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STANTON'S ABUSE OF LINCOLN.
President Lincoln's sense of duty to the country, together with his keen
judgment of men, often led to the appointment of persons unfriendly to
him. Some of these appointees were, as well, not loyal to the National
Government, for that matter.
Regarding Secretary of War Stanton's attitude toward Lincoln, Colonel A.
K. McClure, who was very close to President Lincoln, said:
"After Stanton's retirement from the Buchanan Cabinet when Lincoln
was inaugurated, he maintained the closest confidential relations with
Buchanan, and wrote him many letters expressing the utmost contempt for
Lincoln, the Cabinet, the Republican Congress, and the general policy of
the Administration.
"These letters speak freely of the 'painful imbecility of Lincoln,'
of the 'venality and corruption' which ran riot in the government, and
expressed the belief that no better condition of things was possible
'until Jeff Davis turns out the whole concern.'
"He was firmly impressed for some weeks after the battle of Bull Run
that the government was utterly overthrown, as he repeatedly refers to
the coming of Davis into the National Capital.
"In one letter he says that 'in less than thirty days Davis will be in
possession of Washington;' and it is an open secret that Stanton advised
the revolutionary overthrow of the Lincoln government, to be replaced by
General McClellan as military dictator. These letters, bad as they are,
are not the worst letters written by Stanton to Buchanan. Some of
them were so violent in their expressions against Lincoln and the
administration that they have been charitably withheld from the
public, but they remain in the possession of the surviving relatives of
President Buchanan.
"Of course, Lincoln had no knowledge of the bitterness exhibited by
Stanton to himself personally and to his administration, but if he had
known the worst that Stanton ever said or wrote about him, I doubt
not that he would have called him to the Cabinet in January, 1862. The
disasters the army suffered made Lincoln forgetful of everything but the
single duty of suppressing the rebellion.
"Lincoln was not long in discovering that in his new Secretary of War he
had an invaluable but most troublesome Cabinet officer, but he saw
only the great and good offices that Stanton was performing for the
imperilled Republic.
"Confidence was restored in financial circles by the appointment of
Stanton, and his name as War Minister did more to strengthen the faith
of the people in the government credit than would have been probable
from the appointment of any other man of that day.
"He was a terror to all the hordes of jobbers and speculators and
camp-followers whose appetites had been whetted by a great war, and he
enforced the strictest discipline throughout our armies.
"He was seldom capable of being civil to any officer away from the army
on leave of absence unless he had been summoned by the government for
conference or special duty, and he issued the strictest orders from time
to time to drive the throng of military idlers from the capital and
keep them at their posts. He was stern to savagery in his enforcement of
military law. The wearied sentinel who slept at his post found no mercy
in the heart of Stanton, and many times did Lincoln's humanity overrule
his fiery minister.
"Any neglect of military duty was sure of the swiftest punishment, and
seldom did he make even just allowance for inevitable military disaster.
He had profound, unfaltering faith in the Union cause, and, above all,
he had unfaltering faith in himself.
"He believed that he was in all things except in name Commander-in-Chief
of the armies and the navy of the nation, and it was with unconcealed
reluctance that he at times deferred to the authority of the President."
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Stories and Anecdotes About the Life of Abraham Lincoln
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