Diary of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, April 24, 1851

A pleasant dinner, at the close of which we heard the news of Sumner's election. In the evening came Lowell and Gurowski and Palfrey, and Sumner himself to escape from the triumph and be quiet from all the noise in the streets of Boston. He is no more elated by his success than he has been depressed by the failure heretofore, and evidently does not desire the office. Не says he would resign now if any one of the same sentiments as himself could be put in his place.

SOURCE: Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, p. 245

Diary of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, April 25, 1851

The papers are all ringing with Sumner, Sumner! and the guns thundering out their triumph; meanwhile the hero of the strife is sitting quietly here, more saddened than exalted. Palfrey dined with us. I went to my Don Quixote at college, leaving the two Free Soilers sitting over their nuts and wine.¹

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¹ Sumner's first use of a senator's frank was upon documents to promote Palfrey's re-election to Congress. With his large correspondence, he valued the privilege, and parted with it reluctantly when it was finally discontinued in 1870. He wrote a public letter urging Palfrey's election ("Commonwealth," May 22, 1851), but it did not avail.

SOURCE: Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, p. 245-6

Diary of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, April 27, 1851

Sumner brought a pocket-full of letters of congratulation and good advice which he has received since his election.¹

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¹ The writer may be permitted to state how he received the news. He was one of the half-dozen Free Soil students of the Law School out of one hundred or more attending it, and the rest of the one hundred were nearly all bitter against the Free Soil party. On the 23d of April he had heard that Sumner was elected, and was greatly disappointed an hour later to learn that the report was untrue. When hearing the second report of his election the next day, he distrusted it, and hastened to Boston. He was rejoiced to find this one true, and then sought Sumner in vain. On the evening of the day but one after, he found a scrap of paper in the keyhole of his room, No. 1 Divinity Hall, which proved to be from Sumner, with "Sorry not to see my valued friend" written on it. He sought Sumner at Palfrey's, near by, and found him there. The two walked, after leaving Palfrey's, along the railway track then existing, across the Common, to Longfellow's. The writer said to Sumner on the way, "This is too good; I fear you will die before taking your seat." He replied, "Perhaps that will be the best thing for me." The writer expressed the hope that his first speech in the Senate would be on foreign affairs. The two entered Craigie House,—the writer's first meeting with the poet and his wife; and leaving shortly, he walked, thoughtful, and never so happy before, to his lodgings. With much joy and hope the youth of Massachusetts greeted the election of the new senator.

SOURCE: Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, p. 246

Charles Sumner to Theodore Parker, April 19, 1851

Court Street, Boston, April 19, 1851.

May you live a thousand years, always preaching the truth of Fast Day!¹ That sermon is a noble effort. It stirred me to the bottom of my heart, at times softening me almost to tears, and then again filling me with rage. I wish it could be read everywhere throughout the land.

You have placed the commissioner in an immortal pillory, to receive the hootings and rotten eggs of the advancing generations.

I have had no confidence from the beginning, as I believe you know, in our courts. I was persuaded that with solemn form they would sanction the great enormity, therefore I am not disappointed. My appeal is to the people, and my hope is to create in Massachusetts such a public opinion as will render the law a dead letter. It is in vain to expect its repeal by Congress till the slave-power is over thrown.

It is, however, with a rare dementia that this power has staked itself on a position which is so offensive, and which cannot for any length of time be tenable. In enacting that law, it has given to the Free States a sphere of discussion which they would otherwise have missed. No other form of the slavery question, not even the Wilmot Proviso, would have afforded equal advantages.

Very truly yours,

CHARLES SUMNER.

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¹ On the rendition of Sims, a fugitive slave.

SOURCE: Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, p. 246; John Weiss, Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker, Vol. 2, p. 107

Senator Charles Sumner to George Sumner, April 29, 1851

I send you papers which will show the close of the long contest here in Massachusetts. The New York “Tribune” of Friday, April 25, candidly states the states the position I have occupied.  Never was any contest in our country of any kind so protracted; never did any, except a Presidential contest, excite so much interest. The ardor and determination of the opposition to me has not been less flattering than the constant and enthusiastic support which I have received. The latter is particularly enhanced by the circumstance, well known, that I did not in any way seek the post, but expressly asked to be excused. In truth, I did not desire it. And now that the victory is won, my former dislike and indifference to it have lost none of their strength. From the bottom of my heart I say that I do not wish to be senator.¹ The honors of the post have no attraction for me; and I feel a pang at the thought that I now bid farewell to that life of quiet study, with the employment of my pen, which I had hoped to pursue. At this moment, could another person faithful to our cause be chosen in my place, I would resign. I am humbled by the importance attached to the election. Throughout Massachusetts, and even in other States, there have been bonfires, firings of cannon, ringing of bells, public meetings, and all forms of joy, to celebrate the event. As I read of these I felt my inability to meet the expectations aroused. Again, I wish I was not in the place. I am met constantly by joyful faces, but I have no joy; my heart is heavy. Never did I need sympathy and friendly succor more than now, when most of the world regards me as a most fortunate man, with a prospect of peculiar brilliancy.

The antislavery cause in Massachusetts is destined shortly to a complete and absolute triumph. The Boston set, chiefly from State Street, are profoundly ignorant of the real sentiment of the Commonwealth. I know it thoroughly. They remind me of the Bourbons and their friends. I long to commune with you on these things, and to draw from your treasures of experience and study.

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¹ The same avowal was made in letters to several friends, written in reply to congratulations.

SOURCE: Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, p. 246-7

Senator Charles Sumner to John Bigelow, May 2, 1851

I would not affect a feeling which I have not, nor have I any temptation to do it; but I should not be frank if I did not say to you that I have no personal joy in this election. Now that the office is in my hands, I feel more than ever a distaste for its duties and struggles as compared with other spheres. Every heart knoweth its own secret, and mine has never been in the Senate of the United States, nor is it there yet. Most painfully do I feel my inability to meet the importance which has been given to this election and the expectation of enthusiastic friends. But more than this, I am impressed by the thought that I now embark on a career which promises to last for six years, if not indefinitely, and which takes from me all opportunity of study and meditation to which I had hoped to devote myself. I do not wish to be a politician.

Nothing but Boutwell's half-Hunkerism prevents us from consolidating a permanent party in Massachusetts, not by coalition, but by fusion of all who are truly liberal, humane, and democratic. He is in our way. He has tried to please Hunkers and Free Soilers. We can get along very well without the Hunkers, and should be happy to leave Hallett and Co. to commune with the men of State Street. The latter have been infinitely disturbed by the recent election. For the first time they are represented in the Senate by one over whom they have no influence, who is entirely independent, and is a “bachelor!” It was said among them at first that real estate had gone down twenty-five per cent!

