* * * * *

Rebellion and foreign ill-will, even Copperheadism, presented difficulties and opposition which were in a certain sense legitimate; but that loyal Republicans should sow the path of the administration thick with annoyances certainly did seem an unfair trial.  Yet, on sundry occasions, some of which have been mentioned, these men did this thing, and they did it in the very uncompromising and exasperating manner which is the natural emanation from conscientious purpose and intense self-faith.  An instance occurred in December, 1862.  The blacker the prospect became, the more bitter waxed the extremists.  Such is the fashion of fanatics, who are wont to grow more warm as their chances seem to grow more desperate; and some of the leaders of the anti-slavery wing of the Republican party were fanatics.  These men by no means confined their hostility to the Democratic McClellan; but extended it to so old and tried a Republican as the secretary of state himself.  It had already come to this, that the new party was composed of, if not split into, two sections of widely discordant views.  The conservative body found its notions expressed in the cabinet by Seward; the radical body had a mouthpiece in Chase.  The conservatives were not aggressive; but the radicals waged a genuine political warfare, and denounced Seward, not, indeed, with the vehemence which was considered to be appropriate against McClellan, yet very strenuously.  Finally this hostility reached such a pass that, at a caucus of Republican senators, it was actually voted to demand the dismission of this long-tried and distinguished leader in the anti-slavery struggle.  Later, in place of this blunt vote, a more polite equivalent was substituted, in the shape of a request for a reconstruction of the cabinet.  Then a committee visited the President and pressed him to have done with the secretary, whom they thought lukewarm.  Meanwhile, Seward had heard of what was going forward, and, in order to free Mr. Lincoln from embarrassment, he had already tendered his resignation before the committee arrived.

The crisis was serious.  The recent elections indicated that even while, as now, the government represented all the sections of Republicanism, still the situation was none too good; but if it was to be controlled by the extremist wing of a discordant party, the chance that it could endure to the end the tremendous strain of civil war was reduced almost to hopelessness.  The visitors who brought this unwelcome suggestion to the President received no immediate response or expression of opinion from him, but were invited to come again in the evening; they did so, and were then much surprised to meet all the members of the cabinet except Mr. Seward.  An outspoken discussion ensued, in which Mr. Chase found his position embarrassing, if not equivocal.  On the following morning, he, with other members of the cabinet, came again for further talk with the President; in his hand he held a written resignation of his office.  He “tendered” it, yet “did not advance to deliver it,” whereupon the President stepped forward and took it “with alacrity."[48]