"Mr. Lincoln observed," continues Mr. Weed, "that the making of a Cabinet, now that he had it to do, was by no means as easy as he had supposed; that he had, even before the result of the election was known, assuming the probability of success, fixed upon the two leading members of his Cabinet, but that in looking about for suitable men to fill the other departments he had been much embarrassed, partly from his want of acquaintance with the prominent men of the day, and partly because he believed that while the population of the country had immensely increased _really great men were scarcer than they used to be_.... As the conversation progressed, Lincoln remarked that he intended to invite Governor Seward to take the State Department and Governor Chase the Treasury Department, remarking that aside from their long experience in public affairs and their eminent fitness they were prominently before the people and the convention as competitors for the Presidency, each having higher claims than his own for the place which he was to occupy. On naming Hon. Gideon Welles as the man he thought of as the representative of New England in the Cabinet, I remarked that I thought he could find several New England gentlemen whose selection for a place in his Cabinet would be more acceptable to the people of New England. 'But,' said Mr. Lincoln, 'we must remember that the Republican party is constituted of two elements, and that we must have men of Democratic as well as of Whig antecedents in the Cabinet.' ... In the course of our conversations Mr. Lincoln remarked that it was particularly pleasant to him to reflect that he was coming into office unembarrassed by promises. He owed, he supposed, his exemption from importunities to the circumstance that his name as a candidate was but a short time before the people, and that only a few sanguine friends anticipated the possibility of his nomination. 'I have not,' said he, 'promised an office to any man, nor have I, but in a single instance, mentally committed myself to an appointment.'"