I regret the present state of things in New York [the absorption of the Barnburners by the Democratic party, because it seems to interfere with those influences which were gradually bringing the liberal and antislavery men of both the old parties together. Your politics will never be in a natural state till this occurs.

SOURCE: Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, p. 247-8

George Stillman Hillard to Senator Charles Sumner, April 25, 1851

[Court Street, April 25, 1851.]

MY DEAR SUMNER, — I cannot congratulate you on your election, because, with my political connections, that would be insincere; but I can and do say that I am glad that the lot has fallen upon you, since it must needs fall on one of your party. So far as your elevation shall prove a source of increased happiness and usefulness to you, I shall rejoice in it. No one will watch with more interest your career than I shall, or be more pleased with any accession to your solid and enduring reputation. I shall always judge of your sayings and doings in a candid and just spirit. You have now before you a noble career. May you walk in it with a statesman's steps, and more than gratify the good wishes of your friends, and more than disappoint the ill wishes of your enemies.

Yours faithfully,

G. S. H.

SOURCE: Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, p. 250

Senator Charles Sumner to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, May 8, 1851

I cannot repress my delight in what I hear of Emerson's utterance at Concord. For an hour and a half he laid bare our evils and their author.¹ I have more satisfaction in this voice on our side than in that of any politician. So little am I prepared for my new fellowship!

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¹ Mr. Webster. This address of Mr. Emerson was not published; but he followed the same line of thought in his treatment of the Fugitive Slave law and Mr. Webster at the Tabernacle in New York, March 7, 1854. Emerson's Works, vol. xi. pp. 205–230.

SOURCE: Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, p. 252

Senator Charles Sumner to John Jay, May 23, 1851

My aim, while attending to all the duties of my post, will be to do something to secure a hearing for our cause; and I wish in advance to bespeak the counsels of our friends, though I feel that in the last moment much must be left to my own personal discretion. As a stranger to the Senate and to all legislative bodies, I regard it to be my first duty to understand the body in which I have a seat before rushing into its contests.

SOURCE: Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, p. 252

Diary of Adam Gurowski, April 1861

COMMISSIONERS from the rebels; Seward parleying with them through some Judge Campbell. Curious way of treating and dealing with rebellion, with rebels and traitors; why not arrest them?

Corcoran, a rich partisan of secession, invited to a dinner the rebel commissioners and the foreign diplomats. If such a thing were done anywhere else, such a pimp would be arrested. The serious diplomats, Lord Lyons, Mercier, and Stoeckl refused the invitation; some smaller accepted, at least so I hear.

The infamous traitors fire on the Union flag. They treat the garrison of Sumpter as enemies on sufferance, and here their commissioners go about free, and glory in treason. What is this administration about? Have they no blood; are they fishes?

The crime in full blast; consummatum est. Sumpter bombarded; Virginia, under the nose of the administration, secedes, and the leaders did not see or foresee anything: flirted with Virginia.

Now, they, the leaders or the administration, are terribly startled; so is the brave noble North; the people are taken unawares; but no wonder; the people saw the Cabinet, the President, and the military in complacent security. These watchmen did nothing to give an early sign of alarm, so the people, confiding in them, went about its daily occupation. But it will rise as one man and in terrible wrath. Vous le verrez mess les Diplomates.

The President calls on the country for 75,000 men; telegram has spoken, and they rise, they arm, they come. I am not deceived in my faith in the North; the excitement, the wrath, is terrible. Party lines burn, dissolved by the excitement. Now the people is in fusion as bronze; if Lincoln and the leaders have mettle in themselves, then they can cast such arms, moral, material, and legislative, as will destroy at once this rebellion. But will they have the energy? They do not look like Demiourgi.

Massachusetts takes the lead; always so, this first people in the world; first for peace by its civilization and intellectual development, and first to run to the rescue.

The most infamous treachery and murder, by Baltimoreans, of the Massachusetts men. Will the cowardly murderers be exemplarily punished?

The President, under the advice of Scott, seems to take coolly the treasonable murders of Baltimore; instead of action, again parleying with these Baltimorean traitors. The rumor says that Seward is for leniency, and goes hand in hand with Scott. Now, if they will handle such murderers in silk gloves as they do, the fire must spread.

The secessionists in Washington—and they are a legion, of all hues and positions are defiant, arrogant, sure that Washington will be taken. One risks to be murdered here.

I entered the thus called Cassius Clay Company, organized for the defence of Washington until troops came. For several days patrolled, drilled, and lay several nights on the hard floor. Had compensation, that the drill often reproduced that of Falstaff's heroes. But my campaigners would have fought well in case of emergency. Most of them office-seekers. When the alarm was over, the company dissolved, but each got a kind of certificate beautifully written and signed by Lincoln and Cameron. I refused to take such a certificate, we having had no occasion to fight.

The President issued a proclamation for the blockade of the Southern revolted ports. Do they not know better?

How can the Minister of Foreign Affairs advise the President to resort to such a measure? Is the Minister of Foreign Affairs so willing to call in foreign nations by this blockade, thus transforming a purely domestic and municipal question into an international, public one?

The President is to quench the rebellion, a domestic fire, and to do it he takes a weapon, an engine the most difficult to handle, and in using of which he depends on foreign nations. Do they not know better here in the ministry and in the councils? Russia dealt differently with the revolted Circassians and with England in the so celebrated case of the Vixen.

The administration ought to know its rights of sovereignty and to close the ports of entry. Then no chance would be left to England to meddle.

Yesterday N—— dined with Lord Lyons, and during the dinner an anonymous note announced to the Lord that the proclamation of the blockade is to be issued on to-morrow. N——, who has a romantic turn, or rather who seeks for midi a' 14¾ heures, speculated what lady would have thus violated a secret d'Etat.

I rather think it comes from the Ministry, or, as they call it here, from the Department. About two years ago, when the Central Americans were so teased and maltreated by the fillibusters and Democratic administration, a Minister of one of these Central American States told me in New York that in a Chief of the Departments, or something the like, the Central Americans have a valuable friend, who, every time that trouble is brewing against them in the Department, gives them a secret and anonymous notice of it. This friend may have transferred his kindness to England.

How will foreign nations behave? I wish I may be misguided by my political anglophobia, but England, envious, rapacious, and the Palmerstons and others, filled with hatred towards the genuine democracy and the American people, will play some bad tricks. They will seize the occasion to avenge many humiliations. Charles Sumner, Howe, and a great many others, rely on England, on her antislavery feeling. I do not. I know English policy. We shall see.

