Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 1

by Michael Burlingame

  Although Lincoln found the Chicago ordeal disagreeable, he nonetheless treated callers there with his usual courtesy. When the eminent Presbyterian pastor Theodore L. Cuyler visited him at his hotel, he enjoyed a hospitable reception. “His manner is exceedingly genial,” Cuyler wrote. “He grasped my hand warmly—put me at ease by a cordial recognition.”11

  In Chicago, amid all the distractions (including office-seekers who fastened on to him like ticks to a dog), Lincoln managed to accomplish his primary goal of launching the cabinet search in consultation with Hamlin, who had earlier met with Weed. At that time Weed had argued that Seward deserved the State Department portfolio but predicted he would decline it. Lincoln instructed Hamlin to divine Seward’s true intentions. (At Lincoln’s request, Hamlin burned the president-elect’s letters about this project.) Lincoln wanted to appoint the New Yorker because of “his ability, his integrity, and his commanding influence, and fitness for the place.” He also considered it “a matter of duty to the party, and to Mr. Seward[’]s many and strong friends, while at the same time it accorded perfectly with his own personal inclinations—notwithstanding some opposition on the part of sincere and warm friends.”12 Seward did indeed enjoy great prestige, not only among Republicans but also among Northern Democrats.

  But opposition to Seward was strong. Especially hostile were the Barnburners (ex-Democrats in New York who opposed slavery more vehemently than did most ex-Whigs). When Trumbull reported that many anticorruption leaders in New York objected to the Sage of Auburn, Lincoln said that he regretted “exceedingly the anxiety of our friends in New-York,” but it seemed that “the sentiment in that state which sent a united delegation to Chicago in favor of Gov. S[eward] ought not, and must not be snubbed, as it would be by the omission to offer Gov. S. a place in the cabinet. I will, myself, take care of the question of ‘corrupt jobs’ and see that justice is done to all.”13

  On December 8, Lincoln sent Hamlin two letters to deliver to Seward, one a brief, formal offer of the State Department portfolio, the other a longer, more personal appeal. After consulting with Trumbull, the Maine senator called on Seward in Washington. Seward began the interview protesting, perhaps sincerely, that “he was tired of public life,” that he “intended to resign his seat or decline a reelection and retire,” and that “there was no place in the gift of the President which he would be willing to take.” Hamlin then presented the letters offering Seward the State Department post. In them, Lincoln tactfully stated that “Rumors have got into the newspapers to the effect that the [State] Department … would be tendered you, as a compliment, and with the expectation that you would decline it. I beg you to be assured that I have said nothing to justify these rumors. On the contrary, it has been my purpose, from the day of the nomination at Chicago, to assign you, by your leave, this place in the administration. I have delayed so long to communicate that purpose, in deference to what appeared to me to be a proper caution in the case. Nothing has been developed to change my view in the premises; and I now offer you the place, in the hope that you will accept it, and with the belief that your position in the public eye, your integrity, ability, learning, and great experience, all combine to render it an appointment pre-eminently fit to be made.”14 This letter seems to have reflected Lincoln’s true feelings.

  Seward, whose extensive travels abroad and service on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee prepared him well for the job, responded cautiously: “This is remarkable, Mr. Hamlin. I will consider the matter, and, in accordance with Mr. Lincoln’s request give him my decision at the earliest practicable moment.”15 Seward delayed responding in the hopes that Weed’s late-December mission to Springfield regarding the Crittenden Compromise might succeed.

