Team of Rivals_ The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - Doris Kearns Goodwin [404]
Lincoln had prepared well for the encounter. The last thing he wanted was for Chase to resign on a point of honor. The rift between the radicals and conservatives in the Republican Party might then become irreparable. He gave the visitors his usual undivided attention. When they finished, Riddle recalled, “he arose, came round, and with great cordiality took each of us by the hand and evinced the greatest satisfaction at our presence.” Then, taking up a stack of papers on his desk, he inquired if either of them had seen his letter to Chase two months earlier when the secretary had offered to resign over his implication in the humiliating Pomeroy circular. Determining that Riddle had not, Lincoln read aloud the lines where he concurred with Chase that neither of them should be “held responsible for what our respective friends may do without our instigation or countenance.”
He explained that while he had great respect for Frank Blair, he “was annoyed and mortified by the speech.” He had, in fact, warned Blair against “pursuing a personal warfare.” As soon as he heard of Blair’s rant, Lincoln knew that “another beehive was kicked over” and considered canceling “the orders restoring him to the army and assigning him to command.” After assessing how much General Sherman valued Frank’s services, however, he had decided to let the orders stand.
In making his case, Riddle recalled, Lincoln “was plain, sincere, and most impressive.” Riddle and Spalding were “perfectly satisfied” and assured Lincoln that Chase would be, too. Once again, Lincoln had sutured a potentially dangerous wound within his administration and his party.
IT WAS A WARM DAY on June 7, 1864, when Republicans gathered in Baltimore to choose their candidates for president and vice president. Noah Brooks was moved by the sight of the people’s representatives gathering “in the midst of a civil war and in the actual din of battle” to perform the most precious function of democracy. The Democrats would also meet that summer, though they delayed their convention until the end of August to give themselves a better chance to react to the latest events on the battlefield.
As the delegates from twenty-five states flocked to the Republican Convention, which was relabeled the National Union Convention, Lincoln’s renomination was assured. So certain was the outcome that David Davis, who had been instrumental in guiding Lincoln to the nomination four years earlier, chose not to attend. He had originally planned to go, he told Lincoln, “but since the New York & Ohio Conventions, the necessity for doing so is foreclosed—I have kept count of all the States that have instructed, & you must be nominated by acclamation—if there had been a speck of opposition, I wd have gone to Baltimore—But the opposition is so utterly beaten, that the fight is not even interesting, and the services of no one is necessary.” In Judge Davis’s stead, Lincoln sent John Nicolay as his personal emissary to the convention.
Even Horace Greeley, while holding out for an alternative, acknowledged that the president had earned an honored place in the hearts of his fellow Americans. “The People think of him by night & by day & pray for him & their hearts are where they have made so heavy investments.” Long before the convention opened its doors, the official nominating committee said, “popular instinct had plainly indicated [Lincoln] as its candidate,” and the work of the convention was simply to register “the popular will.” While politicians in Washington may have entertained other prospects, Brooks observed, “the country at large really thought of no name but Lincoln’s.”
There were, of course, some pockets of resistance. At the end of May, several hundred malcontents had gathered in Cleveland’s Chapin Hall to nominate John Frémont for president on a third-party ticket. Frémont had never forgiven Lincoln for relieving him of command in 1861.