his capacity and character,—­which, doubtless, many honestly did,—­at least they were profoundly ignorant concerning both.  Therefore they could not yet, and did not, place genuine, implicit confidence in him; they could not yet, and did not, advise and aid him at all in the same spirit and with the same usefulness as later they were able to do.  They were not to blame for this; on the contrary, the condition had been brought about distinctly against their will, since certainly few of them had looked with favor upon the selection of an unknown, inexperienced, ill-educated man as the Republican candidate for the presidency.  How much Lincoln felt his loneliness will never be known; for, reticent and self-contained at all times, he gave no outward sign.  That he felt it less than other men would have done may be regarded as certain; for, as has already appeared to some extent, and as will appear much more in this narrative, he was singularly self-reliant, and, at least in appearance, was strangely indifferent to any counsel or support which could be brought to him by others.  Yet, marked as was this trait in him, he could hardly have been human had he not felt oppressed by the personal solitude and political isolation of his position when the responsibility of his great office rested newly upon him.  Under all these circumstances, if this lonely man moved slowly and cautiously during the early weeks of his administration, it was not at his door that the people had the right to lay the reproach of weakness or hesitation.

Mr. Buchanan, for the convenience of his successor, had called an extra session of the Senate, and on March 5 President Lincoln sent in the nominations for his cabinet.  All were immediately confirmed, as follows:—­

  William H. Seward, New York, secretary of state. 
  Salmon P. Chase, Ohio, secretary of the treasury. 
  Simon Cameron, Pennsylvania, secretary of war. 
  Gideon Welles, Connecticut, secretary of the navy. 
  Caleb B. Smith, Indiana, secretary of the interior. 
  Edward Bates, Missouri, attorney-general. 
  Montgomery Blair, Maryland, postmaster-general.

It is matter of course that a cabinet slate should fail to give general satisfaction; and this one encountered fully the average measure of criticism.  The body certainly was somewhat heterogeneous in its composition, yet the same was true of the Republican party which it represented.  Nor was it by any means so heterogeneous as Mr. Lincoln had designed to have it, for he had made efforts to place in it a Southern spokesman for Southern views; and he had not desisted from the purpose until its futility was made apparent by the direct refusal of Mr. Gilmer of North Carolina, and by indications of a like unwillingness on the part of one or two other Southerners who were distantly sounded on the subject.  Seward, Chase, Bates, and Cameron were the four men who had manifested the greatest popularity, after Lincoln, in the national convention, and the