Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded.
On July 4, 1864, four days after President Abraham Lincoln had surprised him by accepting his resignation, Treasury secretary Salmon P. Chase confided to his diary, "I am too earnest, too antislavery … [and] too radical."
Chase surely possessed each of these attributes – in excess – but they had little to do with his unexpected exit from Lincoln's "team of rivals." Rather, it was much more personal. Chase's oft-repeated threat to quit had tested the forbearance of a beleaguered president once too often. Out of patience, Lincoln ended his tenure with the observation that "you and I have reached a point of mutual embarrassment in our official relation which it seems cannot be overcome, or longer sustained."
It had been an unlikely partnership from the start. In 1860, Chase's presidential ambitions were second to none. A staunch anti-slavery man, he had held a Senate seat and the Ohio governor's chair, and in one contemporary's words "looked as you would wish a statesman to look." A widower three times over, the aloof, pious Chase had few friends, lived a life governed by unshakable routine, eagerly sought moral perfection and had no apparent sense of humor. Noted one contemporary, he knew "little of human nature" and was "profoundly ignorant of men." Salmon Chase, in short, was Abraham Lincoln's polar opposite.
The last of Lincoln's three rivals for the presidency to be offered a cabinet post – William H. Seward was named secretary of state and Edward Bates attorney general – Chase was initially inclined to decline the offer because Lincoln had failed "to tender me the Treasury Department with the same considerate respect which was manifested toward Mr. Seward and Mr. Bates." He finally accepted in March 1861.
Chase proved a remarkably able and innovative manager of the Union's finances. He won congressional approval for a national banking system to provide a stable national currency and create a ready market for government bonds. Sale of the latter enabled the federal government to pay the staggering costs of over $3 billion (over $5 trillion today) for four years of fighting. Working with Jay Cooke & Company, Chase managed the sale of $500 million in government bonds. He also introduced the greenback demand note, the first federal currency.
Chase's failings lay in his aspirations, not his performance. Convinced he was the ablest man in the cabinet, he also believed he was Lincoln's superior as both an administrator and statesman. His dream of occupying the White House never deserted him, and he sought to further his ambitions in ways small and large. Responsible for the design of paper currency, for example, he had no compunction about placing his own face on the $1 bill. After all, he told one confidant, he had placed Lincoln's on the 10!
But Chase's mischief could be more serious. In the last months of 1862, he played the major role in precipitating crises that twice threatened the fragile stability of Lincoln's cabinet. This much lauded "team of rivals" was in reality riven by clashes driven more by personality than ideology. As the historian David Donald has observed, Chase and Navy Secretary Gideon Welles both distrusted Seward, who they believed failed to grasp the dangers the war posed. Edwin M. Stanton, the secretary of war, was irascible and secretive, and worked well only with Chase, with whom he enjoyed a 20-year friendship. Welles — "Father Neptune" to his colleagues as well as the president — was a sometimes comical figure, while Caleb Smith, the interior secretary, seemed to all a figure of no account. Postmaster General Montgomery Blair bore particular animus toward Chase and Stanton, and seemed primarily self-interested. Only Bates enjoyed cordial relationships with all of his colleagues.
The stunning defeat of Union Gen. John Pope's Army of Virginia at the Second Battle of Bull Run In late August 1862 precipitated the first of these crises. In league with Stanton, Chase tried to force Lincoln to cashier Gen. George B. McClellan over his apparent refusal to reinforce Pope's army. In an extraordinary "remonstrance" to the president, they warned of "the destruction of our armies" should "George B. McClellan be continued in command." Chase, Stanton, Smith and Bates endorsed the document, while Welles and Blair expressed their support but chose not to sign it. Seward was out of town.
At a fractious cabinet meeting on Sept. 2, the president overrode their objections. While not unsympathetic to his cabinet secretaries' concerns, Lincoln argued that only McClellan could "reorganize the army and bring it out of chaos."
Despite the Union's success at Antietam a few weeks later, Lincoln did remove McClellan from command of the Army of the Potomac in November, only to see his replacement, Ambrose Burnside, preside over a Union debacle at Fredericksburg. News of this latest defeat provoked a mutiny among Senate Republicans, who were convinced (due in no small part to Chase's machinations) that Lincoln's management of the cabinet and embrace of Seward's conservative ideas were hobbling the Union war effort.
On Dec. 16 and 17, 31 Republican senators caucused to express their frustrations and anger with the Lincoln administration, directing most of their venom at Seward. A concerned Lincoln met with a delegation of nine Republican senators for several hours on the nights of Dec. 18 and 19, both to listen and to defend his administration. With his cabinet members (except Seward, who had submitted his resignation) in attendance at the second meeting, Lincoln contended that while the cabinet did not meet regularly, it was informed of most major issues and generally acquiesced to the decisions that were made.
Lincoln then put his Treasury secretary, whom he knew to be at the bottom "of all the mischief," on the spot. Would he support the president? Chase somewhat reluctantly said yes, but sought to save face with the senators present by noting that the cabinet was not asked to discuss many important issues. The other cabinet members had little to say, and the meeting ended inconclusively, well after midnight.
