“How if ’a will not stand?”
“Why, then, take no note of him, but let him go, and presently call the rest of the watch together, and thank God you are rid of a knave.”45
In dealing with the Fugitive Slave Act, Lincoln was also conciliatory. The statute was constitutional and should be enforced, though he suggested that it might be amended to provide accused runaways greater due process: “in any law upon this subject, ought not all the safeguards of liberty known in civilized and humane jurisprudence to be introduced, so that a free man be not, in any case, surrendered as a slave? And might it not be well, at the same time, to provide by law for the enforcement of that clause in the Constitution which guarranties that ‘The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all previleges and immunities of citizens in the several States’?”
Also conciliatory was Lincoln’s reiteration of his oft-stated pledge not to interfere with slavery in the states where it already existed and his failure to stress the inflammatory issue of slavery in the territories. Alluding indirectly to the Dred Scott decision, Lincoln reiterated arguments he had made four years earlier in response to the Supreme Court’s controversial ruling: “I do not forget the position assumed by some, that constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court; nor do I deny that such decisions must be binding in any case, upon the parties to a suit, as to the object of that suit, while they are also entitled to a very high respect and consideration, in all paralel cases, by all other departments of the government. And while it is obviously possible that such decision may be erroneous in any given case, still the evil effect following it, being limited to that particular case, with the chance that it may be over-ruled, and never become a precedent for other cases, can better be borne than could the evils of a different practice. At the same time the candid citizen must confess, that if the policy of the government, upon vital questions, affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made, in ordinary litigation between parties, in personal actions, the people will have ceased, to be their own rulers, having, to that extent, practically resigned their government, into the hands of that eminent tribunal. Nor is there, in this view, any assault upon the Court, or the judges. It is a duty, from which they may not shrink, to decide cases properly brought before them; and it is no fault of theirs, if others seek to turn their decisions to political purposes.”
Although Lincoln had clearly followed Seward’s advice and softened the hard-line approach taken in early drafts of his inaugural, he emphatically rejected the doctrine of secession. “I hold that in contemplation of universal law, and of the Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual.” Hence no state, “upon its own mere motion,” could legally secede. “I therefore consider that, in view of the constitution and the laws, the Union is unbroken; and, to the extent of my ability, I shall take care, as the constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the states. Doing this I deem to be only a simple duty on my part; and I shall perform it, so far as practicable, unless my rightful masters, the American people, shall withhold the requisite means, or, in some authoritative manner, direct the contrary. I trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as the declared purpose of the Union that it will constitutionally defend, and maintain itself. In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence; and there shall be none, unless it be forced upon the national authority.”
Denying the state-compact theory espoused by secessionists, Lincoln maintained with some questionable logic that the Union was older than the states, but that was immaterial, for he argued plausibly that if two or more parties enter into a contract, it can be rescinded only if all of them agree. Moreover, the central point was not what the states were before they ratified the Constitution but what they became after doing so. The states may have been sovereign and independent beforehand but clearly they were no longer so afterwards. Quite pertinently, Lincoln cited the Constitution’s supremacy clause and the preamble’s reference to forming “a more perfect union,” more perfect than the one established by the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union. Curiously, he did not point to Article IV, section 3 of the Constitution, which stipulates that “no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.” By inference, it seems logical to conclude that the Framers did not authorize the secession of a state without the permission of all the other states. Lincoln’s constitutional arguments, echoing those put forth by James Madison during the Nullification Crisis thirty years earlier, were sound. He was part of a nationalist tradition expounded by Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Marshall, Daniel Webster, Joseph Story, James Wilson, and others.
Lincoln offered practical as well as constitutional and historical objections to secession. If states were allowed to withdraw whenever they felt so inclined, chaos would result, leading to anarchy or tyranny: “Plainly, the central idea of secession, is the essence of anarchy. A majority, held in restraint by constitutional checks, and limitations, and always changing easily, with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it, does, of necessity, fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is impossible; the rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissable; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy, or despotism in some form, is all that is left.”
