第118章 THE AUGUST CONSPIRACY(2)

Confident that a great reaction against Lincoln was sweeping the country,that the Manifesto had been launched in the very nick of time,a meeting of conspirators was held in New York,at the house of David Dudley Field,August fourteenth.Though Wade was now at his home in Ohio,Davis was present.So was Greeley.It was decided to ask Lincoln to withdraw.Four days afterward,a "call"was drawn up and sent out confidentially near and far to be signed by prominent politicians.The "call"was craftily worded.It summoned a new Union Convention to meet in Cincinnati,September twenty-eighth,for the purpose either of rousing the party to whole-hearted support of Lincoln,or of uniting all factions on some new candidate.

Greeley who could not attend the committee which drew up the "call"wrote that "Lincoln is already beaten."[4]

Meanwhile,the infection of dismay had spread fast among the Lincoln managers.Even before the meeting of the conspirators on the fourteenth,Weed told the President that he could not be reelected.[5]

One of his bravest supporters,Washburne,came to the dismal conclusion that "were an election to be held now in Illinois,we should be beaten."Cameron,who had returned from Russia and was working hard for Lincoln in Pennsylvania,was equally discouraging.So was Governor Morton in Indiana.From all his "stanchest friends,"wrote his chief manager to Lincoln,"there was but one report.The tide is setting strongly against us."[6]

Lincoln's managers believed that the great host of free voters who are the balance of power in American politics,were going in a drove toward the camp of the Democrats.It was the business of the managers to determine which one,or which ones,among the voices of discontent,represented truly this controlling body of voters.They thought they knew.Two cries,at least,that rang loud out of the Babel of the hour,should be heeded.One of these harked back to Niagara.In the anxious ears of the managers it dinned this charge:"the Administration prevented negotiations for peace by tying together two demands,the Union must be restored and slavery must be abolished;if Lincoln had left out slavery,he could have had peace in a restored Union."It was ridiculous,as every one who had not gone off his head knew.But so many had gone off their heads.And some of Lincoln's friends were meeting this cry in a way that was raising up other enemies of a different sort.Even so faithful a friend as Raymond,editor of The Times and Chairman of the Republican National Executive Committee,labored hard in print to prove that because Lincoln said he "would consider terms that embraced the integrity of the Union and the abandonment of slavery,he did not say that he would not receive them unless they embraced both these conditions."[7]What would Sumner and all the Abolitionists say to that?As party strategy,in the moment when the old Vindictive Coalition seemed on the highroad to complete revival,was that exactly the tune to sing?Then too there was the other cry that also made a fearful ringing in the ears of the much alarmed Executive Committee.There was wild talk in the air of an armistice.The hysteric Greeley had put it into a personal letter to Lincoln."I know that nine-tenths of the whole American people,North and South,are anxious for peace-peace on any terms-and are utterly sick of human slaughter and devastation.I know that,to the general eye,it now seems that the Rebels are anxious to negotiate and that we repulse their advances....I beg you,I implore you to inaugurate or invite proposals for peace forthwith.And in -case peace can not now be made,consent to an armistice for one year,each party to retain all it now holds,but the Rebel ports to be opened.Meantime,let a national convention be held and there will surely be no war at all events."[8]

This armistice movement was industriously advertised in the Democratic papers.It was helped along by the Washington correspondent of The Herald who sowed broadcast the most improbable stories with regard to it.Today,Secretary Fessenden was a convert to the idea;another day,Senator Wilson had taken it up;again,the President,himself,was for an armistice.[9]

A great many things came swiftly to a head within a few days before or after the twentieth of August.Every day or two,rumor took a new turn;or some startling new alignment was glimpsed;and every one reacted to the news after his kind.