  Having failed to win Lincoln’s backing for the Crittenden Compromise, Seward hoped to persuade him to appoint conciliators rather than stiff-backs to the cabinet. Like Seward, Weed believed that if the tariff were reduced and patronage were given to Southern Unionists promptly, a Union Party would emerge in the Upper South which would defeat the secessionists within two years. Weed recalled that at their December 20 meeting, Lincoln told him “that he supposed I had had some experience in cabinet-making; that he had a job on hand, and as he had never learned that trade, he was disposed to avail himself of the suggestions of friends.” Weed replied that he would be glad to help. Lincoln stated that “he had, even before the result of the election was known, assuming the probability of success, fixed upon the two leading members of his cabinet,” namely, Seward and Chase. The president-elect remarked that “aside from their long experience in public affairs, and their eminent fitness, they were prominently before the people and the convention as competitors for the presidency, each having higher claims than his own for the place which he was to occupy.” Lincoln added that he would probably name Gideon Welles, Simon Cameron, Montgomery Blair, and Norman B. Judd as their colleagues. Weed strongly objected to the stiff-backed Montgomery Blair, arguing “that the Blair blood was troublesome, and traced evidence of this back to the time of General Jackson.” Lincoln “replied that he must have some one from the Border States, and Montgomery Blair seemed to possess more of this element than any other available person, because he lived in Maryland, and Frank, his brother, in Missouri.” Lord Thurlow suggested that if a Southerner was to be appointed, Henry Winter Davis of Baltimore or John A. Gilmer of North Carolina would be preferable to Blair. Weed also objected to Gideon Welles of Connecticut, prompting Lincoln to explain that he had authorized Hamlin to pick New England’s representative in the cabinet, and Hamlin had recommended the Connecticut editor, who had served effectively in the Navy Department under Polk. When discussing Simon Cameron, Weed was less free than he had been in speaking of the others. He had kind things to say about the Chief (as Cameron was often called) but thought him better suited for some post other than treasury secretary.

  When Weed recommended that at least two Southerners outside the Republican ranks be chosen, Lincoln “inquired whether … they could be trusted, adding that he did not quite like to hear Southern journals and Southern speakers insisting that there must be no ‘coercion;’ that while he had no disposition to coerce anybody, yet after he had taken an oath to execute the laws, he should not care to see them violated.” (Most Southerners interpreted as “coercion” any attempt to enforce the law, collect customs duties, retain control of federal facilities, or retake facilities already seized.) Weed suggested that men from the Upper South be taken. Somewhat skeptically, Lincoln said: “Well, let us have the names of your white crows, such ones as you think fit for the cabinet.” The Wizard of the Lobby proposed John Minor Botts, John A. Gilmer, and Henry Winter Davis. But, Lincoln asked, what if he appointed Southerners whose states subsequently left the Union? Could “their men remain in the cabinet? Or, if they remained, of what use would they be to the government?”16

  (Those were good questions. Henry Winter Davis feared that if North Carolina seceded, Gilmer as a cabinet member would “be too timid to remain or to act.”17 If Lincoln had appointed Gilmer, he would have been mightily embarrassed by that gentleman’s conduct when war finally came. On April 17, Gilmer wrote to Stephen A. Douglas: “may the God of battles crush to the earth and consign to eternal perdition, Mr. Lincoln, his cabinet and ‘aiders and abettors,’ in this cruel, needless, corrupt betrayal of the conservative men of the South. We would have saved the country, but for the fatuity and cowardice of this infernal Administration.… I hope you will not aid or countenance so detestable a parvenue.”)18

  Although Weed left Springfield “with an extra large flea in his ear,” he praised Lincoln as “capable in the largest sense of the term. He has read much and thought much, of Government, ‘inwardly digesting’ its theory and principles. His mind is at once philosophical and practical. He sees all who go there, hears all they have to say, talks freely with everybody, reads whatever is written to him; but thinks and acts by himself and for himself.”19 Swett, who was present at the interview, remarked th
at Weed and the president-elect “ ‘took to each other’ from that very day they met, and their relations grew gradually more agreeable and friendly.”20

  When Seward learned of this conversation, he was displeased, telling a friend that the ideologically diverse cabinet envisioned by Lincoln “was not such a cabinet as he had hoped to see, and it placed him in great embarrassment what to do. If he declined [to serve in the cabinet], could he assign the true reason for it, which was the want of support in it?”21 Disappointed by his failure to win Lincoln’s backing for compromise or the appointment of a cabinet to his liking, Seward had to decide whether to reject the State Department portfolio and champion Crittenden’s scheme and a conciliatory cabinet or to accept the cabinet post and find some other way to placate the South. On December 28, he chose the latter course. (James Watson Webb believed that Seward had planned to turn down the offer and instead to serve as minister to Great Britain, but that the secession of the Lower South led him to change his mind.)

