In a word, the politicians had, and
hated, a master. Mr. Chase betrayed this when he complained that there
was no "administration, in the true sense of the word;" by which he
understood, "a president conferring with his cabinet and _taking their
united judgments_." The existence of that strange moat which seems to
isolate the capital and the political coteries therein gathered, and to
shut out all knowledge of the feelings of the constituent people, is
notorious, and certainly was never made more conspicuous than in this
business of selecting the Republican candidate for the campaign of 1864.
When Congress came together the political scheming received a strong
impetus. Everybody seemed to be opposed to Mr. Lincoln. Thaddeus
Stevens, the impetuous leader of the House of Representatives, declared
that, in that body, Arnold of Illinois was the only member who was a
political friend of the President; and the story goes that the President
himself sadly admitted the fact. Visitors at Washington, who got their
impressions from the talk there, concluded that Mr. Lincoln's chance of
a second term was small.
This opposition, which had the capital for its headquarters and the
politicians for its constituents, found a candidate ready for use.
Secretary Chase was a victim to the dread disease of presidential
ambition. With the usual conventional expressions of modesty he admitted
the fact.
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