The original version of Cameron’s report had been sent to some newspapers. Angrily, Lincoln ordered Montgomery Blair to telegraph postmasters instructing them to stop delivery of the report until the revised version arrived. A few papers ran both versions of the document, causing Radical Republicans to cheer Cameron and denounce the president. “What a fiasco!” exclaimed Charles Henry Ray of the Chicago Tribune. “Old Abe is now unmasked, and we are sold out. We want to keep the peace as long as there is hope of unity, but … we are ready to quarrel with Lincoln, the Cabinet, McClellan, and anybody else.” Ray urged that Congress force Lincoln “to accede to the popular demand to make this a war in earnest.” An Illinois abolitionist lamented that “the modification of Cameron’s report has absolutely broken down all enthusiasm in his [Lincoln’s] favor among the people. No man … ever threw away so completely, an opportunity, such as occurs to no individual, more than once in an age, to make himself revered, and loved by millions, and secure to himself a place and a name in history, more enviable than often falls to the lot of man. The modification reveals to the eyes of the people the real position and sentiments of the president, in a way that destroys in a great measure all confidence in his ability to bring the war to a successful issue.” Wendell Phillips sneered, “If we had a man for President, or an American instead of a Kentuckian, we should have had the satisfaction of attempting to save the Union instead of Kentucky.” He conceded that Lincoln was honest, but added: “as a pint pot may be full, and yet not be so full as a quart, so there is a vast difference between the honesty of a small man and the honesty of a statesman.”
Source: Abraham Lincoln ∶ A Life ▫𓂃
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