_My dear Garfield_,--Your generous invitation to enter your Cabinet as secretary of state has been under consideration for more than three weeks. The thought had really never occurred to my mind until, at our late conference, you presented it with such cogent arguments in its favor, and with such warmth of personal friendship in aid of your kind offer. I know that an early answer is desirable, and I have waited only long enough to consider the subject in all its bearings, and to make up my mind, definitely and conclusively. I now say to you, in the same cordial spirit in which you have invited me, that I accept the position. It is no affectation for me to add that I make this decision, not for the honor of the promotion it gives me in the public service, but because I think I can be useful to the country and to the party; useful to you as the responsible leader of the party and the great head of the government. I am influenced somewhat, perhaps, by the shower of letters I have received urging me to accept, written to me in consequence of the mere unauthorized newspaper report that you had been pleased to offer me the place. While I have received these letters from all sections of the Union, I have been especially pleased, and even surprised, at the cordial and widely extended feeling in my favor throughout New England, where I had expected to encounter local jealousy and, perhaps, rival aspiration. In our new relation I shall give all that I am and all that I can hope to be, freely and joyfully, to your service. You need no pledge of my loyalty in heart and in act. I should be false to myself did I not prove true both to the great trust you confide to me and to your own personal and political fortunes in the present and in the future. Your administration must be made brilliantly successful and strong in the confidence and pride of the people, not at all directing its energies for re-election, and yet compelling that result by the logic of events and by the imperious necessities of the situation. To that most desirable consummation I feel that, next to yourself, I can possibly contribute as much influence as any other one man. I say this not from egotism or vainglory, but merely as a deduction from a plain analysis of the political forces which have been at work in the country for five years past, and which have been significantly shown in two great national conventions. I accept it as one of the happiest circumstances connected with this affair that in allying my political fortunes with yours--or, rather, for the time merging mine in yours--my heart goes with my head, and that I carry to you not only political support, but personal and devoted friendship. I can but regard it as somewhat remarkable that two men of the same age, entering Congress at the same time, influenced by the same aims and cherishing the same ambitions,