Lincoln (104 page)

Although there was no attorney-general the next day, the crowd had
again assembled. But this time Chase had been warned not to come to the Capitol. The installation was postponed to Monday the 12th.

There was now a constant procession of callers to Sixth and E, until recently a house to be avoided by the ambitious. Every lawyer of consequence in the United States thought it necessary to come in person to congratulate the heir of Jay and Marshall and Taney.

Since the country’s beginning, there had been only five chief justices—as opposed to sixteen presidents. Of the three co-equal branches of government—executive, legislative and judicial—only the judiciary, at whose apex was the Supreme Court, served for life; and only the Supreme Court could determine the mysteriously elastic Constitution’s meaning. This was the ultimate power in a republic, thought Chase. Nevertheless …

On Saturday morning, Sprague received a telegram from a friend in New York City. By order of General John A. Dix, the Provost Marshal had arrested Byron Sprague and William H. Reynolds “for furnishing aid and comfort to the enemy.” The two men had been stopping at the same hotel in New York City. Now they were at Fortress Lafayette, with Prescott.

A second telegram, half an hour later, reported the arrest of Harris Hoyt. Could a senator be arrested? This was the Constitutional issue of most poignant interest to Sprague. When he casually mentioned the subject to his father-in-law, who was answering letters and telegrams, Chase had replied, absently, “Oh, never! Unless, of course, you’ve committed murder or—” Chase held up a letter. “An autograph from Mr. Whittier! At last! Where was I? Oh, murder—or treason. Katie!” Chase called out.

Sprague hurried to his own study at the other end of Sixth and E, where he wrote a dozen different versions of a telegram to be sent to General Dix. The burden: do nothing until I write a letter of explanation. Plainly, he was the next to be arrested.

That afternoon, the telegram dispatched, Sprague sat at his desk, writing a letter to General Dix which would reveal that his only interest in the matter was political and, of course, familial. He had had no connection with the cotton business since the beginning of the war, whose first volunteer he had been. The firm was in the charge of his cousin Byron, which was why he was now writing. He felt that an interview between himself and General Dix would clear up an admittedly confused matter. He was certain that his cousin had broken no law. As for Byron’s associates, he could not vouch. Needless to say, the political ramifications were such that everyone must proceed with a degree of caution in order not to embarrass the President or the new Chief Justice. Sprague was careful to omit from the letter any reference to Harris Hoyt.

At five o’clock, the letter was finished. He had already arranged for a friend to take it the next morning on the cars to New York. He had also given the friend verbal instructions for Hoyt, who posed the only real danger to him. If Hoyt were to say that Sprague’s interest in the matter was simply to be useful to the Union, Hoyt would be freed. Sprague did not say how. Sprague did not know how. But Hoyt must not tell what he knew; at least not until after Monday. Chase must first be sworn in.

Kate entered the study, a folded newspaper in either hand. “What have you done? These papers—they all but name you by name.”

“Nothing. It’s a mix-up. Byron’s been arrested. So has Reynolds. Prescott. Some nonsense about getting cotton illegally from Texas. I don’t know.” Sprague sealed the letter; his hands were shaking.

Kate saw the hands. “You do know.”

“I don’t. I will, though. I’ve written General Dix, asking for an explanation.”

Kate read from the
Providence Press:
“ ‘ … our streets have been full of rumors to the implication of certain prominent citizens engaged in contraband traffic with the rebels.’ That is treason.”

“Well, that’s not me. Can’t be. I run the
Providence Press.
”

“Do you run the
New York Times
, which says …”

“Since when are you such a believer in newspapers?
Look
what they write about your father …”

“Byron’s in prison. Your own cousin. The man you picked to manage the business,
your
business. Oh, you are deep in this.”

Sprague stood up. “If I am deep in this, then so are you, Mrs. Sprague.”

“What does that mean?” Kate’s face was now scarlet with anger.

Sprague was icy. “Just that you are my wife. For better or for worse. Well, this is worse. Yes, I have been getting cotton from Texas. How do you think I keep my mills running? Your father wouldn’t give me a permit. So I get the cotton, illegally, through the Custom’s House in New York, with the help of your father’s friend and appointee Mr. Hiram Barney.”

“You are …” Kate was breathing hard, as if from some huge physical exertion. “You are a traitor!”