France, Frenchmen, and Louis Napoleon are by far more reliable. The principles and the interest of France, broadly conceived, make the existence of a powerful Union a statesmanlike European and world necessity. The cold, taciturn Louis Napoleon is full of broad and clear conceptions. I am for relying, almost explicitly, on France and on him.

The administration calls in all the men-of-war scattered in all waters. As the commercial interests of the Union will remain unprotected, the administration ought to put them under the protection of France. It is often done so between friendly powers. Louis Napoleon could not refuse; and accepting, would become pledged to our side.

Germany, great and small, governments and people, will be for the Union. Germans are honest; they love the Union, hate slavery, and understand, to be sure, the question. Russia, safe, very safe, few blackguards excepted; so Italy. Spain may play double. I do not expect that the Spaniards, goaded to the quick by the former fillibustering administrations, will have judgment enough to find out that the Republicans have been and will be anti-fillibusters, and do not crave Cuba.

Wrote a respectful warning to the President concerning the unvoidable results of his proclamation in regard to the blockade; explained to him that this, his international demonstration, will, and forcibly must evoke a counter proclamation from foreign powers in the interest of their own respective subjects and of their commercial relations. Warned, foretelling that the foreign powers will recognize the rebels as belligerents, he, the President, having done it already in some way, thus applying an international mode of coercion. Warned, that the condition of belligerents, once recognized, the rebel piratical crafts will be recognized as privateers by foreign powers, and as such will be admitted to all ports under the secesh flag, which will thus enjoy a partial recognition.

Foreign powers may grumble, or oppose the closing of the ports of entry as a domestic, administrative decision, because they may not wish to commit themselves to submit to a paper blockade. But if the President will declare that he will enforce the closing of the ports with the whole navy, so as to strictly guard and close the maritime league, then the foreign powers will see that the administration does not intend to humbug them, but that he, the President, will only preserve intact the fullest exercise of sovereignty, and, as said the Roman legist, he, the President, "nil sibi postulat quod non aliis tribuit." And so he, the President, will only execute the laws of his country, and not any arbitrary measure, to say with the Roman Emperor, "Leges etiam in ipsa arma imperium habere volumus." Warned the President that in all matters relating to this country Louis Napoleon has abandoned the initiative to England; and to throw a small wedge in this alliance, I finally respectfully suggested to the President what is said above about putting the American interests in the Mediterranean under the protection of Louis Napoleon.

Few days thereafter learned that Mr. Seward does not believe that France will follow England. Before long Seward will find it out.

All the coquetting with Virginia, all the presumed influence of General Scott, ended in Virginia's secession, and in the seizure of Norfolk.

Has ever any administration, cabinet, ministry—call it what name you will—given positive, indubitable signs of want and absence of foresight, as did ours in these Virginia, Norfolk, and Harper's Ferry affairs? Not this or that minister or secretary, but all of them ought to go to the constitutional guillotine. Blindness—no mere short-sightedness-permeates the whole administration, Blair excepted. And Scott, the politico-military adviser of the President! What is the matter with Scott, or were the halo and incense surrounding him based on bosh? Will it be one more illusion to be dispelled?

The administration understood not how to save or defend Norfolk, nor how to destroy it. No name to be found for such concrete incapacity.

The rebels are masters, taking our leaders by the nose. Norfolk gives to them thousands of guns, &c., and nobody cries for shame. They ought to go in sackcloth, those narrow-sighted, blind rulers. How will the people stand this masterly administrative demonstration? In England the people and the Parliament would impeach the whole Cabinet.

Charles Sumner told me that the President and his Minister of Foreign Affairs are to propose to the foreign powers the accession of the Union to the celebrated convention of Paris of 1856. All three considered it a master stroke of policy. They will not catch a fly by it.

Again wrote respectfully to Mr. Lincoln, warning him against a too hasty accession to the Paris convention. Based my warning,

1st. Not to give up the great principles contained in Marcy's amendment.

2d. Not to believe or suppose for a minute that the accession to the Paris convention at this time can act in a retroactive sense; explained that it will not and cannot prevent the rebel pirates from being recognized by foreign powers as legal privateers, or being treated as such.

3d. For all these reasons the Union will not win anything by such a step, but it will give up principles and chain its own hands in case of any war with England. Supplicated the President not to risk a step which logically must turn wrong.

Baltimore still unpunished, and the President parleying with various deputations, all this under the guidance of Scott. I begin to be confused; cannot find out what is the character of Lincoln, and above all of Scott.

Governors from whole or half-rebel States refuse the President's call for troops. The original call of 75,000, too small in itself, will be reduced by that refusal. Why does not the administration call for more on the North, and on the free States? In the temper of this noble people it will be as easy to have 250,000 as 75,000, and then rush on them; submerge Virginia, North Carolina, etc.; it can be now so easily done. The Virginians are neither armed nor organized. Courage and youth seemingly would do good in the councils.

The free States undoubtedly will vindicate self-government. Whatever may be said by foreign and domestic croakers, I do not doubt it for a single minute. The free people will show to the world that the apparently loose governmental ribbons are the strongest when everybody carries them in him, and holds them. The people will show that the intellectual magnetism of convictions permeating the million is by far stronger than the commonly called governmental action from above, and it is at the same time elastic and expansive, even if the official leaders may turn out to be altogether mediocrities. The self-governing free North will show more vitality and activity than any among the governed European countries would be able to show in similar emergencies. This is my creed, and I have faith in the people.

The infamous slavers of the South would even be honored if named Barbary States of North America. Before the inauguration, Seward was telling the diplomats that no disruption will take place; now he tells them that it will blow over in from sixty to ninety days. Does Seward believe it? Or does his imagination or his patriotism carry him away or astray? Or, perhaps, he prefers not to look the danger in the face, and tries to avert the bitter cup. At any rate, he is incomprehensible, and the more so when seen at a distance.

Something, nay, even considerable efforts ought to be made to enlighten the public opinion in Europe, as on the outside, insurrections, nationalities, etc., are favored in Europe. How far the diplomats sent by the administration are prepared for this task?

Adams has shown in the last Congress his scholarly, classical narrow-mindedness. Sanford cannot favorably impress anybody in Europe, neither in cabinets, nor in saloons, nor the public at large. He looks and acts as a commis voyageur, will be considered as such at first sight by everybody, and his features and manners may not impress others as being distinguished and high-toned.

