Indeed, as was quickly pointed out when the appointments were announced by Duff Green in his newspaper, the cabinet was uniformly second-rate, with the single exception of Martin Van Buren. “The Millennium of the Minnows!” commented one man; and surely it ranked among the worst cabinets in the nineteenth century. For an administration intent on restoring republicanism through a vigorous program of reform, this list of its executive officers hardly inspired confidence. That it collapsed within two years is not surprising.
