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"pulled out" for Anadarko on the Washita, where the head agency of the Comanches, Kiowas, and Wichitas is located. The little ponies made bad work of the sandy roads. Kiowa houses became more numerous along the road, and there is evidence that they farm more than the brother tribe, but they are not so attractive a people. Of course the tepee is pitched in the front yard and the house is used as a kind of out-building. The medicine-bags were hanging from the tripod of poles near by, and an occasional buck was lying on his back "smoking his medicine "-a very comfortable form of devotion.

We saw the grass houses of the Wichitas, which might be taken for ordinary haystacks. As they stand out on the prairie surrounded by wagons, agricultural implements, and cattle, one is caught wondering where is the remainder of the farm which goes with this farm-yard.

These Territory Apaches are very different from their brothers of the mountains. They are good-looking, but are regarded contemptuously by other Indians and also by the traders. They are treacherous, violent, and most cunning liars and thieves. I spent an evening in one of their tepees watching a game of monte, and the gambling passion was developed almost to insanity. They sat and glared at the cards, their dark faces gleaming with avarice, cunning, and excitement. I thought then that the good white men who would undertake to make Christian gentlemen and honest tillers of the soil out of this material would contract for a job to subvert the process of nature.

Our little ponies, recuperated by some grain and rest, were once more hooked up, and the cowboy and I started for Fort Reno to see the Arrapahoes and the Cheyennes, hoping to meet them far along on "the white man's road." Frederic Remington.

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1 See "Open Letter" by Hamilton W. Mabie in this number of THE CENTURY MAGAZINE.- EDITOR.

VOL. XXXVIII.-53.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: A HISTORY.'

LINCOLN RENOMINATED-THE WADE-DAVIS MANIFESTO-
HORACE GREELEY'S PEACE MISSION.

LINCOLN RENOMINATED.

BY JOHN G. NICOLAY AND JOHN HAY, PRIVATE SECRETARIES TO THE PRESIDENT. I was of anything in my life. Providence has decreed your reëlection, and no combination of the wicked can prevent it.2

N other chapters we have mentioned the unavailing efforts made by a few politicians to defeat the will of the people which everywhere demanded the renomination of Mr. Lincoln. These efforts were worth studying as manifestations of eccentric human nature, but they never had the least effect upon the great currents of public opinion. Death alone could have prevented the choice of Mr. Lincoln by the Union convention. So absolute and universal was this tendency that most of the politicians made no effort to direct or guide it; they simply exerted themselves to keep in the van and not be overwhelmed. The convention was to meet on the 7th of June, but the irregular nominations of the President began at the feast of the Epiphany. The first convention of the year was held in New Hampshire on the 6th of January-for the nomination of State officers. It had properly no concern with the National nominations. The convention consisted in great part of the friends of Mr. Chase, and those employees of the Treasury Department whose homes were in New Hampshire had come together determined to smother any mistimed demonstration for the President; but the first mention of his name set the assembly on fire, and before the chairman knew what he was doing the convention had declared in favor of the renomination of Lincoln. The same day a far more important demonstration came to the surface in Pennsylvania. The State legislature met on the 5th of January, and the following day a paper, prepared in advance, addressed to the President, requesting him to accept a second term of the Presidency, began to be circulated among the Union members. Not one to whom it was presented declined to sign it. Within a day or two it received the signature of every Union member of the Senate and the House of Pennsylvania, and Mr. Simon Cameron, transmitting it to the President on the 14th of January, could say:

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This remarkable address began by congratulating the President upon the successes of the recent election, which were generously ascribed to the policy of his Administration. Referring to the Republican victory in their own State, the members of the legislature said:

If the voice of Pennsylvania became thus potential in indorsing the policy of your Administration, we consider that, as the representatives of those who have so completely indorsed your official course, we are only responding to their demands when we thus publicly announce our unshaken preference for your reelection to the Presidency in 1864.

This preference is justified by them purely on public grounds.

To make a change in the Administration until its authority has been fully reestablished in the revolted States would be to give the enemies of the Government abroad a pretext for asserting that the Government had failed at home. To change the policy in operation to crush rebellion and restore the land to peace would be to afford the traitors in arms time to gather new strength-if not for immediate victory, at least for ultimate success in their efforts permanently to dissolve the Union. . . . We do not make this communication at this time to elicit from you any expression of opinion on this subject. Having confidence in your patriotism, we believe that you will abide the decision of the friends of the Union, and yield consent to any honorable use which they may deem proper to make of your name in order to secure the greatest good to the country and the speediest success to our arms. . . . Expressing what we feel to be the language not only of our own constituents, but also of the people of all the loyal States, we claim to indulge the expectation that you will yield to the preference which has already made you the people's candidate for the Presidency in 1864.

