Stanton was in Savannah, Georgia, for a conference with Sherman when "the rebel flag of Fort Fisher was delivered to [him]." Eager to see the battleground, he journeyed to North Carolina, where he spent the night with General Rufus Saxton and his wife. When he arrived, he warned his hosts that "fatigue would compel him to retire early," but, relaxing before the fire, surrounded by a collection of books, he revived. "Ah, here are old friends," he said, picking up a volume of Macauley"s poetry from the table. He asked Mrs. Saxton to read "Horatius at the Bridge," which he followed with "The Battle of Ivry." Midnight found him still seated by the fire, "repeating s.n.a.t.c.hes of poetry." During his stay, Mrs. Saxton noted, "the t.i.tan War Secretary was replaced by the genial companion, the man of letters, the lover of nature-the real Stanton." For a few hours, Stanton allowed himself the distraction and the levity he had often decried in Lincoln.
Stanton had journeyed south to confer with Sherman, concerned by reports of the general"s hostile behavior toward the black refugees who were arriving by the thousands into his lines. It was said that Sherman opposed their employment as soldiers, drove them from his camp even when they were starving, and manifested toward them "an almost criminal dislike." Sherman countered that the movement of his military columns was hindered "by the crowds of helpless negroes that flock after our armies...clogging my roads, and eating up our substance." Military success, he felt, had to take precedence over treatment of the Negroes.
In his conversations with Stanton, however, Sherman agreed to issue "Special Field Orders, No. 15," a temporary plan to allocate "a plot of not more than forty acres of tillable ground" to help settle the tide of freed slaves along the coast of Georgia and on the neighboring islands. Stanton returned home feeling more at ease about the situation. In the weeks that followed, Congress followed up by creating a Freedmen"s Bureau with authority to distribute lands and provide a.s.sistance to displaced refugees throughout the South.
NOTHING ON THE HOME FRONT in January engaged Lincoln with greater urgency than the pa.s.sage of the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery. He had long feared that his Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation would be discarded once the war came to an end. "A question might be raised whether the proclamation was legally valid," he said. "It might be added that it only aided those who came into our lines...or that it would have no effect upon the children of the slaves born hereafter." Pa.s.sage of a const.i.tutional amendment eradicating slavery once and for all would be "a King"s cure for all the evils."
The previous spring, the Thirteenth Amendment had pa.s.sed in the Senate by two thirds but failed to garner the necessary two-thirds vote in the House, where Republicans had voted aye and Democrats nay along nearly unanimous party lines. In his annual message in December, Lincoln had urged Congress to reconsider the measure. He acknowledged that he was asking the same body to debate the same question, but he hoped the intervening election had altered the situation. Republican gains in November ensured that if he called a special session after March 4, the amendment would pa.s.s. Since it was "only a question of time," how much better it would be if this Congress could complete the job, if Democrats as well as Republicans could be brought to support its pa.s.sage in a show of bipartisan unity.
Congressman James M. Ashley of Ohio reintroduced the measure into the House on January 6, 1865. Lincoln set to work at once to sway the votes of moderate Democrats and border-state Unionists. He invited individual House members to his office, dealing gracefully and effectively with each one. "I have sent for you as an old whig friend," he told Missouri"s James Rollins, "that I might make an appeal to you to vote for this amendment. It is going to be very close, a few votes one way or the other will decide it." He emphasized the importance of sending a signal to the South that the border states could no longer be relied upon to uphold slavery. This would "bring the war," he predicted, "rapidly to a close." When Rollins agreed to support the amendment, Lincoln jumped from his chair and grasped the congressman"s hands, expressing his profound grat.i.tude. The two old Whigs then discussed the leanings of the various members of the Missouri delegation, determining which members might be persuaded. "Tell them of my anxiety to have the measure pa.s.s," Lincoln urged, "and let me know the prospect of the border state vote."
He a.s.signed two of his allies in the House to deliver the votes of two wavering members. When they asked how to proceed, he said, "I am President of the United States, clothed with great power. The abolition of slavery by const.i.tutional provision settles the fate, for all coming time, not only of the millions now in bondage, but of unborn millions to come-a measure of such importance that those two votes must be procured. I leave it to you to determine how it shall be done; but remember that I am President of the United States, clothed with immense power, and I expect you to procure those votes." It was clear to his emissaries that his powers extended to plum a.s.signments, pardons, campaign contributions, and government jobs for relatives and friends of faithful members. Brooklyn Democrat Moses F. Odell agreed to change his vote; when the session ended, he was given the lucrative post of navy agent in New York. Elizabeth Blair noted that her father had successfully joined in the lobbying effort, persuading several members.
Ashley learned that the Camden & Amboy Railroad could secure the vote of two New Jersey Democrats if Senator Sumner could be convinced to postpone a bill he had introduced to end the monopoly the railroad enjoyed. Unable to move Sumner, Ashley asked Lincoln to intervene. Lincoln regretfully replied that he could "do nothing with Mr. Sumner in these matters," and feared if he tried, Sumner "would be all the more resolute."
As the vote neared, pressure intensified. The leader of the opposition was McClellan"s running mate, Democrat George Pendleton of Ohio. "Though he had been defeated in the election," observed Senator James Blaine, "he returned to the House with increased prestige among his own political a.s.sociates." Democrats who considered changing their vote were made to understand that dire consequences would follow if they failed to maintain the party line on an issue compromising the sanct.i.ty of states" rights and effecting a fundamental shift in the Const.i.tution.
Both sides knew that the outcome would be decided by the thinnest of margins. "We are like whalers," Lincoln observed, "who have been long on a chase: we have at last got the harpoon into the monster, but we must now look how we steer, or with one "flop" of his tail he will send us all into eternity." On the morning of the scheduled vote, Ashley feared that the entire effort would collapse. Rumors circulated that Confederate Peace Commissioners were on the way to Washington or had already arrived in the capital. "If it is true," Ashley urgently wrote to the president, "I fear we shall [lose] the bill." The Democratic leadership would prevail upon wavering party members, arguing that the amendment would lead the commissioners to abort the peace talks. "Please authorize me to contradict it, if not true," Ashley entreated.
"So far as I know," Lincoln promptly replied, "there are no peace Commissioners in the City, or likely to be in it." Ashley later learned that Lincoln, in fact, had been informed that three Peace Commissioners were en route to Fort Monroe, but he could honestly, if insincerely, claim that no commissioners were in the capital city. Without this cunning evasion, Ashley believed, "the proposed amendment would have failed."
As the debate opened, Ashley acknowledged that "never before, and certain I am that never again, will I be seized with so strong a desire to give utterance to the thoughts and emotions which throbbed my heart and brain." The amendment"s pa.s.sage would signal "the complete triumph of a cause, which at the beginning of my political life I had not hoped to live long enough to see."
Ashley recalled, "Every available foot of s.p.a.ce, both in the galleries and on the floor of the House, was crowded at an early hour, and many hundred could not get within hearing." Chief Justice Chase and the members of the Supreme Court were present, along with Seward, Fessenden, and Dennison representing the cabinet. Dozens of senators had come to witness the historic debate, as had members of most foreign ministries.
Ashley wisely decided to yield his time to the small band of Democrats who would support the amendment but needed to justify their shift to const.i.tuents. He called first on Archibald McAllister. The Pennsylvania congressman explained that he had changed his mind when he saw that the only way to achieve peace was to destroy "the corner-stone of the Southern Confederacy." His remarks brought forth applause from the galleries, as did those of his colleague Alexander Coffroth. "If by my action to-day I dig my political grave," the congressman from Somerset County proclaimed, "I will descend into it without a murmur."
After every Democrat who wanted to speak had been heard, the voting began. "Hundreds of tally sheets had been distributed on the floor and in the galleries," Ashley recorded. It appeared at first that the amendment had fallen two or three votes short of the requisite two-thirds margin. The floor was in tumult when Speaker Colfax stood to announce the final tally. His voice shaking, he said, "On the pa.s.sage of the Joint Resolution to amend the Const.i.tution of the United States the ayes have 119, the noes 56. The const.i.tutional majority of two thirds having voted in the affirmative, the Joint Resolution has pa.s.sed." Without the five Democrats who had changed their votes, the amendment would have lost.
