Diary of Gideon Welles, Monday, June 18, 1866

Senator Doolittle brought me last evening the rough draft of a proposed call for a national Union convention which he had prepared. Some of the points were well put, but there was too much restriction, too much fear that we should have men we did not care to fellowship with, although we might agree on present issues. To this I excepted, but my strongest point was the omission to meet and present the real issue, our objections to the proposed change of the Constitution which has passed the two houses of Congress.

"What," said I, "are the reasons for calling a convention at this time? Is it not because the faction in Congress, assisted by schemers out of Congress, have concocted a scheme under party excitement and by party machinery to change the Constitution in important particulars, and that by a snap judgment Governor Curtin has addressed a circular letter to the Governors of the several States, inviting an immediate convening of the State legislatures to adopt the proposed change, before the people can have an opportunity to express an opinion? An alarm should be sounded, warning the people of the movements that are being made to alter the organic law, and insidiously change the government."

These and other suggestions I saw made an impression on Doolittle, but still he hesitated and was embarrassed. Pressing him on this point, he admitted he wanted Raymond to sign the call, he being Chairman of the National Republican Committee, and Doolittle wanted others of that committee also to sign it. This I thought of less importance than to have a proper call; certainly I would not suppress the great essential for such a trimming, unreliable man as Raymond. As I urged the matter, he admitted that Raymond had seen the call and approved it; further that the President had read it, and I have no doubt that Seward had also seen it, although that was not distinctly stated. The call, if not the convention itself, is, I think, perverted to an intrigue in behalf of the old Whig Party, on which Weed and Seward rely.

I proposed that we should go and see Mr. McCulloch. It was raining intensely hard, but he at once accorded. He had been to Silver Spring and submitted the document to Mr. Blair and his son, who, he said, approved it.

Mr. McCulloch was not at home, and we parted, but the paper which D. presented, the convention, and the aspect of affairs gave me infinite concern. There is no doubt that Seward and Stanton have a personal understanding to act together. Stanton is in concert with the Radicals, and, at the same time, Seward is prompting Doolittle. The public is ripe for a convention, but this call is an artful contrivance to weaken it. The President is being subordinated by the intriguers, and the design is obviously to weaken the Administration and give the Radical Party the ascendant. Seward, beguiled by Stanton, expects to control the convention by the aid of Weed and Raymond. The fruition of seven months' intrigue means that and nothing else. They intend to rule the President, and I fear he will let them.

I stopped early this morning at Judge Blair's and inquired what he thought of the call. He said he had not been in any mood or mind to think of anything, having been without sleep the previous night, but it had appeared to him to have a too narrow basis. I then told him my view and the conversation Doolittle and myself had. Blair most earnestly agreed with me, said my views corresponded with his own, and promised to see the President if he could.

I called on McCulloch, who agreed to come to my house this evening and go with me to the President. When he called, I detailed the conversation with Doolittle, told him of my apprehensions, and dwelt emphatically on the subject of the Constitutional changes as the true basis of action, and our sounding the bugle-note of warning to arouse the people. My earnestness and the facts excited him, and we went to the President.

We spent an hour in a free and unrestricted conversation with the President. McCulloch, full of the views which I had urged, advised that the President should at once issue a proclamation after the manner of Jackson in regard to nullification, appealing to the people.

I inquired of the President if he had seen Doolittle since Sunday, and told him what I thought of the proposed form of call, and that the just alarm on the proposed change of the Constitution ought not on any account to be omitted. The people ought not to be deluded and cheated by trash. He concurred with me. I inquired if he had noticed that important omission in the proposed call. He did not answer direct, but said the call was too much in detail.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, pp. 529-31

Diary of Gideon Welles, Tuesday, June 19, 1866

After current business at the Cabinet was closed, I inquired of Seward if it was true that he had sent out a special official certificate of the Constitutional Amendment to Governor Hawley of Connecticut. I saw notice to this effect in the papers. Seward said yes, and his manner indicated that he wished I had not put to him the question.

Stanton at this moment, without any design perhaps, drew off the President's attention and they went to one of the windows, conversing audibly. In the mean time Seward and myself got into an animated conversation on the subject of these proposed changes, or, as they are called, amendments of the Constitution. I thought the President should pass upon them. At all events, that they should not have been sent out officially by the Secretary of State, obviously to be used for electioneering purposes, without the knowledge of the President. McCulloch agreed with me most decidedly. Seward said that had not always been the practice. Dennison made some undecisive remarks, evincing indifference. But all this time Stanton and the President were engaged on other matters, and as the President himself had proposed last evening to bring up this subject in Cabinet, I was surprised that he remained away during the conversation, the purport of which he must have known. I became painfully impressed with the apprehension that Seward had an influence which he should not have, and that under that influence the President did not care to be engaged in our conversation.

