The historian
Rhodes writes confidently of a bargain with Fremont, holding that
Blair was removed to terminate a quarrel with Fremont which dated
back even to his own removal in 1861. A possible third theory
turns upon Chase, whose hostility to Blair was quite equal to
that of the illbalanced Fremont. It had been stimulated the
previous winter by a fierce arraignment of Chase made by Blair's
brother in Congress, in which Chase was bluntly accused of fraud
and of making money, or allowing his friends to make money,
through illicit trade in cotton. And Chase was a man of might
among the Vindictives. The intrigue, however, never comes to the
foreground in history, but lurks in the background thick with
shadows. Once or twice among those shadows we seem to catch a
glimpse of the figure of Thurlow Weed, the master-politician of
the time. Taking one thing with another, we may risk the guess
that somehow the two radical groups which were both relentless
against Blair were led to pool their issues, and that Blair's
removal was the price Lincoln paid not to one faction of radicals
but to the whole unmerciful crowd.
*His private secretaries, John G. Nicolay and John Hay.
Whatever complex of purposes lay back of the triple coincidence,
the latter part of September saw a general reunion of the
factions within the Union Party, followed by a swift recovery of
strength.
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