Told the President I
disliked the proceedings of the Congressional caucus on Saturday evening. The
resolution for a joint committee of fifteen to whom the whole subject of
admission of Representatives from States which had been in rebellion [should be
referred] without debate was in conflict with the spirit and letter of the
Constitution, which gives to each house the decision of election of its own
members, etc. Then in appointing Stevens, an opponent of State rights, to
present it there was something bad. The whole was, in fact, revolutionary, a
blow at our governmental system, and there had been evident preconcert to bring
it about. The President agreed with me, but said they would be knocked in the
head at the start. There would be a Representative from Tennessee who had been
a loyal Member of the House since the War commenced, or during the War, who
could present himself, and so state the case that he could not be controverted.
I expressed my gratification if this could be accomplished, knowing he alluded
to Maynard, but suggested a doubt whether the intrigue which was manifest by
the resolution, the designation of Stevens, and Colfax's speech had not gone
too far.
Congress organized
about the time this conversation took place. Maynard was put aside, I think by
concert between himself and the Radical leaders. The resolution introduced by
Stevens passed by a strict party vote. In the Senate, Sumner introduced an avalanche
of radical and some of them absurd-resolutions. These appeared to have absorbed
the entire attention of that body, which adjourned without the customary
committee to wait upon the President and inform him that Congress was
organized. This was not unintentional. There was design in it.
Fogg of New
Hampshire, our late Minister to Switzerland, came to see me this evening with
Chandler, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury.
The recall of Fogg
was an unwise, unjust, and I think an unpolitic act on the part of Seward, and
I shall not be surprised if he has cause to rue it. Fogg was associated with me
on the National Executive Committee in the Presidential campaign of 1860, and
was brought in particularly intimate relations with Mr. Lincoln at that time.
No one, perhaps, knows better than F. the whole workings in relation to the
formation of the Cabinet of 1861. These he detailed very minutely this evening.
Much of it I had known before. He has a remarkable memory, and all the details
of 1860 and 1861 were impressed upon his mind. He was the first to bring me
assurance that I was selected for the Cabinet from New England. I thought at
the time his, F.'s, original preferences were in another direction, although
the selection of myself was, he then and now assured me, acceptable to him. At
that time F., listening to Seward's friends, believed he would not accept an
appointment in the Cabinet. Such were the givings-out of his friends and of
Seward himself. I told F. at the time, as he still recollects, he was deceiving
himself, and that Mr. Lincoln was in a strange delusion if he believed it.
Weed tried to induce
Mr. Lincoln to visit Mr. Seward at Auburn. Said General Harrison went to
Lexington in 1841 to see Mr. Clay, who advised in the formation of that Cabinet.
Mr. Lincoln declined to imitate Harrison. The next effort was to try to have a
meeting at Chicago, but this Mr. L. also declined. But he did invite Hamlin to
meet him there. On his way Hamlin was intercepted by Weed, who said the offer
of the State Department was due to Mr. Seward, but S. would decline it. The
courtesy, however, was, he claimed, due to Mr. S. and to New York. H. was
persuaded, and Mr. L. intrusted him with a letter tendering the appointment to
Seward.
Shortly after the
commencement of the session of Congress in December, 1860, Fogg says Hamlin,
when coming down from the Capitol one afternoon after the adjournment of the
Senate, fell in company with Seward, or was overtaken by him. They walked down
the avenue together, Seward knowing H. had been to Chicago. On reaching
Hamlin's hotel, he invited S. to go in, and a full conversation took place, S.
declaring he was tired of public life and that he intended to resign his seat
or decline a reëlection and retire, that there was no place in the gift of the
President which he would be willing to take. Several times he repeated that he
would not go into the Cabinet of Mr. Lincoln. Having heard these refusals in
various forms, Hamlin then told him he had a letter from Mr. Lincoln, which he
produced. Seward, H. says to Fogg, trembled and was nervous as he took it. He
read the letter, put it in his pocket, and said, while his whole feelings were
repugnant to a longer continuance in public employment, he yet was willing to
labor for his country. He would, therefore, consult his friends before giving a
final answer. The next, or succeeding, day he left for New York, but before
going he mailed a letter to the President elect accepting the appointment.
