THOUGH BY THE time Lincoln reached Washington for the in-
auguration only two men, Bates and Seward, had definitely received
and accepted cabinet appointments, the likelihood is that most of the re-
maining posts had been assigned. Lincoln, however, was holding them
in petto after the fashion of the Pope of Rome, who sometimes keeps
hidden in his own breast the cardinals whom he expects to name at some
future consistory. And probably Lincoln's choices were about as secret
as those of the Supreme Pontiff in similar circumstances. The per-
sistent Seward-Weed attempts to exclude Chase from the Treasury
Department had not deflected the President-elect from his determina-
tion on that point. Cameron had probably been settled on for the War
Department as an unsatisfactory compromise in the Pennsylvania im-
passe. Similarly the "all-Whig" campaign against Gideon Welles had
not changed Lincoln's prepossessions in favor of that gentleman. In
fact, a few days after reaching Washington a message was sent to the
Hartford journalist enjoining him to repair to the National Capital
-- a command which Welles not illogically regarded as confirming cur-
rent reports as to his selection. Caleb B. Smith for the Interior was an-
other compromise Lincoln was obliged to make with his conscience;
the man was unworthy of any appointment, but the simple fact re-
mained that Davis had guaranteed a tricky and vapid politician this
place in exchange for Indiana's twenty-six votes in the Chicago Con-
vention, and that Lincoln, although he had warned his agents against
making such unholy bargains, felt under party duress to redeem the
promise. Two other candidates, Norman B. Judd of Illinois and Schuy-
ler Colfax of Indiana, were still negotiating for this place; Lincoln re-
imbursed Judd by sending him as minister to Prussia and made a life-
long enemy of Colfax by ignoring his solicitations. The third member
of the trio who had aroused the unrestrained opposition of Weed and
Seward, Montgomery Blair, of Maryland, was also practically assured
of an appointment. The alternative candidate from this Border state,
Henry Winter Davis, had from the first met little favor at Lincoln's

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