Neato Senator Sumner Pressured Lincoln to Change US Government!

peteanddelmar

2nd Lieutenant
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Missouri
http://www.mrlincolnandfriends.org/inside.asp?pageID=80&subjectID=6

Quoting author Michael Burlingame, editor, With Lincoln in the White House: Letters, Memoranda, and Other Writings of John G. Nicolay, 1860-1865, p. 171 (Memorandum, January 18, 1865).

I am giving this total conversation and context to the quote from Abraham Lincoln about Senator Sumner. I wanted the whole piece there for anyone's perusal. Lincoln thought Sumner wanted to centralize and empower the Federal government and apparently Lincoln did not. This is the same Sen. Sumner who was at first connected to the jailing of Union General Stone for 189 days without charge. Later friends of the Sumner took the blame for what had seemed a personal vendetta of Sumner against Stone.
Williams, T. Harry (December 1954). "Investigation: 1862". American Heritage Magazine 6 (1). Retrieved 2011-09-27.
I do not post this as representative of the whole free states but of one influential leader who pestered Lincoln about this and other matters frequently. Please read through it.


I went to the President this afternoon, at the request of Mr. [James M.]Ashley, on a matter connecting itself with the pending Amendment of the Constitution. The Camden & Amboy interest promised Mr. Ashley that if he would help postpone the Raritan Railroad Bill over this session, they would in return make the N.J. Democrats help about the amendment either by their votes or absence. Sumner being the Senate champion of the Raritan bill, Ashley went to him to ask him to drop it for this session. Sumner however showed reluctance to adopt Mr. Ashley's suggestion, saying that he hoped the amendment would pass anyhow, &c. Ashley thought he discovered in Summer's [sic] manner two reasons 1st that if the present Senate resolution were not adopted by the House, the Senate would send them another, in which they would most likely adopt Sumner's own phraseology, and thereby gratify his vanity and ambition; and 2d that Sumner thinks the defeat of the Camden & Amboy monopoly would establish a principle by legislative enactment, which would effectually crush out the last lingering relics of the States' Rights dogma. Ashley therefore desired the President to send for Sumner, and urge him to be practical and secure the passage of the amendment in the manner suggested by Mr. A.
I stated these points to the President who replied at once

"I can do nothing with Mr. Sumner in these matters. While Mr. Sumner is very cordial with me, he is making his history in an issue with me on this very point. He hopes to succeed in beating the President so as to change this government from its original form, and making it a strong centralized power.'
Then calling Mr Ashley into the room, the President said to him, "I think I understand Mr. Sumner; and I think he would be all the more resolute in his persistence on the points which Mr. Nicolay has mentioned to me if he supposed I were at all watching his course on this matter. "11

Nothing here is clipped, edited, picked or changed. Just a peep-hole into the mind of a neato guy from a free state. GREAT CAUSE = stopping slavery, BAD Cause = changing the nature of government. The more I read about Sumner the more I think he was a BAD guy for SOME good causes.
 
IDK. If you don't find much mention of Sumner's well know arrogance and persistence to change of hurry Lincoln in your reading...then MAYBE David Herbert Donald is looking for different facts to assert or highlight.
It DOES make me think Lincoln was hard to sway. And for me that is good. I have been trying to decide if he stayed ahead of the politics or let it steer him which way was popular. He seems earnest in his spoken words and that is good.
 
Sumner could get under Lincoln's skin every now and then, but they were also good friends and Sumner was often invited to dinner at the White House with the Lincolns. Sumner was on especially good terms with Mary Todd.

I don't see anything nefarious in Lincoln's comment, if that's what you're looking for. Everybody is entitled to vent about their colleagues every now and then.
 
Sumner could get under Lincoln's skin every now and then, but they were also good friends and Sumner was often invited to dinner at the White House with the Lincolns. Sumner was on especially good terms with Mary Todd.

I don't see anything nefarious in Lincoln's comment, if that's what you're looking for. Everybody is entitled to vent about their colleagues every now and then.
No. I am glad Lincoln was not in lockstep with Radicals.
I thought it might be a little glimpse into what SOME politicos had as an agenda. It doesn't seem, though, that the US became a strong central government for several more decades. So even if Radicals wanted it...they didn't get it.
 
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