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.
Toward the end of the recent canvass, and still more since the election,
Mr.
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