* * * * * * * * * *
As to politics, I
hardly know if I should approach Grant, as I can hardly judge of the influences
that have operated on him since we were together last November. In accepting
the acting office of Secretary of War, I doubt not he realized the delicacy of
his position, and was willing to risk the chances. It is not for the interest
of the United States that in a temporary political office he should sink his
character as a military officer. In the former he should be in harmony with the
executive, but in the latter he should be simply a high sheriff to execute the
process of the court. My belief is that Congress cannot qualify the President's
right to command the army and navy. He is the Constitutional
Commander-in-Chief. But Congress can make rules and laws for the government of
the army and thereby control the President as such Commander-in-Chief. In trying
to array the President and General Grant in antagonism, Congress did wrong, and
reaction is sure to result. It damages all parties, because few people take the
trouble to study out the right, yet time moves along so rapidly and the
election of a new President will soon settle these and all kindred questions.
Your course has been fair, and you cannot wish to alter or amend it. Our
country ought not to be ruled by the extreme views of Sumner or Stevens any
more than by the extreme views of Calhoun, Yancey, etc., that have produced our
Civil War. There is some just middle course, and events will flow into it whether
any one man or set of men is wise enough to foresee it and lay down its maxims.
I think Chase is the ablest man of his school, and I would personally prefer
him to Wade, Colfax, or any of the men whose names I notice in this connection.
Whether the precedent of a Chief Justice being a political aspirant may not be
bad, I don't know. This is the Mexican rule, and has resulted in anarchy.
I don't think Grant,
Sheridan, Thomas, or any real military man wants to be President. All see that,
however pure or exalted their past reputations may have been, it don't shield
them from the lies and aspersions of a besotted press. . . . Grant writes me in
the most unreserved confidence, and never has said a word that looks like
wanting the office of President. His whole nature is to smooth over troubles,
and he waits with the most seeming indifference, under false and unjust
assertions, till the right time, when the truth peeps out, so as to defy
contradiction. . . .
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