Diary of Gideon Welles: Tuesday, July 12, 1864

The Rebels captured a train of cars on the Philadelphia and Baltimore Road, and have burnt the bridges over Gunpowder and Bush Rivers. It is said there were 1500 of these raiders.

Governor Bradford's house, a short distance out of Baltimore, was burnt by a small party. General demoralization seems to have taken place among the troops, and there is as little intelligence among them as at the War Office in regard to the Rebels. General Wallace and his force were defeated, and panic and folly have prevailed.

Admiral Goldsborough and some of our naval officers tendered their services, if required. It seemed to me unneccessary, for I do not believe the Rebels have a large concentrated force in this vicinity, or that they design to make an attack on the city, but for the Navy to hold back when all are being called out would appear bad. I therefore requested Fox to see General Halleck, who much wanted aid, and Goldsborough and the men were therefore ordered and have gone to Fort Lincoln. It would be much better to keep them at work.

We have no mails, and the telegraph lines have been cut; so that we are without news or information from the outer world.

Went to the President's at 12, being day of regular Cabinet-meeting. Messrs. Bates and Usher were there. The President was signing a batch of commissions. Fessenden is absent in New York. Blair informs me he had been early at the council chamber and the President told him no matters were to be brought forward. The condition of affairs connected with the Rebels on the outskirts was discussed. The President said he and Seward had visited several of the fortifications. I asked where the Rebels were in force. He said he did not know with certainty, but he thought the main body at Silver Spring.

I expressed a doubt whether there was any large force at any one point, but that they were in squads of from 500 to perhaps 1500 scattered along from the Gunpowder to the falls of the Potomac, who kept up an alarm on the outer rim while the marauders were driving off horses and cattle. The President did not respond farther than to again remark he thought there must be a pretty large force in the neighborhood of Silver Spring.

I am sorry there should be so little accurate knowledge of the Rebels, sorry that at such a time there is not a full Cabinet, and especially sorry that the Secretary of War is not present. In the interviews which I have had with him, I can obtain no facts, no opinions. He seems dull and stupefied. Others tell me the same.

It was said yesterday that the mansions of the Blairs were burned, but it is to-day contradicted.

Rode out this P.M. to Fort Stevens. Went up to the summit of the road on the right of the fort. There were many collected. Looking out over the valley below, where the continual popping of the pickets was still going on, though less brisk than yesterday, I saw a line of our men lying close near the bottom of the valley. Senator Wade came up beside me. Our views corresponded that the Rebels were few in front, and that our men greatly exceeded them in numbers. We went together into the fort, where we found the President, who was sitting in the shade, his back against the parapet towards the enemy.

Generals Wright and McCook informed us they were about to open battery and shell the Rebel pickets, and after three discharges an assault was to be made by two regiments who were lying in wait in the valley.

The firing from the battery was accurate. The shells that were sent into a fine mansion occupied by the Rebel sharpshooters soon set it on fire. As the firing from the fort ceased, our men ran to the charge and the Rebels fled. We could see them running across the fields, seeking the woods on the brow of the opposite hills. It was an interesting and exciting spectacle. But below we could see here and there some of our own men bearing away their wounded comrades. I should judge the distance to be something over three hundred yards. Occasionally a bullet from some long-range rifle passed above our heads. One man had been shot in the fort a few minutes before we entered.

As we came out of the fort, four or five of the wounded men were carried by on stretchers. It was nearly dark as we left. Driving in, as was the case when driving out, we passed fields as well as roads full of soldiers, horses, teams, mules. Camp-fires lighted up the woods, which seemed to be more eagerly sought than the open fields.

The day has been exceedingly warm, and the stragglers by the wayside were many. Some were doubtless sick, some were drunk, some weary and exhausted. Then men on horseback, on mules, in wagons as well as on foot, batteries of artillery, caissons, an innumerable throng. It was exciting and wild. Much of life and much of sadness. Strange that in this age and country there is this strife and struggle, under one of the most beneficent governments which ever blessed mankind and all in sight of the Capitol.

In times gone by I had passed over these roads little anticipating scenes like this, and a few years hence they will scarcely be believed to have occurred.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 73-6

To The Supporters Of The Government.

We have read without surprise, but not without indignation, the Proclamation of the President of the 8th of July, 1864.

The supporters of the Administration are responsible to the country for its conduct: and it is their right and duty to check the encroachments of the Executive on the authority of Congress, and to require it to confine itself to its proper sphere.

It is impossible to pass in silence this Proclamation without neglecting that duty; and, having taken as much responsibility as any others in supporting the Administration, we are not disposed to fail in the other duty of asserting the rights of Congress.

The President did not sign the bill “to guarantee to certain States whose Governments have been usurped, a Republican form of Government”—passed by the supporters of his Administration in both Houses of Congress after mature deliberation.

The bill did not therefore become a law: and it is therefore nothing.

The proclamation is neither an approval nor a veto of the bill; it is therefore a document unknown to the laws of the Constitution of the United States.

So far as it contains an apology for not signing the bill, it is a political manifesto against the friends of the Government.

So far as it proposes to execute the bill which is not a law, it is a grave Executive usurpation.

It is fitting that the facts necessary to enable the friends of the Administration to appreciate the apology and usurpation be spread before them.

The Proclamation says:

“And whereas the said bill was presented to the President of the United States for his approval less than an hour before the sine die adjournment of said session and was not signed by him—”

If that be accurate, still this bill was presented with other bills which were signed.

Within that hour, the time of the sine die adjournment was three times postponed by the votes of both Houses; and the least intimation of a desire for more time by the President to consider this bill would have secured a further postponement.

Yet the Committee sent to ascertain if the President had any further communication for the House of Representatives reported that he had none; and the friends of the bill, who had anxiously waited on him to ascertain its fate, had already been informed that the President had resolved not to sign it.

The time of presentation, therefore, had nothing to do with his failure to approve it.

The Bill had been discussed and considered for more than a month in the House of Representatives, which it passed on the 4th of May; it was reported to the Senate on the 27th of May without material amendment, and passed the senate absolutely as it came from the House on the 2nd of July.

Ignorance of its contents is out of the question.

Indeed, at his request, a draft of a bill substantially the same in all material points, and identical in the points objected to by the Proclamation, had been laid before him for his consideration in the Winter of 1862-63.

There is, therefore, no reason to suppose the provisions of the bill took the President by surprise.

On the contrary, we have reason to believe them to have been so well known that this method of preventing the bill from becoming a law without the constitutional responsibility of a veto, had been resolved on long before the bill passed the Senate.