"For a moment there was a pause of utter silence," Noah Brooks reported, "as if the voices of the dense ma.s.s of spectators were choked by strong emotion. Then there was an explosion, a storm of cheers, the like of which probably no Congress of the United States ever heard before."
"Before the members left their seats," Congressman Arnold recalled, "the roar of artillery from Capitol Hill announced to the people of Washington that the amendment had pa.s.sed." Ashley brought to the War Department a list of all those who had voted in favor. Stanton ordered three additional batteries to "fire one hundred guns with their heaviest charges" while he slowly read each name aloud, proclaiming, "History will embalm them in great honor."
Lincoln"s friends raced to the White House to share the news. "The pa.s.sage of the resolution," recalled Arnold, "filled his heart with joy. He saw in it the complete consummation of his own great work, the emanc.i.p.ation proclamation." The following evening, Lincoln spoke to celebrants gathered at the White House. "The occasion was one of congratulation to the country and to the whole world," he said. "But there is a task yet before us-to go forward and consummate by the votes of the States that which Congress so n.o.bly began." The audience responded with cheers. "They will do it" was the confident cry. And, indeed, the legislatures in twenty states acted almost immediately. Before the year 1865 was out, the requisite three quarters had spoken putting a dramatic end to the slavery issue that had disturbed the nation"s tranquillity from its earliest days.
No praise must have been more welcome to Lincoln than that of his old critic, the fiery abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. "And to whom is the country more immediately indebted for this vital and saving amendment of the Const.i.tution than, perhaps, to any other man?" Garrison asked a cheering crowd at the Boston Music Hall. "I believe I may confidently answer-to the humble railsplitter of Illinois-to the Presidential chain-breaker for millions of the oppressed-to Abraham Lincoln!"
THE STORY OF the Peace Commissioners, whose presence had almost derailed the vote on the new amendment, had begun with Francis Preston Blair. Lincoln"s reelection had convinced the old editor that another attempt at peace might be successful. Lincoln remained unconvinced that talks at this juncture would be effective, but Blair was so anxious to try that Lincoln gave him a pa.s.s for Richmond. It was understood, however, that he was proceeding on his own, without authority to speak for the president.
After leaving Lincoln, Blair wrote two letters to Jefferson Davis. The first, designed for public consumption, requested simply "the privilege of visiting Richmond" to inquire about the papers Blair had lost when General Early"s troops took possession of his Silver Spring house. The second revealed that his "main purpose" in coming was to discuss "the state of the affairs of our country." He promised to "unbosom [his] heart frankly & without reserve," hopeful that some good might result.
On January 11, 1865, the seventy-three-year-old Blair arrived in Richmond, where he was greeted warmly by numerous old friends. Jefferson Davis"s wife, Varina, "threw her arms around him" and said, "Oh you Rascal, I am overjoyed to see you." Seated with President Davis in the library of the Confederate White House, Blair conceded his proposal "might be the dreams of an old man," but he was confident of Davis"s "practical good sense" and "utmost frankness." He reminded Davis of his own deep attachment to the South. "Every drop" of his own blood and his children"s sprang from "a Southern source." Davis responded with equal warmth, a.s.suring Blair that he "would never forget" the many "kindnesses" exhibited by the Blairs toward the Davis family, and that "even when dying they would be remembered in his prayers."
Blair presented his proposal, which would essentially postpone the war between the North and the South while the armies allied against the French, who had invaded Mexico and installed a puppet regime in violation of the Monroe Doctrine. Davis agreed that nothing would better heal the raw emotions on both sides "than to see the arms of our countrymen from the North and the South united in a war upon a Foreign Power." The specifics of this improbable and unauthorized plan, reminiscent of Seward"s proposal four years earlier, were not discussed, though Davis agreed to send Peace Commissioners to Washington "with a view to secure peace to the two Countries."
Though tired from his arduous journey back to Washington by carriage, train, and steamer, Blair rushed to the White House and delivered the Davis letter to the president. Lincoln consulted Stanton, who pointedly noted: "There are not two countries...and there never will be two countries. Tell Davis that if you treat for peace, it will be for this one country; negotiations on any other basis are impossible." Lincoln immediately agreed. "You may say to him," Lincoln directed Blair, "that I have constantly been, am now, and shall continue, ready to receive any agent...with the view of securing peace to the people of our one common country."
Blair returned straightaway to Richmond with Lincoln"s response, and Davis called a cabinet meeting at his home to discuss his next move. His advisers recognized the irreconcilable conflict between the concepts of "two countries" and "one common country," but the insistent clamor for peace had convinced Davis to send three commissioners to Fort Monroe-Vice President Alexander Stephens, former United States senator R. M. T. Hunter, and former Supreme Court Justice John A. Campbell.
On Sunday, January 29, a flag of truce flown at Petersburg announced the arrival of the commissioners. "By common consent all picket firing was suspended," the New York Herald reported, "and the lines of both armies presented the appearance of a gala day." Viewed as "harbingers of peace," the three gentlemen elicited "prolonged and enthusiastic" applause from both sides, revealing the depth of the soldiers" desire to end the fighting and return to their families and homes. One reporter noted that when rival songs were played by Southern and Northern bands-"Dixie" and "Yankee Doodle Dandy"-each side responded only to its own patriotic air, "but when the band struck up "Home Sweet Home," the opposing camps forgot their hostility, and united in vociferous tribute to the common sentiment."
A Union colonel escorted the commissioners to Grant"s headquarters at City Point. "It was night when we arrived," Alexander Stephens later recalled. "There was nothing in [Grant"s] appearance or surroundings which indicated his official rank. There were neither guards nor aids about him.... I was instantly struck with the great simplicity and perfect naturalness of his manners, and the entire absence of everything like affectation, show, or even the usual military air or mien of men in his position. He was plainly attired, sitting in a log-cabin, busily writing on a small table, by a Kerosene lamp.... His conversation was easy and fluent, without the least effort or restraint." After talking for a while, Grant escorted them to the steamship Mary Martin, where he had arranged "comfortable quarters" for his three distinguished visitors. Though Grant was not authorized to discuss the peace mission itself, Stephens got the impression that he was very anxious for "the return of peace and harmony throughout the country."
Meanwhile, at Lincoln"s request, Seward headed south to meet with the commissioners. "You will make known to them that three things are indispensable," Lincoln wrote: "The restoration of the national authority.... No receding, by the Executive of the United States on the Slavery question.... No cessation of hostilities short of an end of the war." If these three conditions were accepted, he was to tell them that all other propositions would be met with "a spirit of sincere liberality." After riding the train to Annapolis, Seward boarded Grant"s flagship, the River Queen, and proceeded to Fort Monroe.
Before Seward could interview the commissioners, word reached Lincoln that President Davis had instructed them to negotiate peace for two countries. The president felt he had no choice but to recall Seward, until an urgent telegram from Grant changed his mind. Grant was "convinced," he had written to Stanton, after talking with the three men "that their intentions are good," and he believed that "their going back without any expression from any one in authority will have a bad influence." Given the complexity of the situation, Grant wished that the president could meet with them personally. "Induced by a despatch of Gen. Grant," Lincoln promptly telegraphed Seward and Grant, "Say to the gentlemen I will meet them personally at Fortress-Monroe, as soon as I can get there."
Accompanied by a single valet and an overnight bag, the president left Washington two hours later on a train headed to Annapolis. There, the steamer Thomas Collyer, "supposed to be the fastest in the world," stood ready to take him to Fort Monroe. "Upon getting out of the bay," noted a Herald correspondent who had boarded the vessel before the president arrived, "we encountered large fields of ice, through which we pa.s.sed slowly." The steamer finally arrived at Fort Monroe a little past ten that evening, and Lincoln joined Seward on the River Queen.
