It is not likely that this exact list was in Lincoln’s mind on the night of the November election, but only the principal names in it; and much delay and some friction occurred before its completion.  The post of Secretary of State was offered to Seward on December 8.

“Rumors have got into the newspapers,” wrote Lincoln, “to the effect that the department named above would be tendered you as a compliment, and with the expectation that you would decline it.  I beg you to be assured that I have said nothing to justify these rumors.  On the contrary, it has been my purpose, from the day of the nomination at Chicago, to assign you, by your leave, this place in the administration.”

Seward asked a few days for reflection, and then cordially accepted.  Bates was tendered the Attorney-Generalship on December 15, while making a personal visit to Springfield.  Word had been meanwhile sent to Smith that he would probably be included.  The assignment of places to Chase and Cameron worked less smoothly.  Lincoln wrote Cameron a note on January 3, saying he would nominate him for either Secretary of the Treasury or Secretary of War, he had not yet decided which; and on the same day, in an interview with Chase, whom he had invited to Springfield, said to him: 

“I have done with you what I would not perhaps have ventured to do with any other man in the country—­sent for you to ask whether you will accept the appointment of Secretary of the Treasury, without, however, being exactly prepared to offer it to you.”

They discussed the situation very fully, but without reaching a definite conclusion, agreeing to await the advice of friends.  Meanwhile, the rumor that Cameron was to go into the cabinet excited such hot opposition that Lincoln felt obliged to recall his tender in a confidential letter; and asked him to write a public letter declining the place.  Instead of doing this, Cameron fortified himself with recommendations from prominent Pennsylvanians, and demonstrated that in his own State he had at least three advocates to one opponent.

Pending the delay which this contest consumed, another cabinet complication found its solution.  It had been warmly urged by conservatives that, in addition to Bates, another cabinet member should be taken from one of the Southern States.  The difficulty of doings this had been clearly foreshadowed by Mr. Lincoln in a little editorial which he wrote for the Springfield “Journal” on December 12: 

“First.  Is it known that any such gentleman of character would accept a place in the cabinet?

“Second.  If yea, on what terms does he surrender to Mr. Lincoln, or Mr. Lincoln to him, on the political differences between them, or do they enter upon the administration in open opposition to each other?”

It was very soon demonstrated that these differences were insurmountable.  Through Mr. Seward, who was attending his senatorial duties at Washington, Mr. Lincoln tentatively offered a cabinet appointment successively to Gilmer of North Carolina, Hunt of Louisiana and Scott of Virginia, no one of whom had the courage to accept.