CH. XXIII.] DIFFERENCES BETWEEN LINCOLN AND CHASE 475

of 1793 as still remained in force were repealed June 28. It was due largely to Sumner's persistent championship of it that the repeal passed the Senate. When he entered that body in 1851, he had deemed it a special mission to use his best endeavors to secure the abrogation of "the infamous Act of 1850;" and with that aim he had labored in season and out of season, and was now happy in its accomplishment, writing in a private letter, "The repeal of all fugitive slave acts is of immense importance for us abroad; but its practical importance at home is not great.'

We must now return to the relations between Lincoln and Chase. In December, 1862, as has been related, the Secretary offered his resignation, but since it was not accepted he resumed the duties of his post.2 A little more than two months afterwards a difference over the appointment of an internal-revenue collector in Connecticut induced him to write a letter giving up his office, but before sending it the difficulty was patched up and it was withheld. Later, trouble occurred about a collector of customs at Puget Sound. As Lincoln insisted on having his way, Chase again tendered his resignation, on May 11. The President drove to his house, handed him his letter, begged him to think no more about it, and made a compromise appointment.5 The New York custom-house with the factional fight in the dominant party for its possession, has perplexed and troubled many presidents, and at this time plagued Lincoln. In the early part of 1864 he desired, for what he deemed sufficient reasons, that Barney should resign his office of collector of customs in New York City, and proposed then to appoint him minister to Portugal. This scheme Chase resisted, and in the end seemed to have

1 Pierce's Sumner, vol. iv. p. 176. Pierce gives a good history of this ransaction, and a full one may be found in Sumner's Works, vol. viii. p. 403. For an account of other anti-slavery legislation and for Sumner's efforts to ecure equal rights of the colored people, see Pierce, p. 177 et seq.

2 Ante.

3 Warden, p. 523.

4 Ibid., p. 527.

6 Field, Memories of Many Men, p. 303.

gained his point; at all events, at this time Barney neither resigned nor was he removed from office.1

Another cause of jar followed. Chase disliked the Blairs and a speech which Francis P. Blair Jr. made in the House of Representatives, April 23, transmuted his dislike into rage and hate. Blair charged him "with sacrificing a vast public interest to advance his ambition," saying that he had used the power of his office in prescribing trade regulations with the South in a way to provide a fund to carry on the operations of the Pomeroy committee, that is, to secure his own nomination for the presidency. Blair read private letters supporting these accusations, and imparted a communication from a gentleman at the head of one of the largest moneyed institutions of New York City which spoke of the rumors afloat there concerning the Secretary of the Treasury: that he had "given to his son-in-law Governor Sprague a permit to buy cotton at the South, by which he will probably make $2,000,000," and that he had allowed Jay Cooke & Co., the financial agents of the government, to secure extravagant and irregular profits in the disposal of the five-twenty bonds.3

1 Warden, pp. 572, 601; Schuckers, p. 477; Nicolay and Hay, vol. ix. p. 85; Field, p. 304.

2 Riddle, Recollections of War Times, p. 267.

8 Globe, p. 1829 et seq. Hendricks said in the Senate, March 11: “I might refer to the fact that a banking company has been made very rich by its intimate relations with the Treasury Department. Perhaps a million dollars has been made by the firm of Jay Cooke & Co., by being made the special and exclusive agent of the Treasury Department in disposing of the bonds of the government which might have been disposed of by the ordinary machinery of that department.” — Ibid., p. 1046. Sherman replied: "Jay Cooke was employed as agent to negotiate the five-twenty loan only after other expedients had been tried and failed. He was selected because of his great activity and success in promoting the negotiation of prior loans, and for his undoubted standing and credit. . . . But the senator says that an enormous commission was given to Jay Cooke & Co., and that it was done secretly; that the bankers in the West did not know that Jay Cooke & Co. received this commission. The senator is mistaken. The amount paid to Jay Cooke was published in the newspapers, was known as publicly and broadly as the five-twenty loan; and not only so, but every bank and banker, and every agent who was employed in the negotiation of the loan received two-thirds of the very commission that the

CH. XXIII.] DIFFERENCES BETWEEN LINCOLN AND CHASE 477 Chase was angry with the President on learning that the same day on which Blair had made this speech he was restored to his command in the army. He thought that Lincoln had endorsed the "outrageous calumny," and had an inclination to resign his office, but from this was dissuaded by Governor Brough and other friends. His envy and inflamed ambition led him to misjudge the President, who, instead of sanctioning Blair's speech, was much annoyed at it. "I knew," he said, "that another beehive was kicked over."2 He restored Blair to his military command on account of a previous promise, and had sent the necessary instructions before he knew of the speech; but on hearing of it he was on first thoughts disposed to cancel the order that assigned the Congressman to the army. He concluded, however, to let it stand, and a great deal of management of common friends was required to placate the angry Secretary.4