The four-hour meeting, known as the Hampton Roads Conference, took place the next day in the saloon of the River Queen, which had been lashed to the Mary Martin the night before and "gaily decked out with a superabundance of streamers and flags." After everyone was introduced, Stephens opened the conversation with warm memories of his days as Lincoln"s congressional colleague nearly two decades earlier. The president "responded in a cheerful and cordial manner," Stephens recalled, "as if the remembrance of those times...had awakened in him a train of agreeable reflections." They talked for several minutes of old acquaintances before Stephens asked, "Well, Mr. President, is there no way of putting an end to the present trouble, and bringing about a restoration of the general good feeling and harmony then existing between the different States and Sections of the country?"
The conversation that followed, Seward later wrote, "was altogether informal. There was no attendance of secretaries, clerks, or other witnesses. Nothing was written or read." The only other person who entered the room was the "steward, who came in occasionally to see if anything was wanted, and to bring in water, cigars, and other refreshments."
In reply to the question posed by Stephens, Lincoln attested that "there was but one way that he knew of, and that was, for those who were resisting the laws of the Union to cease that resistance." Stephens countered with the hope for a temporary solution that would integrate their respective armies to fight the French "until the pa.s.sions on both sides might cool."
"I suppose you refer to something Mr. Blair has said," Lincoln replied. "Now it is proper to state at the beginning, that whatever he said was of his own accord.... The restoration of the Union is a sine qua non with me." There could be no substantive talk of an armistice or postponement until "the resistance ceased and the National Authority was recognized." Attempting to circ.u.mvent this declaration, Hunter recalled that Charles I of England had entered repeatedly into arrangements with his adversaries despite ongoing hostilities. "I do not profess to be posted in history," Lincoln answered. "On all such matters I will turn you over to Seward. All I distinctly recollect about the case of Charles I, is, that he lost his head in the end."
Judge Campbell then turned the conversation to the question of "how restoration was to take place, supposing that the Confederate States were consenting to it." This opened a discussion of slavery, which Seward addressed by reciting verbatim from Lincoln"s annual address in which he had said that he would not "attempt to retract or modify the Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation, nor...return to slavery any person who is free by the terms of that Proclamation." Moreover, Seward said, he felt obliged to inform the commissioners that Congress had just pa.s.sed a const.i.tutional amendment banning slavery throughout the entire United States.
They had clearly reached an impa.s.se, but the conversation continued in an amicable tone. Lincoln let the commissioners know that "he would be willing to be taxed to remunerate the Southern people for their slaves." He was fairly confident "the people of the North" would sustain him with "an appropriation as high as Four Hundred Millions of Dollars for this purpose." On the question of some sort of postponement of hostilities prior to the end of the war, Lincoln was immovable. The conference drew to a close without agreement on any issue.
Before any outcome was made public, the radicals had worked themselves into "a fury of rage," certain that the president "was about to give up the political fruits which had been already gathered from the long and exhausting military struggle." Fearing Lincoln would turn his back on emanc.i.p.ation, Thaddeus Stevens excoriated him on the floor of the House. In the Senate, "the leading members of the Committee on the Conduct of the War" roundly castigated the very idea of the conference, predicting that "we shall be sold out, and that the Peace we shall obtain, if any we do, will dishonor us." Both branches pa.s.sed a resolution calling for a full report on the proceedings. Even Stanton worried that the president"s kindheartedness "might lead him to make some admission which the astute Southerners would wilfully misconstrue and twist to serve their purpose."
Lincoln"s report on the conference, complete with the telegrams and doc.u.ments preceding it, was "read amidst a breathless silence in the hall, every member being in his seat. A low gush of satisfaction broke out when the phrase "one common country" was read in the Blair letter, and an involuntary burst followed the annunciation of the three conditions of peace, given to Seward." Noah Brooks observed that "as the reading of the message and doc.u.ments went on, the change which took place in the moral atmosphere of the hall of the House was obvious. The appearance of grave intentness pa.s.sed away, and members smilingly exchanged glances as they began to appreciate Lincoln"s sagacious plan for unmasking the craftiness of the rebel leaders." When the presentation was done, "there was an instant and irrepressible storm of applause...it was like a burst of refreshing rain after a long and heartbreaking drought." Representatives vied with one another to praise the president. Even Thaddeus Stevens "paid a high tribute to the sagacity, wisdom, and patriotism of President Lincoln."
