Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 1

by Michael Burlingame

  But Lincoln did not wait for evidence. Stunned by the hostile reaction to the appointment, he regretted that his friends had failed to inform him more explicitly and candidly about the Chief. But how could they have done so? As Joseph Medill maintained, Lincoln had “consulted nobody—not one original friend, not one honest man.”81 The president-elect had alienated some senators by failing to ask their advice. In late January, Seward complained that “Mr L has undertaken his Cabinet without consulting me. For the present I shall be content to leave the responsibility on his own broad shoulders.”82

  On January 3 the president-elect wrote Cameron asking him to retract his acceptance of a cabinet post. “Since seeing you things have developed which make it impossible for me to take you into the cabinet. You will say this comes of an interview with McClure; and this is partly, but not wholly true. The more potent matter is wholly outside of Pennsylvania; and yet I am not at liberty to specify it. Enough that it appears to me to be sufficient. And now I suggest that you write me declining the appointment, in which case I do not object to its being known that it was tendered you. Better do this at once, before things so change, that you can not honorably decline, and I be compelled to openly recall the tender. No person living knows, or has an intimation that I write this letter. P.S. Telegraph, me instantly, on receipt of this, saying ‘All right.’ ”83

  Hurt and embarrassed, Cameron sent no such telegram or letter; he had already resigned his senate seat and was thus out of office. From Washington, Trumbull reported to Lincoln that “Cameron is behaving very badly about the tender of an appointment. It was very injudicious for him to be exhibiting your letter about as he did, & after the receipt of your second letter he talked very badly—said to me that he would not then go into the cabinet, but that he would not decline by which I suppose he meant that he would embarrass you all he could, & he made a good many other remarks which I do not choose to repeat; but showing to me that he is wholly unfit for the place.”84

  Lincoln scrambled to find a way to soothe Cameron’s wounded feelings. He told Trumbull that the Treasury Department portfolio could not be reoffered to Cameron, for that must go to Chase, whose “ability, firmness, and purity of character, produce the propriety.” Moreover, Chase’s appointment was necessary for political reasons: “he alone can reconcile Mr. Bryant, and his class, to the appointment of Gov. S[eward] to the State Department.” Chase’s selection, however, would not suit the Pennsylvania protectionists, who deplored his free trade views. To placate the Pennsylvanians, something must be done for Cameron. Perhaps he might be given the War Department portfolio, which he would accept, but “then comes the fierce opposition to his having any Department, threatening even to send charges into the Senate to procure his rejection by that body.” (How Lincoln knew that Cameron would accept the War Department portfolio is not clear. There is some evidence suggesting that the Chief wrote to the president-elect agreeing to accept the War Department and recommending Charles Francis Adams for the Treasury Department.) Perhaps Cameron could be returned to the senate. His recently chosen successor, David Wilmot, might be inveigled into stepping aside for Cameron if he were given “a respectable, and reasonably lucrative place abroad.” Patronage plums could be used to sweeten the deal: “let Gen. C’s friends be, with entire fairness, cared for in Pennsylvania, and elsewhere.”85

  That compromise suggestion went nowhere. On January 6, Lincoln, in obvious distress, consulted with his old friends Gustave Koerner and Norman B. Judd. “I am in a quandary,” he explained. “Pennsylvania is entitled to a cabinet office. But whom shall I appoint?”

  “Not Cameron,” they replied.

  “But whom else?” he asked.

  They suggested Reeder and Wilmot, but he responded: “Oh, they have no show. There has been delegation after delegation from Pennsylvania, hundreds of letters, and the cry is, ‘Cameron, Cameron!’ Besides, you know I have already fixed on Chase, Seward and Bates, my competitors at the convention. The Pennsylvania people say: ‘If you leave out Cameron you disgrace him.’ Is there not something in that?”

  Koerner insisted that “Cameron cannot be trusted; he has the reputation of being a tricky and corrupt politician.”

