Tennessee.' When Weed insisted that some of the southern unionists could be trusted, although their states might secede, Lincoln said, "Well, let us have the names of your white crows, such ones as you think fit for the Cabinet." Seward was expected to consult some of the Southerners named; but no practical arrangement could be made with any of them. Doubtless each was found to be "too exacting for his section," as Seward said was the case with Robert E. Scott." Lincoln never had any confidence that the plan was feasible. Seward's fears lest violence might break out in Washington before the inauguration caused him to recommend that Lincoln appear somewhat earlier than the public would expect. But Lincoln thought it better to wait until after the result of the electoral count should be announced." General Scott and Seward had become convinced, after causing three New York detectives to investigate the rumors, that there was a plot to attack Lincoln during his passage through Baltimore. Therefore, Lincoln consented to take an earlier train so as to get through that city before the public heard of his change of plan. Seward met Lincoln at the station in Washington, and during the next few days they were together much of the time. He introduced Lincoln to the President, the members of the Cabinet, and General Scott, and escorted him into each house of Congress." Lincoln drove and dined with Seward the first day he was in Washington, and on the following day they ap peared together at church." "He is very cordial and kind toward me-simple, natural, and agreeable," Seward wrote home before Lincoln had been in the capital twenty-four hours. 13 Nicolay and Hay, 362-65. 33 Nicolay and Hay, 365. 5 3 Nicolay and Hay, 363. National Intelligencer, February 26, 1861. 21 Weed, 606. 4 2 Seward, 486, 487. 7 2 Seward, 511. What Lincoln had said about deferring Cabinet appointments as long as possible to avoid being teased into insanity to make changes was one of the early illustrations of his foresight. When he arrived in Washington but one other department-chief besides Seward had been positively chosen. This was Edward Bates, the future Attorney-General. Lincoln had almost decided to nominate Chase as Secretary of the Treasury, Caleb B. Smith, of Indiana, as Secretary of the Interior, Gideon Welles, of Connecticut, as Secretary of the Navy, Simon Cameron as Secretary of War, and Montgomery Blair, of Maryland, as Postmaster-General. There was then most doubt about appointing Cameron and Blair. In a general way, the friends of the aspirants finally became associated with either the Seward or the Chase faction. The Seward men expected the new administration to be conducted along the lines of the policy advocated by their idol. Chase's friends counted among their number most of Seward's enemies of 1860 and the radical Republicans, some of whom believed in recognizing secession as a fact, while others favored coercion. There was considerable personal antipathy between the two branches of the party, but the antagonism was essentially legitimate because it grew out of two distinct theories as to future action. Shortly after the election William Cullen Bryant urged Lincoln to make Chase Secretary of State; and when Seward's selection became known he again praised Chase's qualities, and spoke of "the need of his presence there [in the Cabinet] as a counterpoise to the one who joins to commanding talents a flexible and indulgent temper of mind and unsafe associations." The old hostility to Seward was made sharper, especially in New York, because Seward and Weed had lately prevented 12 Godwin's Bryant, 150. the election of Greeley as United States Senator. During the month of February the Tribune and the Evening Post assailed Seward with unwonted virulence. The criticism became so exasperating that Weed declared that the assailants "were ready to dissolve the Union, destroy the government, and bankrupt and ruin the people to keep Seward out of the Cabinet and secure for themselves and their adherents the 'spoils of office.' After Lincoln's arrival, Greeley and other Chase men came to Washington to press their opinions with more force. The leaders of the Seward faction were at first less public and direct in their opposition to Chase and the candidates likely to act with him. Seward's prestige and his intimacy with Lincoln were expected to give his friends an advantage, but during the last days of February they became alarmed on finding that Seward's influence over Lincoln was less and Chase's greater than they had supposed. Rumors to the effect that Lincoln had been unable to harmonize the two factions led some of Seward's too zealous supporters into a desperate movement, not merely as a means of excluding Chase, but of making sure that Seward himself should be retained." 1 Evening Journal, February 25, 1861. 2 "It [the Republican party] seems to care a great deal more about getting Seward out of the Cabinet than anything else just now. Lincoln is a 'Simple Susan,' and the men who fought a week at Chicago to nominate him have probably got their labor for their pains. But no matter-Seward is a necessity; Chase or Banks ought to be, and really are, if the machine is to run its four years; but let the New-Yorker with his Illinois attachment have a fair trial."