Authors: Doris Kearns Goodwin
“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 hear from you at your own earliest convenience.”
At first, Seward said little, perhaps suspecting this was the pro forma offer that the papers had predicted all along. Moments later, he opened the second letter, labeled private and confidential, which was brilliantly designed to soothe Seward’s ego. “Rumors have got into the newspapers,” Lincoln wrote, “to the effect that the Department, named above, would be tendered you, as a compliment, and with the expectation that you would decline it. I beg you to be assured that I have said nothing to justify these rumors. On the contrary, it has been my purpose, from the day of the nomination at Chicago, to assign you, by your leave, this place in the administration…. I now offer you the place, in the hope that you will accept it, and with the belief that your position in the public eye, your integrity, ability, learning, and great experience, all combine to render it an appointment pre-eminently fit to be made.”
His face “pale with excitement,” Seward grasped Hamlin’s hand. “This is remarkable, Mr. Hamlin; I will consider the matter, and, in accordance with Mr. Lincoln’s request, give him my decision at the earliest practicable moment.” Three days later, on December 13, Seward wrote Lincoln a gracious note, explaining that it was an honor to have received the offer, but that he needed “a little time” to think about whether he had “the qualifications and temper of a minister, and whether it is in such a capacity that my friends would prefer that I should act if I am to continue at all in the public service.” He wished, he said, that he could confer directly with Lincoln on these questions, but he did not see how such a meeting “could prudently be held under existing circumstances.” While there was little doubt that Seward desired the post, he still wished to test the extent of his influence in selecting congenial (pro-Seward) colleagues.
A
FTER TENDERING THE OFFER
to Seward, Lincoln turned his attention to Bates. Through Frank Blair, arrangements were made for Bates to visit Lincoln in Springfield on December 15. Arriving the evening before, Bates took a room at the Chenery House, where he encountered John Nicolay the next morning at breakfast. Nicolay was somewhat taken aback by the elder statesman’s appearance. “He is not of impressive exterior; his hair is grey, and his beard quite white,” Nicolay recorded, “and his face shows all the marks of age quite strongly.” Nonetheless, he found “his flow of words in conversation” to be “very genial and easy.” After breakfast, Bates walked over to Lincoln’s room at the State House. Since Lincoln had not yet arrived, Nicolay gave Bates the morning paper and hastened to Lincoln’s house to inform him that Bates was waiting. Shortly, the two former Whigs settled down for what Bates described as a “free conversation—till interrupted by a crowd” of callers. In order to speak privately, Lincoln suggested that they adjourn to Bates’s room in the hotel, where they spent much of the afternoon together.
Lincoln took little time in assuring Bates that “from the time of his nomination, his determination was, in case of success, to invite [him] into the Cabinet.” In fact, Bates proudly noted in his diary, Lincoln told him that he deemed his participation in his administration “necessary to its complete success.” Lincoln acknowledged that several of Bates’s friends had urged his appointment as secretary of state, but he believed he “should offer that place to Mr. Seward,” not only “as a matter of duty to the party, and to Mr. Sewards many and strong friends,” but also because “it accorded perfectly with his own personal inclinations.” However, “he had not yet communicated with Mr. Seward, and did not know whether he would accept the appointment—as there had been some doubts expressed about his doing so.” While Lincoln may have deliberately chosen the word “communicated” to allow Bates the belief he was the first approached, he actually meant that Seward had not yet responded affirmatively to his letter. Bates understood it to mean that he was the first man to whom Lincoln had spoken about a cabinet position. Lincoln explained that although he could not offer Bates the premier slot as secretary of state, he could extend “what he supposed would be most congenial, and for which he was certainly in every way qualified, viz: the Attorney Generalship.”
Bates told Lincoln that if “peace and order prevailed in the country,” he would decline the honor much as he had refused the post of secretary of war under President Fillmore in 1850. Only two months earlier, acknowledging in his diary that “everybody expects Mr. Lincoln to offer me one of his Departments,” he had vowed to decline the position. “My pecuniary circumstances (barely competent) and my settled domestic habits make it very undesirable for me to be in high office with low pay—it subjects a man to great temptations to live above his income, and thus become dishonest; and if he have the courage to live economically, it subjects his family to ridicule.”
