Diary of Gideon Welles: Thursday, June 14, 1866

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