eveloped a
small but very active faction which harshly denounced the President when
Mr. Lincoln revoked that premature and ill-considered measure. No matter
what the President subsequently did about slavery, the Democratic press
and partizans always assailed him for doing too much, while the Fremont
press and partizans accused him of doing too little.

Meanwhile, personal considerations were playing their minor, but not
unimportant parts. When McClellan was called to Washington, and during
all the hopeful promise of the great victories he was expected to win, a
few shrewd New York Democratic politicians grouped themselves about him,
and put him in training as the future Democratic candidate for
President; and the general fell easily into their plans and ambitions.
Even after he had demonstrated his military incapacity, when he had
reaped defeat instead of victory, and earned humiliation instead of
triumph, his partizan adherents clung to the desperate hope that though
they could not win applause for him as a conqueror, they might yet
create public sympathy in his behalf as a neglected and persecuted
genius.

The cabinets of Presidents frequently develop rival presidential
aspirants, and that of Mr. Lincoln was no exception. Considering the
strong men who composed it, the only wonder is that there was so little
friction among them. They disagreed constantly and heartily on minor
questions, both with Mr. Lincoln and with each other, but their great
devotion to the Union, coupled with his kindly forbearance, and the
clear vision which assured him mastery over himself and others, kept
peace and even personal affection in his strangely assorted official
family.

The man who developed the most serious presidential aspirations was
Salmon P. Chase, his Secretary of the Treasury, who listened to and
actively encouraged the overtures of a small faction of the Republican
party which rallied about him at the end of the year 1863. Pure and
disinterested, and devoted with all his energies and powers to the cause
of the Union, he was yet singularly ignorant of current public thought,
and absolutely incapable of judging men in their true relations He
regarded himself as the friend of Mr. Lincoln and made strong
protestations to him and to others of this friendship, but he held so
poor an opinion of the President's intellect and character, compared
with his own, that he could not believe the people blind enough to
prefer the Preside