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LINCOLN'S LAST CABINET MEETING

Excerpted from:
Lincoln and Johnson
Their Plan of Reconstruction and the Resumption of National Authority
First Paper
by Gideon Welles
Galaxy Magazine, April 1872, pp. 525-527

Page 525

When I went to the Cabinet meeting on Friday, the 14th of April, General Grant, who had just arrived from Appomattox, was with the President, and one or two members were already there. Congratulations were interchanged, and earnest inquiry was made whether any information had been received from General Sherman. The Secretary of War came late to the meeting, and the telegraph office from which we obtained earliest news was in the War Department. General Grant, who was invited to remain, said he was expecting hourly to hear from Sherman, and had a good deal of anxiety on the subject.

The President remarked that the news would come soon and come favorably, he had no doubt, for he had last night his usual dream which had preceeded nearly every important event of the war. I inquired the particulars of this remarkable dream. He said it was in my department -- it related to the water; that he seemed to be in a singular and indescribable vessel, but always the same, and that he was moving with great rapidity toward a dark and indefinite shore; that he had had this singular dream preceding the firing on Sumter, the battles of Bull Run, Antietam, Gettysburg, Stone river, Vicksburg, Wilmington, etc. General Grant remarked with some emphasis and asperity that Stone River was no victory -- that a few such victories would have ruined the country, and he knew of no important results from it. The President said that perhaps he should not altogether agree with him but whatever might be the facts, his singular dream preceded that fight. Victory did not always follow his dream, but the event and results were important. He had no doubt that a battle had taken place or was about being fought, "and Johnston will be beaten, for I had this strange dream again last night. It must relate to Sherman; my thoughts are in that direction, and I know of no other very important event which is likely just now to occur."

Great events did indeed follow. Within a few hours the good and gentle as well as truly great man who narrated his dream was assassinated, and the murder which closed forever his earthly career affected for years, and perhaps forever, the welfare of his country.

The session of the Cabinet on that eventful day, the last of President Lincoln's life, was chiefly occupied on the subject of our relations with the rebels -- the communications, the trade, etc. The Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. McCulloch, who had but recently entered upon his duties, was embarrassed in regard to captured cotton, permits, and traffic. It was generally agreed that commercial intercourse with the rebel States should be speedily established. Mr. Stanton proposed that communication should be reopened by his issuing a military order, authorizing and limiting traffic; that the Secretary of the Treasury would give permits to all who wished to trade, and he (Stanton) would order the vessels to be received into any port.

I suggested that instead of a military order from the Secretary of War, the President should issue an Executive order or proclamation for opening the ports to trade, and prescribe therein the duties of the several Departments. Mr. McCulloch expressed his willingness to be relieved from Treasury agents, and General Grant declared himself unequivocally opposed to them and the whole Treasury system of trading within the rebel lines as demoralizing.

In regard to opening the ports to trade, Mr. Stanton thought it should be attended with restrictions, and that traffic should not extend beyond the military lines. I proposed opening the whole coast to every one who wished to trade, was entitled to coast license, and should obtain a regular clearance. I wished the reestablishment of unrestricted commercial and social intercourse with the southern people with as little delay as possible, from a conviction that it would conduce to a more speedy establishment of friendly relations. General Grant concurred with me, and recommended that there should be no restrictions east of the Mississippi. The President referred the whole subject to the Secretaries of the Treasury, War, and Navy, and said he should be satisfied with any conclusions to which they might arrive, or on which they could agree.

At the close of the session Mr. Stanton made some remarks on the general condition of affairs and the new phase and duties upon which we were about to enter.

Page 526

He alluded to the great solicitude which the President felt on this subject, his frequent recurrence to the necessity of establishing civil governments and preserving order in the rebel States. Like the rest of the Cabinet, doubtless, he had given this subject much consideration, and with a view of having something practical on which to base action, he had drawn up a rough plan or ordinance which he had handed to the President.