Every historical, that is, human event, has its moral and material character and sides. To ignore, and still worse to blot out, to reject the moral incentives and the moral verdict, is a crime to the public at large, is a crime towards human reason.

Such action blunts sound feelings and comprehension, increases the arrogance of the evil-doers.

The moral criterion is absolute and unconditional, and ought as such unconditionally to be applied to the events here. Things and actions must be called by their true names. What is true, noble, pure, and lofty, is on the side of the North, and permeates the unnamed millions of the free people; it ought to be separated from what is sham, egotism, lie or assumption. Truth must be told, never mind the outcry. History has not to produce pieces for the stage, or to amuse a tea-party.

Regiments pour in; the Massachusetts men, of course, leading the van, as in the times of the tea-party. My admiration for the Yankees is justified on every step, as is my scorn, my contempt, etc., etc., of the Southern chivalrous slaver.

Wrote to Charles Sumner expressing my wonder at the undecided conduct of the administration; at its want of foresight; its eternal parleying with Baltimoreans, Virginians, Missourians, etc., and no step to tread down the head of the young snake. No one among them seems to have the seer's eye. The people alone, who arm, who pour in every day and in large numbers, who transform Washington into a camp, and who crave for fighting, the people alone have the prophetic inspiration, and are the genuine statesmen for the emergency.

How will the Congress act? The Congress will come here emerging from the innermost of the popular volcano; but the Congress will be manacled by formulas; it will move not in the spirit of the Constitution, but in the dry constitutionalism, and the Congress will move with difficulty. Still I have faith, although the Congress never will seize upon parliamentary omnipotence. Up to to-day, the administration, instead of boldly crushing, or, at least, attempting to do it; instead of striking at the traitors, the administration is continually on the lookout where the blows come from, scarcely having courage to ward them off. The deputations pouring from the North urge prompt, decided, crushing action. This thunder-voice of the twenty millions of freemen ought to nerve this senile administration. The Southern leaders do not lose one minute's time; they spread the fire, arm, and attack with all the fury of traitors and criminals.

The Northern merchants roar for the offensive; the administration is undecided.

Some individuals, politicians, already speak out that the slaveocratic privileges are only to be curtailed, and slavery preserved as a domestic institution. Not a bit of it. The current and the development of events will run over the heads of the pusillanimous and contemptible conservatives. Slavery must perish, even if the whole North, Lincoln and Seward at its head, should attempt to save it.

Already they speak of the great results of Fabian policy; Seward, I am told, prides in it. Do those Fabiuses know what they talk about? Fabius's tactics—not policy—had in view not to expose young, disheartened levies against Hannibal's unconquered veterans, but further to give time to Rome to restore her exhausted means, to recover political influences with other Italian independent communities, to reconclude broken alliances with the cities, etc. But is this the condition of the Union? Your Fabian policy will cost lives, time, and money; the people feels it, and roars for action. Events are great, the people is great, but the official leaders may turn out inadequate to both.

What a magnificent chance-scarcely equal in history to become a great historical personality, to tower over future generations. But I do not see any one pointing out the way. Better so; the principle of self-government as the self-acting, self-preserving force will be asserted by the total eclipse of great or even eminent men.

The administration, under the influence of drill men, tries to form twenty regiments of regulars, and calls for 45,000 three years' volunteers. What a curious appreciation of necessity and of numbers must prevail in the brains of the administration. Twenty regiments of regulars will be a drop in water; will not help anything, but will be sufficient to poison the public spirit. Citizens and people, but not regulars, not hirelings, are to fight the battle of principle. Regulars and their spirit, with few exceptions, is worse here than were the Yanitschars.

When the principle will be saved and victorious, it will be by the devotion, the spontaneity of the people, and not by Lincoln, Scott, Seward, or any of the like. It is said that Seward rules both Lincoln and Scott. The people, the masses, do not doubt their ability to crush by one blow the traitors, but the administration does.

What I hear concerning the Blairs confirms my high opinion of both. Blair alone in the Cabinet represents the spirit of the people.

Something seems not right with Scott. Is he too old, or too much of a Virginian, or a hero on a small scale?

If, as they say, the President is guided by Scott's advice, such advice, to judge from facts, is not politic, not heroic, not thorough, not comprehensive, and not at all military, that is, not broad and deep, in the military sense. It will be a pity to be disappointed in this national idol.

Scott is against entering Virginia, against taking Baltimore, against punishing traitors. Strange, strange!

Diplomats altogether out of their senses; they are bewildered by the uprising, by the unanimity, by the warlike, earnest, unflinching attitude of the masses of the freemen, of my dear Yankees. The diplomats have lost the compass. They, duty bound, were diplomatically obsequious to the power held so long by the pro-slavery party. They got accustomed to the arrogant assumption and impertinence of the slavers, and, forgetting their European origin, the diplomats tacitly — but for their common sense and honor I hope reluctantly admitted the assumptions of the Southern banditti to be in America the nearest assimilation to the chivalry and nobility of old Europe. Without taking the cudgel in defence of European nobility, chivalry, and aristocracy, it is sacrilegious to compare those infamous slavers with the old or even with the modern European higher classes. In the midst of this slave-driving, slave-worshipping, and slave-breeding society of Washington, the diplomats swallowed, gulped all the Southern lies about the Constitution, state-rights, the necessity of slavery, and other like infamies. The question is, how far the diplomats in their respective official reports transferred these pro-slavery common-places to their governments. But, after all, the governments of Europe will not be thoroughly influenced by the chat of their diplomats.

Among all diplomats the English (Lord Lyons) is the most sphinx; he is taciturn, reserved, listens more than he speaks; the others are more communicative.

What an idea have those Americans of sending a secret agent to Canada, and what for? England will find it out, and must be offended. I would not have committed such an absurdity, even in my palmy days, when I conspired with Louis Napoleon, sat in the councils with Godefroi Cavaignac, or wrote instructions for Mazzini, then only a beginner with his Giovina Italia, and his miscarried Romarino attempt in Savoy.

Of what earthly use can be such politique provocatrice towards England? Or is it only to give some money to a hungry, noisy, and not over-principled office-seeker?

SOURCE: Adam Gurowski, Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862, p. 22-36

Diary of Gideon Welles: Thursday, April 19, 1866

The President last evening addressed a large concourse who assembled under a call of soldiers and sailors who desired to serenade and thank him for a proclamation in their favor for government employment. His speech is bold and well enough if it was advisable that the Chief Magistrate should address such gatherings.

