Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power (28 page)

Party triumphalism, too, was conspicuously absent from a speech designed to bind conservative Democrats and Bell-Everett men, along with their recent Republican opponents, into a broad pro-Union alliance. In consequence, the antislavery Republican conscience made but a fleeting appearance. Lincoln’s one reference—brief, though powerful—to a moral confrontation came when he adopted the formula he had used in his recent letters to Gilmer and Stephens: “One section of our country believes slavery is
right,
and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is
wrong,
and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute.” Lincoln’s first draft of the address had quoted directly from the Republican platform of 1856 and its celebration of the principles of freedom in the Declaration. But shortly before March 4 he removed this passage, together with all specific mention of the Republican party and the Chicago platform of 1860. This was Seward’s hand at work. Republicans, he told Lincoln, “will be loyal, whatever is said.” The new president should do what Jefferson had done in the crisis of 1800 and sink “the partisan in the patriot”; “you cannot lose the Republican party by practicing in your advent to office the magnanimity of a victor.”
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Lincoln achieved his aim, garnering support from well beyond his party’s boundaries. It helped that at the inauguration ceremony Stephen Douglas, true to his private pledge of solidarity, stood close at hand, holding Lincoln’s hat and reportedly offering a sotto voce running commentary of approval (“Good”; “That is the right doctrine”; “That is no coercion”).
³³
The speech won plaudits from much of the opposition press. Lincoln had said “all that he should have said,” one Douglasite editor thought; another found in its “deep spirit of fraternal kindness” an irresistible invitation to join in the “holy work” of rescuing the Union. But critics remained and mixed reflex abuse with substantive concerns. Many newspapers that supported Breckinridge and even some that supported Douglas discerned a declaration of war on the lower South. Brokers anticipated a feverish stock market. The inaugural had “too much fight in it,” Lincoln learned. For all its clarity, ambiguities remained. His conciliatory words sat uneasily with the menacing potential of his policy toward fallen federal forts and revenue collecting.
³⁴
Still, in winning over some opponents Lincoln had taken a significant step toward becoming the president of a people, not the leader of a party. “I think the honest portion of the American people are with you,” a New York correspondent told the new president after taking cross-party soundings, “and will hold themselves subject to your direction.”
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Republicans, naturally, provided a chorus of approving voices. Editors praised a “strong, straightforward and manly” address whose “wire-woven sentences” proffered a blend of firm, unhurried purpose and conciliatory calm. This declaration of war “against treason” would surely rally bipartisan support. New York’s Governor Morgan complimented Lincoln on words that were “kind in spirit, firm in purpose, national in the highest degree.” If some detected a whiff of overleniency, few feared any compromise on fundamentals. “Republicans are delighted that there is no abandonment of Republican principle,” exulted one of Lincoln’s Springfield circle. The inaugural promised firm adherence to the Chicago platform, including the confining and choking of slavery. Lincoln’s declaration that “vital questions” should not be “irrevocably fixed” by Supreme Court judges, regardless of the views of the sovereign people, elicited warm applause. There would be no repeat of the
Dred Scott
dicta.
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The party’s antislavery radicals took additional encouragement from the slate of cabinet nominees which Lincoln sent to the Senate on the day after his inauguration. For the Treasury Department he had chosen the formidable Salmon P. Chase, who for two decades had done more than most to shape and energize the forces of political antislavery. Chase’s name was not a surprise, but neither was it assured until late in the day. His nomination guaranteed that the “ultras” or “straight-outs,” as radicals were known, would have a forceful and intellectually impressive spokesman at the highest level.

Salmon Portland Chase (1808–73)

William Henry Seward (1801–72)

Edwin McMasters Stanton
(1814–69)

Gideon Welles (1802–78)

LINCOLN’S KEY CABINET MEMBERS

Two
of
Lincoln’s
most
effective
cabinet
officers
served
him
for
the
duration
of
his
tenure
as
president:
William
H.
Seward
as
secretary
of
state,
and
Gideon
Welles
as
secretary
of
the
navy.
Salmon
P.
Chase
proved
a
superb
secretary
of
the
treasury
until
Lincoln
accepted
his
resignation
in
June
1864.
Edwin
M.
Stanton
took
over
from
Simon
Cameron
as
secretary
of
war
in
January
186
2
,
bringing
much
needed
energy
and
discipline
to
a
vital
post.