-Bowles to H. L. Dawes, February 26, 1861. 1 Merriam's Bowles, 318. Later on in the evening came over and sat by me to urge me to go with him to-morrow to see Mr. Lincoln in regard to the Cabinet appointments. He was much agitated and concerned about them, having gotten [it] into his head, for reasons which he gave me, that Mr. Lincoln, in his despair of harmonizing the Seward men with the Chase men, has concocted or had concocted for him a plan of putting Corwin into the State Department, sending Seward to Eng Lincoln seemed determined to have Montgomery Blair, a resolute coercionist, nominated in place of Henry Winter Davis, a protégé of Weed and Seward. This made it all the more urgent that Seward should either surrender his expectations of controlling the policy of the administration, or else force Lincoln to give up Chase. A party of Seward's friends ventured, on March 2d, to inform the President-elect that Seward could not serve in the Cabinet with Chase.' On the same land, and giving the Treasury to New York. . . . He showed me a letter he had received a fortnight ago from Mr. Draper, in New York, expressing great anxiety as to Mr. Seward's position in the Cabinet in case of the nomination of Mr. Chase, and intimating au intention of visiting Washington with several other gentlemen for the purpose of making Mr. Lincoln understand that he must absolutely drop the idea of putting Mr. Chase into the Treasury. I told him that Mr. Weed had to-day expressed the same ideas to me, and I asked him if he did not know that a counter-pressure was putting on Mr. Lincoln to exclude Mr. Seward. 'Suppose,' I said, 'they should both be excluded ?"-"Diary of a Public Man," entry of February 26, 1861; 129 North American Review, 262, 263. The fact that the authorship of this "Diary" has been kept a profound secret might seem to exclude it from the field of trustworthy evidence; but its tone, accuracy, and scope indicate that it was written by a man influential in public affairs and an intimate friend of Seward. 1 Lamon's Recollections, 49–51. "Mr. Lincoln makes his owu Cabinet. There can be no doubt about it any longer. This man from Illinois is not in the hands of Mr. Seward. Heaven grant that he may not be in other hands-not to be thought of with patience! These New York men have done just what they have been saying they would do, and with just the result which I have from the first expected; though I own there are points in the upshot which puzzle me. I cannot feel even sure now that Mr. Seward will be nominated at all on Tuesday; and certainly he neither is nor after this can be the real head of the administration, even if his name is on the list of the Cabinet. Such folly on the part of those who assume to be the especial friends of the one man in whose ability and moderation the conservative people of the North have most confidence; and such folly at this moment might almost make one despair of the republic!" The diarist then gives a long and interesting account of the report of one of Seward's friends who was in the party of politicians that had just day Seward asked permission of Lincoln to withdraw his acceptance of the secretaryship. Seward's belief was that he alone could safely direct the next administration, and therefore there must be at least a majority of the Cabinet in sympathy with his ideas. Lincoln had given Seward first place as a counsellor, but he had no intention of allowing the great NewYorker to dictate to him. It was about this time that he indicated his impatience of the attitude of the Seward - champions, by remarking that if the "slate" should break again, it would "break at the top"; that is, Seward would be left off it.' But his sober second thought told him that the hostility between Seward's followers and those of Chase would be less harmful if their chiefs were in the Cabinet; and, furthermore, the only way to control Seward-to prevent him from taking the first trick, as Lincoln expressed it—was to insist on his becoming Secretary of State. So on the morning before the inauguration Lincoln wrote to him: "It is the subject of the most painful solicitude with me; and I feel constrained to beg that you will countermand the withdrawal. The public interest, I think, demands that you should; and my personal feelings are deeply enlisted in the same direction." That afternoon Seward had a long confer ence with the new President, and on the following day the letter of March 2d was formally withdrawn. The called on Lincoln "to bring matters to a head, and prevent the nomination of Chase at all hazards." They practically told Lincoln that Seward would not sit in the same Cabinet with Chase. Lincoln seemed much distressed by the prospect. Finally, he filled his callers with consternation by asking them how it would do to give the Treasury to Mr. Chase, the State Department to William L. Dayton, and let Seward go as Minister to England!—“Diary," etc., entry of March 2, 1861, 129 North American Review, 271-73. See also Welles's Lincoln and Seward, 36. 1 3 Nicolay and Hay, 370. 23 Nicolay and Hay, 371. 3 * 3 Nicolay and Hay, 371. |