By John A. O'Brien
Denver, Colorado
Friday, July 12, 2024
Another in a series of blogs about the tumultuous year of 1864, exactly 160 years ago.
President Lincoln was very aware of what would be his place in history if he did not have the opportunity to complete his work in a second term. He had told delegates returning from the National Union Convention that he was grateful for his nomination because his “name would go into history darkly shadowed by a fraternal war that he would be held responsible for inaugurating if he were unable to continue in office to conquer the Rebellion and restore the Union.”
Confederate General Jubal Early’s raid on Washington accentuated the slow pace of military success in the summer of 1864. As it became clearer to the public that Grant was bogged down at Petersburg, morale across the north sank, again. Congressional Radicals were most disenchanted with Lincoln and focused their displeasure on trying to wrest away the policy initiative on eventual reconstruction. The Wade-Davis bill would give Congress control of reconstruction efforts. Sen. Ben Wade and Rep. Henry Winter Davis disputed that the president was being aggressive enough in demanding retribution of the southern rebels. Congress would withhold recognition of new state governments until a majority of voters had signed loyalty oaths, well above the 10% threshold described by Lincoln. The Wade-Davis bill also demanded severe penalties for government and military rebel leaders. (Neither Lincoln’s plan nor the Wade-Davis bill allowed for enfranchisement of blacks).
Radical leaders in Lincoln’s governing coalition were disgusted by the president’s veto of the bill. The reaction of Congress was severe with several members declaring against Lincoln’s election and even calling for his impeachment. John Hay advised Lincoln that the Radicals were out of touch with public sentiment. Lincoln responded that he was still aware that their anger “can do harm” in the election. And regardless of that, Lincoln said, “I must keep some standard of principle fixed within myself.” The breadth of the reaction prompted the New York Herald to be the first to predict that Lincoln would not be re-elected.
On August 4, 1864, Wade and Davis released a blistering response to Lincoln’s veto. The Wade-Davis Manifesto was intended to trigger a dump-Lincoln movement just three months before the election. Davis proposed to the abolitionists that they dump Fremont so that all could work together to replace Lincoln on the ballot before the end of August. Even Charles Sumner believed that the president should step down to make way “for any of 100 names.” Petitions began to arrive that decried Lincoln’s “indecision of character” and “the large preponderance of that particular element known as the milk of human kindness, in his disposition.” Director of the Government Printing Office, John Defrees remarked on the irony “that most of the opposition to Mr. Lincoln is to be found among the very men who were loudest in their commendations of the proclamation of freedom, as they called it.” Having read the manifesto on August 5, Lincoln vowed that he was not going anywhere.
How could Lincoln alter this momentum for his defeat? The pressure to remove him from the presidential ballot would only increase throughout August as frustrations about the progress of the war and Lincoln’s seeming passive temperament continued to boil.
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