Lincoln writes Sen. Simon Cameron (Pa.), candidate for Republican nomination in 1860: "Since seeing you things have developed which make it impossible for me to take you into the cabinet. . . . I suggest that you write me declining the appointment, in which case I do not object to its being known that it was tendered you." Abraham Lincoln to Simon Cameron, 3 January 1861, CW, 4:169-70.

Apparently telegraphs Cameron letter is in mail. Cameron to Lincoln, 5 January 1861, Abraham Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

Lincoln writes to U.S. Senator William H. Seward, of New York. Seward warned, "A plot is forming to seize the Capitol on or before" the March 4 inaugural. Lincoln expresses more concern about February 13, the day that the electoral college will meet to certify the election. He writes, "If the two Houses refuse to meet...or meet without a quorum of each, where shall we be? I do not think that this counting is constitutionally essential to the election; but how are we to proceed in absence of it?" William H. Seward to Abraham Lincoln, 29 December 1860, Abraham Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC; Abraham Lincoln to William H. Seward, 3 January 1861, CW, 4:170-71; The New-York Times, 15 February 1861, 1:3-4.

Grants interview to Jeriah Bonham, owner-editor, Chicago "Farmer's Advocate." Jeriah Bonham, Fifty Years' Recollections with Observations and Reflections on Historical Events, giving Sketches of Eminent Citizens—their Lives and Public Services (Peoria, IL: Franks, 1883), 184.