Nicolay and Hay say that after the election Lincoln invited Cameron to come to Springfield, but they produce no evidence to that effect. On the other hand, Gideon Welles, quoting from an interview with Fogg, of New Hampshire (a first-rate authority), says that Cameron tried to get an invitation to Springfield, but that Lincoln would not give it; that a little later Cameron invited Leonard Swett to his home at Lochiel, Pennsylvania, and that while there Swett took upon himself to extend such an invitation in Lincoln's name, and that Lincoln, although surprised, was obliged to acquiesce in what Swett had done.[47] Swett, it may be remarked, was the _Fidus Achates_ of David Davis at all times. Cameron came to Springfield with a troop of followers, and the result was that, on the 31st of December, Lincoln handed him a brief note saying that he intended to nominate him for Secretary of the Treasury, or Secretary of War, at the proper time. Almost immediately thereafter he received a shock from A. K. McClure in the form of a telegram saying that the appointment of Cameron would split the party in Pennsylvania and do irreparable harm to the new Administration. He invited McClure to come to Springfield and give him the particular reasons, but McClure does not tell us what the reasons were. Evidently they were graver and deeper than a mere faction fight in the party, or a question whether Cameron or Curtin should have the disposal of the patronage. They included personal as well as political delinquencies, but McClure declined to put them in writing. After hearing them, Lincoln wrote another letter to Cameron dated January 3, 1861, asking him to decline the appointment that had been previously tendered to him, and to do so at once by telegraph. Cameron did not decline. Consequently Lincoln repeated the request ten days later, January 13. In the mean time Trumbull, having learned that a place in the Cabinet--probably the Treasury--had been offered to Cameron, wrote a letter to Lincoln, dated January 3, advising him not to appoint him. To this letter Lincoln wrote the following reply: _Very Confidential_ SPRINGFIELD, ILL., Jan. 7, 1861. HON. LYMAN TRUMBULL,