Seward has run off
to Auburn and left Stanbery to attend upon the Hawaiian dowager, Queen Emma. He
finds it awkward and embarrassing, but does very well. The President expressed
a wish that the Cabinet, and such of their families as could, might be at the
reception this evening. McCulloch and myself were the only ones present except
Stanbery, who escorted her. She is a good-looking, well-developed woman of
about thirty, with a complexion a shade darker perhaps than a brunette, a full,
round eye, a good form, of graceful deportment, etc.
We hear that the
convention at Philadelphia is full and harmonious and all is progressing satisfactorily.
The effect must be salutary on the whole country and will, I
trust, contribute to overcome that intense sectional hate and party rancor
which it is the aim and purpose of the Radicals to inculcate towards the South.
These Radical leaders, and to a great extent their followers, are vindictive
and have apparently no wish or intention to reëstablish the Union or recognize
the political equality of the States.
SOURCE: Gideon
Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and
Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, pp. 577-8
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