Next to the President, it was not Secretary Seward, the “Premier” as he wished to be regarded, but the War Secretary, Stanton, who was the master-mind of the Cabinet.  He was the incarnation of energy, the embodiment of patriotic zeal.  With all his faults of temper and disposition, he was a man of singular fitness for the responsible position he occupied, and his services to the Government can hardly be overestimated.  He had been a Democrat, a member of Buchanan’s Cabinet, and was, says Dr. Holland, “the first one in that Cabinet to protest against the downright treason into which it was drifting.  He was a man of indomitable energy, devoted loyalty, and thorough honesty.  Contractors could not manipulate him, traitors could not deceive him.  Impulsive, perhaps, but true; wilful, it is possible, but placable; impatient, but persistent and efficient,—­he became at once one of the most marked and important of the members of the Cabinet.”  Lincoln and Stanton together were emphatically “a strong team.”

Stanton was not a member of Lincoln’s first Cabinet, but came into it at the beginning of 1862, in place of Simon Cameron, who had just been appointed Minister to Russia.  A very interesting account of Cameron’s personal relations with Lincoln, the causes that led to his retirement from the Cabinet, and the appointment of Stanton in his place, is given by Cameron himself.  He had been the choice of the Pennsylvania delegation for President, at the Chicago Convention in 1860, and it was largely due to him that Lincoln received the nomination.  “After the election,” said Mr. Cameron, “I made a trip to the West at Mr. Lincoln’s request.  He had, by letter, tendered me the position of either Secretary of War or Secretary of the Treasury; but when I went to see him he said that he had concluded to make Mr. Seward Secretary of State, and he wanted to give a place to Mr. Chase.  ‘Salmon P. Chase,’ said he, ’is a very ambitious man.’  ‘Very well,’ said I, ’then the War Department is the place for him.  We are going to have an armed conflict over your election, and the place for an ambitious man is in the War Department.  There he will have lots of room to make a reputation.’  These thoughts of mine, that we were to have war, disturbed Mr. Lincoln very much, and he seemed to think I was entirely too certain about it.  Finally, when he came to make up his Cabinet, doubtless remembering what I had said about the War Department, he appointed me Secretary of War.”

“There has been,” continues Mr. Cameron, “a great deal of misstatement as to Mr. Stanton’s appointment as my successor.  Stanton had been my attorney from the time I went into the War Department until he took my place as Secretary.  I had hardly made a move in which the legality of any question could arise.  I had taken his advice.  I believed in the vigorous prosecution of the war from the start, while Mr. Seward believed in dallying and compromising, and Mr. Chase was constantly agitated about the expenditure