The Cameron affair was the greatest embarrassment that Lincoln had to deal with before his inauguration. It was a fact of evil omen that David Davis, one of the delegates of Illinois to the Chicago Convention, assuming to speak by authority, made promises that Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania, and Caleb Smith, of Indiana, should have places in the Cabinet if Lincoln were elected. In so doing, Davis went counter to the only instructions he had ever received from Lincoln on that subject. The day before the nomination was made, the editor of the Springfield _Journal_ arrived at the rooms of the Illinois delegation with a copy of the _Missouri Democrat_, in which Lincoln had marked three passages and made some of his own comments on the margin. Then he added, in words underscored: "Make no contracts that will bind me." Herndon says that this paper was read aloud to Davis, Judd, Logan, and himself. Davis then argued that Lincoln, being at Springfield, could not judge of the necessities of the situation in Chicago, and, acting upon that view of the case, went ahead with his negotiations with the men of Pennsylvania and Indiana, and made the promises as above stated.[45] Gideon Welles, in his book on Lincoln and Seward, says there was but one member of the Cabinet appointed "on the special urgent recommendation and advice of Seward and his friends, but that gentleman was soon, with Seward's approval, transferred to Hyperborean regions in a way and for reasons never publicly made known." That man was Cameron. The implication here is that Simon Cameron was appointed a member of Lincoln's Cabinet in consequence of Seward's influence, and at his desire. That Seward and Weed labored for Cameron's appointment, and that Weed had private reasons for doing so, is true, but the controlling factor was something of earlier date. David Davis had left his comfortable home at Bloomington and gone to Springfield to redeem his convention pledges. He camped alongside of Lincoln and laid siege to him. He had a very strong case _prima facie_. He had not only worked for Lincoln with all his might, but he had paid three hundred dollars out of his own pocket for the rent of the Lincoln headquarters during the convention. This seems like a small sum now, but it was three times as much as Lincoln himself could have paid then for any political purpose. Moreover, Davis had actually succeeded in what he had undertaken.[46] A. K. McClure says, in his book on "Lincoln and Men of War Times" (p. 139), that the men who immediately represented Cameron on that occasion (John P. Sanderson and Alexander Cummings) really had little influence with the Pennsylvania delegation, and that the change of votes from Cameron to Lincoln was not due to this barter.