e had
already been long and varied. He entered Congress as a representative
from Tennessee when Washington was President, took his seat in the
Senate of the United States the day John Adams was inaugurated, and
afterwards served as a judge of the Supreme Court of Tennessee. All
these civil duties had been performed before he received a military
commission. After his stormy career in the army had ended, he was
again sent to the Senate during the second term of President Monroe.
President Taylor, like General Grant, had been simply a soldier; but
the people remembered that his service in the Executive Chair was
faithful, resolute, and intelligent; and they remembered also that some
of the greatest military heroes of the world had been equally
distinguished as civil rulers. Cromwell, William III., Frederick the
Great, the First Napoleon, left behind them records of civil
administration which for executive force and personal energy
established a fame as great as they had acquired on the field of
battle. The inexperience of General Grant had not therefore hindered
his election, and left no ground for apprehension as to the successful
conduct of his administration.

The President had so well kept his own counsels in regard to the
members of his Cabinet that not a single name was anticipated with
certainty. Five of the appointments were genuine surprises.

--Elihu B. Washburne, long the faithful friend of General Grant, was
nominated for Secretary of State. He had just entered upon his ninth
term as representative in Congress from Illinois, and resigned
immediately after swearing in Mr. Blaine as Speaker,--a duty assigned
to him as the oldest member of the House in consecutive service. He
was elected to Congress in 1852, from the Galena district, and his
first term began on the day Franklin Pierce was inaugurated President.
His period of service was crowded with events of great magnitude,
commencing with the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and ending with
the elevation to the Presidency of the chief hero in the great civil
war, to which that repeal proximately led. During all these years Mr.
Washburne was an aggressive, courageous, faithful representative,
intelligent in all his actions, loyal to the Nation, devoted to the
interests of his State.

--Jacob D. Cox, of Ohio, who had acquired credit in the war, and added
to it by his service as Governor of his State, was nominated for
Secretary of the Interior, and