Senator Doolittle
called and wished me to accompany him to the President to meet General Dix, and
we sent to McCulloch to go there also. The selection of Dix as Minister to The
Hague, a third-class mission, is doing good. It is opening the eyes of
Doolittle and McCulloch, and I think the President, to the course of Weed and
Seward.
Doolittle called on
me the morning that this nomination was announced, and asked what it meant.
Said we could not spare Dix from the country at this time. I told him there was
no probability that Dix would leave. Certainly not on that mission. "What,
then, does it mean?" said Doolittle. I replied that it was intended to
dispose of Dix. The appointment was derogatory and designed to belittle him,
and then, as he would not accept, the place would be kept open for Seward to
play with.
I saw when I met Dix
this morning that he was, for him, a good deal disturbed, and was glad to have
him express his dissatisfaction and his opinions, and the views of others. He
says Weed is playing a strange game in relation to Governor of New York. Tells
of Weed's and Seward's policy, though only Weed's name used. Says that when
Weed wants his own party and servants to be beaten, he selects a weak
candidate, etc.
Smythe, the
Collector, came in soon after Dix went out, and he was even more full than Dix
in disclosing Weed's intrigues and the lectures and teachings of which he was
the recipient. Weed told Smythe he was a merchant and no politician. Smythe
said he knew enough to fire at mark, though he might not hit it.
SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon
Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1,
1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 566
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