The feeling against Mr. Blair and the pressure upon the President for his removal increased throughout the summer. All through the period of gloom and discouragement he refused to act, even when he believed the verdict of the country likely to go against him, and was assured on every side that such a concession to the radical spirit might be greatly to his advantage. But after the turn had come, and the prospective triumph of the Union cause became evident, he felt that he ought no longer to retain in his cabinet a member who, whatever his personal merits, had lost the confidence of the great body of Republicans; and on September 9 wrote him a kindly note, requesting his resignation.
Mr. Blair accepted his dismissal in a manner to be expected from his manly and generous character, not pretending to be pleased, but assuming that the President had good reason for his action; and, on turning over his office to his successor, ex-Governor William Dennison of Ohio, went at once to Maryland and entered into the campaign, working heartily for Mr. Lincoln's reëlection.
After the death of Judge Taney in October, Mr. Blair for a while indulged the hope that he might be appointed chief justice, a position for which his natural abilities and legal acquirements eminently fitted him. But Mr. Chase was chosen, to the bitter disappointment of Mr. Blair's family, though even this did not shake their steadfast loyalty to the Union cause or their personal friendship for the President. Immediately after his second inauguration, Mr. Lincoln offered Montgomery Blair his choice of the Spanish or the Austrian mission, an offer which he peremptorily though respectfully declined.
The appointment of Mr. Chase as chief justice had probably been decided on in Mr. Lincoln's own mind from the first, though he gave no public intimation of his decision before sending the nomination to the Senate on December 6. Mr. Chase's partizans claimed that the President had already virtually promised him the place; his opponents counted upon the ex-secretary's attitude of criticism to work against his appointment. But Mr. Lincoln sternly checked all presentations of this personal argument; nor were the prayers of those who urged him to overlook the harsh and indecorous things Mr. Chase had said of him at all necessary. To one who spoke in this latter strain the President replied:
"Oh, as to that I care nothing. Of Mr. Chase's ability, and of his soundness on the general issues of the war, there is, of course, no question. I have only one doubt about his appointment. He is a man of unbounded ambition, and has been working all his life to become President. That he can never be; and I fear that if I make him chief justice he will simply become more restless and uneasy and neglect the place in his strife and intrigue to make himself President. If I were sure that he would go on the bench and give up his aspirations, and do nothing but make himself a great judge, I would not hesitate a moment."
He wrote out Mr. Chase's nomination with his own hand, and sent it to the Senate the day after Congress came together. It was confirmed at once, without reference to a committee, and Mr. Chase, on learning of his new dignity, sent the President a cordial note, thanking him for the manner of his appointment, and adding: "I prize your confidence and good will more than any nomination to office." But Mr. Lincoln's fears were better founded than his hopes. Though Mr. Chase took his place on the bench with a conscientious desire to do his whole duty in his great office, he could not dismiss the political affairs of the country from his mind, and still considered himself called upon to counteract the mischievous tendencies of the President toward conciliation and hasty reconstruction.
The reorganization of the cabinet went on by gradual disintegration rather than by any brusque or even voluntary action on the part of Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Bates, the attorney-general, growing weary of the labors of his official position, resigned toward the end of November. Mr. Lincoln, on whom the claim of localities always had great weight, unable to decide upon another Missourian fitted for the place, offered it to Joseph Holt of Kentucky, who declined, and then to James Speed, also a Kentuckian of high professional and social standing, the brother of his early friend Joshua F. Speed. Soon after the opening of the new year, Mr. Fessenden, having been again elected to the Senate from Maine, resigned his office as Secretary of the Treasury. The place thus vacated instantly excited a wide and spirited competition of recommendations. The President wished to appoint Governor Morgan of New York, who declined, and the choice finally fell upon Hugh McCulloch of Indiana, who had made a favorable record as comptroller of the currency. Thus only two of Mr. Lincoln's original cabinet, Mr. Seward and Mr. Welles, were in office at the date of his second inauguration; and still another change was in contemplation. Mr. Usher of Indiana, who had for some time discharged the duties of Secretary of the Interior, desiring, as he said, to relieve the President from any possible embarrassment which might arise from the fact that two of his cabinet were from the same State, sent in his resignation, which Mr. Lincoln indorsed "To take effect May 15, 1865."
The tragic events of the future were mercifully hidden. Mr. Lincoln, looking forward to four years more of personal leadership, was planning yet another generous offer to shorten the period of conflict. His talk with the commissioners at Hampton Roads had probably revealed to him the undercurrent of their hopelessness and anxiety; and he had told them that personally he would be in favor of the government paying a liberal indemnity for the loss of slave property, on absolute cessation of the war and the voluntary abolition of slavery by the Southern States.
This was indeed going to the extreme of magnanimity; but Mr. Lincoln remembered that the rebels, notwithstanding all their offenses and errors, were yet American citizens, members of the same nation, brothers of the same blood. He remembered, too, that the object of the war, equally with peace and freedom, was the maintenance of one government and the perpetuation of one Union. Not only must hostilities cease, but dissension, suspicion, and estrangement be eradicated. Filled with such thoughts and purposes, he spent the day after his return from Hampton Roads in considering and perfecting a new proposal, designed as a peace offering to the States in rebellion. On the evening of February 5, 1865, he called his cabinet together, and read to them the draft of a joint resolution and proclamation embodying this idea, offering the Southern States four hundred million dollars, or a sum equal to the cost of the war for two hundred days, on condition that hostilities cease by the first of April, 1865; to be paid in six per cent. government bonds, pro rata on their slave populations as shown by the census of 1860—one half on April 1, the other half only upon condition that the Thirteenth Amendment be ratified by a requisite number of States before July 1, 1865.
It turned out that he was more humane and liberal than his constitutional advisers. The indorsement in his own handwriting on the manuscript draft records the result of his appeal and suggestion: