We are having, I
think, as warm weather as I have ever experienced. The papers have a curt
letter from Speed resigning his office. He has also written an elaborate but
not very profound letter to Doolittle, dissenting from the Philadelphia
Convention.
The President sent
in a veto on the new bill establishing the Freedmen's Bureau, or prolonging it.
His reasons against it were strong and vigorous, but the two houses, without
discussing or considering them, immediately passed the bill over the veto, as
was agreed and arranged by the leaders, Stevens and others. Very few of the
Members know anything of the principles involved, or even the provisions of the
bill, nor, if informed, had they the independence to act, but they could under
the lash of party vote against the President. Two or three of the Members, in
telling me the result, spoke of it as a great triumph in the manner of the
final hasty passage without any consideration.
SOURCE: Gideon
Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and
Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 554
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