With the country “in trouble and danger,” however, he “felt it his duty to sacrifice his personal inclinations, and if he could, to contribute his labor and influence to the restoration of peace in, and the preservation of his country.” Lincoln knew he had his man, either for U.S. Attorney General, or, if Seward should decline, for secretary of state. When Bates suggested several days later that “a good effect might be produced on the public mind—especially in the border slave States” by leaking the news of his offer, Lincoln agreed. “Let a little editorial appear in the Missouri Democrat,” he wrote Bates, revealing that he had accepted a place in the cabinet, though “it is not yet definitely settled which Department.” The announcement of Bates’s appointment received positive marks almost everywhere. Indeed, the appointment of Bates would require the least maneuvering of all Lincoln’s selections.
Meanwhile, after receiving Lincoln’s offer, Seward consulted Weed, as he had at every critical juncture in his long career. Weed had already established a strong working relationship with Leonard Swett, who had assured him after the election that “we all feel that New York and the friends of Seward have acted nobly…. We should be exceedingly glad to know your wishes and your views, and to serve you in any way in our power.” Weed now contacted Swett to secure an invitation to discuss Seward’s thoughts on the design of the cabinet with Lincoln. “Mr. Lincoln would be very glad to see you,” Swett informed Weed on December 10. “He asks me to tell you so…. Mr. Lincoln wants your advice about his Cabinet, and the general policy of his administration.”
With Weed en route to Illinois, Seward wrote to inform Lincoln of his conversations with Weed, who would convey his “present unsettled view of the subject upon which you so kindly wrote me a few days ago.” Weed arrived in Springfield on December 20. For weeks, reporters representing New York papers had been scanning the guest lists of the local Springfield hotels for signatures of any of their fellow New Yorkers. They were about to conclude that the Eastern establishment was deliberately shunning Lincoln when they uncovered the name of Thurlow Weed on the register at the Chenery House: “The renowned chief of the Albany lobby—the maker and destroyer of political fortunes—the unrivaled party manager—the once almighty Weed,” a newspaper in Rochester noted, has “migrated towards the rising sun!”
Lincoln and Weed settled down opposite each other in Lincoln’s parlor, with Swett and Davis in attendance. Swett would never forget the image of the two men, who “took to each other” so strongly, both “remarkable in stature and appearance,” with “rough, strongly marked features,” both having “risen by their own exertions from humble relations to the control of a nation.” Despite their mutual respect, Lincoln’s resolve regarding his cabinet choices undoubtedly dismayed Weed, who had assumed that he and Seward would have a critical role in the composition of the entire body. To Lincoln’s appointment of Bates, Weed did not object; neither did he complain when the conversation turned to Caleb Smith of Indiana and Simon Cameron. Though Cameron was a former Democrat, Weed understood that Pennsylvania deserved an appointment. Besides, Cameron was a practical man, a politician after his own heart. When mention was made, however, of Salmon Chase, Gideon Welles, and Montgomery Blair—all former Democrats, all unfriendly to Seward—Weed “made strong opposition.”
Chase, Weed argued, was an abolitionist. Welles and his Democratic colleagues in Connecticut had been thorns in the side of Weed and Seward for years. To Welles, “more than any one, perhaps, Weed attributed the defeat of Mr. Seward at Chicago,” for the Connecticut delegation was “unanimously opposed to Mr. Seward” and set the tone for other New England states. Far better than Welles, Weed recommended, would be Charles Francis Adams or George Ashmun, both former Whigs and good friends of both Seward and Weed. Lincoln somewhat disingenuously claimed that since Hamlin was from New England, where so much shipping was located, the vice president–elect had been designated to choose the New England representative for the Navy Department. Since Hamlin had chosen Welles, “the only question was as to whether he [Welles] was unfit personally.” In fact, Hamlin and Lincoln had discussed various men for the post, including Welles. Hamlin preferred Charles Francis Adams, but Lincoln wanted the former Democrat Welles to help balance the Whig members of his cabinet. Indeed, several years later, in a conversation with Welles, Lincoln claimed that his mind was “fixed” on Welles from the start. Though his choice was “confirmed” by Hamlin and others, recalled Lincoln, “the selection was my own, and not theirs.”
