Diary of Gideon Welles: [Friday, August 25], 1865

A number of days have passed since I opened this book. On Friday, 25th, we had a pleasant Cabinet-meeting. Speed read an elaborate opinion on the authority of judges in the State of Mississippi. The President dissented wholly from some of his positions. Provisional Governor Sharkey wanted the judges appointed by him should have authority to enforce the habeas corpus. Speed thought they were not legally empowered to exercise judicial functions. The President thought they were. Read from his proclamation establishing a provisional government in Mississippi and said he had drawn that part of the proclamation himself and with special reference to this very question. I inquired whether the habeas corpus privilege was not suspended in that State so that no judge whatever could issue the writ.

A telegram from General Carleton in New Mexico gives a melancholy account of affairs in Mexico. The republican government has met with reverses, and the President, Juarez, is on our borders, fleeing to our country for protection. Seward is in trouble; all of us are, in fact. Many of the army officers are chafing to make war on the imperial government and drive the French from that country. They are regardless of the exhausted state of our affairs.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 366-7