Wade did not spare the President.Metaphorically speaking,he shook a fist in his face,the fist of a merciless old giant "When the foundation of this government is sought to be swept away by executive usurpation,it will not do to turn around to me and say this comes from a President I helped to elect...
.if the President of the United States operating through his major generals can initiate a State government,and can bring it here and force us,compel us,to receive on this floor these mere mockeries,these men of straw who represent nobody,your Republic is at an end ...talk not to me of your ten per cent.principle.A more absurd,monarchial and anti-American principle was never announced on God's earth."[8]
Amidst a rain of furious personalities,Lincoln's spokesman kept his poise.It was sorely tried by two things:by Sumner's frank use of every device of parliamentary obstruction with a view to wearing out the patience of the Senate,and by the cynical alliance,in order to balk Lincoln,of the Vindictives with the Democrats.What they would not risk in 1862when their principles had to wait upon party needs,they now considered safe strategy.And if ever the Little Men deserved their label it was when they played into the hands of the terrible Vindictives,thus becoming responsible for the rejection of Lincoln's plan of reconstruction.Trumbull upbraided Sumner for "associating himself with those whom he so often denounced,for the purpose of calling the yeas and nays and making dilatory motions"to postpone action until the press of other business should compel the Senate to set the resolution aside.Sumner's answer was that he would employ against the measure every instrument he could find "in the arsenal of parliamentary warfare."With the aid of the Democrats,the Vindictives carried the day.
The resolution was "dispensed with."[9]
As events turned out it was a catastrophe.But this was not apparent at the time.Though Lincoln had been beaten for the moment,the opposition was made up of so many and such irreconcilable elements that as long as he could hold together his own following,there was no reason to suppose he would not in the long run prevail.He was never in a firmer,more self-contained mood than on the last night of the session.[10]
Again,as on that memorable fourth of July,eight months before,he was in his room at the Capitol signing the last-minute bills.Stanton was with him.On receiving a telegram from Grant,the Secretary handed it to the President Grant reported that Lee had proposed a conference for the purpose of "a satisfactory adjustment of the present unhappy difficulties by means of a military convention."Without asking for the Secretary's opinion,Lincoln wrote out a reply which he directed him to sign and despatch immediately."The President directs me to say that he wishes you to have no conference with General Lee,unless it be for the capitulation of General Lee's army,or on some minor or purely military matter.He instructs me to say that you are not to decide,discuss,or confer upon any political questions,such questions the President holds in his own hands and will submit them to no military conferences or conventions.Meanwhile,you are to press to the utmost your military advantages."[11]
In the second inaugural [12]delivered the next day,there is not the faintest shadow of anxiety.It breathes a lofty confidence as if his soul was gazing meditatively downward upon life,and upon his own work,from a secure height.The world has shown a sound instinct in fixing upon one expression,"with malice toward none,with charity for all,"as the key-note of the final Lincoln.These words form the opening line of that paragraph of unsurpassable prose in which the second inaugural culminates:
"With malice toward none;with charity for all;with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right,let us strive on to finish the work we are in;to bind up the nation's wounds;to care for him who shall have borne the battle,and for his widow and his orphan,to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves,and with all nations."
