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April 28, 1863. MS. Confederate Archives.

CHAP. XL aster for a little while; the Confederates hoped to sell out their holdings at a profit, but the rise never came. In his final report of the transaction, Mr. Mason shows £1,388,500 on the wrong side of his ledger, and only £26,000 on the right. After Gettysburg and Vicksburg the loan dropped thirty per cent., and the Confederate credit was evidently wounded to death. Mr. Slidell afterwards gently reproached his Government for not having let him Benjamin, know beforehand that Vicksburg was to fall; as

Slidell to

Oct. 9.

1863. MS.

Con- in that case they could have disposed of the balance Archives. of their loan.

federate

Mason to Benjamin, Nov. 29, 1864. MS. Confederate

All this while Mr. Mason in his dispatches deplored the blindness of the Germans, who were eagerly investing their savings in United States bonds at Archives. less than fifty cents on the dollar. He even went to Frankfort to warn them against this mistaken policy, taking an interpreter with him, as he was not himself polyglot. He did not succeed in convincing them; and came back to France at least so much wiser for his journey that he declined a proposition of Baron Erlanger to "destroy the credit of the United States abroad" by issuing an official and authoritative statement that the Confederate States would not hold themselves liable for a dollar of the United States Loan.1

1 We are under obligations to the Hon. John Jay Knox for valuable suggestions and assistance in the revision of this

chapter, and have made free use of his reports on the currency and his work, "United States Notes."

CHAPTER XII

SEWARD AND CHASE

MF

R. SEWARD and Mr. Chase became at an сHAP. XII. early day, and continued to be, respectively,

the representatives in the Cabinet of the more conservative and the more radical elements of the Re publican party. Each exerted himself with equal zeal and equal energy in the branch of the public service committed to his charge; but their relative attitudes towards the President soon became entirely different. Mr. Seward, while doing everything possible to serve the national cause, and thus unconsciously building for himself an enduring monument in the respect and regard of the country, was, so far as can be discerned, absolutely free from any ambition or afterthought personal to himself. He was, during the early part of the war, so intent upon the work immediately in hand that he had no leisure for political combinations; and later, when the subject of the next Presidential nomination began to be considered and discussed, he recognized the fact that Mr. Lincoln was best qualified by his abilities, his experience, and his standing in the country to be his own successor.

The attitude of Mr. Chase was altogether unlike this. As we have seen, he did all that man

With

CHAP. XII. could do to grapple with the problem of supplying the ways and means of the gigantic war. untiring zeal and perfect integrity he devoted his extraordinary ability to the work of raising the thousands of millions expended in the great struggle which was crowned with a colossal success. But his attitude towards the President, it is hardly too much to say, was one which varied between the limits of active hostility and benevolent contempt. He apparently never changed his opinion that a great mistake had been committed at Chicago, and the predominant thought which was present to him through three years of his administration was that it was his duty to counteract, as far as possible, the evil results of that mistake.

He felt himself alone in the Cabinet. He looked upon the President and all his colleagues as his inferiors in capacity, in zeal, in devotion to liberty and the general welfare. He sincerely persuaded himself that every disaster which happened to the country happened because his advice was not followed, and that every piece of good fortune was due to his having been able, from time to time, to rescue the President and the rest of the Cabinet from the consequences of their own errors. He kept up a voluminous correspondence with friends in all sections of the country, to which we should hesitate to refer had it not been that he retained copies of his letters, and many years afterwards gave them into the hands of a biographer for publication. These letters are pervaded by a constant tone of slight and criticism towards his chief and his colleagues. He continually disavows all re

sponsibility for the conduct of the war. letter he says:

In one CHAP. XII.

Aug. 29, 1862. Schuckers,

Since the incoming of General Halleck I have known but little more of the progress of the war than any outsider I mean so far as influencing it goes. My recommendations, before he came in, were generally disregarded, and since have been seldom ventured. . . I hope for the "Life of S. best. Those who reject my counsels ought to know better than I do.

To Senator Sherman he wrote:

The future does not look promising to me, though it may be brighter than it seems to be. Since General Halleck has been here the conduct of the war has been abandoned to him by the President almost absolutely. We, who are called members of the Cabinet, but are in reality only separate heads of departments, meeting now and then for talk on whatever happens to come uppermost, not for grave consultation on matters concerning the salvation of the country we have as little to do with it as if we were the heads of factories supplying shoes or clothing. No regular and systematic reports of what is done are made, I believe, even to the President; certainly none are made to the Cabinet. Of course we may hope the best; that privilege always remains. It is painful, however, to hear complaints of remissness, delays, discords, dangers, and feel that there must be ground for such complaints, and know, at the same time, that one has no power to remedy the evils complained of, and yet be thought to have.

To another he said:

Though charged with the responsibility of providing means for the vast expenditures of the war, I have little more voice in its conduct than a stranger to the Administration; perhaps not so considerable a voice as some who are, in law, at least, strangers to it. I should be very well satisfied with this state of things if I saw the war prosecuted with vigor and success. I am only dissatisfied with it because I cannot help thinking that if my judgment had more weight it would be so prosecuted.

P. Chase,"

p. 443.

Sept. 20, 1862. Ibid., pp. 379,380.

Warden, "Life of

S. P. Chase," pp. 491, 492.

CHAP. XII.

His letters in this strain are innumerable. In all of them he labors to keep himself distinct and separate from the rest of the Government, protesting against its faults and errors, and taking credit for the good advice he wastes upon them. He says:

We have fallen on very evil days. Under the influence of a short-sighted notion that the old Union can be reconstituted, after a year's civil war of free States and slave States, just as it was, the President has hitherto refused to sanction any adequate measure for the liberation of the loyal population of the South from slavery to the rebels. Hence we are fighting rebellion with one hand, and with the other supplying its vital elements of strength. Then we have placed and continued in command generals who have never manifested the slightest sympathy with our cause, as related to the controlling question of slavery. These naturally have never been more than half in earnest, and instead of their being impelled to the most vigorous action, their influence has been suffered to paralyze, in a great degree, the activity of the Administration. In addition to this there has been enormous waste and profusion growing out of high pay and excessive indulgence. All these causes tend to demoralization, and we are demoralized. I cannot go into particulars, but the instances abound. It is some consolation to me that my voice and, so far as opportunity has allowed, my example has been steadily opposed to all this. I have urged my ideas on the President and my associates, till I begin to feel that they are irksome to the first, and to one or two at pp. 453, 454. least of the second.

Warden,
"Life of
S. P.
Chase,"

1862.

All this time, with the most facile self-deception, he believed in his own loyalty and friendship for the President, and used to record in his diary his sorrow for Mr. Lincoln's fatal course. September 12 he writes:

The Secretary [of War] informed me that he had heard from General Halleck that the President is going out to see General McClellan, and commented with some severity

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