Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 1

by Michael Burlingame

  Cameron’s operatives went to work immediately after the election. Joseph Casey, accompanied by Pittsburgh newspaper editor Russell Errett, called on Lincoln. To Casey’s surprise, the president seemed ignorant of the pledges made at Chicago. On November 27, Casey complained about it to Leonard Swett, who was exasperated by Lincoln’s reluctance to appoint Cameron. David Davis recommended that Casey and Errett solicit letters from leading Pennsylvania Republicans to bolster Cameron’s chances. They took his advice, and in late November and throughout December, Lincoln received an avalanche of pro-Cameron mail. In addition, Pennsylvanians traveled to Springfield to lobby on behalf of the Chief. In December, Hannibal Hamlin told Lincoln: “I do not believe one man can be found amongst all our friends in the Senate who will not say it will be ruinous to ap[poin]t Cameron—Whatever all the politicians in P[ennsylvani]a may say, and I understand he has about all, my own opinion is clear it will not do, embarrassing as it may be some other man should be taken—It would be better to take no one from P[ennsylvani]a, or some other man—[ James] Meredith or Judge [ John M.] Reed.”39 But the president-elect received few anti-Cameron letters, for Cameron’s opponents were complacent. As Alexander K. McClure recalled, “no one outside a small circle of Cameron’s friends, dreamed of Lincoln calling him to the Cabinet. Lincoln’s character for honesty was considered a complete guarantee against such a suicidal act.”40 Lincoln prepared a summary of all correspondence on the subject, which heavily favored Cameron. He also composed a short, lawerly memorandum on allegations that Cameron had bought his senate seat and had bribed members of a convention.

  On December 5, the president-elect summoned David Wilmot to discuss Pennsylvania appointments. That veteran antislavery champion said he would comply as soon as he could and added that “[m]y mind has rather inclined to Gen. Cameron as the man; but it cannot be concealed that he is very objectionable to a large portion of the Republicans of this State. In the main, his opponents are our most reliable men. Gen. Cameron however is a man of unquestioned ability in his way, and of great power as a politician in this State. He has tact and knowledge of men, and is very successful in dealing with them. It would hardly do to make an appointment very obnoxious to him. I have sometimes thought it might be as well in view of our quarrels to pass over our State in the Cabinet appointments.”41 On Christmas Eve, Wilmot finally arrived in Springfield, where he had a long talk with Lincoln.

  Five days later Cameron himself appeared in the Illinois capital. He had been urged by friends to visit Springfield but was too proud to go on his own initiative. In December, Leonard Swett, while en route to Washington to serve as Lincoln’s eyes and ears, stopped over in Harrisburg, where he invited Cameron to confer with the president-elect. It is not clear whether Lincoln had authorized Swett to do so, although Swett said he did. Joseph Medill heard from “the highest authority” that David Davis had urged Swett to invite Cameron to Springfield, and that “Swett accompanied by his delectable friend Charley Wilson, went out to Cameron’s house and assured him that L. desired to see him at Springfield for the purpose of making him Sec of Treasury.”42 Months later, Lincoln complained that Davis had a “way of making a man do a thing whether he wants to or not.”43 George G. Fogg asserted that during “the summer and fall a bargain was struck between Weed and Cameron, with Seward to become secretary of state and the Winnebago Chief secretary of the treasury. Cameron went to Albany and then to Saratoga, where he spent several days with the intriguers,” including Davis. “Cameron subsequently tried to get an invitation that fall to Springfield, but Lincoln would not give it. This annoyed the clique. After the election, Swett … was sent, or came, East to feel the public pulse.… Swett was seized by Weed and Company, open rooms and liquors were furnished by the New York junto, and his intimacy with Lincoln was magnified. Cameron took him to his estate Lochiel and feasted him. Here the desire of Cameron to go to Springfield was made known to Swett, who took it upon himself to extend an invitation in Mr. Lincoln’s name.”44 Elihu B. Washburne, who regarded Swett as a tool in the hands of Weed and Seward, wrote to Lincoln on January 7: “Great commotion and excitements exist to-day in our ranks in regard to a Compromise that is supposed to be hatching by the Weed-Seward dynasty. Weed is here and the great object now is to obtain your acquiescence in the scheme & sell out and degrade the republicans. Leonard Swett is the agent to be employed to get you into it. He is acting under the direction of Weed, and it is said writes a letter to you dictated by Weed.”45 In mid-January, Herman Kreismann reported from Washington that “Swett is still here but looks quite chopfallen. His Cameron intrigue has proved very disastrous.” (Swett was convinced that Cameron would reject a cabinet post.) “Lincoln ought to have a confidential and discreet man—not a damn fool like Swett—here to keep him posted and watch all the schemes and intrigues going on.”46 From the capital, Joseph Medill similarly complained that “Swett has been carrying rather too much sail here—acting the part of envoy extraordinary and magnifying his status.”47 Swett shared Weed’s view that “Lincoln’s whole theory of uniting the elements of our party by coupling in a cabinet rival chiefs is a very bad one.”48

