Team of Rivals_ The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - Doris Kearns Goodwin [79]
Stanton’s inability to commit himself more fully to the antislavery crusade cast a shadow on his relationship with Chase. When Stanton failed to attend a Democratic convention in Columbus where antislavery issues were on the agenda, Chase chastised him for placing personal interests above political duties. “Why—why are you not here?” Chase lamented. “If I had foreseen you would not attend the Convention, I am certain I should not have left home.” Stanton’s reply expressed hurt at the censure in Chase’s letter, explaining that it was not merely private concerns that kept him away but a collision of obligations. “The practice of law,” he conceded, “furnishes employment for all my time and faculties…. Such to be sure is not the condition that dreams of early love pictured for my manhood—but in the field of life some as sentinels must perform the lonely round while others enjoy the social festivity of the camp.”
For Stanton, more than for Chase, the importance of the friendship exceeded political events and even personal ambition. “While public honors affords gratification,” Stanton wrote, “such friendship as yours is to me of inestimable value.” With sadness, he conceded that he was “well aware that public duties, the increasing pressure of private affairs as age advances, domestic vicissitudes and the inclination of the heart must cool the fervor of friendship among men.” Still, he hoped that he and Chase might someday stand side by side in the struggle against slavery.
So as 1847 drew to a close, the four men who would contend for the 1860 presidential nomination were deeply and actively involved in the political, social, and economic issues that would define the growing nation. Each embraced a different position along the spectrum of growing opposition to slavery. Yet while Seward, Chase, and Bates had each developed a national renown, few beyond Illinois knew of the raw-boned young congressman coming to the nation’s capital for the first time in his life.
CHAPTER 4
“PLUNDER & CONQUEST”
WASHINGTON WAS A CITY in progress when the Lincolns arrived at the wooden railroad station in December 1847 for the opening of the congressional session. The corner-stone of the Washington Monument would not be laid until the following summer. Cobblestoned Pennsylvania Avenue was one of only two paved streets. Not yet fitted with its familiar high dome, the Capitol stood on a hill that boasted “a full view of the cities of Washington, Georgetown, and Alexandria, and the varied and forest-clad hills in Maryland and Virginia.” In the backs of most houses, recalled one of Lincoln’s colleagues, “stood pig-styes, cow-sheds, and pens for the gangs of unyoked geese. During the day the animals and fowls roamed at will in lordly insolence, singly or in herds and flocks, through the streets and over the fields.”
Nevertheless, with forty thousand inhabitants (including several thousand slaves), the capital was a metropolis compared to little Springfield. It was filled with the landmarks and memorials of the history that so captivated the Lincolns. Some of the most illustrious personages of the age still walked the halls of Congress—John Quincy Adams tirelessly battling on behalf of antislavery petitions; the eloquent Daniel Webster, whose words, Lincoln believed, would outlive the age; John Calhoun, the acknowledged spokesman for the South, who had already led one effort at rebellion. These titans who had shaped the history of the past decades were joined by those who would play leading roles in the great drama to unfold—Jefferson Davis and Alexander Stephens, future president