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tion with concession" and "violence with peace," he. would signalize his abandonment of his peace policy by such a success in administering the force policy, as to put himself per saltum at the head of his opponents, discomfited by the failure of their attempt at resistance. And accordingly, though the Powhatan did but sail to Pensacola and back again, it was heralded as a great achievement.

"The result of this scheming was sad indeed. Our flag on Fort Sumter held Beauregard at Charleston. When it fell he marched into Virginia and precipitated secession there. If we could have held Fort Sumter there never would have been a drop of blood shed. It was the coercion of Virginia into the Confederacy by Beauregard's army that made the war. General Jack

son held nullification in check, and compelled the repeal of the South Carolina ordinance, simply by sending Scott, with one thousand men, to hold Fort Moultrie. Sumter was infinitely stronger, and the North was relatively as much stronger than the South in 1860 as Sumter was stronger than Moultrie in 1833. Fortunately, the country was not cursed in Jackson's day with a meddling Secretary of State, to invite secession by agreeing to yield to its exactions and disarm the force. ordered for its suppression, which was all-sufficient for the purpose at the start-using, without stint, his patronage and power to palm off through the Press the blundering intrigues which brought on a disastrous war, as statesmanship, and holding on to place by abandoning any policy which stood in the way of it, or by adopting any which might be required to retain it. I may misjudge Mr. Seward, but if I do it is not because I have ever had the least unkind feeling toward him personally. He never gave me the slightest reason for personal ill-will to

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him. My opposition to him has always been political, and because I regarded him as a most unsafe public He was a kindly man in his social relations, and when I met him in his home and family I enjoyed his society and was interested in him and them, and had a warm and sympathetic feeling for all that pertained to his domestic life. In that sphere I think he was a good and pure man. There was a freshness and heartiness in his manner, and his conversation so abounded in humor, and there was such an endless flow in his spirits, that I always found his society attractive. It was only againstthe political man that my nature revolted. He was to me the personification of old Polonius' politician, who 'by indirection found direction out." Nor is this version of his character the result merely of my own observation of his conduct, or derived from the reports of others who have been associated with him. I have seen much of him, and much of those who have associated long with him. But the familiar facts of his life, derived from these sources, accord exactly with the political philosophy I have heard him propound over and over again. No one has ever associated long with him who has not heard him recount by the hour his successful political strategy. I could fill a volume with his narratives of the tricks he has played, if I could recall the half part of what I have heard from him. He really thought that politics was but a game. I shall never forget how shocked I was at his telling me that he was the man who put Archy Dixon, the Whig Senator from Kentucky in 1854, up to moving the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, as an amendment to Douglas's first Kansas bill, and had himself forced the repeal by that movement, and had thus brought to life the Republican party. Dixon was to out-herod Herod at the South,

and he would out-herod Herod at the North. He did not contemplate what followed. He did not believe in the reality of the passions he excited, because he felt none himself. He thought it all a harmless game for power.

"Yours truly,

"MONTGOMERY BLAIR."

THE crowded incidents of the early days of Mr. Lincoln's Presidency, while the members of the Cabinet were new to each other, and their relative standing and authority apparently unsettled, the character of the Administration not yet defined, and the government and country much demoralized, are deeply interesting, and some of them of a singular description. In his confiding nature the President doubtless trusted much to the Secretary of State.

On the evening of the 1st of April, Mr. Nicolay, the private secretary of the President, brought me a package containing papers, instructions, and executive orders of a most extraordinary character. One of them directed me to detach Commodore Stringham, a patriotic officer whom I had called to special duty in the Navy Department, where he was employed in confidential trusts, and send him to Pensacola. Commodore Pendergrast, who had just arrived at Hampton Roads from the West Indies with the Cumberland, was ordered to repair forthwith to Vera Cruz on account of alleged complications. Why these two officers in whom I confided were selected to be sent away was a mystery. On the Cumberland and the Powhatan the Navy Department was relying to co

öperate with the military, for the protection of the Navy Yard at Norfolk in case of difficulty. All these orders relating to the navy were issued by the Secretary of State without consultation with the Secretary of the Navy or any Cabinet consultation whatever. But the most extraordinary and irregular if not illegal order in that remarkable package directed a reorganization of the Navy Department, and the establishment of a new bureau, in which I was commanded to place in the most confidential relations, where he should have knowledge of all the important transac-7tions of the navy and Navy Department, and the government, Samuel Barron, a finished courtier and shrewd secessionist. On looking over these documents it was evident to me that the President had been the victim of misplaced confidence and was sadly imposed upon, or that he was as unfit for the office of Chief Executive as is represented in the "Memorial Address." I lost not a moment in waiting upon him, and reading to him these extraordinary papers. He promptly and emphatically disavowed them; said he had hurriedly and without examination signed a large number of papers which had been brought to him by Secretary Seward for a very different purpose, and which he had supposed were merely formal; that he was not aware of their contents; had trusted entirely to Mr. Seward; and whom could he trust if not the Secretary of State? He requested me to return him the orders or treat them as nullities. The result was, no new bureau was organized without law; Barron was not taken into the confidence of the Navy Department, but soon deserted and was the first naval officer cap

tured in the rebel service; Stringham never went to Pensacola nor Pendergrast again to Vera Cruz, nor was there any complication that required it.

It is stated that President Lincoln was "quite deficient in his acquaintance with the character and qualities of public men, or their aptitude for the positions to which he assigned them. Indeed, he never selected them solely by that standard." The authority for this statement is not given. It relates, apparently, chiefly to appointments abroad, and these appointments for which the President is held responsible, were most of them made on the recommendation of Mr. Seward, to whose department they properly appertained, and who was vigilant and tenacious in dispensing the patronage of the State Department, often without consulting others.

On this point of selecting officials, or being consulted in regard to appointments which came within the purview of his department, no man was more sensitive than Mr. Seward, though himself not always regardful of what in this respect was due to others.

In March 1861, while the Senate was in extra session, differences existed between the Secretary of State and the Senators from New York relative to the local appointments in that state. These differences resulted in a conference at the State Department, to which the President was specially invited, and con sented with some reluctance to be present. It was an evening consultation, and he thought proper to invite me to accompany him. The President, Secretary

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