Without a moment's hesitation on the first day of his service as Secretary of State he assumed the position of a Prime Minister, whose duties included a general supervision of all the Departments of Government, as well as a Regent's supervision over the Executive.
Salmon P. Chase, the Secretary of the Treasury, at once took up the gauntlet thrown down by his rival. He not only regarded the President with contempt, but he extended it to the political trickster who dared to assume the airs of Premiership in a Democratic Republic.
To these Cabinet meetings came no voices of comfort from the country. The Abolitionist press, which represented the aggressive conscience of the North, continued to ridicule and denounce the Inaugural address in unmeasured terms.
The simple truth was soon apparent to the sombre eyes of the President. He was facing the gravest problem that ever confronted a statesman without an organized party on which he could depend for support. But two of his Cabinet had any confidence in his ability or genuine loyalty—Gideon Welles, a Northern Democrat, and Montgomery Blair, a Southern aristocrat.
The problem before him was bigger than faction, bigger than party, bigger than Slavery. Could a government founded on the genuine principles of Democracy live? Could such a Union be held together composed of warring sections with vast territories extending over thousands of miles, washed by two oceans extending from the frozen mountains of Canada to the endless summers of the tropics?
If the Southern people should unite in a slave-holding Confederacy, it was not only a question as to whether he could shape an army mighty enough to conquer them, the more urgent and by far the graver problem was whether he could mould into unity the warring factions of the turbulent, passion-torn North. These people who had elected him—could he ever hope to bind them into a solid fighting unit? If their representatives in his Cabinet were truly representatives the task was beyond human power.
And yet the tall, lonely figure calmly faced it without a tremor. In the depths of his cavernous eyes there burned a steady flame but few of the men about him saw, or understood if they saw—that flame was something new in the history of the race—a faith in the common man which dared to give a new valuation to the individual and set new standards for the Democracy of the world. He believed that the heart of the masses of the people North, South, East and West was sound at the core and that as their Chief Magistrate he could ultimately appeal to them over the heads of all traditions—all factions, and all accepted leaders.
He was the most advised man and the worst advised man in history. It became necessary to think for himself or cease to think at all.
General Scott, the venerable hero of Lundy Lane, in command of the army, had suggested as a solution of the turmoil the division of the country into four separate Confederacies and had roughly drawn their outlines!
Horace Greeley had made the Tribune the most powerful newspaper in the history of America. The Republicans throughout the country had been educated by its teachings and held its authority second only to the Word of God. And yet from the moment of Lincoln's election the chief occupation of this powerful paper was to criticize and condemn the measures and policies of the President.