Seward, Chase, Bates, and Cameron were the four men who
had manifested the greatest popularity, after Lincoln, in the national
convention, and the selection of them, therefore, showed that Mr.
Lincoln was seeking strength rather than amity in his cabinet; for it
was certainly true that each one of them had 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.
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