Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 1

by Michael Burlingame

  On Friday, January 4, Ohio Governor (and Senator-elect) Chase arrived in Springfield, where he spent two days. Lincoln began their first interview by thanking him for his help in the 1858 campaign against Douglas. Indeed, the president-elect felt “under obligations for his services” in that contest.110 Lincoln made his guest a peculiar offer: “I have done with you what I would not perhaps have ventured to do with any other man in the country—sent for you to ask you whether you will accept the appointment of Secretary of the Treasury, without, however, being exactly prepared to offer it to you.”111 The problem was “mainly the uncertainty whether the app[ointment]t w[oul]d be satisfactory to Pennsylvania.” The hyper-ambitious Chase replied that he was not eager for a cabinet post, especially a subordinate one, and would prefer to keep the senate seat which he was to occupy beginning in March. But he coyly promised to think over the possibility of heading the Treasury Department, and Lincoln pledged to write him more definitely soon. Chase said their conversations “were entirely free & unreserved” and that he had “every reason to be satisfied with the personal confidence which Mr. Lincoln manifested in me.”112

  The two men admired each other. Lincoln said of Chase: “take him all in all he is the foremost man in the party.”113 He regarded the governor “as the Moses that brought us out of the land of bondage, but he had not been as lucky as some of us in reaching the promised land. I esteem him highly, very highly.”114 Chase, he declared, was “the ablest & best man in America” and “about one hundred and fifty to any other man’s hundred.”115 In time, Lincoln would come to think less highly of the opportunistic, stately, vain, self-important, egotistical, Machiavellian, humorless, cold, industrious, priggish, and imperious Ohioan.

  Chase prized Lincoln’s “clearsightedness, uprightness, fidelity to the principles he represents, & firm resolve to administer the Government in the most patriotic spirit” and called him “a genuine patriot of the old school” who “loves the Country & the Union with the devotion of a son.” Although Lincoln “may not be so radical as some would wish,” he was nonetheless in Chase’s view “perfectly sincere” and could be counted on to “never surrender our principles or seek to abase our standard.”116

  But much as he admired Lincoln, Chase resented his failure to offer him the treasury portfolio unconditionally. His feelings were badly hurt. If the president-elect “had thought fit to tender me the Treasury Department with the same considerate respect which was manifested towards Mr. Seward and Mr. Bates I might have felt under a pretty strong obligation to … accept it,” he complained.117 Rhetorically, he asked the New York abolitionist John Jay: “Would you be willing to take charge of a broken-down department, as a member of a cabinet with which you could not be sure of six months agreement, and enslave yourself to the most toilsome drudgery almost without respite for four years, exchanging a position from which you could speak freely to the country during half the year and during the other half retire to books, travel or friends for one you could not speak at all except through a report and where no leisure is to be expected?” But, Chase said, if the offer were repeated, “I shall consider all the wishes so flatteringly if not kindly expressed, and if really satisfied that I ought to take the post I shall. But I do not now see on what grounds I could be so satisfied.”118 Clearly, he was being disingenuous, for behind the scenes he was urging George Opdyke and others to lobby on his behalf for the cabinet post.

  The Case of Caleb B. Smith

  Alarmed by the Seward and Bates appointments, Chase feared that ex-Whigs would dominate the cabinet; he regarded Cameron, though nominally a former Democrat, as a tool of Seward. When rumor suggested that another former Whig, Caleb B. Smith of Indiana, would be appointed, he protested to Lincoln that the Hoosier’s ethics were suspect. The 52-year-old Smith had been president of a Cincinnati railroad company that went bankrupt in 1857; he had also served on the Mexican Claims Commission, whose actions “stunk in the nostrils of the American people.”119 According to Joseph Medill, “Chase regards Smith with aversion on account of his notoriously corrupt conduct as Commissioner on Mexican claims. The Gardiner claim was a sample of the way he did business. His action as President of a Railroad is reported to have been shamefully dishonest.”120

  (The Mexican Claims Commission, established by the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, awarded George A. Gardiner $428,000 for a silver mine he allegedly lost to the Mexicans, even though the claim was transparently fraudulent. After his conviction on a forgery charge, Gardiner committed suicide. Ohio Senator Thomas Corwin, who served as an attorney before the Commission—on which his cousin Robert G. Corwin sat—bought a share of the claim. Smith helped guarantee the $22,500 loan that Corwin used to buy his share, which yielded him a profit of $20,000.)

