Rather than attack Lincoln directly, congressmen and senators, upset by defeat at both Fredericksburg and the polls, made the cabinet, especially Seward, their scapegoat. Abolitionist John Jay foresaw a “storm rising that presently will not be stilled by any thing less than an entire reconstruction of the Cabinet.” At the very least, either Stanton or Halleck had to go, Jay insisted.237 A Republican leader in Indiana argued that if Lincoln “had a strong, united, and fearless cabinet,” the “country could yet be saved.” Therefore Seward and Blair must be dismissed.238 Zachariah Chandler called the secretary of state “the evil genius of this Nation” and “the bane of Mr Lincolns administration.”239 Lydia Maria Child and Joseph Medill concurred: “Seward is really President; Lincoln only nominally so,” said Child, and Medill deemed the secretary of state Lincoln’s “evil genius” who “has been President defacto, and has kept a sponge saturated with chloroform to Uncle Abe’s nose all the while, except one or two brief spells.”240 When Seward’s alter ego, Thurlow Weed, was thought to be “advising and guiding the stolid Executive,” the “rage of the best Republicans & even of Mrs. Lincoln” was reportedly “unrestrained.”241
Anger at the secretary of state had been building for a long time. In September 1861, some New York Republicans complained to Lincoln about Seward’s excessive drinking and smoking. Lincoln acknowledged the truth of their charge, but added: “I have been at work with him during a whole day & evening and never knew a man more ready to take up different subjects and to master them.”242 A year later, when another delegation from New York called at the White House to urge a change of policy, a sharp exchange took place between Lincoln and John E. Williams, President of New York’s Metropolitan Bank. Then James A. Hamilton criticized Seward’s April 10, 1861, dispatch to Charles Francis Adams. The president excitedly interjected: “Sir! You are subjecting some letter of Mr. Seward’s to an undue criticism in and undue manner.” Pointing to Williams and Hamilton, he added: “You, gentlemen, to hang Mr. Seward, would destroy this Government.” Hamilton replied: “Sir, that is a very harsh remark.”243 Two months later, Thaddeus Stevens wrote that it would be “a great blessing if Seward could be removed.”244
With the news of the Fredericksburg debacle fresh in their minds, thirty-two Republican senators caucused secretly on December 16 and 17 “to ascertain whether any steps could be taken to quiet the public mind, and to produce a better condition of affairs.” They denounced Seward bitterly “and charged him with all the disasters which had come upon our arms alleging that he was opposed to a vigorous prosecution of the war—controlled the President and thwarted the other members of the Cabinet.” Lincoln, too, was criticized for failing “to consult his Cabinet councilors, as a body, upon important matters” and for appointing generals “who did not believe in the policy of the government and had no sympathy with its purposes.” John Sherman of Ohio asserted that the problem was not the cabinet but Lincoln, who “had neither dignity order nor firmness.” Sherman proposed that they “go directly to the President, and tell him his defects.”245
The senators’ chief informant was Chase, leader of the Radical faction in the cabinet. Seward, representing the opposite end of the ideological spectrum, had triumphed over the treasury secretary in the competition to win Lincoln’s favor. As Welles put it, “Seward’s more pleasant nature and consummate skill have enabled him to get windward of Chase.” The president, Welles confided to his diary, “is fond of Seward, who is affable. He respects Chase, who is clumsy. Seward comforts him. Chase he deems a necessity.”246
The haughty Chase regarded his cabinet colleagues and the president with lordly contempt and schemed to win the 1864 Republican presidential nomination. He called the secretary of state “a back-stairs influence which often controlled the apparent conclusions of the cabinet itself” and told senators that there was “no cabinet except in name. The Heads of Departments come together now and then—nominally twice a week—; but no reports are made; no regular discussions held; no ascertained conclusions reached. Sometimes weeks pass by and no full meeting is held.”247
Fully aware of these comments and criticisms, Lincoln said “he had no doubt Chase was at the bottom of all the mischief, and was setting the radicals on to assail Seward.”248 He told Frank Blair that the treasury secretary “runs the machine against me.”249 The president believed that the attempted putsch was rooted in personal hostility rather than a genuine concern for the country’s welfare. Moreover, he disliked the senators’ resort to a secret caucus rather than an open debate and vote of no confidence.
