A special Cabinet-meeting. The President desired a
consultation as to the expediency of an extra session of the Senate. Chase
favored. Seward opposed. No very decided opinion expressed by the others. I was
disinclined to it. The President has been invited to preside at a meeting for
religious Christian purposes on Sunday evening. Chase favored it. All the
others opposed it but Usher, who had a lingering, hesitating, half-favorable
inclination to favor it. Has been probably talked with and committed to some extent;
so with Chase. The President on Tuesday expressed a wish that Captain Dahlgren
should be made an admiral, and I presented to-day both his and Davis's names.1
I wrote Senator Dixon a note, remonstrating against his
misuse of power by opposing in secret session the appointment and confirmation
of Howard as Collector; that it was not only wrong, officially, for he was not
clothed with authority to revenge private grievances, but it would close the
door to any reconciliation, and make lifelong enmities between those who were
neighbors and should be friends; that he admitted, and every one knew, Howard
was a good and correct officer. All, it seems, was unavailing, for I hear the
Senate has failed to confirm the nomination. An inexcusable and unjustifiable
act on the part of the Senate, a wrong to the country, a gross wrong and outrage
on an American citizen of character and worth who is discharging his duty with
fidelity, the peer of the Senators who are guilty of this prostitution of honor
and trust. This act and this practice of the Senate are as repugnant to good
government and as degrading as anything in the corrupt days of Roman history,
or the rotten aristocracy of modern Europe.
_______________
1 Charles Henry Davis, who had defeated the
Confederate fleet off Fort Pillow, and captured Memphis.
SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles,
Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30,
1864, p. 238-9
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