John Harrison Wilson, The life of Charles Henry Dana

This was followed by an appreciative estimate of Hoar's high qualities as a gentleman, a lawyer, and a judge. This was followed by the prophetic statement that

... this is a working and not an ornamental cabinet. It contains a great deal of business faculty and comparatively little experience in the art and science of politics. We may be sure of one thing, however, and that is that there will be no conflict either of views or of ambition between its members and their chief.

And so it turned out. Such of the first cabinet, as well as their successors, as had views of their own, or had manifested any noticeable degree of independence, were forced after a shorter or longer probation to throw up their positions and return to private life.

It is not germane to this narrative to discuss Grant's cabinet further at present. It is sufficient at this time to say that it was generally regarded as a chance body chosen rather for personal than political reasons. So far as can now be ascertained, it was not approved as a whole by a single newspaper, either Republican, Democratic, or independent, in the United States, but it was widely and generally disapproved. Dana's criticism was neither more harsh nor more unfriendly than that of his contemporaries. They were greatly disappointed with the cabinet as a whole; and when Grant proposed that Stewart should be relieved of the legal disabilities which excluded him from the Treasury, they generally concurred with Dana, not only in pronouncing the proposal to be a mistake, but in holding that the law which interdicts from the Treasury every person engaged in trade, and every dealer in public securities, was wise and salutary. While this was the independent view of the matter, it was doubtless distasteful to the thick-and-thin supporters of the administration,