Lincoln Part 48

Inevitably these political maneuvers affected Lincoln's program for reconstructing the Southern states. Always alert to what they perceived as a threat of Caesarism, Democrats immediately saw political implications in the 10 percent plan. "By setting up ... state governments, representing one-tenth of the voters, in Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, and North Carolina," the New York World noted, Lincoln could "control as many electoral votes as may be needed to turn the scale" in the next presidential election, and it reminded its readers that if the President was successful "one voter in Arkansas will exert as much political power as ten citizens of New York." Governor Horatio Seymour pointed out that under Lincoln's plan 70,000 men in the reconstructed Southern states could cast as many electoral votes as the 16,000,000 residents of New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Ma.s.sachusetts, Missouri, Kentucky, and Wisconsin.

But Republicans, in the general applause that immediately followed Lincoln's proclamation of amnesty, initially paid little attention to the political implications of his message. The House of Representatives promptly created a special committee on reconstruction to devise legislation to carry out the President's plan. Though it was chaired by Henry Winter Davis, a critic of the administration, the committee throughout January and February concentrated on a bill introduced by James M. Ashley that largely followed the President's ideas but also provided for Negro suffrage.

But then Republican congressmen began receiving reports on the political activities of the President's agents in the Southern states that were under the control of the Union army. In Tennessee, Andrew Johnson, who had been serving as military governor since 1862, seemed less interested in building broad-based Unionist sentiment than in constructing his own political faction pledged to the reelection of Lincoln. In Arkansas the President entrusted reconstruction to General Frederick Steele, whom he advised to cooperate with an irregularly convened const.i.tutional convention in which it was doubtful whether a single delegate had authority to represent a county. Lincoln was aware that there were doubts about the legitimacy of this Arkansas regime, but he instructed Steele not to worry over legal niceties; if the provisional government abolished slavery, the general could "fix the rest." In Florida, learning that "some worthy gentlemen" wanted to restore a loyal government, the President sent his private secretary, John Hay, with blank books to record the oaths of those who swore allegiance. The effort was not successful, for the military force supporting the scheme was defeated at Ol.u.s.tee on February 20, and Hay was unable to gather the 1,400 signatures required to make up 10 percent of the state's 1860 voters. To Lincoln's critics these moves suggested that the Chief Executive was trying to use the military to set up governments that would support his own reelection.

Louisiana provided the real test both of presidential intentions and of congressional perceptions. It was more important, both strategically and diplomatically, than any other Southern state yet conquered by the Union armies. Situated at the mouth of the Mississippi River, it offered the best launching pad for Union military expeditions against Texas and other regions under the control of Confederate General Edmund Kirby-Smith, and it could also be a base for operations against Mobile. With its French and Spanish traditions, Louisiana was better known to Europeans than any other Southern state, and New Orleans, the largest city in the seceded states, was a major port. If Louisiana could be made a showcase of reconstruction, Europeans would receive an inescapable signal of the inevitable collapse of the Confederacy.

Ever since Farragut captured New Orleans in April 1862, Lincoln had been hoping for the reorganization of Louisiana as a loyal state and its readmission to the Union. Initially he hoped that Louisiana Unionists, who claimed to be in a majority, would rea.s.sert themselves, disavow the ordinance of secession, and return to the Union, but he found them reluctant to take the initiative. They wanted, he said, "to touch neither a sail nor a pump, but to be merely pa.s.sengers,-dead-heads at that-to be carried snug and dry, throughout the storm, and safely landed right side up." Consequently neither Benjamin F. Butler, the Union military commander, nor George F. Shepley, whom the President named military governor of the state, was able to make much progress in persuading Louisianians to return to their old allegiance. But the President continued to push for the organization of a loyal government. Pressing Butler and Shepley to register voters and hold local elections, he insisted on prompt action. "Do not waste a day about it,"' he directed. "Follow forms of law as far as convenient, but at all events get the expression of the largest number of the people possible." He cautioned that these elections must represent the real residents of Louisiana, not the Union soldiers nor the Northern carpetbaggers in the state. "To send a parcel of Northern men here, as representatives, elected as would be understood, (and perhaps really so,) at the point of the bayonet," he informed Shepley, "would be disgusting and outrageous." But the results were meager. In December 1862, Butler staged elections in the two congressional districts under federal military control, and Benjamin F. Flanders and Michael Hahn, both of New Orleans, were sent to Was.h.i.+ngton. Neither represented any sizable const.i.tuency. After long debates over their credentials, they were given seats in the House of Representatives just as the term expired.

