CHAPTER 4
“Nothing through passion and ill temper.”
On April 19, 1861, Private Luther Ladd became the first casualty of the Civil War. A seventeen–year–old mechanic from Massachusetts, Ladd had enlisted in the army with a sense of adventure and pro-Union patriotism. He was killed less than four days into his first mission when the citizens of Baltimore rioted as the 6th Massachusetts Infantry tried to make its way through the city to Camden train station. Within the next four years, over half a million enlisted soldiers would die; while thousands more Americans would become non-enlisted casualties of starvation, disease, suicide, and race-related violence.
In terms of lives lost, the Civil War remains the costliest military conflict in American history. Cities were burned, entire landscapes ransacked, and throughout it all there is ample evidence to suggest that Abraham Lincoln grieved deeply at the violence and bloodshed washing over the nation.
Numerous anecdotes exist about Lincoln's struggle to find peace in a nation at war. He was known for personally interceding when distraught widows wrote to him begging for a son to be discharged so the veteran could help support his siblings at home, or for a soldier's salary to be released when it was being withheld for some minor infraction. Lincoln's own bouts with “melancholia” are well documented, and his sadness and frustration at the massive loss of life is at the forefront of his writings during his years in the White House.
Yet equally as obvious as Lincoln's pain is his determination to rebuild and create a stronger nation. Throughout Lincoln's legal and political career he sought to find resolution—to create compromises that would allow opposing forces to each bend, but not break. In hindsight this characteristic lends itself to both criticism and praise. But as a leader in a time of crisis, Abraham Lincoln drew strength as a man of a select few absolutes. In those principles that he held sacred, Lincoln was as unyielding as granite; he was willing to pursue every means necessary to save the Union. At the same time, he was a leader who chose to look beyond his own ambition to envision a nation where Americans would have to live together after this great conflict had finally ended. He tempered determination with compassion, and endurance with flexibility. Though he would never live to see the Union he fought so valiantly for, Lincoln's steady guidance provided a framework for Americans to build peace upon long after his death.
Passionately Pursue Peace
It is always magnanimous to recant whatever we may have said in passion.
—Letter to William Butler;
February 1, 1839
We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
—Lincoln's first Inaugural Address;
March 4, 1861
Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can … As a peacemaker the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man.
—Fragment; written circa July 1850
Can we not come together, for the future? Let everyone who really believes, and is resolved, that free society is not, and shall not be, a failure, and who can conscientiously declare that in the past contest he has done only what he thought best—let everyone have charity to believe that every other one can say as much. Thus let bygones be bygones. Let past differences, as nothing be; and with steady eye on the real issue, let us reinaugurate the good old “central ideas” of the Republic.
—Speech at the Republican banquet in Chicago; December 10, 1856
Let us discard all this quibbling about this man and the other man, this race and that race and the other race being inferior and therefore they must be placed in an inferior position. Let us discard all these things, and unite as one people throughout this land, until we shall once more stand up declaring that all men are created equal.
—Reply to Stephen Douglas; July 10, 1858
Forgiveness without Compromise
I have desired as sincerely as any man, I sometimes think more than any other man, that our present difficulties might be settled without the shedding of blood.
—Address to the Frontier Guard;
April 26, 1861
Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn by the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, “The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.” With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.
—Lincoln's second Inaugural Address;
March 4, 1865
I have here stated my purpose according to my views of official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.
—Letter to Horace Greeley; August 22, 1862
The man does not live who is more devoted to peace than I am. None who would do more to preserve it. But it may be necessary to put the foot down firmly.
—Speech to the New Jersey General Assembly; February 21, 1861
I don't want to quarrel with him—to call him a liar; but when I come square up to him I don't know what else to call him if I must tell the truth out. I want to be at peace, and reserve all my fighting powers for necessary occasions. My time is now very nearly out, and I give up the trifle that is left to the Judge, to let him set my knees trembling again, if he can.
—Reply to Stephen Douglas; September 15, 1858
Our popular government has often been called an experiment. Two points in it our people have already settled, the successful establishing and the successful administering of it. One still remains, its successful maintenance against a formidable internal attempt to overthrow it. It is now for them to demonstrate to the world that those who can fairly carry an election can also suppress a rebellion; that ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors of bullets; and that when ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided, there can be no successful appeal back to bullets; that there can be no successful appeal, except to ballots themselves, at succeeding elections. Such will be a great lesson of peace; teaching men that what they cannot take by an election, neither can they take by a war; teaching all the folly of being the beginners of a war.
—Message to Congress;
July 4, 1861
There is no line, straight or crooked, suitable for a national boundary, upon which to divide.
—Message to Congress;
December 1, 1862
Victory without Vengeance
I shall do nothing in malice. What I deal with is too vast for malicious dealing.
—Letter to Cuthbert Bullitt; July 28, 1862
Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully.
—Lincoln's second Inaugural Address;
March 4, 1865
There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law.
—Speech to the Young Men's Lyceum;
January 27, 1838
While we must, by all available means, prevent the overthrow of the government, we should avoid planting and cultivating too many thorns in the bosom of society.
—Letter to Edwin M. Stanton; March 18, 1864
Let us at all times remember that all American citizens are brothers of a common country, and should dwell together in the bonds of fraternal feeling.
