When the Cabinet and the Senators met, Chase was placed in a situation of which he had an instinctive horror.  His caution, his secretiveness, his adroit confidences, his skilful silences, had created in these two groups of men, two impressions of his character.  The Cabinet knew him as the faithful, plausible Minister who found the money for the President.  The Senators, or some of them, knew him as the discontented Minister who was their secret ally.  For the two groups to compare notes, to check up their impressions, meant that Chase was going to be found out.  And it was the central characteristic of Chase that he had a horror of being found out.

The only definite result of the conference was Chase’s realization when the Senators departed that mischance was his portion.  In the presence of the Cabinet he had not the face to stick to his guns.  He feebly defended Seward.  The Senators opened their eyes and stared.  The ally they had counted on had failed them.  Chase bit his lips and was miserable.

The night that followed was one of deep anxiety for Lincoln.  He was still unable to see his way out.  But all the while the predestination in Chase’s character was preparing the way of escape.  Chase was desperately trying to discover how to save his face.  An element in him that approached the melodramatic at last pointed the way.  He would resign.  What an admirable mode of recapturing the confidence of his disappointed friends, carrying out their aim to disrupt the Cabinet!  But he could not do a bold thing like this in Seward’s way—­at a stroke, without hesitation.  When he called on Lincoln the next day with the resignation in his hand, he wavered.  It happened that Welles was in the room.

“Chase said he had been painfully affected,” is Welles’ account, “by the meeting last evening, which was a surprise, and after some not very explicit remarks as to how he was affected, informed the President he had prepared his resignation of the office of Secretary of the Treasury.  ‘Where is it,’ said the President, quickly, his eye lighting up in a moment.  ‘I brought it with me,’ said Chase, taking the paper from his pocket.  ‘I wrote it this morning.’  ‘Let me have it,’ said the President, reaching his long arm and fingers toward Chase, who held on seemingly reluctant to part with the letter which was sealed and which he apparently hesitated to surrender.  Something further he wished to say, but the President was eager and did not perceive it, but took and hastily opened the letter.

“‘This,’ said he, looking towards me with a triumphal laugh, ’cuts the Gordian knot.’  An air of satisfaction spread over his countenance such as I had not seen for some time.  ’I can dispose of this subject now without difficulty,’ he added, as he turned in his chair; ’I see my way clear.’"(12) In Lincoln’s distress during this episode, there was much besides his anxiety for the fate of a trusted minister.  He felt he must not permit himself to be driven into the arms