“That’s the legal word. But I’m not going to be hanged if I can help it.”

Kate stared at him, as if he had suddenly ceased to exist for her as husband or even acquaintance. Then she said, deliberately, “But you deserve to be hanged.”

“I don’t like that, Kate.” Sprague wrote his own name on the envelope,
thus franking it. “It is ungrateful. I’ve done a lot for you. For your father …”

“For yourself!”

“Well, why not? Can’t I be as selfish as the pair of you? Forever conniving, with my money!”

“Money!” Kate hurled the word at him as if it were the ultimate curse. “Damn your money!”

In the parlor at the other side of Sixth and E, Chase heard the astonishing phrase shouted by his daughter. Fortunately, no one else was within earshot. He had been sitting, alone, reading the oath that he would be called upon to recite next Monday.

Chase now moved, quickly, toward his son-in-law’s study, not wanting to hear more but unable
not
to hear more.

“It’s a little late to damn what you’ve spent so much of. I paid for Chase for president. I pay for both of you to live. I pay for everything. Well, when I pay, I expect some return. That’s business.”

“You want us to protect you, is that it? You want the Chief Justice to protect you …”

“He ain’t chief justice yet, and if word gets around before Monday, he won’t ever be chief justice …”

Chase stood, unobserved, at the study door. What on earth were they quarrelling about this time? It sounded even worse than the explosion at Narragansett Pier the previous summer. And what had
he
to do with
what
word getting around?

“You have been our ruin,” said Kate, as if with wonder that someone so insignificant as Sprague should have brought
them
down.

“Maybe. Maybe not.” Sprague rang for the butler.

Chase selected that moment to enter the study. “I thought I heard angry words,” he said mildly. “At such a happy time.”

“It is nothing, Father.” Chase’s eyes were drawn, from force of habit, to the newspapers in Kate’s hands. What new horrors had the press decided to launch? But Kate threw the newspapers onto the fire as if that had been the only reason for visiting her husband’s study.

The butler appeared. Sprague gave him the letter; and told him where he was to take it. Then Sprague poured himself a tumbler full of brandy. “We were talking about money,” said Sprague to Chase. “It is a dull subject.” He drained the glass without flinching.

“I know. I know.” Chase was, suddenly, uneasy. Something had gone wrong. Something very serious had gone wrong. He excused himself; and retreated to his own study, expecting Kate to follow. But when she did
not, Chase was obliged to send for her. He then went, carefully, through the
New York Times
, one of the newspapers that she had been holding; and he read the latest dispatch from Providence. Chase was less shocked than surprised that Sprague had been so clumsy. In their common dangerous jungle, the first rule was to cover one’s tracks.

Kate had been ill, off and on, since the spring. She had lost weight; grown pallid; coughed in a way that suggested some sort of asthma rather than consumption. But since Tuesday, she had been her old luminous self. Now she had retrogressed. “What is it, Father?”

“You tell me, Katie.” He pushed the newspaper on his desk toward her. “I think that I have worked it out.”

Kate nodded. “I wish you had not, especially now.”

“I’m glad that I have, especially now. Does he say that he is guilty?”

“ ‘Aid and comfort to the enemy’ is the phrase that describes what he has done.”

Chase’s head began, slightly, to ache. “Treason,” he said, lisp and all.

“Yes.” As Kate told her father the story, his headache became more like a breaking open of the skull. When she had finished, he was in such pain that he could hardly speak. “I shall not take the oath on Monday.”

“You must!”

“I cannot. I have already been accused of corruption, wrongly, by Blair. I have been accused, wrongly, of selling cotton permits …”

“You neither sold nor gave one to my husband …”

“Who will believe that? I clung, mistakenly, I see, to Hiram Barney at the Custom’s House, though he is more Mr. Lincoln’s friend than mine.” Chase rose. “I must go to the President. I must refuse this office.”

“No! We have worked too hard to get this far.”

“This far? My child, we shall go right over the cliff if I’m sworn in at the same time my son-in-law is indicted for treason.”

“You did not know it at the time of the swearing in …”

“But I do know. It is all over, Kate.”