  “I know, I know,” said Lincoln, “but can I get along if that State should oppose my administration?” Judd and Koerner presciently warned that he would have cause to regret Cameron’s appointment.86

  Lincoln thought his old messmate from Mrs. Sprigg’s boarding house, James Pollock, might be an acceptable compromise candidate. Pollock had served as governor of Pennsylvania from 1855 to 1858. The Rev. Dr. William M. Reynolds, president of Illinois University, with whom Lincoln spoke about political developments, informed Pennsylvania Congressman Edward McPherson that the president-elect “is anxious to have a representative of Penna in his Administration. But he is determined not to take part in a war of personal factions in Pa. The opposition to Mr. Cameron appears to be very bitter. Would Ex-Governor Pollock be acceptable to Pennsylvania generally?”87 That suggestion produced no results. (Lincoln eventually appointed Pollock director of the Philadelphia mint.) Pollock informed Lincoln that “he should regard it as exceedingly disastrous to the Republican party of P[ennsylvani]a if Gen Cameron should not be appointed.”88

  George G. Fogg denounced Cameron roundly not only as corrupt and unprincipled, but also as stupid and dismissive of Lincoln. Fogg spoke bluntly to the president-elect: “Nearly every Republican Senator who has had the opportunity to know him, pronounces him intellectually incompetent for the proper discharge of the duties of a Cabinet officer. Besides, he has indulged in expressions of contempt for you personally, which should render his official connection with you an impossibility. No matter what communications have passed, you cannot, without sacrificing your own personal respect, and without losing, at the start, the confidence of all the honest men in the country, appoint him.”89 Fogg’s friend, New Hampshire Congressman Mason Tappan, reported from Washington that Lincoln’s announcement of cabinet choices “is creating heart-burning, and many of our folks here are particularly down on Cameron.”90

  Cameron’s supporters and opponents continued to bombard the president-elect with affidavits, letters, and petitions. Five of McClure’s fellow townsmen wrote Lincoln alleging that McClure was corrupt and that Lincoln should not rely on his judgment regarding Cameron. John P. Sanderson returned to Springfield bearing the suggestion that Lincoln retract his abrupt January 3 letter to Cameron and replace it with a gentler missive. Eager to apply some salve to the wounds he had unintentionally inflicted, Lincoln wrote to Cameron on January 13: “When you were here about the last of December, I handed you a letter saying I should at the proper time, nominate you to the Senate for a place in the cabinet. It is due to you, and to truth, for me to say you were here by my invitation, and not upon any suggestion of your own. You have not, as yet, signified to me, whether you would accept the appointment; and, with much pain, I now say to you, that you will relieve me from great embarrassment by allowing me to recall the offer. This springs from an unexpected complication; and not from any change of my view as to the ability or faithfulness with which you would discharge the duties of the place.” Lincoln assured Cameron that on January 3 he had written “under great anxiety” and had “intended no offence.” He suggested that the Chief should destroy or return that hurtful letter. Tactfully, the president-elect added, “I say to you now I have not doubted that you would perform the duties of a Department ably and faithfully. Nor have I for a moment intended to ostracise your friends. If I should make a cabinet appointment for Penn. before I reach Washington, I will not do so without consulting you, and giving all the weight to your views and wishes which I consistently can. This I have always intended.”91

  In Springfield, Charles Henry Ray of the Chicago Press and Tribune also lobbied against Cameron. He told E. B. Washburne that Lincoln “regrets what has passed and would gladly see an avenue of escape. But the poor man has been run down by Pennsylvania politicians
, most of whom are candidates for the Senate, and each of whom hopes to squat in Cameron’s place. Among them Dave Wilmot is conspicuous. He is the man who did it. Bah! They are all a set of cowardly tricksters, and seem to have combined to carry off spoils. But it is not too late. I have sent for Mr. Bryant and Geo. Opdyke, and if they will come out and tell him the truth, the bad thing may be defeated—to our loss in Pennsylvania, no doubt, but to Lincoln’s infinite credit in the nation.”92