After twenty-eight senators agreed on a resolution stating that “the public confidence in the present administration would be increased by a change in and partial reconstruction of the Cabinet,” they resolved to send a nine-man delegation to Lincoln.250 They had toned down their criticism of Seward lest they make a martyr of him. Upon learning the results of the caucus, Seward said: “They may do as they please about me, but they shall not put the President in a false position on my account.” He promptly wrote a letter of resignation. Upon reading it, Lincoln appeared shaken, pained, and surprised. He urged Seward to reconsider, but the New Yorker blandly remarked that “he must be excused from holding any conversation with him upon the subject of his resignation:—that it was based on what seemed to be a unanimous expression of the opinion on the part of the Republican Senators that he ought no longer to hold the place:—that the President knew better than any other man how far the assumptions on which their actions rested were true:—that he had no explanation to offer and certainly none to ask:—that so far as his personal feelings were concerned, the happiest day of his life would be that which should release him honorably, and without any unmanly shrinking from labor or responsibility, from public office.” Lincoln replied: “Ah, yes, Governor, that will do very well for you, but I am like the starling in [Laurence] Sterne’s story [in Sentimental Journey] ‘I can’t get out.’ ”251
For Lincoln, this was one of the darkest days of the war. He told Browning: “Since I heard last night of the proceedings of the caucus I have been more distressed than by any event of my life.” The Radical senators, he said, “wish to get rid of me, and I am sometimes half disposed to gratify them.” In despair, he added: “We are now on the brink of destruction. It appears to me the Almighty is against us, and I can hardly see a ray of hope.” Dismayed at the allegations against Seward, the president wondered: “Why will men believe a lie, an absurd lie, that could not impose upon a child, and cling to it and repeat it in defiance of all evidence to the contrary?” But Lincoln would not be bullied, insisting emphatically that “he was master.”252
On December 18, Lincoln met from 7 P.M. to 10 P.M. with the senatorial delegation, which consisted of Jacob Collamer of Vermont, spokesman for the group; Charles Sumner, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee; Benjamin Wade, chairman of the Committee on the Conduct of the War; William P. Fessenden of Maine, chairman of the Finance Committee; Ira Harris of New York; Lyman Trumbull; Samuel C. Pomeroy of Kansas; James M. Howard of Michigan; and James W. Grimes of Iowa. Collamer, the Nestor of the senate, read a paper summarizing their grievances and suggestions. Among other things, it contained the startling assertion that “all important public measures and appointments” should be made by presidents only after obtaining the consent of a cabinet majority.253 The senators then had a wide-ranging, frank conversation with the president, who listened respectfully and calmly to their complaints about the lack of unity in the cabinet, Lincoln’s failure to consult its members, and the need for a vigorous prosecution of the war by generals sympathetic to the administration. They charged Seward with “indifference, with want of earnestness in the War, with want of sympathy with the country in this great struggle, and with many things objectionable, and especially with a too great ascendancy and control of the President and measures of administration.”
In reply, the president “stated how this movement had shocked and grieved him; that the Cabinet he had se
lected in view of impending difficulties and of all the responsibilities upon himself; that he and the members had got on harmoniously, whatever had been their previous party feelings and associations; that there had never been serious disagreements, though there had been differences; that in the overwhelming troubles of the country, which had borne heavily upon him, he had been sustained and consoled by the good feeling and the mutual and unselfish confidence and zeal that pervaded the Cabinet.”254
“What the country wanted,” Lincoln said, “was military success. Without that nothing could go right:—with that nothing could go wrong. He did not yet see how the measure proposed by the Committee would furnish the remedy required: if he had a Cabinet of angels they could not give the country military successes, and that was what was wanted and what must be had.”255
When the dyspeptic Fessenden raised McClellan’s complaint about the administration’s failure to support the Army of the Potomac properly, Lincoln read several of his letters to Little Mac showing how well that general had been sustained. Sumner laced into Seward, denouncing his official correspondence, “averring that he had subjected himself to ridicule in diplomatic circles, at home and abroad—that he had uttered sentiments offensive to Congress, and spoke of it repeatedly with disrespect, in the presence of foreign ministers—that he had written offensive despatches which the President could not have seen, or assented to.” The Massachusetts senator cited as an example a dispatch which the indiscreet secretary of state had allowed to be published a few days earlier, stating that “the extreme advocates of African slavery and its most vehement opponents were acting in concert together to precipitate a servile war—the former by making the most desperate attempt to overthrow the federal Union, the latter by demanding an edict of universal emancipation.” Lincoln replied that “it was Mr. Seward’s habit to read his despatches to him before they were sent,” that “they were not usually submitted to a Cabinet Council,” and that he “did not recollect that [one] to which Mr Sumner alluded.” In conclusion he “said he would carefully examine and consider the paper submitted” and “expressed his satisfaction with the tone & temper of the Committee.” As he ushered them out, he seemed cheerful and invited them to return on the morrow.256
Rumors swirled through the capital, creating widespread fear that a coup d’etat was underway. When Nicolay set foot in the House of Representatives, he answered dozens of questions, hardly pretending to disguise the fact that the administration was in the throes of a grave crisis. The chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court viewed the senators’ action “as Revolutionary in its tendencies and so far second only to the Southern Rebellion.” A Boston merchant regarded the loss at Fredericksburg “as a trifle in comparison of this truly unfortunate & disgraceful proceeding.”257 One Republican journalist reported that the “cooler and wiser of our people dread the probable consequence of an assault upon the Administration—the driving of the President into the arms of Vallandigham & Co.”258
The next morning, Lincoln summoned the cabinet, minus Seward, and told them that the senatorial delegation had been “earnest and sad—not malicious nor passionate—not denouncing any one, but all of them attributing to Mr. S[eward] a lukewarmness in the conduct of the war, and seeming to consider him the real cause of our failures.” Though “they believed in the Pres[iden]t’s honesty, they seemed to think that when he had in him any good purposes, Mr. S[eward] contrived to suck them out of him unperceived.” Lincoln, in obvious distress, urged the cabinet not to quit and, according to Bates, “said that he could not afford to lose us,” for he “did not see how he could get along with any new cabinet, made of new materials.”259 The president asked them to reconvene that evening, when the senators would again call. Chase, who realized that he would be put in a delicate position, tried to excuse himself from attending, but because all his colleagues agreed to be there, he felt compelled to join them. His inclusion proved to be a brilliant tactical stroke on Lincoln’s part.