The President hoped for better things from Nathaniel P. Banks, who replaced Butler at the end of 1862, but he gave the general a larger task. Since his Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation had applied only to the areas still in rebel hands, it had left slavery intact in the most prosperous and populous region of the state around New Orleans. Now, convinced that the war was soon coming to an end, Lincoln was troubled that Louisiana might apply for readmission as a slave state. To prevent that course, he desired Banks to sponsor the creation of a free-state government that would end slavery throughout Louisiana. To sugarcoat the pill, he declared that he was willing to accept "some practical system by which the two races could gradually live themselves out of their old relation to each other, and both come out better prepared for the new." But Lincoln did not think he had authority to require the elimination of slavery throughout the state. "While I very well know what I would be glad for Louisiana to do," he wrote Banks, "it is quite a different thing for me to a.s.sume direction of the matter."

During the first half of 1863 little progress was made in setting up a loyal government in Louisiana, because Banks was preoccupied first with his campaign against Port Hudson on the Mississippi River and then with a planned expedition against Confederate Texas. In August, Lincoln gave him a strong nudge, urging him to confer with "intelligent and trusty citizens of the State" like Hahn and Flanders and endorsing a plan for Louisiana Attorney General Thomas J. Durant to register eligible voters in preparation for a state const.i.tutional convention.

Four months later the President found to his dismay that nothing had been done. Bitterly disappointed, he told Banks to get on with the job-only to learn that the general claimed that he did not know he was responsible for reorganizing a state government in Louisiana and that, besides, whatever moves he had made in that direction had been frustrated by Shepley and Durant. Firmly Lincoln reminded Banks that he was the supreme authority in his military district. "I now tell you that in every dispute, with whomsoever, you are master," he wrote, and, to make the point emphatic, he repeated the word "master" three more times in the same letter.

Before he received the President's letter, Banks had already begun work to establish a free-state government in Louisiana. "It can be effected now in sixty days,-let me say even in thirty days, if necessary-with less public excitement than would attend the ennactment [sic] of a 'dog Law' in one of the eastern States," he promised Lincoln, with his usual overoptimism. In his newfound zeal, Banks decided to take a shortcut. Instead of calling a convention to draw up a new const.i.tution for the state, he decided that "the only speedy and certain method" of accomplis.h.i.+ng the President's objective was to hold elections under the antebellum Louisiana const.i.tution, merely declaring that all provisions in that doc.u.ment relating to slavery were "inoperative and void."

This was not the procedure Lincoln had suggested, nor was it the process favored by Thomas J. Durant and other members of the Free-State General Committee. In their view the entire state const.i.tution needed revision, not merely to eradicate slavery but also to eliminate inequities in representation that had favored the planter cla.s.s. They pointed out that, under Banks's proposal, voters would only be required to swear to accept the Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation, which left the inst.i.tution of slavery intact in much of Louisiana. In that event, they warned, "There is nothing to prevent the continuance of this as a Slave State if the pro-slavery party get control." But Banks justified his course to the President as one "far more acceptable to the Citizens of Louisiana" than submitting the question of slavery to an election, since "their self respect, their Amour propre will be appeased if they are not required to vote for or against it."

Lincoln approved Banks's decision and urged him to go right ahead with the election of seven state officers planned for February 22. Durant, Flanders, and others in the Free-State General Committee were unhappy with Banks's action, but their objections carried little weight with him since Durant, their princ.i.p.al spokesmen, had originally been a very conservative Unionist, who once complained that the presence of Union troops in Louisiana disrupted the relations.h.i.+p between masters and slaves. The President failed to see an enormous difference between Banks's program of holding state elections before holding a const.i.tutional convention and the Free-State Committee's plan for choosing a const.i.tutional convention before holding state elections. Besides, Lincoln was always loyal to his subordinates when they were attempting, however awkwardly, to carry out his wishes, and he could hardly disavow Banks's actions after having repeatedly urged him to move.

Lincoln watched with some satisfaction as the election came off smoothly enough on February 22, with the partic.i.p.ation of about 11,000 voters who had sworn to support the Union and, the presidential proclamations concerning slavery. Hahn, Banks's candidate, was chosen governor over both Flanders, the candidate of the Free-State Union men, and J. Q. A. Fellows, a Conservative. Jubilantly the general reported to the President: "The change that has occurred in this state since Jan: 1863 is without paralell [sic], in history," and he promised that Louisiana would now become "one of the most loyal and prosperous states, that the world has ever seen."

