus on June 11, and, by way of party protest, unanimously nominated Vallandigham as their candidate for the governorship of Ohio.

The arrest, trial, banishment, and nomination created a profound sensation throughout the country, and became a subject of legal and political discussion that for the time being almost excluded other topics. The resolutions of the Ohio Democratic State Convention were presented to the President by a large committee of Vallandigham's supporters, together with an address arguing the questions involved, with all the heat and earnestness the incident engendered. A similar address and resolutions had already been brought to the President by an influential committee of New York Democrats representing a meeting held at Albany. Lincoln made written replies to both committees setting forth with clearness and logic the differing views that animated the two parties to the controversy. Only so much of his replies need be quoted here as gives the substance of his interpretation of the Constitution on the power of the President to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, "when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it."

"You ask in substance, whether I really claim that I may override all the guaranteed rights of individuals on the plea of conserving the public safety when I may choose to say the public safety requires it. This question, divested of the phraseology calculated to represent me as struggling for an arbitrary personal prerogative, is either simply a question who shall decide, or an affirmation that nobody shall decide, what the public safety does require in cases of rebellion or invasion. The Constitution contemplates the question as likely to occur for decision, but it does not expressly declare who is to decide it. By necessary implication, when rebellion or invasion comes, the decision is to be made, from time to time; and I think the man whom, for the time, the people have, under the Constitution, made the Commander-inChief of their army and navy is the man who holds the power, and bears the responsibility of making it. If he uses the power justly, the same people will probably justify him; if he abuses it, he is in their hands to be dealt with by all the modes they have reserved to themselves in the Constitution."

Of far greater popular effect, however, than this convincing legal analysis, was the sympathetic question which the President asked in his reply to the Albany committee, "Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier-boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wily agitator who induces him to desert?" That pointed query touched the heart of

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every parent who had a son in the Federal army, while it also described with precision the character of Vallandigham, who had rendered himself conspicuous as a "wily agitator" in behalf of the South and its action ever since, and even before, the presidential election which furnished the pretext for secession. The people of the State of Ohio returned an emphatic answer at the October election of 1863, in which Vallandigham was defeated for the governorship by a majority of 101,000 votes, 39,000 of which were cast by Ohio soldiers in the field.

In sustaining General Burnside's arrest of Vallandigham, President Lincoln had acted not only within his constitutional, but also strictly within his statutory, authority. The question of his right to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus came up immediately at the beginning of the Secession, at which time he authorised General Scott and other military officers to order the suspension within specified limits when it might become necessary. Chief Justice Taney of the Supreme Court of the United States questioned his right, and, in the case of ex parte Merryman, filed an opinion denying it. By a law passed on March 3, 1863, after considerable discussion, Congress legalised all orders of this character made by the President at any time during the present rebellion, and accorded him full indemnity for all searches, seizures, arrests, or imprisonments made under his orders. The Act further provided "that during the present rebellion, the President of the United States, whenever in his judgment the public safety may require it, is authorised to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus in any case throughout the United States or any part thereof." Under authority of this Act, the President, by proclamation of September 15, 1863, formally suspended the writ throughout the United States in cases relating to prisoners of war, spies, aiders or abettors of the enemy, and deserters, and other cases relating to the military service. Though the terms of the proclamation were general and comprehensive, the chief object for which it was issued was to prevent continued appeals to the civil courts for process to be utilised in hindering or delaying the prompt execution of the Draft Law. While much public clamour occurred from warm Southern sympathisers and over-zealous Democratic partisans, the arbitrary power of the President was used so seldom and with such circumspection both before and after the formal suspension that neither oppression nor noteworthy public protest arose under it.

(3) NEGOTIATION AND INTRIGUE

Under date of December 15, 1862, Secretary of State Seward wrote in one of his despatches: "the political atmosphere begins to exhibit phenomena indicative of a weariness of the war, and a desire for peace on both sides." It was a period of uncertainty and inaction; to each of

576

Lincoln's dealing with peace overtures

[1862-4

the contending parties the prospect of decisive victory seemed distant, and the final issue of the war involved in great doubt. For the moment, public opinion permitted a freer expression of the hope always latent in many minds that the burdens and sacrifices of war might be removed; and the expression manifested itself in the speeches of individuals, the editorials of newspapers, and the resolutions of meetings, and occasionally even in the debates and proceedings of both the Federal and Confederate Congresses. As yet, however, such manifestations were feeble and sporadic in comparison with the great mass of public sentiment both North and South; and it is worthy of mention here only to show the manner in which it was dealt with by President Lincoln. A prominent but somewhat eccentric member of the Democratic party, Fernando Wood, a representative in Congress, wrote to the President that he had "reliable and truthful authority" to say that the Southern States would send representatives to the next Congress, provided that a full and general amnesty should permit them to do so. He asked further that he might be allowed to hold unofficial correspondence with Southern leaders on the subject, such correspondence to be submitted to the President. Lincoln replied to him under date of December 12, that he strongly suspected that his information would prove groundless, but that, if "the people of the Southern States would cease resistance, and would re-inaugurate, submit to, and maintain the national authority within the limits of such States under the Constitution of the United States, the war would cease; and that, if within a reasonable time 'a full and general amnesty' were necessary to such end, it would not be withheld. I do not think it would be proper now for me to communicate this formally or informally to the people of the Southern States . . . nor do I think it proper now to suspend military operations to try any experiment of negotiation." Nothing more was heard from Wood's "reliable and truthful authority."

