The majority were all Republicans.

The minority was principally made up of Democrats, but Republicans as conspicuous as Mr.Dawes of Massachusetts and Mr.Shellabarger of Ohio voted in the negative.

The wide divergence between this action on the part of the Republicans on the third day of December, 1861, and that which they had taken on the preceding 22d of July, was recognized and appreciated by the country, and thus began the open division on the Slavery question which continually widened, which consolidated the Republican party in support of the most radical measures, and which steadily tended to weaken the Democratic party in the loyal States.
SECRETARY CAMERON RESIGNS.
At the height of the excitement in Congress over the engagement at Ball's Bluff there was a change in the head of the War Department.
The disasters in the field and the general impatience for more decisive movements on the part of our armies led to the resignation of Secretary Cameron.

He was in his sixty-third year, and though of unusual vigor for his age, was not adapted by education or habit to the persistent and patient toil, to the wearisome detail of organization, to the oppressive increase of responsibility, necessarily incident to military operations of such vast proportions as were entailed by the progress of the war.

He was nominated as Minister to Russia, and on the eleventh day of January, 1862, was succeeded in the War Department by Edwin M.Stanton.
Mr.Stanton signalized his entrance upon duty by extraordinary vigor in war measures, and had the good fortune to gain credit for many successes which were the result of arrangements in progress and nearly perfected under his predecessor.