  In mid-January, responding to Ray’s appeal, Opdyke, Hiram Barney, and Judge John T. Hogeboom of New York visited Lincoln, who told them he had decided not to name any more cabinet members until he reached Washington. (Four days earlier he had written Seward, “I shall have trouble with every other Northern cabinet appointment—so much so that I shall have to defer them as long as possible, to avoid being teased to insanity to make changes.”)93 Barney and his colleagues, who denounced Cameron and praised Chase, tried to dissuade Lincoln from appointing the Chief, but Lincoln would not budge. He wanted and expected to name Chase to head the Treasury Department, but he feared that appointment would offend Pennsylvania, and therefore he would wait until the situation in the Keystone State was settled. He thought Chase should be willing to let the matter stand “till he can be named without embarrassment; he was counting on Chase’s patriotism.”94 These New Yorkers warned that if men like Weed, Cameron, and Caleb B. Smith “got the reins, there is nothing left but a disgraceful compromise with the South, and afterward a reconstruction of the Radical Democratic party in all the free States; that the Administration thus manned cannot command the confidence of the country.”95 (Privately, Lincoln confided to Barney that he had offered Cameron the post of secretary of war and promised Henry Lane that he would appoint Caleb B. Smith secretary of the interior.)

  George G. Fogg sent Lincoln a similar message: “if the policy of Seward & Cameron is allowed to prevail—if their utter abandonment of the principles of the Chicago platform shall receive even your tacit sanction, your administration will, at the start, be cut off from the sympathy and confidence of a large majority of the Republican members of the Senate, and from all the honest and earnest masses who believe in the principles for which they cast their votes.”96

  To counter such pressure, pro-Cameron forces entrained for Illinois. Despite his extreme reluctance to visit Springfield uninvited, Weed, at Seward’s urging, headed west to lobby on Cameron’s behalf. But his train broke down, and he returned to Albany. Stricken by illness, Leonard Swett was also unable to reach his home state to champion Cameron. But Pennsylvania Congressman James K. Moorhead and Alexander Cummings, one of Cameron’s operatives, were able to get through. On January 20, they were met in Springfield by David Davis, who was eager to have Cameron appointed. (Davis was irritated by the delay in naming both the Chief and Caleb B. Smith to cabinet posts.) In an interview, Lincoln, according to Moorhead, “was very much opposed to appointing Cameron, and expressed himself very emphatically.” The president-elect, insisting that he had won the election because of his reputation as Honest Old Abe, heatedly asked: “What will be thought now if the first thing I do is to appoint C[ameron], whose very name stinks in the nostrils of the people for his corruption?” That same day, Lyman Trumbull explained why Cameron had so many endorsers like Moorhead: “He is a great manager, & by his schemes has for the moment created an apparent public sentiment in Pa. in his favor. Many of the persons who are most strenuously urging his appointment are doubtless doing so in anticipation of a compensation.” Trumbull urged Lincoln to “put Chase into the Cabinet & leave Cameron out, even at the risk of a rupture with the latter; but I am satisfied he can be got along with. He is an exacting man, but in the end will put up with what he can get.”97

  When Lincoln asked Congressman Albert Gallatin Riddle about Cameron, the Ohioan answered that “he was a mystery, that his influence in Pennsylvania seemed out of all proportion to his ability, but that he was a wonderful manager.” Lincoln “replied that he had the same impression of him.”98

  On January 24, Lincoln told a group of pro-Cameron Philadelphians that he had devoted much thought to constructing a cabinet and that he would like to appoint Cameron because he had been a Democrat while Bates and Seward were former Whigs. Moreover, he had been assured that Cameron was “eminently fitted for the position which his friends desire him to fill, and that his appointment would give great satisfaction to Pennsylvania.” But, he added, the Chief’s “opponents charge him with corruption in obtaining contracts, and contend that if he is appointed he will use the patronage of his office for his own private gain.” Lincoln said he would have the charges investigated, and in the unlikely event that they were proven true, Cameron would not be appointed, for cabinet ministers “must be, as far as possible, like Caesar’s wife, pure and above suspicion, of unblemished reputation, and undoubted integrity.” If, on the other hand, the charges were disproved, then Cameron would be named to the cabinet. Lincoln closed with an ominous warning: “If, after he has been appointed, I should be deceived by subsequent transactions of a disreputable character, the responsibility will rest upon you gentlemen of Pennsylvania who have so strongly presented his claims to my consideration.”99

  To help clarify matters, Lincoln asked his troubleshooter Leonard Swett to visit Harrisburg. There Swett interviewed Cameron supporters and detractors, including McClure, who told him that the president-elect must abandon Cameron and support the Lancaster congressman, Thaddeus Stevens, for leading politicians of Pennsylvania were backing Stevens. Swett “expressed great amazement at the information, altho he admitted that he had seen Cameron just before leaving Washington. He said that Cameron was positively averse to the appointment of any one but himself from Penna.” Swett added that if Pennsylvanians “did not accede to Cameron,” they “would be without a representative & that Chase would have the Treasury.” According to McClure, Swett was “thoroughly in the Cameron interest, and exhausted himself while here to frighten us by the danger of an unsound Tariff man in the Treasury.”100

