Congress' major part in winning the US Civil War

Congress at War: How Republican Reformers Fought the Civil War, Defied Lincoln, Ended Slavery, and Remade America by Fergus M. Bordewich
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I like a history book that isn’t afraid to forcibly advance a thesis, even if I don’t totally agree with it, as long as it has at least a reasonable amount of factual backing. And, Bordewich’s does. It is that St. Abraham of Lincoln most certainly did not win the war single-handedly or even close to it. Rather, Congress had a significant role, and often took the lead, both in actions directly related to the war and ancillary ones.

Note: This is an expanded version, as is my wont here, of my Goodreads review, which was completed two weeks ago. This makes a perfect Memorial Day piece.

As Bordewich shows, one of the most important tools, beyond individual acts of legislation, was the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War. This is directly parallel to the WWII US Senate committee, helmed by Harry Truman, that propelled him to the vice presidency nomination in 1944. Chaired by Ben Wade, it repeatedly investigated tactics and command by generals, starting with McClellan, as well as material and supplies, war profiteering and more. In 1864, it took testimony from the survivors of the Fort Pillow massacre. (Nathan Bedford Forrest being allowed to survive after the end of the Civil War is itself an indictment of Reconstruction.)

At its best on 1863-64. Noting the part-time nature of Congress and how the new one wouldn’t start until 1863, Bordewich notes how the Clerk of the House, Emerson Etheridge, a Tennessee Unionist who turned anti-administration after the Emancipation Proclamation, was going to use his powers as clerk to reject the credentials of as many Republicans as he could, in collusion with Vallandigham and Sunset Cox. But, Republicans sniffed it out, and reportedly, Lincoln was OK, in extremis, of using troops to oust Etheridge.

But part of the story is Smiler Colfax being elected as Speaker for that Congress, as Galusha Grow had lost re-election to his seat in the midterms. Lincoln reportedly wanted old Illinois friend Elihu Washburne, who wouldn’t have been bad, or the odious Frankie Blair, who would have been. This was all new to me.

Also new to me were details of Hannibal Hamlin being dumped for Veep, especially how much Lincoln was allegedly involved, even to the point of allowing a nominal pro-Hamlin vote on the first ballot. It’s arguable that, at the time, the concern to get a War Democrat as Veep was reasonable. But, it appears Lincoln wanted Hamlin gone anyway. I suspect it was because he suspected Hamlin would be more and more a Radical foot inside the White House as Reconstruction ramped up.

This, then, connects to Lincoln’s pocket veto of the Wade-Davis act. And, no, contra Wade’s modern chief biographer, even if the Wade-Davis Manifesto in the New York Times after the pocket veto was overblown, the act itself was NOT.

This, in turn, though little discussed by Bordewich, would seem to tie to Lincoln’s ongoing support for colonization — yes, even up to the week of his assassination. It definitely ties to Lincoln’s “rosewater” reconstruction plans, where Speaker Julian Ashley couldn’t get a deal to admit Louisiana’s congresscritters in exchange for Lincoln accepting something at least halfway like Wade-Davis for unreconstructed states. (I'll have an even more expanded review on my blog, and this will be part of it. (It should also be noted, per Bruce Levine, that Salmon Chase warned Lincoln at the start of his presidential reconstruction of Louisiana to net let it pass a black peonage law. Lincoln did anyway.)

Some historians, like James Oakes and David Reynolds, will give you the St. Abraham of Lincoln version of the story on colonization, claiming he never spoke about it in public after the Emancipation Proclamation. True, but a nothingburger. As the link in the previous paragraph shows, he DID talk about it with Butler two full years later. Before that, in early 1863, per email exchange I had with Oakes, Lincoln's Emigration Bureau continued to explore Belize as a colonization site — with his encouragement. Per that link, also, Lincoln asked Attorney General Edward Bates in October of 1864 — while worried about re-election, let us not forget! — if Emigration Commissioner James Mitchell could have his salary restored, though Congress had killed the commission's budget in July. (Mitchell himself, per that link, was apparently paid directly as an employee of the Department of the Interior.) Bates, as he prepared to resign as AG, did his best to dodge a formal legal opinion but informally admitted to Lincoln that the answer was yes.

Much more — Lincoln's whole pre-presidential and presidential history of support for colonization — is fascinating, if troubling, reading. Bureaucratic infighting between Mitchell, known to Lincoln since at least the late 1840s, and Interior Secretary Usher kneecapped the British Honduras and British Guiana possibilities. So did Seward's hatred of colonization, and, as Secretary of State, his willingness to say so in front of foreign envoys.

Back to the original review.

Per anti-Radical historians today who say that Ben Wade as president pro tem killed chances at impeaching Andy Johnson? He was freely elected. The GOP was going to stand by him. Recuse himself? Whoever was president pro tem wasn't going to recuse himself and besides, it was Chase (with a lot of horrible legal rulings, perhaps done with his own eye on the presidency) who was presiding over the impeachment trial.

That said, on some items, it was pushing at an open door in general. Lincoln, old railroad lawyer, certainly supported the Pacific Railway Act and its later emendations. Ditto, being from the Illinois prairie, on the Morrill Act, the Homestead Act and the creation of the eventual Department of Agriculture.

Possibly a stretch to claim the Civil War era sub-Treasury led directly to the Federal Reserve, although the National Banking Act was a step in that direction. And, Bordewich never ponders why Congress didn’t cut straight to the chase and create the third Bank of the United States.

Oh, Lincoln’s nationwide suspension of habeas corpus in fall of 1862 did NOT, in and of itself, create martial law. A journalist should know better than that. Not all people arrested and held without release went automatically to military commissions instead of civilian courts, though that was, yes, often the case, when Lincoln did go on to declare martial law. In any case, suspension of habeas corpus by itself does not create martial law. Ex parte Milligan makes this clear.

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