(17)

XXXII. THE AUGUST CONSPIRACY

Though the Vindictives kept a stealthy silence during July, they were
sharpening their claws and preparing for a tiger spring whenever the
psychological moment should arrive. Those two who had had charge of the
Reconstruction Bill prepared a paper, in some ways the most singular
paper of the war period, which has established itself in our history
as the Wade-Davis Manifesto. This was to be the deadly shot that should
unmask the Vindictive batteries, bring their war upon the President out
of the shadows into the open.

Greeley's fiasco and Greeley's mortification both played into their
hands. The fiasco contributed to depress still more the despairing
North. By this time, there was general appreciation of the immensity
of Grant's failure, not only at Cold Harbor, but in the subsequent
slaughter of the futile assault upon Petersburg. We have the word of a
member of the Committee that the despair over Grant translated itself
into blame of the Administration.(1) The Draft Proclamation; the swiftly
traveling report that the government had wilfully brought the peace
negotiations to a stand-still; the continued cry that the war was
hopeless; all these produced, about the first of August, an emotional
crisis--just the sort of occasion for which Lincoln's enemies were
waiting.

Then, too, there was Greeley's mortification. The Administration papers
made him a target for sarcasm. The Times set the pace with scornful
demands for "No more back door diplomacy."(2) Greeley answered in a
rage. He permitted himself to imply that the President originated the
Niagara negotiation and that Greeley "reluctantly" became a party to it.
That "reluctantly" was the truth, in a sense, but how falsely true! Wade
and Davis had him where they wanted him. On the fifth of August, The
Tribune printed their manifesto. It was an appeal to "the supporters of
the Administration . . . to check the encroachment of the Executive on
the authority of Congress, and to require it to confine itself to its
proper sphere." It insinuated the basest motives for the President's
interest in reconstruction, and for rejecting their own bill. "The
President by preventing this bill from becoming a law, holds the
electoral votes of the Rebel States at the dictation of his personal
ambition. . . . If electors for President be allowed to be chosen in
either of those States, a sinister light will be cast on the motives
which induce