coming to Mr. Lincoln against a collector of customs in Oregon-that he was not a fit person to hold so important an office.

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'My mind is made up," wrote the President to Mr. Chase, "to remove him. I do not decide that the charges against him are true. I only declare that the degree of dissatisfaction with him is too great for him to be retained. But I believe he is your personal acquaintance and friend, and, if you desire it, I will try and find some other place for him." Mr. Chase thought the President ought to have consulted with him,

and was so displeased that he again tendered his resignation. Mr. Lincoln called upon him, put his arm around the neck of the Secretary and said, “Chase, here is a paper with which I have nothing to do. Take it back and be reasonable."

Mr. Chase did so, and things went on once more as if nothing had happened.

When the Republican Party came into power there was a great scramble for offices, especially in New York. The strife between the different factions gave Mr. Lincoln a great deal of trouble. Mr. Cisco, collector of customs, desired to resign the office. A contest arose as to who should succeed him. Mr. Chase desired the appointment of Mr. Field. Senator Morgan opposed it.

"Strained as I am," wrote Mr. Lincoln to the Secretary, "I do not think that I can make this appointment in the direction of a still greater strain."

Twice had Mr. Chase tendered his resignation, and he was so displeased that he once more asked to be relieved of the Secretaryship. Abraham Lincoln was not the man to go again to the residence of Mr. Chase and ask him to remain in office.

The resignation was accepted, and David Tod, of Ohio, appointed; but a telegram came from him, declining the appointment on account of his health.

Through the night the President had been thinking over the situation. The Secretary of the Treasury must be a man of marked ability -one who would command the confidence of the people. The July 1, Government must have money. Unless it was obtained the ar

1864.

mies could not be kept in the field. William P. Fessenden, Senator from Maine, chairman of the Finance Committee, commanded the confidence of the country. (') He would appoint him.

"Mr. Fessenden is in the anteroom and would like to see you," said one of the secretaries in the morning.

"Here, take this to the Senate. Mr. Fessenden is not to come in till after you have started," said Mr. Lincoln.

After the departure of the secretary, Mr. Fessenden entered the executive chamber. He did not know what the President had done. "Mr. President," said Mr. Fessenden, "allow me to suggest Mr. McCulloch as a suitable person for the Treasury Department."

He sees a smile upon Mr. Lincoln's face, and soon learns its meaning. "Mr. Senator, I have just sent your name to the Senate." Mr. Fessenden springs from his chair.

"Mr. President, you must withdraw it. I cannot, I cannot accept it." "No, Mr. Fessenden, I cannot withdraw it. I want you. You must decline it before the public if you really cannot take it."

The nomination was confirmed without a dissenting voice in the Senate. Republicans and Democrats alike knew, esteemed, and honored Mr. Fessenden.

"It is very singular," Mr. Lincoln said, "considering that this appointment is so popular when made, that no one ever mentioned his name to me for that place. Thinking over the matter, two or three points occurred to me: his thorough acquaintance with the business -as chairman of the Senate Committee of Finance he knows as much of this special subject as Mr. Chase; he possesses a national reputa tion and the confidence of the country; he is a radical, without the petulant and vicious fretfulness of many radicals. There are reasons why this appointment ought to be very agreeable to him. For some time past he has been running in rather a pocket of bad luck; the failure to renominate Mr. Hamlin makes possible a contest between him and the Vice-president, the most popular man in Maine, for the election which is now imminent. A little while ago, in the Senate, you know Trumbull told him his ill-temper had left him no friends, but this sudden and most gratifying manifestation of good feeling over his appointment, his instantaneous confirmation, the earnest entreaties of everybody that he should accept, cannot but be grateful to his feelings."

Congress was to adjourn at noon on the anniversary of the birth of the nation. Early in the forenoon the President rode to the Capitol to examine and sign the bills which had been passed. A bill providing for the readmission of the seceded States to the Union did not meet his approval. It had been drawn by Henry Winter Davis, of Maryland, and vehemently advocated by Senator Wade, of Ohio; Senator Sumner, of Massachusetts; Senator Chandler, of Michigan, and others.

"

"Are you not going to sign it?" Chandler asked. (')

"This bill," Mr. Lincoln replied, "has just come to me. Congress is about to adjourn. It is a matter of too great importance to be swallowed that way."

"If it is vetoed, Mr. President, it will damage us fearfully in the coming elections. The bill prohibits slavery in the reconstructed States. It is a very important point."

"I am aware of it," the President replied. "It is a very important point. I doubt if Congress has authority under the Constitution to act on that point."

"Mr. President, it is no more than you yourself have done."

"I conceive," said the President, "that in an emergency I may do things on military grounds which Congress cannot do under the Constitution."

Senators and representatives who had earnestly advocated the passage of the bill were angry.

"Gentlemen," said Mr. Lincoln, "it seems to me in asserting that the insurrectionary States are no longer in the Union is to make the fatal admission that States, whenever they please, may dissolve their connection with the Union. We cannot surmise that admission. If, that be true, then I am not President. I have earnestly favored an amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery. Such a bill passed the Senate, but failed in the House."

"I agree with you," said Secretary Fessenden. "I have had my doubts as to the constitutional efficacy of your own decree of emancipation where it has not been carried into effect by the advance of the army."

The other members of the Cabinet expressed their conviction that the President had acted wisely in withholding his signature to the bill.

Mr. Chase, no longer a member, said the bill was a condemnation of the President's amnesty proclamation, and that Mr. Lincoln put the bill in his pocket because he did not dare to veto it.

"There is," said Senator Sumner, "intense indignation against the President."

While Mr. Lincoln was signing bills in the Capitol an animated scene was being enacted in the grounds around the White House. By his special permission the colored Sunday-school children were holding a festival upon the smoothly-mown lawn. A platform had been erected for the accommodation of those who were to speak, and rows of benches for the audience. Swings were suspended from the trees and tilts erected. Men who but a few months before had been sold upon the auction block stood upon the platform, and with religious fervor peculiar to their race gave thanks to God for the freedom they had received from "Mars Linkum." He was their Moses, who had brought them out of bondage. Never before had there been such a gathering in the grounds around the Presidential mansion. Never before March 4, 1861, had a colored person other than as a servant dared set his foot in that enclosure. As the Saviour of the world broke down the wall that separated Jew and Gentile in the temple of Jerusalem, so Abraham Lincoln, not only by proclamation but by example, overturned the wall of prejudice, contumely, and hatred which had been erected between Anglo-Saxon and African.

During the day a delegation of three clergymen and two laymen, representing the colored churches of Baltimore, called upon the President to present a Bible to their benefactor. It was a large volume, bound in velvet, its corners protected by solid golden bands. Upon one