coln arrived in Washington; namely, Mr. Seward of New York and Mr. Bates of Missouri had positively accepted definite places in the Cabinet. Mr. Chase of Ohio and Mr. Smith of Indiana had been virtually chosen, but were yet held under advisement; a tender had been made to Mr. Cameron of Pennsylvania, and recalled but not declined; and distinctively Southern men, like Gilmer of North Carolina and Scott of Virginia, had not the courage to accept. In addition to these, Mr. Lincoln had

SIMON CAMERON, SECRETARY OF WAR. (FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY BRADY.)

by this time practically settled in his own judg. ment upon Hon. Gideon Welles of Connecticut as the New England member, though no interview had been held nor tender made. But as early as the meeting (November 22d) between the President and Vice-President elect at Chicago, this name had been the subject of special consultation; and a friend had obtained from Mr. Welles the latter's written views upon current political questions, especially the fugitive-slave clause of the Constitution. A great number of letters and formal recommendations since received had but confirmed Mr. Lincoln's first impressions as to his fitness, availability, and representative char

acter.

Washington was thronged with politicians, called there by the proceedings of Congress; by the Peace Convention, just closing; by the secession excitement; and especially by the advent of a new and yet untried party in administration. Willard's, then the principal hotel, was never in its history more busy nor more

brilliant. Here Mr. Lincoln and his suite had spacious and accessible rooms, and here during the six or eight working-days which intervened between his arrival and the inauguration was the great political exchange, where politicians, editors, committee-men, delegations, Congressmen, governors, and senators congregated, and besieged the doors of the coming power from morning till midnight.

Mr. Lincoln had a sincere respect for great names in politics and statesmanship, the more so because his own life had in the main been provincial. Nevertheless, he quickly noted that here at the center, as well as in lesser and more distant circles, there was present harmony in the chief party tenets, but that great diversity and cross-purpose, even serious antagonism, as to men and measures in detail were likely to arise in the future; that the powerful cross-lights of the capital only intensified the factional contests, local jealousies, or the national difficulties and dangers he had already viewed more remotely but quite as accurately from Springfield; that the wisdom of trained actors in the political drama was as much beclouded by interest or prejudice as was his own by inexperience and diffidence.

After a week's patient listening he found his well-formed judgment about the composition of his Cabinet unshaken. He had by this time finally determined to place Cameron in the War Department, and Chase was understood to have accepted the Treasury. Hence the East and the West, the great "pivotal States," the Whig and Democratic elements of the Republican party, each by three members were all believed to be fairly and acceptably represented. The slave States too, through Mr. Bates of Missouri, had a voice in the new council; but the charge of sectionalism had been so persistently iterated by the South, that it was thought best to give the single remaining place to Maryland, even then balancing between loyalty and open secession; and the final controversy was whether that choice should fall upon Montgomery Blair, a Democrat, and member of a historic and influential family, or upon Henry Winter Davis, a young Whig of rising fame.

Something of the obstinacy and bitterness of the entire contest was infused into this last struggle over a really minor place. This was partly because so little remained to quarrel about, but mainly because it was supposed to be the casting vote of the new Cabinet, which should decide the dominancy of the Whig Republicans or Democratic Republicans in Mr. Lincoln's administration. In the momentary heat and excitement this phase of the matter expanded beyond any original design, until Mr. Lincoln began to realize that it was

CALEB B. SMITH, SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR. (FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY BRADY.)

It is dated, for form's sake, at the Executive Mansion, though it was written and copied at Willard's:

EXECUTIVE MANSION, March 4th, 1861. MY DEAR SIR: Your note of the 2d instant, asking to withdraw your acceptance of my invitation to take charge of the State Department, was duly received. It is the subject of the most painful solicitude with me; and I feel constrained to beg that you will countermand the withdrawal. The public interest, I think, demands that you should; and my personal feelings are deeply

enlisted in the same direction. Please consider and answer by 9 o'clock A. M. to-morrow.