In June, 1863, Alexander H. Stephens, the Confederate Vicepresident, became impressed with the belief that existing military and political conditions might enable him as a former intimate personal friend of Lincoln to accomplish something in the way of opening peace negotiations; and Jefferson Davis authorised him to propose a conference about an exchange of prisoners. Stephens applied to Admiral Lee at Fortress Monroe for permission to proceed to Washington in his own steamer in order to deliver a written communication to the President. When Lincoln received the despatch in which Admiral Lee forwarded the request, he himself drafted an answer to be sent by the Secretary of the Navy refusing the permission, and explaining that military communications would be readily received through the well-understood military channels; adding also, " of course nothing else will be received by the President, when offered as in this case in terms assuming the independence of the so-called Confederate States;

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The Niagara intrigue

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and anything will be received and carefully considered by him when offered by any influential person or persons in terms not assuming the independence of the so-called Confederate States."

Several other incidents of this nature occurred in the summer of 1864. In July of that year an adventurer named Jewett so worked upon the confidence of Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, as to induce him to believe that there were certain Confederate agents in Canada "with full and complete powers for a peace"; and Greeley in a credulous and pleading letter urged the President to invite "those now at Niagara to exhibit their credentials and submit their ultimatum." While Lincoln utterly disbelieved the good faith or authority of the pretended emissaries, he felt it necessary to convince Greeley, and immediately answered him on July 9: "If you can find any person, anywhere, professing to have any proposition of Jefferson Davis in writing, for peace, embracing the restoration of the Union, and abandonment of slavery, whatever else it embraces, say to him he may come to me with you, and that if he really brings such proposition he shall at least have safe-conduct with the paper (and without publicity, if he chooses) to the point where you shall have met him. The same if there be two or more persons.'

Greeley interposed certain trivial objections to taking part himself; but the President again telegraphed and wrote to him emphatically: “I was not expecting you to send me a letter, but to bring me a man, or men. I not only intend a sincere effort for peace, but I intend that you shall be a personal witness that it is made." Finally to leave no room for equivocation or delay, he sent Major John Hay with the following paper in his own handwriting, which Major Hay delivered into the hand of one of the Confederate emissaries on the Canada side of Niagara Falls.

"EXECUTIVE MANSION,

"WASHINGTON, July 18, 1864.

"To whom it may concern: Any proposition which embraces the restoration of peace, the integrity of the whole Union, and the abandonment of slavery, and which comes by and with an authority that can control the armies now at war against the United States, will be received and considered by the Executive Government of the United States, and will be met by liberal terms on other substantial and collateral points; and the bearer or bearers thereof shall have safeconduct both ways.

"ABRAHAM LINCOLN."

If the Confederate agents did not devise, they at least countenanced, the imposture by which the adventurer Jewett drew Greeley, and sought to draw the President, into a negotiation which on their part was all pretence. They were compelled to admit that they possessed no powers, and could only allege that they were acquainted with the views of their government. With this avowal of course all negotiation was summarily ended. Mr Greeley left Niagara abruptly; and the

C. M. H. VII.

37

578

Colonel Jaquess and President Davis

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President's memorandum effectively counteracted the advantage they had hoped to gain through the influence of their intrigue upon politics and diplomacy.

The particulars of this Niagara intrigue were fully published in the newspapers, and acquainted the public with the exact terms on which Lincoln would consent to peace with the insurrectionary States. Even while it was in progress, another unauthorised embassy obtained from Jefferson Davis the equally precise terms upon which alone he as the head of the Confederate government was willing to agree to the cessation of war. Colonel Jaquess, formerly a Methodist preacher, now commanding an Illinois regiment in the West, was a man of somewhat morbid religious enthusiasm, who believed that through his affiliations with the Methodist Church in the South he could gain the ear, and work upon the patriotic sympathies, of his fellow-Methodists in the Confederacy, and persuade them of the hopelessness of their enterprise. In the summer of 1863, General Rosecrans recommended him to President Lincoln as a sincere, if infatuated, apostle, who was at least willing to risk his life in his self-appointed mission. The President directed that General Rosecrans might give him an indefinite furlough, but upon the clear and imperative condition that he should go without any government authority whatever. A brief excursion into the Confederate lines in 1863 was without result; but, nothing daunted, Jaquess renewed his experiment in 1864, in company with a literary friend of his named Gilmore. Proceeding from Fortress Monroe by the route over which the exchanges of prisoners were carried on, the two amateur envoys were so fortunate as to make their way with comparatively little difficulty to Richmond, where they passed the night of July 16, 1864, under close surveillance at the Spottswood Hotel. Next morning, Sunday, July 17, they asked for an interview with President Davis, as private citizens having no official character or authority. After they had been thoroughly cross-questioned by the Confederate Secretary of State Benjamin, he arranged the desired interview for them; and on the same evening they were admitted to a two hours' conference with the Confederate President and Secretary of State. To the entirely unauthorised as well as utterly impracticable suggestions which they advanced as a method of adjustment, they received the distinct reply from President Davis "that the separation of the States was an accomplished fact; that he had no authority to receive proposals for negotiations except by virtue of his office as President of an independent Confederacy; and on this basis alone must proposals be made to him."

While the clamour for peace exercised of itself but little political influence, it counted for something as an addition to the stock of accusations against the administration of President Lincoln, of which the Democratic party made unceasing use in its attempt to retrieve its fallen fortunes at the approaching presidential election. Their