Lincoln pointed out the obvious economic, geographic, and political drawbacks to secession. “Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot remove our respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced, and go out of the presence, and beyond the reach of each other; but the different parts of our country cannot do this. They cannot but remain face to face; and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them. Is it possible then to make that intercourse more advantageous, or more satisfactory, after separation than before? Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens, than laws can among friends? Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight always; and when, after much loss on both sides, and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old questions, as to terms of intercourse, are again upon you.” (Lincoln privately ridiculed secession as a doctrine based on the premise that “the big tub ought to go into the little one.”)46
Lincoln was following the advice he had given to Pennsylvania Governor Andrew G. Curtin, who had asked him how to couch his inaugural. The president-elect recommended that Curtin make clear “without passion, threat, or appearance of boasting, but nevertheless, with firmness, the purpose of yourself, and your State to maintain the Union at all hazzards.”47
Completing the Cabinet
While trying to wean Lincoln away from his hard-line positions and rhetoric, Seward also lobbied intently for pro-compromise cabinet aspirants. Five of the seven posts had yet to be filled, including the office of secretary of the treasury. The struggle over that important position raged for days, with hard-liners supporting Salmon P. Chase and soft-liners, led by Seward and Weed, favoring Simon Cameron. Chase reportedly had Lincoln “by the throat and clings with the tenacity of a bull dog to his claim—against an amount of opposition wholly unprecedented.”48
That the Pennsylvania boss would have a seat in the cabinet had been virtually settled during Lincoln’s February 21 stopover in Philadelphia, where he met with James Milliken, a leading industrialist, and several other Cameron supporters. Mil-liken said that he was authorized to speak for McClure, Curtin, and other opponents of the Chief; that they had withdrawn their objections to Cameron and now supported his candidacy; and that the leading iron and coal men of the Keystone State desired his appointment. Lincoln replied “that it rel
ieved him greatly” but that “he was not … prepared to decide the matter and would not until he should reach Washington. That, it had been suggested, it would perhaps be proper and desirable to retain some of the present cabinet officers, for a short time at least, if they would consent to remain.” He referred specifically to the strong Unionists Joseph Holt, Edwin M. Stanton, and John A. Dix, who had stiffened Buchanan’s backbone.49
Why the anti-Cameron forces capitulated is a mystery. According to one account, Cameron, acting on the president-elect’s willingness to appoint any Pennsylvanian that the state’s party leaders could agree upon, disingenuously offered to step aside in favor of Thaddeus Stevens if McClure, Curtin, and his other critics would withdraw their charges against him. When those critics complied, Cameron double-crossed them by using a letter from McClure to convince Lincoln that Pennsylvania Republicans were united behind the Chief. (Although he asserted that he was “very friendly” toward Stevens, Lincoln told a Pennsylvanian that at age 67, the congressman was too old. That seems implausible, for Stevens was the same age as Attorney-General-Designate Edward Bates. Lincoln considered the Great Commoner too radical rather than too ancient.)50 Milliken paved the way for Cameron’s victory by assuring McClure and Curtin that their faction would receive a fair share of the patronage. David Davis helped Cameron’s cause by promising to read to Lincoln a list of reasons that Samuel A. Purviance, the attorney general of Pennsylvania, had drawn up for appointing Cameron treasury secretary.