We are informed by a gentleman entitled to the entire confidence, that before the 22d of June in New-Orleans it was stated by a member of Gen. Banks’s staff, in the presence of other gentlemen in official position, that Senator Doolittle had written a letter to the department that the House Reconstruction bill would be staved off in the Senate to a period too late in the session to require the President to veto it in order to defeat it, and that Mr. Lincoln would retained the bill, of necessary, and thereby defeat it.

The experience of Senator Wade, in his various efforts to get the bill considered in the Senate, was quite in accordance with that plan; and the fate of the bill was accurately predicted by letters received from New-Orleans before it passed the Senate.

Had the Proclamation stopped there, it would have been only one other defeat of the will of the people by an Executive perversion of the Constitution.

But it goes further.  The President says:

“And whereas the said bill contains, among other things, a plan for restoring the States in rebellion to their proper practical relation in the Union, which plan expresses the sense of Congress upon that subject, and which plan it is now thought fit to lay before the people for their consideration—”

By what authority of the Constitution?  In what forms?  The result to be declared by whom?  With what effect when ascertained?

Is it to be a law by the approval of the people without the approval of Congress at the will of the President?

Will the President, on his opinion of the popular approval, execute it as law?

Or is this merely a device to avoid the serious responsibility of defeating a law on which so many loyal hearts reposed for security?

But the reasons now assigned for not approving the bill are full of ominous significance.

The President proceeds:

“Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do proclaim, declare, and make known that, while I am (as I was in December last, when by proclamation I propounded a plan for restoration) unprepared by a formal approval of this bill to be inflexibly committed to any single plan of restoration—”

That is to say, the President is resolved that the people shall not by law take any securities from the Rebel States against a renewal of the Rebellion, before restoring their power to govern us.

His wisdom and prudence are to be our sufficient Guarantees!

He further says:

“Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do proclaim, declare, and make known that, while I am (as I was in December last, when by proclamation I propounded a plan for restoration) unprepared by a formal approval of this bill to be inflexibly committed to any single plan of restoration—”

That is to say, the President persists in recognizing those shadows of Governments in Arkansas and Louisiana, which Congress formally declared should not be recognized—whose Representatives and Senators were repelled by formal votes of both Houses of Congress—which it was declared formally should have no electoral vote for President and Vice President.

They are more creatures of his will. They cannot live a day without his support.  They are mere oligarchies, imposed on the people by military orders under the forms of elections, at which generals, provost-marshals, soldiers and camp-followers where the chief actors, assisted by a handful of resident citizens, and urged on to premature action by private letters from the President.

In neither Louisiana nor Arkansas, before Banks’s defeat, did the United States control half the territory or half the population.  In Louisiana, Gen. Banks’s proclamation candidly declared: “the fundamental law of the State is martial law.”

On that foundation of freedom, he erected what the President calls “the free Constitution and Government of Louisiana.”

But of this State, whose fundamental law was martial law, only sixteen parishes of forty-eight parishes were held by the United States; and in five of the sixteen we held only our camps.

The eleven parishes we substantially held had 233,185 inhabitants; the residue of the State not held by us, 575,617.

At the farce called an election, the officers of Gen. Banks returned that 11,346 ballots were cast; but whether any or by whom the people of the United States have no legal assurance but it is probable that 4,000 were cast by soldiers or employees of the United States military or municipal, but none according to any law, State or National, and 7,000 ballots represent the State of Louisiana.

Such is the free Constitution and Government of Louisiana; and like it is that of Arkansas.  Nothing but the failure of a military expedition deprived as of a like once on the swamps of Florida; and before the Presidential election, like ones may be organized in ever Rebel State where the United states have a camp.

The President, by preventing this bill from becoming a law, holds the electoral votes of the Rebel States at the dictation of his personal ambition.

If those votes turn the balance in his favor, is it to be supposed that his competitor, defeated by such means, will acquiesce?

If the Rebel majority assert their supremacy in those States, and send votes which elect an enemy of the Government, will we not repel his claims?

And is not that civil war for the Presidency, inaugurated by the votes of the Rebel States.

Seriously impressed with these dangers, Congress, “the proper and constitutional authority,” formally declared that there are no State Governments in the Rebel States, and provided for their erection at a proper time; and both the Senate and the House of Representatives rejected the Senators and Representatives chosen under the authority of what the President calls the Free Constitution and Government of Arkansas.

The President’s Proclamation “holds for naught” this judgment, and discards the authority of the Supreme Court, and strides headlong toward the anarchy his Proclamation of the8th of December inaugurated.

If electors for President be allowed to be chosen in either of those States, a sinister light will be cast on the motives which induced the President to “hold for naught” the will of Congress rather than his Government in Louisiana and Arkansas.

The judgment of Congress which the President defies was the exercise of an authority exclusively vested in Congress by the Constitution to determine what is the established Government in a State, and in its own nature and by the highest judicial authority binding on all other departments of the Government.

The supreme Court has formally declared that under the 4th section of the IVth article of the Constitution, requiring the United States to guarantee to every State a republican form of government, “it rests with Congress to decide what Government is the established one in a State;” and “when Senators and Representatives of a State are admitted into the councils of the Union, the authority of the Government under which they are appointed, as well as its republican character is recognized by the proper constitutional authority, and its decision is binding on ever other department of the Government, and could not be questioned in a judicial tribunal.  It is true that the contest in this case did not last long enough to bring the matter to this issue; and, as no Senators or Representatives were elected under the authority of the Government of which Mr. Door was the head, Congress was not called upon to decide the controversy.  Yet the right to decide is placed there.”

Even the President’s proclamation of the 8th of December, formally declares that “Whether members sent to Congress from any State shall be admitted to seats, constitutionally rests exclusively with the respective Houses, and not to any extent with the Executive.”

And that is not the less true because wholly inconsistent with the President’s assumption in that proclamation of a right to institute and recognize State Governments in the Rebels States, nor because the President is unable to perceive that his recognition is a nullity if it be not conclusive on Congress.

Under the Constitution, the right to Senators and Representatives is inseparable from a State Government.

If there be a State Government, the right is absolute.

If there be no State Government, there can be no Senators or Representatives chosen.

The two Houses of Congress are expressly declared to be the sole judges of their own members.

When, therefore, Senators and Representatives are admitted, the State Government, under whose authority they were chosen, is conclusively established; when they are rejected, its existence is as conclusively rejected and denied; and to this [judgment] the President is bound to submit.

The President proceeds to express his unwillingness “to declare a constitutional competency in Congress to abolish Slavery in States” as another reason for not signing the bill.

But the bill nowhere proposes to abolish Slavery in States.

The bill did provide that all slaves in the Rebel states should be manumitted.

But as the President had already signed three bills manumitting several classes of slaves in States, it is not conceived possible that he entertained any scruples touching that provision of the bill which he is silent.

He had already himself assumed a right by proclamation to free much the larger number of slaves in the Rebel States, under the authority given him a discretion it could not exercise itself.

It is more unintelligible from the fact that, except in respect to a small part of Virginia and Louisiana, the bill covered only what the Proclamation covered—added a Congressional title and judicial remedies by law to the disputed title under the Proclamation, and perfected the work the President professed to be so anxious to accomplish.

Slavery as an institution can be abolished only by a charge of the Constitution of the United States or of the law of the State; and this is the principle of the bill.

It required the new Constitution of the State to provide for that prohibition; and the President, in the face of his own proclamation, does not venture to object to insisting on that condition.  Nor will the country tolerate its abandonment—yet he defeated the only provision imposing it!!

But when he describes himself, in spite of this great blow at emancipation, as “sincerely hoping and expecting that a constitutional amendment abolishing Slavery throughout the nation may be adopted, we curiously inquire on what his expectation rests, after the vote of the House of Representatives at the recent session, and in the face of the political complexion of more than enough of the States to prevent the possibility of its adoption within any reasonable time; and why he did not indulge his sincere hopes with so large an installment of the blessing as his approval of the bill would have secured.

After this assignment of his reasons for preventing the bill from becoming a law, the President proceeds to declare his purpose to execute it as a law by his plenary dictatorial power.

He says:

“Nevertheless I am fully satisfied with the system for restoration contained in the bill as one very proper plan for the loyal people of any State choosing to adopt it, and that I am, and at all times shall be, prepared to give the executive aid and assistance to any such people, so soon as the military resistance to the United States shall have been suppressed in any such State and the people thereof shall have sufficiently returned to their obedience to the Constitution and the laws of the United States, in which cases military Governors will be appointed, with directions to proceed according to the bill.”

A more studied outrage on the legislative authority of the people has never been perpetrated.

Congress passed a bill; the President refused to approve it, and then by a proclamation puts as much of it in force as he sees fit, and proposes to execute those parts by officers unknown to the laws of the United States and not subject to the confirmation of the Senate!

The bill directed the appointment of Provisional Governors by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.

The President, after defeating the law, proposes to appoint without law, and without the advice and consent of the Senate, Military Governors for the Rebel States!

He has already exercised this dictatorial usurpation in Louisiana, and he defeated the bill to prevent its limitation.

Henceforth we must regard the following precedent as the Presidential law of the Rebel States:

EXECUTIVE MANSION,               

WASHINGTON, March 15, 1864

His Excellency MICHAEL HAHN, Governor of Louisiana,

Until further orders you are hereby invested with the power expressed hitherto by the Military Governor of Louisiana.

Yours,

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

This Michael Hahn is no officer of the United States; the President, without law, without the advice and consent of the Senate, by a private note not even countersigned by the Secretary of State, makes him dictator of Louisiana!

The bill provided for the civil administration of the laws of the State—till it should be in a fit of temper to govern itself—repealing all laws recognizing Slavery, and making all men equal before the law.

These beneficent provisions the President has annulled.  People will die, and marry and transfer property, and buy and sell; and to these acts of civil life courts and officers of the law are necessary, Congress legislated for these necessary things, and the President deprives them of the protection of the law!

The President’s purpose to instruct his Military Governors “to proceed according to the bill”—a makeshift to calm the disappointment its defeat has occasional—if not merely a grave usurpation but a transparent delusion.

He cannot “proceed according to the bill” after preventing it from becoming a law.

Whatever is done will be at his will and pleasure, but persons responsible to no law, and more interested to secure the interests and execute the will of the President than of the people; and the will of Congress is to be “held for naught,” “unless the loyal people of the Rebel States choose to adopt it.”

If they should graciously prefer the stringent bill to the easy proclamation, still the registration will be made under no legal sanction; it will give no assurance that a majority of the people of the States have taken the oath; if administered, it will be without legal authority, and void; no indictment will lie for false swearing at the election, or for admitting bad or rejecting good votes; it will be a farce of Louisiana and Arkansas acted over again, under the forms of this bill, but not by authority of law.

But when we come to the guarantees of future peace which Congress meant to enact, the forms, as well as the substance of the bill, must yield to the President’s will that none should be imposed.

It was the solemn resolve of Congress to protect the loyal men of the nation against three great dangers, (1) the return to power of the guilty leaders of the Rebellion, (2) the continuance of Slavery, and (3) the burden of the Rebel debt.

Congress required assent to those provision by the convention of the State; and if refused it was to be dissolved.

The President “holds for naught” that resolve of Congress, because he is unwilling “to be inflexibly committed to any one plan of restoration,” and the people of the United States are not to be allowed to protect themselves unless their enemies agree to it.

The order to proceed according to the bill is therefore merely at the bill of the Rebel States; and they have the option to reject it, accept the proclamations of the 8th of December, and demand the President’s recognition!

Mark the Contrast!  The bill requires a majority, the proclamation is satisfied with one-tenth; the bill requires one oath, the proclamation another; the bill ascertains voters by registering; the proclamation by guess; the bill exacts adherence to existing territorial limits, the proclamation admits of others; the bill governs the Rebel States by law, equalizing all before it, the proclamation commits them to the lawless discretion of military Governors and Provost-Marshals; the bill forbids electors for President, the Proclamation and defeat of the bill threatens us with civil war for the admission or exclusion of such votes; the bill exacted exclusion of dangerous enemies from power and the relief of the nation from the Rebel debt, and the prohibition of Slavery forever, so that the suppression of the Rebellion will double our resources to bear or pay the national debt, free the masses from the old domination of the Rebel leaders, and eradicate the cause of the war; the proclamation secures neither of these guaranties.

It is silent respecting the Rebel debt and the political exclusion of rebel leaders; leaving Slavery exactly where it was by law at the outbreak of the Rebellion, and adds no guaranty even of the freedom of the slaves he undertook to manumit.

It is summed up in an illegal oath, without a sanction, and therefore void.

The oath is to support all proclamations of the President during the Rebellion having reference to slaves.

Any Government is to be accepted at the hands of one-tenth of the people not contravening that oath.

Now that oath neither secures the abolition of Slavery, nor adds any security to the freedom of the slaves the President declared free.

It does not secure the abolition of Slavery; for the proclamation of freedom merely professed to free certain slaves while it recognized the institution.

Every Constitution of the Rebel States at the outbreak of the Rebellion may be adopted without the change of a letter, for none of them contravene that Proclamation, none of them establish slavery.

