make use of the group as a council of state, after the manner of his
predecessors. Jackson's purposes, however, ran in a different
direction. He had been on intimate terms with fewer than half of the
members, and he saw no reason why these men, some of whom were
primarily the friends of Calhoun, should be allowed to supplant old
confidants like Lewis. Let them, he reasoned, go about their appointed
tasks as heads of the administrative departments, while he looked for
counsel whithersoever he desired. Hence the official Cabinet fell into
the background, and after a few weeks the practice of holding meetings
was dropped.

As advisers on party affairs and on matters of general policy the
President drew about himself a heterogeneous group of men which the
public-labeled the "Kitchen Cabinet." Included in the number were the
two members of the regular Cabinet in whom Jackson had implicit
confidence, Van Buren and Eaton. Isaac Hill was a member. Amos
Kendall, a New Englander who had lately edited a Jackson paper in
Kentucky, and who now found his reward in the fourth auditorship of
the Treasury, was another. William B. Lewis, prevailed upon by Jackson
to accept another auditorship along with Kendall, rather than to
follow out his original intention to return to his Tennessee
plantation, was not only in the Kitchen Cabinet but was also a member
of the President's household. Duff Green, editor of the _Telegraph_,
and A. J. Donelson, the President's nephew and secretary, were
included in the group; as was also Francis P. Blair after, in 1830, he
became editor of the new administration organ, the _Globe_. It was the
popular impression that the influence of these men, especially of
Lewis and Kendall, was very great--that, indeed, they virtually ruled
the country. There was some truth in the supposition. In matters upon
which his mind was not fully made up, Jackson was easily swayed; and