Lincoln (71 page)

There was a nervous stirring among the senators. A seraphic smile now appeared on Chase’s lips. Within that sculpted dome, thought Hay, there must now be not only a heavenly choir but at least one archangel, praising him for fighting so many of the Lord’s battles on earth.

“In any case, gentlemen,” and Blair glared at Fessenden, “there can be no
plural
executive in this country. There is one president and one commander-in-chief, and he is chosen by the people and if you should try to defy him in the exercise of his legitimate office, you do so at your peril.”

Although Fessenden disagreed at much length, he made no headway against, to Hay’s surprise, old Bates, a constant conservative complainer, who disapproved of almost everything that Lincoln did. But Bates was the closest thing to a Constitutional lawyer in the room; and every argument and precedent that Fessenden put forward Bates struck down, to the particular embarrassment of Sumner, who had come armed with his usual eloquence; but now chose silence. “All in all,” Bates summed up, “this committee had better not meddle in these matters.”

At last, the Tycoon was ready for the
coup de grâce
. He lifted, as it were, his executioner’s ax. “I think, to indulge the committee, the Cabinet should answer the principal charge that has been brought—that I do not consult them.” Sweetly, thought Hay, the Tycoon turned to Chase, whose eyes were now open, the celestial music only a memory. “Mr.
Chase, as the highest-ranking member of the Cabinet, I think it might be useful for you to tell the senators just how we run our shop.”

There was no sound at all in the room. Everyone present knew that it was Chase who had most inflamed the radical Republicans with his revelations of Seward’s sinister influence on a president too weak and too evasive to allow full discussion of the great issues. Now, thought Hay, Lincoln had arranged this elaborate trap for Chase; and no matter what Chase said or did, the trap had sprung on him. If he told the senators in front of the Cabinet what he had been telling the senators in private, the members of the Cabinet would not only call him a liar but a traitor to the President and the Administration. If he denied before the Cabinet what he had told the senators in private, he would lose the support and the respect of those radical Republicans who had wanted him for president. For sheer political craft, Hay had never seen anything so neatly done. One way or the other, with a single bold confrontation, the Tycoon had disarmed his rival.

But Hay was also obliged to concede that Chase handled himself with dignity, cutting, as best he could, his losses. “I did not come here tonight expecting to be arraigned like this before a committee of the Senate.”

“This is no doing of ours,” said Fessenden, irritably. “You are not being arraigned by us. We came here tonight to meet with the President. This unusual”—Fessenden turned to Bates and positively quoted—“unConstitutional, as some would have it, meeting has come as a surprise to us. It is the President’s doing.”

“That is true,” said Lincoln. “I thought it the only way to clear the air, even if it bends the Constitution a bit, to have us all meet like this. Now, Mr. Chase”—Lincoln’s dreamy gaze was entirely contradicted by the hard set of the wide mouth—“do you feel that there has ever been any important issue, dealing with your department, say, that I have ever myself decided without your counsel? Or allowed another to decide?”

“No, sir. In respect to the Treasury, I have been supported by you at all times. Only …” Chase was beginning to rally; but Lincoln interposed.

“I am sure,” said the President, “that the committee will be relieved to know that the ablest Secretary of the Treasury since, uh, Gallatin, is not subject to arbitrary presidential whims.”

“Naturally, on other issues, I feel that sometimes we are not sufficiently consulted …”

“Such as?” asked Blair.

“That is, we are not
thorough
in our discussions.”

“Could you, Mr. Chase, think of one important measure that we did not all of us discuss at length?” Lincoln’s tone was so conciliatory that if Hay
had not known the Tycoon better, he would have thought him lawyer for the defense rather than the prosecution.

Chase began now to stammer. “I speak, sir, of thoroughness, which in the flow of events we sometimes lack, nor is there always, as I would like, a canvass of the members, in
every
case, that is, I mean.”

Hay looked at Fessenden, who was staring, open-mouthed, at Chase. Hay looked at Sumner, who had placed one hand over his eyes as though to hide from his own clear and noble gaze all signs of human vanity and folly; at Collamer, who looked old and weary and unsurprised; at Trumbull, who was furious—at Chase.

