Lincoln's
plan of reconstruction. Trumbull upbraided Sumner for "associating
himself with those whom he so often denounced, for the purpose of
calling the yeas and nays and making dilatory motions" to postpone
action until the press of other business should compel the Senate to set
the resolution aside. Sumner's answer was that he would employ
against the measure every instrument he could find "in the arsenal of
parliamentary warfare."

With the aid of the Democrats, the Vindictives carried the day. The
resolution was "dispensed with."(9)

As events turned out it was a catastrophe. But this was not apparent at
the time. Though Lincoln had been beaten for the moment, the opposition
was made up of so many and such irreconcilable elements that as long as
he could hold together his own following, there was no reason to suppose
he would not in the long run prevail. He was never in a firmer, more
self-contained mood than on the last night of the session.(10) Again,
as on that memorable fourth of July, eight months before, he was in his
room at the Capitol signing the last-minute bills. Stanton was with
him. On receiving a telegram from Grant, the Secretary handed it to
the President Grant reported that Lee had proposed a conference for
the purpose of "a satisfactory adjustment of the present unhappy
difficulties by means of a military convention." Without asking for the
Secretary's opinion, Lincoln wrote out a reply which he directed him to
sign and despatch immediately. "The President directs me to say that he
wishes you to have no conference with General Lee, unless it be for the
capitulation of General Lee's army, or on some minor or purely military
matter. He instructs me to say that you are not to decide, discuss, or
confer upon any political questions, such questions the President holds
in his own hands and will submit them to no military conferences or
conventions. Meanwhile, you are to press to the utmost your military
advantages."(11)

In the second inaugural (12) delivered the next day, there is not the
faintest shadow of anxiety. It breathes a lofty confidence as if his
soul was gazing meditatively downward upon life, and upon his own work,
from a secure height. The world has shown a sound instinct in fixing
upon one expression, "with malice toward none, with charity for all," as
the key-note of the final Lincoln. These words form the opening line
of that paragraph of unsurpassable prose in which the second ina