Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-12-13

himself, and giving the assurance that he
intended no offense." He also inclosed
to Cameron o new letter, antedated January
8, which he suggested that Cameron should
accept as the original of that date, and des.
troy or retern the one that had given Of
fense. In this letter he said:
A ASubsttute for Blunt Letter.
"You have not yet signifed to me wheth'
er you would accept the appointment, and
with much pain now say to you that you
| will relieve me from great embarrassment
| by allowing me to recall the offer" The ex.
planatory letter in which the antedated let
ter was enclosed gave Cameron only this as
surance as to Lincoln's purpose: eff
should make Cabinet appointment for
Pennsylvania before reach Washington ]
will not do SO without consulting you and
giving all the weight to your views and
wishes which I consistently can." None of
these letters were made public by Cameron,
but it was well understood that it was an
open fight for and against him and Pennsyl-
vania was convulsed by that struggle from
the first of January until the Cabinet was
| announced after the Inauguration of the
President
When Lincoln arrived in Washington, the
five members of the Cabinet who had been
positively chosen were Messrs Seward,
Bates, Chase, Welles and Smith, The ten
days he spent at the capital before. becom-
ing President, were given up almost wholly
to battle over the two remaining cabinet
portfolios. The appointment of Cameron
and Blair was not finally determined until
the day before the Inauguration, and then
the Cameron issue was decided BY the pow
ertul intervention of Seward and Weed
They were greatly disappointed that Gamer
on had failed to deliver the Pennsylvania
delegation to Seward, as they had been led
to expect, but they were intensely embit-
tered against Curtin, because he and Lane
had both openly declared at Chicago that
Stewards nomination would mean their in
evitable defeat.
he Was Forced to Appoint Cameron.
Looking back upon that contest with the
clearer insight that the lapse of 30 years
must give, do not see how Lincoln could
have done otherwise than appoint Cameron
as q member of his Cobinet, 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 appoint
ment, made by many who were entitled to
respect, he felt that he was not free from
the obligation made in his name by Davis
at Chicago to make Cameron q member of
his Cabinet. The appointment was not
made wholly for that reason, but that pledge
probably resolved Lincoln's doubts in Cam
eron's favor, and he was accepted as Min
lister of War;
That there was some degree of mutual
distrust between Lincoln and Cameron was
. necessity from the circumstances sur
rounding the selectionj but as there was no
- Aw,,- ha&r
Lincoln and any of his Cabinet officers,
Cameron's relations with the President
'ra:e little If any more strained than were
the relations of his brother constitutional
advi.ers with their chief, and Cameron's
practical views in the grave emergency in
which the administration was placed, were
probably of more value to Lincoln at times
than were the counsels of most of the
Cabinet. Cameron entered the Cabinet.
therefore, with about equal opportunity
among his associates to win and hold power
with the President and his retirement
within less than year was not due to any
prejudices or rapprehensions which may have
been created by tie bitter struggle against
his appointment 4
The Bosse Censure OF Cameron.
Had the most capable, experienced and
upright man Of the nation been called to the
head of the War Department when Lincoln
was inaugurated in 1861, it would have been
impossible for him to administer that Office
without fragrant abuses. The Government
was entirely unprepared for war. 1t was
without armies, without guns, without NUM-
tions of war; indeed it had to improvise
everything needed to meet an already we'll
organized Confederate army, Contracts had
to be made with such haste as to forbid the
exercise of sound discretion in obtaining
what the country needed; and Cameron,
With his peculiar political surroundings,
with horde of partisans clamoring for
spoils, was compelled either to reject the
expectation of his friends or to
submit to eminent peril from the grossest
abuse of his delegated authority. He was
soon brought under the severest criticism of
leading journals and statesmen of his own
party, and Representative Dawes, now Sen.
ator from Massachusetts, led an investiga-
tion of the alleged abuses of the War De-
partment, which resulted in scathing re-
port against Cameron's methods in admins
tering the Office, and vote of censure upon
Cameron by the House.
Lincoln promptly exhibited the generous
sense of justice that always characterized
him by sending special message to the
House, e1culpating Cameron because the
acts for which he was criticised had not
been exclusively Cameron's, but were
largely acts for which the President and
Cabinet were equally responsible Some |
ten years later the House expunged the res
olution of censure Notwithstanding the |
message of Lincoln lessetling the burden of |
cast upon Cameron by the House,
popular distrust was very general as to the |
Of the War Department and |
the demands for Cameron's removal grew in |
both power and intensity. He was not &C. |
,used of individual corruption, but the Sc |
we're strain eliminated in q formal appeal to |
he President from leading financial men of |
he country for an immediate change in the |
Minister of War.
1 have no reason to believe that Lincoln |
would have appointed a new Secretary of |
War had not public considerations made it |
Imperative. His personal relations with |
Cameron were as pleasant as his relations
With any other of his Cabinet officers. Roth |
we're mistaken as to the magnitude of the |
var after the surrender Of Sumpter. When |
he first call for $4,000 troops was made |
many of the States rendered volunteers
argely in excess of their respective quotas.
These were uniformly declined by the SEQ
-etary of War, under instructions from the |
President. What afterwards became the
Reserve Corps, that made
such illustrious records in most of the great
battles in the Army of the Potomac, was
rendered the Government for three years
service by Governor Curtin, but the troops
we're refused, as Secretary Cameron stated,
because the Government would accept less
than Pennsylvania quota rather than
more
These troops had been called under q
requisition made upon the State by Cen
,ral Patterson, then in command of the De-
oartment of Pennsylvania, when Washing
ON was cut off from the North by the burn
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