Postoffice Department, Sept. 23, 1864.
My Dear Sir: I have received your note of this date referring to my offer to resign whenever you would deem it advisable for the public interest that I should do so, and stating that in your judgment that time has come. I now, therefore, formally tender my resignation of the office of Postmaster-General.
I cannot take leave of you without renewing the expression of my gratitude for the uniform kindness which has marked your course toward me.
Yours truly,
M. BLAIR.
To the President.
Mr. Blair's resignation was accepted by the majority of Republicans throughout the North as a "cleansing of the Cabinet,"[32] and party lines were at once re-formed. The "radicals" became earnest supporters of the Baltimore ticket, no Republican demand for a new nomination or a second convention appeared, Mr. Davis ceased his trenchant criticisms, and Mr. Wade took the stump and made a series of exceedingly effective speeches in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Military success also came with its powerful help. General Sherman crowned his campaign by the capture of Atlanta, General Grant drew the coils of "the anaconda" daily tighter about the rebel capital, and General Sheridan fairly "swept" Early from the valley of the Shenandoah. The results of the September elections had been dubious in significance, but those of October were decisive Republican victories and preceded an overwhelming triumph in November. Mr. Chandler (who had in 1863 taken an active share in the campaigns in New York and Illinois,[33] Michigan not holding any general election in that year) returned from his labors of mediation to his own State and spoke to almost daily mass-meetings in its chief towns throughout the month of October. Michigan gave to the Lincoln electors a majority of 16,917, and sent only Republicans to the Thirty-ninth Congress. Mr. Chandler's contribution to this result was not unimportant, but it was of meagre value compared with his labors upon a broader field in healing grave dissensions and in quietly removing a cause of danger which was deeply founded, and which, although now almost forgotten, was then of no slight actual proportions and of very serious possibilities. It was characteristic of the man that this self-prompted and successful service, one of the greatest he ever rendered to Republicanism, was rarely mentioned by him afterward, and never as if it was more than was due to the cause of his political faith nor as if it gave him any especial claim upon the party gratitude.
FOOTNOTES:
[31] Mr. Chandler explained the ground of his opposition to the ten per cent. loyal basis plan of reconstruction proposed by Mr. Lincoln for the admission of Louisiana and Arkansas. There were not more than seven or eight members of the Senate with him at the beginning of the session on that question, although there was a large majority before its close. The Democrats did not believe in this ten per cent. doctrine, and they voted with those who did not believe in admitting those States without guarantees. This admission was finally prevented by a night of filibustering. Only six Republicans remained and voted during that night. The result, however, proved that those six men were right, and that Mr. Lincoln and the others were wrong. If Louisiana and Arkansas had been admitted, then we would have been compelled to admit all the other States in the same way, and to-day we would have eleven rebel States in the Union. Those two States, Louisiana and Arkansas, had become the most intensely rebel of all the States that were in rebellion.—Report of his speech, before the Republican caucus at Lansing on Jan. 6, 1869.
[32] Mr. Greeley's comment in the New York "Tribune" was: "Precisely why Mr. Lincoln thought this action called for at this moment, rather than at any other time in the last four months, we are not told." This chapter shows that Mr. Chandler could have "told" him.
[33] If the North had been a unit the rebellion would long ago have been crushed. But the rebels found out we were not a unit at any time, so they persevered, so they invaded Pennsylvania, so they hoped to take Washington, and to raise insurrection all over the land. The only hope of the South to-day is in the traitors of the North.... They will fail in the contest. Instead of having established a slave empire they will have, by their own acts, destroyed all the securities that slavery ever possessed. They will have swept away all the compromises by which slavery has been tolerated by a forbearing people.—Senator Chandler at Springfield, Ill., on Sept. 7, 1863.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE ADMINISTRATION OF ANDREW JOHNSON—RECONSTRUCTION AND IMPEACHMENT.
