oln. Mr. Bates, the attorney-general, growing weary of the labors of
his official position, resigned toward the end of November. Mr. Lincoln,
on whom the claim of localities always had great weight, unable to
decide upon another Missourian fitted for the place, offered it to
Joseph Holt of Kentucky, who declined, and then to James Speed, also a
Kentuckian of high professional and social standing, the brother of his
early friend Joshua F. Speed. Soon after the opening of the new year,
Mr. Fessenden, having been again elected to the Senate from Maine,
resigned his office as Secretary of the Treasury. The place thus
vacated instantly excited a wide and spirited competition of
recommendations. The President wished to appoint Governor Morgan of New
York, who declined, and the choice finally fell upon Hugh McCulloch of
Indiana, who had made a favorable record as comptroller of the currency.
Thus only two of Mr. Lincoln's original cabinet, Mr. Seward and Mr.
Welles, were in office at the date of his second inauguration; and still
another change was in contemplation. Mr. Usher of Indiana, who had for
some time discharged the duties of Secretary of the Interior, desiring,
as he said, to relieve the President from any possible embarrassment
which might arise from the fact that two of his cabinet were from the
same State, sent in his resignation, which Mr. Lincoln indorsed "To take
effect May 15, 1865."

The tragic events of the future were mercifully hidden. Mr. Lincoln,
looking forward to four years more of personal leadership, was planning
yet another generous offer to shorten the period of conflict. His talk
with the commissioners at Hampton Roads had probably revealed to him the
undercurrent of their hopelessness and anxiety; and he had told them
that personally he would be in favor of the government paying a liberal
indemnity for the loss of slave property, on absolute cessation of the
war and the voluntary abolition of slavery by the Southern States.

This was indeed going to the extreme of magnanimity; but Mr. Lincoln
remembered that the rebels, notwithstanding all their offenses and
errors, were yet American citizens, members of the same nation, brothers
of the same blood. He remembered, too, that the object of the war,
equally with peace and freedom, was the maintenance of one government
and the perpetuation of one Union. Not only must hostilities cease, but
dissension, suspicion, and estrangement be eradicated. Filled w