Senator Trumbull called upon me this morning for the first time in several months. It was to ask a favor, and for Mrs. Trumbull more than himself. I regretted that I could not without violating regulations grant it, for both of them have been a little miffed because I opposed his two great measures which have been vetoed. The speech of the President last evening was alluded to, and Trumbull was very emphatic in condemning Presidential speechmaking. We did not greatly differ on this subject, for it has never been regarded favorably by me. Sometimes it may be excusable, but omission is better than compliance with calls from irresponsible gatherings. Frequent harangues to promiscuous crowds lessen the dignity of the President.

Passing from this subject to the condition of the country, he asked me if I was willing, or would consent, that Senators and Representatives should be admitted to take part in the Government, coming from Rebel States and districts. I told him I was most assuredly willing, provided they were loyal and duly and properly elected. "Then," inquired he, "how could you deny one a seat in Congress from South Carolina during the existence of the Rebellion?" "That," said I, "is a different question, but I am by no means prepared to say I would not have been glad to have seen a true and loyal man like Andrew Johnson, or yourself, here from that State during the War. I regretted that more did not, like Johnson, remain in 1861. Would you have expelled them?" Without answering me direct, Trumbull became a good deal excited and was very emphatic against the Rebels. I said we would have no controversy on that point. I was not their apologist, though I was not their persecutor, now that the Rebellion was suppressed. They had greatly erred and wronged us, had slain our kindred and friends, wasted our treasure, etc., but he and I should not bear resentment. We had a country to care for and should, I thought, exert ourselves to promote reconciliation and reëstablish the Union in all its integrity at the earliest attainable moment.

"Without conditions?” inquired he. "The Constitution," replied I, "provides for all that is necessary to be done. The condition of affairs is anomalous, but the path is plain. Each State is entitled to the Senators and Representatives according to population. Why are eleven unrepresented and denied their rights by an arbitrary and despotic majority of Congress?"

He imputed the difficulty chiefly to the President, who, he declared, had failed to act up to the principles of his message; and he quoted a passage. I told him the course of the President I thought perfectly consistent and I knew it was honest. But why was Tennessee, for instance, more loyal than Kentucky, excluded from representation in either branch of Congress? He said the President was to blame for that, for had he not put his veto on the Freedmen's Bureau Bill, Tennessee, and he thought Arkansas and Louisiana also, would long before this have had their Representatives in Congress. I told him this did not appear to me very enlightened and correct statesmanship. Why those States should be denied their undoubted constitutional rights, because the President and Congress disagreed, I could not understand. He complained that the President was not frank, that he had advised civil rights in his message to all, and yet vetoed the very bill which confirmed those rights.

I remarked that the subject of civil rights—personal rights—belonged to the States, not to the Federal Government. The amendment to the Constitution had abolished slavery, and the blacks had the same remedies that the whites had to preserve their freedom. That undoubtedly some of the States would, at least for a time, make discriminating laws. Illinois, I presume, did, and I thought Connecticut also. He denied that Illinois made any distinction affecting the civil rights of the negro, and asked when and in what respects the civil rights were affected in Connecticut.

"Both States," said I, "deny them suffrage, which is claimed as a right by the extreme Radicals in Congress. He said there were not ten men in Congress who took that view; there were just eight, he finally remarked in the Senate, and perhaps double that number in the House. "But," said he, "suffrage is a privilege, not a right." I remarked I so considered it, but Sumner and others took a different view. "Well, then," said he, "in what other respects are the civil rights of the negro affected?" "He is not," said I, "by our laws put on terms of equality. He is not permitted to get into the jury box; he is not allowed to act as an appraiser of property under any circumstances, and there are other matters wherein distinctions are made." "These," replied he, "are all matters of privilege.”

What, then," said I, "do you mean by civil rights? Please to define it." "The right," replied he, "to his liberty, to go and come as he pleases, have the avails of his own labor, not to be restricted in that respect. Virginia," continued he, "has passed a law that they shall not leave the estate on which they reside without a permit." I know not that Virginia denies or restricts the right to emigrate. The other rights mentioned the negro possesses.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 487-90

Charles Sumner to John Bigelow, January 11, 1851

Whatever may be the result of our proceedings, I am desirous that you should know my position. I have never directly or indirectly suggested a desire for the place, or even a willingness to take it. I shall not generally be believed if I say I do not desire it. My aims and visions are in other directions, in more quiet fields. To sundry committees of Hunker Democrats, who have approached me to obtain pledges and promises with regard to my future course in the State, or in the Senate if I should go there, I have replied that the office must seek me, and not I the office, and that it must find me an absolutely independent man. The Hunkers, Whigs, and Democrats are sweating blood to-day. You perceive that all the Hunker press, representing Cassism and Websterism, are using every effort to break up our combination.

SOURCES: Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, p. 239

Charles Sumner to John Bigelow, January 21, 1851

You are right in auguring ill from the Fabian strategy. When the balloting was postponed for three days, I thought our friends had lost the chances. My own opinion now is that they are lost beyond recovery; but others do not share this. The pressure from Washington has been prodigious. Webster and Cass have both done all they could. Of course, Boston Whiggery is aroused against me. There were for several days uneasy stomachs at the chances of my success. It is very evident that a slight word of promise or yielding to the Hunkers would have secured my election, it would now if I would give it; but this is impossible. The charge used with most effect against me is that I am a 'disunionist;' but the authors of this know its falsehood, — it is all a sham to influence votes. My principles are, in the words of Franklin, “to step to the verge of the Constitution to discourage every species of traffic in human flesh.” I am a constitutionalist and a unionist, and have always been.

SOURCES: Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, p. 239-40

Diary of Adam Gurowski, March 1861

For the first time in my life I assisted at the simplest and grandest spectacle—the inauguration of a President. Lincoln's message good, according to circumstances, but not conclusive; it is not positive; it discusses questions, but avoids to assert. May his mind not be altogether of the same kind. Events will want and demand more positiveness and action than the message contains assertions. The immense majority around me seems to be satisfied. Well, well; I wait, and prefer to judge and to admire when actions will speak.

I am sure that a great drama will be played, equal to any one known in history, and that the insurrection of the slave-drivers will not end in smoke. So I now decide to keep a diary in my own way. I scarcely know any of those men who are considered as leaders; the more interesting to observe them, to analyze their mettle, their actions. This insurrection may turn very complicated; if so, it must generate more than one revolutionary manifestation. What will be its march—what stages? Curious; perhaps it may turn out more interesting than anything since that great renovation of humanity by the great French Revolution.

The old, brave warrior, Scott, watched at the door of the Union; his shadow made the infamous rats tremble and crawl off, and so Scott transmitted to Lincoln what was and could be saved during the treachery of Buchanan.

