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confidence, not lightly given and never withdrawn.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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