Team of Rivals_ The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - Doris Kearns Goodwin [326]
Patiently, Lincoln weathered criticisms from Browning and a host of others. He listened carefully when David Davis, who, more than anyone, had helped engineer his victory at the Chicago convention and whom he had recently appointed to the Supreme Court, warned him about “the alarming condition of things.” Yet when Davis told Lincoln to alter his policy of emancipation “as the only means of saving the Country,” Lincoln told him it was “a fixed thing.” And when Browning raised the specter that “the democrats would soon begin to clamor for compromise,” Lincoln replied that if they moved toward concessions, “the people would leave them.” Through the worst days of discord and division, Lincoln never lost his confidence that he understood the will and desires of the people.
“The resources, advantages, and powers of the American people are very great,” he wrote the workingmen of London when they congratulated him on emancipation, “and they have, consequently, succeeded to equally great responsibilities. It seems to have devolved upon them to test whether a government, established on the principles of human freedom, can be maintained.”
While his anxious friends observed only the rancor on Capitol Hill, Lincoln noted that before Congress adjourned on March 4, the people’s representatives had passed every single one of the administration’s war-related bills. They had supported the vital banking and currency legislation that would provide the financial foundation for a long and costly war, as well as the conscription bill, called by the New York Times “the grandest pledge yet given that our Government means to prevail.”
Moreover, with Lincoln’s blessings, monster mass rallies in city after city throughout the North were organized to express popular support for the war against the defeatism of the Copperheads. In New York, the Times reported, the “largest popular gathering ever held in this City” thronged Madison Square to hear General Scott speak and to “cheer with hearty voice each testimony of fealty to the land of the free and the home of the brave.” In Washington, Lincoln and his cabinet attended a giant Union rally at the Capitol, hailed as “the greatest popular demonstration ever known in Washington.” A journalist noted that while Lincoln was dressed more plainly than the others on the platform, with “no sign of watch chain, white bosom or color…he wore on his breast, an immense jewel, the value of which I can form no estimate.” She was speaking of little Tad, snuggled against his father’s chest. Though he occasionally grew restless during the long speeches and jumped off his father’s lap to wander along the platform, Tad quickly returned to the security of his father’s embrace.
Scheduled for early April, the congressional and state elections in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire would be a test case in the battle for the heart of the North. Lincoln sent a telegram to Thurlow Weed at the Astor House in New York, requesting that he take the first train to Washington. Weed arrived the next morning, had breakfast with Seward, and met with Lincoln at the White House. “Mr. Weed, we are in a tight place,” Lincoln explained. “Money for legitimate purposes is needed immediately; but there is no appropriation from which it can be lawfully taken. I didn’t know how to raise it, and so I sent for you.” The amount needed was $15,000. Weed returned to New York on the next train. Before the night had ended, “the Dictator” had persuaded fifteen