In addition, some Pennsylvanians feared that if they could not settle on one of their own, their state’s seat in the cabinet might be given to a New Jersey leader like William L. Dayton. Not all Pennsylvanians regarded Dayton unfavorably. Congressman John Covode told Lincoln: “I am satisfied that what I said to you about Dayton being a man that would suit Penna was right.”51 Robert McKnight, another Pennsylvania Representative, offered similar advice: “I firmly believe that the selection of Judge Dayton of N. Jersey would be more acceptable to the people of Penna” than Cameron.52 Some colleagues in the House echoed McKnight and Covode, and Governor Curtin reported that “there is a large sentiment in [favor of] Dayton for a place in the cabinet & I concur with it.” The Jerseyman “would be very acceptable in this state.”53
Other Pennsylvania Republicans demurred. “We want no New Jersey statesman for Pennsylvania,” declared Thaddeus Stevens.54 Cameron said he would just as soon “have an enemy at home as in N Jersey & did not want Dayton to be appointed.”55
In Washington, opponents of Cameron besieged Lincoln. On February 26, John Hay reported that if the president-elect “was in any respect an object of sympathy while on his travels, he is certainly doubly so now. He has exchanged the minor tribulations of hand-shaking and speech-making for the graver woes which attach to the martyr toasted between two fires. The conservatives have chiefly had the presidential ear since the unexpected arrival last Saturday morning. Last night a deputation of the straight-outs had an interview with him, their rumored object being to defeat the appointment of Gen. Cameron to the cabinet.”56
That visit may have been the one during which Thaddeus Stevens and several other members of Congress protested against Cameron, whom Stevens called “a man destitute of honor and honesty,” one who would “make whatever department he may occupy a den of thieves.”57
The president-elect asked the Great Commoner, “You don’t mean to say that Cameron would steal?”
“No, I don’t think he would steal a red-hot stove.”
When Lincoln repeated this quip to Cameron, the Chief was so incensed that he refused to speak to Stevens.
The Lancaster congressman asked why Lincoln had repeated his hostile remark to Cameron. “I thought that it was a good joke, and I didn’t think it would make him mad,” replied the president-elect.
“Well, he is very mad and made me promise to retract. I will now do so. I believe I told you that I didn’t think he would steal a red-hot stove. I now take that back.”58
On February 28 and March 1, Lincoln met with Cameron, who later recalled that “he asked me what I wanted—told him I didn’t want anything. He might take the offices and keep them. I spoke pretty sharp. He offered to make me Atty. Genl. or give me the Interior. I told him I was no lawyer; I didn’t want anything if he couldn’t give me what he had offered [in Springfield, namely, the portfolio of either the Treasury or the War Department].”59 Since Lincoln had already decided to name Chase secretary of the treasury, he gave Cameron the War Department post.
As it turned out, the Cameron appointment was, as Horace White put it, “the most colossal blunder of Lincoln’s public life.”60 If Pennsylvania Republicans had been able to unite on anyone else, or if the Chief’s opponents had not caved in, or if McClure had submitted documents proving Cameron’s lack of integrity, or if Cameron had come from a less important state, or if he had not been a candidate for president at the Chicago Convention, or if David Davis and Leonard Swett had not led the Pennsylvanians at that convention to believe that they would have a place in the cabinet, Lincoln might have avoided naming a man “whose very name stinks in the nostrils of the people for his corruption” (in Lincoln’s own words).61 Lincoln told his friend James C. Conkling that, though he was personally opposed to appointing Cameron because of his unsavory reputation, he had received a petition signed by many members of the Pennsylvania State Legislature, whose opinion he could not safely ignore: “It is highly important that the influence of so large and powerful a State as Pennsylvania should be on the side of the Government, and I must waive my private feelings for the public good.”62
Cameron’s selection pleased Seward, who had lobbied for him so hard that Montgomery Blair concluded that “Cameron was brought into the cabinet by Seward.”63 But that was not enough for the New York senator, who also wanted as colleagues former Whigs like Charles Francis Adams, Caleb B. Smith, and Henry Winter Davis, all soft-liners on secession. Lincoln did name Smith as secretary of the interior in preference to the 36-year-old Schuyler Colfax, explaining to the latter that “I had partly made up my mind in favor of Mr. Smith—not conclusively of course—before your name was mentioned in that connection. When you were brought forward I said ‘Colfax is a young man—is already in position—is running a brilliant career, and is sure of a bright future in any event.’ ‘With Smith, it is now or never.’ ”64 (In time, Lincoln came to regard Colfax as “a little intriguer,—plausible, aspiring beyond his capacity, and not trustworthy.”)65 Smith, who unlike Colfax aggressively campaigned for the job, proved to be a mediocre secretary, but Indiana had been promised a seat in the cabinet and no other Hoosier commanded so much home support.