Hamlin repeated all the facts to Fogg last week, so far as he was concerned.
Great efforts were
made to secure the Treasury for Cameron. This was a part of the programme of
Weed and Seward. I have always understood that Mr. Lincoln became committed to
this scheme in a measure, though it was unlike him. Fogg explains it in this
way: In the summer and fall a bargain was struck between Weed and Cameron. The
latter went to Albany and then to Saratoga, where he spent several days with
the intriguers. Cameron subsequently tried to get an invitation that fall to
Springfield, but Lincoln would not give it. This annoyed the clique. After the
election, Swett, who figured then as a confidential friend and intimate of
Lincoln, not without some reason, was sent, or came, East to feel the public
pulse. At a later day he went to California and had a finger in the Alameda quicksilver
mine. Swett was seized by Weed and Company, open rooms and liquors were
furnished by the New York junto, and his intimacy with Lincoln was magnified.
Cameron took him to his estate at Lochiel and feasted him. Here the desire of
Cameron to go to Springfield was made known to Swett, who took upon himself to
extend an invitation in Mr. Lincoln's name. With this he took a large
body-guard and went to Springfield. Although surprised, Mr. Lincoln could not
disavow what Swett had done. Cameron was treated civilly; his friends talked,
etc. After his return, Mr. Lincoln wrote him that in framing his Cabinet he
proposed giving him a place, either in the Treasury or the War Department.
Cameron immediately wrote, expressing his thanks and accepting the Treasury.
Mr. Lincoln at once wrote that there seemed some misapprehension and he
therefore withdrew his tender or any conclusive arrangement until he came to
Washington. I have heard some of these things from Mr. L[incoln]. Fogg, who now
tells them to me, says he knows them all.
Mrs. Lincoln has the
credit of excluding Judd of Chicago from the Cabinet. The President was under
great personal obligations to Judd, and always felt and acknowledged it. When
excluded from the Cabinet, he selected the mission to Berlin.
Caleb Smith was
brought in at a late hour and after Judd's exclusion. Weed and Seward had
intended to bring in Emerson Etheridge and Graham of North Carolina, and After
the President came to Washington, a decided onset was made by the anti-Seward
men of New York and others against Chase. An earlier movement had been made,
but not sufficient to commit the President. Senator Wade of Ohio did not favor
Chase. Governor Dennison was strongly for him, and Wade, who disliked Seward,
finally withdrew opposition to C. But about the time I reached Washington on
the 1st of March another hitch had taken place. I had remained away until
invited, and had been mixed up with none of the intrigues.
The President
(Lincoln) told me on Sunday, 3d March, that there was still some trouble, but that
he had become satisfied he should arrange the matter. Fogg tells me that
Greeley and others who were here attending to the rightful construction of the
Cabinet had deputed him to call upon the President and ascertain if Chase was
to be excluded. A rumor to that effect had got abroad and Lamon, a close friend
of Lincoln (too close), was offering to bet two to one that C. would not have
the Treasury. Fogg called on the President, but first Mrs. L. and then Seward
interrupted them. On Tuesday, the 5th, at 7 A.M., Fogg and Carl Schurz called
on the President to make sure of Chase. Seward followed almost immediately.
Lincoln, in a whisper, told F. all was right, and subsequently informed him
that he had been annoyed and embarrassed by Seward on the 1st of March, who
came to him and said that he, S., had not been consulted as was usual in the
formation of the Cabinet, that he understood Chase had been assigned to the
Treasury, that there were differences between himself and Chase which rendered
it impossible for them to act in harmony, that the Cabinet ought, as General
Jackson said, to be a unit. Under these circumstances and with his conviction
of duty and what was due to himself, he must insist on the excluding of Mr.
Chase if he, Seward, remained. Mr. Lincoln expressed his surprise after all
that had takenplace and with the
great trouble on his hands, that he should be met with such a demand on this
late day. He requested Mr. S. to further consider the subject.
The result was that
Mr. Lincoln came to the conclusion if Seward persisted, he would let him go and
make Dayton, of New Jersey, Secretary of State. But Seward did not persist.
SOURCE: Gideon
Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and
Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 387-92
