Team of Rivals_ The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - Doris Kearns Goodwin [373]
Lincoln might “shut his eyes” to Chase’s stratagems so long as Chase remained a good secretary, but members of his cabinet possessed less tolerance. “I’m afraid Mr. Chase’s head is turned by his eagerness in pursuit of the presidency,” Bates recorded in his diary. “That visit to the west is generally understood as [his] opening campaign.” Perusing newspaper accounts of Chase’s speeches, the Attorney General noted derisively that his colleague had attributed “the salvation of the country to his own admirable financial system”—much as Cicero had sworn, “By the immortal Gods, I have saved my country.” Chase ought to have focused solely on his cabinet position, Bates observed, but “it is of the nature of ambition to grow prurient, and run off with its victim.” Like Bates, Welles believed that Chase’s presidential aspirations had “warped” his judgment, leading him to divisively exploit the Reconstruction issue to consolidate the radical wing of the party behind him. Yet these critiques were moderate compared to the scathing indictments the Blairs poured forth in daily correspondence to their friends.
Chase remained oblivious to the ire of his colleagues. He had found the trip immensely gratifying. “I little imagined the reception that awaited me,” he proudly told a friend. “Such appreciation & such manifestation of warm personal esteem—moved me deeply.” Chase apparently never considered that he owed a good part of his tremendous reception to the president he represented and to the victories of the Union armies at Gettysburg and Vicksburg. All personal praise and flattering letters he accepted as his just due. “The late election in this City & State, to you, more than to any other living man was a personal triumph,” he was told by James Baker, stationed in St. Louis. “I feel hopeful now for you in the contest of ’64.” After a few more fawning remarks, Baker proceeded to request a job as a collector, explaining that months “in the saddle” had produced a bad case of hemorrhoids, leaving him unfit for active duty.
Chase also basked in the extravagant praise from the radical press. “To him, more than any other man in the cabinet,” the Liberator wrote, “are we indebted for the Presidents’ proclamation, and the other executive acts which have struck the diabolical system of slavery.” The Liberator supposed Chase’s victory over Seward’s influence had finally allowed the proclamation to be issued. “If in any one month of Mr. Seward’s administration, he had chosen strenuously to urge upon Abraham Lincoln the abolition of slavery throughout the country on the ground that the conflict is irrepressible,” the Liberator maintained, then “the war would have ended in our victory within six months thereafter.” The public should carefully consider “whether a vote for old Abe will not choose Seward to be again acting President.”
NO ONE UNDERSTOOD BETTER than Seward the absurdity of the claim that he was the acting president. By the fall of 1863, he had both accepted and respected Lincoln’s consummate control of his cabinet, and the relationship between the two men “had grown very close and unreserved,” Fred Seward observed. “Thrown into daily companionship, they found, not only cordial accord in most of their political opinions but a trait in common not shared by all their contemporaries. That was their disposition to take a genial, philosophical view of human nature, and of national destiny.” Such intimate cooperation benefited not only both men but the country at large.
“As they sat together by the fireside, or in the carriage,” Seward’s son continued, “the conversation between them, however it began, always drifted back into the same channel—the progress of the great national struggle. Both loved humor, and however trite the theme, Lincoln always found