The first necessary business of the President-elect, while he watched the gathering of what Emerson named "the hurricane in which he was called to the helm," was to construct a strong Cabinet, to which may be added the seemingly unnecessary business forced upon him of dealing with a horde of pilgrims who at once began visiting him to solicit some office or, in rarer cases, to press their disinterested opinions. His Cabinet, designed in principle, as has been said, while he was waiting in the telegraph office for election returns, was actually constructed with some delay and hesitation. Lincoln could not know personally all the men he invited to join him, but he proceeded with the view of conjoining in his administration representatives of the chief shades of opinion which in this critical time it would be his supreme duty to hold together. Not only different shades of opinion, but the local sentiment of different districts had to be considered; he once complained that if the twelve Apostles had to be chosen nowadays the principle of locality would have to be regarded; but at this time there was very solid reason why different States should be contented and why he should be advised as to their feelings. His own chief rivals for the Presidency offered a good choice from both these points of view. They were Seward of New York, Chase of Ohio, Bates of Missouri, Cameron of Pennsylvania. Seward and Chase were both able and outstanding men: the former was in a sense the old Republican leader, but was more and more coming to be regarded as the typical "Conservative," or cautious Republican; Chase on the other hand was a leader of the "Radicals," who were "stern and unbending" in their attitude towards slavery and towards the South. These two must be got and kept together if possible. Bates was a good and capable man who moreover came from Missouri, a border slave State, where his influence was much to be desired. He became Attorney-General. Cameron, an unfortunate choice as it turned out, was a very wealthy business man of Pennsylvania, representative of the weighty Protectionist influence there. After he had been offered office, which had been without Lincoln's authority promised him in the Republican Convention, Lincoln was dismayed by representations that he was "a bad, corrupted man"; he wrote a curious letter asking Cameron to refuse his offer; Cameron instead produced evidence of the desire of Pennsylvania for him; Lincoln stuck to his offer; the old Whig element among Republicans, the Protectionist element, and above all, the friends of the indispensable Seward, would otherwise have been outweighted in the Cabinet. Cameron eventually became for a time Secretary of War. To these Lincoln, upon somebody's strong representations, tried, without much hope, to add some distinctly Southern politician. The effort, of course, failed. Ultimately the Cabinet was completed by the addition of Caleb Smith of