The most pressing question was the personnel of the Cabinet. Upon only one appointment was Jackson fully determined when he reached Washington: Van Buren was to be Secretary of State. The "little magician" had been influential in turning New York from Crawford to Jackson; he had resigned his seat in the Senate and run for the governorship with a view to uniting the party for Jackson's benefit; he was the cleverest politician and, next to Calhoun, the ablest man, in the Democratic ranks. When offered the chief place in the Cabinet he promptly accepted. Edward Livingston was given his choice of the remaining positions, but preferred to accept an election to the Senate. With due regard for personal susceptibilities and sectional interests, the list was then completed. A Pennsylvania Congressman, Samuel D. Ingham, became Secretary of the Treasury; Senator John H. Eaton was made Secretary of War; a Calhoun supporter from North Carolina, John Branch, was given the Navy portfolio; Senator John M. Berrien of Georgia became Attorney-General; and William T. Barry of Kentucky was appointed Postmaster-General, after the incumbent, John McLean, refused to accept the policy of a clean slate in the department. The appointments were kept secret until one week before the inauguration, when they were announced in the party organ at the capital, Duff Green's United States Telegraph. Everywhere the list caused consternation. Van Buren's was the only name of distinction in it; and only one of the appointees had had experience in the administration of national affairs. Hamilton pronounced the group "the most unintellectual Cabinet we ever had." Van Buren doubted whether he ought to have accepted a seat in such company. A crowning expression of dissatisfaction came from the Tennessee delegation in Congress, which formally protested against the appointment of Eaton. But the President-elect was not to be swayed. His ideas of administrative efficiency were not highly developed, and he believed that his Cabinet would prove equal to all demands made upon it. Not the least of its virtues in his eyes was the fact that, although nearly evenly divided between his own followers and the friends of Calhoun, it contained not one person who was not an uncompromising anti-Clay man. Meanwhile a motley army of office seekers, personal friends, and sightseers--to the number of ten or fifteen thousand--poured into Washington to see the old rÈgime of Virginia, New York, and Massachusetts go out and the new rÈgime of the people come in. "A monstrous crowd of people," wrote Webster on Inauguration Day, "is in the city. I never saw anything like it before. Persons have come five hundred miles to see General Jackson, and they really seem to think that the country is rescued from some dreadful danger." Another observer, who was also not a Jacksonian, wrote: π π Parton, Life of Andrew Jackson, Vol. III, p. 168.