Lincoln (9 page)

Seward was beginning to get Lincoln’s gauge; and he was afraid. He looked back down at his notes. “Your reasoning is good.” Then he read, “ ‘If a minority … will secede rather than submit, they make a precedent which, in turn, will divide and ruin them; for a minority of their own number will secede from them whenever a majority refuses to be controlled by such minority.’ That is plain.”

“It is
all
so plain, Mr. Seward. That is the hard part. But I do my best to spell it out when I say, physically speaking, we cannot separate. It’s not like a husband and wife getting a divorce and dividing up the property.”

Seward nodded; and read, “ ‘Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight always; and when, after much loss on both sides, and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old questions as to terms of intercourse are again upon you.’ That says it all, I guess.”

“But to say is not to do.”

“To say what is true is to do a lot in politics.” Seward laughed; for some reason, the mood of panic had gone. “Not that I’ve had much experience along those lines.”

Lincoln, to his relief, laughed too. “Who has?”

“I am afraid of your ending,” said Seward, coming to the point.

“Too harsh?”

Seward nodded, and read, “ ‘In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you.’ ” Seward looked up. “Let them fire the first shot, if shots are to be fired, which I pray not.” Seward continued to read. “ ‘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. With
you
and not with
me
, is the solemn question of “Shall it be peace, or a sword?” ’ ”

“That is the case. That is
my
case.”

Seward inhaled the cigar smoke deeply, comfortably. “Never end a speech with a question.”

Lincoln smiled. “For fear you’ll get the wrong answer?”

Seward nodded. “People are perverse. I would cut all that I have just read. It is too menacing. I’ve written a paragraph to take its place. It’s inside the case.”

Lincoln opened the case, withdrew the speech which he had had, in greatest secrecy, set up in type by a printer so that there would be exact
copies for the wire-services as opposed to the usual garbled reporters’ or recorders’ shorthand notes; or confusion over his own not-always-clear calligraphy. Lincoln read to himself Seward’s flowery coda. He nodded. “I can use some of this. If you don’t mind my turning it into my own words.”

“It’s yours, sir. You’ll cut the other?”

“I can’t cut the part about the oath that I have sworn to uphold the Constitution. That is what gives me—and the Union—our legitimacy in the eyes of heaven.”

“I did not think of you as a religious man, Mr. Lincoln.”

“I am not, in any usual sense. But I believe in fate—and necessity. I believe in this Union. That is
my
fate, I suppose. And my necessity.”

“You are a man of sentiment,” said Seward. “I had not known that.” Seward rose. “Since there has always been a rumor that you were not a proper Christian and churchgoer—”

“Founded, I’m afraid, on my
im
propriety and chronic absence from church.”

“I, as an important layman of the Episcopal church, am going to take you over to St. John’s, where the minister and congregation will be able to see that you are at peace with Our Lord Jesus Christ, and they will then spread the good news.”

Lincoln laughed; and got to his feet. Then he noticed the pile of newspapers beside his chair. He frowned. “Did you see the
New York Times
?”

On principle, Seward said that he had not, while doing his best to anticipate Lincoln’s response. “Sir,” Seward began, “there was no doubt about the plot in Baltimore …”

“If there had been a plot, why was no attempt made on the cars that I was supposed to be in?”

“Because everyone in Baltimore knew by then that you had already gone through the city.”

“No, I’ve made an error that I’ll never live down. According to the
Times
I arrived in the city wearing a Scotsman’s plaid hat and a cloak. What sort of idle malice invents such a thing?”

“It is the nature of newspapers. I suppose the writer wanted to make the cartoonist’s job easier.”

“He has. I’ll be shown with that hat and cloak from one end of the country to the other. Such lies go out all the time,” said Lincoln darkly, “on the telegraph.”

“It is a hazard of our estate, sir. Will Mrs. Lincoln join us?”

“No, she’s going off with her cousins to see the sights, which is ironic, since she is the churchgoer of the family.”

“Then she need
not
go to St. John’s, as her soul is saved.”

