Even killing the dog would not cure the bite."

It was this willingness of his to give up the "lesser things," and even
the things to which he could claim an equal right, which kept peace in
his cabinet, made up of men of strong wills and conflicting natures.
Their devotion to the Union, great as it was, would not have sufficed
in such a strangely assorted official family; but his unfailing kindness
and good sense led him to overlook many things that another man might
have regarded as deliberate insults; while his great tact and knowledge
of human nature enabled him to bring out the best in people about him,
and at times to turn their very weaknesses into sources of strength. It
made it possible for him to keep the regard of every one of them. Before
he had been in office a month it had transformed Secretary Seward from
his rival into his lasting friend. It made a warm friend out of the
blunt, positive, hot-tempered Edwin M. Stanton, who became Secretary
of War in place of Mr. Cameron. He was a man of strong will and great
endurance, and gave his Department a record for hard and effective
work that it would be difficult to equal. Many stories are told of the
disrespect he showed the President, and the cross-purposes at which they
labored. The truth is, that they understood each other perfectly on all
important matters, and worked together through three busy trying years
with ever-increasing affection and regard. The President's kindly humor
forgave his Secretary many blunt speeches. "Stanton says I am a fool?"
he is reported to have asked a busy-body who came fleet-footed to tell
him of the Secretary's hasty comment on an order of little moment.
"Stanton says I am a fool? Well"--with a whimsical glance at his
informant--"then I suppose I must be. Stanton is nearly always right."
Knowing that Stanton was "nearly always right" it made little difference
to his chief what he might say in the heat of momentary annoyance.

Yet in spite of his forbearance he never gave up the "larger things"
that he felt were of real importance; and when he learned at one time
that an effort was being made to force a member of the cabinet to
resign, he called them together, and read them the following impressive
little lecture:

"I must myself be the judge how long to retain in, and when to remove
any of you from his position. It would greatly pain me to discover
any of you endeavoring to procure another's removal, or in any way to
prejudic