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Sunday, June 30, 2024

Diary of Gideon Welles: Saturday, May 5, 1866

Senator Morgan says that in the debate on Lewis Campbell's appointment as Minister to Mexico, Wade declared in executive session he intended to vote in favor of no man for any appointment who favored the Johnson policy and opposed the policy of Congress. Campbell, he said, was in favor of the Johnson policy. He then launched off into a tirade against Maximilian, in which he got terribly excited, but finally closed by voting for Campbell, who is an Ohio man.

The Senate rejected the nomination of Frank Blair for Collector at St. Louis. No man in the country, perhaps, did so much and so efficiently and timely against the Rebellion as General Blair in Missouri at the beginning of the Rebellion. But he is not of the Radical faction.

A. E. Burr, who is a member of the Connecticut Legislature from Hartford, writes me that there is a good deal of feeling on the subject of Senator; thinks that a majority might be concentrated on me if I am so disposed. One of the newspaper correspondents, Ripley, has called on me on the same subject. R. has seen Dixon, who says he should like to have me elected and will do anything to bring it about, provided it is my wish, but he adds the difficulty is I will do nothing for myself. D. says there is not a doubt of my election if I will earnestly enter the canvass. He may be correct, probably is, but I cannot approve, or do, what others do in these matters. While I should feel gratified with the unsolicited compliment of such a testimonial, I do not so crave it as to employ or enter into such means as are too freely used to obtain it. If a good and true man can be secured I will aid him.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 501-2

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