Lincoln probably discounted Banks's enthusiasm, but he was encouraged by these developments. He thought the setting up of a free-state government in Louisiana, to be followed shortly by a const.i.tutional convention, marked an important step in the restoration of that state to the Union-but only an initial step. He was not entirely happy about the victory of the more conservative wing of the free-state movement, and he was sensitive both to the demands of justice for the newly freed blacks and to the pressures from their abolitionist allies in the North. Even while congratulating Michael Hahn "as the first-free-state Governor of Louisiana," he asked "whether some of the colored people ...-as, for instance, the very intelligent, and especially those who have fought gallantly in our ranks" should be permitted to vote. That would help "to keep the jewel of liberty within the family of freedom." But, hesitating to overstep his const.i.tutional powers, he offered this advice "only [as] a suggestion."

Many Republican congressmen looked on developments in Louisiana with suspicion. Antislavery men already distrusted Banks because he had set up a labor system in Louisiana that allowed plantation owners to employ former slaves as sharecroppers who would receive one-fourteenth of the crops produced. With restrictions on the movement of freedmen, the system seemed to many Northern observers only a slight improvement over slavery. Republican congressmen heard regularly from disaffected Free-State Union leaders about Banks's plans for reorganizing the state government, and Durant warned them that the general adhered to "the absurd and despotic doctrine that 'the fundamental law of the State is martial law,' i.e. the caprice of a military officer." Sensitive to the interests of the more Radical Republicans in Congress, Free-State General Committee leaders raised the issue of Negro suffrage as a weapon in their war against Banks. Unaware of Lincoln's private interest in this matter, they publicly proposed enfranchising the "free men of color" of Louisiana-i.e., those blacks and mulattoes who had been free before the war, but not the general population of freedmen-while Banks believed this question could wait until other, more pressing issues were resolved.

Inescapably, Northern Republicans came to recognize the political implications of the reconstruction efforts Lincoln was promoting in the South. Once these states were reorganized and recognized, they would be eligible to send delegates to the Republican National Convention and to cast their electoral votes in the next presidential election. The factional lines among Unionists in the Southern states were not always clear, but in general those who favored a reorganization under the presidential plan were likely to be Lincoln supporters. In Louisiana, for instance, one conservative rejoiced in the election of Michael Hahn as "a triumph over Mr. Chase and all his faction," which would send "our worthy President" the message that the people of Louisiana were "willing that the State should be free, but they cannot stand Radicalism."

Consequently those Republicans in Congress opposed to Lincoln's renomination took the lead in attacking the governments set up under the President's plan of reconstruction as a way of blocking the renomination of Lincoln. Angered by the President's failure to support him in his fierce battle against the Blair faction in Maryland politics, Henry Winter Davis by late January concluded that "Lincoln is thoroughly Blairized" and publicly showed his animosity by proposing a resolution in the House: "There is no legal authority to hold any election in the State of Louisiana;... [and] any attempt to hold an election ... is a usurpation of sovereign authority against the authority of the United States." On February 15 he introduced a measure in the House designed to replace Ashley's bill, which had generally followed the President's plan of reconstruction; Davis proposed giving a major role in the process of reconstruction to the Congress, not the President. A little later he denounced the President's efforts to organize a "hermaphrodite government, half military, half republican, representing the alligators and the frogs of Louisiana." The timing of Davis's outburst was significant; it occurred just four days before the publication of the Pomeroy Circular, urging Chase's candidacy for the presidency. Accurately concluding that the Maryland representative "was now an active friend of the Secretary of the Treasury," Lincoln saw clearly that the fate of his reconstruction plan depended on the outcome of the race for the presidential nomination.

IV

In turn, that contest would depend on the success of the Union armies, and in the winter of 18631864 the outlook for the Lincoln administration was bad. In the East, ever since Gettysburg the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia seemed to be doing a slow dance. In the West, after the brilliant victories at Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, the Union armies remained largely idle for the next six months. At the same time, the strength of the armies was dwindling through death and desertions, and there were virtually no new volunteers. On February 1, Lincoln felt obliged to order a draft of 500,000 more men, and on March 14 he directed the conscription of 200,000 more.

In these grim months a streak of ruthless determination, not hitherto noticeable, began to appear in Lincoln's character. It was not manifested toward the private soldiers in the army, for he was even more considerate than usual of what he called his "leg cases"-men who, he said, could not help running away because G.o.d had given them a cowardly pair of legs. But in other actions he betrayed his sense that the war had gone on too long, with too much loss of blood and treasure, and that it was time to force it to a close. His impatience was in evidence as early as September, when he threatened to jail and exile judges who used the writ of habeas corpus to interfere with the draft. Only with difficulty did Chase and other cabinet members persuade him simply to announce the suspension of the writ throughout the country.