So, together, Seward and Lincoln, guarded by the watchful Lamon, made their way across Lafayette Square, where David Herold stood in the crowd that had gathered—the minister had already spread the word that the President-elect would attend the morning service. David watched the tall man as he walked slowly by, lifting his hat to the people who greeted him. David thought that the old man looked surprisingly pleasant and friendly. In a way, it was a shame that he was going to be shot just before he took his oath of office, by two of the wild boys who, even now, were at target practice across the river in Alexandria, Virginia.

A
T THE CORNER
of Sixth and E streets, senator-elect and would-be president Salmon P. Chase had rented an elegant three-story brick mansion for fifteen hundred dollars a year. In addition to this high, even for Washington, rent, he was obliged to pay for servants, Kate’s wardrobe, his younger daughter Nettie’s school … Chase still owed money to Miss Haines’s expensive school in New York City, where Kate had been so superbly finished five years earlier.

Like Marius in the ruins of Carthage, Chase thought, without any precise historical analogy in mind, as he stood in front of the marble fireplace and looked up at the spot where the painting of Kate’s mother would hang, once the boxes, trunks and crates had been opened and unpacked. Everything that he had owned in Ohio had been shipped to Washington. One way or another, he thought, he would be here to the end.

The newly hired mulatto manservant appeared in the doorway. “Mr. Cooke and Mr. Cooke to see you, Senator.”

“Send them in.” Chase pushed two chairs apart. Pulled at the huge horsehair sofa that had looked small in the governor’s house in Columbus but tended to overpower “Sixth and E,” as he now thought of his new
house. Kate was not yet down; she had arrived late Sunday night. She deserved her rest, he thought. She worked hard; and for him.

The Cooke brothers entered the room. Henry D. Cooke had been editor of the
Ohio State Journal
, a paper Chase had been much involved with. Henry’s brother Jay was known to Chase only by reputation; and the reputation was nothing more than that he was a wealthy man, who lived in Philadelphia. Jay Cooke was also said to be a sturdy pillar of the Episcopal church, which made him attractive to Chase, who had been educated in the Ohio school of his uncle, one Philander Chase, an Episcopal bishop of noted piety.

“As you see, we are still in the throes of settling in.” Chase wondered why, on a first meeting with someone as eminent as Jay Cooke, he had, so stupidly, used a sentence filled with “s” ’s. Chase’s lisp—his martyrdom—was only noticeable when he said a word with an “s” in it. Over the years, he had learned to select in advance the words that he planned to use and so was able to avoid the dreaded lisp. He now compensated for his error by suddenly and fiercely narrowing his eyes at the brothers Cooke, as though he were still governor of Ohio and they were supplicants.

Henry seemed not to notice either the lisp, to which he was used, or the eyes, to which he was also used; but then everyone knew that Chase was myopic in the extreme; he could never find a pair of glasses to suit him. Hence, the glare, as he tried to decipher through an aqueous haze faces that came in and out of focus in a most disturbing way. But Chase was now able—and pleased—to note Jay Cooke’s respectful look. “Take a chair,” said Chase, careful not to add the dangerous word “please.”

Henry was in town for the Inauguration. Jay was just passing through, and wanted to pay his respects to the senator-elect. They wanted to know about Lincoln. What sort of man was he? Chase was cautious. “I saw him last night. A delegation from the Peace Conference called on him. I would not say he was the strong—” But Chase quickly canceled, as it were, the word “strong,” having just managed to get away with the “s” in “say,” and substituted for “the strong,” “—the
formidable
leader that we need. But then who is?”

“Well, there’s you for one, Governor,” said Henry D., idly picking dried mud off his shoe. Chase was glad that Kate was not in the room. She was never afraid to express herself precisely in few but well-chosen words. Miss Haines had indeed finished her to a T. With others, Kate was now very like what Chase thought an English duchess might be like. But with him, she was the perfect daughter, councillor and, yes, mate in a way that the three wives had never been. Always have daughters, never have wives;
he had once shocked a Columbus drawing room with this heresy. But he had meant it.

Jay Cooke offered Chase a cigar of such quality that he could not refuse it. “There is talk in the financial community that you, sir, are to be Secretary of the Treasury.”

“I have heard the same talk,” said Chase; and no more.

