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to them that they should go to Jefferson Davis and see for themselves. The Chairman of the Republican organisation ultimately approached Lincoln on this matter at the request of a strong committee; but he was a sensible man whom Lincoln at once converted by drafting the precise message that would have to be sent to the Confederate President. On two earlier occasions such labourers for peace were allowed to go across the lines and talk with Davis; it could be trusted to their honour to pretend to no authority; they had interesting talks with the great enemy, and made religious appeals to him or entertained him with wild proposals for a joint war on France over Mexico. They returned, converted also. But in July Horace Greeley, the great editor, who was too opinionated to be quite honest, was somehow convinced that Southern agents at Niagara, who had really come to hold intercourse with the disloyal group among the Democrats, were "two ambassadors " from the Confederacy seeking an audience of Lincoln. He wrote to Lincoln, begging him to receive them. Lincoln caused Greeley to go to Niagara and see the supposed ambassadors himself. He gave him written authority to bring to him any person with proper credentials, provided, as he made plain in terms that perhaps were blunt, that the basis of any negotiation should include the recognition. of the Union and the abolition of slavery. The persons whom Greeley saw had no authority to treat about any thing. Greeley in his irritation now urged Lincoln to convey to Jefferson Davis through these mysterious men. his readiness to receive them if they were accredited. In other words, the North was to begin suing for peace-a thing clearly unwise, which Lincoln refused. Greeley now involved Lincoln in a tangled controversy to which he gave such a turn that, unless Lincoln would publish the most passionately pacific of Greeley's letters, to the great discouragement of the public with whom Greeley counted, he must himself keep silent on what had passed. He elected to keep silent while Greeley in his paper criticised him as the person responsible for the continu

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ance of senseless bloodshed. This was publicly harmful; and, as for its private bearing, the reputation of obstinate blood-thirstiness was certain to be painful to Lincoln.

The history of Lincoln's Cabinet has a bearing upon what is to follow. He ruled his Ministers with undisputed authority, talked with them collectively upon the easiest terms, spoke to them as a headmaster to his school when they caballed against one another, kept them in some sort of unison in a manner which astonished all who knew them. Cameron had had to retire early; so did the little-known Caleb Smith, who was succeeded in his unimportant office as Secretary of the Interior by a Mr. Usher, who seems to have been well chosen. Bates, the Attorney-General, retired, weary of his work, towards the end of 1864, and Lincoln had the keen pleasure of appointing James Speed, the brother of that unforgotten and greatly honoured friend whom he honoured the more for his contentedness with private station. James Speed himself was in Lincoln's opinion "an honest man and a gentleman, and one of those well-poised men, not too common here, who are not spoiled by a big office."

Blair might be regarded as a delightful, or equally as an intolerable man. He attacked all manner of people causelessly and violently, and earned implacable dislike from the Radicals in his party. Then he frankly asked Lincoln to dismiss him whenever it was convenient. There came a time when Lincoln's re-election was in great peril, and he might, it was urged, have made it sure by dismissing Blair. It is significant that Lincoln then refused to promote his own cause by seeming to sacrifice Blair, but later on, when his own election was fairly certain, but a greater degree of unity in the Republican party was to be gained, did ask Blair to go; (Blair's quarrels, it should be added, had become more and more outrageous). So he went and immediately flung himself with enthusiasm. into the advocacy of Lincoln's cause. All the men who left Lincoln remained his friends, except one who will: shortly concern us. Of Lincoln's more important ministers Welles did his work for the Navy industriously but

unnoted. Stanton, on the other hand, and Lincoln's rela tions with Stanton are the subjects of many pages of lit erature. These two curious and seemingly incompatible men hit upon extraordinary methods of working together. It can be seen that Lincoln's chief care in dealing with his subordinates was to give support and to give free play to any man whose heart was in his work. In countless small matters he would let Stanton disobey him and flout him openly. ("Did Stanton tell you I was a damned fool? Then I expect I must be one, for he is almost always right and generally says what he means.") But every now and then, when he cared much about his own wish, he would step in and crush Stanton flat. Crowds of applicants to Lincoln with requests of a kind that must be granted sparingly were passed on to Stanton, pleased with the President, or mystified by his sadly observing that he had not much influence with this Administration but hoped to have more with the next. Stanton always refused them. He enjoyed doing it. Yet it seems a low trick to have thus indulged his taste for unpopularity, till one discovers that, when Stanton might have been blamed seriously and unfairly, Lincoln was very careful to shoulder the blame himself. The gist of their mutual dealings was that the hated Stanton received a thinly disguised, but quite unfailing support, and that hated or applauded, ill or well, wrong in this detail and right in that, he abode in his department and drove, and drove, and drove, and worshipped Lincoln. To Seward, who played first and last a notable part in history, and who all this time conducted foreign affairs under Lincoln without any mishap in the end, one tribute is due. When he had not a master it is said that his abilities were made useless by his egotism; yet it can be seen that, with his especial cause to be jealous of Lincoln, he could not even conceive how men let private jealousy divide them in the performance of duty.