Outraged when the Confederacy threatened to shoot captured Negro soldiers, Lincoln issued an order of retaliation. "For every soldier of the United States killed in violation of the laws of war," it read, "a rebel soldier shall be executed; and for every one enslaved by the enemy..., a rebel soldier shall be placed at hard labor on the public works." It was an order that pleased many Northerners, horrified by reports of Confederate brutalities toward Union prisoners. For instance, the widow of Horace Mann urged the government to "cull out from our prisoners of war the most valuable officers... and shoot or hang them," and she reported that Ralph Waldo Emerson shared her views. But Lincoln's order remained an empty threat, even as he continued to fume over mistreatment of Northern prisoners. In time, he came to reject retaliation because, he wrote Stanton, "blood can not restore blood, and government should not act for revenge."

Out of this frustration, and out of his growing sense that something had to be done to break the military stalemate, arose the plan for a daring raid against Richmond. It originated with the son of Admiral Dahlgren, Colonel Ulric Dahlgren, a longtime favorite of the President. Though this young man had lost a leg in battle, he was vigorous and ambitious, and he convinced Lincoln that a two-p.r.o.nged cavalry raid, with the larger force led by General Hugh Judson Kilpatrick and a smaller troop under his own command, could swoop behind the Confederate lines, attack Richmond simultaneously from the east and the west, break through its defenses, and reach the infamous Belle Isle Prison, where many Union captives were held. The ill-fated expedition got under way on February 28. Both forces were repulsed on the outskirts of Richmond, and Dahlgren was killed. On his body Confederates claimed they discovered papers that showed Dahlgren planned, after releasing the prisoners, to destroy and burn the Virginia capital, pledging not to allow "the rebel leader Davis and his hateful crew" to escape. High-ranking Union officers immediately, but not altogether convincingly, denied the authenticity of these doc.u.ments, and they could not be linked to Lincoln. But Dahlgren's raid did reflect the President's determination to take whatever steps were necessary to end the rebellion.

The President saw little evidence that the commanders of the Army of the Potomac shared his sense of urgency. Throughout the fall and into the winter Meade engaged Lee in an elaborate campaign of feints and maneuvers, but nothing came of the sharp clashes at Bristoe, Kelly's Ford, and Mine Run. Unimpressed by Meade's strategy, the President told him bluntly on the eve of one of these engagements, "Only be sure to fight; the people demand it of the Army of the Potomac." But Meade was not about to seek a head-on collision with the Army of Northern Virginia. With growing exasperation Lincoln kept prodding him, and he even made him a kind of no-lose offer, promising that if Meade would attack the enemy "with all the skill and courage, which he, his officers and men possess, the honor will be his if he succeeds, and the blame may be mine if he fails."

But the general did not rise to the bait. Aware that the President and Halleck still felt that he had permitted Lee to escape after Gettysburg, he now sought to avoid further mistakes. Instead of taking the initiative, he allowed his campaigns to be micromanaged from Was.h.i.+ngton. If he suggested taking the offensive, he was informed that the President was "unwilling he should now get into a general engagement on the impression that we here are pressing him." If he proposed a defensive strategy, he learned that the President thought he was throwing away his advantage in numbers over the Army of Northern Virginia. His plan to push Lee's army back into its entrenchments at Richmond drew the President's blunt comment which none of his commanders seemed able to understand: "Lee's army, and not Richmond, [was] it's objective point."

Inevitably Lincoln began to contrast the lethargy of the Army of the Potomac with the extraordinary energy demonstrated by the Western armies under Grant and Sherman-failing to recognize that no small part of the success of these generals stemmed from the inability of the President, the Secretary of War, or the chief of staff to interfere with the execution of their plans. When Lincoln learned that Meade had allowed Longstreet's army, which had been fighting in eastern Tennessee, to retreat into western Virginia without molestation by Union forces, he exploded in anger. "If this Army of the Potomac was good for anything-if the officers had anything in them-if the army had any legs, they could move thirty thousand men down to Lynchburg and catch Longstreet," he exclaimed. "Can anybody doubt if Grant were here in command that he would catch him?"

Still he was not yet ready to bring Grant in from the West. One reason was that the general was beginning to be talked about as a possible presidential candidate in 1864. He was a favorite of the influential New York Herald, and, since his political views were unknown, he was wooed by both Democrats and Republicans. With General McClellan conspicuously courting the Democrats, Lincoln was not about to appoint another general-in-chief who had political aspirations, and he asked E. B. Washburne, the representative from Grant's district, to report on the general's political ambitions. Washburne referred him to J. Russell Jones, a close friend of Grant and his investment adviser, who brought to the White House Grant's letter pledging that nothing could persuade him to be a candidate for President, particularly since there was the possibility of reelecting Lincoln. "You will never know how gratifying that is to me," the President said after reading the letter. "No man knows, when that presidential grub gets to gnawing at him, just how deep it will get until he has tried it; and I didn't know but what there was one gnawing at Grant."

With that obstacle removed, Lincoln enthusiastically backed a measure in Congress to create the rank of lieutenant general, unused since the days of George Was.h.i.+ngton, and he promptly appointed Grant to that rank. Summoned east, Grant arrived in Was.h.i.+ngton on March 8, just in time for the weekly White House reception. He had lost the key to his trunk and had only his rough traveling uniform, which was a good deal the worse for wear, but he decided to go anyway since it had been reported that he might put in an appearance. Arriving at the White House, the general made his way through the throng of buzzing visitors toward the tall figure of the President. When Lincoln spotted this medium-sized, un.o.btrusive, inconspicuously dressed man, he greeted him warmly, saying, "Why, here is General Grant! Well, this is a great pleasure, I a.s.sure you!" Lincoln introduced the visitor to Secretary Seward, who in turn presented him to Mrs. Lincoln. A few minutes later Grant was led into the crowded East Room, and so many people pressed to greet him that he was obliged to stand on a sofa to prevent being trampled while he was shaking hands. It was at least an hour before Grant, flushed and perspiring, was able to return to the President.

Lincoln reminded him of a brief ceremony the next day, when he would receive his commission as lieutenant general. Aware that Grant was not used to public speaking, he gave the general a copy of the remarks he intended to make and considerately suggested that Grant might want to write out his response, which could include a statement to put him on as good terms as possible with the Army of the Potomac and obviate the jealousy of other commanders.

Determined to get good publicity from the occasion, Lincoln summoned all his cabinet officers for the brief ceremony at the White House. At one o'clock Stanton and Halleck escorted Grant into the President's office, where Lincoln presented the general with his commission and made a brief speech. "With this high honor devolves upon you also, a corresponding responsibility," he reminded the warrior, but he promised, "As the country herein trusts you, so, under G.o.d, it will sustain you." Grant then took a paper from his vest pocket and began reading, but his voice failed. Straightening up, he threw his shoulders back, took the paper in both hands, and started again at the beginning and read it through. Accepting "the full weight of the responsibilities now devolving" on him, he did not directly address either of the concerns the President had suggested the night before, though he did praise "the n.o.ble armies that have fought on so many fields for our common country." After that, members of the cabinet were introduced to Grant.

Nearly everybody applauded Lincoln's appointment of Grant as general-in-chief of the armies, with Halleck as his chief of staff. Militarily the new arrangement made a great deal of sense, but it was also politically wise. The New York Herald grumbled that Lincoln had only elevated Grant in order to remove a possible rival for the presidency, though that was unfair since Grant had made it abundantly clear that he was not, and would not be, a candidate. Still, with Grant now definitely out of the picture and Chase at least ostensibly out of the race, Lincoln's prospects improved. "The canva.s.s for the nomination, is practically closed," ex-Governor Dennison of Ohio wrote the President. "No person but yourself is seriously thought of for the succession."

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

It Was Not Best to Swap Horses

Naming Grant to head the Union armies won Lincoln a brief respite from pressure to produce a military victory, since everybody recognized that it would take a while for the new commander to take control and to develop a strategy. But there was no armistice in the political warfare as Radical and Conservative Republicans maneuvered for position. During the weeks before the Republican National Convention, Lincoln tried to maintain a cautious neutrality between the rival wings of his party and to build bridges to the War Democrats. His tactics easily secured his renomination, but as reports poured in of the ghastly losses in Grant's Virginia campaign, his reelection remained in doubt. At times even he despaired, and increasingly he came to feel that the outcome of the war, and of his administration, was in the hands of a Higher Power.

I

"It seems clear to me that the people desire the re-election of Mr. Lincoln," Representative James A. Garfield remarked in late February. His opinion was the more significant because he had recently been one of the leaders in the aborted Chase boom. After the appointment of Grant nearly all Republican leaders came to the same conclusion. From Maine came the report, "The feeling for Lincoln is very strong here, and his renomination seems now to be a foregone conclusion." It was echoed from California: Lincoln "was the choice of the people overwhelmingly."

But many politicians were sure that the unanimity was superficial. "The feeling for Mr. Lincoln's re-election seems to be very general," Lyman Trumbull wrote, "but much of it I discover is only on the surface." Some who conceded that the President would be renominated claimed to discover "a want of confidence in Lincoln with the people." One alienated Ohio Republican wrote that voters were supporting the President simply because "everybody thinks that everybody else goes for Lincoln."

Among the disaffected there was still no agreement on who could best replace Lincoln at the head of the Republican ticket. Lacking consensus, Lincoln's critics proposed to delay the national convention scheduled to meet in Baltimore on June 7. William Cullen Bryant, editor of the New York Evening Post, Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, and other influential New York Republicans demanded that the convention be postponed until at least September 1. "The country is not now in a position to enter into a Presidential contest," they announced in a widely circulated broadside. Upon the ability of the Lincoln administration "to finish the war during the present Spring and Summer, will depend the wish of the people to continue in power their present leaders, or to change them." Approaching Republican leaders in other states, the New Yorkers gained support in Illinois from Medill of the Chicago Tribune, who declared, "I don't care a pinch if the convention is put off till Aug[ust]," because Lincoln was exhibiting "some very weak and foolish traits of character." But Simon Cameron in Pennsylvania opposed the delay.

The movement faded when it became clear that it was not possible to beat the President with n.o.body, and Lincoln's opponents began touting several rival candidates. The New York Herald continued to beat the drum for General Grant, who showed no interest. Fremont's support was largely confined to the Radical Germans of Missouri. Benjamin F. Butler let it be known that he would not enter into a combination with other rivals of the President-but did "not decline the use of his name for the office." There was always the possibility that Chase might reenter the race. His supporters, detecting "a strong undercurrent-not yet noisy, nor visible to the ma.s.ses-in favor of pressing Mr. C's claim," were convinced that the Secretary of the Treasury could take advantage of a likely division of Republican delegates between Lincoln and Fremont, since "both sides will prefer Chase to the Other."

Lincoln was confident that Grant would not become a candidate, but he took as serious rivals the others mentioned for the presidency. He knew he could do nothing with Fremont; that general hated the President for ousting him from command first in Missouri and later in western Virginia and then for shelving his alleged military talents for the rest of the war. Fremont made it clear that if he could not break Lincoln's hold on the Republican delegates he would run as an independent, and his backers called a convention to be held in Cleveland on May 31, just a week before the regular Republican meeting in Baltimore.

Butler the President handled with kid gloves, especially after learning that Chase's backers had approached him with the offer of a vice presidential nomination. He had scant respect for the general's ability, but he recognized that Butler could cause trouble, and he attended to his wishes and complaints with considerable deference and protected the notoriously inept general when Grant wanted to remove him from command at Fort Monroe. Claiming to speak for the President, Cameron explored with the general the possibility of a Lincoln-Butler ticket, only to be told, laughingly, that Butler would accept the vice presidency only if Lincoln gave him "bond with sureties, in the full sum of his four years' salary, that he will die or resign within three months after his inauguration." No doubt the President was relieved as well as amused to hear Cameron's report of the conversation.

Chase had to be handled differently. After the fiasco of the Pomeroy Circular and Chase's forced withdrawal from the presidential race, Lincoln's supporters wondered why he let the Secretary of the Treasury remain in the cabinet, and even Butler advised the President that "tipping him out" was the only remedy for the Chase problem. But Lincoln knew that Chase was less dangerous as a disgruntled member of the cabinet than he would be if he left the administration.

During these months, facing mounting government deficits, a Congress reluctant to enact a realistic tax program, and the constantly mounting price of gold as compared to greenbacks, Chase often thought of resigning, and it seemed that he had found a pretext when Lincoln began planning changes in the New York Customs House, which offered the most remunerative patronage positions at the disposal of the federal government. Conservative Republicans in New York felt that Hiram Barney, whom Chase had selected as the collector back in 1861, favored the Radical wing of the party, and they demanded his removal. Lincoln liked Barney and had confidence in his honor and integrity but, suspecting that the collector had "ceased to be master of his position," proposed sending him as minister to Portugal. Barney refused to resign under fire, and Chase dug in his heels. Angrily he warned that if the collector left the New York Customs House he would resign. Reluctantly Lincoln backed down.