"We cannot have free govenment without elections": Abraham Lincoln and the election of 1864

Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, Summer 2001 by Balsamo, Larry T

Writing in the late summer of 1863 to his colleague John G. Nicolay, Presidential Secretary John Hay provided a candid assessment of his often embattled boss Abraham Lincoln.

"The Tycoon is in fine whack. I have rarely seen him so serene and busy. He is managing this war, the draft, foreign relations, and planning a reconstruction of the Union, all at once. I never knew with what tyrannous authority he rules the cabinet til now. The most important things he decides and there is no cavil. I am growing more and more firmly convinced that the good of the country absolutely demands that he should be kept where he is till this thing is over. There is no man in the country, so wise, so serene, and so firm. I believe the hand of God placed him where he is."1

No doubt, as Hay described, Lincoln had his times when things went well, but intimates of Lincoln well knew how heavy the burdens of office were and that he was frequently subject to somber moods. Lincoln's presidency was rocked by many controversies and wrenching decisions and the Civil War was lasting much longer and proving to be much more expensive in monetary cost and human suffering than anyone could have predicted back in 1861.

Nonetheless, by the end of 1863 Lincoln and supporters of the cause of the Union could look back on the past few months and see some positive signs. In July the army of the Potomac had repelled at Gettysburg an invasion of loyal territory by the best led rebel army at the same time forces under the command of the best Union general Ulysses Grant subdued the final Confederate stronghold at Vicksburg; thus and as Lincoln noted the "father of waters now flows unvexed to the sea," under federal control from source to mouth.2 By late November a massive concentration of Union forces had broken the rebel siege of Chattanooga and driven the gray Army back into Georgia. The strategically important state of Tennessee was now entirely in federal possession. By this time it was increasingly clear that a combination of adroit federal foreign policy and battlefield success had eliminated any real possibility that any European power would interfere in the Civil War or extend formal diplomatic recognition to the Confederate States of America.

Certain political development augured well too. Lincoln's party, now generally calling itself the National Union Party in order to broaden its appeal, gained two crucial victories in statewide elections. In October in Ohio John Brough was elected Governor by a margin of 100,000 votes over the always controversial "Copperhead" Democrat Clement Vallandigham. Also in October in Pennsylvania incumbent Governor Andrew Curtin won re-election over the Democrat George Woodward, a State Supreme Court Justice.3

By the end of 1863 it was generally known and assumed that Abraham Lincoln was willing to be considered by his National Union Party as a candidate for re-election. In those days presidents did not arrange press conferences to make important announcements and it was important, also, that political leaders not appear to be openly "seeking" high office. So when Lincoln wrote to Illinois Congressman Elihu Washburne in late October that "a second term would be a great honor and a great labor, which together, perhaps I would not decline."4 Washburne and others knew that Lincoln's hat was in the ring.

Political precedents for re-election to a second term were not encouraging. For decades the country had been served by a succession of one-term presidents. The last chief executive elected to a second term was Andrew Jackson in 1832. Between that election and 1864 only one incumbent president had been renominated by his own party, and that president, Martin Van Buren, had been soundly defeated by William Henry Harrison in the famous "Hard Cider" campaign of 1840. But Lincoln's re-election prospects faced more severe obstacles than the accumulated precedents of thirty years of presidential politics. One significant obstacle was disaffection from within Lincoln's own party. Since the very beginning of his presidency Lincoln had been more or less at odds with a group generally known as "Radical" Republicans. These men, many of whom had been prewar abolitionists, were critical of Lincoln's slowness and supposed reluctance to move decisively against slavery. They were frequently impatient with the President's inability or unwillingness to prosecute the war against the Confederacy with enough vigor. Radicals were upset with indications that the malleable Lincoln was too often under the conservative influences of his own cabinet members such as Secretary of State William H. Seward, and Postmaster General Montgomery Blair.

Lincoln further alarmed Radicals when he issued his Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction in December, 1863. Better known as the "Ten Per Cent Plan," Lincoln's Proclamation would restore to the Union any of the seceding states when at least ten per cent of the qualified voters of 1860 swore an oath of loyalty to the Federal Union. Those swearing such an oath would receive amnesty, resumption of all rights, and guaranteed return of all property except slaves.5 In the view of many Radicals, Lincoln's plan let seceding states back in too easily and did nothing to provide suffrage to African Americans, the only residents of the south who were sure to be loyal to the cause of the Union. In addition, Lincoln's action was the result of an executive proclamation which diminished the power and authority of Congress.