Excerpt from Lincoln and His Cabinet

President Polk to be Chief of the Bureau of Provisions and Clothing for the Navy, which place he held until the summer of 1849.

When the question of slavery came to the front, there resulted a new align ment throughout the northern half of the country, and multitudes of independent men crossed over from a slavocratic and aristocratic Democracy to a new humani tarian and democratic Republicanism. The infusion of a great moral issue into politics inevitably changed the point of view of any man who felt the Puritan conscience strong within him, and in this way Mr. Welles ceased to be a Democrat and became a Republican. Moreover his old democratic belief in States Rights repudiated the Democratic move for the establishment of slavery in the terri tories, and he always favored a strict construction of the Federal powers, the preservation of individual rights, and the protection and safeguards of the law, even in the midst of the furious civil conflict.

In 1856 he was defeated as Republican candidate for Governor, and about the same time entered upon an eight years' term of service as a member of the Re publican National Committee. He was chairman of the delegation from his State to the convention that nominated mr. Lincoln for the Presidency. Want ing a man from New England, mr. Lincoln took an ex-democrat, trained in public business, and who, as Mr. Morse says, had manifested his courage and the earnestness of his convictions by casting loose from his Old associates on the question of slavery, and had shown an aptitude for politics, a quality which mr. Lincoln himself possessed in a remarkable degree, and did not undervalue in others. There was no special reason why he should have been assigned to the Navy Department, unless it were that a certain flavor of maritime commerce and prowess still hung faintly about the wharves of New England. And it is rather delightful to note Mr. Welles' indignation as he refers to certain critics of the administration of his department, who are embarrassed by no military or naval teaching, when one recalls that this observation applies with equal justice and force to the Secretary of the Navy himself; but, as Mr. Morse says, he made a good Secretary of the Navy and an excellent diarist. And in comparing his notes with those of John Quincy Adams, it is clear that they were both fine examples of the moral and intellectual civilization of the New England of their times. But while they had the solid moralities, they were somewhat deficient in the gentler ones. They established a rigid system both for themselves and for others, and to ordinary mortals who seemed to fall below these standards, they dealt out Christian charity with much economy. But while Mr. Welles' judg ment was severe, it was never unfair nor malicious, and in the absence of humor we have the next most enlivening quality, an honest and hearty sarcasm.

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