It was otherwise with the ablest man in the Cabinet. Salmon P. Chase must really have been a good man in the days before he fell in love with his own goodness.

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Lincoln and the country had confidence in his manage-
ment of the Treasury, and Lincoln thought more highly
of his general ability than of that of any other man about
him. He, for his part, distrusted and despised Lincoln.
Those who read Lincoln's important letters and speeches Ch
see in him at once a great gentleman; there were but
few among the really well-educated men of America who
made much of his lacking some of the minor points of
gentility to which most of them were born; but of these
few Chase betrayed himself as one. At the beginning of
1864 Chase was putting it about that he had himself no
wish to be President, but-; that of course he was loyal
to Mr. Lincoln, but-; and so forth. He had, as indeed
he deserved, admirers who wished he should be Presi-
dent, and early in the year some of them expressed this
wish in a manifesto. Chase wrote to Lincoln that this
was not his own doing; Lincoln replied that he himself
knew as little of these things "as my friends will allow
me to know." To those who spoke to him of Chase's
intrigues he only said that Chase would in some ways
make a very good President, and he hoped they would
never have a worse President than he. The movement in
favour of Chase collapsed very soon, and it evidently
had no effect on Lincoln. Chase, however, was begin-
ning to foster grievances of his own against Lincoln.
These related always to appointments in the service of
the Treasury. He professed a horror of party influences
in appointments, and imputed corrupt motives to Lincoln
in such matters. He shared the sound ideas of the later
civil service reformers, though he was far too easily man-
aged by a low class of flatterers to have been of the
least use in carrying them out. Lincoln would certainly
not at that crisis have permitted strife over civil service
reform, but some of his admirers have probably gone
too far in claiming him as a sturdy supporter of the old
school who would despise the reforming idea. Letters
of his much earlier betray his doubts as to the old sys-
tem, and he was exactly the man who in quieter times.
could have improved matters with the least possible fuss.

However that may be, all the tiresome circumstances of Chase's differences with him are well known, and in these instances Lincoln was clearly in the right, and Chase quarrelled only because he could not force upon him appointments that would have created fury. Once Chase was overruled and wrote his resignation. Lincoln went to him with the resignation in his hand, treated him with simple affection for a man whom he still liked, and made him take it back. Later on Chase got his own way on the whole, but was angry and sent another resignation. Some one heard of it and came to Lincoln to say that the loss of Chase would cause a financial panic. Lincoln's answer was to this effect: "Chase thinks he has become indispensable to the country; that his intimate friends know it, and he cannot comprehend why the country does not understand it. He also thinks he ought to be Presi dent; has no doubt whatever about that. It is inconceiv able to him why people do not rise as one man and say so. He is a great statesman, and at the bottom a patriot. Ordinarily he discharges the duties of a public office with greater ability than any man I know. Mind, I say ' ordinarily,' but he has become irritable, uncomfortable, so that he is never perfectly happy unless he is thoroughly miserable and able to make everybody else just as uncomfortable as he is himself. He is either determined to annoy me, or that I shall pat him on the shoulder and coax him to stay. I don't think I ought to do it. I will not do it. I will take him at his word." So he did. This was at the end of June, 1864, when Lincoln's apprehensions about his own re-election were keen, and the resignation of Chase, along with the retention of Blair, seemed likely to provoke anger which was very dangerous to himself. An excellent successor to the indispensable man was soon found. Chase found more satisfaction than ever in insidious opposition to Lincoln. Lincoln's opportunity of requiting him was not yet.

The question of the Presidency loomed large from the beginning of the year to the election in November. At first, while the affairs of war seemed to be in good train,

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