votes on the avowal that he was for giving up
the Union. There have been much impugning of motive and much heated
controversy as to the proper means and best mode of advancing the Union
cause; but on the distinct issue of Union or No Union the politicians
have shown their instinctive knowledge that there is no diversity among
the people. In affording the people the fair opportunity of showing one
to another and to the world, this firmness and unanimity of purpose, the
election has been of vast value to the national cause."(1)

This temper of the final Lincoln, his supreme detachment, the kind
impersonality of his intellectual approach, has no better illustration
in his state papers. He further revealed it in a more intimate way. The
day he sent the message to Congress, he also submitted to the Senate a
nomination to the great office of Chief Justice. When Taney died in the
previous September, there was an eager stir among the friends of Chase.
They had hopes but they felt embarrassed. Could they ask this great
honor, the highest it is in the power of the American President to
be-stow, for a man who had been so lacking in candor as Chase had been?
Chase's course during the summer had made things worse. He had played
the time-server. No one was more severe upon Lincoln in July; in August,
he hesitated, would not quite commit himself to the conspiracy but would
not discourage it; almost gave it his blessing; in September, but not
until it was quite plain that the conspiracy was failing, he came
out for Lincoln. However, his friends in the Senate overcame their
embarrassment--how else could it be with Senators?--and pressed his
case. And when Senator Wilson, alarmed at the President's silence, tried
to apologize for Chase's harsh remarks about the President, Lincoln cut
him short. "Oh, as to that, I care nothing," said he. The embarrassment
of the Chase propaganda amused him. When Chase himself took a hand and
wrote him a letter, Lincoln said to his secretary, "What is it about?"
"Simply a kind and friendly letter," replied the secretary. Lincoln
smiled. "File it with the other recommendations," said he.(2)

He regarded Chase as a great lawyer, Taney's logical successor. All
the slights the Secretary had put upon the President, the intrigues to
supplant him, the malicious sayings, were as if they had never occurred.
When Congress assembled, it was Chase's name that he sent to the Senate.
It was Chase who, as Chief Justice,