Norman B. Judd, of Chicago, was also expecting a place in the Cabinet.
He was a lawyer by profession and general attorney of the Chicago and
Rock Island Railroad. He had been a member of the State Senate, where he
contributed largely to Trumbull's first election to the United States
Senate, after which he had been devoted to Trumbull's political
interests and no less to Lincoln's. He was chairman of the Republican
State Committee and a member of the National Committee. He had been a
delegate-at-large to the Chicago Convention, where he had worked
untiringly and effectively for Lincoln's nomination. He was not a man
of ideas, but was fertile in expedients. In politics he was a "trimmer,"
sly, cat-like, and mysterious, and thus he came to be considered more
farseeing then he really was; but he was jovial, companionable, and
popular with the boys who looked after the primaries and the nominating
conventions. Both as a legislator and a party manager his reputation was
good, but his qualities were those of the politician rather than of the
statesman. He was certainly the equal of Caleb Smith and the superior of
Cameron. If he had been taken into the Cabinet, he would not have been
ejected without assignable reasons nine months later. It was known
immediately after the November election that he expected a Cabinet
position and that Trumbull favored him.
January 3, 1861, Judd wrote to Trumbull that he had heard no word from
Lincoln, but he had heard indirectly from Butler (state treasurer) that
Lincoln "never had a truer friend than myself and there was no one in
whom he placed greater confidence; still circumstances embarrassed him
about a Cabinet appointment." Judd understood this to mean that he would
not be appointed and he took it very much to heart. Doubtless the
circumstance that most embarrassed Lincoln was the same that operated in
Cameron's case. David Davis was insisting that his pledge to the Indiana
delegates should be made good.
January 6, Lincoln made an early call on Gustave Koerner at his hotel in
Springfield, before the latter was out of bed. Koerner gives the
following account of it in his "Memoirs":[48]
I unbolted the door and in came Mr. Lincoln. "I want to see you
and Judd. Where is his room?" I gave him the number, and
presently he returned with Judd while I was dressing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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