Some slight
indisposition and pressing duties have postponed my daily remarks. The
President had expressed to me his intention to go to Richmond and Raleigh on
the 3d inst., and invited me to accompany him, but I doubted if he would carry
the design out, and he said on the 3d he must postpone it for the present,
which I think will be for the season.
A vote was taken in
Connecticut on Monday, the 2d, on the proposed Constitutional Amendment to
erase the word "white" and permit the colored persons to vote. I was
not surprised that the proposition was defeated by a very decided majority, yet
I had expected that the question might be carried on the strong appeal to
party. But there is among the people a repugnance to the negro, and a positive
disinclination to lower the standard of suffrage. They will not receive the
negro into their parlors on terms of social intimacy, and they are unwilling to
put him in the jury-box or any political position. There are probably not five
hundred colored persons who could be made electors, and the grievance is
therefore not very great.
The defeat of the
Constitutional Amendment has caused a great howl to be set up by certain
extremists, in the State and out of it. While I might have voted affirmatively
had I been in the State, I have no wailing over the negative results. I regret
to witness the abuse of the Press and other papers on those whom it failed to
convince, and who consequently voted according to their convictions. This abuse
and denunciation will tend to alienate friends, and weaken the influence of the
Union leaders in future elections.
The effect of the
vote elsewhere will be to impair centralization, which has been setting in
strong of late, and invigorate State action, and in this respect the result
will be beneficent. I apprehend our extreme negro advocates are doing serious
injury to the negro in their zeal in his behalf, and they are certainly doing
harm to our system by insisting on the exercise of arbitrary and unauthorized
power in aid of the negro.
Some of the workmen
in the Philadelphia Navy Yard complained that an assessment had been levied
upon them for party purposes. I had written a pretty decisive letter correcting
the evil when I went to the Cabinet-meeting on Tuesday, and had given it out to
be copied. After the general business before the Cabinet had been disposed of,
the President took me aside and said complaints of a similar character had been
made to him. I told him my own conclusion and what I had done, which he
approved. The opportunity is most favorable to correct a pernicious practice,
which I last year would not sanction, and which led Raymond, Thurlow Weed, and
others to try to prejudice President Lincoln against me.
On Wednesday Amos
Kendall called and wished me to go with him to the President. He alluded to old
friendly political associations and relations between us. I was glad of the
opportunity of taking him to the President, whom I was about to call upon with
my letter to the Commandant of the Philadelphia Navy Yard, respecting the
improper assessment of workmen. After a brief interview Mr. Kendall left, and I
read my letter concerning the assessment of workmen, which the President
complimented and desired it should go to other yards and be made public. [The
letter follows.]
NAVY DEPARTMENT,
3 October, 1865.
SIR:
The attention of the Department has been called to an attempt recently made in
Philadelphia to assess or tax for party purposes the workmen in the Navy Yard.
It is claimed by those who have participated in these proceedings, that the
practice has prevailed in former years, at that and other Navy Yards, of
levying contributions of this character on mechanics and laborers employed by
the Government.
Such
an abuse cannot be permitted; and it is the object of this communication to
prohibit it, wherever it may be practiced.
From
inquiries instituted by the Department, on the complaint of sundry workmen, who
represented that a committee had undertaken, through the agency of the masters,
to collect from each of the employés in their respective departments, a sum equal
to one day's labor, for party purposes—it has been ascertained that there had
been received from the workmen before these proceedings were arrested, the sum
of $1052.
This
and all other attempts to exact money from laborers in the public service,
either by compulsion or voluntary contribution, is, in every point of view,
reprehensible, and is wholly and absolutely prohibited. Whatever money may have
been exacted, and is now in the hands of the Masters, will be forthwith
returned to the workmen from whom it was received; and any Master or other
appointee of this Department who may be guilty of a repetition of this offense,
or shall hereafter participate in levying contributions in the Navy Yards, from
persons in the Government service, for party purposes, will incur the
displeasure of the Department, and render himself liable to removal. The
organization of the Yard must not be perverted to aid any party. Persons who
desire to make voluntary party contributions, can find opportunities to do so,
at ward or other local political meetings, and on other occasions than during
working hours. They are neither to be assisted nor opposed, in this matter, by
government officials. The Navy Yards must not be prostituted to any such
purpose, nor will Committee men be permitted to resort thither, to make
collections for any political party whatever. Working men, and others in the service
of the Government, are expected and required to devote their time and energies
during working hours, and while in the Yard, to the labor which they are
employed to execute.
