Lincoln (167 page)

557
“one common country”: CW,
8:220–221.

557
two separate countries: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies
(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1895), ser. 1, vol. 46, pt. 3, p. 297.

557
meet with them: CW,
8:282.

557
“one in authority”:
Ibid.

557
“so much husk”:
Sandburg, 4:45.

557
would be taken:
Because there was no agenda and because no notes were taken, it is not possible to re-create the exact sequence of the topics discussed. The following pages draw on Lincoln’s brief report to Congress (
CW,
8:284–285); on Stephens’s account in
A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States
(Philadelphia: National Publishing Co., 1870), 2:599–619; on Hunter’s report to Jefferson Davis, in Dunbar Rowland, ed.,
Jefferson Davis: Constitutionalist
(Jackson: Mississippi Department of Archives and History, 1923), 8:133–136; and on Campbell’s accounts in
Reminiscences and Documents Relating to the Civil War During the Year 1865
(Baltimore: John Murphy & Co., 1887), pp. 8–19, and in
Southern Historical Society Papers,
new ser., 4 (Oct. 1917): 45–52. For a collation of these and other statements concerning the discussion, see Julian S. Carr,
The Hampton Roads Conference
(Durham, N.C.: 1917).

559
“ended without result”: CW,
8:284–285.

559
“in active exercise”: Southern Historical Society Papers,
new ser., 4 (Oct. 1917): 48; Stephens,
Constitutional View,
2:610–611.

559
“of judicial tribunals”:
Browning,
Diary,
1:694.

559
“of the Union”:
Ibid., 1:699.

560
“slavery as stated”:
Stephens,
Constitutional View,
2:617; Rowland,
Jefferson Davis: Constitutionalist,
8:134;
Southern Historical Society Papers,
new ser., 4 (Oct. 1917): 51.

560
was ratified: CW,
8:260–261.

560
“and property destroyed”:
John G. Nicolay, interview with John P. Usher, Oct. 11, 1877, Nicolay MSS, LC.

561
“[the offer was] made”:
Welles,
Diary,
2:237.

561
“come from us”:
Francis Fessenden,
Life and Public Services of William Pitt Fessenden
(Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1907), 2:7–8.

561
“disapproved by them “: CW,
8:260–261.

562
the Southern states:
For an excellent account of Ashley’s bill and the proposed compromise between the President and Congress, see Belz,
Reconstructing the Union,
chap. 9.

562
“an immense political act”:
Charles Sumner to Francis Lieber, [Dec. 1864], Sumner MSS, Houghton Library, Harvard University.

562
“refuse to vote”:
Hay,
Diary,
pp. 244–246.

562
“pass this Congress”:
Belz,
Reconstructing the Union,
pp. 264–265.

562
“and not ours”:
Michael Les Benedict,
A Compromise of Principle: Congressional Republicans and Reconstruction, 1863–1869
(New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1974), p. 93.

563
throughout the nation:
On the problems connected with the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, see J. G. Randall,
Constitutional Problems Under Lincoln
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1951), pp. 396–401.

563
“on all sides”:
LaWanda Cox,
Lincoln and Black Freedom: A Study in Presidential Leadership
(Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1981), makes a powerful argument for Lincoln’s quiet support of Negro suffrage. See esp. pp. 117–119, 129–130.

564
“He is dictator”:
Benedict,
A Compromise of Principle,
p. 85.

564
“St. Paul’s time”:
Donald,
Sumner,
p. 203.

564
“the proposed Senators?”: CW,
8:206–207.

564
“and a wrong”:
Donald,
Sumner,
p. 204.

564
“centralized power”:
Nicolay and Hay, 10:85.

565
on his arm:
Donald,
Sumner,
pp. 205–207.

565
“at home and abroad”:
Herbert Mitgang, ed.,
Abraham Lincoln: A Press Portrait
(Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1971), p. 440.

565
“end to end”:
P. J. Staudenraus, ed.The Irrelevancy of the ‘Wadsworth Letter,’” ,
Mr. Lincoln’s Washington
(New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1967), p. 419.

565
“from her escutcheon”: CW,
8:216–217, 235.

565
“melancholy reflections”:
Adolphe de Chambrun,
Impressions of Lincoln and the Civil War
(New York: Random House, 1952), p. 37.

565
“Johnson speak outside”:
For a full account of Johnson’s performance, see George Fort Milton,
The Age of Hate: Andrew Johnson and the Radicals
(New York: Coward-McCann, 1930), pp. 145–148.

565
“over the scene”:
For Lincoln’s appearance at this time, see the photographs made by Henry F.
Warren on the White House balcony, March 6, 1865, in Charles A. Hamilton and Lloyd Ostendorf,
Lincoln in Photographs: An Album of Every Known Pose
(Dayton, Ohio: Morningside, 1985), p. 400.

