Attended special
Cabinet-meeting this morning, at ten, and remained in session until about 1
P.M. The President submitted a message which he had prepared, returning the
Freedmen's Bureau Bill to the Senate with his veto. The message and positions
were fully discussed. Seward, McCulloch, and Dennison agreed with the
President, as did I, and each so expressed himself. Stanton, Harlan, and Speed,
while they did not absolutely dissent, evidently regretted that the President
had not signed the bill. Stanton was disappointed. Speed was disturbed. Harlan
was apprehensive. The President was emphatic and unequivocal in his remarks,
earnest to eloquence in some portion of a speech of about twenty minutes, in
which he reviewed the intrigues of certain Radical leaders in Congress, without
calling them by name, their council of fifteen which in secret prescribed
legislative action and assumed to dictate the policy of the Administration. The
effect of this veto will probably be an open rupture between the President and
a portion of the Republican Members of Congress. How many will go with him, and
how many with the Radical leaders, will soon be known. Until a vote is taken,
the master spirits will have time to intrigue with the Members and get them
committed. They will be active as well as cunning.
Senator Trumbull,
who is the father of this bill, has not been classed among the Radicals and did
not intend to be drawn in with them when he drew up this law. But he is freaky
and opinionated, though able and generally sensible. I shall be sorry to have
him enter into associations that will identify him with extremists, and yet it
will not surprise me should such be the case. He will be the champion of his
bill and, stimulated and courted by those with whom he does not sympathize,
will strive to impair the effect of the impregnable arguments and reasoning of
the message.
SOURCE: Gideon
Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and
Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 434-5
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