Seward was not pleased with the remaining choices of former Democrats Gideon Welles for secretary of the navy, Montgomery Blair as postmaster general, and most especially Salmon P. Chase as treasury secretary. Lincoln favored Blair in part because of the influence of his family, especially his father, Francis P. Blair, Sr. The president-elect read that old man his inaugural address and asked for suggestions. Lincoln explained that “it was necessary to have Southern men & men of Democratic anticedents” and that Montgomery Blair “fulfilled both requirements.”66 Leading Maryland Republicans like Governor Thomas Hicks assured Lincoln that Henry Winter Davis was unacceptable to Union men in his state.
Welles, a newspaper editor and leader of the Connecticut Republican Party, proved to be a good choice, though his appearance made him the object of ridicule. Charles A. Dana recalled that the navy secretary “was a curious-looking man: he wore a wig which was parted in the middle, the hair falling down on each side; and it was from his peculiar appearance, I have always thought, that the idea that he was an old fogy originated.” Massachusetts Governor John A. Andrew called him “that old Mormon deacon.” To the public he was “Father Welles,” and Lincoln referred to him as “Grandfather Welles.” Undeniably, there was a “fossiliferous” quality to Welles, which prompted the New York Herald to deem him a “fossil almost from the Silur
ian period.” Lincoln liked to tell a joke about Welles: “when asked to personate the grandmother of a dying sailor,” the navy secretary begged off, saying “that he was busy examining the model of Noah’s ark.” But, Dana noted, Welles “was a very wise, strong man. There was nothing decorative about him; there was no noise in the street when he went along; but he understood his duty, and did it efficiently, continually, and unvaryingly.”67 He was familiar with the Navy Department, in which he had served as chief of the bureau of provisions and clothing during the Mexican War.
Montgomery Blair, who acquired a reputation as “the meanest man in the whole government,” was “awkward, shy, homely and repellent,” according to journalist Noah Brooks.68 Another newspaperman, William Howard Russell of the London Times, was more charitable, describing the postmaster general as a leader of great influence and determination. “He is a tall, lean man, with a hard, Scotch, practical looking head,” which served as “an anvil for ideas to be hammered on. His eyes are small and deeply set, and have a rat-like expression; and he speaks with caution, as though he weighed every word before he uttered it.”69 (To placate Henry Winter Davis, Lincoln gave him control of the Maryland patronage.)
In deciding between Cameron and Chase for the Treasury Department, Lincoln polled Republican senators, who favored the latter. Southerners regarded Chase’s appointment as “a declaration of war” against their region.70 They and Northern Conservatives lobbied furiously against the Ohioan. On February 24, Lincoln told John Z. Goodrich that “personally he preferred Chase for the Treasury Department to any other man—but added that he was very much embarrassed by the strong opposition to him by certain politicians in Ohio, Wade included.”71 Horace Greeley—who had been pressuring Lincoln to reject Cameron and to appoint Schuyler Colfax, Thaddeus Stevens, and Chase—was jubilant. After the cabinet choices were announced, the Tribune editor crowed to a friend: “we did, by desperate fighting, succeed in getting four honest and capable men into the Cabinet—by a fight that you never saw equaled in intensity and duration. Gov. Chase, the ablest Republican living, who (so Gen. Dix said) was almost indispensable to the Treasury, got it at last.” Mrs. Lincoln evidently opposed the Ohioan, for Greeley said that Chase’s appointment was obtained “by the determined [pluck?] and clear-headed sagacity of Old Abe himself, powerfully backed by Hamlin, who is a jewel. All the Kitchen Cabinet, including the female President, were dead against him, while the ‘Border States’ swore they would go out if he were put it in.”72 According to a close friend of Mrs. Lincoln, her “hostility to Mr. Chase was very bitter. She claimed that he was a selfish politician instead of a true patriot, and warned Mr. Lincoln not to trust him too far.”73
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