Your obedient servant,

to that body the names of his proposed Cabinet, as follows:

For Secretary of State, William H. Seward of New York.

For Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon P. Chase of Ohio.

For Secretary of War, Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania.

For Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles of Connecticut.

For Secretary of the Interior, Caleb B. Smith of Indiana.

For Attorney-General,

Bates of Missouri.

Edward

For Postmaster-General, Montgomery Blair of Maryland.

The Senate confirmed all these nominations without delay; and on the day after, March 6th, most of the appointees were formally inducted into office. That evening occurred the first Cabinet meeting, being, however, merely for mutual introduction and acquaintance; and the new President greeted his Cabinet at the Executive Mansion in composition and membership substantially as he had planned and arranged it, on the night of the November election, in the little telegraph office at Springfield.

Carping critics might indeed at the moment have specified defects, incongruities, jealousies, and seeds of possible discord and disaster in the new Cabinet, but we can now understand that they neither comprehended the man who was to dominate and govern it, nor the storms of State which, as captain and crew, he and they were to encounter and outride. He needed advisers, helpers, executive eyes and hands, not alone in department routine, but in the higher qualities of leadership and influence; above all, his principal motive seems to have been representative character, varied talent,in a word, combination. Statesmanship implies success; success demands coöperation, popular sympathy and support. He wished to combine the experience of Seward, the integrity of Chase, the popularity of Cameron ; to hold the West with Bates, attract New England with Welles; please the Whigs through Smith, and convince the Democrats through Blair. Mr. Lincoln possessed a quick intuition of human nature and of the strength or weakness of individual character. His whole life

had been a practical study of the details and rivalries of local partisanship. He was, moreover, endowed in yet unsuspected measure with a comprehensive grasp of great causes and results in national politics. He had noted and heralded the alarming portent of the slavery struggle. With more precision than any

contemporary, he had defined the depth and breadth of the moral issues and rights it in volved; he had led the preliminary victory at the November polls. Now that the hydra of secession was raising a threatening head in every cotton-State, his simple logic rose above minor considerations to the peril and the protection of the nation, to the assault on and the defense of the Constitution. He saw but the ominous cloud of civil war in front, and the patriotic faith and enthusiasm of the people behind him. The slogan of a Seward committee, a Chase delegation, or a Cameron clan was but the symbol and promise of a Wide-Awake club to vote for freedom, or of an armed regiment on the battle-field to maintain it. Neither did any one yet suspect his delicate tact in management, strength of will, or firmness of purpose. In weaker hands such a Cabinet would have been a hot-bed of strife; under him it became a tower of strength. He made these selections because he wanted a council of distinctive and diverse, yet able, influential, and representative men, who should be a harmonious group of constitutional advisers and executive lieutenants,-not a confederated board of regents holding the great seal in commission and intriguing for the succession.

the military status was for the time being lost sight of beyond the immediate neighborhood of Charleston. Since the reorganization of Buchanan's cabinet on December 31st, and

THE QUESTION OF SUMTER.

In his letter of January 4th, General Scott had promised Mr. Lincoln that from time to time he would keep him informed of the situation of military affairs. This promise the General failed to keep; probably not through any intentional neglect, but more likely because in the first place Buchanan's policy of delay, indecision, and informal negotiation with the conspirators left everything in uncertainty; and, secondly, because the attention of the Administration (and measurably of the whole country) was turned to the vague hope of compromise, especially through the labors of the Peace Convention. The rebels, on their part, were absorbed in the formation of the provisional government at Montgomery; Lincoln was making his memorable journey from Springfield to Washington by way of the chief cities of the North; the Fort Pickens truce was practically kept a secret; and thus

(FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY BRADY.)

the expulsion or defection of traitors from the departments and from Congress, the whole North had breathed somewhat easier. The firing on the Star of the West had indeed created a storm of indignation; but this, too, quickly subsided, and by a sort of common consent all parties and sections looked to the incoming Administration as the only power which could solve the national crisis.

