The Life and Work of James A. Garfield, Twentieth President of the United States / Embracing an Account of the Scenes and Incidents of His Boyhood; the Struggles of His Youth; the Might of His Early Manhood; His Valor As a Soldier; His Career As a Statesman; His Election to the Presidency; and the Tragic Story of His Death.

by John Clark Ridpath

On the fifth of March, President Garfield sent to the Senate, then in extra session, a list of nominations for his Cabinet. These were unanimously confirmed. They were: Secretary of State, James G. Blaine, of Maine; Secretary of the Treasury, William Windom, of Minnesota; Secretary of War, Robert T. Lincoln, of Illinois; Secretary of the Navy, Wm. H. Hunt, of Louisiana; Secretary of the Interior, S. J. Kirkwood, of Iowa; Attorney-General, Wayne MacVeagh, of Pennsylvania; Postmaster-General, Thomas L. James, of New York.

This proved an admirable selection. Its components are men who stand well with the country, and whose services in other positions had given sufficient evidence of honesty and capacity to recommend them to the American people. And it involved no antagonistic elements.

WILLIAM H. HUNT.

Again, this new Cabinet did not take its bias from any strong political element. It was not a Grant-Conkling selection; nor even a Blaine Cabinet. It was a Garfield Cabinet, in which the President was unmistakably the central figure and the center of power.

James G. Blaine, Secretary of State, was leader of the group. His prominent position in his party and before the country made his nomination generally acceptable, and his long and intimate acquaintance with affairs of state gave him the requisite experience. Undoubtedly, Blaine is one of the most magnificently endowed men, in intellectual power, now in public life.

Secretary Windom had a difficult place to fill in following John Sherman as Secretary of the Treasury. Sherman had heartily recommended Windom for the place, and he was probably the best choice that could have been made. He had been an anti-third term man, of course, but was very friendly with such Stalwarts as Conkling and Arthur, and was thus a good factor in an administration which did not want to antagonize these men, although not yielding to them.

The nomination of Robert T. Lincoln was very largely the result of sentiment—but a very good sentiment. He had been a respectable lawyer, who attended carefully to his business, and, under trying circumstances, had conducted himself with discretion. It happened that he was a favorite of Senator Logan, and that President Garfield desired to make his Cabinet agreeable to the Senator; also, that young Lincoln had been, according to his opportunities, a Third-termer, and it was the desire of the President to conciliate the Third-termers, so far as it could be done without giving his policy an unwarranted slant; and it happened also that General Garfield, as we have seen from his addresses years previous to this time, held the memory of Abraham Lincoln in the deepest reverence, and felt a solicitude to make his own elevation to the Presidency honor that memory. Under these circumstances, and from these considerations, the appointment of Mr. Robert T. Lincoln to be Secretary of War came naturally about.

DR. D. HAYES AGNEW.