se was not easy to fill. Mr. Lincoln first nominated
David Tod of Ohio. This was very ill received; but fortunately the
difficulty which might have been caused by it was escaped, because
Governor Tod promptly declined. The President then named William Pitt
Fessenden, senator from Maine, and actually forced the office upon him
against that gentleman's sincere wish to escape the honor. A better
choice could not have been made. Mr. Fessenden was chairman of the
Committee on Finance, and had filled the position with conspicuous
ability; every one esteemed him highly; the Senate instantly confirmed
him, and during his incumbency in office he fully justified these
flattering opinions.

There were other opponents of the President who were not so easily
diverted from their purpose as the politicians had been. In Missouri an
old feud was based upon his displacement of Fremont; the State had ever
since been rent by fierce factional quarrels, and amid them this
grievance had never been forgotten or forgiven. Emancipation by state
action had been chief among the causes which had divided the Union
citizens into Conservatives and Radicals. Their quarrel was bitter, and
in vain did Mr. Lincoln repeatedly endeavor to reconcile them. The
Radicals claimed his countenance as a matter of right, and Mr. Lincoln
often privately admitted that between him and them there was close
coincidence of feeling. Yet he found their specific demands
inadmissible; especially he could not consent to please them by removing
General Schofield. So they, being extremists, and therefore of the type
of men who will have every one against them who is not for them, turned
vindictively against him. They found sympathizers elsewhere in the
country, sporadic instances of disaffection rather than indications of
an epidemic; but in their frame of mind they easily gained faith in the
existence of a popular feeling which was, in fact, the phantasm of
their own heated fancy. As spring drew on they cast out lines of
affiliation. Their purpose was not only negatively against Lincoln, but
positively for Fremont. Therefore they made connection with the Central
Fremont Club, a small organization in New York, and issued a call for a
mass convention at Cleveland on May 31. They expressed their disgust for
the "imbecile and vacillating policy" of Mr. Lincoln, and desired the
"immediate extinction of slavery ... by congressional action,"
contemning the fact that Congress had no po