  Seward told his wife grandiloquently: “I will try to save freedom and my country.” As that statement indicates, he had a massive savior complex, streaked with self-pity. (In August 1861, he asserted that “there has not been a day since last January, that I could, safely for the Government, have been absent.” The following year he told Thurlow Weed, “I am doing all I am capable of doing to save our country” and wrote his daughter: “Some one has to exert an influence to prevent the war from running into social conflict; and battles being given up for indiscriminate butchery. I hope and trust that I may succeed in doing this.”22 Four years later he peevishly complained “that he had saved the country & nobody mentioned him while they went mad over Farragut & Grant!”)23

  When word of Seward’s appointment leaked out, Trumbull reported to Lincoln that it “is acquiesced in by all our friends. Some wish it was not so, but regard it rather as a necessity and are not disposed to complain.”24 One who wished it was not so was George G. Fogg, who backed Chase for the State Department post. Fogg assured Lincoln that Seward “has not the nerve for the present crisis. He would bring a clamor with him at the outset, and would be a source of weakness in every emergency which required courage and action. He is a talker, and only that in quiet times.”25 (After speaking with the president-elect, Fogg concluded that he “is anxious to do exactly right, and is likely to do so in the main,” but “lacks knowledge of men, and especially of politicians and place-hunters.”)26

  For colleagues in the cabinet, Seward desired former Whigs who would support a policy of conciliation, not former Democrats like Judd, Welles, and Blair, who favored a hard line in dealing with secessionists. So the Sage of Auburn recommended to Lincoln the appointment of Randall Hunt of Louisiana, Robert E. Scott of Virginia, and either John A. Gilmer or Kenneth Rayner of North Carolina.

  Lincoln chose to approach the cheerful, likeable Gilmer, for he was the only one of those mentioned by Seward and Weed who currently held office and also lived south of the Border States. (Curiously, Lincoln evidently did not consider asking Andrew Johnson, though he told some Virginians who suggested the Tennessee senator for the cabinet, “I have no idea Mr Johnson would accept Such a position, His course is truly noble but just as is to be expected from a man possessing such a heart as his.”)27 Gilmer, one of the few Southerners to vote against the Lecompton Constitution, had attained some stature as the American Party’s gubernatorial candidate in 1856, the Southern Opposition’s nominee for Speaker of the U.S. House in the winter of 1859–1860, and the chairman of the House Committee on Elections. His only obvious drawback was an affiliation with nativism. “Our german friends might not be quite satisfied with his appointment,” Lincoln told Seward, “but I think we could appease them.”28 So he invited Gilmer to Springfield, without revealing his purpose. “Such a visit would I apprehend not be useful to either of us, or the country,” Gilmer replied, unaware that he was being considered for the cabinet.29 Upon returning to Washington after the Christmas recess, Gilmer was accosted by Weed and Seward, who urged him to accept a cabinet appointment. The North Carolinian agreed to think it over. (He eventually declined because of “Lincoln’s determination to appoint one gentleman to the Cabinet.” That gentleman was either Chase or Blair.)30

  Meanwhile, Lincoln had been sounding out other Southern leaders. He sent a feeler to another Tarheel, William A. Graham, who expressed no interest. He also tried to recruit James Guthrie of Kentucky, Franklin Pierce’s secretary of the treasury. Not wanting to approach the 68-year-old resident of Louisville directly, Lincoln asked Joshua Speed to confer with his fellow townsman. When Speed did so, Guthrie, after affirming his strong Unionism, said: “I am old and don’t want the position.”31

  Frustrated in these bids, Lincoln published an unsigned query in the Illinois State Journal on December 12: “We see such frequent allusion to a supposed purpose on the part of Mr. Lincoln to call into his cabinet two or three Southern gentlemen, from the parties opposed to him politically, that we are prompted to ask a few questions.

  “1st. Is it known that any such gentleman of character, would accept a place in the cabinet?

