An instance occurred in December, 1862. The blacker the
prospect became, the more bitter waxed the extremists. Such is the
fashion of fanatics, who are wont to grow more warm as their chances
seem to grow more desperate; and some of the leaders of the anti-slavery
wing of the Republican party were fanatics. These men by no means
confined their hostility to the Democratic McClellan; but extended it to
so old and tried a Republican as the secretary of state himself. It had
already come to this, that the new party was composed of, if not split
into, two sections of widely discordant views. The conservative body
found its notions expressed in the cabinet by Seward; the radical body
had a mouthpiece in Chase. The conservatives were not aggressive; but
the radicals waged a genuine political warfare, and denounced Seward,
not, indeed, with the vehemence which was considered to be appropriate
against McClellan, yet very strenuously. Finally this hostility reached
such a pass that, at a caucus of Republican senators, it was actually
voted to demand the dismission of this long-tried and distinguished
leader in the anti-slavery struggle. Later, in place of this blunt vote,
a more polite equivalent was substituted, in the shape of a request for
a reconstruction of the cabinet. Then a committee visited the President
and pressed him to have done with the secretary, whom they thought
lukewarm.
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