It might, perhaps, at first sight appear good policy to omit from your Cabinet all those who were candidates for the nomination at Cincinnati; so as not to slight one by preferring another. Under ordinary circumstances there would be much in favor of this idea. But it so happens in this case that all the candidates, except one, are in the Senate and may reasonably be presumed to prefer their present places to any others that might be offered. Only one is in private life; and if all the others, as Senators, remain official persons in the Government, while only this one is left without official position, might it not be said that the latter received the slight?
This, however, would, as it seems to me, be either way a matter of secondary importance, not large enough to govern so weighty a business. Neither can I imagine that you would permit General Grant's personal likes or dislikes, from which the country has certainly suffered enough, to stand in the way of the public good, especially as General Grant will entirely cease to be a political entity on the 5th of March, and as his views and influence will no longer be of the least possible moment. But just now the country witnesses the very singular spectacle of a general pardon to the whisky thieves and an equally general removal from office of those who prosecuted them. Bristow and those who acted under him have literally been punished for the best service they rendered the country. I shall certainly not argue that this would entitle him to a place in your Cabinet. But he has become in a certain sense the practical exponent of a reform at present so essentially needed and his appointment would, therefore, in higher degree than that of any man mentioned in connection with the Treasury secure to your Administration that kind of popular confidence which will be most useful to you. He possesses also in a great measure the qualifications demanded by the problems before us, and
