He took into his confidence “the stronger half of the Cabinet, Seward, Stanton and Fessenden,” and together they assaulted the Committee.(13) It was a reception amazingly different from what had been expected.  Instead of terrified party diplomats shaking in their shoes, trying to face all points at once, morbid over possible political defeats in every quarter, they found what may have seemed to them a man in a dream; one who was intensely sad, but who gave no suggestion of panic, no solicitude about his own fate, no doubt of his ultimate victory.  Their practical astuteness was disarmed by that higher astuteness attained only by peculiar minds which can discern through some sure interior test the rare moment when it is the part of wisdom not to be astute at all.

Backed by those strong Ministers, all entirely under his influence, Lincoln fully persuaded the Committee that at this moment, any overture for peace would be the worst of strategic blunders, “would be worse than losing the presidential contest—­it would be ignominiously surrendering it in advance."(14)

Lincoln won a complete spiritual victory over the Committee.  These dispirited men, who had come to Washington to beg for a policy of negotiation, went away in such a different temper that Bennett’s Washington correspondent jeered in print at the “silly report” of their having assembled to discuss peace.(15) Obviously, they had merely held a meeting of the Executive Committee.  The Tribune correspondent telegraphed that they were confident of Lincoln’s reelection.(16)

On the day following the conference with Lincoln, The Times announced:  “You may rest assured that all reports attributing to the government any movements looking toward negotiations for peace at present are utterly without foundation. . . .  The government has not entertained or discussed the project of proposing an armistice with the Rebels nor has it any intention of sending commissioners to Richmond . . . its sole and undivided purpose is to prosecute the war until the rebellion is quelled. . . .”  Of equal significance was the announcement by The Times, fairly to be considered the Administration organ:  “The President stands firm against every solicitation to postpone the draft."(17)

XXXIII.  THE RALLY TO THE PRESIDENT

The question insists upon rising again:  were the anti-Lincoln politicians justified in their exultation, the Lincoln politicians justified in their panic?  Nobody will ever know; but it is worth considering that the shrewd opportunist who expressed himself through The Herald changed his mind during a fortnight in August.  By one of those odd coincidences of which history is full, it was on the twenty-third of the month that he warned the Democrats and jeered at the Republicans in this insolent fashion: 

“Many of our leading Republicans are now furious against Lincoln. . . .  Bryant of The Evening Post is very angry with Lincoln because Henderson, The Post’s publisher, has been arrested for defrauding the government.