  Cameron, who held Lincoln in contempt, adopted a coy approach. He later asserted that “I told Swett I didn’t want to go—and before I went I made Swett write it down what I was wanted for.”49 On December 30, to the surprise of everyone in Springfield, Cameron, accompanied by his operative John P. Sanderson, arrived there. Cameron had two long conversations with Lincoln, who expressed concern about which post to offer his visitor. If it were the treasury portfolio, which Cameron wanted, what should Chase receive? As a prominent Republican leader, Chase held an undeniable claim to a high cabinet position.

  “Let him have the War Department,” said Cameron.

  “Would you accept that job?” Lincoln asked,

  “I am not seeking for any position, and I would not decline of course what I had recommended to another,” came the reply.50

  “What about Seward?” asked Lincoln, who seemed to be uncertain whether the New Yorker would join the cabinet. The president-elect had told Bates that if Seward refused his offer, “that would excite bad feeling, and lead to a dangerous if not fatal rupture of the party.”51

  Cameron responded, “you needn’t hesitate on that score,” for Seward “will be sure to accept.”52

  Afterward, as Cameron prepared to leave town, the president-elect handed him a letter: “I think fit to notify you now, that by your permission, I shall, at the proper time, nominate you to the U.S. Senate, for confirmation as Secretary of the Treasury, or as Secretary of War—which of the two, I have not yet definitely decided. Please answer at your own earliest convenience.”53

  Cameron triumphantly shared this document with friends and leaked it to the press, causing E. B. Washburne to complain to Lincoln that the Pennsylvania boss “has acted the fool completely—showing round your letter offering the place to him to any body and every body as a child would show a toy.”54 When the news arrived in Washington, Cameron’s enemies exploded in wrath, swamping Lincoln and his political friends with protests.

  Remarkably, over the years Cameron had alienated three Democratic presidents who had once been his friends. Andrew Jackson said he was “not to be trusted by any one in any way” and called him “a renegade politi[ci]an” and “a Bankrupt in politics … who got elected senator by selling himself to the whiggs.”55 James K. Polk referred to Cameron as “a managing, tricky man in whom no reliance is to be placed. He professes to be a Democrat, but he has his own personal and sinister purposes to effect.”56 In 1850 James Buchanan, with whom Cameron had been close for two decades, called the Winnebago Chief a “scamp” and predicted that if “the base conduct of Cameron towards myself could be known throughout Pennsylvania, this would floor him.”57

  Republican senators were indignant over the proposed appointment; one of them was so upset that he wept. As Kingsley Bingham of Michigan observed, “Lincoln don’t want a thief in his cabinet,
to have charge of the Treasury.”58 Hamlin predicted “that Lincoln’s administration will be more odious than Buchanan’s if Abe goes on in the way he has set out” and urged that an “earnest expression should go to Lincoln from all hands.”59 Maine Senator William Pitt Fessenden told Lincoln: “I have been associated with him [Cameron], during this and the preceding Congress, on the Committee of Finance, and consider him utterly incompetent to discharge the duties of a Cabinet officer, in any position. Such is also the opinion of other Senators in whom you would place confidence. My belief is … that there are not three members of the Senate, on our side, to whom the appointment referred to would not be a matter of deep regret.”60 Trumbull, who was “struck speechless with amazement” and “absolutely prostrated,” informed the president-elect that “Cameron is very generally regarded as a trading unreliable politician,” that he “has not the confidence of our best men,” and that many Pennsylvania congressmen “came rushing to me in regard to it greatly excited & declaring openly that it would be the ruin of the party in the State, & take away all the benefit which the party expected to gain by purifying the government.”61 One of those Keystone State congressmen, surprised by the selection of Cameron, speculated that Seward “must have counseled it.”62 Cameron’s appointment would, Trumbull predicted, “be fatal to the administration.”63