“I can think of no one better suited than yourself.” Jay Cooke lit a cigar. “And I am very close to Mr. Cameron—we’re neighbors, in fact. But when he said how disappointed he was that he was getting the War Department and not the Treasury, I said, count your blessings, Simon; you’re a natural organizer but the man with the proven talent for finance is Mr. Chase. He agreed.”

“Did he?” Chase did not believe any of this story. But he realized that Jay Cooke wanted him to know of his friendship with Cameron, a disreputable figure, perhaps, but a great power in Pennsylvania. Chase nodded, wisely. From the dining room, there was the sound of a plate smashing to the floor. Chase winced, not only at the loss of a plate but at the reminder that he must buy an entire new dinner service. That would cost at least four hundred dollars, which he could delay paying, of course: newly arrived senators were treated with lenience by the Washington stores, but when four hundred dollars was added to the cost of a new carriage … Suddenly, he was aware that he had been asked a question, which he had not heard. “I’m sorry.” He narrowed his eyes, to show that although he was politely attentive, as always, to his guests, matters of state could never be entirely excluded from his mind.

“I asked”—the bland Henry D. had now arranged a small neat pile of dried mud beside the chair leg—“if Mr. Lincoln had said anything about the Treasury to you yesterday.”

“Oh, he brings up the subject. But that’s all.” Chase hummed an old hymn to himself; he was aware of the habit, though not always aware when he was humming. According to Kate, he was never, even accidentally, in the right key.

“There is no one else, is there?” For a moment Jay Cooke looked as if he might have paid a call on the wrong person.

“There are the Blairs,” said Chase, without fondness. Francis Preston Blair was a rich and famous old man who had been close to Andrew Jackson; he lived in state at Silver Spring, Maryland; he also had two grown sons as ambitious as he. The young Blairs were set on capturing the second western president just as their father had captured, more or less, Jackson, the first western president. Although the Old Gentleman, as Blair was known, did not have the power that he once had when he
edited the
Congressional Globe
, he was, nevertheless, a founder of the Republican Party and together with his son Frank, a congressman from Missouri, and his son Montgomery, a powerful lawyer in Maryland, they had got the border-states to swing their votes to Lincoln on the third ballot at the Republican convention in Chicago. Consequently, candidate Chase had no love for the family that had nominated Lincoln over him. Chase also took the high moral line that no man from a slave-holding state (which included Maryland and Missouri) should serve in a Republican cabinet. But Lincoln wanted balance; wanted, also, to please the Old Gentleman, one of the few friends that he had in Washington; or anywhere, for that matter. Although Chase tended to think of Lincoln as the gregarious story-telling westerner, surrounded by hard-drinking tobacco-chewing cronies, he had already observed, with some surprise, that Lincoln had no cronies at all. The Lamons and the Washburnes, who knew him best, treated him not only with deference but with awe. Chase had noted this at Springfield. Of course Lincoln told his funny stories ad nauseam, but they were calculated, Chase had decided, to hold people’s attention whilst keeping them at a distance. Salmon P. Chase, himself so often accused of coldness, found the President-elect, for all his folksy charm, as cold and dense as the Ohio River in February.

“I’m told it’s Montgomery Blair who’ll be appointed,” said Jay Cooke. “But not to the Treasury.”

“Attorney-General?” asked Henry.

“Maybe.” Jay Cooke was looking at Chase so speculatively that the statesman was almost on the verge of saying what he had already begun to say to his allies: “I prefer my place in the Senate to any Cabinet office,” when Kate’s entrance put an end to what, considering Jay Cooke’s wealth, might have been a tactical error.

“Gentlemen!” The three men rose, in admiration as well as in duty. Kate’s hair was dark gold—the color of comb-honey, Chase had once said, in a poetical mood, to which she had replied, “Now I feel sticky!” The eyes were glittering hazel with long fair lashes; the nose upturned; the figure perfect. In one hand she carried a chess set. Kate shook hands with each Cooke; kissed her father. “I found the chess set in my trunk. I thought it was lost. Now we can play.”

“
You
play chess, Miss Chase?” Jay Cooke was highly impressed—or chose to give that impression.