By the most propitious accident, I assisted at the throes among which Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet was born. They were very painful, but of the highest interest for me, and I suppose for others. I participated some little therein.

A pledge bound Mr. Lincoln to make Mr. Seward his Secretary of State. The radical and the puritanic elements in the Republican party were terribly scared. His speeches, or rather demeanor and repeated utterances since the opening of the Congress, his influence on Mr. Adams, who, under Seward's inspiration, made his speech de lana caprina, and voted for compromises and concessions, all this spread and fortified the general and firm belief that Mr. Seward was ready to give up many from among the cardinal articles of the Republican creed of which he was one of the most ardent apostles. They, the Republicans, speak of him in a way to remind me of the dictum, "omnia serviliter pro dominatione," as they accuse him now of subserviency to the slave power. The radical and puritan Republicans likewise dread him on account of his close intimacy with a Thurlow Weed, a Matteson, and with similar not over-cautious-as they call them-lobbyists.

Some days previous to the inauguration, Mr. Seward brought Mr. Lincoln on the Senate floor, of course on the Republican side; but soon Mr. Seward was busily running among Democrats, begging them to be introduced to Lincoln. It was a saddening, humiliating, and revolting sight for the galleries, where I was. Criminal as is Mason, for a minute I got reconciled to him for the scowl of horror and contempt with which he shook his head at Seward. The whole humiliating proceeding foreshadowed the future policy. Only two or three Democratic Senators were moved by Seward's humble entreaties. The criminal Mason has shown true manhood.

The first attempt of sincere Republicans was to persuade Lincoln to break his connection with Seward. This failed. To neutralize what was considered quickly to become a baneful influence in Mr. Lincoln's councils, the Republicans united on Gov. Chase. This Seward opposed with all his might. Mr. Lincoln wavered, hesitated, and was bending rather towards Mr. Seward. The struggle was terrific, lasted several days, when Chase was finally and triumphantly forced into the Cabinet. It was necessary not to leave him there alone against Seward, and perhaps Bates, the old cunning Whig. Again terrible opposition by Seward, but it was overcome by the radicals in the House, in the Senate, and outside of Congress by such men as Curtis Noyes, J. S. Wadsworth, Opdyke, Barney, &c., &c., and Blair was brought in. Cameron was variously opposed, but wished to be in by Seward; Welles was from the start considered sound and safe in every respect; Smith was considered a Seward man.

From what I witnessed of Cabinet-making in Europe, above all in France under Louis Philippe, I do not forebode anything good in the coming-on shocks and eruptions, and I am sure these must come. This Cabinet as it stands is not a fusion of various shadowings of a party, but it is a violent mixing or putting together of inimical and repulsive forces, which, if they do not devour, at the best will neutralize each other.

Senator Wilson answered Douglass in the Senate, that "when the Republican party took the power, treason was in the army, in the navy, in the administration," etc. Dreadful, but true assertion. It is to be seen how the administration will act to counteract this ramified treason.

What a run, a race for offices. This spectacle likewise new to me.

The Cabinet Ministers, or, as they call them here, the Secretaries, have old party debts to pay, old sores to avenge or to heal, and all this by distributing offices, or by what they call it here—patronage. Through patronage and offices everybody is to serve his friends and his party, and to secure his political position. Some of the party leaders seem to me similar to children enjoying a long-expected and ardently wished-for toy. Some of the leaders are as generals who abandon the troops in a campaign, and take to travel in foreign parts. Most of them act as if they were sure that the battle is over. It begins only, but nobody, or at least very few of the interested, seem to admit that the country is on fire, that a terrible struggle begins. (Wrote in this sense an article for the National Intelligencer; insertion refused.) They, the leaders, look to create engines for their own political security, but no one seems to look over Mason and Dixon's line to the terrible and with-lightning-like-velocity-spreading fire of hellish treason.

The diplomats utterly upset, confused, and do not know what god to worship. All their associations were with Southerners, now traitors. In Southern talk, or in that of treacherous Northern Democrats, the diplomats learned what they know about this country. Not one of them is familiar, is acquainted with the genuine people of the North; with its true, noble, grand, and pure character. It is for them a terra incognita, as is the moon. The little they know of the North is the few money or cotton bags of New York, Boston, Philadelphia,—these would-be betters, these dinner-givers, and whist-players. The diplomats consider Seward as the essence of Northern feeling.

How little the thus-called statesmen know Europe. Sumner, Seward, etc. already have under consideration if Europe will recognize the secesh. Europe recognizes faits accomplis, and a great deal of blood will run before secesh becomes un fait accompli. These Sewards, Sumners, etc. pay too much attention to the silly talk of the European diplomats in Washington; and by doing this these would-be statesmen prove how ignorant they are of history in general, and specially ignorant of the policy of European cabinets. Before a struggle decides a question a recognition is bosh, and I laugh at it.

The race, the race increases with a fearful rapidity. No flood does it so quick. Poor Senators! Some of them must spend nights and days to decide on whom to bestow this or that office. Secretaries or Ministers wrangle, fight (that is the word used), as if life and death depended upon it.

Poor (Carlylian-meaning) good-natured Senator Sumner, in his earnest, honest wish to be just and of service to everybody, looks as a hare tracked by hounds; so are at him office-seekers from the whole country. This hunting degrades the hounds, and enervates the patrons.

I am told that the President is wholly absorbed in adjusting, harmonizing the amount of various salaries bestowed on various States through its officeholders and office-seekers.

It were better if the President would devote his time to calculate the forces and resources needed to quench the fire. Over in Montgomery the slave-drivers proceed with the terrible, unrelenting, fearless earnestness of the most unflinching criminals.

After all, these crowds of office-hunters are far from representing the best element of the genuine, laborious, intelligent people,—of its true healthy stamina. This is consoling for me, who know the American people in the background of office-hunters.

Of course an alleviating circumstance is, that the method, the system, the routine, oblige, nay force, everybody to ask, to hunt. As in the Scriptures, "Ask, and you will get; or knock, and it will be opened." Of course, many worthy, honorable, deserving men, who would be ornaments to the office, must run the gauntlet together with the hounds.

It is reported, and I am sure of the truth of the report, that Governor Chase is for recognizing, or giving up the revolted Cotton States, so as to save by it the Border States, and eventually to fight for their remaining in the Union. What logic! If the treasonable revolt is conceded to the Cotton States, on what ground can it be denied to the thus called Border States? I am sorry that Chase has such notions.

