[woodpusher] Would you happen to have your alleged quote from a source other than a Massachusetts abolitionist Yankee officer on a military mission using a fake name?[HandyDandy] Now don’t go all drama-Queen on me. There’s already enough of them on your side. You are getting as good at fiction as the rest of the Lost Causers.
Your own source documented that Lincoln held a meeting to establish plausible deniability and that Lincoln issued their passes, acknowledged they would be acting as spies, decided the story should be published in The Atlantic, directed that he be given the copy before publication for editing, edited the story prior to publication in The Atlantic, and orchestrated the whole affair for political election purposes.
[HandyDandy] “False name”, “fake name” “real name”? The term you are looking for is, “pseudonym”, aka pen name. For example, you post here under the fake name, “Woodpusher”. You don’t like the quote so you attack the source, as you attack the messenger.
There was no quote, and no "near quote." I exposed the blatant propaganda mission orchestrated by Lincoln for political election purposes.
You don’t have a point here, do you? Did you know that “Mark Twain” was a pen name?
Mark Twain did not travel on a pass issued by Abraham Lincoln, nor did he publish in The Atlantic at the suggestion of Abraham Lincoln, nor did Mark Twain submit a pre-publication copy of his articles to Abraham Lincoln.
Mark Twain is not known to have had staged meetings with Lincoln, in front of a third party, to establish Lincoln's plausible deniability should events go sideways.
Mark Twain's articles were not edited by Abraham Lincoln prior to publication.
Using a false name to travel as a spy is not a pseudonym. It can get one imprisoned or hanged. Samuel Clemens use of the pseudonym Mark Twain is not known to have been discussed by a President and staff with a view to having him committed to a military prison.
James R. Gilmore, Personal Recollections of Abraam Lincoln and The Civil War, Boston, L.C. Page and Company, Inc., 1898, Chapter 17, pp. 240
Then, relapsing into his usual manner, he said, “There is something in what you say. But Jaquess couldn’t do it, — he couldn’t draw Davis’s fire; he is too honest. You are the man for that business.” Not stopping to be amused by his equivocal compliment, I replied, “Excuse me, sir, if I differ from you. His very honesty and sincerity exactly fit him for the business. Davis is astute and wary, but the colonel’s transparent honesty would disarm him completely.”“Have you suggested this to Jaquess?”
“No, sir.”
“Well,” he said, “ if you propose it to him, he will tell you he won’t have anything to do with the business. He feels that he is acting as God’s servant and messenger, and he would recoil from anything like political finesse. But if Davis should make such a declaration, the country should know of it; and I can see that, coming from him now, when everybody is tired of the war, and so many think some honorable settlement can be made, it might be of vital importance to us. But I tell you that not Jaquess, but you, are the man for that business.”
“Ah! I see, sir,” I remarked. “¥ou propose that I shall go upon this mission.”
“No, I do not,” he answered. “ I do not propose anything. I can’t propose anything about such a business. I can only say that I will give you a pass into the rebel lines, and then — ask Jaquess to pray for you.”
Plausible deniability, old chap. I a quote of Davis saying what I need for the election. Jaquess is not the snake for the job. You, Gilmore are just such a snake.
James R. Gilmore, Personal Recollections of Abraam Lincoln and The Civil War, Boston, L.C. Page and Company, Inc., 1898, Chapter 17, pp. 242-244
“Well, sit down, both of you,” said Mr. Lincoln, “ and let us get to business. Now, Mr. Gilmore, have you decided to ask me for a pass into the rebel lines?”“I have, sir,” I answered, “on the condition that you allow me to make such overtures to Davis as will put him entirely in the wrong if he should reject them.”
“Well,” said Mr. Lincoln, “Mr. Chase and I will talk about that in a moment. But, first, another question: Do you understand that I neither suggest, nor request, nor direct you to take this journey?”
“I do.”
Plausible deniability being established.
Continuing:
“And will you say so, if it should seem to me to be necessary?”“I will, whether you should ask it of me or not.”
“And if those people should hold on to you, — should give you free lodgings till our election is over, or in any other manner treat you unlike gentlemen,— do you understand that I shall be absolutely powerless to help you ? ”
“I understand that, sir, fully.”
