care be perfectly safe. You will get along much better without harmony in the party than without a perfectly honest and intelligent management of the public affairs. When the former can be obtained only at the expense of the latter, it should be sacrificed without hesitation. It is a great mistake that an Administration cannot sustain itself and succeed in the best sense of the term without an harmonious party at its back. Our experience is that the friendship of certain elements in the party purchased at the price which it would have cost, would have been far more dangerous to our general success than their hostility proved to be. You will undoubtedly go through the same experience, and it will not injure you, if you realize and appreciate it early enough. An Administration faithfully serving the public interest will always be much stronger than any faction in the party, however strong and demonstrative, even if it appear like a majority of it.
Permit me to repeat some of the remarks I made in our conversation here. You should be perfectly sure not only of the ability and general character but also of the political motives of every one of your Cabinet Ministers.
Your Cabinet should be your Constitutional council, not an assemblage of agents of party leaders.
No member of your Cabinet should have reason to think that he owed his position to any other influence than your own free choice.
Especially at the head of the Treasury, the Interior, the Post-Office and the Department of Justice you should have men whom you can count upon to [serve] the public interest and [be] loyal to yourself under all circumstances, without being watched. They should also have the necessary moral courage to say No on all proper occasions whatever pressure be brought upon them. They must be able to say No for you, and even to oppose your own good-nature