The framework of his cabinet had begun to take shape in Lincoln’s mind even before his election, and during the sleepless night following his victory he had jotted down the names of seven advisers. His thinking was characteristically hardheaded. He wanted a balanced cabinet that would reflect the breadth and diversity of Republicanism. He also recognized his own inexperience and the political qualities of those he had defeated for the Republican nomination: Seward, Chase, and Bates. It says much for Lincoln’s self-assurance that he was so ready to surround himself with some of the largest and most self-regarding talents in the party. But pursuing this project proved a disjointed, frustrating, and occasionally unhappy affair. Lincoln was cautious, and conducting discussions at a distance did not help. Vice president–elect Hamlin, Bates, Weed (on behalf of Seward), Chase, and Cameron all made separate visits to Illinois. Seward took umbrage at the slowness with which Lincoln invited him to take the State Department. Chase was noncommittal in the face of what amounted merely to a provisional offer. In Cameron’s case, a firm offer was made and accepted, but then retracted. Only two appointments had been agreed upon before Lincoln left for Washington. After his arrival there, at Willard’s Hotel, he faced the determined lobbying of rival factions and felt the hard truth of what the Philadelphia editor John W. Forney had told him: “You cannot select anybody who will not give dissatisfaction in certain quarters.”
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Achieving a balanced cabinet was no easy task, given the many different elements to be counterpoised. The party was an amalgam of ex-Whigs and ex-Democrats; quasi-abolitionist radicals, moderates, and Negrophobic conservatives; free traders and protectionists; nativists and friends of the foreign-born. Lincoln had also to take account of political geography, state interests, understandings (if not outright promises) entered into at the Chicago nominating convention, personal rivalries and antipathies, and the amour propre of some sizable egos. His final list of seven advisers, which varied in only two instances from his draft of November, included four ex-Democrats: Chase at the Treasury, Gideon Welles as secretary of the navy, Montgomery Blair as postmaster general, and Cameron at the War Department. The three original Whigs were Seward as secretary of state, Bates as attorney general, and Caleb Smith as secretary of the interior. To those who worried about the apparent numerical imbalance, Lincoln commonly replied that “he was himself an old-line Whig, and he should be there to make the parties even.”
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Lincoln successfully struck other balances. Welles of Connecticut provided representation for New England, Smith of Indiana and Chase of Ohio for the Northwest, Blair and Bates for the border slave states of Maryland and Missouri, and Seward for New York. Cameron, though hated by many in his state party and tainted with the odor of corruption, was there to reassure the high-tariff men of Pennsylvania, anxious about the influence of the ardent free-trader, Chase. Lincoln’s most delicate task was to bind to his administration the mutually hostile Chase and Seward. Seward had accepted Lincoln’s offer in late December and subsequently did his best to prevent the appointment of his rival. Thinking of himself as the real power of the incoming administration and confidently pursuing a conciliatory, bridge-building policy toward the South, Seward was appalled when Lincoln, who had invited the Republican senators to express their views concerning the Treasury appointment, offered it to Chase, who was taking a hard-line approach to the secessionists. Seward wrote to Lincoln for permission to withdraw his consent to serve—a bluff, intended to result in Chase’s exclusion. But Lincoln was determined to keep both men, telling Nicolay, “I can’t afford to let Seward take the first trick.”
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He followed with his own bluff, letting Seward learn indirectly that he would keep Chase, while Seward would be exiled as minister to England. Seward withdrew his letter.

Despite its messy process of construction and the clear signals that it would lack real harmony, the new cabinet immediately served two useful purposes. Lincoln both reassured his party hard-liners that there would be no backsliding from true Republicanism, and at the same time sought to signal to non-Republicans in the North and the anxious border South that his would be a broad-based administration, attentive to conservative sentiment. It did not satisfy those who thought the crisis demanded an all-inclusive, cross-party cabinet, but—through Blair’s appointment in particular—it reached out a hand to anxious Democratic Unionists and the border South, and notably to teetering Maryland.
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