But here again appeared cross-currents difficult to understand. South Carolina, usually so subservient to the wishes of her great statesman, but now cool toward him, was uncompromisingly hostile to his favorite for the Treasury. The other leading members of the South Carolina delegation, known to be opposed to Ingham and to prefer McLane to him, had hesitated from motives of delicacy to make their views known to Jackson; and Van Buren’s favorite for the position authorized Hamilton, Van Buren’s emissary, to notify the General of their willingness to call if their opinion was wanted.[138] On February 17th, the Carolinians, including Senator Hayne, McDuffie, Hamilton, Archer, and Drayton, filed into the throne room at Gadsby’s, and Hamilton, who acted as spokesman, began by tactfully commending the selection of Van Buren, and then turned to the Treasury. Before he could announce his candidate, Jackson interrupted with the announcement that Ingham had been chosen. Nothing daunted, Hamilton suggested as a better choice the brilliant Langdon Cheves of South Carolina. “Impossible,” snapped the grim old man. Then why not McLane? That, too, was instantly dismissed, and the Carolinians left Gadsby’s in a rage. “I assure you I am cool--damn cool--never half so cool in my life,” Hamilton exclaimed immediately afterwards.[139] For the War Department there was no such competition, and after an unsuccessful attempt had been made to conciliate Tazewell with the post, Jackson, who was anxious to have among his advisers one of his old friends and managers, satisfied himself with the selection of Senator John H. Eaton of Tennessee. The processes of reasoning leading to the appointment of Senator John Branch of North Carolina as Secretary of the Navy have been lost to history and there is no clue. We know that Van Buren and his friends strongly urged the selection of Woodbury of New Hampshire; and McLane expressed the contemporary state of mind in a letter to his friend: “By what interest that miserable old woman, Branch, was ever dreamed of, no one can tell.” This much we know--that Branch himself did not have the most remote idea of entering the Cabinet when the invitation reached him from Gadsby’s, and he withheld his acceptance until he could consult with a number of his friends.[140] Two reasons have been advanced as probable. The one, popular at the time, was that Jackson’s advisers thought that something should be done to promote the social prestige of the Administration; and the other, generally accepted by historians, that the appointment was made as another concession to Calhoun. While the Carolinian made no request for his inclusion in the Cabinet, Branch was one of his most loyal followers.