in the arts and practice of peace shall now do their work equally well. Any senator can step from his chair at the Capitol into the White House, and fulfil the office of President with more skill and success than a Grant, Sherman, or 5 Sheridan, who were soldiers by education and nature, who filled well their office when the country was in danger, but were not schooled in the practices by which civil communities are, and should be, governed. I claim that our experience since 1865 demonstrates the truth of this my proposition. 10 Therefore I say that "patriotism" does not demand of me what I construe as a sacrifice of judgment, of inclination, and of self-interest. I have my personal affairs in a state of absolute safety and comfort. I owe no man a cent, have no expensive habits or tastes, envy no man his wealth or power, 15 no complications or indirect liabilities, and would account myself a fool, a madman, an ass, to embark anew, at sixtyfive years of age, in a career that may, at any moment, become tempest-tossed by the perfidy, the defalcation, the dishonesty, or neglect of any one of a hundred thousand 20 subordinates utterly unknown to the President of the United States, not to say the eternal worriment by a vast host of impecunious friends and old military subordinates. Even as it is, I am tortured by the charitable appeals of poor distressed pensioners, but as President, these would be multi25 plied beyond human endurance. I remember well the experience of Generals Jackson, Harrison, Tyler, Grant, Hayes, and Garfield, all elected because of their military services, and am warned, not encouraged, by their sad experience. No, - count me out. The civilians of the U. S. should, 30 and must, buffet with this thankless office, and leave us old soldiers to enjoy the peace we fought for, and think we earned. With profound respect, Your friend, W. T. SHERMAN. II. PRESIDENT LINCOLN To General McClellan. [General McClellan had succeeded General Scott on November 1, 1861, as Commander-in-Chief (under the President) of all the armies of the United States. On January 31, 1862, the President had issued his "Special War Order No. 1," directing a forward movement of the Army of the Potomac. This order conflicted with plans which McClel- 5 lan had formed, and he remonstrated. Little Masterpieces, Lincoln. B. Perry, p. 109.] EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, MAJOR-GENERAL MCCLELLAN : February 3, 1862. - yours ΙΟ MY DEAR SIR: You and I have distinct and different plans for a movement of the Army of the Potomac to be down the Chesapeake, up the Rappahannock to Urbana, and across land to the terminus of the railroad on the York River; mine to move directly to a point on the 15 railroad southwest of Manassas. If you will give me satisfactory answers to the following questions, I shall gladly yield my plan to yours. First. Does not your plan involve a greatly larger expenditure of time and money than mine? Second. Wherein is a victory more certain by your plan than mine? Third. Wherein is a victory more valuable by your plan than mine? 20 Fourth. In fact, would it not be less valuable in this, that 25 it would break no great line of the enemy's communications, while mine would? Fifth. In case of disaster, would not a retreat be more difficult by your plan than mine? Yours truly, ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 30 MAJOR-GENERAL MCCLELLAN, III a. HORACE GREELEY To President Lincoln. (Printed in the editorial columns of the N. Y. Tribune of [Military reverses had by August, 1862 "sharpened anew the underlying prejudice and distrust between the two factions of [Lincoln's] supporters - radicals and conservatives, as they began to be called; or, more properly speaking, those who were anxious to destroy and those 5 who were willing to preserve slavery. Each faction loudly charged the other with being the cause of failure and clamored vehemently for a change of policy to conform to their own views. Outside of both was the important faction of those Democrats who either yielded the war only a sullen support or opposed it as openly as they safely might, and Io who, on the slavery issue, directed their denunciations wholly against the radicals. It may be truly said that at no time were political questions so critical and embarrassing to Mr. Lincoln as during this period. His own decision had been reached; his own course was clearly and unalterably marked out. [He had discussed with his Cabinet, July 22, 15 the Emancipation Proclamation, but, following a suggestion of Secretary Seward, had laid it aside until some military success should offer a more propitious time for issuing it.] But the circumstances surrounding him did not permit his making [his plans] known, and he was compelled to keep up an