Team of Rivals_ The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - Doris Kearns Goodwin [409]
Acutely aware of his own emotional needs, Lincoln had chosen exactly the right time to review the troops, for his conversations with Grant and his interactions with the soldiers sustained and inspired him during the troubling days ahead. “Having hope,” writes Daniel Goleman in his study of emotional intelligence, “means that one will not give in to overwhelming anxiety, a defeatist attitude, or depression in the face of difficult challenges or setbacks.” Hope is “more than the sunny view that everything will turn out all right”; it is “believing you have the will and the way to accomplish your goals.” More clearly than his colleagues, Lincoln understood that numerous setbacks were inevitable before the war could be brought to a close. Yet in the end, he firmly believed the North would prevail. “We are today further ahead than I thought one year and a half ago we should be,” he told Noah Brooks that June, “and yet there are plenty of people who believe that the war is about to be substantially closed. As God is my judge I shall be satisfied if we are over with the fight in Virginia within a year.”
BY THE LAST WEEK of June, the forbearance Lincoln had long shown toward his ambitious secretary of the treasury was finally exhausted. The dramatic upheaval in the cabinet began when John Cisco, assistant treasurer of New York, announced his resignation. Cisco had held the prestigious post through three different administrations and was well respected by all factions. Lincoln was anxious that his replacement satisfy both wings of New York’s Republican Party. For several months, the president had been bombarded by complaints from friends in New York, including Thurlow Weed and Senator Edwin Morgan, that Chase was filling all the customs house positions with his own partisans—former Democrats who were now radical Republicans supporting Chase’s own presidential hopes.
Sensitive to Weed’s concerns, Lincoln told Chase to consult with Senator Morgan and ensure that his selection was satisfactory to all sides. Chase discussed the matter with the powerful New York senator but then proceeded, over Morgan’s strong objection, to send Lincoln a formal nomination for Maunsell Field. A Democratic journalist with ties to New York society, Field was serving as third assistant secretary of the treasury, a post Chase had designed especially to compensate Field for the access he had provided Chase to the inner circles of New York literary and social life. The appointment was stunning, recalled the treasury registrar, Lucius Chittenden, for Field “had no financial or political standing, and his natural abilities were of a literary rather than an executive character.”
Undeterred, Chase apparently assumed that his own services were so indispensable that Lincoln would sanction a controversial nominee rather than risk a messy squabble when the financial health of the nation was at stake. Chase awoke the morning after sending the Field nomination to the White House and cheerfully undertook his daily reading of the Bible, which on that summer morning included a letter St. Paul sent to the Ephesians imploring them to “Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness.” When he reached the department, however, he found a disturbing note from the president on his desk. “I can not, without much embarrassment, make this appointment,” Lincoln informed him, “principally because of Senator Morgan’s very firm opposition to it.” It would “really oblige” him, he said, if Chase and Senator Morgan could agree on another nominee.
Still confident that he could change the president’s mind, Chase wrote an immediate request for a personal interview. When Lincoln did not respond, Chase decided to resolve the difficulty on his own. He telegraphed Cisco in New York and pleaded with him to withdraw his