It adds no security to the freedom of the slaves.

For their title is the Proclamation of Freedom.

If it be unconstitutional, an oath to support it is void.  Whether constitutional or not, the oath is without authority of law, and therefore void.

If it be valid and observed, it exacts no enactment by the State, either in law or Constitution, to add a State guaranty to the proclamation title and the right of a slave to freedom is an open question before the State courts on the relative authority of the State law and the Proclamation.

If the oath binds the one-tenth who take it, it is not exacted of the other nine-tenths who succeed to the control of the State Government; so that it is annulled instantly by the act of recognition.

What the State courts would say of the Proclamation, who can doubt?

But the master would not go into court—he would seize his slave.

What the Supreme Court would say, who can tell?

When and how is the question to get there?

No habeas corpus lies for him in a United States Court; and the President defeated with this bill its extension of that writ to this case.

Such are the fruits of this rash and fatal act of the President—a blow at the friends of his Administration, at the rights of humanity, and at the principles of republican government.

The President has greatly presumed on the forbearance which the supports of his Administration have so long practiced, in view of the arduous conflict in which we are engaged, and the reckless ferocity of our political opponents.

But he must understand that our support is of a cause and not of a man; that the authority of Congress is paramount and must be respected; that the whole body of the Union men of Congress will not submit to be impeached by him of rash and unconstitutional legislation; and if he wishers our support, he must confine himself to his executive duties—to obey and execute, not make the laws—to suppress by arms armed Rebellion, and leave political rëorganization to Congress.

If the supporters of the Government fail to insist on this, they become responsible for the usurpations which they fail to rebuke, and are justly liable to the indignation of the people whose rights and security committed to their keeping, they sacrifice.

Let them consider the remedy for these usurpations, and having found it, fearlessly execute it.

B. F. WADE, Chairman Senate Committee.

H. WINTER DAVIS, Chairman Committee House

of Representatives on the Rebellious States.

SOURCE: New York Daily Tribune, New York, New York, Friday August 5, 1864, p. 5

The Political Situation

[From the Richmond Examiner (opp. Organ) Aug. 15.]

Whatever may turn out to be the meaning of fact, the fact itself begins to shine out clear that Abraham Lincoln is lost; that he will never be president again—not even President of the Yankee remnant of States, to say nothing of the whole six and thirty—or, how many are there, counting “Colorado” and “Idaho,” and other Yahoo commonwealths lately invented?  The obscene ape of Illinois is about to be deposed from the Washington purple, and the White House will echo to his little jokes no more.  It is in no spirit of exultation we contemplate this coming event, for Abraham has been a good Emperor for us; but has served our turn; his policy has settled, established, and made irrevocable the separation of the old Union into nations essentially foreign, and we may be almost sorry to part with him.  He was, in the eyes of all mankind, and unanswerable argument for our secession, for he stood there a living justification, seven feet high, of the steadfast resolution of these States to hold no more political union with a race capable not only of producing such a being, but of making it a ruler and king.

Certainly his elevation to that position astonished the world, but it amazed nobody so much as the creature himself; he knew he was neither rich nor rare, and wondered how the devil he got there, or, as he expressed it himself the other day, to a Canadian editor, “It seems to be strange that I, a boy born, as it were, in the woods, should have drifted into the apex of this great event.”  Why strange?  One may be drifted into any apex if he only embarks upon a chain of circumstances; and those who sneer at Abraham’s figures are desired to observe that Noah’s ark did actually drift to an apex; and it contained, with every other beast of his kind, a pair of baboons.  If they drifted to an apex, so may he.  However that may be, he is certainly now about to come down, and even to be dragged or kicked down.  The prognostications of last spring were infallable, that the “rebellion” must be crushed this year—at least very signal and decided successes must be gained over it, or else the war would no longer be carried on under Lincoln’s government; let what might come of the war and the Union, he would get no more armies to fling into the red pit of Virginia for slaughter.

Now to put aside for the present the total loss of what Yankees fondly believe to be their conquests in the trans-Mississippi; pretermitting also the dead lock to which Sherman’s army has been brought, with all Kentucky, Tennessee and half of Georgia lying between him and his own country, and looking only to this most colossal invasion of Virginia with three large armies all bound for Richmond—the thing is over.  Grant’s army is rapidly going away from our front at Petersburg, and returning to Washington or elsewhere.  Of course Grant will not put up a notice on the shore of the Appomattox that he hereby abandons his enterprise; either will Stanton officially notify that the armies of “the Union” are found wholly unable to advance one yard out of the protection of their ships, and therefore they discontinue the campaign with a loss of one hundred fifty thousand killed, wounded and missing.  This would be unreasonable to expect, nevertheless the enterprise is abandoned.  Richmond is no more to hear the roar of Yankee siege guns under that potentate’s reign.

One cannot but arrive at this conclusion from several indications—from the greatly increasing excitement at the North touching the Chicago Convention, which is to nominate a Democratic President; from the daring violence with which some newspapers counsel resistance in arms against the draft of half a million of men, and from the singular movement of some of Lincoln’s own Black Republican supporters in the Washington Congress.  They waited for the moment when their sovereign’s fortunes were declining from their “apex” to give them a treacherous shove down the hill.  Two of his most vehement and efficient allies, Wade, of Ohio, and Winter Davis, of Maryland, gave him this blow under the fifth rib.  They present, in their official capacity, what almost amounts to a legal impeachment, save in matter of form, against their fond and too indulgent master, now tottering to his fall; charge him with arrogance, usurpation, knavery, in withholding his assent to a bill touching the status of these Confederate States—a matter which though of small importance to us, is of the deepest moment, it seems in that country; inasmuch as he has a plan of his own for readmitting States to the Union on the application of one-tenth of their population; and this would, they say, give him the control of the presidential election.  So they inform him that an election carried by this artifice must be resisted, and that he is inaugurating a civil war for the Presidency.

If Grant had only taken Richmond, would they have dared to set their names to such a document as this?  All the world suddenly, within one week, in short, since the blow up of the campaign at Petersburg, seems to feel instinctively that Abraham’s gave is played; and the New York Herald at once calls for a new National convention at Buffalo to nominate some other men instead of the baboon of Illinois and the tailor of Tennessee, and finds out that “the very winds have been whispering it for weeks”—that is for two weeks, since the Petersburg blow up.  Abe! The Emperor, is a fallen tree; no bird of the air will ever again leather its nest under his branches; a dying gorilla against whom the smallest cur can lift up its leg.