"Indeed," Harper"s Weekly observed, "nothing but the foolish a.s.sumption of four years ago, that Mr. Lincoln was unfit for his office," could explain the fatuous predictions that he would "flinch and falter" before the Southern delegates. "If there is any man in the country who comprehends the scope of the war more fully than the President, who is he?...We venture to say that there is no man in our history who has shown a more felicitous combination of temperament, conviction, and ability to grapple with a complication like that in which this country is involved than Abraham Lincoln."
Jefferson Davis pragmatically employed the failed conference to incite greater effort on the battlefield, pledging that "he would be willing to yield up everything he had on earth" before acceding to Northern demands. He predicted that before another year had pa.s.sed, the South would be able to secure peace on its own terms, with separation and slavery intact. "I can have no "common country" with the Yankees," he announced. "My life is bound up in the Confederacy; and, if any man supposes that, under any circ.u.mstances, I can be an agent of reconstruction of the Union, he has mistaken every element of my nature!"
Still, Lincoln did not relinquish hope that he might somehow bring the war to an honorable end before tens of thousands more young men had to die. Following his Hampton Roads suggestion of compensated emanc.i.p.ation, he drafted a proposal that Congress empower him "to pay four hundred millions of dollars" to the Southern states, distributed according to "their respective slave populations." The first half would be paid if "all resistance to the national authority" came to an end by April 1; the second half would be allocated if the Thirteenth Amendment were ratified by July 1. At that point, with the armed rebellion at an end, the Union restored, and slavery eradicated, "all political offences will be pardoned" and "all property, except slaves, liable to confiscation or forfeiture, will be released." Furthermore, "liberality will be recommended to congress upon all points not lying within executive control."
The proposition met with unanimous disapproval from the cabinet, all of whom were present except Seward. "The earnest desire of the President to conciliate and effect peace was manifest," Welles recorded, "but there may be such a thing as so overdoing as to cause a distrust or adverse feeling." Usher believed that the radicals in Congress "would make it the occasion of a violent a.s.sault on the President." Stanton had long maintained that it was unnecessary and wasteful to talk about compensation for slaves already freed by the Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation. Fessenden declared "that the only way to effectually end the war was by force of arms, and that until the war was thus ended no proposition to pay money would come from us."
Lincoln pointed out that the sum he proposed was simply the cost of continuing the war for another one or two hundred days, "to say nothing of the lives lost and property destroyed." Still, the cabinet was adamant. "You are all against me," Lincoln said, his voice filled with sadness. "His heart was so fully enlisted in behalf of such a plan that he would have followed it if only a single member of his Cabinet had supported him," Usher thought. Had Seward been there, Usher mused, "he would probably have approved the measure." Without a trace of support among his colleagues at the table, Lincoln felt compelled to forsake his proposition, which, in any event, as Jefferson Davis had made clear, was unacceptable to the Confederacy. So the war would continue until the South capitulated.
MEANWHILE, THE WAR FRONT continued to generate good news for the Union. After capturing Savannah, Sherman had headed north to Columbia, reaching the state capital of South Carolina on February 17. Columbia"s fall led to the evacuation of Charleston. Stanton ordered "a national salute" fired from "every fort a.r.s.enal and army headquarters of the United States, in honor of the restoration of the flag of the Union upon Fort Sumter." In Washington, the National Republican noted, "the flash and smoke were visible from the tops of buildings on the avenue, and the thunder of the guns was heard in all parts of the city." That evening, Lincoln was in "cheerful" spirits as he relaxed with Seward, Welles, and General Hooker in his office. "General H. thinks it the brightest day in four years," Welles recorded in his diary.