  Joseph Medill viewed the short, overweight, ingratiating Smith as “a doughface,” a “cipher on the right hand of the Seward integer,” a “fugitive slave law-Southern ‘Constitutional guarantee’ fanatic, and a hater of free principles.”121 Chase’s organ, the Cincinnati Commercial, ridiculed Smith as a “poor businessman” with a “total want of administrative ability” who could not meet the Jeffersonian qualifications of “being honest and capable.”122 Schuyler Colfax warned that “Smith’s Soap Factory, Mexican Claim Commission, and Railroad management at Cincinnati are ugly matters for Lincoln to get over.”123 A leading Indianapolis Republican called Smith a “debauched corrupt politician.”124 Josiah M. Lucas informed Lincoln that word of “the appointment of Smith, has awakened the reminiscences of Galphinism and Gardnerism. You remember that Smith, [former Whig Senator George] Evans of Maine &c, composed that celebrated Board on Mexican indemnities, who passed sundry claims that the country, with general acclaim pronounced against—whilst the skirts of the Board were by many believed to be unclean.”125

  (Heirs of George Galphin, an eighteenth-century Indian trader, claimed that the United States owed them money that had been promised to Galphin. In 1848, Congress appropriated $44,000 to honor the claim. The heirs then insisted that they were owed interest on that amount dating back to the Colonial era—$191,000. The lawyer representing the Galphin heirs, George Crawford, was to receive half of the amount awarded. Crawford, then secretary of war, won the case for his client thanks to opinions written by his fellow cabinet members, Attorney General Reverdy Johnson and Treasury Secretary William Meredith.)

  Some considered Smith intellectually ill-equipped for a cabinet post. Henry Villard, who deplored his “incompetency” and “worse than mediocrity,” reported that the “mental caliber of that choice of the Hoosier politicians seems to be thought altogether inadequate to a creditable performance of the duties of the Secretary of the Interior.” Smith’s “only real qualification,” he sneered, “is a stentorian voice.”126 While conceding that Smith was a superior stump speaker, John D. Defrees predicted he would be “worthless as a Cabinet officer.”127 Smith was also derided as a “fossil.” James C. Veatch, a key delegate to the Chicago Convention who had actively supported Lincoln, told the president-elect that the Buchanan administration “shows most clearly of how little value in times of peril are these old gentlemen of the past generation.”128

  In light of such criticism, Lincoln hesitated to name Smith to the cabinet, but at the same time he felt grateful to Smith for helping him win both the presidential nomination and the election. Shortly after the Chicago Convention, he wrote Smith saying: “I am, indeed, much indebted to Indiana; and, as my home friends tell me, much to you personally.”129 In late January 1861, Lincoln spoke of the recent campaign, “dwelling especially on the eloquence and ability” of Smith, “who had, in his opinion, rendered him more effective service than any other public speaker.”130 David Davis encouraged Lincoln in this belief. “Mr Smith is an able man,” the judge told the president-elect in November. “He has worked harder in the canvass this year than any man in Indiana—No one rendered more efficient service from Indiana, at the Chicago Convention than he did.” Davis, who had promised Indiana a plac
e in the cabinet (and perhaps specified that it would go to Smith), added that “Indiana, as you have assured me, will receive a cabinet appointment from you—but I do not know who you have thought of for the position—… I should really be gratified—if Caleb B. Smith could receive the appointment.”131

  Smith’s principal Indiana competitor was Congressman Schuyler Colfax of South Bend. Although Henry Villard speculated that the president-elect’s “deep grudge against Colfax ever since the latter’s advocacy of Douglas’s claims to reelection in 1858” would prevent the congressman’s elevation to the cabinet, Lincoln denied harboring any such resentment.132 In December, when Indiana Republican leaders called at Springfield to lobby for Smith, they suggested that Colfax “was a man of detail and too inexperienced” and “that his reputation and claims were manufactured by newspaper scribblers.” Lincoln replied that he “could only say that he saw no insuperable objections to Indiana’s having a man [in the cabinet], nor to Smith being that man.”133 Others, including George G. Fogg, were less confident of Colfax’s ability. Maine Governor Israel Washburn objected to his cabinet candidacy, asserting that “it would be most disgraceful for that flunkey & trifler to be in any white man’s company.”134