  A disgusted Joseph Medill exclaimed, “by God! we are sold to the Philistines.” Paraphrasing Stephen A. Douglas’s remarks about Buchanan, Medill expostulated: “We made Abe and by G—we can unmake him.”64 He concluded that the president-elect “had fallen into the toils of the Weed gang, and has not the moral courage or firmness to rise superior to their meshes.”65 Horace White threatened to bolt the Republican Party if Cameron went into the cabinet. “I can stand a good deal of ‘pizen’ in a political way but I can’t stand that,” he declared. “The principle with which Cameron entered public life was to pocket everything that came within his reach, & he is too old a dog to learn new tricks.” White felt that he could “not belong to a party which places thieves in the charge of the most important public interests.”66

  Bayard Taylor denounced Cameron as “a perfectly unscrupulous man” and predicted that “his appointment would give the new Administration an unfavorable prestige.”67 John D. Defrees, who feared that it would “be fatal to us” if Lincoln chose men “whose appointment would be regarded by the public as a ‘license to steal,’ ” reported from Washington in mid-January that word of Cameron’s selection “is received here with astonishment and almost universal execration. The Democracy sneer at us and say ‘talk no more about honesty and fraud and corruption.’ His name is but another name for all that is dishonest. His venality is not dignified with brains. He is really a very small affair. Mr. Lincoln will be compelled to relieve himself of the blunder, else his administration will be odious at the start.”68

  On New Years Day, Elihu B. Washburne told the president-elect that the “report which has reached here this morning that Cameron is going into your cabinet, has created intense excitement and consternation among all of our friends here. I trust in God, it is not so. It is impossible to give reasons in this letter, but I am constrained to say, should the report prove true, it would do more than almost anything else to impair confidence in your administration. The best and strongest men in the Senate, & upon whom you must rely for support, are appalled at the apparent probability of the report being true. I speak what I know.—All say you must have greatest, the wisest, the purest men in your cabinet without regard to location—men whose very names challenge the confidence of the country.”69 To Charles H. Ray, Washburne was even more emphatic: “Dismay reigns among our republican friends at the capitol.” Word of Cameron’s appointment “has literally appalled our best men and created a most painful impression that our victory has turned to ashes, and that Lincoln is a failure. Never have I seen men feel such indignation and chagrin as has attended this appointment.”70

  Other congressmen agreed with Washburne. Among the indignant Representatives from Pennsylvania was John P. Verree, who warned Lincoln that “the selection of Senator Cameron for any position in your cabinet will not only cause a feeling of deep disappointment here and throughout the state but will surround your administration with a quiet and undefined feeling of fear and suspicion of future investigations.”71 Congressman Edward Joy Morris of Philadelphia told the president-elect that “Cameron has but few superiors” as a “political intriguer,” for “he resorts to artifices, which men of a nicer sense of principle would spurn.” By promising “the same office to many different persons, he has troops of deluded followers who eventually become his implacable enemies from the deception practised on them.” Cameron “is famous for subsidizing newspaper correspondents, and working up a public opinion in his favor, which has no real existence. This he is doing now.”72 Another Philadelphian, Representative William D. Kelley, warned Lincoln that there was such a “general doubt” about Cameron’s “integrity in political matters” that his “appointment would taint your administration with suspicion, and would necessarily destroy our party in this state.”73 Equally disenchanted lawmakers from the Keystone State included Galusha Grow, Thaddeus Stevens, John Covode, Chapin Hall, Benjamin F. Junkin, John Hickman, William Millward, and Robert McKnight. They and other leading Pennsylvania Republicans protested that Cameron’s appointment “will sow the seeds of discord demoralization and dissolution in the party in that State.”74

