Abraham Lincoln's Executive Routine
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
o > •si & -0 ^3 o ^j «c > •z. < m CM ?a P o SCANNED I. IMC* Abraham Lincoln's Executive Routine Diplomacy Excerpts from newspapers and other sources From the files of the Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection 7/.2 achats. 0^3*2. Gov. litcK* Olid ilsu President's Policy. Wabuinqton, April 11. Gov. Hicka, of Maryland, has been in con- sultation wilh tho Fio&idont for several hours to-day. Ha came hero with feelings of regrot at tbo course tbo administration was taking io Its 60eiuing coercive policy i but when the Governor beard the reasons for tbe present course of tbe Presidcut aud bis advisers, and understood tbe record by which they had been guided, be uiodiQed his opinion to a very great extent. Tbe government claims that it is not coerciDg any State or community. It is endea- voring to protect the property of the United States; aud, iff am uot very much mistaken In what I see aud hear, the government will do it at all hazards and at whatever cost. There is a steady, cool and deliberate intention to suow tbe world one or two things—either that we have a government worth preserving, or that it is so imbecile that a few slaveholders on this continent can set themselves up as su- perior to It and more powerfnl. When the facts upon which the Administra- tion has acted In this emergency are all knows to the people of this ' coun'try'i not ene in ten. will withhold bis support from the government. - 7 I ) t i-.jm Wlnshlag.Ua, WxsiiTS&xox, Ja'iy Vi.—By direction of X President Lincoln, the order calling for tho *p ^s. Services of the militia was recinded, and tliey Ji -. — N are accordingly mustered out. C\J* The President bas rec<>guiz;j d Giovanni W \ 5 Consul of Italy at 4 f>IiT!?i A vi zz m&s Vice Ni-w V* Of York, *r*4 H. CknseenitJJi as Consul of Prussia ^ •it Cuicugo. 4 How Lincoln Won Men Over. Just after a defeat iu l ho liekl during the civil war tlio governors of several uorthorn state? consulted and decided tliat the pros:dcnt must change 1 1 13 plana. They sont the lion. Nallian F. Dickson as their representative to irn press their decision upon the president, who was personally acquainted Willi his caller, most cordial greeting. a | "Well. Dickson," said Lincoln, "what can I do for you?" Dickson explained; a chaDge of plan was wa 1 tod. Look- ing out from under the shading hand that rested on his forehead, Abe, with a most friendly glance at his visitor, responded with unexpected cordiality and frankness: "Dickson, you are a friend of mine and 1 would like to please you. 1 am president and have the highest power. 1 can do what I please, I am president." Several times he repeated this decla- ration in varying words, impressing the responsibility of his ollice upon his hearer, and then continued: "Dick- son, \ou go homo, think it over, and come to-morrow ami toll me what to do." / ¥ $"f Dickson weut home; he thought it ovor — and he didn't come near the president for six weeks. Then be acci- dently met h m at a reception. Lin- coln's long arm reached out from the crowd and grasping his buttonhole, drew him to h s side. "Dickson " ho said, and there was a shy twinkle iu his eye as he spoke, "you diitu't come round to tell me what to do. Why not?" It may be added that Mr. Dick- son ever afterward maintained that Abe Lincoln was the greatest man America possessed. Ami the northern governors, by the shrewd absence of affront or refusal to accept any view they might proffer, were held in friend- ly allegiance to the chieftain of the time. — boston Journd. WK I GBT should dictate. The putative reason as- stiffened tin) backbone of English libera- A STUDY OF LINCOLN. signed by tho great financial secretary tion, Earl Russell would probably have was Mr. Soward's resignation and his had free hand to have smashed the THE MASTER IN DIPLOMACY, DE- unwillingness to serve in an adminis blockade. So, too, Lincoln's treatment of tho "Trent" incident, of the Mexican BATE AND POLITICS. tration with that strong right arm lop- imbroglio and of the other great exigen- ped off. The two papers were shown to Morton, Wado and others of tho aston- which rose with repeated threat, Genius In Cowhide Boots—Something That > ished coterie, and rather than havu Chase in its true light. Men felt that Charles A. Will Remember Lin- Dana — co they expressed their willingness to as "a man sent of God" when coln In Action and In Fitness of