It
has been also represented that some of the Masters at some of the Navy Yards
employ extra hands preceding warmly contested elections, and that much of the
time of these superfluous hands is devoted to party electioneering. Such an
abuse, if it exists in any department of any of the Navy Yards, must be
corrected. No more persons should be retained in the Navy Yards than the public
service actually requires. Party gatherings and party discussions are at all
times to be avoided within the Yards. It will be the duty of the Commandants of
the respective Yards, and of all officers, to see that this order is observed.
Very respectfully,
G. WELLES,
Secty. of the Navy.
COMMO.
CHAS. H. BELL,
Commdt. Navy Yard,
New York.
(Also
written to all the other Commandants of Navy Yards.)
I called on Seward
on Wednesday in relation to the Stonewall, the Harriet Lane, the Florida, etc.,
as he was about leaving to be absent for a fortnight, and we may wish to send
to Havana before he returns. After disposing of business, and I had left his
room, he sent his messenger to recall me. He seemed a little embarrassed and
hesitating at first, but said he wished to say to me that he had had full and
free and unreserved talks recently with the President; that he had found him
friendly and confiding, and more communicative than Mr. Lincoln ever had been;
that he knew and could say to me that the President had for me, for him
(Seward), and indeed for all the Cabinet a friendly regard; that he had no
intention of disturbing any member of the Cabinet; that I had reason to be
specially gratified with the President's appreciation of me. Some general
conversation followed on past transactions and events. Among other things we
got on to Blair's letters and speeches. He says the original armistice, alluded
to by Blair, was left by Buchanan with other papers on the office table at the
Executive Mansion or with the Attorney-General.
Seward, McCulloch,
Harlan, and Speed were absent from Washington on Friday, the 6th, the day of
the last Cabinet-meeting. No very important questions were presented and
discussed. The presence of the assistants instead of the principals operates, I
perceive, as an obstruction to free interchange of opinion.
At the last
Cabinet-meeting in September, Seward read a strange letter addressed to one of
the provisional governors, informing him that the President intended to
continue the provisional governments in the several insurrectionary States
until Congress assembled and should take the subject in hand with the newly
formed constitutions. I was amazed, and remarked that I did not understand the
question or status of the States to be as stated, and was relieved when the
President said he disapproved of that part of the letter. Speed asked to have
the letter again read and was evidently satisfied with it. Seward made a pencil
correction or alteration that was unimportant and meaningless, when the
President said very emphatically he wished no reference to Congress in any such
communication, or in any such way. Stanton, I observed, remained perfectly
silent though very attentive. It appeared to me that the subject was not novel
to him.
In an interview with
the President the Monday following (the 2d inst.), I expressed my wish that no
letter should be sent defining the policy of the Administration without full
and careful consideration. The President said he should see to that, and that
Seward's letter as modified by himself was a harmless affair.
I have sent out
another circular in relation to the appointment of masters in the navy yards.
These appointments have caused great difficulty in the Department, the Members
of Congress insisting on naming them, and almost without an exception the party
instead of the mechanical qualifications of the man is urged. It is best to be
relieved of this evil, and I shall try to cure it.
I see that Senator
Grimes by letter expresses his disapproval of the Radical movements in the Iowa
State Convention. Doolittle has been still more emphatic in Wisconsin. Things
are working very well. The conventions in the Rebel States are discharging their
duties as satisfactorily, perhaps, as could be expected. Some of the extreme
Republicans, of the Sumner school, are dissatisfied, but I think their numbers
are growing less. The Democrats, on the other hand, are playing what they
consider a shrewd party game, by striving to take advantage of the errors and
impracticable notions of the ultras. Therefore the policy of the Administration
appears to be growing in favor, though the machinery of politics is at work in
an opposite direction.
SOURCE: Gideon
Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and
Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 375-9