Once Lincoln had given Chase the rest of the rope with which to hang himself, he dropped the subject; and Chase again closed his eyes, no doubt, thought Hay, in prayer.

“I think that you gentlemen now have a clearer idea of how the Cabinet works. It is not perhaps the monolithic unit you would like but it is hardly a place where arbitrary decisions are made by me—or by Mr. Seward.”

“I take the point,” said Fessenden, “that a president need not consult his Cabinet at all. But I urge you, sir, that in wartime, which this is, that there be greater consultation.”

“With different councillors,” said Trumbull.

“You have, perhaps, an ideal Cabinet that you would like me to appoint?” Lincoln sat down in his chair, plainly tired from so long standing.

“We believe Mr. Seward must go,” said Wade.

“
We
is it?” Lincoln affected surprise at the pronoun. “Then, perhaps, we—I use the presidential we—should poll the senators present, and the Cabinet, too, as to whether or not Mr. Seward should resign. Mr. Sumner, how vote you?”

Fessenden was quick to avoid any sort of canvass. “I don’t think it proper for us to discuss the merits or demerits of a member of the Cabinet in the presence of his associates.”

“But that is what we have been doing for several hours now,” said Lincoln.

Chase gratefully seized on Fessenden’s sudden tactical demur. “I agree with Senator Fessenden, Mr. President. And I suggest that the Cabinet be allowed to withdraw so that you may with more … ease discuss its composition.” Chase rose majestically. Lincoln nodded, casually; and the members of the Cabinet departed. Hay noted with some interest that that alleged constant schemer, the Secretary of War, had said nothing at all.

Chase’s collapse under the President’s questioning had ended the present assault on the Administration. Although the senators still agreed that Seward must go, the case against him now seemed vague indeed. Lincoln
ended the meeting by thanking the senators for their patriotic concern and weighty advice.

It was now one in the morning, and the Ancient was showing signs of fatigue. He was like, thought Hay, one of those bullfighters he had read of. Or, perhaps, more to the point, a bull who had outwitted both matador and picadors.

As the senators milled about the room, Hay was close enough to Lincoln to hear Trumbull mutter indignantly in the Tycoon’s ear, “Chase sang quite a different tune with us before!” Lincoln smiled; and said nothing.

Fessenden remained behind, after the others had left. Hay made himself invisible at his small table beside the door. “Mr. President, you have asked my opinion about Seward’s removal. I never really answered you because there is a rumor that he has already resigned, and if he has, that’s the end of that.”

“I thought I told you last night that he’d resigned,” said Lincoln. “Fact, I have the resignation in my pocket. But I haven’t made it public,
and
I haven’t accepted it.”

“Then, Mr. President, the real question is whether or not you intend to ask him to withdraw his resignation?”

“Yes,” said the President; and his ordinarily restless body was now very still in its chair.

“You have heard us on the subject. Since Seward has asked to go, it will be upon your head to keep him. He lost my confidence long before you appointed him and had you consulted me in advance I would have advised against appointing him.”

“Well,” said Lincoln, thoughtfully, “I didn’t have the opportunity to consult you.”

“I realize that, sir. But you knew my views—our views—through Mr. Trumbull. We took it for granted that you would advise with us before you made your Cabinet, but you did not. Now, on this issue, whether you should accept the resignation of Mr. Seward, would you like me to consult my fellow-senators?”

“No,” said the President. “I would not.” He unfolded himself from his chair until he towered over the slight New Englander. “I want to have good relations. That is why I have done something tonight that no president has ever done before, and I pray that none will ever be obliged to do again. I have let you into the heart of the executive, to see us as we are. But that is the most I can do to show good faith and openness.”

“You are aware, sir, that a majority of our caucus want Mr. Chase at
the helm of a cabinet composed of new members, who will prosecute the war with a single will.”

Lincoln looked down at Fessenden. The left eye had begun to droop with weariness but the voice was very hard and very clear. “That is what you and your friends may want, Mr. Fessenden. But that is not what you will get. Because,” Lincoln suddenly smiled without the slightest trace of amiability; a smile, thought Hay, reminiscent of the wolf as it bares its teeth, “I am the master here. Good-night, Mr. Fessenden.” Lincoln took the senator’s hand.