The key-note of such a solution was given in the inaugural of the new President. This announced a decided, though not a violent, change of policy. Buchanan's course had been one professedly of conciliation, but practically of ruinous concession. By argument he had almost justified the insurrection; he had acknowledged the doctrine of non-coercion ; he had abdicated the rightful authority and power of the Executive; he had parleyed and stipulated with treason; he had withheld reënforcements. Lincoln, receiving from his hands the precious trust of the Government,- not in its original integrity, but humbled, impaired, diminished, and threatened,-announced his purpose of conciliation and not concession,

but conservation and restoration. "The policy chosen," said he, "looked to the exhaustion of all peaceful measures before a resort to any stronger ones. It sought only to hold the public places and property not already wrested from the Government, and to collect the revenue, relying for the rest on time, discussion, and the ballot-box. It promised a continuance of the mails at Government expense to the very people who were resisting the Government, and it gave repeated pledges against any disturbance to any of the people or any of their rights. Of all that which a President might constitutionally and justifiably do in such a case, everything was forborne without which it was believed possible to keep the Government on foot."*

This pacific purpose was now, however, destined to receive a rude shock. When on the morning of the 5th of March Lincoln went to his office and council chamber in the Executive Mansion, he found a letter from Mr. Holt, still acting as Secretary of War, giving him news of vital importance received on the morning of the inauguration,- namely, that Fort Sumter must, in the lapse of a few weeks at most, be strongly reënforced or summarily abandoned. Major Anderson had in the previous week made an examination of his provisions. There was bread for twenty-eight days; pork for a somewhat longer time; beans, rice, coffee, and sugar for different periods from eight to forty days. He had at the same time consulted his officers on the prospects and possibilities of relief and reënforcement. They unanimously reported that before Sumter could be permanently or effectively succored a combined land and naval force must attack and carry the besieging forts and batteries, and hold the secession militia at bay, and that such an undertaking would at once concentrate at Charleston all the volunteers, not alone of South Carolina, but of the adjacent States as well. "I confess," wrote Anderson, transmitting the reports and estimates of his nine officers, "that I would not be willing to risk my reputation on an attempt to throw reënforcements into this harbor within the time for our relief rendered necessary by the limited supply of our provisions, and with a view of holding possession of the same with a force of less than twenty thousand good and well-disciplined men." Mr. Holt, quoting from previous instructions to and reports from the major, added that this declaration "takes the De

Lincoln, Message to Congress, July 4th, 1861. Anderson to Cooper, Feb. 28th, 1861. MS. Partly printed in War Records.

partment by surprise, as his previous correspondence contained no such intimation."

Retrospective criticism as to why or how such a state of things had been permitted to grow up was, of course, useless. Here was a most portentous complication, not of Lincoln's own creating, but which he must nevertheless meet and overcome. He had counted on the

MONTGOMERY BLAIR, POSTMASTER-GENERAL. (FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY BRADY.)

soothing aid of time: time, on the contrary, was in this emergency working in the interest of rebellion. General Scott was at once called into council, but his sagacity and experience could afford neither suggestion nor encouragement. That same night he returned the papers to the President with a somewhat lengthy indorsement reciting the several events which led to, and his own personal efforts to avert, this contingency, but ending with the gloomy conclusion, "Evacuation seems almost inevitable, and in this view our distinguished Chief Engineer (Brigadier Totten) concurs - if indeed the worn-out garrison be not assaulted and carried in the present week."

This was a disheartening, almost a disastrous, beginning for the Administration. The Cabinet had only that same day been appointed and confirmed. The presidential advisers had not yet taken their posts-all had not even signified their acceptance. There was an impatient multitude clamoring for audience, and behind these swarmed a hungry army of officeseekers. Everything was urgency and confu