Team of Rivals_ The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - Doris Kearns Goodwin [447]
Ashley learned that the Camden & Amboy Railroad could secure the vote of two New Jersey Democrats if Senator Sumner could be convinced to postpone a bill he had introduced to end the monopoly the railroad enjoyed. Unable to move Sumner, Ashley asked Lincoln to intervene. Lincoln regretfully replied that he could “do nothing with Mr. Sumner in these matters,” and feared if he tried, Sumner “would be all the more resolute.”
As the vote neared, pressure intensified. The leader of the opposition was McClellan’s running mate, Democrat George Pendleton of Ohio. “Though he had been defeated in the election,” observed Senator James Blaine, “he returned to the House with increased prestige among his own political associates.” Democrats who considered changing their vote were made to understand that dire consequences would follow if they failed to maintain the party line on an issue compromising the sanctity of states’ rights and effecting a fundamental shift in the Constitution.
Both sides knew that the outcome would be decided by the thinnest of margins. “We are like whalers,” Lincoln observed, “who have been long on a chase: we have at last got the harpoon into the monster, but we must now look how we steer, or with one ‘flop’ of his tail he will send us all into eternity.” On the morning of the scheduled vote, Ashley feared that the entire effort would collapse. Rumors circulated that Confederate Peace Commissioners were on the way to Washington or had already arrived in the capital. “If it is true,” Ashley urgently wrote to the president, “I fear we shall [lose] the bill.” The Democratic leadership would prevail upon wavering party members, arguing that the amendment would lead the commissioners to abort the peace talks. “Please authorize me to contradict it, if not true,” Ashley entreated.
“So far as I know,” Lincoln promptly replied, “there are no peace Commissioners in the City, or likely to be in it.” Ashley later learned that Lincoln, in fact, had been informed that three Peace Commissioners were en route to Fort Monroe, but he could honestly, if insincerely, claim that no commissioners were in the capital city. Without this cunning evasion, Ashley believed, “the proposed amendment would have failed.”
As the debate opened, Ashley acknowledged that “never before, and certain I am that never again, will I be seized with so strong a desire to give utterance to the thoughts and emotions which throbbed my heart and brain.” The amendment’s passage would signal “the complete triumph of a cause, which at the beginning of my political life I had not hoped to live long enough to see.”
Ashley recalled, “Every available foot of space, both in the galleries and on the floor of the House, was crowded at an early hour, and many hundred could not get within hearing.” Chief Justice Chase and the members of the Supreme Court were present, along with Seward, Fessenden, and Dennison representing the cabinet. Dozens of senators had come to witness the historic debate, as had members of most foreign ministries.
Ashley wisely decided to yield his time to the small band of Democrats who would support the amendment but needed to justify their shift to constituents. He called first on Archibald McAllister. The Pennsylvania congressman explained that he had changed his mind when he saw that the only way to achieve peace was to destroy “the corner-stone of the Southern Confederacy.” His remarks brought forth applause from the galleries, as did those of his colleague Alexander Coffroth. “If by my action to-day I dig my political grave,” the congressman from Somerset