the basis of this latter proposition three Confederate commissioners (A. H. Stevens, J. A. C. Campbell and R. M. T. Hunter) finally came to Hampton Roads, where President Lincoln and Secretary Seward met them on the U.S. steam transport “River Queen,” and on the 3rd of February 1865 an informal conference of four hours’ duration was held. Private reports of the interview agree substantially in the statement that the Confederates proposed a cessation of the Civil War, and postponement of its issues for future adjustment, while for the present the belligerents should unite in a campaign to expel the French from Mexico, and to enforce the Monroe doctrine. President Lincoln, however, although he offered to use his influence to secure compensation by the Federal government to slave-owners for their slaves, if there should be “voluntary abolition of slavery by the states,” a liberal and generous administration of the Confiscation Act, and the immediate representation of the southern states in Congress, refused to consider any alliance against the French in Mexico, and adhered to the instructions he had given Seward before deciding to personally accompany him. These formulated three indispensable conditions to adjustment: first, the restoration of the national authority throughout all the states; second, no receding by the executive of the United States on the slavery question; third, no cessation of hostilities short of an end of the war, and the disbanding of all forces hostile to the government. These terms the commissioners were not authorized to accept, and the interview ended without result.
As Lincoln’s first presidential term of four years neared its end, the Democratic party gathered itself for a supreme effort to regain the ascendancy lost in 1860. The slow progress of the war, the severe sacrifice of life in campaign and battle, the enormous accumulation of public debt, arbitrary arrests and suspension of habeas corpus, the rigour of the draft, and the proclamation of military emancipation furnished ample subjects of bitter and vindictive campaign oratory. A partisan coterie which surrounded M‘Clellan loudly charged the failure of his Richmond campaign to official interference in his plans. Vallandigham had returned to his home in defiance of his banishment beyond military lines, and was leniently suffered to remain. The aggressive spirit of the party, however, pushed it to a fatal extreme. The Democratic National Convention adopted (August 29, 1864) a resolution (drafted by Vallandigham) declaring the war a failure, and demanding a cessation of hostilities; it nominated M‘Clellan for president, and instead of adjourning sine die as usual, remained organized, and subject to be convened at any time and place by the executive national committee. This threatening attitude, in conjunction with alarming indications of a conspiracy to resist the draft, had the effect to thoroughly consolidate the war party, which had on the 8th of June unanimously renominated Lincoln, and had nominated Andrew Johnson of Tennessee for the vice-presidency. At the election held on the 8th of November 1864, Lincoln received 2,216,076 of the popular votes, and M‘Clellan (who had openly disapproved of the resolution declaring the war a failure) but 1,808,725; while of the presidential electors 212 voted for Lincoln and 21 for M‘Clellan. Lincoln’s second term of office began on the 4th of March 1865.
While this political contest was going on the Civil War was being brought to a decisive close. Grant, at the head of the Army of the Potomac, followed Lee to Richmond and Petersburg, and held him in siege to within a few days of final surrender. General W. T. Sherman, commanding the bulk of the Union forces in the Mississippi Valley, swept in a victorious march through the heart of the Confederacy to Savannah on the coast, and thence northward to North Carolina. Lee evacuated Richmond on the 2nd of April, and was overtaken by Grant and compelled to surrender his entire army on the 9th of April 1865. Sherman pushed Johnston to a surrender on the 26th of April. This ended the war.
Lincoln being at the time on a visit to the army, entered Richmond the day after its surrender. Returning to Washington, he made his last public address on the evening of the 11th of April, devoted mainly to the question of reconstructing loyal governments in the conquered states. On the evening of the 14th of April he attended Ford’s theatre in Washington. While seated with his family and friends absorbed in the play, John Wilkes Booth, an actor, who with others had prepared a plot to assassinate the several heads of government, went into the little corridor leading to the upper stage-box, and secured it against ingress by a wooden bar. Then stealthily entering the box, he discharged a pistol at the head of the president from behind, the ball penetrating the brain. Brandishing a huge knife, with which he wounded Colonel Rathbone who attempted to hold him, the assassin rushed through the stage-box to the front and leaped down upon the stage, escaping behind the scenes and from the rear of the building, but was pursued, and twelve days afterwards shot in a barn where he had concealed himself. The wounded president was borne to a house across the street, where he breathed his last at 7 a.m. on the 15th of April 1865.
