Team of Rivals_ The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - Doris Kearns Goodwin [185]
Lincoln agreed wholeheartedly with the presumption that Seward deserved first consideration. Seward, however, harbored more elaborate ambitions. While Lincoln desired a cabinet that stitched together the various factions of the Republican Party, Seward believed the cabinet should be dominated by former Whigs like himself. The Whig Party had provided nearly two thirds of Lincoln’s total vote. Lesser posts could be given to the leading representatives of the other factions, but the former Whigs, Seward believed, deserved all the top prizes. Furthermore, Seward intended, with Weed’s help, to have a major role in choosing the remaining cabinet members, thus acquiring a position in the new government more commanding than that of Lincoln himself.
To set this in motion, Thurlow Weed invited Lincoln shortly after the election to join him at Seward’s home in Auburn so the three men might deliberate about the cabinet. As precedent, he invoked the journey of President-elect William Harrison to Lexington, Kentucky, in 1841 to confer with his rival Henry Clay. Lincoln wisely declined. When Weed suggested meeting in a more neutral setting, Lincoln again declined. While more than willing to consult with Weed and Seward on his cabinet selections, Lincoln wanted it known that the ultimate decisions would emanate from Springfield and would be his alone.
Lincoln’s careful maneuvering with Weed did not indicate any hesitation to make Seward his secretary of state. On the contrary, Lincoln responded testily to a warning from a conservative Kentucky judge that “if obnoxious men like Seward, Cassius M. Clay, &c were put in the Cabinet,” the citizens of Kentucky might feel compelled to follow South Carolina in its call for a secession convention. “In what speech,” Lincoln asked, had Seward or any prominent Republican “ever spoken menacingly of the South?” The problem was not what the Republicans said or believed but the manner in which Southerners “persistently bespotted and bespattered every northern man by their misrepresentations to rob them of what strength they might otherwise have.”
In fact, after newspapers had speculated that Seward had no interest in a cabinet post, and that, even if he did, Lincoln did not want to offer him one, Lincoln resolved to act quickly. Early in December, he directed Hamlin to ascertain Seward’s state of mind. When Hamlin approached Seward’s friend Preston King, King suggested that the vice president–elect should deal directly with Seward. Knowing this would be equivalent “to a tender of a place,” Hamlin again sought Lincoln’s instructions.
Lincoln concluded the time had come to make the offer official. In reply to Hamlin, he enclosed two letters for Seward and directed Hamlin, after consulting with Trumbull in Washington, to deliver them to Seward “at once.” On the afternoon of December 10, after the Senate had adjourned, Hamlin caught up with Seward on the street. Reaching the Washington House on the corner of Third Street and Pennsylvania Avenue where Hamlin was staying, the vice president–elect invited Seward in to talk. Asked if he would, in truth, reject the position of secretary of state, Seward was guarded. “If that is what you have come to talk to me about, Hamlin, we might as well stop here,” he replied. “I don’t want the place, and if I did, I have reason to know that I could not get it; therefore let us have no more talk about it.”
“Very well,” Hamlin said, “but before you express yourself to others as plainly as you have done to me, let me present you with this letter from Mr. Lincoln.” Seward “trembled” and appeared “nervous” as he took the first letter, dated December 8, which contained the formal invitation. “With your permission,” Lincoln wrote, “I shall, at the proper time, nominate you to the Senate, for confirmation, as Secretary of State, for the United States. Please let me