"I am in a quandary," he said; "Pennsylvania is entitled to a Cabinet office. But whom shall I appoint?" "Not Cameron," Judd and myself spoke up simultaneously. "But whom else?" We suggested Reeder or Wilmot. "Oh," said he, "they have no show. There have been delegation after delegation from Pennsylvania, hundreds of letters and the cry is Cameron, Cameron. Besides, you know I have already fixed on Chase, Seward, and Bates, my competitors at the convention. The Pennsylvania people say if you leave out Cameron you disgrace him. Is there not something in that?" I said, "Cameron cannot be trusted. He has the reputation of being a tricky and corrupt politician." "I know, I know," said Lincoln; "but can I get along if that State should oppose my administration?" He was very much distressed. We told him he would greatly regret his appointment. Our interview ended in a protest on the part of Judd and myself against the appointment. January 7, Trumbull wrote to Lincoln advising him to give a Cabinet appointment to some person who could stand in a nearer and more confidential relation to him than that which grew out of political affinity, adding that he (Lincoln) knew whether Judd was the kind of man who would meet such requirements, and enclosing a written recommendation of Judd for such a position, signed by himself and Senators Grimes, Chandler, Wade, Wilkinson, Durkee, Harlan, and Doolittle. These, he said, were the only persons to whom the paper had been shown and the only ones aware of its existence. Let it be said in passing that this was bad advice. Any man going into the Cabinet as a more confidential friend of the President than the others would have had all the others for his enemies. January 10, William Jayne and Ebenezer Peck (both members of the state legislature) expressed the opinion that Judd would be appointed. Evidently the Trumbull letter and enclosure had, for the time being, produced the intended effect. Jayne said that Davis and Yates were opposed to Judd, but that Butler and Judge Logan favored him. February 17, Judd wrote from Buffalo, New York, where he was accompanying Lincoln on his journey to Washington, saying that he believed the Treasury would be offered again to Chase, and if so he must accept, although it might cause another "irrepressible conflict." He said nothing about his own prospects.[49] Evidently Lincoln had not yet decided to take Cameron into the Cabinet, but after he arrived in Washington the influence of Seward and Weed, which Dr. Ray had prefigured in a letter to Trumbull, prevailed upon him to do so. This was the opinion of Montgomery Blair, a high-minded man and an acute observer, expressed to Gideon Welles in these words: