It was announced yesterday morning that the President had
requested Mr. Seward and Mr. Chase to withdraw their resignations and resume their
duties. This took the public by surprise. Chase's resignation was scarcely
known, and his friends, particularly those in the late movement, were a little
disgusted when they found that he and Seward were in the same category.
Seward's influence has often been anything but salutary. Not
that he was evil inclined, but he is meddlesome, fussy, has no fixed principles
or policy. Chase has chafed under Seward's management, yet has tried to conceal
any exhibition of irritated feelings. Seward, assuming to be helmsman, has,
while affecting and believing in his own superiority, tried to be patronizing
to all, especially soothing and conciliating to Chase, who sees and is annoyed
by it. The President feels that he is under obligations to each, and that both
are serviceable. He is friendly to both. He is fond of Seward, who is affable;
he respects Chase, who is clumsy. Seward comforts him; Chase he deems a
necessity.
On important questions, Blair is as potent with the
President as either, and sometimes I think equal to both. With some egotism,
Blair has great good sense, a better knowledge and estimate of military men
than either or both the others, and, I think, is possessed of more solid, reliable
administrative ability.
All the members were at the Cabinet-meeting to-day. Seward
was feeling very happy. Chase was pale; said he was ill, had been for weeks.
The subject principally discussed was the proposed division of Virginia and the
creation of a new State to be called Western Virginia. Chase is strongly for
it; Blair and Bates against it, the latter, however, declining to discuss it or
give his reasons except in writing. Stanton is with Chase. Seward does not show
his hand. My impressions are, under the existing state of things, decidedly
adverse. It is a disturbance that might be avoided at this time and has
constitutional difficulties.
We have news that General Foster has possession of
Goldsborough, North Carolina.
SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles,
Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864,
p. 205-6
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