Team of Rivals_ The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - Doris Kearns Goodwin [359]
The address was designed to curb the “deceptive and groundless” rumors that Lincoln had secretly rejected peace proposals. If any legitimate propositions should be received, he pledged, they would not be kept a secret from the people he was elected to serve. “But, to be plain,” he went on, “you are dissatisfied with me about the negro…. You dislike the emancipation proclamation; and, perhaps, would have it retracted.” On this point there would be no compromise: “it can not be retracted, any more than the dead can be brought to life,” for “the promise being made, must be kept.” Furthermore, black soldiers had become so integral to the war effort that “some of the commanders of our armies in the field who have given us our most important successes, believe the emancipation policy, and the use of colored troops, constitute the heaviest blow yet dealt to the rebellion….
“Peace does not appear so distant as it did,” Lincoln concluded. “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 have strove to hinder it.”
Lincoln continued to refine his letter over the next ten days, stealing what time he could from his public duties. He finally sent it, accompanied with a personal note to Conkling: “You are one of the best public readers. I have but one suggestion. Read it very slowly.” An immense crowd was expected, drawn “from the farm and the workshop,” the local newspaper reported, “from the office and the counting-room,” to prove to the Copperheads that behind the soldiers already in the field were “hundreds of thousands more who are willing to offer their services whenever the country calls.”
Confident in his final composition, Lincoln anticipated a positive reception on September 3 when it would be read to the crowd and then given to newspapers for publication the following day. When he awoke on the morning of the mass meeting, however, he was furious to see a truncated version of his letter printed in the Washington Daily Chronicle. Lincoln immediately complained to the editor, John Forney. Don’t blame us, Forney explained to Lincoln, we got it from the Associated Press, and it’s in daily newspapers around the country. Provoked, Lincoln telegraphed Conkling in Springfield. “I am mortified this morning to find the letter to you, botched up, in the Eastern papers, telegraphed from Chicago. How did this happen?”
Hearing nothing that day from Conkling, Lincoln remained testy. When a petitioner tried to solicit his help in securing property for a Memphis woman whose husband was in the Confederate Army, the president uncharacteristically replied that he had “neither the means nor time” to consider the request and that “the impropriety of bringing such cases to me, is obvious to any one.”
The following morning, a message arrived from Conkling. Apparently, he had telegraphed the letter in advance, with “strict injunctions not to permit it to be published before the meeting or make any improper use of it.” He was “mortified” that someone had broken faith, but trusted that “no prejudicial results have been experienced as the whole Letter was published the next day.”
In fact, the publication of the entire letter received excellent reviews. “Disclaiming the arts of the diplomatist, the cunning of the politician, and the graces of rhetoric, he comes straight to the points he wants to discuss,” praised the New York Daily Tribune. “The most consummate rhetorician never used language more pat to the purpose,” the New York Times declared, “and still there is not a word in the letter not familiar to the plainest plowman.” While “felicity