Taking it as certain, then, that the enemy’s present sovereign is as good as gone, next comes the most interesting consideration of who is to be his successor.  It is not very plain in the interest of whom, or what, Wade and Davis have so suddenly found out the enormities of Lincoln; nor whether they mean to aid the Fremont party of impossible ultra-radicals, or lay the pipes for themselves, Wade and Davis; but the most interesting matter to us is the keen and active agitation in the two branches of the Democratic party.  The peace Democrats openly avow that they will labor in the Chicago Convention of this month to get a “platform” of instant and absolute peace. We learn that the War Democrats are beginning, through some of their influential papers, to give their assent to an armistice, as one of the “planks” of the Chicago Convention—an armistice to allow negotiations for reconstruction.  In other words, these war Democrats propose that, leaving the military lines of each party where they now are, the Confederate states should be invited to send delegates to meet the Yankee States in Convention.

Let there be not only an armistice, but a formal renunciation of all right and pretense to coerce these states; and of course  an entire withdrawal of all land and sea forces which occupy any portion of our soil, or blockade any of our ports; and then the Northern States will be in a position to propose to us reconstruction of the Union, or a convention of States for the purpose of negotiating that.  It may safely be promised that such proposals would then be at least considered; at present, one cannot say what would be the result of that consideration; but, it short, let our Northern brethren try us.  With such change in the existing relations, no doubt there may come also a great change over men’s minds?  The hideous apparition of the blood-bolstered Lincoln will be laid; the bayonet will be no longer point at our throats, our dead will have been buried out of our sight, and it is vain as humorous Abraham says, to grieve over spilt milk—for so the facetious man calls blood.  We do not answer for a favorable result of this policy, but the Chicago Democrats will find it worthwhile to try it, seeing that is the only chance they have.

SOURCE: The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Brooklyn, New York, Tuesday, August 16, 1864

George L. Stearns to Samuel Gridley Howe, December 23, 1860

[December 23, 1860.]

Dear Friend:

Yours of 20th is at hand. I will see the persons you have named and be ready to report as soon as I have returned home. Stone, I have no doubt, will be an acquisition of great value, but we shall want an editor of equal ability. Some persons here say that we must have $10,000 pledged to secure success, and my present plan is to pay a manager and editor each a moderate salary and one-half the profits, the other half to go to the guaranty fund, or be used in extending the paper. To succeed we must play a bold game. Andrew appears as well as usual. We are having a right good time. You will see all the Washington gossip in the papers before this reaches you, and I shall only give the impression it has made on me, which is that if any Republican members vote for concession or compromise they are politically dead. If a majority of the party vote for it, the party is dead. I have to-day seen a number of leading men and all their talk was a resolution for the impeachment of the President.

We are told Lincoln says no friend of his will propose either dissolution or concession. Wilson says: “They meet us with long faces, and we laugh at them and tell them to go.” In the Senate Committee of Thirteen, all the Republicans voted against the compromises; which, as there would be no compromise without them, was understood to be fatal. When they came to the Fugitive Slave Law, Wade told them that, as they were going out of the Union, there was no need of voting on that, for it would then die of itself. If this goes on much further I think we may expect the immediate abolition of slavery, even if it requires an ocean of blood. If war with the Cotton States comes, I am sure of it.

Yours faithfully,

George L. Stearns.

SOURCE: Preston Stearns, The Life and Public Services of George Luther Stearns, p. 237-8

Senator Salmon P. Chase to Edward S. Hamlin, January 22, 1854

Washington Jany 22, 1854

My Dear Sir, I think you are mistaken in the am^t, of my debt to you — it was for one letter instead of two or three when you wrote last, and it is for two now. I am quite willing however that the balance in this account should be decidedly against me, as your letters have much more interest for me than mine can have for you; and besides I am harder pushed than you can be.

I don't feel a great deal of interest in the election of Senator, since our side has nothing to expect. If it could be postponed we should have a fair chance:— as it is, I suppose, we have none though I feel right sure that the time is not distant when men who now vote to have Ohio represented here by a Hunker will rue it as a foolish & unnecessary act.

My great anxiety is to have our friends in Ohio buckle on their armor & go to work to redeem the State. We can do that I am sure if we will & by our means. I think, circumstanced as you now are, you ought to reestablish your connection with the press, or at least take up your location in a part of the State where you can advantage the cause — say, Toledo Cleveland or Cincinnati. You ought to resume the Editorial charge of the True Democrat. Wade says he will give you his interest of $1000 — I will give you mine of $200 — if an arrangement can be made by which you will become permanently interested & Editor. I should think you would feel as deeply as I do on the subject of wresting Ohio from the Hunkers.

The Nebraska Bill is the principal topic of conversation here. What is the prospect of the Resolution on the subject in our Legislature? I enclose the Washⁿ. Sentinel that you may see with what insolence the Editor speaks of our State. It makes me repent my vote for Tucker for printer, & wish I had voted for some one wholly unconnected with the Political Press or for Bailey. It will prevent me from voting to give him the Patent Report to print which he needs much.

Benton says (I dined with him yesterday) that Douglas has committed political suicide He is staunch against the repeal of the Missouri Prohibition. Gov. Allen, & two of the members for R. I. will vote against it. The Governor has written to R. I. for Legislative instructions, which if they come will fix his colleagues. Mason, of Virginia told Fish that he did not want the Nebraska Bill: he was content that things should stand as they are. Douglas, I suppose, eager to compel the South to come to him has out southernized the South; and has dragged the timid & irresolute administration along with him.

Won't you write a strong article for the Columbian on the Sentinel Article?

Let them know immediately the prospect of the Resolution in the Senate & House. It should be pushed to a vote at the earliest moment.

Tell me the names of the most prominent men of the two Houses, with short sketches of them. Do you know Makenzie? Give me all the information you can. Where is Townshend? What of his wife's health.

SOURCE: Diary and correspondence of Salmon P. Chase, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1902, Vol. 2, p. 254-6

Senator Salmon P. Chase to Edward S. Hamlin, August 27, 1852

Washington City, August 27, 1852

Dear Hamlin, You pain me by what you say of your health. I hope it may speedily improve — most earnestly do I hope it. I fear your labors in the canal regions may have affected you: but trust that relaxation and good air will set you up again. You must not neglect yourself on any account.

