Saturday, August 26, 2017

John Hay to Edwin M. Stanton, July 26, 1865

Paris 26 July 1865
May Dear Mr. Stanton

I received your kind note from Wm Moore just as I left the Hotel in New York for the Steamer.  I have so often thanked you for your consideration and kindness that I have not words left to renew the assurances of my grateful appreciation.  It is not probable that the time will ever come that I can be of use to you.  If it ever does I shall free myself from the obligations that embarrass me, but never from those that bind me to you.

I know you generally care very little what people say or think about you, but it cannot but be gratifying even to you to know that confidence in you strengthens the confidence of good people in the government and stiffens their hopes for the future.  And I want you to let me say that in a very long journey this summer embracing nearly every state in the north and the Border, I was surprised to see the near unanimity in this matter. You know that there were many meddlers whose knuckles you had rapped, many thieves whose hands you had tied, and many liars whose mouths you had shut for a time by your prompt punishments, who had occupied  themselves in traducing you, so as to shake the faith of many descent people in you.  This is all over now.  Very frequently when I had occasion to speak of you, I found you were understood and appreciated by strangers just as you are by your friends.  It is already known, as well as the readers of history a hundred years hence will know, that no honest man has cause of quarrel with you, that your hands have been clean and your heart steady every our of this fight, and that if any human names are to have the glory of this victory, it belongs to you among the very few who stood by the side of him who has gone to his better reward, and never faltered in your trust in God and the People.

Not everyone knows, as I do, how close you stood to our lost leader, how he loved and trusted you, and how vain were all the efforts to shake that trust and confidence, not lightly given and never withdrawn.

It is not my habit to say this sort of thing, nor yours to listen to it.  I wanted to tell you this when I saw you last, and now say it, and have done.

Your friend and Servant
John Hay

SOURCE: Stanton, Edwin McMasters. Edwin McMasters Stanton Papers: Correspondence, 1831 to 1870; 1865; 1865, July 5-Sept. 25. July 5, 1865. Manuscript/Mixed Material. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/mss41202028/. (Accessed August 26, 2017.)

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