Understanding that Lincoln would not be swayed from Welles, Weed playfully suggested a fanciful alternative for secretary of the navy. The president-elect could purchase “an attractive figure-head, to be adorned with an elaborate wig and luxuriant whiskers, and transfer it from the prow of a ship to the entrance of the Navy Department,” which would be “quite as serviceable as his secretary, and less expensive.” Lincoln immediately appreciated the humor in the resemblance between Weed’s image of a wigged, bewhiskered figurehead and Father Neptune, as he would later call Welles. He reckoned, however, he needed “a live secretary of the navy.”
Next, Lincoln brought up the name of Montgomery Blair. “Has he been suggested by any one except his father, Francis P. Blair, Sr.?” Weed mocked. The question prompted from Lincoln an amusing anecdote that made it all too clear to Weed that Blair was Lincoln’s choice. Still, Weed argued that Lincoln would eventually regret his selection. Lincoln explained that he needed a representative from the border states. Montgomery’s appointment would ensure support both in Maryland and through his brother, Frank, in Missouri. Weed suggested instead John Gilmer of North Carolina, a loyal Union man. Lincoln knew Gilmer and liked him, but doubted if any Southerner would accept a post. Nonetheless, he conceded that if Gilmer were contacted and agreed, and if “there was no doubt of his fidelity, he would appoint him.”
As the conversation was drawing to an end, Weed pointed out that the inclusion of Chase, Cameron, Welles, and Blair in the cabinet along with Seward, Bates, and Smith would give the Democrats a majority, slighting the Whigs who made up the major portion of the Republican Party. “You seem to forget,” Lincoln replied, “that
I
expect to be there; and counting me as one, you see how nicely the cabinet would be balanced and ballasted.”
Weed returned to Albany convinced that Lincoln was “capable in the largest sense of the term.” In the
Albany Evening Journal,
he wrote: “his mind is at once philosophical and practical. He sees all who go there, hears all they have to say, talks freely with everybody, reads whatever is written to him; but thinks and acts by himself and for himself.”
While publicly praising Lincoln’s independence, Weed was privately so chagrined by the complexion of the cabinet that he was no longer certain Seward should accept. “In one aspect
all
is gone,” Weed wrote Seward on Christmas Day, likely indicating Welles, “nor do I know how much can be saved in the other,” probably referring to Blair.
The following evening, Seward sent a note to Charles Francis Adams, asking him to call in the morning. With a tone of sorrow in his voice, Seward told Adams he had imagined that when Lincoln offered him the premier position in the cabinet, he “would have consulted him upon the selection of the colleagues with whom he was to act”; but Weed had returned from Springfield empty-handed. He had hoped Adams would be awarded the Treasury, but the likely choice of Welles would fill New England’s quota, closing the door on Adams. “This was not such a Cabinet,” Seward confided to Adams, “as he had hoped to see, and it placed him in great embarrassment what to do. If he declined, could he assign the true reasons for it, which was the want of support in it? If he accepted, what a task he had before him!” Adams replied that “in this moment of great difficulty and danger, there was no alternative for him but acceptance.” This is probably what Seward wanted to hear all along, after he had expressed his distress at not being able to bring his friend Adams along.
The next day, Seward wrote to Lincoln that “after due reflection and with much self distrust,” he had “concluded; that if I should be nominated to the Senate…it would be my duty to accept.” That evening, he wrote to his wife, “I have advised Mr. L. that I will not decline. It is inevitable. I will try to save freedom and my country.” Frances was not surprised by her husband’s acceptance. Though she wanted him to close the curtain on his political career and come home to his family in Auburn, when huge worshipful crowds met his whirlwind summer tour for Lincoln, she had foreseen that his driving ambition would never be satisfied in tranquil Auburn. Nor was she surprised by his grandiose claim that he would try to save freedom and his country. She often saw her man with a clearer eye than he saw himself.