Philadelphia, July 3, 1864.
I left Washington yesterday morning, as I told you I should.
I have experienced twenty-six moody and melancholy hours. You have at no time
been separated from my thoughts since I left you. I have tried to picture to
myself what would be the effect of your change of position upon the country,
upon yourself, and upon our relations to each other.
I need not tell you that for six years I have been drawn
toward you by an invisible power, magnetic it may be, that I could never
resist, even had I desired to resist it. During the time I have been in the
Senate you have exercised an influence over my wayward nature such as was never
exercised by any human being except my wife. At times I have been irritated
with you, but I can truly say that I never suffered the sun to go down upon my
anger. If at any such moment of my weakness I ever gave you a pang of painful
feeling, I now most sincerely crave your pardon, begging you to remember that
the recollection of any and every intemperate declaration of mine gives me more
sorrow than it can possibly give to you.
Now, our relations are to be changed. I had hoped that so
long as I remained in the Senate we were to be associated together. It is
ordered otherwise, and I trust for the good of the country. You are to have new
surroundings, new associations, and doubtless our old friendship will be in a
measure forgotten; I trust not destroyed. It fills me with grief to think that
this must in the very nature of things be so.
You know what I thought of your going into the cabinet. If
you would not deem it offensive to say so, I would say that I really pitied you
when I saw you last. I saw at a glance your true situation. I knew that you had
feeble health, that the Treasury is in a terrible condition, and that the
result of your acceptance of office might be your death. At the same time I
believed that no name would give one-half so much confidence to the country as
yours, and I knew that your declination by every enemy of the country would be
ascribed not to its true cause, your poor health, but to the fact that you knew
too well the condition of the Treasury Department to accept the portfolio. In
this condition of things, I did not feel like urging you to either accept or
decline, but contented myself with recommending you to make such terms as would
prevent you from being slandered and back-bitten out of the cabinet in a few
weeks by your associates. What is to be the issue in that regard I do not know.
You are, or were, when I left, master of the situation, and in my opinion would
fix your own terms.
Now let me give you one word of parting advice, and I will
never assume to do it again.
Get rid of Mr. Chase's agents as soon as possible. I believe
many of them are corrupt, but whether they be so or not they are thought to be,
and that is a sufficient reason for supplanting them with new men. One or two
men who enjoy your confidence now, I believe to be tricksters, but you will
find them out soon enough. Do not send abroad to negotiate a loan, but throw
yourself upon the people of this country. Read the Evening Post of
yesterday, and see what was the demand for United States securities in New
York. In the present flush of confidence you can put your loan upon the
American market, and do as you wish.
And now, my dear Fessenden, I start for my rustic home on
the bank of the Mississippi. If there be an angel on earth, there is one there
who prays as devoutly night and morning for your success and welfare as she
does for mine. I dare not trust myself to read this letter for fear I would
destroy it. I do not expect you to spare the time to answer it. May God give
you health and happiness, and to the country peace and safety!
SOURCE: William Salter, The Life of James W. Grimes,
p. 263-5
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