but that, as he found them conducted on sound lines by men that he trusted, his intervention in them was of a modest kind.  Welles continued throughout the member of his Cabinet with whom he had the least friction, and was probably one of those Ministers, common in England, who earn the confidence of their own departments without in any way impressing the imagination of the public; and a letter by Lincoln to Fox immediately after the affair of Fort Sumter shows the hearty esteem and confidence with which from the first he regarded Fox.  Of the few slight records of his judgment in these matters one is significant.  The unfortunate expedition against Charleston in the spring of 1863 was undertaken with high hopes by the Naval Department; but Lincoln, we happen to know, never believed it could succeed.  He has, rightly or wrongly, been blamed for dealings with his military officers in which he may be said to have spurred them hard; he cannot reasonably be blamed for giving the rein to his expert subordinates, because his own judgment, which differed from theirs, turned out right.  This is one of very many instances which suggest that at the time when his confidence in himself was full grown his disposition, if any, to interfere was well under control.  It is also one of the indications that his attention was alert in many matters in which his hand was not seen.

He was no financier, and that important part of the history of the war, Northern finance, concerns us little.  The real economic strength of the North was immense, for immigration and development were going on so fast, that, for all the strain of the war, production and exports increased.  But the superficial disturbance caused by borrowing and the issue of paper money was great, and, though the North never bore the pinching that was endured in the South, it is an honourable thing that, for all the rise in the cost of living and for all the trouble that occurred in business when the premium on gold often fluctuated between 40 and 60 and on one occasion rose to 185, neither the solid working class of the country generally nor the solid business class of New York were deeply affected by the grumbling at the duration of the war.  The American verdict upon the financial policy of Chase, a man of intellect but new to such affairs, is one of high praise.  Lincoln left him free in that policy.  He had watched the acts and utterances of his chief contemporaries closely and early acquired a firm belief in Chase’s ability.  How much praise is due to the President, who for this reason kept Chase in his Cabinet, a later part of this story may show.