Team of Rivals_ The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - Doris Kearns Goodwin [231]
The philosopher John Stuart Mill shared Lincoln’s spacious understanding of the sectional crisis, predicting that a Southern victory “would give courage to the enemies of progress and damp the spirits of its friends all over the civilized world.” From the opposite point of view, a member of the British nobility expressed the hope that with “the dissolution of the Union,” men would “live to see an aristocracy established in America.”
In his Farewell Address, George Washington had given voice to this transcendent idea of Union. “It is of infinite moment,” George Washington said, “that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity.” Foreseeing the potential for dissension, Washington advised vigilance against “the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.”
It was this mystical idea of popular government and democracy that propelled Abraham Lincoln to call forth the thousands of soldiers who would rise up to defend the sacred Union created by the Founding Fathers.
IN THE DAYS BEFORE the troops arrived, rumors spread that the White House would be targeted for a direct attack. Late one evening, an agitated visitor arrived to inform the president that “a mortar battery has been planted on the Virginia heights commanding the town.” John Hay recorded in his diary that he “had to do some very dexterous lying to calm the awakened fears of Mrs. Lincoln in regard to the assassination suspicion.” Only when troops appeared in force was she able to relax. “Thousands of soldiers are guarding us,” she wrote a friend in Springfield, “and if there is safety in numbers, we have every reason, to feel secure.” Mary’s cousin Elizabeth Grimsley was equally relieved. “The intense excitement has blown over,” she told a friend. “Washington is very quiet and pleasant. We enjoy the beautiful drives around the city.”
With little understanding of the peril threatening the city and their well-being, Willie and Tad found the period of Washington’s isolation exhilarating. Tad boasted at Sunday School that he had no fear of the “pluguglies,” as the rowdy secessionists in Baltimore were called. “You ought to see the fort we’ve got on the roof of our house. Let ’em come. Willie and I are ready for ’em.” Though the fort consisted of only “a small log” symbolizing a cannon and several decommissioned rifles, the Lincoln boys developed elaborate plans to defend the White House from the roof. And they loved visiting the troops quartered in the East Room of the White House and in the Capitol, where Hay noted the contrast “between the grey haired dignity” that had previously prevailed in the Senate and the young soldiers, “scattered over the desks chairs and galleries some loafing, many writing letters, slowly and with plough hardened hands.”
The Taft boys and their sixteen-year-old sister, Julia, were now almost daily guests at the White House. Like Willie, Bud was “rather pale and languid, not very robust,” but a “pretty good” student. Holly, as described by his father, Judge Taft, resembled Tad—“all motion and activity, never idle, impatient of restraint, quick to learn when he tries, impetuous, all ‘go ahead.’” In Bud and Holly, Willie and Tad each found a best friend. Julia, meanwhile, formed a friendship