Excerpts from a James M. McPherson's review of "Team of Rivals" by Dorothy Goodwin – From the New York Times, November 5, 2005. Next to Seward in prominence was [Salmon P.] Chase, who had organized the Free Soil Party in 1848, became its first senator in 1849 and represented the cutting edge of the Republican antislavery ideology. * * * * * * Attorney General Bates, who initially underestimated Lincoln, soon echoed Seward's favorable opinions. Not so Chase, who never quite got over his conviction that the wrong man was nominated in 1860 and that he should receive the nomination in 1864. Lincoln valued his Treasury secretary's abilities as a finance minister, but he recognized Chase's lack of loyalty and poorly concealed ambition to replace him. Chase also became a lightning rod for the radical Republicans' dissatisfaction with the pace of Lincoln's actions against slavery. On several occasions Chase offered his resignation in a calculated effort to force Lincoln's hand on a policy or patronage dispute. Each time Lincolnparried Chase's tactic, refusing to accept his resignation, reasserting his own authority and maintaining the balance among radicals, moderates and conservatives in the administration. When Chase tried this ploy a fourth time in June 1864, after Lincoln had been safely renominated, the president astonished him by accepting the resignation. To redress the cabinet balance, Lincoln subsequently requested the resignation of Postmaster General Montgomery Blair, Chase's most bitter enemy in the cabinet and a member of the powerful Blair family, which represented the most conservative element in the party. And Lincoln further defused radical opposition by appointing the deposed Chase as chief justice of the United States. -- Jeffrey Chace http://www.chace.demon.nl