The House yesterday
passed the Senate proposition to change the Constitution. It was before that
body about two hours and was passed under the previous question. Such a
reckless body, ready to break up the foundations of the government, has never
been assembled, and such legislation, regardless of the organic law, would not
only destroy public confidence but ruin the country. All is for party,
regardless of right or of honest principle.
Representations are
sent out that Congress has made great concessions in adopting the Senate's
proposition, that they have yielded about everything, and that the President is
pretty well satisfied with the question as now presented. There is design in
all this, and some professed friends of the President are among the most active
in it. The New York Times, and papers strongly under the influence of Seward
and Weed, as well as their partisans, maintain these views. Thurlow Weed has
been here within a few days and is always on errands of mischief. All looks to
me like a systematic plan to absorb the President, or to destroy him. He still
leans on Seward and seems under his influence, though with doubts and occasional
misgivings. Seward himself defers to Stanton, - is becoming afraid of him. That
Seward is cheated I cannot believe, and if he is not cheated I am constrained
to believe the President is. And who is to undeceive him? I have on more than
one occasion suggested my doubts, but while he has received my suggestions
attentively he has pondered in obvious distress, and the subject is of so
delicate a nature that I cannot do more.
At the very time
that the House was adopting this Constitutional change, Green Clay Smith was
nominated Governor of Montana. Smith professes to be with the President, but
went with the Radicals on the test oath, and is made Governor.
SOURCE: Gideon
Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and
Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 526-7
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