President Lincoln was of unusual stature, 6 ft. 4 in., and of spare but muscular build; he had been in youth remarkably strong and skilful in the athletic games of the frontier, where, however, his popularity and recognized impartiality oftener made him an umpire than a champion. He had regular and prepossessing features, dark complexion, broad high forehead, prominent cheek bones, grey deep-set eyes, and bushy black hair, turning to grey at the time of his death. Abstemious in his habits, he possessed great physical endurance. He was almost as tender-hearted as a woman. “I have not willingly planted a thorn in any man’s bosom,” he was able to say. His patience was inexhaustible. He had naturally a most cheerful and sunny temper, was highly social and sympathetic, loved pleasant conversation, wit, anecdote and laughter. Beneath this, however, ran an undercurrent of sadness; he was occasionally subject to hours of deep silence and introspection that approached a condition of trance. In manner he was simple, direct, void of the least affectation, and entirely free from awkwardness, oddity or eccentricity. His mental qualities were—a quick analytic perception, strong logical powers, a tenacious memory, a liberal estimate and tolerance of the opinions of others, ready intuition of human nature; and perhaps his most valuable faculty was rare ability to divest himself of all feeling or passion in weighing motives of persons or problems of state. His speech and diction were plain, terse, forcible. Relating anecdotes with appreciative humour and fascinating dramatic skill, he used them freely and effectively in conversation and argument. He loved manliness, truth and justice. He despised all trickery and selfish greed. In arguments at the bar he was so fair to his opponent that he frequently appeared to concede away his client’s case. He was ever ready to take blame on himself and bestow praise on others. “I claim not to have controlled events,” he said, “but confess plainly that events have controlled me.” The Declaration of Independence was his political chart and inspiration. He acknowledged a universal equality of human rights. “Certainly the negro is not our equal in colour,” he said, “perhaps not in many other respects; still, in the right to put into his mouth the bread that his own hands have earned, he is the equal of every other man white or black.” He had unchanging faith in self-government. “The people,” he said, “are the rightful masters of both congresses and courts, not to overthrow the constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the constitution.” Yielding and accommodating in non-essentials, he was inflexibly firm in a principle or position deliberately taken. “Let us have faith that right makes might,” he said, “and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it.” The emancipation proclamation once issued, he reiterated his purpose never to retract or modify it. “There have been men base enough,” he said, “to propose to me to return to slavery our black warriors of Port Hudson and Olustee, and thus win the respect of the masters they fought. Should I do so I should deserve to be damned in time and eternity. Come what will, I will keep my faith with friend and foe.” Benevolence and forgiveness were the very basis of his character; his world-wide humanity is aptly embodied in a phrase of his second inaugural: “With malice toward none, with charity for all.” His nature was deeply religious, but he belonged to no denomination.
Lincoln married in Springfield on the 4th of November 1842, Mary Todd (1818–1882), also a native of Kentucky, who bore him four sons, of whom the only one to grow up was the eldest, Robert Todd Lincoln (b. 1843), who graduated at Harvard in 1864, served as a captain on the staff of General Grant in 1865, was admitted to the Illinois bar in 1867, was secretary of war in the cabinets of Presidents Garfield and Arthur in 1881–1885, and United States Minister to Great Britain in 1889–1893, and was prominently connected with many large corporations, becoming in 1897 president of the Pullman Co.
Of the many statues of President Lincoln in American cities, the best known is that, in Chicago, by St Gaudens. Among the