It is positively asserted by those who ought to know, that Seward, having secured to himself the Secretaryship of State, offered to the Southern leaders in Congress compromise and concessions, to assure, by such step, his confirmation by the Democratic vote. The chiefs refused the bargain, distrusting him. All this was going on for weeks, nay months, previous to the inauguration, so it is asserted. But Seward might have been anxious to preserve the Union at any price. His enemies assert that if Seward's plan had succeeded, virtually the Democrats would have had the power. Thus the meaning of Lincoln's election would have been destroyed, and Buchanan's administration would have been continued in its most dirty features, the name only being changed.

Old Scott seems to be worried out by his laurels; he swallows incense, and I do not see that anything whatever is done to meet the military emergency. I see the cloud.

Were it true that Seward and Scott go hand in hand, and that both, and even Chase, are blunted axes!

I hear that Mr. Blair is the only one who swears, demands, asks for action, for getting at them without losing time. Brave fellow ! I am glad to have at Willard's many times piloted deputations to the doors of Lincoln on behalf of Blair's admission into the Cabinet. I do not know him, but will try to become nearer acquainted.

But for the New York radical Republicans, already named, neither Chase nor Blair would have entered the Cabinet. But for them Seward would have had it totally his own way. Members of Congress acted less than did the New Yorkers.

The South, or the rebels, slave-drivers, slave-breeders, constitute the most corrosive social decompositions and impurities; what the human race throughout countless ages successively toiled to purify itself from and throw off. Europe continually makes terrible and painful efforts, which at times are marked by bloody destruction. This I asserted in my various writings. This social, putrefied evil, and the accumulated matter in the South, pestilentially and in various ways influenced the North, poisoning its normal healthy condition. This abscess, undermining the national life, has burst now. Somebody, something must die, but this apparent death will generate a fresh and better life.

The month of March closes, but the administration seems to enjoy the most beatific security. I do not see one single sign of foresight, this cardinal criterion of statesmanship. Chase measures the empty abyss of the treasury. Senator Wilson spoke of treason everywhere, but the administration seems not to go to work and to reconstruct, to fill up what treason has disorganized and emptied. Nothing about reorganizing the army, the navy, refitting the arsenals. No foresight, no foresight! either statesmanlike or administrative. Curious to see these men at work. The whole efforts visible to me and to others, and the only signs given by the administration in concert, are the paltry preparations to send provisions to Fort Sumpter. What is the matter? what are they about?

SOURCE: Adam Gurowski, Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862, p. 13-21

Congressman Horace Mann, August 23, 1850

I stay at home this morning to write to you. I long to be at home; but the time of our departure cannot be seen by any political astronomer. There is a probability that we shall come to some of the exciting questions this week. We are as ready now to meet them as we ever shall be. The great influence of Mr. Webster is brought with full force to bear against all security for freedom in the Territories. His name, his reputation for talent, and, above all, his power of patronage and influence in the Government, tell with prodigious force upon all measures. His going into the cabinet may be the salvation of Mr. Fillmore's administration; but it is even more likely that it will be fatal to the cause of freedom. See what comes of intellect without morality!

We had another furious storm last night. It reminded me of the last, the one in which Sumner's brother and Margaret Fuller were lost; and, when I hear the winds howl and sweep so at night, my mind always goes out to watch along the seashore, and then I cannot but see what the next papers relate of disaster and death. I always had a special horror for a shipwreck. It seems to me the most terrible form of death that is not ignominious. If, however, — and I often have a vivid intellectual perception of this, regarded death as we should, it would cease to be the dreadful spectre that it now is. How much of this, in all after-life, must depend upon education!

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 316-7

Charles Francis Adams Sr. to Charles Sumner, December 10, 1850

If our friends decide to risk themselves in that ship, I trust we may get a full consideration for the risk; and the only full consideration that we can receive is in securing your services in the Senate. If anything can be done with that iron and marble body, you may do it. You know how hopeless I think the task, and every time I come here my notions become more rigid.

SOURCES: Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, p. 233

Charles Sumner to Charles Francis Adams Sr., December 15, 1850

I am particularly moved to this [to write] by your allusion to me in connection with a certain post. I appreciate your generosity, and am proud of your confidence. I am not entirely insensible to the honor that post would confer, though I do not feel this strongly, for I have never been accustomed to think highly of political distinction. I feel that it would, to a certain extent, be a vindication of me against the attacks to which, in common with you and others of our friends, I have been exposed. And I am especially touched by the idea of the sphere of usefulness in which it would place me. But notwithstanding these things, I must say that I have not been able at any time in my inmost heart to bring myself to desire the post, or even to be willing to take it. My dreams and visions are all in other directions. In the course of my life I have had many; but none have been in the United States Senate. In taking that post, I must renounce quiet and repose forever; my life henceforward would be in public affairs. I cannot contemplate this without repugnance. It would call upon me to forego those literary plans and aspirations which I have more at heart than any merely political success. Besides, even if I could incline to this new career, there are men in our ranks, my seniors and betters, to whom I defer sincerely and completely. Mr. Phillips, by various titles, should be our candidate. If he should be unwilling to take the place, then we must look to you. In seeing you there I should have the truest satisfaction. You are the man to split open the solid rock of the United States Senate. I shrink unfeignedly from the work. For this I have never “filed my mind.” I shall see you soon, I trust, when we may talk of these things.

SOURCES: Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, p. 233

Senator John Sherman to General William T. Sherman, August 4, 1872

MANSFIELD, OHIO, Aug. 4, 1872.

Dear Brother: . . . Just now all interest is centred upon the Presidential election. As you say, the Republicans are running a Democrat, and the Democrats a Republican. And there is not an essential difference in the platform of principle. The chief interest I feel in the canvass is the preservation of the Republican party, which I think essential to secure the fair enforcement of the results of the war. General Grant has so managed matters as to gain the very bitter and active hostility of many of the leading Republicans, and the personal indifference of most of the residue. He will, however, be fairly supported by the great mass of the Republicans, and I still hope and believe will be elected. The defections among Republicans will be made up by Democrats, who will not vote for Greeley.

The whole canvass is so extraordinary, that no result can be anticipated. You will notice that Sumner, Thurman, Banks, and others are for Greeley, who is probably the most unfit man for President, except Train, that has ever been mentioned. I intend to support Grant fairly and fully, as best for the country and Republican party.

Affectionately yours,

JOHN SHERMAN.

