Special notice from the President that there would be no Cabinet-meeting. Called upon him this P.M. and gave him, generally, my views in regard to what is called the Civil Rights Bill, which, if approved by him, must lead to the overthrow of his Administration as well as that of this mischievous Congress which has passed it. The principles of that bill, if carried into effect, must subvert the government. It is consolidation solidified, breaks down all barriers to protect the rights of the States, concentrates power in the General Government, which assumes to itself the enactment of municipal regulations between the States and citizens and between citizens of the same State. No bill of so contradictory and consolidating a character has ever been enacted. The Alien and Sedition Laws were not so objectionable. I did not inquire of the President what would be his course in regard to the bill, but we did not disagree in opinion on its merits, and he cannot give it his sanction, although it is unpleasant to him to have these differences with Congress.
He tells me that Senator Pomeroy disavows having stated that he saw the President drunk at the White House, but says he (Pomeroy) wrote Lincoln, the Postmaster at Brooklyn, that he saw Robert, the President's son, in liquor, and he thought the same of his son-in-law, Senator Patterson.
SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 460-1
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