—Speech at Springfield, Illinois;
November 20, 1860
When men take it in their heads today, to hang gamblers, or burn murderers, they should recollect, that, in the confusion usually attending such transactions, they will be as likely to hang or burn some one, who is neither a gambler nor a murderer as one who is; and that, acting upon the example they set, the mob of tomorrow, may, and probably will, hang or burn some of them, by the very same mistake.
—Speech to the Young Men's Lyceum;
January 27, 1838
But the election, along with its incidental, and undesirable strife, has done good too. It has demonstrated that a people's government can sustain a national election, in the midst of a great civil war. Until now it has not been known to the world that this was a possibility. It shows also how sound, and how strong we still are. It shows that, even among candidates of the same party, he who is most devoted to the Union, and most opposed to treason, can receive most of the people's votes. It shows also, to the extent yet known, that we have more men now, than we had when the war began.
—Reply to a spontaneous serenade;
November 10, 1864
It is exceedingly desirable that all parts of this great confederacy shall be at peace, and in harmony, one with another. Let us Republicans do our part to have it so. Even though much provoked, let us do nothing through passion and ill temper. Even though the Southern people will not so much as listen to us, let us calmly consider their demands, and yield to them if, in our deliberate view of our duty, we possibly can.
—Address at Cooper Institute; February 27, 1860
The severest justice may not always be the best policy.
—Veto message; July 17, 1862
I have not heard near so much upon that subject as you probably suppose; and I am slow to listen to criminations among friends, and never expose their quarrels on either side. My sincere wish is that both sides will allow bygones to be bygones, and look to the present and future only.
—Letter to unknown; August 31, 1860
Human nature will not change. In any future great national trial, compared with the men of this, we shall have as weak and as strong, as silly and as wise, as bad and as good. Let us, therefore, study the incidents of this as philosophy to learn wisdom from, and none of them as wrongs to be revenged.
—Reply to a spontaneous serenade;
November 10, 1864
To Build a New Future without Forgetting the Past
I distrust the wisdom if not the sincerity of friends who would hold my hands while my enemies stab me.
—Letter to Reverdy Johnson;
July 26, 1862
And then there will be some black men who can remember that with silent tongue, and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well-poised bayonet, they have helped mankind on to this great consummation, while I fear there will be some white ones unable to forget that with malignant heart and deceitful speech they strove to hinder it.
—Letter to James C. Conkling;
August 26, 1863
If we reject and spurn them, we do our utmost to disorganize and disperse them. We, in effect, say to the white man: You are worthless or worse; we will neither help you, nor be helped by you. To the blacks, we say: This cup of liberty, which these, your old masters, hold to your lips, we will dash from you, and leave you to the chances of gathering the spilled and scattered contents in some vague and undefined when, where, and how. If this course, discouraging and paralyzing both white and black, has any tendency to bring Louisiana into proper, practical relations with the Union, I have so far been unable to perceive it. If, on the contrary, we recognize and sustain the new government … the converse of all this is made true. We encourage the hearts and nerve the arms of twelve thousand to adhere to their work, and argue for it, and proselyte for it, and fight for it, and feed it, and grow it, and ripen it to a complete success. The colored man, too, in seeing all united for him, is inspired with vigilance, and energy, and daring to the same end.
—Lincoln's last public address;
April 11, 1865
In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to “preserve, protect, and defend it.”
—Lincoln's first Inaugural Address;
March 4, 1861
Our Republican robe is soiled and trailed in the dust. Let us purify it. Let us turn and wash it white in the spirit if not the blood of the Revolution. Let us turn slavery from its claims of moral right, back upon its existing legal rights and its arguments of necessity. Let us return it to the position our fathers gave it, and there let it rest in peace. Let us re-adopt the Declaration of Independence, and with it the practices and policy which harmonize with it. Let North and South, let all Americans, let all lovers of liberty everywhere, join in the great and good work. If we do this, we shall not only have saved the Union, but we shall have so saved it as to make and to keep it forever worthy of the saving.
—Reply to Stephen Douglas;
October 16, 1854
On principle I dislike an oath which requires a man to swear he has not done wrong. It rejects the Christian principle of forgiveness on terms of repentance. I think it is enough if the man does no wrong hereafter.
—Note to the Secretary of War; February 5, 1864
Strength and Flexibility
Exercise your own judgment, and do right for the public interest. Let your military measures be strong enough to repel the invader and keep the peace, and not so strong as to unnecessarily harass and persecute the people. It is a difficult role, and so much greater will be the honor if you perform it well. If both factions, or neither, shall abuse you, you will probably be about right. Beware of being assailed by one, and praised by the other.
—Letter to Gen. J. M. Schofield;
May 27, 1863
Yield larger things to which you can show no more than equal right; and yield lesser ones, though clearly your own. Better give your path to a dog, than be bitten by him in contesting for the right. Even killing the dog would not cure the bite.
—Letter to Capt. James M. Cutts;
October 26, 1863
Admitting Mistakes
My dear General, I do not remember that you and I ever met personally. I write this now as a grateful acknowledgment for the almost inestimable service you have done the country. I wish to say a word further. When you first reached the vicinity of Vicksburg … I never had any faith, except a general hope that you knew better than I.… When you got below and took Port Gibson, Grand Gulf, and vicinity and when you turned northward, east of the Big Black, I feared it was a mistake. I now wish to make the personal acknowledgment that you were right and I was wrong.
—Letter to Gen. Grant;
July 13, 1863