  Torn by conflicting advice and reluctant to appoint a spoilsman to his cabinet, Lincoln was, as Herndon told Trumbull, “in a fix. Cameron’s appointment to an office in his Cabinet bothers him. If Lincoln do[es] appoint Cameron he gets a fight on his hands, and if he do[es] not he gets a quarrel deep-abiding, & lasting.… Poor Lincoln! God help him!”101 In early February, Lincoln said that the question of Cameron’s appointment had given him “more trouble than anything that he had yet to encounter,” including the secession of the Lower South. He would, once he was in Washington, ask the Republican senators their candid opinion of the Chief.102

  The Case of Chase

  The struggle over Chase’s appointment pitted Lincoln against Seward in a battle to determine who would dominate the cabinet. When Seward’s appointment as secretary of state was announced, Weed’s paper was quick to dub him the “Premier” of the cabinet.103 George G. Fogg warned the president-elect that “Seward would insist on being master of the administration, and would utterly scorn the idea of playing a subordinate part. He has no more doubt of his measureless superiority to you, than of his existence. And this has been apparent from the day when Mr. Weed so magnificently announced that Mr. S[eward] had ‘accepted the premiership in Mr. Lincoln’s Cabinet.’ That very term ‘premiership’ told the whole story—that Mr. Lincoln had selected his ‘prime minister,’ and was henceforth to be subject to his policy, just as the queen or king of England is subject to the policy of the ministry.” Seward “contemptuously expects to make you ‘play second fiddle’ to all his schemes, and those of Weed too.”104 Francis P. Blair Sr. thought Seward would try to undermine Lincoln in order to win the presidency in 1864. The New Yorker, in Blair’s view, “has the most eager restless ambition for power of any man I have known and Weed the greediest maw for the spoils of Govt. The last is the Jackall of the first. Neither can wait 8 years for the consummation of their hopes.”105

  Seward and Weed’s first scheme was to dominate
the cabinet by packing it with former Whigs who would defer to the senator and agree with him that the South ought to be conciliated and the slavery issue deemphasized. Chase was anathema to the Albany duo because he espoused radical antislavery views and fought against the appeasement of secessionists; moreover, he had a strong personality and would challenge Seward for leadership. From late December, when he accepted the State Department portfolio, until inauguration day in March, Seward, with the help of his fidus Achates Weed, lobbied against Chase and for Cameron. To reconcile these contending forces would severely tax Lincoln’s patience and statesmanship.

  On December 31, the day he offered Cameron a cabinet post, Lincoln summoned Chase with great urgency: “In these troublous times, I would much like a conference with you. Please visit me here at once.”106 The president-elect had received strong recommendations for the Ohioan from William Cullen Bryant, George G. Fogg, Joseph Medill, Elihu B. Washburne, Amos Tuck, Owen Lovejoy, John F. Farnsworth, John P. Hale, and other Radicals who considered Chase an essential counterbalance to Seward. Amos Tuck assured Lincoln that without Chase, “I fear too much of the N. York flavor will be attributed to the administration, and its patronage.”107 Joshua Giddings urged Lincoln to appoint not only Chase but also two other Radicals to the cabinet.

  Both protectionists and moderate Republicans objected to Chase. Former Ohio Congressman Columbus Delano presciently warned that Chase “will use his place first and chiefly to promote his own ambition. His past history justifies this opinion; and he will, probably, become an embarrassing element in Mr. Lincoln’s cabinet, as well as an embarrassing element in any fair adjustment of our national troubles.”108 Other Ohioans called Chase a “supremely selfish” and “very vindictive” political intriguer. Congressman Benjamin Stanton described him as “specially obnoxious to the Conservative Republicans of Ohio. His antecedents … are of the most extreme character—a Birney man in 1844, a Van Buren man in 1848 and a Hale man in 1852, no man has done so much to break down the Old Whig party of Ohio.”109