In selecting his Cabinet, Mr. Lincoln, consciously or unconsciously,
followed a precedent established by Washington, of selecting men of
almost opposite opinions. His Cabinet was composed of William H. Seward
of New York, Secretary of State; Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, Secretary of
the Treasury; Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania, Secretary of War; Gideon E.
Welles of Connecticut, Secretary of the Navy; Caleb B. Smith of
Indiana, Secretary of the Interior; Montgomery Blair of Maryland,
Postmaster-General; Edward Bates of Missouri, Attorney-General.
Mr. Chase, although an anti-slavery leader, was a States-Rights Federal
Republican, while Mr. Seward was a Whig, without having connected
himself with the anti-slavery movement.
Mr. Chase and Mr. Seward, the leading men of Mr. Lincoln’s Cabinet, were
as widely apart and antagonistic in their views as were Jefferson, the
Democrat, and Hamilton, the Federalist, the two leaders in Washington’s
Cabinet. But in bringing together these two strong men as his chief
advisers, both of whom had been rival candidates for the Presidency, Mr.
Lincoln gave another example of his own greatness and self-reliance, and
put them both in a position to render greater service to the Government
than they could have done, probably, as President.
Mr. Lincoln had been in office little more than five weeks when the War
of the Rebellion began by the firing on Fort Sumter.