SOURCE: Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891, p. 338-9

Diary of Gideon Welles: Saturday, March 24, 1866

The Intelligencer of this morning contains an adroit letter from Cleveland, the Hartford Postmaster, stating that he is openly supporting English for Governor, who is in favor of the measures, policy, veto, and speech of the President, and that he is opposing Hawley, who is opposed to them, and tendering his resignation if his course is disapproved. On this letter the President indorsed that his (C.'s) action in sustaining his (the President's) measures and policy is approved and the resignation is, therefore, not accepted.

This correspondence will be misconstrued and misunderstood, I have no doubt. The Democrats will claim that it is a committal for English, and the Republicans will acquiesce to some extent. Yet the disposition of the subject is highly creditable to the sagacity and tact of the President. I regret that he did not earlier and in some more conspicuous case take action.

I do not like the shape things are taking in Connecticut, and to some extent the position of the President is and will be misunderstood. He is, I think, not satisfied with the somewhat equivocal position of Hawley, and would now prefer that English should be the Union candidate. Herein he errs, as things are situated, for most of his friends are supporting Hawley and some of his bitterest opponents are supporting English. He should soon draw the line of demarcation. In the break-up of parties which I think is now upon us, not unlikely Hawley will plunge into centralism, for thither go almost all Radicals, including his old Abolition associates. The causes or circumstances which take him there will be likely to bring English into the President's support. Nevertheless, under the existing state of things, I should, unless something farther occurs between this and election, probably, on personal grounds, prefer Hawley. It is too late to effect a change of front with parties.

Senator Sumner came this P.M. as usual on Saturdays. He doubts the correctness of taking naval vessels for the French Exhibition. Grimes, with whom I have had some conversation, has contributed to Sumner's doubts. It is certainly a strange proceeding to require or expect the Navy to furnish four vessels with their crews for this carrying service without any appropriation of funds for that object. It is not a naval matter, enters not into our estimates, and we have no suitable vessels. The House is very loose and reckless, however, in its proceedings, and appears to be careless of current legislation. Specific appropriations they would misapply, and are, in fact, pressing and insisting that I shall divert funds appropriated by law for one purpose to another and different purpose. But this was not Sumner's trouble. He thought it bad economy, as it undoubtedly is. I said to him that if I was called to do this transportation without instructions, I would, as a matter of economy, sooner charter merchant ships than dismantle and attempt to convert and use naval vessels for the purpose.

I learn in confidence from Sumner that dispatches from our legation in France have reached the State Department which have not been brought before the Cabinet. Louis Napoleon has quarreled with his cousin, who was president of the commission of savants, and he has left Paris and resigned the presidency. Napoleon has appointed in his place, as president of the World's Congress of wise men and inventors, his son, now some eight or ten years of age. This Sumner thinks an insult or worse, and is disposed to give the whole thing a rebuff. I shall be glad to have him, but he will not attempt to move without first consulting Seward, and that gentleman has his heart so much in the interest of France, his friends are so engaged in the Exhibition, that he has held back this information and will set himself earnestly at work to overpersuade Sumner, who, as Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, has seen the dispatches. He may succeed. Sumner was, however, very earnest and pleased with his own idea of hitting Louis Napoleon a blow.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 461-3

Diary of Gideon Welles: Saturday, March 31, 1866

I had an interview with the President concerning Semmes, as understood yesterday. Showed him the papers, and, after some conversation, he proposed to see Judge-Advocate-General Bolles, Solicitor of the Navy Department; said he would on the whole prefer him to the Attorney-General in this matter, and named Monday next.

By the President's request I went into the library and was introduced to Doctor Norris, with whom the President desired me to have some conversation. Doctor N. said he believed that the President and I had had some consultation in relation to a sea voyage for Robert, the President's son. He supposed I knew the circumstances. I told him I was aware of the young man's infirmity, that he had once spoken to me himself on the subject in a manner to touch my sympathy in his behalf. That I had also conversed with his father, as he seemed to be aware, and as he (the father) had doubtless advised him. He said that was so, and proceeded to tell me that R. had been beguiled into intemperance after he became of age, through his generous qualities, goodness of heart, and friendly disposition. He, therefore, thought it possible to reclaim him.

I had very little expectation of such a result, but it is important, for his father's sake and for the country's, that the President should in these days be relieved of the care and anxiety which his excesses and passions involve. To send him abroad in a public ship is the best disposition that can be made of him, and a voyage to the East Indies would be better than any other, and such a voyage was now in preparation. Doctor Norris thought this desirable.

I subsequently saw the President and told him what had taken place and that I could make the arrangement with little trouble to him. It seemed to give him consolation.

Letters from Connecticut do not speak with confidence of the result of the election next Monday. But my impressions are that the Union Party with Hawley will be successful. The battle will not be on the strict political issues before the country. On these issues, if well defined and the candidates were squarely presented, I have no doubt that the Administration would be triumphantly sustained. It would be union against disunion, the President versus Congress under the lead of Stevens. But politics and parties have become strangely mixed. Hawley, I am apprehensive, leans to the Congressional policy at present, but I trust observation and reflection will bring him right.

The true Union men who sustain the President feel that the defeat of Hawley would be a triumph to Toucey, Seymour, Eaton, and others who opposed the Government in war and whom they, for that reason, detest, and they will band together to support Hawley from matters of the past rather than issues of the present. Moreover Hawley has popular qualities. For ten years he has fought the Union battles in our political contests and in the field, and though he may be touched with Radicalism, he has good reasoning faculties and a sense of right within him on which I rely. The people have correct instincts in these matters, and I therefore feel pretty sure he will succeed. The worst is, should that be the case, the curse of party will claim that it is a triumph over the Administration. No harm will come of it, perhaps, but it is annoying and vexatious to have results to which men have contributed turned against themselves. But it cannot be helped. The distinction cannot now be drawn. Parties are in a transition state.

Sumner tells me this P.M. that his committee will go against the use of naval vessels for the French Exhibition. This will be counter to Banks, who laid himself out largely in this matter, and Sumner will not be grieved to have Banks disappointed. There is obviously no special love between these two gentlemen. They are opposites in many respects. Banks has thought to gain popularity in this move, which was concocted by himself and Seward, to use naval vessels and naval appropriations for a purpose not naval. To make their scheme appear less expensive, I am told that General Butler has succeeded in inducing the Secretary of the Treasury to interfere in the matter of the Grey Jacket, condemned as prize. If so, I regret it. McCulloch has been imposed upon. Butler is reckless, avaricious, unscrupulous. He knows there is neither law nor justice in his course on this question, but he has the promise of large fees. For three months he has been annoying me on this subject. He then went to the Attorney General and for a time made some headway. Failing there, he has now imposed upon McCulloch, who has been deceived by Butler's cunning and browbeaten by his audacity.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 467-70