“And you are willing to go entirely upon your own muscle?”
“No, sir, not upon my muscle. I suspect it will be more a matter of nerve than of muscle.”
“Do you hear that, Mr. Chase?” said Mr. Lincoln, with an indescribable look of comic gravity. “He criticises my English at the very moment I am giving him an office. Well, now that we have arranged the preliminaries, Mr. Chase, what terms shall we offer the rebels? Draw your chair up to the table, Mr. Gilmore, and take down what Mr. Chase may say.”
“You had better name the terms, Mr. Lincoln,” answered Mr. Chase. “I will make any suggestions that may seem necessary.”
Chase was too smart to fall for that Lincoln B.S.
Continuing,
“Well, either way,” replied Mr. Lincoln.He then went on to dictate to me, without interruption from Mr. Chase, the following:
“First. The immediate dissolution of the Southern Government, and disbandment of its armies; and the acknowledgment by all the States in rebellion of the supremacy of the Union.
“Second. The total and absolute abolition of slavery in every one of the late Slave States and throughout the Union. This to be perpetual.
“Third. Full amnesty to all who have been in any way engaged in the rebellion, and their restoration to all the rights of citizenship.
“Fourth. All acts of secession to be regarded as nullities; and the late rebellious States to be, and be regarded, as if they had never attempted to secede from the Union. Representation in the House from the recent Slave States to be on the basis of their voting population.”
Here Mr. Chase remarked, “About that I may want to say something, Mr. Lincoln; but please to go on now, and I will suggest some points afterwards.”
“Very well,” said Mr. Lincoln.
“Fifth. The sum of five hundred millions, in United States stock, to be issued and divided between the late Slave States, to be used by them in payment to slave-owners, loyal and disloyal, for the slaves emancipated by my proclamation. This sum to be divided among the late slave-owners, equally and equitably, at the rate of one-half the value of the slaves in the year 1860; and if any surplus should remain, it to be returned to the United States Treasury.
“Sixth. A national convention to be convened as soon as practicable, to ratify this settlement, and make such changes in the Constitution as may be in accord with the new order of things.
“Seventh. The intent and meaning of all the foregoing is that the Union shall be fully restored, as it was before the Rebellion, with the exception that all slaves within its borders are, and shall forever be, freemen.”
- - - - - - - - - -
James R. Gilmore, Personal Recollections of Abraam Lincoln and The Civil War, Boston, L.C. Page and Company, Inc., 1898, Chapter 17, pp. 287-90
After the meeting:
We then visited Castle Thunder and the hospitals for the Union wounded, and, about six o’clock, were ready to take our seats in the ambulance which was to convey us to the headquarters of General Foster, at Deep Bottom. As we were about to take our seats in the ambulance, Judge Ould drew me a short distance aside, saying: “ I have a favor to ask of you.”The favor was that I should obtain from Mr. Lincoln permits for some half-dozen persons to pass, to or fro, through the lines. I assured him that, beyond question, Mr. Lincoln would give the desired permissions, and then I said: "Now, judge, explain to me your delay of this morning.”
He then said that at nine o’clock he had gone to Mr. Davis’s house for the official permit to take us out, and had found there Secretary Benjamin, who was impressing upon Mr. Davis the necessity of placing us in Castle Thunder until the Northern election was over. He insisted that while Jaquess was sincerely desirous of opening the door for peace, I had no expectation of doing so, and was solely bent on drawing them out on points that would prejudice them with Northern voters.
Mr. Davis hesitated, — he thought they could not honorably detain men who had come to them on a peace errand. While the judgment of Davis was in suspense, Ould had entered the room, and Davis appealed to him for his opinion. Ould assured him that I was so frank a man that he should have discovered any political purpose if I had one; that I had expressed myself with the utmost freedom — and not always in a complimentary manner — about Southern men and Southern principles; and as an instance of my very uncommon frankness he mentioned my exposure of the ruse they had attempted to play upon us with the Sibley tents and the overgrown picket-stations. Davis adjourned the discussion by asking Ould to call on him at two o’clock, when he would decide the matter. At that time he gave Ould the permit, with the remark, “This is probably a bad business for us, anyway; but it would alienate many of our Northern friends should we hold on to these gentlemen.”
