party politics of Pennsylvania and dictate who should succeed him in the Senate, had shown Mr. Lincoln's first note. Mr. Cameron was, therefore, not only unable to telegraph 'All right,' but was in a measure compelled to show the recall to a few special friends." Mr. Cameron was sorely wounded in pride and weakened in prestige. . . . While he did not conceal his chagrin, on the whole he kept his temper, taking the stand that he neither originally solicited the place nor would he now decline it. His enemies, seeing him at bay, redoubled their efforts to defeat him. They charged him with unfitness, with habitual intrigue, with the odium of corrupt practices. Mr. Lincoln, however, soon noticed that these allegations were based upon newspaper report and public rumor, and that when requested to do so, no one was willing to make specific charges and furnish tangible proof. . . . The defense was yet more earnest, and testimonials came from all ranks and classes-citizens, clergymen, editors, politicians and officials of all grades. . . . Astute Washington politicians were nonplussed, and frankly confessed that the vindication from aspersion was complete and overwhelming and that they could not account for it-attributing it, as usual, to his personal intrigue.3 Eventually, about March 1, Lincoln decided to place Cameron in the War Department. McClure says concerning this decision: Looking back upon that contest with the clearer insight that the lapse of thirty years must give, I do not see how Lincoln could have done otherwise than appoint Cameron as a member of his Cabinet, viewed from the standpoint he had assumed. He desired to reconcile party differences by calling his Presidential competitors around him, and that opened the way for Cameron. He acted with entire sincerity, and in addition to the powerful pressure for Cameron's appointment made by many who were entitled 2 Nicolay and Hay, Abraham Lincoln: A History, Vol. III, p. 357. 8 Nicolay and Hay, Abraham Lincoln: A History, Vol. III, pp. 360-361. ▲ Abraham Lincoln: A History, Vol. III, p. 368. Col. A. K. McClure, Lincoln and Men of War Times, p. 145. to respect, he felt he was not free from the obligation made in his name by Davis at Chicago to make Cameron a member of his Cabinet. The appointment was not made wholly for that reason, but that pledge probably resolved Lincoln's doubts in Cameron's favor, and he was accepted as Secretary of War. But to return to the events of the early days of January, 1861. While Cameron was making all haste to announce his appointment, the senatorial contest in Pennsylvania, by which Wilmot's fortunes were, or were to be, linked up with the Cabinet arrangements, was reaching its climax. The republicans controlled the legislature, and their caucus was in full swing, with David Wilmot and Edgar Cowan as candidates for the six-year term. Cameron held the balance of power. "General Cameron returned here last night from Washington," said the News of January 8, under Harrisburg date of January 6. "A very strong pressure has been made upon him to-day to go for Wilmot. So far that pressure has failed to move him from his assumed neutrality." The News correspondent speaks of a proposed "compromise" suggested by Cameron, under which Wilmot should take the long term, and Cowan, his competitor, the short term-or vice versa-and of its peremptory refusal by both candidates. At midnight of the sixth it was announced that the Wilmot faction were in high spirits and Cowan's followers correspondingly depressed, the general supposition being that Cameron was entering the fight on Wilmot's side. But the next day the dispatch ran that "the long agony is over and Cowan is nominated for Senator." McClure, who was an intimate participant in the • This, according to McClure (op. cit., p. 139), was an agreement made at Chicago between David Davis, who was especially in charge of Lincoln's interests, and two Cameron men, members of the Pennsylvania delegationSanderson and Cummings-who actually had little or no control of the delegation's vote, but who, nevertheless, obtained Davis's pledge that if the Pennsylvania delegation should support Lincoln, and Lincoln should succeed to the presidency, Cameron would be appointed Secretary of the Treasury. "This agreement was not known at the time to any of the delegation, nor did it become known to Lincoln, at least as a positive obligation, until after the election." struggle (being, indeed, mentioned as himself a possible choice for the short term under certain conditions) says definitely that "Cameron . . . gave the victory to Edgar Cowan."" The deduction is obvious. Lincoln's letter to Cameron recalling the invitation to enter his Cabinet bears the date Jan. 3, 1861.8 McClure, whose conference with Lincoln impelled the writing of that letter, says "though I left him as late as eleven o'clock in the evening, he wrote Cameron (the letter just referred to) dated the same night." It was, therefore, too late for mailing until January 4. This would have brought it to Harrisburg on January 6, and (especially as that was Sunday) to Cameron's hands January 7-the very day of the sudden reversal of expectations and of the extinction of Wilmot's hopes. In the first flash of his consternation and resentment, Cameron would inevitably have made in his mind the same grouping of influences McClure makes in his story. He would have guessed at the source of this "very vigorous opposition to his appointment, in which Gov. Curtin, Thaddeus Stevens, David Wilmot and others participated," and he would have struck back at the representative of that faction closest at hand-David Wilmot-with the weapon which the situation held out to him-his own power to defeat, in the Pennsylvania legislature, any given candidate's election. to the Senate of the United States. "10 This was the hidden drama at which Horace Greeley hinted cryptically in the Tribune, January 9, 1861, when he wrote: "The comparatively small vote which Mr. Wilmot received in the caucus of the Republicans in the Pennsylvania legislature assembled on Monday night to select a candidate for Senator,11 hardly answers to the popular strength which he had been supposed to possess in the State. Probably his recent visit to Springfield and its consequences have not increased his chances 7 Col. A. K. McClure, Recollections of Half a Century, p. 240. 8 Nicolay and Hay, Abraham Lincoln: A History, Vol. III, p. 356. 9 Col. A. K. McClure, Lincoln and Men of War Times, p. 141. 10 Col. A. K. McClure, Lincoln and Men of War Times, p. 41. 11 He had only 38 votes to Cowan's 58. |