ading counsel in the defense of President Johnson in the
impeachment trial, and had managed the Republican cause before the
Electoral Commission with adroitness and zeal. John Sherman, the
Secretary of the Treasury, was the most capable financier in public
life. Carl Schurz, the Secretary of the Interior, was an aggressive and
uncompromising reformer, who had served the Republican party well in the
campaigns of 1875 and 1876. If these three men could work together under
Hayes, the United States need envy the governors of no other country.
They were in the brilliant but solid class, were abreast of the best
thought of their time, had a solemn sense of duty, and believed in
righteous government. Devens, the Attorney-General, had served with
credit in the army and had held the honorable position of Justice of the
Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. Thompson of Indiana, Secretary
of the Navy, was a political appointment due to the influence of Senator
Morton, but, all things considered, it was not a bad choice. McCrary of
Iowa, as Secretary of War, had been a useful member of the House of
Representatives. The Postmaster-General was Key of Tennessee, who had
served in the Confederate army and voted for Tilden. This appointment
was not so genuine a recognition of the South as would have been made if
Hayes could have carried out his first intention, which was the
appointment of General Joseph E. Johnston as Secretary of War.
Considering that Johnston had surrendered the second great army of the
Confederacy only twelve years before, the thought was possible only to a
magnanimous nature, and in the inner circle of Hayes's counselors
obvious and grave objections were urged. General Sherman doubted the
wisdom of the proposed appointment, although he said that as General of
the army he would be entirely content to receive the President's orders
through his old antagonist. Although the appointment of Johnston would
have added strength, the Cabinet as finally made up was strong, and the
selection of such advisers created a favorable impression upon the
intelligent sentiment of the country; it was spoken of as the ablest
Cabinet since Washington's.

A wise inaugural address and an able Cabinet made a good beginning, but
before the harmonious cooperation of these extraordinary men could be
developed a weighty question, which brooked no delay, had to be settled.
The Stevens-Sumner plan of the reconstruction of the South on the basis