“No!” This time the voice was a scream. “If you withdraw now, I will never speak to you again! I mean it. We are one thing, you and I. He is nothing. Forget him. Let him hang. He has nothing to do with us. He never has. From the beginning, I hated him …” Then, to Kate’s plain astonishment and her father’s horror, she vomited. They stood, facing each other, while she tried to hold back the sudden torrent with both hands.

“My God, Katie! What is wrong?”

But the retching ceased as suddenly as it had begun. She dried her face
with a handkerchief. “No, I am not ill, Father. But I am three months pregnant. I should have told you.”

“Oh, God!” This time Chase did not, he hoped, use the Lord’s name in vain. Rather, he was praying aloud for three immortal souls. Then, in the end, he agreed to go through with the swearing in.

Sprague seemed in control of events. He expected, he said, “Good news” from New York City. As for Chase, he was close to breakdown. He had spent his life in the service of moral principle. Now he was to pretend to the world and, worse, to himself, that he knew nothing of his son-in-law’s crimes. Fortunately, justice is blind, he thought grimly. Three lives in one scale; honor in the other.

At noon on Monday, just as they were to set out for the Capitol, where a large crowd had assembled, Mr. Forney sent word that there was still no attorney-general; but, tomorrow, definitely the installation would take place. Now all that Chase could do was read the newspapers carefully for “interesting dispatches from Providence, Rhode Island.”

By Thursday morning, the tension at Sixth and E had increased to near-hysteria. Five times a large crowd had assembled at the Capitol for the installation of the first chief justice since Taney took office in 1836; and five times the crowd was sent home. People talked of nothing else. As yet, thought Chase, they did not speak of Sprague. Each morning, after his prayers, he vowed that he would send the President his withdrawal. Each noon, after he had been with Kate, he forgot his vow. All that mattered was Kate’s happiness; and that of his grandchild. But he lived in hourly terror of the press; and of Sprague, who was showing uncharacteristic tact. He was never in Chase’s part of the house; and seldom in his own. Apparently, Sprague was bringing every sort of pressure to bear on General Dix.

On Thursday morning Hay happened to be in Stanton’s office on an errand for the President. Hay discussed the business at hand; then started to go. Stanton stopped him. “Sit down, Major. There’s something I’d like to … share with you.”

Mystified, Hay sat beside Stanton’s fortress of a desk. The thought of the secretive Mars sharing anything with anyone was unusual. Stanton opened a folder; stared at it with watery eyes. “General Dix has arrested four men who have been accused of trading in cotton, illegally, with the South. One of them is Byron Sprague.”

Hay nodded; he, too, had read the veiled newspaper accounts. “I’ve met Byron Sprague. When I was at Brown. He runs Senator Sprague’s business for him.”

Stanton stared, thoughtfully, at Hay. “This is a delicate matter, as I’ve told General Dix. The first conspirator to be arrested has made a confession implicating Senator Sprague, as well as the other three. Now a second conspirator, as of Monday, says that Senator Sprague was
not
, knowingly, involved. General Dix wants to know whether charges should be brought against Senator Sprague.”

Hay was now very nervous indeed. Stanton was deliberately involving him, rather than the President, in this matter. Hay pulled out his watch. “In one hour Mr. Chase becomes chief justice.”

“Yes,” said Stanton; and waited.

“Obviously, he could not be chief justice if all of this were public knowledge.”

“No,” said Stanton; and waited.

“But once he is sworn in, should his son-in-law be indicted for treason, he might, perhaps, be obliged—or feel obliged—to resign.”

“Yes,” said Stanton; and waited.

Hay was one of the few people in Washington who knew that it had been Stanton’s dream to be himself the chief justice; he had even gone so far as to have mutual friends intercede with the Tycoon. But Lincoln wanted Stanton to stay where he was; even more to the point, Grant wanted him at the War Department. Once Stanton realized that he himself had no chance, he had worked hard for the appointment of Chase; and it was hard work. If the Tycoon could be said to dislike anyone on earth, it was Salmon P. Chase. In fact, at one point, he had said, with deep feeling, “I’d rather swallow this buckthorn chair than appoint Chase.” But the Tycoon had bowed to radical pressure; and to Stanton.

“On balance,” said Hay, thinking as rapidly as possible, “the Administration needs Mr. Chase on the bench. There is the Constitutional amendment on abolition to be considered, not to mention …” Hay stopped; and stared at Stanton; who stared right back at him.