a following which was far
from being wholly in sympathy with the following of any one of the
others. The President evidently believed that it was of more importance
that each great body of Northern men should feel that its opinions were
fairly presented, than that his cabinet officers should always
comfortably unite in looking at questions from one and the same point of
view. Judge Davis says that Lincoln's original design was to appoint
Democrats and Republicans alike to office. He carried this theory so far
that the radical Republicans regarded the make-up of the cabinet as a
"disgraceful surrender to the South;" while men of less extreme views
saw with some alarm that he had called to his advisory council four
ex-Democrats and only three ex-Whigs, a criticism which he met by saying
that he himself was an "old-line Whig" and should be there to make the
parties even. On the other hand, the Republicans of the middle line of
States grumbled much at the selection of Bates and Blair as
representatives of their section.

The cabinet had not been brought together without some jarring and
friction, especially in the case of Cameron. On December 31 Mr. Lincoln
intimated to him that he should have either the Treasury or the War
Department, but on January 3 requested him to "decline the appointment."
Cameron, however, had already mentioned the matter to many friends,
without any suggestion that he should not be glad to accept either
position, and therefore, even if he were willing to accede to the
sudden, strange, and unexplained request of Mr. Lincoln, he would have
found it difficult to do so without giving rise to much embarrassing
gossip. Accordingly he did not decline, and thereupon ensued much
wire-pulling. Pennsylvania protectionists wanted Cameron in the
Treasury, and strenuously objected to Chase as an ex-Democrat of
free-trade proclivities. On the other hand, Lincoln gradually hardened
into the resolution that Chase should have the Treasury. He made the
tender, and it was accepted. He then offered consolation to Pennsylvania
by giving the War portfolio to Cameron, which was accepted with
something of chagrin. How far this Cameron episode was affected by the
bargain declared by Lamon to have been made at Chicago cannot be told.
Other biographers ignore this story, but I do not see how the direct
testimony furnished by Lamon and corroborated by Colonel McClure can
justly be treated in this way; neither is the temptation