72 e lusive v ictories
infl uential Republicans in this dark period of military stalemate advised
him to forsake emancipation, Lincoln’s caution seems justifi ed.
His refusal to move more boldly after his overwhelming reelection,
however, cannot be so easily rationalized. With his victory Lincoln
stood as the uncontested head of his party. Th e Radicals were in retreat,
as demonstrated by the defeat of Wade-Davis when put before the lame
duck 38th Congress again in December, and the removal of Radical-
backed generals, such as Benjamin Butler, from senior command.
Lincoln had been given political capital, as we now call it, and he used
some of it that December to secure congressional approval of the Th ir-
teenth Amendment, which banned slavery.
But he certainly could have done more. He might have used his
popularity with voters and his dominant political position to begin
to shape public opinion in favor of black suff rage and commence
serious planning for Reconstruction. Further, the end of the war was
plainly in sight: Sherman’s army moved at will through the southern
interior and Lee’s army, trapped by Grant’s at Petersburg, suff ered
from rising desertions. Th e 10-percent formula thus had outlived
whatever usefulness it might have once had as a device for driving a
wedge between southerners. Yet, presented with a golden oppor-
tunity to shape the postwar South at the very peak of his political
power, Lincoln failed to seize the moment. He spoke movingly at his
second inauguration of the need to bind the nation’s wounds and
show “malice toward none,” but noble-sounding generalities do
not a policy make. Quietly he started to acknowledge that at least
some freedmen should be enfranchised, but he did not take the case
to the northern people. Th at it would be necessary to lay a foun-
dation in public opinion for black suff rage Lincoln certainly under-
stood, for he had often observed that race policy had to accommodate
racial attitudes.
As the South collapsed in April 1865, the administration had barely
begun to prepare for peace, and it is not clear what Lincoln could have
done to forestall the disaster that Reconstruction became. His assassination
deprived the nation of its most credible leader (and elevated in his place a
deeply polarizing one, Andrew Johnson). Yet even had Lincoln lived, he
would have faced multiple obstacles to successful peace-building and
would have found himself with little time to overcome them—contrary to