The continual sneers of Chase at the President and his associates reveal the state of mind to which he gave way. "I preside over the funnel," he said in a private letter; "everybody else, and especially the Secretaries of War and the Navy, over the spigots and keep them well open, too." "Nothing except the waste of life," he wrote to another friend, "is more painful in this war than the absolutely reckless waste of means. A very large part of the frauds which disgrace us may be traced to the want of systematic supervision; and yet what encouragement is there to endeavors

senator talks about. The entire expense to the United States of negotiating the loan was limited to three-eighths of one per cent., and every bank and banker employed received one-fourth of one per cent., so that there was left to Cooke only one-eighth of one per cent. Out of the commission allowed the agent paid all the expenses of this loan. . . . I have examined the loans made by the British and French Governments, and I find that the ordinary allowance there in the form of expenses is from one-half of one per cent. to one per cent., and, besides, various facilities are allowed.". Globe, pp. 1046, 1047.

1 Warden, p. 584.

2 Riddle, p. 275.

Ibid.; Nicolay and Hay, vol. ix, p. 80.

Warden, pp. 583, 584, 593, 594; Riddle, chap. xxxviii.

towards economy? Such endeavors league against him who makes them all the venality and corruption which is inter. ested in extravagance." "It seems as if there were no limit to expense," he wrote to one of his young admirers. "Contrary to all rules, the spigot in Uncle Abe's barrel is made twice as big as the bung-hole. He may have been a good flat-boatman and rail-splitter, but he certainly never learned the true science of coopering."1

...

Richard H. Dana, with his vivid pen lets us penetrate affairs at Washington with the eye of a keen and favored observer. "I have had interviews," he wrote, May 4, "with the President, Seward, Blair, Stanton, Welles, and a short one with Chase. The cabinet is at sixes and sevens, or 'Isaac and Josh,' as my witness said. They say dreadful things of one another. (Not Seward; I have never heard him speak harshly of one of them.). I spent a half-hour or more with the President. I cannot describe the President; it is impossible. He was sobered in his talk, told no extreme stories, said some good things and some helplessly natural and naïve things. You can't help feeling an interest in him, a sympathy and a kind of pity; feeling, too, that he has some qualities of great value, yet fearing that his weak points may wreck him or wreck something. His life seems a series of wise, sound conclusions, slowly reached, oddly worked out, on great questions, with constant failures in administration of details and dealings with individuals.” 2

The final rupture between the President and his Secretary of the Treasury did not occur until after the enthusiastic renomination of Lincoln. John J. Cisco, who had held the office of assistant treasurer in New York City since the commencement of Pierce's administration, and was in every way qualified for it, had offered his resignation, to take effect June 30, at the close of the fiscal year. As this position was next in consequence financially to that of the Secretary of the

1 Jan. 24, 28, May 7, Warden, pp. 562, 565, 586.

2 Adams's Dana, vol. ii. pp. 273, 274.

CH. XXIII.]

CHASE'S RESIGNATION

476

Treasury, it was important that a man of special capacity should be selected for the office; and as politics entered into the matter, it was desirable that the wishes of the New York senators should be regarded. In fact, the President wrote to Chase that any one agreed upon by the three would be satisfactory to him.1 Senator Morgan, whose business judgment was excellent, took the greater part in the negotiations, and he and the Secretary agreed successively on two men, both of whom, however, declined the office.2 Chase then proposed Maunsell B. Field, one of the assistant secretaries of the Treasury, who was a gentleman of breeding, position, and culture, but had not beyond these the necessary qualifications for the post, and was opposed firmly by Morgan. He, in his turn, named three men, any one of whom would be satisfactory to him and his colleague; but Chase would have none of them. June 28 the President sent his Secretary two kind notes, in which he said that he did not think he could appoint Field, rendering for his refusal cogent and sufficient reasons. In the mean time Chase had urged Cisco to withdraw his resig nation, and he with patriotism responded affirmatively to the request. This ought to have ended the difficulty, but Chase took umbrage at one of Lincoln's notes, and, June 29, resigned his office.3

To the summoning of Chittenden, the register of the Treasury, for counsel touching a matter of routine, we owe a knowledge of the thoughts of the President after he had ruminated on the missive which came from his Secretary. When the intelligence was imparted to Chittenden, he exclaimed: "Where is the man" that can be a successor to Chase? "Mr. President, this is worse than another Bull Run defeat. Pray let me go to Secretary Chase, and see if I cannot induce him to withdraw his resignation. Its acceptance now might cause a financial panic." Lincoln replied:

1 June 28, Warden, p. 611.

2 Ibid., pp. 605, 608.

3 Ibid., p. 609 et seq.; Nicolay and Hay, vol. ix. p. 91 et seq.; Schuckers, p. 484.