During the early part of 1863Lincoln's political scheme received a serious blow.Seymour ranked himself as an irreconcilable enemy of the Administration.The anti-Lincoln Republicans struck at the President in roundabout ways.
Heralding a new attack,the best man on the Committee,Julian,ironically urged his associates in Congress to "rescue"the President from his false friends--those mere Unionists who were luring him away from the party that had elected him,enticing him into a vague new party that should include Democrats."It was said that there were only two Lincoln men in the House.[12]
Greeley was coquetting with Rosecrans,trying to induce him to come forward as Republican presidential "timber."The Committee in April published an elaborate report which portrayed the army of the Potomac as an army of heroes tragically afflicted in the past by the incompetence of their commanders.The Democrats continued their abuse of the dictator.
It was a moment of strained pause,everybody waiting upon circumstance.And in Washington,every eye was turned Southward.How soon would they glimpse the first messenger from that glorious victory which "Fighting Joe"had promised them."The enemy is in my power,"said he,"and God Almighty can not deprive me of them."[13]
Something of the difference between Hooker and Lincoln,between all the Vindictives and Lincoln,may be felt by turning from these ribald words to that Fast Day Proclamation which this strange statesman issued to his people,that anxious spring,--that moment of trance as it were--when all things seemed to tremble toward the last judgment:
"And whereas,it is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God;to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow,yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon;and to recognize the sublime truth announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history,that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord:
"And insomuch as we know that by His divine law nations,like individuals,are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world,may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war which now desolates the land may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins,to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people.We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven.We have been preserved,these many years,in peace and prosperity.We have grown in numbers,wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown;but we have forgotten God.We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace,and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us;and we have vainly imagined,in the deceitfulness of our hearts,that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.
Intoxicated with unbroken success,we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace,too proud to pray to God that made us:
"It behooves us then to humble ourselves before the offended Power,to confess our national sins,and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.
"All this being done in sincerity and truth,let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the divine teachings.that the united cry of the nation will be heard on high,and answered with blessings no less than the pardon of our national sins and the restoration of our now divided and suffering country to its former happy condition of unity and peace."[14]
Alas,for such men as Hooker!What seemed to him in his vainglory beyond the reach of Omnipotence,was accomplished by Lee and Jackson and a Confederate army at Chancellorsville.
Profound gloom fell upon Washington.Welles heard the terrible news from Sumner who came into his room "and raising both hands exclaimed,'Lost,lost,all is lost!'"[15]
The aftermath of Manassas was repeated.In the case of Pope,no effort had been spared to save the friend of the Committee,to find some one else on whom to load his incompetence.The course was now repeated.Again,the Jacobins raised the cry,"We are betrayed!"Again,the stir to injure the President.
Very strange are the ironies of history!At this critical moment,Lincoln's amiable mistake in sending Burnside to Cincinnati demanded expiation.Along with the definite news of Hooker's overthrow,came the news that Burnside had seized the Copperhead leader,Vallandigham,and had cast him into prison;that a hubbub had ensued;that,as the saying goes,the woods were burning in Ohio.
Vallandigham's offense was a public speech of which no accurate report survives.However,the fragments recorded by "plain clothes"men in Burnside's employ,when set in the perspective of Vallandigham's thinking as displayed in Congress,make its tenor plain enough.it was an out-and-out Copperhead harangue.
If he was to be treated as hundreds of others had been,the case against him was plain.But the Administration's policy toward agitators had gradually changed.There was not the same fear of them that had existed two years before.Now the tendency of the Administration was to ignore them.
The Cabinet regretted what Burnside had done.Nevertheless,the Ministers felt that it would not do to repudiate him.
Lincoln took that view.He wrote to Burnside deploring his action and sustaining his authority.1[6]And then,as a sort of grim practical joke,he commuted Vallandigham's sentence from imprisonment to banishment.The agitator was sent across the lines into the Confederacy.
