The
proclamation announcing peace in all the Rebel States but Texas appeared in the
National Republican this morning. I was at first a little startled by it,
apprehending it would cause some difficulty with our volunteer officers, who,
by law, ceased to act on the return of peace. This provision towards that class
of officers was one of those headless moves of J. P. Hale, made in the spirit
of a demagogue under professed apprehension that Mr. Lincoln, or whoever might
be President, would use the Navy to make himself dictator. The proclamation
does not include Texas; therefore the Rebellion is not declared wholly
suppressed. When I spoke of the subject to-day in Cabinet, I found that none of
the members had been apprised of the fact, except Seward, and he not until five
o'clock the preceding evening, when he was compelled to send to Hunter, Chief
Clerk, at Georgetown. A sudden determination seems to have influenced the
President. He did not state his reasons, but it is obvious that the Radicals are
taken by surprise and view it as checkmating some of their legislation.
The
returns from Connecticut leave no doubt of the election of Hawley, though by a
very small majority, some six or eight hundred. This is well,—better than a
larger majority, and serves as a warning to the extremists. There is no denying
that the policy of the President would have been sustained by a large majority
of the people of Connecticut, were that the distinct issue. But this was
avoided, yet Forney, in his Chronicle, asserts that the President is defeated,
and his veto has been vetoed by the State. An idle falsehood. Mere partisanship
will not control, and there has been much of it in this election. Each of the
parties shirked the real, living issues, though the Democrats professed to
respect them because the Republicans were divided upon the issues, and to press
them destroyed or impaired that organization.
SOURCE:
Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under
Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 473-4
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