  “2—If yea, on what terms? Does he surrender to Mr. Lincoln, or Mr. Lincoln to him, on the political difference between them? Or do they enter upon the administration in open opposition to each other?”32

  The Journal also quoted an apposite passage from Lincoln’s “House Divided” speech of 1858: “Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, and conducted by, its own undoubted friends.”33 To Frank Blair, Lincoln stated that “he could hardly maintain his self respect” if he were to appoint a Southern opponent to his cabinet, asserting that “he considered such a course an admission that the Republican party was incapable of governing the country & would be a rebuke by him to those who had voted for him.”34 He told Joshua Speed that he hesitated to name men from the Deep South for fear that “they might decline, with insulting letters still further inflaming the public mind.”35

  Lincoln next turned to a Southern Republican two years younger than Guthrie, Edward Bates of Missouri, whom he described as “an excellent Christian Gentleman” and an unrivaled authority on the legal writings of the eminent jurist, Sir Edward Coke.36 At first the president-elect intended to call on him at his St. Louis home, but when Bates learned of this plan, he insisted on visiting Springfield. When the two men met there on December 15, Lincoln told his guest “that since the day of the Chicago nomination it had been his purpose, in case of success … to tender him one of the places in his cabinet.” He had delayed making the offer “to be enabled to act with caution, and in view of all the circumstances of the case.” Lincoln added that he did not wish to saddle Bates “with one of the drudgery offices,” but could not name him to the premier cabinet post, secretary of state, for that was earmarked for Seward. (If Seward turned it down, however, Bates might get that coveted post. Some believed that the Missourian would be better able to bring harmony to cabinet councils than anyone else.) Therefore, Lincoln “would offer him, what he supposed would be the most congenial [post] and for which he was certainly in every way qualified, viz: the Attorney Generalship.”

  Bates replied that he had declined a similar offer from Millard Fillmore in 1850, but now that the nation “was in trouble and danger,” he “felt it his duty to sacrifice his personal inclinations, and if he would, to contribute his labor and influence to the restoration of peace in, and the preservation of his country.” After expressing his pleasure, Lincoln asked Bates “to examine very thoroughly, and make himself familiar with the constitution and the laws relating to the question of secession, so as to be prepared to give a definite opinion upon the various aspects of the question.” In addition, he requested the Missourian to inquire into the legality of Southern attempts to censor the mails. Lincoln “feared some trouble from this question. It was well understood by intelligent men, that the perfect and unrestrained freedom of speech and the press which exists at the North, was practically incompatible with the existing inst
itutions at the South, and he feared that Radical Republicans at the North might claim at the hands of the new Administration the enforcement of the right, and endeavor to make the mail the means of thrusting upon the South matter which even their conservative and well-meaning men might deem inimical and dangerous.” This was a curious statement, implying that Lincoln would condone censorship.

  Bates promised to look into the question and condemned “the present practice, which permitted petty postmasters to examine and burn everything they pleased.” Yet “he foresaw the practical difficulty of enforcing the law at every cross-road.” Bates indicated that he was “inflexibly opposed to secession, and strongly in favor of maintaining the government by force if necessary.” He asserted that “he is a man of peace, and will defer fighting as long as possible; but that if forced to do so against his will, he has made it a rule never to fire blank cartridges.”37

  Upon returning to St. Louis, Bates wrote Lincoln suggesting that his appointment be made public. Accordingly, Lincoln penned a brief statement for the Missouri Democrat announcing that Bates would be named to a cabinet post yet to be determined; it ran on December 21. This news failed to placate those wishing to reassure most Southerners, for Bates was too prominent an antislavery Republican and he hailed from a Border State. Radical Republicans also objected to Bates’s conservatism. Calling him a “fossil of the Silurian era—red sandstone, at least,” Joseph Medill snorted that he “should never have been quarried out of the rocks in which he was imbedded.”38

  The Cameron Dilemma

  Causing Lincoln even more difficulty than finding Southerners for his cabinet was his quest for a Pennsylvanian acceptable to the party. Since he had already named two of his rivals at Chicago (Seward and Bates), it seemed logical to pick Cameron. And that is what he did—and undid—and then did again.