The shaken Fessenden, bowed; and said, “Good-night, Mr. President.” When Fessenden was gone, Lincoln dropped like a felled tree onto the lounge. “There are times when I wish I was dead,” he sighed, “and this is one.”

“It was a famous victory, sir.” Hay was elated. “Mr. Chase was tonguetied.”

“But these famous victories do mightily drain the victor; and I’m not in the clear just yet. Tomorrow … ‘And tomorrow and tomorrow …’ ” As the Ancient recited his favorite Shakespeare aria, Hay knew that more surprises awaited Mr. Chase and his fellow conspirators.

AS FOR CHASE
, he sat alone in his study, beneath the framed holograph of Queen Victoria’s letter, composing his own letter of resignation from the Cabinet. He had been made a fool of by Lincoln in front of his senatorial allies. Further, he had known from Stanton that Seward had already resigned; and that Stanton might,
pro forma
if nothing else, do the same. It was clear that if the Cabinet was to be begun anew, presumably with himself as its chief, they must all, of their own free will, depart. As Chase signed his name with a flourish, he could not help but cringe at the way that Lincoln had forced him to back down; and to contradict himself. Actually, the truth of the matter was as he had told the senators. They were by no means always consulted, and the meetings were usually casual to the point of incoherence. But Lincoln knew that Chase dared not say this in front of his colleagues, none of whom liked him except the highly unreliable Stanton. Whatever Chase had said, the others would have denied. The blood was beating in his temples as he sealed the letter.

The blood was again beating in Chase’s temples when he obeyed a presidential summons to join Stanton and Welles in Lincoln’s office. Chase sat beside Stanton on a sofa facing the bright fire. Welles sat on a
sofa to one side. The three men chatted, awkwardly. Stanton had been to see Seward. “He seems pleased with himself. He had a copy of the
Herald
, which says that I’m the next to go after what happened at Fredericksburg. Apparently, if it were not for my hostility to McClellan, the war would have been won a long time ago. Apparently, I refuse to support Burnside because I am a Democrat …” Stanton continued in this self-pitying vein, much to Chase’s disgust. The political future of one Edwin M. Stanton was, perhaps, the least important aspect of the current crisis, while the failure of Chase was inextricably bound with the unique moral issue of the abolition of slavery. There was a profound difference between them, thought Chase sourly, glancing at Welles, who looked, as always, to be disapproving of him.

Nicolay announced the President. The men rose. Lincoln seemed no more rested than he had been at one o’clock that same morning. He took a chair beside the fire. “Well, Mr. Chase, that was quite an ordeal for all of us last night.”

“For
me
, certainly.” Chase had vowed not to show his indignation; and, promptly, gave way to it. “I had not expected to be so questioned before the world.”

“Hardly the world,” said Welles.

“The world we deal with will know every word that was said. Not,” Chase added, “that there was anything said that any of us need be ashamed of. I spoke, as always, from the heart.”

“While Senator Fessenden spoke from what sounded to me like some sort of conspiracy,” said Lincoln. “That is what most disturbed me. If they force me to let Seward go, then I lose the majority of our party which is moderate like Seward—and me. If I were to keep Seward and you, Mr. Chase, were to go, I would lose the radical element of the party, which is also the most brilliant. I must have both elements in the Cabinet. I have also been well pleased with both of you, and the balance you have given me.”

“Well, sir, I shall perfect your balance.” Chase sat up very straight; he was aware of Stanton’s anxious wheezing at his side. “I have prepared my own resignation.”

To Chase’s amazement, the President leapt to his feet. “Where is it?” he asked, without one word of surprise or sorrow or compliment.

“I have it here with me.” Chase removed the envelope slowly from his pocket.

Lincoln practically tore the envelope from his hand. “Let me have it!” Then Lincoln read aloud the gracious and dignified two sentences of
resignation, signed S. P. Chase. Lincoln clapped his hands, gleefully. “Well, that cuts the Gordian knot all right!”

Stanton then began to gasp; and speak. “Mr. President, as I told you day before yesterday, I am prepared to tender my own resignation …”

“Nonsense, Mars. I don’t want yours. Go back to work and find me Burnside.” He waved the letter. “This is all I want. This is all I need. Now I’ve got me perfect balance, as the farmer said when he put the second pumpkin in his saddlebag.”