Eyewitness 1862: Lincoln gets rid of war secretary by way of Russia
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Initial rumors going around Washington about the future of Simon Cameron, Abraham Lincoln's ethically challenged secretary of war, soon turned out to be right on the money.
"A report is in circulation around the Capitol, and generally believed, that Mr. Cameron has resigned his position as Secretary of War, and that Edwin M. Stanton will take his place," The Daily Pittsburgh Gazette reported on Jan. 14, 1862. "Mr. Cameron will be appointed minister to Russia."
At some point that same day, a later story confirmed the changes, with the newspaper reporting that Cameron was being sent to St. Petersburg at a time when "Our present relations with Europe are deemed highly important [and] the President was anxious that someone should act as Minister ... in whom he has entire confidence ..."
"The capital has just been thrown into a state of intense excitement," the Gazette reported the next day. "Speculations are rife as to the cause of this sudden change. ... No authentic information, however, has been allowed to find its way to the public, notwithstanding the repeated application of anxious inquiries."
In its Jan. 16 edition, the newspaper provided a more cold-eyed explanation of the cabinet moves: Cameron was being politely banished. "A Minister to Russia is only a sort of honorable exile," the Gazette said.
Cameron was a former Pennsylvania senator who made his fortune in railroads and other businesses. His congressional colleague, Lancaster's Thaddeus Stevens, once had told Lincoln that he didn't think Cameron would steal a red-hot stove. When Cameron took offense, Stevens added to the original insult by offering to take back his remark. Stevens' implication was that his fellow Pennsylvanian just might risk third-degree burns for sufficient financial gain.
Stanton, Cameron's successor, was an Ohio native who had practiced law in Pittsburgh and married a local woman, Ellen Hutchison, who still had family in the city. His selection represented an effort at bipartisanship. He was a Democrat who had supported Lincoln's opponent, Stephen Douglas, during the 1860 election.
He also had served as U.S. attorney general during the last months of the floundering administration of James Buchanan. As a Douglas Democrat, he opposed secession and was identified with the anti-slavery wing of his party.
"The new Secretary of War is called a Pennsylvanian in the New York papers," the Gazette reported on Jan. 16. "His strongest trait is an indomitable will, which is coupled with untiring energy ... We trust he may direct all his great energies to the early overthrow of the rebellion."
The Pittsburgh Post was the city's Democratic newspaper, and editor James P. Barr was delighted with Lincoln's pick. He had no use for Cameron. When some newspapers speculated that Cameron might have been sacked because of his support of quick emancipation and arming of slaves, Barr was incredulous.
"It has been very well established in the last ten years that he has no political principles," Barr wrote of Cameron on Jan. 16. "He has boxed the compass, belonging to every political organization in the country, not in pursuit of principle, but of office."
The Gazette was more generous in its analysis. "Numerous frauds had come to light in the [War Department's] contracting department, which needed ventilating and exposing, and a new man could probably perform this work better than Mr. Cameron, who has doubtless been imposed upon by friends he had trusted," the newspaper concluded on Jan. 20.
First Published January 22, 2012 12:00 am