In every gathering of the supporters of the Union the same irrepressible sentiment broke forth. The "New York Times" on the 15th of January clearly expressed the general feeling:

The same wise policy which would forbid a man of business in troublous times to change his agent of proved efficiency, impels the loyal people of our 2 Cameron to Lincoln, Jan. 14, 1864. MS. Hay, 1886. All rights reserved.

You are now fairly launched on your second voyage, and of its success I am as confident as ever 1 Copyright by J. G. Nicolay and John

country to continue President Lincoln in his responsible position; and against the confirmed will of the people politicians are powerless.

The sentiment was so potent in its pressure upon the politicians that they everywhere gave way and broke into premature indorsement of the nomination. The Union Central Committee of New York held a special meeting and unanimously recommended the renomination of the President. Senator Morgan, sending this news to Mr. Lincoln, added:

It is going to be difficult to restrain the boys, and opponents; but it was speedily seen that out of there is not much use in trying to do so.1

At a local election some of the ward tickets were headed, with an irrelevancy which showed the spirit of the hour, "For President of the United States in 1864, Abraham Lincoln." From one end to the other of the country these spontaneous nominations joyously echoed one another. Towards the close of January the radical legislature of Kansas, with but one dissenting voice, passed through both its Houses a resolution renominating Lincoln. All through the next month these demonstrations continued. The Union members of the New Jersey legislature united in an address to the President, saying:

Without any disparagement of the true men who surround you, and whose counsels you have shared, believing that you are the choice of the people, whose servants we are, and firmly satisfied that they desire and intend to give you four years for a policy of peace, we present your name as the candidate for President of the American people in 1864.2

Connecticut instructed her delegates by resolutions on the 17th of February; Maryland, Minnesota, and Colorado expressed in the same way the sentiment of their people. Wisconsin and Indiana made haste to range themselves with the other Northern States; and Ohio seized the opportunity to put a stop to the restless ambition of her favorite son by a resolution of the Republican members of the legislature declaring that "the people of Ohio, and her soldiers in the army, demand the renomination of Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency" - the members rising to their feet and cheering with uncontrollable clamor when the resolution passed. The State of Maine, on the extreme eastern border, spoke next: early in March, the President received this dispatch, signed by a name afterwards illustrious in our political annals:

Both branches of the Maine legislature have this day adopted resolutions cordially recommending your renomination. Every Union member voted in favor of them. Maine is a unit for you.

JAMES G. BLAINE.

1 Jan. 4, 1864. MS. 2 Feb. 18, 1864.

Nowhere except in the State of Missouri was the name of Mr. Lincoln mentioned without overwhelming adhesion, and even in the Missouri Assembly the resolution in favor of his renomination was laid upon the table by a majority of only eight. There had been some anxiety on the part of Mr. Lincoln's friends lest the powerful secret organization called the Union League, which represented the most ardent and vehement Republican sentiment of the country, should fall into the hands of his Missouri these apprehensions were groundless. The Union Leagues of New York, Illinois, and even Vicksburg, where the victory of Grant had allowed the development of a robust Union sentiment, were among the first to declare for the President. The organization in Philadelphia, powerful in wealth, intelligence, and personal influence, so early as the 11th of January had resolved that to the "prudence, sagacity, comprehension, and perseverance of Mr. Lincoln, under the guidance of a benign Providence, the nation is more indebted for the grand results of the war, which Southern rebels have wickedly waged against liberty and the Union, than to any other single instrumentality, and that he is justly entitled to whatever reward it is in the power of the nation to bestow." They declared also:

That as Mr. Lincoln has had to endure the largest share of the labor required to suppress the rebellion, now rapidly verging to its close, he should also enjoy the largest share of the honors which await those who have contended for the right. They therefore recognize with pleasure the unmistakable indications of the popular will in all the loyal States, and distinction of party, here and elsewhere, in presentheartily join with their fellow-citizens, without any ing him as the people's candidate for the Presidency.

