The personal character and political bias of the members of the Cabinet, and especially their opinions respecting the policy which the President had indicated, became therefore a matter of controlling importance. The Cabinet had undergone many changes since its original organization in March, 1861. The substitution of Mr. Stanton for Mr. Cameron and of Mr. Fessenden for Mr. Chase has already been noticed; but on the day of Mr. Lincoln's second inauguration Mr. Fessenden returned to the Senate, resuming the seat which he had left the July previous, and which had in the interim been filled by Nathan A. Farwell, an experienced ship-builder and ship-master of Maine, who possessed an extraordinarily accurate knowledge of the commercial history of the country. Mr. Farwell is still living, vigorous in health and in intellect. When Mr. Fessenden left the Treasury, he was succeeded by Hugh McCulloch, whose valuable service as Comptroller of the Currency had secured for him the promotion with which Mr. Lincoln now honored him. Mr. McCulloch was a native of Maine, who had gone to the West in his early manhood, and had earned a strong position as a business man in his Indiana home. He was a descendant of that small but prolific colony of Scotch and Scotch-Irish who had settled in northern New England, and whose blood has enriched all who have had the good fortune to inherit it. Mr. McCulloch was a devoted Whig, and was so loyal to the Union that during the war he could do nothing else than give his influence to the Republican party. But he was hostile to the creed of the Abolitionist, was conservative in all his modes of thought, and wished the Union restored quite regardless of the fate of the negro. He believed that unwise discussion of the slavery question had brought our troubles upon us, and that it would be inexcusable to continue an agitation which portended trouble in another form. The policy which he desired to see adopted was that which should restore the Rebel States to their old relations with the Union upon the freest possible conditions and within the shortest possible time.