We arrived near the Union lines at Deep Bottom soon after sunset, and the waving of a white flag brought to us a young officer from the nearest picket-station. He went at once to General Foster for a couple of horses, and in half an hour we entered the general’s tent. It was after his dinner-hour, but he proposed to kill for us the fatted calf. “For,” he said, “these, my sons, were dead, and are alive again; were lost, and are found.” We let him kill the calf, — it tasted wonderfully like salt pork, — and then again mounting his horses, we were at ten o’clock that night at General Butler’s headquarters.
At General Grant’s invitation, Colonel Jaquess remained a few days at City Point, but I took the first boat for Washington. On the way down the river, and while the facts were fresh in my mind, I wrote out the interview with Davis and Benjamin, which I proposed to read to Mr. Lincoln, to avoid the omissions and inaccuracies that might occur in a verbal recital. Arrived in Washington, I hurried to the White House. Mr. Sumner was closeted with the President, but my name was no sooner announced than a kindly voice said, “Come in. Bring him in.” As I entered his room he rose and, grasping my hand, said: “I’m glad you’re back. I heard of your return two nights ago, but they said you were non-committal. What is it, — as we expected?”
“Exactly, sir,” I answered. “ There is no peace without separation. Coming down on the boat, I wrote out the interview to read to you when you are at leisure.”
“I am at leisure now,” he replied. “ Sumner, too, would be glad to hear it.”
When I had finished the reading, he said, “ What do you propose to do with this?”
“Put a beginning and an end to it, sir, on my way home, and hand it to the Tribune."
“Can’t you get it into the Atlantic Monthly?" he asked. “ It would have less of a partisan look there.”
“No doubt I can, sir,” I replied; “ but there would be some delay about it.”
“And it is important that Davis’s position should be known at once,” said Mr. Lincoln. “It will show the country that I didn’t fight shy of Greeley’s Niagara business without a reason; and everybody is agog to hear your report Let it go into the Tribune."
“Permit me to suggest,” said Mr. Sumner, “that Mr. Gilmore put at once a short card, with the separation declaration of Davis, into one of the Boston papers, and then, as soon as he can, the fuller report into the Atlantic."
“That is it,” said Mr. Lincoln. “ Put Davis’s ‘We are not fighting for slavery; we are fighting for independence’ into the card, — that is enough; and send me the proof of what goes into the Atlantic. Don’t let it appear till I return the proof. Some day all this will come out, but just now we must use discretion.”
As I rose to leave, Mr. Lincoln took my hand, and while he held it in his said, “Jaquess was right, — God’s hand is in it. This may be worth as much to us as half a dozen battles. Get the thing out as soon as you can; but don’t forget to send me the proof of what you write for the Atlantic. Good-by. God bless you.”
The “card ” appeared in the Boston Evening Transcript of July 22, 1864, and two or three days afterwards Mr. James T. Fields handed to me the proof of the Atlantic article, which I at once forwarded to Mr. Lincoln. He retained it seven days, and thereby delayed the issue of the magazine considerably beyond the usual period; and when the proof came back from him it was curtailed a full page and a half of its original proportions. He had stricken out the terms he was willing to grant to the Rebellion, and all reference which I had made to compensation for the slaves. I had intended the article not only as a declaration of Mr. Davis’s position, but also as a manifesto to the Southern people of the liberal conditions on which they could return to the Union. I thought a knowledge of those conditions would create a rebellion within a rebellion, and so much deplete the Southern armies as to shorten the war materially.
Mr. Lincoln told me subsequently that he held the proof under consideration for a few days because, while he was at first tempted to let the article stand as I had written it, fuller reflection convinced him that the publication of his terms would sow dissension in the South, and he was unwilling that his words should have any such effect. Had these terms been accepted, the South would have come out of the war in a better financial position than the North, and the revolted States would have been saved the long agony of reconstruction.
Abraham Lincoln to Abran Wakeman, July 25, 1864, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume 7, page 461
To Abram Wakeman
Private Executive Mansion, Abram Wakeman, Esq Washington,
My dear Sir: July 25, 1864.
I feel that the subject which you pressed upon my attention in our recent conversation is an important one. The men of the South, recently (and perhaps still) at Niagara Falls, tell us distinctly that they are in the confidential employment of the rebellion; and they tell us as distinctly that they are not empowered to offer terms of peace. Does any one doubt that what they are empowered to do, is to assist in selecting and arranging a candidate and a platform for the Chicago convention? Who could have given them this confidential employment but he who only a week since declared to Jaquess and Gilmore that he had no terms of peace but the independence of the South—the dissolution of the Union? Thus the present presidential contest will almost certainly be no other than a contest between a Union and a Disunion candidate, disunion certainly following the success of the latter. The issue is a mighty one for all people and all time; and whoever aids the right, will be appreciated and remembered.Yours truly
A. LINCOLN.
“and so the war came, and now it must go on till the last man of this generation falls in his tracks, and his children seize his musket and fight his battle, unless you acknowledge our right to self-government. We are not fighting for slavery. We are fighting for independence, — and that, or extermination, we will have.” J. Davis.
Do you want to know what I think? I think you stole the whole idea of Gilmore exposing Lincoln’s “plausible deniability” from:
“In 1864, America was more than weary of the bloody civil war. At that moment, James R. Gilmore made a suggestion to Abraham Lincoln to take to Confederate President Jefferson Davis a set of accords by which the North would be willing to have peace. But the purpose of the trip was to propose terms that Lincoln and Gilmore knew Northerners (and the rest of the world) would consider fair and that the Confederates would never accept, thereby gaining Jeff Davis the scorn of the world. It would also help secure Lincoln the 1864 election. What made Gilmore the man to take the message was his familiarity with the South. He'd spent 20 years there as a businessman before the war and knew many prominent people. Right after the attack on Fort Sumter, he was asked to meet with Abraham Lincoln to talk about southern feelings. They subsequently met many times. Gilmore came to Lincoln with his "peace" idea and asked: "...will you allow me five minutes by a slow watch?" Lincoln replied: "Yes, ten; and if you are very entertaining, I'll give you twenty." In a remarkable account of presidential "plausible deniability" before the term was even invented, they had this exchange in the presence of Salmon Chase: GILMORE: "I have [accepted], sir," I answered , "on the condition that you allow me to make such overtures to Davis as will put him entirely in the wrong if he should reject them." LINCOLN: "But, first, another question: Do you understand that I neither suggest, nor request, nor direct you to take this journey?" GILMORE: "I do." LINCOLN: "And will you say so, if it should seem to me to be necessary?" GILMORE: "I will, whether you should ask it of me or not." LINCOLN: "And if those people should hold on to you, — should give you free lodgings till our election is over, or in any other manner treat you unlike gentlemen, — do you understand that I shall be absolutely powerless to help you?" GILMORE: "I understand that, sir, fully." LINCOLN: "And you are willing to go entirely upon your own muscle?" GILMORE: "No, sir, not upon my muscle. I suspect it will be more a matter of nerve than of muscle." LINCOLN: "Do you hear that, Mr. Chase?" said Mr. Lincoln, with an indescribable look of comic gravity. " He criticises my English at the very moment I am giving him an office." Every memoir of the American Civil War provides you us with another view of the catastrophe that changed the country forever. For the first time, this long out-of-print volume is available as an affordable, well-formatted book for e-readers and smartphones. Be sure to LOOK INSIDE by clicking the cover above or download a sample.“
https://www.amazon.com/Personal-Recollections-Abraham-Expanded-Annotated-ebook/dp/B00I8DEQ2E
WD: “Your own source documented that Lincoln held a meeting to establish plausible deniability and that Lincoln issued their passes, acknowledged they would be acting as spies, decided the story should be published in The Atlantic, directed that he be given the copy before publication for editing, edited the story prior to publication in The Atlantic, and orchestrated the whole affair for political election purposes.”
“My own source?” What are you smoking? My source was the Atlantic article of 1862. No mention of spies, plausible deniability etc.etc. You are getting all mixed-up, dude.