A cashiered officer, seeking to be restored through the power of the executive, became insolent, because the President, who believed the man guilty, would not accede to his repeated requests, at last said, “Well, Mr. President, I see you are fully determined not to do me justice!”
This was too aggravating even for Mr. Lincoln; rising he suddenly seized the disgraced officer by the coat collar, and marched him forcibly to the door, saying as he ejected him into the passage:
“Sir, I give you fair warning never to show your face in this room again. I can bear censure, but not insult. I never wish to see your face again.”
ONE MAN ISN’T MISSED.
Salmon P. Chase, when Secretary of the Treasury, had a disagreement with other members of the Cabinet, and resigned.
The President was urged not to accept it, as “Secretary Chase is to-day a national necessity,” his advisers said.
“How mistaken you are!” Lincoln quietly observed. “Yet it is not strange; I used to have similar notions. No! If we should all be turned out to-morrow, and could come back here in a week, we should find our places filled by a lot of fellows doing just as well as we did, and in many instances better.
“Now, this reminds me of what the Irishman said. His verdict was that ‘in this country one man is as good as another; and, for the matter of that, very often a great deal better.’ No; this Government does not depend upon the life of any man.”