Note 3 — Chapter I

Page 27, line 19, after the word "possession."

Mr. Lincoln felt deeply the responsibility of his great trust; and he felt still more keenly the supposed impossibility of administering the government for the sole benefit of an organization which had no existence in one-half of the Union. He was therefore willing, not only to appoint Democrats to office, but to appoint them to the very highest offices within his gift. At this time he thought very highly of Mr. Stephens of Georgia, and would gladly have taken him into his cabinet but for the fear that Georgia might secede, and take Mr. Stephens along with her. He commissioned Thurlow Weed to place a seat in the Cabinet at the disposal of Mr. Gilmore of North Carolina; but Mr. Gilmore, finding that his state was likely to secede, was reluctantly compelled to decline it. I had thought that Mr. Lincoln had authorized his friend Mr. Speed to offer the Treasury Department to Mr. Guthrie of Kentucky. Mr. Speed writes of this incident in a letter to me dated June 24, 1872.

In one instance I find a palpable mistake. It is in regard to a tender to Mr. Guthrie through me of a position in his Cabinet. The history of that transaction was about this: I met Mr. Lincoln by appointment in Chicago after his election but before he had gone to Washington. He seemed very anxious to avoid bloodshed and said that he would do almost anything saving the sacrifice of personal honor and the dignity of the position to which he had been elevated to avoid war.

He asked about Mr. Guthrie and spoke of him as a suitable man for Secretary of War. He asked very particularly as to his strength with the people and if I knew him well enough to say what would be his course in the event of war. I frankly gave my opinion as to what I thought would be his course—which is not necessary here to repeat. He requested me to see Mr. Guthrie. But by all means to be guarded and not to give any man the advantage of the tender of a Cabinet appointment to be declined by an insulting letter. I did see Mr. Guthrie and never tendered him any office for I was not authorized to do so. This is a very different thing from being authorized to tender an appointment.

Yours truly J. F. Speed.

When Mr. Lincoln was asked during conferences incident to making up his cabinet if it was just or wise to concede so many seats to the Democratic element of the Republican party he replied that as a Whig he thought he could afford to be liberal to a section of the Republican party without whose votes he could not have been elected.