Congress has adjourned over until the 5th of January. It is
as well, perhaps, though I should not have advised it. But the few real
business men, of honest intentions, will dispatch matters about as well and
fast without as with them. The demagogues in Congress disgrace the body and the
country. Noisy and loud professions, with no useful policy or end, exhibit
themselves daily.
Most of the Members will go home. Dixon says the feeling
North is strong and emphatic against Stanton, and that the intrigue against
Seward was to cover and shield Stanton. Others say the same. Doolittle, though
less full and explicit, has this opinion. Fox tells me that Grimes declares his
object was an onslaught on Stanton. If so, it was a strange method. Grimes went
over the whole debate in caucus with F.; said he believed opposition manifested
itself in some degree towards every member of the Cabinet but myself; that
towards one or two only slight exhibitions of dislike appeared, and most were
well sustained. All who spoke were complimentary of me and the naval
management, but Hale, while he uttered no complaint, was greatly annoyed with
the compliments of myself and the quiet but efficient conduct of the Navy.
SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles,
Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864,
p. 206
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