On the fateful night of December 19, the senators returned to the White House, where Lincoln opened the four-hour conference by stating “that he had invited the Cabinet, with the exception of Mr Seward, to meet the Committee for a free and friendly conversation, in which all, including the President, should be on equal terms—and he desired to know if the Committee had any objection to talk over matters with the Cabinet.” Taken by surprise, the senators did not object, though it would be awkward for them to make their case in the presence of Chase, their main informant.260 With some severity (and rather inaccurately), Lincoln spoke at length “of the unity of his Cabinet, and how, though they could not be expected to think and speak alike on all subjects, all had acquiesced in measures when once decided. The necessities of the times, he said, had prevented frequent and long sessions of the Cabinet, and the submission of every question at the meetings.”261 He asserted “that most questions of importance had received a reasonable consideration,” though he cited “several instances in which most important action was had not only without consultation with his Cabinet, but without the knowledge of several [of its members]—such as the appointment of Generals McClellan & Halleck—the sending for Genl. Halleck to act as Commander in Chief—placing the army under McLellan’s command after his return from the Peninsula—and the Banks expedition.” Yet, he said, he “was not aware of any divisions or want of unity. Decisions had, so far as he knew, received general support after they were made. He thought Mr Seward had been earnest in the prosecution of the war, and had not improperly interfered—had generally read him his official correspondence, and had sometimes consulted with Mr Chase.” When Lincoln asked the cabinet “to say whether there had been any want of unity, or of sufficient consultation,” Chase found himself on the spot.262
All eyes focused on the treasury secretary, who seemed to take offense and looked quite angry. He stated “that he should not have come here had he known that he was to be arraigned before a committee of the Senate.” Reluctantly acknowledging that “there had been no want of unity in the Cabinet, but a general acquiescence on public measures,” he endorsed the president’s statement “fully and entirely.” Yet rather equivocally he said that he “regretted that there was not a more full and thorough consideration and canvass of every important measure in open Cabinet.”263 The senators, having often heard Chase bemoan the lack of unanimity and consultation, were understandably astounded. The treasury secretary felt humiliated. Replying to the charge that the committee was “arraigning” Chase, Fessenden “with much warmth” remarked: “It was no movement of ours, nor did we suspect that we came here for that purpose.” Welles thought that the Maine senator “was skillful, but a little tart,” and that he was feeling “more than he cared to say.”264
When Lincoln asked if he should accept Seward’s resignation, the senators were divided. Chase’s backpedaling led Collamer and Howard to abstain and Harris to abandon his opposition to the secretary of state. Sumner, Pomeroy, Grimes, Fessenden, and Trumbull persisted in their anti-Seward stance. (Wade was at the front with the Committee on the Conduct of the War.) Lincoln remarked “that he had reason to fear ‘a general smash-up’ if Mr Seward was removed, and he did not see how he could get along with an entire change in his Cabinet.” He “thought Mr. Chase would seize the occasion to withdraw, and it had been intimated that Mr Stanton would do the same—and he could not dispense with Mr Chase’s services in the Treasury just at this time.” At 1 A.M., the meeting broke up inconclusively.265
The next day, Welles, who thought “Seward’s foibles are not serious failings,” urged the president to reject the senatorial advice about the secretary of state and about compromising the independence of the executive branch. Lincoln, quite satisfied, responded that if the delegation’s scheme were adopted, “the whole Government must cave in. It could not stand, could not hold water; the bottom would be out.” The navy secretary, with Lincoln’s blessing, hastened to Seward and urged him to withdraw his resignation. Meanwhile, Chase decided to qui
t, explaining to Fessenden that “Seward and he came into the Cabinet as representing two wings of the Republican party, and if he remained he might be accused of maneuvering to get Mr Seward out—and he thought he ought to relieve the President of any embarrassment, if he desired to reconstruct the Cabinet.” He added that “Mr Seward’s withdrawal would embarrass him so much that he could not get along with the Treasury. He found that very difficult as it was—and if he had to contend with the disaffection of Mr Seward’s friends the load would be more than he could carry.”266 With his resignation letter in hand, Chase met with Lincoln, Stanton, and Welles. The treasury secretary “said he had been painfully affected by the meeting last evening, which was a total surprise to him, and, after some not very explicit remarks as to how he was affected, informed the President he had prepared his resignation.”
Lincoln’s eyes lit up and he asked: “Where is it?”
“I brought it with me,” said Chase. “I wrote it this morning.”
“Let me have it,” said the president as he reached for the document, which its author hesitated to surrender.
Eagerly, Lincoln ripped open the envelope. “This cuts the Gordian knot,” he said, laughing triumphantly. “I can dispose of this subject now without difficulty. I see my way clear.”
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