appearance of indecision which only brought 20 upon him a greater flood of importunities. During no part of his administration were his acts and words so persistently misconstrued as in this interim by men who gave his words the color and meaning of their own eager desires and expectations. To interpret properly Mr. Lincoln's language it must be constantly 25 borne in mind that its single object was to curb and restrain the impatience of zealots from either faction." Abraham Lincoln, Nicolay & Hay, Century Co., VI., 148.] THE PRAYER OF TWENTY MILLIONS. TO ABRAHAM LINCOLN, PRESIDENT OF THE U. STATES: for you must 30 know already—that a great proportion of those who tri umphed in your election, and of all who desire the unqualified suppression of the Rebellion now desolating our country, are sorely disappointed and deeply pained by the policy you seem to be pursuing with regard to the slaves of Rebels. I write only to set succinctly and unmistakably before you what we require, what we think we have a right to expect, and of what we complain. I. We require of you, as the first servant of the Republic, charged especially and pre-eminently with this duty, that you execute the laws. Most emphatically do we demand that 10 such laws as have been recently enacted, which therefore may fairly be presumed to embody the present will and to be dictated by the present needs of the Republic, and which, after due consideration have received your personal sanction, shall by you be carried into full effect, and that you publicly and decisively instruct your subordinates that such laws exist, that they are binding on all functionaries and citizens, and that they are to be obeyed to the letter. II. We think you are strangely and disastrously remiss in the discharge of your official and imperative duty with a regard to the emancipating provisions of the new Confisca tion Act. Those provisions were designed to fight Slavery with Liberty. They prescribe that men loyal to the Union, and willing to shed their blood in her behalf, shall no longer be held, with the Nation's consent, in bondage to persistent, 2 malignant traitors, who for twenty years have been plotting and for sixteen months have been fighting to divide and destroy our country. Why these traitors should be treated with tenderness by you, to the prejudice of the dearest rights of loyal men, we cannot conceive. III. We think you are unduly influenced by the counsels the representations, the menaces, of certain fossil politician hailing from the Border Slave States. Knowing well th the heartily, unconditionally loyal portion of the White cit zens of those States do not expect nor desire that Slavery shall be upheld to the prejudice of the Union (for the truth of which we appeal not only to every Republican residing in those states, but to such eminent loyalists as H. Winter Davis, Parson Brownlow, the Union Central Committee of Baltimore, and to the "Nashville Union")— we 5 ask you to consider that Slavery is everywhere the inciting cause and sustaining base of treason: the most slave-holding sections of Maryland and Delaware being this day, though under the Union flag, in full sympathy with the Rebellion, while the Free-Labor portions of Tennessee and of Texas, 10 though writhing under the bloody heel of Treason, are unconquerably loyal to the Union. So emphatically is this the case, that a most intelligent Union banker of Baltimore recently avowed his confident belief that a majority of the present Legislature of Maryland, though elected as and still 15 professing to be Unionists, are at heart desirous of the triumph of the Jeff. Davis conspiracy; and when asked how they could be won back to loyalty, replied "Only by the complete Abolition of Slavery." It seems to us the most obvious truth, that whatever strengthens or fortifies Slavery 20 in the Border States strengthens also Treason, and drives home the wedge intended to divide the Union. Had you from the first refused to recognize in those States, as here, any other than unconditional loyalty that which stands for Slavery - those States the Union, whatever may become of 25 would have been, and would be, far more helpful and less troublesome to the defenders of the Union than they have been, or now are. IV. We think timid counsels in such a crisis calculated to prove perilous, and probably disastrous. It is the duty of 30 a Government so wantonly, wickedly assailed by the Rebellion as ours has been to oppose force to force in a defiant, dauntless spirit. It cannot afford to temporize with traitors nor with semi-traitors. It must not bribe them to behave themselves, nor make them fair promises in the hope of dis35 arming their causeless hostility. Representing a brave and high-spirited people, it can afford to forfeit anything else |