WASHINGTON

Seward’s Trick

MARCH 2

WITH ONLY TWO DAYS LEFT UNTIL INAUGURATION DAY, LINCOLN had still not made the configuration of his cabinet final. The selection process thus far had been fraught with political rancor and wrangling. William Seward had accepted appointment as secretary of state, but other cabinet posts remained in contention.

Lincoln seemed certain to tap Salmon Chase, an impassioned abolitionist, as his secretary of the treasury, which appalled Seward. In addition to just plain disliking Chase, Seward feared that the man’s intense hatred of slavery would further increase the likelihood that Virginia and other states of the upper South would follow their Deep South brethren out of the Union.

Seward wasn’t entirely sure of his own standing with Lincoln. He still did not know whether Lincoln had taken any of his suggestions for modifying his inaugural. On top of this, an unfounded but widely circulated rumor held that Lincoln might even drop Seward as secretary of state and give the post to Chase.

On March 2, with no forewarning, Seward took himself out of consideration. In a note to Lincoln he wrote, “Circumstances which have occurred since I expressed to you in December last my willingness to accept the office of Secretary of State, seem to me to render it my duty to ask leave to withdraw that consent.”

He did not offer an explanation.

“This,” wrote Lincoln secretaries Nicolay and Hay, “from the man who for several months had held intimate counsel with him, had taken active part in the formation of the Cabinet, and had read and partly revised the inaugural, was unexpected.”

Lincoln, a canny judge of men, did not immediately acknowledge Seward’s note. To Nicolay he said, “I can’t afford to let Seward take the first trick.”