If, after Mr. Seward's remarkable memorandum of April 1, the
Secretary of State had needed any further experience to convince him of
the President's mastery in both administrative and diplomatic judgment,
this second incident afforded him the full evidence.
No previous President ever had such a sudden increase of official work
devolve upon him as President Lincoln during the early months of his
administration. The radical change of parties through which he was
elected not only literally filled the White House with applicants for
office, but practically compelled a wholesale substitution of new
appointees for the old, to represent the new thought and will of the
nation. The task of selecting these was greatly complicated by the sharp
competition between the heterogeneous elements of which the Republican
party was composed. This work was not half completed when the Sumter
bombardment initiated active rebellion, and precipitated the new
difficulty of sifting the loyal from the disloyal, and the yet more
pressing labor of scrutinizing the organization of the immense new
volunteer army called into service by the proclamation of May 3. Mr.
Lincoln used often to say at this period, when besieged by claims to
appointment, that he felt like a man letting rooms at one end of his
house, while the other end was on fire.
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