  The financially strapped Smith eagerly sought the post. One Hoosier, alluding to Smith’s personal problems, asked Lincoln if Smith “can not manage his own affairs,” then “how can he manage Government affairs?”135 The Radical George W. Julian protested against the conservative Smith, arguing that “[n]o man’s record as a business man & financier for the past twenty years & more is so uniformly & consistently bad, & this is too well known to allow his appointment to the post in question to be regarded as even tolerable by the country.”136

  To offset such criticism, Smith skillfully organized a letter-writing campaign which swelled Lincoln’s mail bag. Colfax complained that “Smith has been guilty of the meanness of writing himself into my district and other portions of the North, saying that Lincoln wants to appoint him, but does not wish to offend Northern Indiana which all seems for me; and urging them to get signatures privately to a recommendation for him and send them to Springfield. I could have had thousands all over the state if I had descended to this kind of electioneering.”137 Smith was “moving every appliance possible, promising patronage & electioneering, all of which I will not do,” Colfax observed.138 When Cyrus Allen called on Lincoln to endorse Colfax, the president-elect said that no pro-Colfax delegations had lobbied him and that he therefore supposed Colfax did not enjoy widespread support. In fact, Colfax was unwilling to engage in an all-out lobbying effort, though he did work behind the scenes to win newspaper endorsements. “I don’t believe in any Committee of my friends from Ind[iana] going to Springfield,” he said. “Let Smith’s friends bore Mr. Lincoln that way if they will.” In early January, when he became convinced that Smith had defeated him, Colfax explained the likely outcome: “Smith[’]s persistent electioneering & his friends, with my refusal to pledge offices & follow his example has done it.… Mr Lincoln said last week that with the troubles before us I could not be spared from Congress—that a new & untried man would fill my place [in the House] … & that Smith had nothing, while I was in office.” He added that he felt it would do Colfax “no service” to take him from his House seat to serve in the cabinet.139 (In 1862, Colfax would turn down a cabinet offer because he feared that a Democrat would capture his seat in the House, which almost did happen.)

  Foremost among Smith’s backers were Seward and Weed, aided by David Davis and Leonard Swett. In December and January, Swett reported from Washington that he was doing all he could for Smith. He worked closely with Seward, informing Lincoln that Seward believed that the cabinet should be ideologically homogeneous. Lincoln’s desire to have a heterogeneous cabinet was “all very well for fair-weather times,” but not in a period of crisis like the one they faced. Therefore, he recommended former Whigs like Smith.140 A week later Swett told the president-elect that Colfax was widely regarded as “a clever fellow but a gun of too small bore” and that Smith “is very well spoken of[.]”141 Even his supporters conceded that Colfax “is not a great man.”142 Smith argued that Colfax enjoyed support only in northern Indiana and that Colfax’s backers there regarded Smith as their second choice.

  In addition to Colfax, Smith faced competition from Norman B. Judd, whose candidacy was championed by former Democrats like Lyman Trumbull, Gustave Koerner, Ebenezer Peck, Joseph Medill, and the Blairs. Fierce opposition came from Illinois ex-Whigs like Richard Yates, Leonard Swett, William Kellogg, and David Davis, who could not forgive Judd for his unwillingness to support Lincoln for senator in 1855. Lincoln, ever magnanimous, would have liked to appoint Judd but feared such a move would alienate too many allies. He told Gideon Welles “that he had, personally a stronger desire that Judd should be associated with him in the administration than any one else but he was from Illinois.”143 He acknowledged that although “he never had a truer friend” than Judd and “there was no one in whom he placed greater confidence,” still the appointment of a fellow Illinoisan would embarrass him.144 He had only seven cabinet positions to fill and wished to use them to strengthen the Republican Party in key states like Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York, as well as important regions like the South and New England; Illinois did not need a representative in the cabinet, for it already had one in the White House. Lincoln told a delegation of Judd’s supporters “that if his occupancy of the office of President could not command the undivided loyalty of Illinois, a dozen Cabinet officers could not do it, adding that he had never doubted the loyalty of his own State, and that it was the border States which were the objects of his greatest solicitude.”145 The battle over Judd, which raged throughout January, greatly distressed Lincoln, who doubtless recalled the howl of protest raised when Buchanan named an attorney general (Jeremiah Black) from his own state of Pennsylvania.