The following morning Lincoln summoned Chase again, along with Welles and Stanton, because, he said, this "matter is giving me great trouble." Chase responded that he had decided to resign. Seizing the letter from his hand, the president exclaimed, "This cuts the Gordian knot. … I can dispose of this subject now without difficulty. I see my way clear." His same-day refusal to accept the resignations of either Chase or Seward defused the crisis by signaling his willingness to listen to both moderate and radical Republicans.
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The cabinet crisis greatly diminished the Treasury secretary's standing: Stanton confessed that he "was ashamed of Chase," while Senator William P. Fessenden of Maine (who would succeed Chase in the cabinet) fulminated at the Treasury secretary's deliberate sacrifice of "his friends to the fear of offending his & their enemies."
But Chase's loss of face after the 1862 cabinet crisis did little to blunt his presidential aspirations. He continued to fill the 15,000 patronage jobs at his disposal with loyalists and maintained a regular correspondence with supporters throughout the North. Well aware of these activities, Lincoln had "determined to shut his eyes to all these performances… [because] Chase made a good secretary." The president also recognized that he had his Treasury secretary under control, for Chase could neither be overly critical within the cabinet nor resign and appear unpatriotic.
But Chase continued to maneuver, and the battle looming over reconstruction policy in late 1863 and early 1864 bolstered his support among radicals unhappy with the administration. It looked increasingly like Chase might make a run for the White House.
Early in 1864, the campaign committee for Chase headed by Senator Samuel C. Pomeroy of Kansas, issued two pamphlets critical of Lincoln. Too critical, in fact. Even Lincoln's staunchest opponents found the publications too much, and the so-called "Pomeroy Circular" (http://www.fofweb.com/History/HistRefMain.asp?iPin=E14252&SID=2&DatabaseName=American+History+Online&InputText=%22Abraham+Lincoln%22&SearchStyle=&dTitle=Pomeroy+Circular&TabRecordType=Historical+Document&BioCountPass=309&SubCountPass=342&DocCountPass=132&ImgCountPass=79&MapCountPass=18&FedCountPass=&MedCountPass=97&NewsCountPass=0&RecPosition=36&AmericanData=Set&WomenData=&AFHCData=&IndianData=&WorldData=&AncientData=&GovernmentData=) in particular – which asserted that Lincoln's candidacy was doomed – proved so embarrassing to Chase that he aggressively distanced himself from the piece.
But it wasn't enough; the pamphlet, in one contemporary's words, "had utterly annihilated the pretensions and prospects of Mr. Chase." Within weeks his opponents coalesced in support of Lincoln in the fall election, and Chase announced that he would not be a candidate.
In the wake of these events, Chase once again tendered his resignation in a long letter filled with self-justifications. By now, Lincoln's fabled patience was threadbare. His first response to Chase's letter, a terse promise to "answer a little more fully when I can find the leisure to do so," (http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln7/1:434?rgn=div1;submit=Go;subview=detail;type=simple;view=fulltext;q1=Chase) was followed six days later by a muted vote of confidence — "I do not perceive occasion for a change."
But the occasion for a change would soon arrive, prompted by the politics of patronage. In late June 1864, Chase sought to replace a well-respected assistant treasurer in New York with a clearly unqualified candidate of suspect political loyalty. Lincoln, fearing an "open revolt" among Republicans, urged Chase to select from among three alternative candidates. (http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln7/1:910?rgn=div1;submit=Go;subview=detail;type=simple;view=fulltext;q1=Chase) Chase rejected them and instead persuaded the incumbent to withdraw his resignation. When Chase sought a meeting with Lincoln, he was rebuffed "because the difficulty does not, in the main part, lie within the range of a conversation between you and me."
On June 29, Chase once again resigned and this time Lincoln accepted. (http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln7/1:922?rgn=div1;submit=Go;subview=detail;type=simple;view=fulltext;q1=Chase) "I thought I could not stand it any longer," the president confided to his secretary John Hay. Official Washington was aghast at the news. "In Congress and on the street there is a general feeling of depression and gloom," noted Hay. When the entire Senate Finance Committee descended on the White House to protest, Lincoln stood firm, reading to them each of Chase's previous letters of resignation, as well as his responses, and noting that the tension between the two men had become such that they "disliked to meet each other." When Gov. John Brough of Ohio offered to mediate the dispute, Lincoln replied, "This is the third time he has thrown this at me, and I do not think I am called on to continue to beg him to take it back…. I reckon you had better let it alone this time."
Chase's downfall proved short lived. In December Lincoln appointed him to the Supreme Court to succeed Chief Justice Roger Taney, who had died two months earlier. In a letter to his fiancée, Lincoln's other secretary, John Nicolay, wrote that "no other man than Lincoln would have had … the degree of magnanimity to thus forgive and exalt a rival who had so deeply and unjustifiably intrigued against him. It is," he continued, "only another … illustration of the greatness of the President, in this age of little men."
The stage for the amendment's passage in the House was set. Enter Mr. Spielberg.
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Sources: Michael Burlingame, "Abraham Lincoln: A Life"; David Herbert Donald, "Lincoln"; Doris Kearns Goodwin, "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln"; Burton J. Hendrick, "Lincoln's War Cabinet"; Philip Shaw Paludan, "The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln"; Ronald C. White Jr., "A. Lincoln: A Biography."
Rick Beard, an independent historian and exhibition curator, is co-author of the National Park Service publication "Slavery in the United States: A Brief Narrative History."
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