  Discontent in Washington was matched by indignation in New York, where reform Republicans denounced the Cameron appointment, saying that they felt like “victims of misplaced confidence,” “betrayed and sold out to the Forty thieves,” “taken in and done for.” In frustration they cursed the appointment, saying “D—n Illinois.”75 On January 3, William Cullen Bryant protested to Lincoln that “Cameron has the reputation of being concerned in some of the worst intrigues of the democratic party a few years back. His name suggests to every honest Republican in this State no other than disgusting associations, and they will expect nothing from him when in office but a repetition of such transactions. At present those who favor his appointment, in this State, are the men who last winter seduced our legislature into that shamefully corrupt course by which it was disgraced.”76 James van Alen explained to Lincoln that Cameron’s “reputation as one of the most corrupt men of the old Democratic and the new Republican Party is so fixed, that to stamp your Cabinet with his name would be to start your Adm[istration] under obstacles which even your acknowledged purity of character could not remove. Pennsylvanians, ambitious of his place in the Senate, or expectants of treasury pap, may advise you to [take] such a step, but the honest & intelligent & disinterested members of our Party with whom the name of Simon Cameron is a synonym of corruption will stand aghast at such an app[ointment]t & will feel that they have already lost the long-coveted fruits of a victory for which they have fought so long, so faithfully, [and] so patriotically.”77

  Alarmed by both the volume and tenor of these complaints, Lincoln asked the economist and publisher Henry C. Carey of Philadelphia what Cameron had done to earn such an unsavory reputation. In reply, Carey offered nineteen telling reasons why Cameron should not be given a seat in the cabinet, emphasizing his intellectual as well as ethical shortcomings.

  When Alexander K. McClure heard of Cameron’s visit to Springfield, he fired off a long, damning protest to Lincoln stating that the “movement to place Gen C in your Cabinet emanates from himself. He is its master spirit—its life & soul, & he personally directs it[.] I speak advisedly on this point[.] His most trusted friends have on various occasions proposed terms to me, directly from Gen C. himself, involving honors & emoluments, in consideration of which I was asked to join in the effort to make him one of your constitutional advisers. It is within my personal knowledge that the appointments within your gift, and contracts ad infinitum, to come from the different departments, have been offered from man to man, by Gen C in person & through his friends.” Mc
Clure begged Lincoln not to appoint Cameron lest the Pennsylvania Republican party be destroyed.

  In response to this heartfelt plea, Lincoln invited McClure to Illinois for a consultation. There, on January 3, they met for four hours. McClure was disappointed with his first glimpse of the president-elect, who was “illy clad” and “ungraceful in movement.” As the visitor made his case, Lincoln listened patiently, asking questions now and then but indulging in no humor. McClure felt as though he were making his appeal “to a sphinx.”78 After presenting remonstrances from leaders like Governor Curtin, David Wilmot, Thaddeus Stevens, and others, McClure urged Lincoln to appoint either Wilmot or Stevens to his cabinet, but not “mere subjects of Cameron” like James Pollock or Andrew Reeder. (Lincoln had indirectly expressed an interest in Pollock, his messmate from his days in Congress.) “I put it squarely to Lincoln,” McClure reported, “why such an appointment could not be made. I told him also that if there were insuperable objections I was entitled to know them as he had appealed to me most earnestly to help him to reconcile matters in our State. He finally answered that Gen C. would not consent to any other appointment than himself in Penna. My answer was—that I considered that fact the strongest evidence that he was unfit for the trust in a political sense.” The president-elect told McClure “that to revoke C’s appointment now” would disgrace the Chief, “hence his painful anxiety & hesitation.” At first, Lincoln was skeptical, for he had been told that McClure “was waging a personal war” on Cameron, but by the time he left, McClure felt he had established his credibility.79 Lincoln assured him that he would reconsider the plan to appoint Cameron and would inform McClure of his decision within twenty-four hours. He did so, asking for specific charges against Cameron along with proof to substantiate them. McClure said he would rather not play the role of “an individual prosecutor of Cameron.” The main objection to the Chief was not so much public corruption as “notorious incompetency.”80