Have been unable to
write daily. The President has released A. H. Stephens, Regan, Trenholm, and others
on parole, and less dissatisfaction has manifested itself than I expected.
The Episcopal
convention at Philadelphia is a disgrace to the church, to the country, and the
times. Resolutions expressing gratification on the return of peace and the
removal of the cause of war have been voted down, and much abject and
snivelling servility exhibited, lest the Rebels should be offended. There are
duties to the country as well as the church.
Montgomery Blair
made a speech to a Democratic meeting at Cooper Institute, New York. As much
exception will be taken to the audience he selected as to his remarks. Although
he has cause for dissatisfaction, it is to be regretted that he should run into
an organization which is hostile to those who have rallied for the Union. True,
they profess to support the President and approve his course. This is perhaps
true in a degree, but that organization was factious during the War, and was in
sympathy with the Rebels prior to hostilities. Their present attitude is from
hatred of the Republicans more than sympathy with the President. Those of us
who are Democrats and who went into the Union organization ought to act in good
faith with our associates, and not fly off to those who have imperilled the
cause, without fully reflecting on what we have done, and are doing. Perhaps
Blair feels himself justified, but I would not have advised his course.
Wendell Phillips has
made an onset on the Administration and its friends, and also on the
extremists, hitting Banks and Sumner as well as the President. Censorious and
unpractical, the man, though possessed of extraordinary gifts, is a useless member
of society and deservedly without influence.
Secretary Seward has
been holding forth at Auburn in a studied and long-prepared speech, intended
for the special laudation and glory of himself and Stanton. It has the artful
shrewdness of the man and of his other half, Thurlow Weed, to whom it was
shown, and whose suggestions I think I can see in the utterances. Each and all
the Departments are shown up by him; each of the respective heads is mentioned,
with the solitary exception of Mr. Bates, omitted by design.
The three dernier
occupants of the Treasury are named with commendation, so of the three
Secretaries of the Interior and the two Postmasters-General. The Secretary of
the Navy has a bland compliment, and, as there have not been changes in that Department,
its honors are divided between the Secretary and the Assistant Secretary. But Stanton
is extolled as one of the lesser deities, is absolutely divine. His service
covers the War and months preceding, sufficient to swallow Cameron, who is
spoken of as honest and worthy. Speed, who is the only Attorney-General
mentioned, is made an extraordinary man of extraordinary abilities and mind,
for like Stanton he falls in with the Secretary of State.
It is not
particularly pleasing to Seward that I, with whom he has had more controversy
on important questions than with any man in the Cabinet, — I, a Democrat, who
came in at the organization of the Lincoln Cabinet and have continued through
without interruption, especially at the dark period of the assassination and
the great change when he was helpless and of no avail, it is not pleasing to
him that I should alone have gone straight through with my Department while
there have been changes in all others, and an interregnum in his own. Hence two
heads to the Navy Department, my Assistant's and mine. Had there been two or
three changes as in the others, this remark would probably not have been made.
Yet there is an artful design to stir up discord by creating ill blood or
jealousy between myself and Fox, whom they do not love, which is quite as much
in the vein of Weed as of Seward. I have no doubt the subject and points of
this speech were talked over by the two. Indeed, Seward always consults Weed
when he strikes a blow.
His assumptions of
what he has done, and thought, and said are characteristic by reason of their
arrogance and error. He was no advocate for placing Johnson on the ticket as
Vice-President, as he asserts, but was for Hamlin, as was every member of the
Cabinet but myself. Not that they were partisans, but for a good arrangement.
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