This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
[182]
he sent to the Senate, the previous afternoon, the name of Ex-Governor Todd, of Ohio, for the successorship.
This nomination was not popular, and great relief was experienced the next morning, when it was announced that Governor Todd had declined the position.
Mr. Lincoln passed an anxious night.
He received the telegram from Governor Todd, declining the nomination, in the evening.
Retiring, he laid awake some hours, canvassing in his mind the merits of various public men. At length he settled upon the Hon. William P. Fessenden, of Maine; and soon afterward fell asleep.
The next morning he went to his office and wrote the nomination.
John Hay, the assistant private secretary, had taken it from the President on his way to the Capitol, when he encountered Senator Fessenden upon the threshold of the room.
As chairman of the Finance Committee, he also had passed an anxious night, and called thus early to consult with the President, and offer some suggestions.
After a few moments' conversation, Mr. Lincoln turned to him with a smile, and said: “I am obliged to you, Fessenden, but the fact is, I have just sent your own name to the Senate for Secretary of the Treasury.
Hay had just received the nomination from my hand as you entered.”
Mr. Fessenden was taken completely by surprise, and, very much agitated, protested his inability to accept the position.
The state of his health, he said, if no other consideration, made it impossible.
Mr. Lincoln would
Scanned printed text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.