After January 1 following the election, Mr. Chase was invited to Springfield, and upon his arrival the President-elect waived all ceremony and called upon him at his hotel. "I have done with you," said he, "what I would not have ventured to do with any other man in the country,—sent for you to ask you whether you will accept the appointment of Secretary of the Treasury without, however, being exactly prepared to offer it to you." Concerning this conversation Mr. Chase wrote to a friend as follows:
"He said he had felt bound to offer the position of Secretary of State to Mr. Seward as the generally recognized leader of the Republican party, intending, if he declined it, to offer it to me. He did not wish that Mr. Seward should decline it, and was glad that he had accepted, and now desired to have me take the place of Secretary of the Treasury."
Mr. Chase told the President-elect that he was not prepared to give a definite answer because he wanted to ask the advice of friends and be governed by the course of events. He valued the trust and its opportunities, but was reluctant to leave the Senate. No further communication took place between the two on the subject; but, assuming that Mr. Chase had accepted, Lincoln sent his name to the Senate on March 5 with those of other members of his Cabinet.
From the beginning of the administration Mr. Chase advocated a radical policy; was very urgent in advocating the relief of Fort Sumter and pushing the war, while Seward hung back. Mr. Chase's policy was presented in a memorandum, with similar ones from other members of the Cabinet, at the request of the President, in March, and reads as follows:
"If war is to be the consequence of an attempt to provision Fort Sumter, war will just as certainly result from the attempt to maintain possession of Fort Pickens.
"I am clearly in favor of maintaining Fort Pickens and just as clearly in favor of provisioning Fort Sumter. If that attempt should be resisted by military force, Fort Sumter should, in my judgment, be reinforced.
"If war is to be the result, I perceive no reason why it may not be best begun by military resistance to the efforts of the administration to sustain troops of the Union, stationed under the authority of the government, in a fort of the Union, in the ordinary course of service."
GENERAL GEORGE B. McCLELLAN AT THE HEAD-QUARTERS OF GENERAL MORRELL'S BRIGADE, MINOR'S HILL, VIRGINIA
From a photograph by M. B. Brady