before, Lincoln had aimed to placate the Republicans by showing high
honor to their popular hero, Fremont.

* Strictly speaking he did not become head of the army until
the retirement of Scott in November. Practically, he was
supreme almost from the moment of his arrival in Washington.

When the catastrophe occurred at Bull Run, Fremont was a major-general
commanding the Western Department with headquarters at St. Louis. He
was one of the same violent root-and-branch wing of the Republicans--the
Radicals of a latter day--of which Chandler was a leader. The temper of
that wing had already been revealed by Senator Baker in his startling
pronouncement: "We of the North control the Union, and we are going to
govern our own Union in our own way." Chandler was soon to express it
still more exactly, saying, "A rebel has sacrificed all his rights. He
has no right to life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness."(5) Here
was that purpose to narrowing nationalism into Northernism, even to
radicalism, and to make the war an outlet for a sectional ferocity,
which Lincoln was so firmly determined to prevent. All things
considered, the fact that on the day following Bull Run he did not
summon the Republican hero to Washington, that he did summon a Democrat,
was significant. It opened his long duel with the extremists.

The vindictive Spirit of the extremists had been rebuffed by Lincoln
in another way. Shortly after Bull Run, Wade and Chandler appealed to
Lincoln to call out negro soldiers. Chandler said that he did not care
whether or no this would produce a servile insurrection in the South.
Lincoln's refusal made another count in the score of the extremists
against him.(6)

During the late summer of 1861, Chandler, Wade, Trumbull, were all
busily organizing their forces for an attack on the Administration.
Trumbull, indeed, seemed out of place in that terrible company. In time,
he found that he was out of place. At a crucial moment he came over
to Lincoln. But not until he had done yeoman service with Lincoln's
bitterest enemies. The clue to his earlier course was an honest
conviction that Lincoln, though well-intentioned, was weak.(7) Was this
the nemesis of Lincoln's pliability in action during the first stage
of his Presidency? It may be. The firm inner Lincoln, the unyielding
thinker of the first message, was not appreciated even by well-meaning
men like Trumbull. The inner and the outer Lincoln were still
disc