“Since I was first a candidate for the Presidency, I had determined, if successful, to solicit your able assistance in conducting the administration, and I now ask you to accept the State or Treasury Department. I have myself no preference of either for you, but it may perhaps be more difficult to fill the latter than the former, if you should decline it. It was the first designed for you, in the supposition that you had given more attention to the subject of the finances than Mr. Clay, to whom I intended to have offered the State Department. This, as well as any other post in the Cabinet, I understood, before my arrival here, from an intimate friend of that gentleman, he would decline. This he has since done personally to me.” Mr. Webster replied that “for the daily details of the Treasury, the matters of account, and the supervision of subordinate officers employed in the collection and disbursement of public moneys,” he did not think himself to be particularly well qualified. He indicated that he would accept the office of Secretary of State. Mr. Webster no doubt accurately gauged his own abilities. No one could be better fitted for the premiership and the conduct of our foreign relations, as the event proved. At this time especially a strong, judicious statesman of the first rank was required, for the relations between the United States and Great Britain were very delicate and even critical, and a rash hand might easily have plunged the two countries into war. One vexed question related to the boundary between this country and the provinces of Nova Scotia and Canada. This question was complicated by others of a still more irritating character, which space will not allow me to particularize. There was another question also, the long-standing claim of England to impress her own seamen, and to take them out of American vessels sailing on the high seas in time of war, rendering necessary the odious “right of search.” Mr. Webster was influenced to accept the post of Secretary of State, because he knew these questions ought to be settled, and he felt confident of his ability to settle them. With this view the people cordially agreed, and Gen. Harrison’s choice of the great statesman of New England to take charge of our foreign relations was a very popular one.