Attorney-General Speed calls upon me in some trouble. The
Secretary of the Treasury has asked his opinion whether appropriations for the
next fiscal year which have been covered into the Treasury can be now drawn
upon. This has been the practice during the War, but the First Comptroller
objects to passing requisitions and questions its legality. In this ruling the Comptroller
is probably strictly legally correct, but to attempt to rigidly enforce the law
would be disastrous. The fault originates in the Treasury; the usage has been
theirs; not only this, it has been their delinquency which makes the present
difficulty. Paymasters do not settle their accounts promptly. The Fourth
Auditor's office is two years behind, and their requisitions cannot be adjusted
and carried to the proper appropriation until their accounts are settled at the
Auditor's office. The Attorney-General thinks he shall legally be compelled to
go with the Comptroller if required to give an opinion, and he thinks McCulloch
inclined to exact it. In that event both Navy and Army must come to a
standstill, the credit of the Treasury will be injured, loans cannot be
negotiated, and the government will be involved in financial embarrassments.
A paymaster, for instance, especially a new one, commits
errors in his drafts. He makes a requisition, perhaps for $100,000, and, in
uncertainty from what appropriation the money should come, he draws the whole
amount from “Pay of the Navy"; but $12,000 should have been from
"Equipment,” for coal, etc., $10,000 from “Provisions and Clothing,"
$10,000 from “Construction," and $12,000 is to pay prize; so that only
$56,000 should have been taken from “Pay of the Navy.” But this cannot be
corrected and carried to the proper heads until the paymaster's account is
settled, which will not be sooner than 1867. In the mean time the appropriation
of “Pay of the Navy” is exhausted, through ignorance of the new paymasters and
the carelessness of the old ones.
Wrote a letter to Olcott, the detective, as Stanton calls
him, or, as he calls himself and wishes to be called, Commissioner, in answer
to a strange letter from him proposing to make a report for Congress, to prevent
the repeal of the law which subjects contractors to military arrest and trial
by court martial. I gave him to understand that I had no hand in originating
the law and could not, nor did I feel disposed to, interpose to prevent its
repeal when Congress thought proper. Notified him that he would hereafter
correspond with the Solicitor instead of Assistant Secretary, enjoined economy,
etc., etc. It will not do to let this man go on unchecked. He is zealous, in a
certain sense I think honest, but is rash, reckless, at times regardless of the
rights of others, assumes authority, but I am inclined to believe acts with
good intentions; and he is wild in his expenditures. Of course he will be
dissatisfied and not unlikely abusive of me for checking and correcting his
errors.
SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the
Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866,
p. 264-5
