Posted Wednesday night, June 24, 2020.
The Family Brain Trust: The Lincolns at home in the White House in 1861. Mary Lincoln at far left, President Lincoln at right. In between, left to right, their sons Willie, Robert, and Tad, to whom Lincoln turned to advice on political and legal matters like the suspension of habeas corpus, at least as Gore Vidal tells of Lincoln telling it in Vidal's novel "Lincoln". Detail from an engraving circa 1873 by John Chester Buttre after a painting by Francis B. Carpenter, "Lincoln Family in 1861". Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.
Following up on this morning's post, the chapter from Vidal's "Lincoln" continues: Seward is still appalled by Lincoln's decision to suspend habeas corpus. The two men, not yet the good friends and political allies they'd become, are walking back to the White House after the meeting at which the President told Seward what he'd done...
As Lincoln and Seward stepped into Seventeenth Street, they were deafened by a military band playing “Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean.”
“That’s not the Marine Band,” said Seward, whose ear for music was sharp, or so he liked to think---and always said.
“You’re right. It’s the New York Seventh’s band. They’re on the south lawn, giving a concert. Willie persuaded me that it was a good idea.”...
“What was Willie’s advice on habeas corpus?”
“Why, in those matters I always turn to Tad, whose approach is singularly direct---like mine.”...
Lincoln strode through the White House gates; Seward behind him. At the gates, soldiers saluted smartly. When Seward’s short legs had caught up with Lincoln’s long ones, he asked, “What will Tad have to say when Congress impeaches you?”
“I reckon Tad will say, ‘At least Paw saved the Capitol of the country, just so they’d have a nice place to impeach him in.’”
---from “Lincoln” by Gore Vidal.
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