On leaving the council chamber I went into the Secretary's room adjoining. McCulloch was already there, and we had a free talk with Colonel Cooper, the Private Secretary of the President and his special confidant in relation to public matters, about the necessity there was for prompt and decisive action on the part of the President. Colonel C. fully agreed with us.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, pp. 531-2

Diary of Gideon Welles, Wednesday, June 20, 1866

Went with G. W. Blunt to see the President this morning. Blunt wants to be Naval Officer and has been a true and earnest friend of the Navy Department during the War and boldly met our opponents when friends were needed. Of course I feel a personal regard for him and have two or three times told the President that, personally, Blunt was my choice. If other than personal consideration governed I had nothing to say.

After Blunt left, the President and myself had a little conversation. I expressed my apprehension that there were some persons acting in bad faith with him. Some men of position were declaring that he and Congress were assimilating and especially on the Constitutional change. He interrupted me to repeat what he said to McCulloch and me,—that he was opposed to them and opposed to any change while any portion of the States were excluded. I assured him I well knew his views, but that others near and who professed to speak for him held out other opinions. I instanced the New York Times, the well-known organ of a particular set, which was constantly giving out that the President and Congress were almost agreed, and that the Republican Party must and would be united. The fact that every Republican Representative had voted for the changes, that the State Department had hastened off authenticated copies to the State Executives before submitting to him, the idea promulgated that special sessions of the legislatures in the States were to be called to immediately ratify the amendments, or innovations, showed concert and energy of action in a particular direction, but that it was not on the road which he was traveling.

He answered by referring to yesterday's conversation with Seward; said he had sent early yesterday morning to stop action at the State Department, but found the circulars had been sent off. He seemed not aware that there was design in this hasty, surreptitious movement.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, pp. 532-3

Governor Rutherford B. Hayes to Sardis Birchard, January 13, 1868

COLUMBUS, OHIO, January 13, 1868.

I now send you another copy of the inaugural containing a fourth idea. I found our Democrats foolish. enough to be repealing Ohio's assent to the Fourteenth Amendment. So I put in some words on that head. — All well.

Yours,

R. B. HAYES.

S. BIRCHARD.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 3, p. 50

Senator John Sherman to Lieutenant-General William T. Sherman, November 1, 1867

MANSFIELD, OHIO, Nov. 1, 1867.

Dear Brother:

I see no real occasion for trouble with Johnson. The great error of his life was in not acquiescing in and supporting the 14th Amendment of the Constitution in the Thirty-ninth Congress. This he could easily have carried. It referred the suffrage question to each State, and if adopted long ago the whole controversy would have culminated; or if further opposed by the extreme Radicals, they would have been easily beaten. Now I see nothing short of universal suffrage and universal amnesty as the basis. When you come on, I suggest that you give out that you go on to make your annual report and settle Indian affairs. Give us notice when you will be on, and come directly to my house, where we will make you one of the family.

Grant, I think, is inevitably a candidate. He allows himself to drift into a position where he can't decline if he would, and I feel sure he don't want to decline. My judgment is that Chase is better for the country and for Grant himself, but I will not quarrel with what I cannot control.

JOHN SHERMAN.

SOURCE: Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891, p. 299

Senator John Sherman to Lieutenant-General William T. Sherman, December 27, 1866

UNITED STATES SENATE CHAMBER,        

WASHINGTON, Dec. 27, 1866.

Dear Brother:

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

On the whole I am not sorry that your mission failed, since the French are leaving; my sympathies are rather with Maximilian. The usual factions of Ortega and Juarez will divide the native population, while Maximilian can have the support of the clergy and property. They are a miserable set, and we ought to keep away from them. Here political strife is hushed, and the South have two months more in which to accept the constitutional amendment.¹ What folly they exhibit! To me Johnson and the old encrusted politicians who view everything in the light of thirty years ago seem like blind guides. After the 4th of March they will rally to the amendment, and it will then be too late.

Very truly yours,

JOHN SHERMAN.

_______________

¹ The 14th amendment, then pending before the State Legislatures.

SOURCE: Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891, p. 286