But the personal frictions and dissensions in the Cabinet, and the more or less meddlesome attitude of leaders in the Senate and the House, at times sorely tried the strength and patience of the harassed President, compelling him to act the part of peacemaker, and sometimes of judge and arbiter as well.  At one time Secretary Stanton threatened to resign; and Chase declared that in that case he should go with him.  Stanton and Welles were in frequent antagonism, Welles stating in his Diary that Stanton assumed, or tried to assume, that the Navy should be subject to the direction of the War Department.  Seward was “meddlesome” toward other departments; “runs to the President two or three times a day; wants to be Premier,” etc., says Welles.  “Between Seward and Chase there was perpetual rivalry and mutual but courtly distrust; they entered the Cabinet as rivals, and in cold courtesy so continued.”  The most serious of these Cabinet embroglios occurred late in December of 1862, while Lincoln was well-nigh overwhelmed by Burnside’s dreadful repulse at Fredericksburg.  The gist of the affair, as given by Mr. Welles, is that the opposition to Seward in the Senate grew to such a point that a committee was appointed to wait on the President and request Seward’s removal from the office of Secretary of State.  The President, Mr. Welles tells us, was “shocked and grieved” at this demonstration.  He asked all the members of his Cabinet to meet the Senate committee with him.  All the members of the Cabinet were present except Seward, who had already sent the President his resignation.  The meeting was attended also by Senators Collamer, Fessenden, Harris, Trumbull, Grimes, Howard, Sumner, and Pomeroy.  The President, says Mr. Welles, opened the subject for which the meeting was called, taking a conciliatory tone toward the Senators, and requesting from each in turn an expression of opinion as to the wisdom of dropping Seward from the Cabinet.  Most of them were strongly of the opinion that Seward ought to go.  The President presented his own views, which were, in effect, that it would be a mistake to let Seward leave the Cabinet at that particular time.  “He managed his own case,” says Mr. Welles, “speaking freely, and showing great tact, shrewdness, and ability.”  The meeting continued until nearly midnight, and the matter was left still in the President’s hands.  The next morning Mr. Welles called early at the White House and found Lincoln practically decided not to accept Seward’s resignation, saying that it would never do to take the course prescribed by the Senators; that “the Government would cave in; it could not stand—­would not hold water; the bottom would be out,” etc.  He requested Welles to go at once to Seward and ask him not to press his resignation.  Lincoln’s intuitional mind seemed at once to connect Secretary Chase with the attack on Seward.  Before Welles left the room, the President rang a bell and directed that a message