Abraham Lincoln Papers

Abraham Lincoln papers From John W. Forney to Abraham Lincoln, October 24, 1864 {Private.} Philadelphia, October 24th 1864. Dear Mr. Lincoln; Before starting upon my last campaign in this Presidential election, I take the liberty of asking you to read this letter — which will be presented to you by my son, John W. Forney, Jr., — on which I beg of you to ponder upon the views I will express to you. You were nominated and elected as a Republican, and you owe your seat to the division of the Democratic party in the two national conventions which took place at Charleston and at Baltimore. When Mr. Buchanan made a test of the Lecompton and the English bills, I foresaw that the slaveholders intended either to force one of their creatures upon the Democratic ticket for President, or to divide the Democratic party, and so to divide the Union; — but I had no idea that they would make your election a pretext for the separation of the Republic. Nevertheless I was extremely anxious to bring them to the test, and 1 hence I did my uttermost to strengthen Judge Douglas in his honest antagonism to those who were his personal foes, and to prepare him for the bold and manly stand which he assumed after your nomination by the Chicago convention, in 1860. His tour through the Southern states, in which he insisted that your inevitable constitutional election would be no cause for an assault upon the Union, awake[n]ed all my sensibilities, and I was not surprised at the close of it, when you were chosen to the place you now so honorably occupy, that you should have paid him the tribute which such unselfish patriotism deserved. 1 Stephen A. Douglas I think I may take the liberty of saying to you, Mr. Lincoln, that nothing in your character has more addressed itself to my own idea of a magnanimous man than the reception you gave to the disinterested action of your successful rival in the Senatorial contest in 1858, in the State of Illinois. Hence it was that you had no more earnest well wisher, if no more direct supporter for the Presidency, in 1860, than myself. I thought I could better promote your election by standing up for Douglas than if I had ran forward into a direct support of your patriotic aspirations. In other words it was necessary for some men inside of the Democratic organization — which, at that time, dismayed and disaffected, — desired a leader to give them an example, and a voice to give them utterance, and I maintained an attitude which was a good deal misrepresented by the friends of Breckenridge, Abraham Lincoln papers http://www.loc.gov/resource/mal.3755000 and misunderstood by some of the friends of Douglas. But it was not misunderstood by your friends, — nor, I make bold to say, by yourself. Now, Mr. Lincoln, your re-election to the Presidency is almost as well assured in the coming november election as it was in the November of 1860, and I trust you will permit me to say that the patriotic influences which, in the latter case, refused submission to the slaveholding tyranny are resolved to stand by you in the Same attitude in 1864. It would have been a sad and a disastrous thing if the whole Democratic party in the free states were now a unit against you, and in sympathy with the rebels. That it is not so, results, I conceive, from your generous and patriotic conduct. I may be told that many of these gentlemen would be for an Administration that represented the Union sentiment, without regard to the party action of that Administration, but you know, as I know, sir, that men are greatly affected by association, and that nothing is more difficult than to dissipate the prejudices of party. When you assumed the Presidential chair, on the 4th of March, 1861, you were, I have no doubt, profoundly affected by the sentiment that you could not conduct your administration without consulting the leading patriotic minds of the Democracy, and without recognizing them in certain official positions, and you showed your sincerity in this respect by calling into your Cabinet, after the retirement of General Cameron, the Hon. Edwin M. Stanton, as your Secretary of War. You could scarcely have acted otherwise than to have put your political friends into your first Cabinet, but it stands to your credit, on the book of History, that on every proper occasion you have yourself taken by the hand Democrats who felt that you were the representative of the Union idea, and who were resolved to stand by you to the end. I may mention my own case in this connection, if only to thank you for the generous and unprompted service you rendered to me after my defeat for the clerkship of the House, in the summer of the same year, when you took the trouble to call upon Senators, and to insist that I should be elected Secretary of the Senate of the United States. But true as all these things are, it becomes me, as your devoted friend, to call your attention to the stupendous responsibilities which must devolve upon you after your reelection in November next. First of all I think it is your bounden duty to take the earliest opportunity to recognize and to distinguish leading Union Democrats in every part of the country. In this city, where I may unhesitatingly assert of the Thirty Seven thousand soldiers sent to the field at least ten thousand were Democrats; and where, I also unhesitatingly assert, of the nearly eight thousand majority given for the Union ticket in October, at the last election, more than that number of voters was composed of members of the Democratic party. Your political friends seem to have no recollection of these Democrats. I begged of you to appoint Dan Dougherty your District Attorney, at the death of Coffey, but you appointed Charles Gilpin, and after that act, save here and there a school director, and in one or two cases a member of the Legislature, the old Whig party, and the old Bell & Everett party consumed all the offices and this spirit exhibited in the principal officers of the party, has run all through its subordinate branches. Abraham Lincoln papers http://www.loc.gov/resource/mal.3755000 Now, Mr. Lincoln, you are our head; — you are our Captain; you are the man who can afford to think and act upon these things. I do not propose to point out a path — I simply indicate a policy, Heaven knows I have no griefs. God has prospered me because I have taken care of myself. I am an independent journalist, and if successful it is merely because I have chosen to take time by the forelock, to follow principle unhesitatingly to the end — not to be afraid of disaster, and steadily to await the returning wave of prosperity, I have to nobody to recommend to office — I have only to say that if the Democrats now numbering hundreds of thousands are driven back into the Copperhead organization it will be because you may hesitate about setting an example to these close corporations in the different states, who still insist that every Democrat who has come over to them is a convert — and that they are, as before, the Whig, or the Republican party, I know, sir, I speak frankly, — I trust I do not speak offensively, — I know that I speak for such men as Dix, and Sickles, and Dickinson, and Stebbins, of New York; — for such men as Tod and Brough, of Ohio; — for such men as Logan, of Illinois; as Holt, of Kentucky; as Wright, of Indiana; as Conness, of California; 2 as Nesmith, of Oregon; and I know, more than all, that I speak for a host of men in Pennsylvania, who cooperate with me, and who believe, and sensitively believe, in the words I have spoken. 2 Forney's list of prominent War Democrats includes: John A. Dix, Daniel Sickles, Henry G. Stebbins, David Tod, John Brough, John A. Logan, Joseph Holt, Joseph A. Wright, John Conness and James W. Nesmith. We carried Philadelphia at the last election by more than seven thousand — we shall carry it in November by more than eight thousand; and yet, unless the suggestions I have delivered to you are acted upon, I think next year will throw this great city back into the hands of the common enemy. My own destiny is fixed; — come weal, come woe I am with the anti-slavery party. I am with you — your earnest, your anxious, your solicitous friend, and it is because I am so I have addressed you these words. Always and Truly, Your Friend, J. W. Forney Abraham Lincoln papers http://www.loc.gov/resource/mal.3755000.

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