You are mistaken in thinking I have not fully appreciated the necessity of a Press of the right stamp in the State: I have fully and thoroughly appreciated it. Rut I am but one laborer in a great cause. I have contributed and am still ready to contribute to its success all of work and money that I can. But I have found little material aid and comfort. Most have seemed to think that I, being Senator, might well be left alone to bear all the cost of sustaining papers devoted to our common views. I should not complain of this were I able to support such enterprises. But as you know my election to the Senate has greatly abridged my income, and my debt, almost intolerably burdensome when I was elected, has not become any lighter since. What then am I to do? I cannot beg gentlemen to contribute to a paper, which, they may think and will think, is chiefly important to me. If they do not feel sufficiently interested in the cause, or sufficiently concerned for the vindication of those who are laboring to advance it, to aid in the establishment of a press of the right kind, I do not see how I can remedy the matter. I went so far as to offer $1500 towards the purchase of the Nonpareil and place it in right hands: but the residue necessary c^d. not be obtained. I have contributed whenever called on to other papers and really do not see what I could do more than I have done unless I should take the ground that I am to go into political life for the advancement of my own interests and as a speculation and therefore invest the funds necessary in that view — but I never can or will take that ground. I have always put the interest of the cause foremost, and am now as I have ever been ready to surrender all political position and all political personal advantages for its advancement.

I should be really much obliged to you for a frank expression of your views on the subject, and for any suggestion as to what you think I can & should do.

I expect to be in Cleveland on Friday, or, at any rate, on Saturday. I shall not leave before Saturday morning at eleven, whatever may be the time of my arrival. I hope to see you; and would come to Olmsted should I reach Cleveland early enough & you not be able to come up. I have heard a great deal from Pittsburgh. If those who have maligned me so industriously are satisfied with the results of their machinations, I am.

Sumner's speech yesterday was grand. The Slaveholders & Compromisers felt it keenly. Wade alone of the Compromise Parties voted for the Repeal of the Bill of abominations. Wade has done well. I will say that for him — he has never flinched in private or public.

I must close. I have no time to write — excuse my incoherence.

SOURCE: Diary and correspondence of Salmon P. Chase, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1902, Vol. 2, p. 245-6

Senator Salmon P. Chase to Senator Charles Sumner, April 28, 1851

Columbus, April 28, 1851.

My Dear Sumner, Laus Deo! From the bottom of my heart I congratulate you — no, not you but all friends of freedom everywhere upon your election to the Senate. Now, I feel as if I had a brother — colleague — one with whom I shall sympathize and be able fully to act. Hale, glorious and noble fellow as he is, is yet too much an offhand man himself to be patient of consultation — while Seward, though meaning to maintain his own position as an Antislavery man, means to maintain it in the Whig Party and only in the Whig Party. Wade, who has been elected to be my colleague, is not known to me personally. I am told he denounced [?] Fillmore, Webster & the Compromise before election. Since, he has written a letter proclaiming himself a Whig & only a Whig, claiming only toleration of differences of opinion in the Whig Party on the slavery questions. I think he will generally go with Seward. He is one of the original abolitionists and I do not believe he will be derelict to the Antislavery faith. None of these are to me as you are. I feel that you have larger broader views, and that you are willing to labor more systematically for the accomplishment of greater purposes.

In this state a large body of the democracy is prepared to throw off the slaveholders yoke. I anticipate a movement before long, and I hope the best effects from it. If we can only have a Free Democracy — Independent Democracy — in deed as well as in name the day of our country's redemption and the slave's deliverence will not be far off. But it must be made of sterner stuff than that portion of the New York Democracy which united with us at Buffalo and afterwards consented to the union with the Hunkers on the Baltimore Platform!

I hope we shall be inmates of the same house next winter. Last winter I had lodgings on the Northeast corner of C & 4½ streets & took my meals at a boarding house. I found this a good arrangement. If the house is still open you can get as good rooms in it as anywhere in Washington. In order to obtain a seat at all eligible in the Chamber it will be well to ascertain at once what seats are vacant, and get the best of them. This can be done best, perhaps, by a letter from Hale or Davis, as either may be most convenient to you, to the Secretary of the Senate. Write me soon.

Most sincerely yours

[Salomon P. Chase.]

P. S. Do you know that you are in my debt for a letter or two?

SOURCE: Diary and correspondence of Salmon P. Chase, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1902, Vol. 2, p. 235-6

Senator Salmon P. Chase to [Milton Sutliff?], November 17, 1850

Private.

Cincinnati, Nov. 17, 1850.

My Dear Sir, Your letter, like the “royal Charlie” of the Cannie Scots “was long in coming.” It was dated Nov. 7 and I only recd. it yesterday.

I am much obliged to you for it; and like your general views. I do not believe that the Free Democrats, if they act prudently, will be put to the necessity of voting for any man such as Wade or any counterpart in the Old Line Democracy for Senator for the full term. I should dislike greatly to see them descend so far from the position which Morse, Townshend, Smart & Swift maintained under worse circumstances in 1848-9. I would almost say that I would prefer a Coalition between the Hunkers of both sides, to such a descent. But our friends in the Legislature must judge for themselves The responsibility is upon them. I am assured by Capt Radter, who was one of the Chief Engineers of the “Peoples Line” last winter that he went into it with great reluctance, and that if he & his fellow democrats had been met with the liberality and openness, which Townshend & Morse displayed the winter before it would never have been organized. Cooperation between Free Democrats & Old Line Democrats is more natural than Cooperation between either & Whigs because there is more agreement of principle; and I have so great confidence in the power of principles, that I do not doubt that a union, on right ground & honorable terms for both sides, can be had, if our friends go to work in the right spirit, and in a liberal temper, maintaining their principles firmly, & letting it be seen distinctly that their action is governed by a paramount regard to them.

I suppose the most important first step will be to determine who shall compose the Free Democratic Caucus. The rule, proposed by Dr. Townshend, two years ago is I think the true one: that all who claim to participate in its proceedings shall subscribe a declaration that they hold, as of paramount importance, the political principles of the Buffalo & Columbus Platforms, and will support no candidates for the Presidency or Vice Presidency who are not able & avowed opponents of the Extension of Slavery into New Mexico & Utah, but will act with the Party which holds these principles and whose Candidates occupy that position, namely the Free Democracy; and that they will act together as members of the Legislature so far as they conscientiously can after mutual consultation. This seems to me now and seemed to me then as far as honest men can go, and no farther than any sincere free democrat would cheerfully go.

I suppose that the Senate Caucus constituted on this principle will embrace yourself, Pardee, Randall & I suppose Lyman: and that the House Caucus will embrace Morse, Plumb, Pore, Bradley, Kent Johnson, of Medina, Thompson of Lorain & Williamson. You will find Pardee I suppose agreeing fully with you, and Randall will probably agree with you generally. I hope Mr. Lyman may also do so, but I do not know him & have heard that he may feel himself under obligation to the Whigs. I wish you could see Randall, and converse with him. A great deal will depend on his course. He has done much mischief heretofore, I fear, by his action under bad advice & influence. But I trust Beaver & Blake being out he may do well, follow in the convictions of his own judgment, which, if he will trust it fully & boldly will, I believe, guide him safely. In the House the Free Democrats of radical sympathies will have a clear majority in Caucus. They will only need to act cautiously but firmly, looking before them carefully and not fearfully.

