At the meeting of the Cabinet to-day the President took out a
paper from his desk, and said:— “Gentlemen, do you remember last summer I asked
you all to sign your names to the back of a paper of which I did not show you
the inside? This is it? Now, Mr. Hay, see if you can get this open without
tearing it.” He had pasted it up in so singular style that it required some
cutting to get it open. He then read as follows:—
Executive
Mansion,
Washington,
Aug. 23, 1864.
This morning, as for some days past, it
seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be re-elected.
Then it will be my duty to so co-operate with the President elect, as to save
the Union between the election and the inauguration; as he will have secured
his election on such ground that he cannot possibly save it afterwards.
A.
LINCOLN.
This was indorsed :—
William
H. Seward,
W.
P. Fessenden,
Edwin
M. Stanton,
Gideon
Welles,
Edw.
Bates,
M.
Blair,
J.
P. Usher.
The President said:— “You will remember that this was
written at a time (six days before the Chicago nominating Convention) when as
yet we had no adversary, and seemed to have no friends. I then solemnly
resolved on the course of action indicated above. I resolved, in case of the
election of General McClellan, being certain that he would be the candidate,
that I would see him and talk matters over with him. I would say, “General, the
election has demonstrated that you are stronger, have more influence with the
American people than I. Now let us together, you with your influence, and I
with all the executive power of the government, try to save the country. You
raise as many troops as you possibly can for this final trial, and I will
devote all my energies to assisting and finishing the war.”
Seward said:— “And the General would answer you ‘Yes, Yes;’ and the
next day when you saw him again, and pressed these views upon him, he would
say, ‘Yes, Yes;’ and so on forever, and would have done nothing at all.”
“At least,” added Lincoln, "I should have done my duty
and have stood clear before my own conscience."
The speeches of the President at the last two serenades are
very highly spoken of. The first I wrote after the fact, to prevent the “loyal
Pennsylvanians” getting a swing at it themselves. The second one, last night,
the President himself wrote late in the evening, and read it from the window :—
“Not very graceful,” he said: “but I am growing old enough not to care much for
the manner of doing things.”
To-day I got a letter from Raymond breathing fire and
vengeance against the Custom House which came so near destroying him in his
district. I read it to the President. He answered that it was the spirit of
such letters as that, that created the faction and malignity of which Raymond
complained.
It seems utterly impossible for the President to conceive of
the possibility of any good resulting from a rigorous and exemplary course of
punishing political dereliction. His favorite expression is:— “I am in favor of
short statutes of limitations in politics.”
SOURCES: Clara B. Hay, Letters of John Hay and
Extracts from Diary, Volume 1, p. 242-5; Michael Burlingame & John R. Turner
Ettlinger, Editors, Inside Lincoln’s White House: The Complete Civil
War Diary of John Hay, p. 247-9.
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