1861.

His own prudence in dealing with the slavery CHAP. VIII. question was, however, not imitated by all those about him. The Frémont incident sharply marked the rapid drift and development of public opinion on this sensitive topic, and men were becoming either more conservative or more progressive, according to their several convictions. It was not unnatural that political leaders should begin to trim their sails to this fresh breeze of popular sentiment, and before long it furnished an occurrence out of which grew the first change in President Lincoln's Cabinet. In preparing to transmit to Congress, at its December session, the customary official documents which accompany the President's message, Mr. Lincoln found, to his surprise, that the annual report of the Secretary of War had been printed, and, without being submitted to his inspection, mailed to the postmasters of the chief cities to be handed to the press as soon as the telegraph should announce that the reading of the message was completed in Congress. When a copy came to his hands the reason for this haste was quite apparent; in its closing paragraphs Secretary Cameron's report took distinct ground in favor of arming the negroes and incorporating them in the military service. Referring to the slaves abandoned by their owners in the territory captured by the Port Royal expedition, the report said:

Those who make war against the Government justly forfeit all rights of property, privilege, or security derived from the Constitution and laws against which they are in armed rebellion; and as the labor and service of their slaves constitute the chief property of the rebels, such property should share the common fate of war, to

CHAP. VIII. Which they have devoted the property of loyal citizens.

It is as clearly a right of the Government to arm slaves, when it may become necessary, as it is to use gunpowder taken from the enemy. Whether it is expedient to do so is purely a military question... What to do with that species of property is a question that time and circumstance will solve, and need not be anticipated further than to repeat that they cannot be held by the Government as slaves. It would be useless to keep them as prisoners of war; and self-preservation, the highest duty of a government, or of individuals, demands that they should be disposed of or employed in the most effective manner that will tend most speedily to suppress the insurrection and restore the authority of the Government. If it shall be found that the men who have been held by the rebels as slaves are capable of bearing arms and performReport, ing efficient military service, it is the right, and may become the duty, of the Government to arm and equip them, and employ their services against the rebels, under proper military regulation, discipline, and command.

Secretary of War, Dec. 1, 1861,

1st Edition, Suppressed Copy.

While Mr. Lincoln agreed perfectly with the Secretary of War in the abstract right of the Government to use abandoned or fugitive negroes in any military capacity, he did not think the time had arrived for forming them into marching regiments; neither did he deem it expedient that an official declaration of such a purpose should be published by a prominent officer of his Administration. The pamphlet copies of the report were still in the leading post-offices. These were hastily recalled by telegraph, and Secretary Cameron printed a new edition, modified according to the President's direction, by omitting all that portion of the argument relating to the controverted question, and in its place inserting a short paragraph to the effect that the slaves on captured or abandoned plantations should not be returned to their

masters, but withheld to lessen the enemy's mili- CHAP. VIII. tary resources.1

Ordinarily so radical a difference in administrative policy, the abrupt manner of its promulgation, and the peremptory recall and modification of a Secretary's report, would scarcely fail to cause a disagreeable Cabinet explosion. Lincoln's uniform good-nature and considerate forbearance, however, enabled him to endure and manage the incident without a quarrel, or even the least manifestation of ill-will on either side. Having corrected his minister's haste and imprudence, the President indulged in no further comment, and Cameron, yielding to superior authority, received the implied rebuke with becoming grace. From the confidential talks with his intimates it was clear enough that he expected a dismissal. But Lincoln never acted in a harsh or arbitrary mood. For the time being the personal relations between the President and his Secretary of War remained unchanged. They met in Cabinet consultations, or for the daily dispatch of routine business, with the same cordial ease as before. Nevertheless, each of them realized

labor may be useful to us; with-
held from the enemy it lessens
his military resources, and with-
holding them has no tendency to
induce the horrors of insurrec-
tion, even in the rebel communi-
ties. They constitute a military
resource, and, being such, that
they should not be turned over
to the enemy is too plain to
discuss. Why deprive him of
supplies by a blockade and vol-
untarily give him men to produce
them?"-Report of the Secretary
of War, December 1, 1861 (Re-
vised Copy).

CHAP. VIII. that the circumstance had created a situation of difficulty and embarrassment which could not be indefinitely prolonged. Cameron began to signify his weariness of the onerous labors of the War Department, and hinted to the President that he would greatly prefer the less responsible duties of a foreign mission. Lincoln said nothing for several weeks, but he was waiting for a favorable moment when he might make a Cabinet change with the least official friction or public attention. To outsiders the affair seemed to have completely blown over, when, on January 11, 1862, Lincoln wrote the following short note:

MY DEAR SIR: As you have more than once expressed a desire for a change of position, I can now gratify you, consistently with my view of the public interest. I therefore propose nominating you to the Senate, next Monday, as Minister to Russia.

Very sincerely, your friend,

A. LINCOLN.

There is an interesting passage in the published diary of Secretary Chase, informing us that this note, written on Saturday, was shown by Cameron on Sunday afternoon to Secretaries Seward and Chase; also implying that several separate and joint interviews had been going on between these three Cabinet ministers for a day or two previous, in which they discussed the question of Cameron's retirement, his nomination to Russia, and the equally important topic of who should become his successor in the War Department. Three points seem evident from the record: that while they all had a hint of the change, neither of them knew definitely whether it would be finally made, or when it