taken from david herbert donald's 'lincoln'..
'..during the months when the president seemed to be on a radical course, it was the conservative republicans who demanded that he reorganize his cabinet. for instance, in early september, samuel galloway warned that the cabinet members' 'selfish purposes (had) over-borne their patriotism' and tried to persuade l to drop chase, whom he considered too radical on the slavery question. even within the cabinet itself, montgomery blair, after consulting with seward, went to the president with a report that the nation was 'going to ruin for the want of a proper head to the war depat.' and begged him to oust stanton.
but after early november most of the demands for cabinet changes came from the radical, antislavery wing of l's party. in calling for a reorganization of the cabinet, radicals often hoped to oust smith, who was 'nothing but a doughface', and bates, who was 'a fossil of the silurian era'. but the chief focus of their attention was seward, who had come to represent everything that was wrong with the l administration. the secretary of state, they alleged, had never had his heart in the war; he had tried to negotiate with the confederate envoys during the secession crisis; he had opposed making a stand at fort sumter; he had been mcClellan's principal defender; he had opposed, and then delayed, the issuance of the emancipation proclamation; he and thurlow weed had undermined the candidacy of radical general wadsworth for governor of new york. the publication in december of seward's diplomatic dispatches to charles francis adams, the american minister in london, gave further evidence that the secretary failed to understand the meaning of the american conflict; as late as july 5, seward denounced both 'the extreme advocated of african slavery and its most vehement opponenets', the abolitionists, as being equally responsible for the civil war. 'seward must be got out of the cabinet', joseph medill of the chicago tribune announced. 'he is l's evil genius. he has been president de facto, and has kept a sponge saturated with chloroform to uncle abe's nose'.
l became aware of the full extent of the hostility to the secretary of state on december 16, three days after the battle of fredericksburg, when a messenger brought him a not from seward; 'i hereby resign the office of secretary of state of the united states, and have the honor to request that this resignation may be immediately accepted'. in identical language frederick w. seward, his son, resigned as assistant secretary of state. with a face full of pain and surprise the president turned to senator preston king of new york, who accompanied the messenger, and asked; 'what does this mean?'
king reported that because of the immense popular excitement over the defeat at fredricksburg there had been an extraordinary caucus of republican senators that afternoon in order 'to ascertain whether any steps could be taken to quiet the public mind and to produce a better condition of affairs'. the real purpose of the caucus became clear when senator wilkinson accused seward of exercising 'a controlling influence upon the mind of the president' and predicted that 'so long as he remained in the cabinet nothing but defeat and disaster could be expected'. senator grimes offered a resolution declaring a want of confidence in the secretary of state and calling for his removal from office. the highly respected jacob collamer argued that 'the president had no cabinet in the true sense of the word', and sharp-spoken william pitt fessenden said that 'there was a back-stairs influence which often controlled the apparent conclusions of the cabinet itself'. he refused to name seward but declared that 'senators might draw their own conclusions'. taken by surprise, the friends of the secretary of state were nevertheless able to prevent unanimous adoption of grimes's resolution of censure. frustrated, seward's opponents pressed for adjournment until the next day and, by a vote of 16 to 13, got their way.
king had not stayed for the final vote but went immediately to seward's house, where he repeated the proceedings to the secretary. 'they may do as they please about me, but they shall not put the president in a false position on my account', said seward. he wrote out a letter of resignation.
that evening the president called at seward's house but found the secretary resolute in his determination to resign. he wired his family, who had been planning to join him in the capital, not to come, and he and his son began packing up their books and papers in preparation for a return to his home in auburn, new york.
keeping seward's resignation secret during the next two days , the president anxiously awaited the outcome of the republican caucus. for months the radicals in this group had been in frequent contact with secretary chase, who fed them stories of l's failure to consult with his cabinet advisers. for instance, he told zachariah chandler that there was 'at the present time no cabinet except in name'; though the heads of departments met now and then, 'no reparts are made; no regular discussions held; no ascertained conclusions reached'. chase was also the source of fessenden's statement about seward's 'back-stairs' influence at the white house. believing chase's rumors, the caucus agreed on a resolution calling for 'a change in and a partial reconstruction of the cabinet'. the senators then voted unanimously-with only two republican senators absent, and senator king not voting-to name a committee to present their views to the president.
l, who had a good idea of what went on in the caucus, was in anguish because of this new assault, coming so close after the devastating news from fredericksburg. when he met browning in the afternoon of december 18, he asked, 'what do these men want?' and he answered himself; 'they wish to get rid of me, and i am sometimes half disposed to gratify them'. 'we are now on the brink of destruction..it appears to me the Almighty is against us, and i can hardly see a ray of hope'.
but when the committee representing the senate caucus called at the white house at seven o'clock that evening, he had regained his composure, and he greeted his visitors with what fessenden called 'his usual urbanity'. patiently he listened as collamer, the chairman of the committee, read resolutions that the senators had agreed on, which, in very general terms and without mentioning any names, called for changes in the composition of the cabinet so that its members would agree with the president 'in political principles and general policy' and urged that no important military command should go to anyone who was not 'a cordial believer and supporter of the same principles'.
