The papers of this
morning contain the reported speech of President Johnson yesterday. It is
longer than the President should have delivered,—if he were right in addressing
such a crowd. His remarks were earnest, honest, and strong. One or two
interruptions which called out names I wish were omitted.
The Chronicle,
Forney's paper, is scandalously abusive and personally indecent, false, and
vindictive. An attempt is made, by innuendo, to give the impression that the
President was excited by liquor. Count Gurowski, the grumbler, is around
repeating the dirty scandal. Says the President had drunk too much bad whiskey
to make a good speech. Eames tells me that Gurowski, who now lives with him,
says that Stanton declared to him that he was opposed to the veto. Well, he did
suggest that there might, he thought, be an improvement by one or two
alterations, but as a whole he was understood to acquiesce and assent to the
message. I doubted if he was sincere, for there was an ambiguity in what he
said, yet, having said something, he could to his Radical friends aver he was
opposed.
I told the President
I was sorry he had permitted himself to be drawn into answering impertinent
questions to a promiscuous crowd and that he should have given names of those
whose course he disapproved. Not that his remarks were not true, but the
President should not be catechized into declarations. Yet it is the manner and
custom in the Southwest, and especially in Tennessee, to do this on the stump.
Stanton patronizes Forney's Chronicle and proscribes the Intelligencer.
Conversing with the President, I told him I thought this improper. He said he
would bring the subject before us at the next meeting.
SOURCE: Gideon
Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and
Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 439
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