there for supper had left it and ridden express to Staunton in order to get my answer and start by the Valley stage for Winchester (the nearest telegraph office) at one o'clock that night. I told him I could not give him an immediate answer and he would have to wait until the next day for it. The tender of a place in the Cabinet was wholly unexpected to me, the more so as Virginia was a Democratic State, and a cabinet officer from it in a Whig administration was improbable; and further, because I had been out of active political life for some years. When I had determined to accept, and arrived in Washington, I found the Department of the Interior, which had been only recently created, a very large one, which, before I left it, numbered several thousand men in its employment. When I assumed the position at its head I did not know a man in it. I introduced a sort of private civil service test, to ascertain the capacity of the men in my own immediate offices; I would take memoranda on various subjects and give them to the clerks to prepare papers from, and by the results finally classified them. And speaking of civil service, I may say that in the whole thous ands of positions, I never made a change merely on account of politics. The Department included the Bounty Land Office, Commissioner of Public Lands, and Commissioner of Pensions. One of the young men whom I discovered by the test applied was a thousand dollar clerk named George C. Whiting from Clarke County. He showed such remarkable aptitude that I continued promoting him until he reached the position of my chief clerk, although nominally he was a Democrat. Another remarkable advancement was John Wilson, who had commenced life as a carpenter. He became Commissioner of Public Lands, a position that he resigned to take charge at $10,000.00 a year of the land office of the Illinois Central Railroad, which received a large land grant.

"The head of the Cabinet, Mr. Webster, the Secretary of State, I was already acquainted with. In 1850, I, with others, argued the great Wheeling Bridge case before the United States Supreme Court. Reverdy Johnson was

on the same side with myself. After the case had been heard, Mr. Johnson asked if I had seen Mr. Webster, that he was looking for me. When we met Mr. Webster said: 'I want to have a party of Southern gentlemen to dine with me next Thursday, I would like to see you there. This is not a formal invitation, but if you stand on formality I will,' he added laughing, 'have an invitation made out in due form of law, with the seal of the court annexed.' During the dinner, he asked with great interest after the Sheffey family, having served in the house with Daniel Sheffey.

"He told me of Daniel Sheffey's celebrated reply to John Randolph of Roanoke. Sheffey came to this State from Maryland, and while working at his trade studied law, and was sent to Congress from the Wythe District. He was one of the ablest and most brilliant men of his day, and at once became prominent in the House. This did not meet with the aristocratic views of John Randolph, who was exceedingly annoyed by his colleague's prominence. One day after Sheffey had made one of his most brilliant efforts, Randolph arose and with irony complimented him on his effort, and added with a sneer, that he 'would take the liberty of a colleague to offer the member from Wythe a word of admonition and advice, which was in future to confine himself to his appropriate field of logic and strong, vigorous common sense, and never again make an abortive effort to figure in the field of fancy and wit.' As quick as lightning Sheffey rose and said: 'Mr. Speaker, I accept the admonition of my colleague in the spirit in which it is offered, and assure him. that I will never again encroach upon his dominion, particularly as he never poaches upon mine.' The keen retort brought down the House.

"Among the other members of the Cabinet was Thomas Corwin of Ohio, Secretary of the Treasury. He had been a wagoner in the West in early life. He often told me that the happiest moments of his life had been when the long line of wagons would come to a halt and the drivers would