wade then bluntly censured l for entrusting the conduct of the war to 'men who had no sympathy with it or the cause' and blamed republican defeats in the recent elections on 'the fact that the president had placed the direction of our military affairs in the hands of bitter and malignant democrats'.
after professing confidence in the integrity and patriotism of the president, fessenden alleged 'that the cabinet were not consulted as a council-in fact, that many important measures were decided upon not only without consultation, but without the knowledge of its members'. seward, he claimed, exerted an injurious influence upon the conduct of the war. branching out in his indictment, he went on to say that the commanders of the armies were 'largely pro-slavery men and sympathized strongly with the southern feeling', and some of them, like mcClellan, had use their position to blame the administration for failing to support them and their men.
at this point l interrupted. from his long experience in the courtroom he knew the value of a well-timed digression as a way of defusing hostility. if the occasion had not been so serious, he might have told the senators an anecdote. instead, producing a large bundle of papers, he spent nearly half an hour in reading aloud his letters to mcClellan, showing that the government had consistently sustained him to the best of its powers.
by the time the senators got back to their main subject, their tempers had cooled and nobody got very excited about sumner's charge that seward had written offensive diplomatic dispatches, 'which the president could not have seen or assented to'.
after three hours the meeting broke up without taking any action. by the end of the session the president was, as fessenden thought, 'apparently in cheerful spirits', and he promised to give careful consideration to the resolutions submitted by the committee. as they left the white house, radical republicans were exultant 'at the prospect of getting rid of the WHOLE CABINET' and chandler rejoiced with 'our best and truest men' that they were going to oust seward, 'the millstone around the administration'.
the president had other plans. the next morning at a cabinet meeting were all members except seward were present, he reported on the resignation of the secretary of state and on his visit from the committee representing the republican caucus. he observed that they considered seward 'the real cause of our failures'. 'while they believed in the president's honesty, he said in his quaint language, 'they seemed to think that when he had in him any good purposes mr. seward) contrived to suck them out of him unperceived'. he then asked the cabinet members to meet with him again, 'to have a free talk', that evening at seven thirty.
the committee was invited for the same hour and as senators and cabinet members met in the anteroom, they exchanged looks of wild surmise. (to conjecture or guess) the president began the meeting with a long statement, commenting 'with some mild severity' on the resolutions presented by the senators the previous evening, admitting that he had not been very regular in consulting the cabinet as a whole, but arguing 'that most questions of importance had received a reasonable consideration' and that he 'was not aware of any divisions or want of unity'. he then called on the members of the cabinet to state 'whether there had been any want of unity or of sufficient consultation'.
most of the cabinet members unhesitatingly agreed that they had indeed been consulted on important matters, but chase was in a very embarrassing position. if he now repeated his frequent complaints to the senators, his disloyalty to the president would be apparent. if he supported l's statement, it would be evident that he had deceived the senators. chase tried to get out of the trap by blustering' that he should not have come here had he known that he was to be arraigned before a committee of the senat'. but finding no escape, he swallowed both truth and consistency and averred 'that questions of importance had generally been considered by the cabinet, though perhaps not so fully as might have been desired' and that there was no want of unity in the cabinet.
the meeting went on for some time after that, as senators repeated all the familiar charges against seward, but it was evident that chase's forced admission had undercut the case against the secretary of state. at one o'clock, when the senators and the cabinet officers left the whit house, no conclusion had been reached, but there was a general feeling that there would be no changes in the cabinet.
chase began to realize that his position was untenable and wrote out his resignation as secretary of the treasury. the next morning when l summoned him to the white house, he brought the letter with him. he, along with stanton and welles, was already in the executive office when the president arrived. turning at once to the treasury secretary, l said; ' i sent for you, for this matter is giving me great trouble'. chase stammered that he, too, had been painfully affected by the meeting the previous night and that he had prepared his resignation.
where is it? asked l quickly. 'i brought it with me,' said chase, taking a paper from his pocket. 'i wrote it this morning'.
'let me have it', said l, his long arm and fingers reaching out for the document, which chase was apparently reluctant to release. evidently the secretary intended to say more, but l took the letter and opened it. 'this...cuts the gordian knot' he said with a triumphant laugh. 'i can dispose of this subject now'.
then stanton offered his resignation, but l brushed him aside. 'you may go to your department' he told the secretary of war. 'i don't want yours'. then he ended the interview abruptly; 'i will detain neither of you longer.
having both seward's resignation and chase's in his hand, the president declined to accept either and insisted that both men remain in his cabinet. they balanced each other, he told senator ira harris of new york. remembering how as a boy in indiana he had worked out a way to carry pumpkins while he was on horseback, he told the senator: 'i can ride on now. i've got a pumpkin in each end of my bag!'
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