The French say “it is the first step that costs.” This is true. The beginning is full brother to the end generally.

If the session begins right, in mutual good will & cooperation between the Free Democrats & Old Line, I shall hope the best results. One side having the Speaker and the other the Clerk in each House, & the subordinate officers of the organization being fairly distributed, and the Committees fairly arranged every thing will, I trust, go well.

I have no personal interest in the result; but a very deep concern in the ascendancy of free democratic principles. May God grant that truth and reason and justice may govern: and that if 1 am mistaken I may be overruled.

I enclose some resolutions which it seems to me the Free Dems & Old Liners can agree on. Without the use of any violence of language they cover the entire ground.

I expect to be in Cleveland by noon Thursday & stay till Friday morn I wish I could meet you and some other friends there.

[Enclosure.]

Resolved  That the Constitution of the United States established a General Government of limited powers, expressly reserving all powers, not thereby delegated, to the States and to the People.

Resolved, That among the powers delegated to the General Government by the Constitution, that of legislating upon the subject of fugitives from service is not to be found; while that of depriving any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law is expressly denied.

Resolved That in the judgment of this General Assembly, the Act of Congress in relation to fugitives from service, approved Septr. 18, 1850 is unconstitutional not merely for want of power to Congress to legislate on the subject, but because the provisions of the act are in several important particulars repugnant to the express provision of the Constitution.

Resolved That it is the duty of the Judges of the Several Courts of this State to allow the Writ of Habeas Corpus to all persons applying for the same in conformity with the laws of this State, and to [sic] conform in all respects to subsequent proceedings to the provisions of the same.

Resolved, That while the Constitution of the United States confers on Congress no power to interfere with the internal legislation of the Several States and consequently no power to act within State limits on the subject of slavery it does require that Congress, whenever, beyond the limits of any State, it has exclusive legislative power, [sic] shall provide, efficient securities for the personal liberty of every person unconvicted of Crime.

Resolved, That it is the duty of Congress to repeal all acts by which any person is deprived of liberty without due process of law and especially all acts by which any person is held in Slavery in any place subject to exclusive national jurisdiction.

_______________

* Lent by Mr. Homer E. Stewart, Warren, Ohio.

SOURCES: Diary and correspondence of Salmon P. Chase, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1902, Vol. 2, p. 220-3; Journal of the Senate of the State of Ohio, Volume 49, For the First Session of the Forty-ninth General Assembly, Commencing on Monday December 2, 1850, p. 47.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The recipient of this letter is not stated, however, Ohio Senator Milton Sutliff introduced to above resolutions in the Ohio Senate on December 11, 1850, making it highly likely this letter was addressed to Mr. Sutliff,

Diary of John Hay: October 27, 1861

We went over to Seward's to-night and found Chandler and Wade there. They had been talking to Seward to get up a battle, saying that one must be fought; saying that defeat was no worse than delay, and a great deal more trash. Morton and Speed then began to growl about their guns. Seward and the President soon dried that up. Wilson came in, a strong, healthy, hearty, senator, soldier and man. He was bitter on the Jacobins, saying the safety of the country demanded that the General should have his time. Going up to McClellan’s the Leesburg business was discussed; McC. saying that Stone’s report would be in to-morrow; every one forebore comment.

SOURCES: Clara B. Hay, Letters of John Hay and Extracts from Diary, Volume 1, p. 49-50; Tyler Dennett, Lincoln and the Civil War in the Diaries and Letters of John Hay, p. 32.

Diary of John Hay: October 26, 1861

This evening the Jacobin Club, represented by Trumbull, Chandler and Wade, came up to worry the administration into a battle. The agitation of the summer is to be renewed. The President defended McClellan's deliberateness. We then went over to the General's Headquarters. We found Col. Key there. He was talking also about the grand necessity of an immediate battle to clean out the enemy at once. He seemed to think we were ruined if we did not fight. The President asked what McC. thought about it. Key answered: — “The General is troubled in his mind. I think he is much embarrassed by the radical difference between his views and those of Gen'l Scott.”

Here McC. came in, — Key went out, — the President began to talk about his wonderful new repeating-battery of rifled guns, shooting 50 balls a minute. The President is delighted with it, and has ordered ten, and asks McC. to go down and see it, and if proper, detail a corps of men to work it. He further told the General that Reverdy Johnson wants the Maryland volunteers in Maryland to vote in November. All right.

They then talked about the Jacobins. McC. said that Wade preferred an unsuccessful battle to delay. He said a defeat could be easily repaired by the swarming recruits. McClellan answered that “he would rather have a few recruits before a victory, than a good many after a defeat.”

The President deprecated this new manifestation of popular impatience, but at the same time said it was a reality, and should be taken into the account: — “At the same time, General, you must not fight till you are ready.”

“I have everything at stake,” said the General; “if I fail, I will not see you again or anybody.”

“I have a notion to go out with you, and stand or fall with the battle” . . . .

SOURCES: Clara B. Hay, Letters of John Hay and Extracts from Diary, Volume 1, p. 48-9; Tyler Dennett, Lincoln and the Civil War in the Diaries and Letters of John Hay, p. 31-2.

Charles Eliot Norton to George William Curtis, September 6, 1864

Home, 6 September, 1864.

I have just read your paper on Hawthorne, and am greatly pleased with it. Your analysis of his mental and moral character, and of its intellectual results, seems to me eminently subtile, delicate, and tender. I regret only that it is so short, — for there is much suggested in what you have written that might well be developed, and there are some traits of Hawthorne's genius which scarcely have justice done them in the brevity of your essay. The one point which I should like to have had more fully brought out is the opposition that existed between his heart and his intellect. His genius continually, as it seems to me, overmastered himself, and the depth and fulness of his feelings were forced into channels of expression in which they were confined and against which they struggled in vain. He was always hurting himself, till he became a strange compound of callousness and sensitiveness. But I do not mean to analyze. Your paper is a delightful one and I am very glad to have it.

And now let us rejoice together over the great good news. It lifts the cloud, and the prospect clears. We really see now the beginning of the end. The party that went for peace at Chicago¹ has gone to pieces at Atlanta. The want of practical good sense in our own ranks pains me. The real question at issue is so simple, and the importance of solving it correctly so immense, that I am surprised alike at the confusion of mind and the failure of appreciation of the stake among those who are most deeply interested in the result. Even if Mr. Lincoln were not, as you and I believe, the best candidate, he is now the only possible one for the Union party, and surely, such being the case, personal preferences should be sunk in consideration of the unspeakable evil to which their indulgence may lead. I have little patience with Wade, and Sumner, and Chase, letting their silly vexation at not having a chance for the Presidency thus cloud their patriotism and weaken the strength of the party. . . .

