And always the feverish question,what is the strength of the faction that approves this?Or,how far will this go toward creating a new element in the political kaleidoscope?About the twentieth of August,Jaquess and Gilmore threw a splashing stone into these troubled waters.They published in The Atlantic a full account of their interview with Davis,who,in the clearest,most unfaltering way had told them that the Southerners were fighting for independence and for nothing else;that no compromise over slavery;nothing but the recognition of the Confederacy as a separate nation would induce them to put up their bright swords.As Lincoln subsequently,in his perfect clarity of speech,represented Davis:"He would accept nothing short of severance of the Union-precisely what we will not and can not give....
He does not attempt to deceive us.He affords us no excuse to deceive ourselves.He can not voluntarily reaccept the Union;we can not voluntarily yield it"[10]
Whether without the intrusion of Jaquess and Gilmore,the Executive Committee would have come to the conclusion they now reached,is a mere speculation.They thought they were at the point of desperation.They thought they saw a way out,a way that reminds one of Jaquess and Gilmore.On the twenty-second,Raymond sent that letter to Lincoln about "the tide setting strongly against us."He also proposed the Committee's way of escape:nothing but to offer peace to Davis "on the sole condition of acknowledging the supremacy of the Constitution--all other questions to be settled in a convention of the people of all the States."[11]He assumed the offer would be rejected.Thus the clamor for negotiation would be met and brought to naught.Having sent off his letter,Raymond got his committee together and started for Washington for a council of desperation.
And this brings us to the twenty-third of August.On that day,pondering Raymond's letter,Lincoln took thought with himself what he should say to the Executive Committee.A mere opportunist would have met the situation with some insincere proposal,by the formulation of terms that would have certainly been rejected.We have seen how Lincoln reasoned in such a connection when he drew up the memorandum for Jaquess and Gilmore.His present problem involved nothing of this sort.
What he was thinking out was how best to induce the committee to accept his own attitude;to become for the moment believers in destiny;to nail their colors;turn their backs as he was doing on these devices of diplomacy;and as to the rest-permit to heaven.
Whatever his managers might think,the serious matter in Lincoln's mind,that twenty-third of August,was the draft.
And back of the draft,a tremendous matter which probably none of them at the time appreciated.Assuming that they were right in their political forecast,assuming that he was not to be reelected,what did it signify?For him,there was but one answer:that he had only five months in which to end the war.
And with the tide running strong against him,what could he do?
But one thing:use the war powers while they remained in his hands in every conceivable way that might force a conclusion on the field of battle.He recorded his determination.A Cabinet meeting was held on the twenty-third.Lincoln handed his Ministers a folded paper and asked them to write their initials on the back.At the time he gave them no intimation what the paper contained.It was the following memorandum:"This morning,as for some days past,it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be reelected.Then it will be my duty to so cooperate with the President elect as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration,as he will have secured his election on such ground that he can not possibly save it afterward."[12]
He took into his confidence "the stronger half of the Cabinet,Seward,Stanton and Fessenden,"and together they assaulted the Committee.[13]It was a reception amazingly different from what had been expected.Instead of terrified party diplomats shaking in their shoes,trying to face all points at once,morbid over possible political defeats in every quarter,they found what may have seemed to them a man in a dream;one who was intensely sad,but who gave no suggestion of panic,no solicitude about his own fate,no doubt of his ultimate victory.Their practical astuteness was disarmed by that higher astuteness attained only by peculiar minds which can discern through some sure interior test the rare moment when it is the part of wisdom not to be astute at all.
Backed by those strong Ministers,all entirely under his influence,Lincoln fully persuaded the Committee that at this moment,any overture for peace would be the worst of strategic blunders,"would be worse than losing the presidential contest--it would be ignominiously surrendering it in advance."[14]
Lincoln won a complete spiritual victory over the Committee.
These dispirited men,who had come to Washington to beg for a policy of negotiation,went away in such a different temper that Bennett's Washington correspondent jeered in print at the "silly report"of their having assembled to discuss peace.[15]
Obviously,they had merely held a meeting of the Executive Committee.The Tribune correspondent telegraphed that they were confident of Lincoln's reelection.[l6]
On the day following the conference with Lincoln,The Times announced:"You may rest assured that all reports attributing to the government any movements looking toward negotiations for peace at present are utterly without foundation....The government has not entertained or discussed the project of proposing an armistice with the Rebels nor has it any intention of sending commissioners to Richmond ...its sole and undivided purpose is to prosecute the war until the rebellion is quelled...."Of equal significance was the announcement by The Times,fairly to be considered the Administration organ:"The President stands firm against every solicitation to postpone the draft."[17]