Lincoln and the Jews: A History by Jonathan D. Sarna & Benjamin Shapell

Author:Jonathan D. Sarna & Benjamin Shapell [Sarna, Jonathan D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466864610
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2015-03-16T23:00:00+00:00

I MYSELF HAVE A REGARD FOR THE JEWS

The self-proclaimed “Prophet” Henry Wentworth Monk, here depicted in 1858 by William Holman Hunt, shared a conversation with Lincoln about restoring Jews to their homeland, in which Lincoln proclaimed, “I myself have a regard for the Jews.”

National Gallery of Canada

On September 27, 1863, Zacharie met with Judah P. Benjamin—once in the company of several other Confederate leaders, and then, unexpectedly, again at night alone. The recent Confederate surrender of Vicksburg, coupled with the bloody defeat at Gettysburg, where 20,000 Confederate soldiers fell in battle, had darkened the mood in Richmond. Benjamin’s hopes for European intervention on the Confederacy’s behalf were dimming fast. Still, Benjamin insisted to visitors that “self-government” had to be the basis for any peace—“All we are struggling for is to be let alone.”94 Whether, in private conversation, he intimated to Zacharie that further concessions were possible is unknown, but whatever transpired when they met face-to-face, the chiropodist came away from the encounter overcome with excitement. The fawning letter that he sent to Benjamin the very next day shows him eager to ingratiate himself with the Jewish secretary of state. He expressed joy “that the confederate flag was waving over my head,” treacherously declared that “I would gladly join the armies of the confederacy if I did not know that I could be of more service to you from where I am,” and closed suggestively with the hope that Benjamin would “never regret the interview we had last night.”95 A day later—having been denied the opportunity to visit his father in Savannah—Zacharie was safely back in the Union. “Just returned,” he telegraphed Lincoln. “Will be with you tomorrow afternoon.”96

Zacharie spent two hours debriefing the president. During that time, he later reported to Banks, Lincoln “lock[ed] his doors … preventing any person from having access to him” and “seemed to be delighted with my revelations.” According to the New York Herald, those revelations included a far-fetched plan, a variant of one suggested by the respected political leader Francis Preston Blair Sr., to restore the Confederate states to the Union while assisting the Confederate government and armies to capture Mexico for the Confederacy, with Jefferson Davis to be its president. Lincoln’s cabinet, which had not received prior notice of Zacharie’s mission, was unenthusiastic—especially in the wake of the battlefield successes that made Union victory so much more likely. “Send for Genl. Banks. He is your friend and you can trust him with your confidence in carrying out any negotiation, and let me go down and tell Benjamin,” Zacharie implored.97 Lincoln found the conversation exhausting. “I have been so worn down today,” he wrote, begging the forgiveness of chemist and patent officer Benjamin Sherwood Hedrick, for not meeting with him. Though Lincoln promised to reflect on Zacharie’s “happy thought,” he clearly had no intention of handing the role of peacemaker over to a potential rival. Instead, he and Seward ordered Zacharie to “lay quiet until the time arrives for them to act.”98 Zacharie, meanwhile, became more and more impatient.

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