I am glad you were to meet Goldwin Smith at dinner.² He spent his first day on shore with us, — and we had much interesting talk. He is as good at least as his books. I gave him a note to you, and begged him to send it to you in advance of his going to New York that you might meet him there on his arrival, and secure him the right entrance to the big city. Will you give him a note to Seward and to Mr. Lincoln? He does not wish to go to Washington without formal introductions, — and he has now only a letter from Colonel Lawrence (T. Bigelow) which is not the right one for him to carry. . . .

_______________

¹ The Democratic National Convention, which nominated McClellan for the Presidency. It met at Chicago, August 29.

² Goldwin Smith in his Reminiscences writes of his first visit to America: “In 1864, when the war was drawing to a close, I paid a visit to the United States charged with the sympathy of Bright, Cobden, and other British friends of the North as a little antidote to the venom of the too powerful Times.  . . . My friendships are, saving my marriage, the great events of my life; and of my friendships none is more dear than that with Charles Eliot Norton, who was my host, more than hospitable, in Cambridge. He combined the highest European culture with the most fervent love of his own country.”

SOURCE: Sara Norton and  M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 277-9

William Cullen Bryant to John Bigelow, Esq., December 14, 1859

new York, December 14, 1859.

Probably Mr. Seward stays in Europe till the first flurry occasioned by the Harper's Ferry affair is over; but I do not think his prospects for being the next candidate for the Presidency are brightening. This iteration of the misconstruction put on his phrase of “the irrepressible conflict between freedom and slavery” has, I think, damaged him a good deal, and in this city there is one thing which has damaged him still more. I mean the project of Thurlow Weed to give charters for a set of city railways, for which those who receive them are to furnish a fund of from four to six hundred thousand dollars, to be expended for the Republican cause in the next Presidential election. This scheme was avowed by Mr. Weed to our candidate for mayor, Mr. Opdyke, and others, and shocked the honest old Democrats of our party not a little. Besides the Democrats of our party, there is a bitter enmity to this railway scheme cherished by many of the old Whigs of our party. They are very indignant at Weed's meddling with the affair, and between Weed and Seward they make no distinction, assuming that, if Seward becomes President, Weed will be “viceroy over him.” Notwithstanding, I suppose it is settled that Seward is to be presented by the New York delegation to the convention as their man.

Frank Blair, the younger, talks of Wade, of Ohio, and it will not surprise me if the names which have been long before the public are put aside for some one against which fewer objections can be made.

Our election for mayor is over. We wished earnestly to unite the Republicans on Havemeyer, and should have done so if he had not absolutely refused to stand when a number of Republicans waited on him, to beg that he would consent to stand as a candidate.

Just as the Republicans had made every arrangement to nominate Opdyke, he concluded to accept the Tammany nomination, and then it was too late to bring the Republicans over. They had become so much offended and disgusted with the misconduct of the Tammany supervisors in appointing registrars, and the abuse showered upon the Republicans by the Tammany speakers, and by the shilly-shallying of Havemeyer, that they were like so many unbroke colts; there was no managing them. So we had to go into a tripartite battle; and Wood, as we told them beforehand, carried off what we were quarrelling for. Havemeyer has since written a letter to put the Republicans in the right. “He is too old for the office,” said many persons to me when he was nominated. After I saw that letter I was forced to admit that this was true.

Your letters are much read. I was particularly, and so were others, interested with the one — a rather long one — on the policy of Napoleon, but I could not subscribe to the censure you passed on England for not consenting to become a party to the Congress unless some assurance was given her that the liberties of Central Italy would be secured. By going into the Congress she would become answerable for its decisions, and bound to sustain them, as she was in the arrangements made by her and the other great powers after the fall of Napoleon — arrangements the infamy of which has stuck to her ever since. I cannot wonder that she is shy of becoming a party to another Congress for the settlement of the affairs of Europe, and I thought that reluctance did her honor. I should have commented on your letter on this subject if it had been written by anybody but yourself. . . .

The Union-savers, who include a pretty large body of commercial men, begin to look on our paper with a less friendly eye than they did a year ago. The southern trade is good just now, and the western rather unprofitable. Appleton says there is not a dollar in anybody's pocket west of Buffalo.

SOURCE: Parke Godwin, A Biography of William Cullen Bryant, Volume 2, p. 127-8

Senator James W. Grimes to Elizabeth Nealley Grimes, April 10, 1865

Burlington, April 10,1865.

I send you a copy of “Naval Warfare Ashore and Afloat,” a pamphlet composed of the speeches made in the Senate and House of Representatives against Davis’s and Wade’s amendments. I do not know who got it up, but several copies have been sent to me. My speech is given the post of honor, though not entitled to it; for the other speeches were prepared, and mine was impromptu, and addressed entirely to the subject in hand. Some of the other speeches were orations, while mine, if anything, was a simple argument of the question directly in issue, and only received the corrections that you and I gave it one Sunday afternoon. Read Mr. Pike's speech, if you have not; for I think it a speech of great power and merit, and about as symmetrical and perfect in all its parts as any congressional speech that you have read for many a day. My remarks were the last made on the subject in the Senate, and should properly have been published last, as the other Senators alluded to me by name as being about to follow and close the debate; but I suppose you will discern this. I would have liked also to have the fact appear that after the protracted debate of two days there was but a single vote in favor of Wade's proposition, and forty-odd against it.

SOURCE: William Salter, The Life of James W. Grimes, p. 272

Captain Charles Russell Lowell to Anna Jackson Lowell, July 20, 1861

Warren, Trumbull Co., Ohio, July 20, 1861.

I am "located" (or " stationed" I believe is the proper word now) in what is called the Western Reserve: a glorious place to recruit it must have been two months ago, but unfortunately all the young men were too patriotic to wait for a chance in the Regular Cavalry and went off in the Volunteers and are now fighting in Virginia: none but married men or elderly men are left — three companies went from this little town and as many more from the southern part of the county, I believe.

This is Ben Wade's district — quite a refreshing change after Pennsylvania.

The news from the seat of war is also cheering, now that Scott's columns have started; they seem to do their work well, but I think they will yet find that the Rebels will fight well before they fall back on Richmond — especially if it be true that Johnson has succeeded in joining them.

SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, p. 214-5