Diary of Gideon Welles: Tuesday, February 13, 1866

McCulloch asked me yesterday, in the President's room in the Capitol, if I had examined the Freedmen's Bureau Bill, and when I told him I had not, that I had never been partial to the measure, had doubted its expediency, even during the War, but as Congress, the Administration, and the country had adopted it, and as I had no connection with it, I had little inclination to interest myself in the matter, he said he wished I would examine the bill, and I told him I would, though opposed to that system of legislation, and to Government's taking upon itself the care and support of communities. To-day the President inquired of me my opinions, or rather said he thought there were some extraordinary features in the bill, and asked what I thought of them, or of the bill. My reply was similar to that I gave McCulloch yesterday. He expressed a wish that I would give the bill consideration, for he apprehended he should experience difficulty in signing it. The bill has not yet reached him.

Showed the President the finding of the court in the case of Meade, who had obtained a new trial and had a little severer punishment than in the former case. The President thought it would be well not to hurry Semmes's case. Told him there were reasons why delay would be acceptable and I should prefer it, only I wished it off my hands. But as he desired delay we would not hurry the matter. He alluded with some feeling to the extraordinary intrigue which he understood was going on in Congress, having nothing short of a subversion or change in the structure of the government in view. The unmistakable design of Thad Stevens and his associates was to take the government into their own hands, the President said, and to get rid of him by declaring Tennessee out of the Union. A sort of French Directory was to be established by these spirits in Congress, the Constitution was to be remodeled by them, etc.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 431-2