The President said he proposed to bring forward that subject, althought he had not had time as yet to give much attention to the details of the paper which the Secretary of War had given him only the day before; but that it was substantially, in its general scope, the plan which we had sometimes talked over in Cabinet meetings. We should probably make some modifications, prescribe further details; there were some suggestions which he should wish to make, and he desired all to bring their minds to the question, for no greater or more important one could come before us, or any future Cabinet. He thought it providential that this great rebellion was crushed just as Congress had adjourned, and there were none of the disturbing elements of that body to hinder and embarrass us. If we were wise and discreet, we should reanimate the States and get their governments in successful operation, with order prevailing the the Union reestablished, before Congress came together in December. This he thought important. We could do better; accomplish more without than with them. There were men in Congress who, if their motives were good, were nevertheless impracticable, and who possessed feelings of hate and vindictiveness in which he did not sympathize and could not participate. He hoped there would be no persecution, no bloody work, after the war was over. None need expect he would take any part in hanging or killing those men, even the worst of them. Frighten them out of the country, open the gates, let down the bars, scare them off, said he, throwing up his hands as if scaring sheep. Enough lives have been sacrificed. We must extinguish our resentments if we expect harmony and union. There was too much of a desire on the part of some of our very good friends to be masters, to interfere with and dictate to those States, to treat the people not as fellow citizens; there was too little respect for their rights. He did not sympathize in these feelings. Louisiana, he said, had framed and presented one of the best constitutions that had ever been formed. He wished they had permitted negroes who had property, or could read, to vote; but this was a question which they must decide for themselves. Yet some, a very few of our friends, were not willing to let the people of the States determine these questions, but, in violation of first and fundamental principles, would exercise arbitrary power over them. These humanitarians break down all State rights and constitutional rights. Had the Louisianians inserted the negro in their Constitution, and had that instrument been in all other respects the same, Mr. Sumner, he said, would never have excepted to that Constitution. The delegation would have been admitted, and the State all right. Each House of Congress, he said, had the undoubted right to receive or reject members; the executive had no control over the matter. But Congress had nothing to do with the State governments, which the President could recognize, and under existing laws treat as other States, give them the same mail facilities, collect taxes, appoint judges, marshals, collectors, etc., subject, of course, to confirmation. There were men who objected to these views, but they were not here, and we must make haste to do our duty before they came here.

Mr. Stanton read his project for reorganizing, reestablishing, or reconstructing governments. It was a military or executive order, and by it the War Department was designated to reorganize those States whose individuality it assumed was sacrificed. Divested of its military features, it was in form and outline essentially the same as the plan ultimately adopted. This document proposed establishing a military department to be composed of virginia and North Carolina, with a military governor. After reading this paper, Mr. Stanton made some addtional remarks in furtherance of the views of the President and the importance of prompt measures.

A few moments elapsed, and no one else speaking, I expressed my concurrence in the necessity of immediate action, and my gratification that the Secretary of War had given the outlines of a plan embodying his views. I objected, however, to military supervision or control, and to the proposition of combining two States in

Page 527

the plan of a temporary government. My idea, more perhaps than that of any other of the Cabinet, was for a careful observance, not only of the distinctive rights, but of the individuality of the States. Besides, Viginia occupied a different position from that of any other of those States. There had been throughout the war a skeleton organization in that commonwealth which we had recognized. We had said through the whole war that Virginia was a State in the Union -- that her relations with the Government were not suspended. We had acknowledged and claimed that Pierpont was the legitimate and rightful Governor, that the organization was lawful and right under him; that the division of the State, which required the assent of the legal State government, had been effected, and was claimed to be constitutional and correct. Were we now to ignore our own acts -- to say the Pierpont Government was a farce -- that the act creating the State of west Virginia was a nullity? My position on that quesiton was different from others, for though not unfriendly to the new State, I had opposed the division of the State when it took place. The proposition to reestablish a State government in Virginia where there was already a State government with which we were acting, with Pierpont as governor, or to put it under military control, appeared to me a grave error. The President said my exceptions, some of them at least, were well taken. Some of them had occurred to him. It was in that view he had been willing that General Weitzel should call the leading rebels together, because they were not the legal Legislature of Virginia, while the Pierpont Legislature was. Turning to Mr. Stanton, he asked what he would do with Pierpont and the Virginia Constitution? Stanton replied that he had no apprehension from Pierpont, but the paper which he had submitted was merely a rough sketch subject to any alteration.

Governor Dennison thought that Pierpont would be no serious obstacle in the way, were that the only difficulty; but there were other objections, and he thought separate propositions for the government of the two States advisable.

I suggested that the Federal Government could assist the loyal government of Virginia in asserting, extending, and maintaining its authority over the whole State, but that we could not supersede or annul it.

The President directed Mr. Stanton to take the documents and have separate plans presented for the two States. They required different treatment. "We must not," said he, "stultify ourselves as regards Virginia, but we must help her." North Carolina was in a different condition. He requested the Secretary of War to have copies of the two plans for the two States made and furnished each member of the Cabinet by the following Tuesday -- the next regular meeting. He impressed upon each and all the importance of deliberating upon and carefully considering the subject before us, remarking that this was the great question pending, and that we must now begin to act in the interest of peace. He again declared his thankfulness that Congress was not in session to embarrass us.

The President was assassinated that evening, and I am not aware that he exchanged a word with any one after the Cabinet meeting of that day on the subject of a resumption of the national authority in the States where it had been suspended, or of reestablishing the Union.