Team of Rivals_ The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - Doris Kearns Goodwin [473]
An exuberant crowd of several thousand gathered at the White House. “The bands played, the howitzers belched forth their thunder, and the people cheered,” reported the National Intelligencer. Despite shouted demands for him to speak, Lincoln hesitated. He was planning a speech for the following evening and did not want to “dribble it all out” before he completed his thoughts. If he said something mistaken, it would make its way into print, and a person in his position, he modestly said, “ought at least try not to make mistakes.” Still, the crowd was so insistent that the president finally appeared at the second-story window, where he “was received in the most enthusiastic manner, the people waving their hats, swinging their umbrellas, and the ladies waving their handkerchiefs.”
When the assembly quieted down, Lincoln acknowledged their euphoria with a smile of his own. “I am very greatly rejoiced to find that an occasion has occurred so pleasurable that the people cannot restrain themselves.” These words drew even wilder cheers. Lincoln then announced a special request for the band. “I have always thought ‘Dixie’ one of the best tunes I have ever heard,” he began. “Our adversaries over the way attempted to appropriate it, but I insisted yesterday that we fairly captured it.” This was followed by tumultuous applause. “I presented the question to the Attorney General, and he gave it as his legal opinion that it is our lawful prize. I now request the band to favor me with its performance.” In requesting the patriotic song of the South, Lincoln believed that “it is good to show the rebels that with us they will be free to hear it again.” The band followed “Dixie” with “Yankee Doodle,” and “the crowd went off in high good-humor.”
“If possible,” Mary wrote, “this is a happier day, than last Monday,” when the news of Richmond’s capture had reached Washington. Her exhilaration was evident in a note she wrote to Charles Sumner the next morning, inviting him and the marquis to join her in a carriage ride around the city to see the grand illumination and to hear the president speak. “It does not appear to me,” she wrote, “that this womanly curiosity will be undignified or indiscreet, qu’en pensez vous?”
Illuminated once again, the city was spectacular to behold. The windows of every government building were ablaze with candles and lanterns, and the lights of the newly completed Capitol dome were visible for miles around. “Bonfires blazed in many parts of the city, and rockets were fired” in ongoing celebrations. Knowing the president was going to address the public, Stanton put his men to work decorating the front of the War Department “with flags, corps badges and evergreens.”
When Lincoln came to a second-story window on the north side of the White House, “he carried a roll of manuscript in his hand.” He had explained to Noah Brooks that “this was a precaution” against colloquial expressions that might offend men such as Charles Sumner, who had objected previously to phrases such as “the rebels turned tail and ran” or “sugar-coated pill.” At the sight of the president, the immense crowd’s enthusiasm was loosed in “wave after wave of applause,” requiring him to stand still for some time until the din subsided.
“The speech,” Noah Brooks observed, “was longer than most people had expected, and of a different character.” Instead of simply celebrating the moment, Lincoln wanted to address the national debate surrounding the reintroduction of the Southern states into the Union, “the greatest question,” he still believed, “ever presented to practical statesmanship.” He acknowledged that in Louisiana, where the process had already begun, some were disappointed that, in the new state constitution, “the elective franchise