566
“of prosperous peace”:
Salmon P. Chase to Mary Lincoln, Mar. 4, 1865, Lincoln MSS, LC. Most observers said the sun came out when Lincoln began to speak. Chase, as usual self-centered, thought it burst forth when he stepped forward to administer the oath of office.

566
the most memorable:
The text is in
CW,
8:332–333. The most thoughtful analysis of the second inaugural is William Lee Miller, “Lincoln’s Second Inaugural: The Zenith of Statecraft,”
Center Magazine
13 (July-Aug. 1980): 53–64.

566
“governing the world”: CW,
8:356.

567
“of either party”: CW,
5:403–404.

567
of exact retribution:
Ernest Lee Tuveson,
Redeemer Nation: The Idea of America’s Millennial
Role
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), pp. 206–208.

567
“the offence cometh!”:
Matthew 18:7. (The Revised Standard Version offers a clearer translation of this somewhat puzzling verse: “Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the man by whom the temptation comes.”) See Fred Somkin, “Scripture Notes to Lincoln’s Second Inaugural,”
Civil War History
27 (June 1981): 172–173. For other biblical quotations and resonances in the second inaugural, see Herbert Joseph Edwards and John Erskine Hankins,
Lincoln the Writer
(Orono: University of Maine, 1962), pp. 104–105.

567
“
righteous altogether’
”: Psalms 19:9.

567
never ending bloodshed:
For astute commentary, see Don E. Fehrenbacher,
Lincoln in Text and Context
(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1987), pp. 162–163.

567
“altar of Freedom”: CW,
8:116–117. The later discovery that only two of Mrs. Bixby’s sons were killed does not diminish the sincerity or eloquence of Lincoln’s letter. See F. Lauriston Bullard,
Abraham Lincoln & the Widow Bixby
(New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1946). For years there has been controversy over John Hay’s assertion that he, rather than the President, was the author of the Bixby letter. Most experts question Hay’s claim, of which we have only indirect reports made many years later. See the pungent article in Mark E. Neely, Jr.,
The Abraham Lincoln Encyclopedia
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1982), pp. 28–29. But the question has recently been reopened by Michael Burlingame, who offers some suggestive but far from conclusive evidence pointing toward Hay’s authorship in “New Light on the Bixby Letter,”
Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association
16 (1995): 59–71.

568
“printed in gold”:
Mitgang,
Abraham Lincoln: A Press Portrait,
pp. 440, 442.

568
away his manuscript: CW,
8:356; Christopher N. Breiseth, “Lincoln and Frederick Douglass: Another Debate,”
JISHS
68 (Feb. 1975): 22; Carpenter,
Six Months,
p. 234.

568
organically wrong:
It has been suggested that Lincoln’s fatigue—as well as other characteristics, such as his exceptional height, his elongated fingers and large feet, and his problems with his eyes—was the result of the Marfan syndrome, a hereditary disorder of the connective tissues, manifested in skeletal, ocular, and cardiovascular disorders. The evidence for this diagnosis is slim; it is based on the occurrence of the Marfan syndrome in several twentieth-century members of the Lincoln family and on inferences from the President’s physical appearance. For a fascinating exploration of the whole issue, see Gabor S. Boritt and Adam Borit, “Lincoln and the Marfan Syndrome: The Medical Diagnosis of a Historical Figure,”
Civil War History
29 (Sept. 1983): 213–229, which concludes: “The available evidence does not indicate that Lincoln suffered from the Marfan syndrome.” For a lighthearted analysis of the problem, see Gabor S. Boritt,
How Big Was Lincoln’s Toe? or Finding a Footnote
(Redlands, Calif.: Lincoln Memorial Shrine, 1989). See also Harold Schwartz, “Abraham Lincoln and the Marfan
Syndrome” Journal of the American Medical Association
187 (Feb. 15,1964): 490–495; Harvey J. Wilner and Nathaniel Finby, “Skeletal Manifestations in the Marfan Syndrome,” ibid., 187 (Feb. 15, 1964): 128–133; and Harriet F. Durham, “Lincoln’s Sons and the Marfan Syndrome,”
LH
79 (Summer 1977): 67–71.1 have also profited from a correspondence with Dick Levinson, of the National Museum of Health and Medicine, concerning the proposal to clone Lincoln’s DNA in order to determine whether the President suffered from the Marfan syndrome.

568
that they steamed:
Joshua F. Speed,
Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln and Notes of a Visit to
California
—
Two Lectures
(Louisville, Ky.: John P. Morton and Co., 1884), pp. 26–28.