The President was to
have sent me word when he would see Captain McKinstry, but, having failed to do
so, I called on him to-day and he appointed this evening or any hour to-morrow.
Some conversation
took place on the subject of New York appointments. I congratulated him that he
had got the Collector and Attorney off his hands, and though I had personally
but slight knowledge of either, it seemed to me they were as good as any of the
candidates named. The President said he found New York broken up into cliques;
that he could satisfy neither without dissatisfying all others. That all had
selfish objects of their own to gratify and wished to use him for their own
personal ends.
The conduct of
Morgan had, he said, been very extraordinary. In all his conversations he had
expressed himself in accord with the Administration on the question of the
Civil Rights Bill and the veto. But he wanted the nomination of Collector
should be sent in before the vote was taken, was particularly urgent on Monday
morning, and from what had since transpired there was, he thinks, a sinister
design. Results had shown that it was well he did not comply with Morgan's
urgent request.
In nominating
Stanbery to the Supreme Court, he had a desire to get a sound man on the bench,
one who was right on fundamental constitutional questions. Stanbery, he says,
is with us thoroughly, earnestly.
Alluding to certain
persons in the Cabinet, he expressed himself with much feeling and said a proper
sense of decency should prompt them to leave, provided they were not earnestly
and sincerely with the Administration.
SOURCE: Gideon
Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and
Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 487
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