Shortly after the election in 1860, when the situation at Washington was becoming critical, President Buchanan sought his advice, and Mr. Stanton prepared an argument to prove that a State could be coerced into remaining in the Union. A few weeks later Mr. Buchanan called him into his Cabinet as Attorney-General, and he immediately joined with the loyal members of the Cabinet and the Republican leaders in Congress in vigorous efforts to save the Union. But after Lincoln was inaugurated Mr. Stanton became the most scornful and unsparing critic of the new administration. He called the President an imbecile, charged Cameron with corruption, and declared that the administration was treating the treasure of the nation as booty to be divided among thieves. He predicted disaster in every direction; he declared that in less than thirty days Jefferson Davis would be in possession of Washington, and used the most intemperate and unjust language that his lips could frame in his comments upon the character and the conduct of the President and his advisers. Therefore, when he was invited to succeed Mr. Cameron, the chief object of his detestation and attack, he was placed in a peculiar situation, but was broad-minded enough to appreciate Lincoln's magnanimity, and accepted the war portfolio as the highest duty that could be assigned to a citizen. He wrote ex-President Buchanan, "My accession to my present position was quite as sudden and unexpected as the confidence you bestowed upon me in calling me to your Cabinet. And the responsible trust was accepted in both instances from the same motives and will be executed with the same fidelity to the Constitution and the laws." In another letter he wrote, "I knew that everything that I cherish and hold dear would be sacrificed by accepting office, but I thought I might help to save the country, and for that I was willing to perish." When some one objected to Stanton's appointment on account of his ungovernable temper, and stated that he was in the habit of jumping up and down when he lost his patience, Lincoln replied,-- "Well, if he gets to jumping too much, we will treat him as they used to treat a minister I knew out West. He would get so excited and wrought up at revival meetings that they had to put bricks in his pockets to keep him down. But I guess we will let Stanton jump a while first."