Besides Stanton, three other members of the Cabinet had showed their disaffection toward the President's policy. They were Mr. Speed, the Attorney-General, Mr. Dennison, the Postmaster-General, and Mr. Harlan, the Secretary of the Interior. During the course of the month (July) these three gentlemen resigned their offices, and were replaced by Mr. Stanbery, Mr. A. W. Randall, and Mr. O. H. Browning. Their sense of propriety would not permit them to retain high office under the President while differing with him so widely in regard to the fundamental question of Reconstruction. Mr. Stanton, however, took a different view of his duty. He seemed to feel that he was under obligations to his country to remain in the President's Cabinet, at the head of the most important branch of the Administration at that moment, and protect the country against the purposes of the President. He was sustained in this view by the Republican majority in Congress, which soon entered upon its course of depriving {91} the President of his military control even, by transferring his functions to the Secretary of War and the General of the army. To the men of the present day, Mr. Stanton's conduct appears, at least, lacking in a proper sense of delicacy. It may be regarded in an even more serious light. It may be looked upon as a conspiracy with the Republican majority in Congress to rob the President of his constitutional prerogatives, to change the form of government from the presidential system to the parliamentary system of administration. It is difficult to find any sufficient defence for Mr. Stanton's course. It is impossible to clear him of the appearance of great egotism or of great greed of office, in not resigning along with his dissatisfied colleagues. The President knew of this difference of feeling between himself and his War Secretary at the time of his reorganization of the Cabinet in July, and would undoubtedly have been glad to receive his resignation, but he did not ask for it. The newspapers which sustained the Administration did, however, and predicted that it would be forthcoming. The Republican leaders, on the other hand, encouraged Stanton to hold on to the office, and represented to him that the welfare of his country demanded the sacrifice of his personal feelings in the matter. [Sidenote: The opinion and feeling in the North concerning the condition of things in the South.]