The current swept on irresistibly throughout the months of spring. A few opponents of Mr. Lincoln, seeing that he was already nominated the moment the convention should meet, made one last effort to postpone the meeting of the convention until September, knowing that their only reliance was in some possible accident of the summer. So earnest and important a Republican as William Cullen Bryant united with a self-constituted committee of others equally earnest, but not so important, to induce the National Committee to postpone the convention. In their opinion "the country was not now in a position to enter into a Presidential contest; it was clear to them that no nomination could be made with any unanimity so early as June. They thought it best to see what the result of the summer campaign would be, as the wish of the people to continue their present leaders in power would depend very much upon this." The committee, of

course, took no notice of this appeal, though it was favored by so strong a Republican authority as the "New York Tribune." The National Committee wisely thought that they might with as much reason take into consideration the request of a committee of prominent citizens to check an impending thunderstorm. All the movements in opposition to Mr. Lincoln were marked with the same naiveté and futility. The secret circular of Senator Pomeroy, the farcical Cleveland convention, the attempt of Mr. Bryant's committee to postpone the convention, were all equally feeble and nugatory in their effect.

Mr. Lincoln took no measures whatever to promote his candidacy. It is true he did not, like other candidates, assume airs of reluctance or bashfulness. While he discouraged on the part of strangers any suggestions as to his reelection, among his friends he made no secret of his readiness to continue the work he was engaged in, if such should seem to be the general wish. In a private letter to Mr. E. B. Washburne he said: "A second term would be a great honor and a great labor, which together perhaps I would not decline if tendered."2 To another congressman he is reported to have said: "I do not desire a renomination except for the reason that such action on the part of the Republican party would be the most emphatic indorsement which could be given to the policy of my Administration." We have already mentioned the equanimity with which he treated the efforts of a leading member of his Cabinet to supplant him, and he received in the same manner the frequent suggestions of apprehensive friends that he would do well to beware of Grant. His usual reply was, "If he takes Richmond, let him have it." In reality General Grant was never at any time a competitor for the nomination. Of course, after the battle of Missionary Ridge there was no lack of such suggestions on the part of those who surrounded the victorious general; but he positively refused to put himself in the lists or to give any sanction to the use of his name. The President constantly discouraged on the part of officeholders of the Government, civil or military; any especial eagerness in his behalf. General Schurz wrote, late in February, asking permission to take an active part in the Presidential canvass, to which Mr. Lincoln replied:

1 April 26, 1864.

2 Oct. 26, 1863. MS.

3 Lincoln to Schurz, March 13, 1864. MS. 4 Lincoln to Schurz, March 23, 1864. Autograph MS.

5 General John A. Logan, in a letter addressed to General W. T. Sherman and published after General Logan's death, said that when he left the army to make speeches in Illinois he did this at the request of the President. We have been unable to find any communication in this sense among Mr. Lincoln's papers.

Allow me to suggest that if you wish to remain in the military service, it is very dangerous for you to get temporarily out of it; because, with a majorgeneral once out, it is next to impossible for even the President to get him in again. With my appreciation of your ability and correct principle, of course I would be very glad to have your service for the country in the approaching political canvass; but I fear we cannot properly have it without separating you from the military.3

And in a subsequent letter addressed to the same general he said : +

I perceive no objection to your making a political speech when you are where one is to be made; but quite surely speaking in the North and fighting in the South at the same time are not possible; nor could I be justified to detail any officer to the political campaign during its continuance and then return him to the army.5

The experience of a hundred years of our politics has shown what perils environ a Presidential candidate who makes speeches. The temptation to flatter the immediate audience, without regard to the ultimate effect of the words spoken, has often proved too strong for the wariest politician to resist. Especially is a candidate in danger when confronting an audience belonging to a special race or class. Mr. Lincoln made no mistake either in 1860 or in 1864. Even when exposed to the strongest possible temptation, the reception of an address from a deputation of a workingmen's association, he preserved his mental balance undisturbed. To such a committee, who approached him on the 21st of March, 1864, he replied by repeating to them the passage from his message of December, 1861, in which the relations of labor and capital are set down with mathematical and logical precision, illuminated by the light of a broad humanity; and he only added to the views thus expressed the following words, than which nothing wiser or more humane has ever been said by social econo

mists:

None are so deeply interested to resist the present rebellion as the working people. Let them beware of prejudices working division and hostility among ance in your city last summer was the hanging of some working people by other working people. It should never be so. The strongest bond of human sympathy, outside of the family relation, should be one uniting all working people, of all nations and We applied to General Logan's family for the evidence on which the assertion was founded, but received no answer. There is no question that General Logan's statement was made in good faith, and that he believed that in taking a leave and assisting in the political canvass he was acting in accordance with the President's wishes. But Mr. Lincoln's action in other cases was so consistently opposed to this hypothesis, that we can only conclude that General Logan got his impression of what the President desired from some other person than the President himself.

themselves. The most notable feature of a disturb

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