The following day, however, Browning found Lincoln "more depressed" than he had seen him in the four years of his presidency. His low spirits were probably caused by the pending execution of John Yates Beall, a former Confederate captain who had been tried and found guilty as a spy. In the fall of 1864, when Confederate agents based in Canada were pursuing plots to disrupt the draft and influence the elections, Beall had led a team of raiders in a daring and elaborate scheme to commandeer Union ships in the Great Lakes area, destroy railroad lines, and liberate Confederate prisoners in Ohio. The commander of the army in New York State, General John A. Dix, was unyielding in his belief that Beall must be executed as an example to others.
But Beall came from a prominent Virginia family, and a wide array of supporters pet.i.tioned Lincoln for clemency, including Orville Browning, Monty Blair, eight dozen congressmen, and six United States senators. They argued that Beall was acting as a commissioned officer in the Confederate army and should not be treated as "a robber, brigand, and pirate." The case troubled Lincoln greatly, but he felt compelled to support General Dix. "I had to stand firm," he told an acquaintance a few weeks later, "and I even had to turn away his poor sister when she came and begged for his life, and let him be executed, and he was executed, and I can"t get the distress out of my mind yet."
The week before his second inaugural on March 4, Lincoln announced that he would "not receive callers (except members of the Cabinet) for any purpose whatever, between the hours of three and seven o"clock p.m." He needed solitude to work on his inaugural speech. "The hopeful condition of the Union cause" had brought thousands of visitors to Washington, the National Republican reported. They were anxious not only to partake of the inaugural revelries but to share in the general elation that pervaded the capital. The city was so overcrowded that the parlors of all the leading hotels "were occupied by ladies and gentlemen, sitting up all night because no beds could be found for them."
Frederick Dougla.s.s decided to join "in the grand procession of citizens from all parts of the country." Blacks had been excluded from previous inaugural festivities, but with soldiers of both races "mingling their blood," it seemed to him that "it was not too great an a.s.sumption for a colored man to offer his congratulations to the President with those of other citizens." The evening before the inauguration, he visited Chase"s Sixth Street home. There, he later recalled, he helped Kate "in placing over her honored father"s shoulders the new robe then being made in which he was to administer the oath to the reelected President." As he looked at the new Chief Justice, Dougla.s.s recollected the "early anti-slavery days" of their first acquaintance. Chase had "welcomed [him] to his home and his table when to do so was a strange thing."
The steady rain on the morning of March 4 did not dampen the spirits of the estimated fifty thousand citizens gathered at the Capitol to witness the inauguration. Invited guests poured into the Senate chamber for the first part of the ceremony, which included a farewell address by the outgoing vice president, Hannibal Hamlin, and the swearing in of Andrew Johnson. Shortly before noon, a stir in the galleries revealed the arrival of the "notables"-generals, governors, the justices of the Supreme Court, the cabinet members, led by Seward, and finally, the president himself, whose chair was positioned in the middle of the front row. Mary Lincoln was seated in the Diplomatic Gallery, surrounded by members of the foreign ministries. "One amba.s.sador was so stiff with gold lace," Noah Brooks observed, "that he could not sit down except with great difficulty and had to unb.u.t.ton before he could get his feet on the floor."
After Hamlin delivered a graceful farewell address, Andrew Johnson rose to take the oath. His face was "extraordinarily red," his balance precarious. He appeared to observers to be "in a state of manifest intoxication." For twenty long minutes, he spoke incoherently, repeatedly declaring his plebeian background and his pride that such a humble man "could rise from the ranks, under the Const.i.tution, to the proud position of the second place in the gift of the people." Pivoting to face the Supreme Court justices, he reminded them that they also derived their "power from the people." Then he spoke to the members of the cabinet, insisting they, too, were "creature[s]" of the people. He addressed each secretary by name-Mr. Seward, Mr. Stanton, and down the ranks-until he reached Gideon Welles, whose name he could not remember. Seemingly nonplused, he turned to someone near him and loudly inquired, "What"s the name of the Secretary of the Navy?" Continuing his tirade, he ignored Hamlin"s pointed reminder that "the hour for the inauguration ceremony had pa.s.sed."