  Lincoln reluctantly passed over Judd, who in disgust told a friend that he would wash his hands “of politics and politicians. It requires more philosophy than I have got to do the drudgery and take only the kick and cuffs.”146 Leonard Swett informed Ward Hill Lamon that he could tell Caleb Smith “that it was through the Illinois fight and judge Davis that Judd went out and he went in.”147 As a consolation prize, Lincoln offered Judd the lucrative post of minister to Prussia, which he accepted.

  The Case of Gideon Welles

  Lincoln delegated to Hannibal Hamlin the choice of a New Englander for the cabinet. Two days after the election, the president-elect invited his running mate to confer with him in Chicago, where in late November they discussed cabinet matters at some length. After asking the vice-president-elect to negotiate with Seward, Lincoln mentioned some possible nominees for the Navy Department portfolio, including Charles Francis Adams and Nathaniel P. Banks of Massachusetts, Gideon Welles of Connecticut, and Amos Tuck of New Hampshire.

  As Hamlin proceeded to carry out his assignments, Lincoln met with Thurlow Weed on December 20 and expressed partiality for Welles, a former Democrat who edited the Hartford Evening Press. Weed ridiculed the bearded, bewigged leader of the Connecticut Republicans, facetiously suggesting that Lincoln could, while traveling to Washington for his inauguration, stop at an eastern seaport, buy a ship’s figurehead, “to be adorned with an elaborate wig and luxuriant whiskers, and transfer it from the prow of a ship to entrance of the Navy Department.” It would, Weed jibed, “be quite as serviceable” as Welles and cheaper.

  “Oh,” replied Lincoln, “ ‘wooden midshipmen’ answer very well in novels, but we must have a live secretary of the navy.”148

  The president-elect complained that Weed had been “very intrusive and importunate on this subject,” being “strongly opposed” to the entry into the cabinet of Welles or any other former Democrat, with the exception of Cameron. In addition to disliking Welles’s Democratic antecedents, Weed resented him for having opposed Seward at the Chicago Convention. But Weed’s pressure backfired, only strengthe
ning Lincoln’s inclination to appoint Welles.

  (Before leaving Albany for Springfield, Weed allegedly told a Lincoln supporter: “Had Seward been nominated and elected it was my intention to have taken a foreign mission and gone abroad to avoid the charge that I would unduly influence Seward. But you beat him. You nominated a man whom you supposed was beyond my influence or control. Now G-d damn you I am going to show you who will influence Lincoln, who will go in his cabinet, who will shape his policy, who will control his patronage. If any of you can wield more influence over your man Lincoln than me, please to send me word when it is done, and I’ll send you a receipt.”)149

  On Christmas Eve, Lincoln instructed Hamlin to recommend “a man of Democratic antecedents from New England.” The president-elect explained that he could not “get a fair share” of the Democratic element in the cabinet without appointing a Democrat from that region. “This,” said Lincoln, “stands in the way of Mr. Adams.” (Adams, happy to continue serving in Congress, had no desire for a cabinet post.) He suggested Banks, Welles, or Tuck and asked which of them the New England congressional delegation preferred. “Or shall I decide for myself ?”150 (From the day after the election he had intended to appoint Welles but wished to give Hamlin a chance to voice his opinion.) By this time, Lincoln had decided on two former Whigs (Seward and Bates), and was leaning toward one more (Smith) and three ex-Democrats (Chase, Montgomery Blair, and Cameron). If he picked one more former Democrat, at cabinet meetings the number of ex-Whigs (including himself) would equal that of ex-Democrats. Therefore Adams, a former Whig, was out of the picture, despite Weed and Seward’s entreaties. Amos Tuck, who was glad to receive the well-remunerated post of naval officer of the port of Boston, modestly recommended Welles as the best choice for New England.