Speech. yield the point as to Seward. So Mr. of Many Sorrows. A Man Lincoln's craft disarmed their obstinacy [Copyright, 1805, by American Press Associa- and saved the integrity of his cabinet tion. ] without giving offense to the "conscript fathors, " so suavely hoodwinked by this master hand. Tho presidential campaign of 1864 affords an illustration of tho cunning in practical politics which supplemented the loftier aspects of tho statesman and tho patriot. To make sure of Pennsylva- nia, which was the native state of Mc- Clellan, and which seemed very doubt- ful, was a grave problem. At a conclave hold in Washington the president end- HE Lincoln bibli- ed discussion with tho following dic- ography comprises tum: "Let tho right men, soldiers hot i thousands of vol- from tho battlefield and full of enthusi- umes, and each year asm, be furloughed homo by the thou- adds to the cata- sands for the week preceding election. logue. Y o t the One of these missionaries will make world, not only more votes than a score of stump speak- American, but for- ers. But tho president," he continued, eign, never tires of "must not be known as privy to it, nor reading his lifo and studying its cipher. must it be an order from the war de- was always something of an Lincoln partment. " Assistant War Secretary enigma, and there is a feeling not yet Charles A. Dana was sent to General dead that the last word has not yet been' Meade's headquarters to negotiate this 6aid concerning the man, unique and pieco of finesse, and that general was complex above all his compeers. Ho be- very unwillingly persuaded to spare his longed to the "plain people, " Avhoin he battalions. But Pennsylvania went ever in his mouth. loved, andwhowero "Lincoln" by an overwhelming major- was their voice, ouo with them iu He ity. Tho versatility of -Lincoln, master limitations of taste and in tho ele- the iu power and mental resource even as forces of temperament. Liko mental political juggler, astonishes tho mind. them, ho wasted hut little thought on One is interested in such incidents main- graces of culture. It was not, one tho ly as they blazon his complex makeup fancy, that ho did not esteem tho may and wonders that a man so equipped on things decorate social and intel- which tho noblest side of statesmanship should lectual life. But these had not been have had these lesser gifts of the work- mother's milk to him, and when gigan- ing politician, an endowment rarely issues clutched him in their grip tic united in tho same man. they so miuimized lesser ideals as to Whatever credit may bo justly given make them worthless. to tho stall of great lieutenants in coun- So he remained to the last, genius in cil and camp who held up the hands of cowhide boots, a man of the backwoods Abraham Lincoln, his genius over- in outer seeming, but with tho delicate shadows them all. His was the initiative tenderness of a Bayard under the skin, of all great measures, bis the power to which needed but a pin prick to escape seo things dissociated from party or tem- and transform him into the noblest of porary bias in luminous perspective. gentlemen. Tho one statesman of his Stanton, Seward, Chase, great men as period whose grasp on the logic of tho they were and of domineering wills, history then being worked out in bat- recognized tho master, who had them tlefield and forum and council chamber bitted and bridled, yet never let them was infallible, he could also bo at need feel the gall of tho curb, so firmly gen- the craftiest of wire pullers, with a skill tle wai his touch. It was not really till in jerking the puppets which would the last year of Lincoln's life, the year have shamed tho shrewdest modern pol- of his renomination, that there was a itician in his own game. The poetic el- fully adequate notion abroad in tho evation of the prophet, which so often laud, however, of just what measure of burned in his utterances of tongue and greatness there was in him. But that pen, was linked with homespun sagaci- was the year when tho nation inado a ty, and the melancholy so ingrained in stock taking of tho four years, posted the substauco of his being would often the ledger and struck the balance The burst at tho mero twist of a suggestion sharp cut, salient bigness of him, cleav- tho wildest fooling of the buffoon. into ing upward like an Alpine peak, stood somo of tho antitheses of the Such were out monumental. All cloud of miscon- whose name pairs that of immortal ception had blown away.