Showing posts with label Michael Hahn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Michael Hahn. Show all posts

Sunday, December 13, 2020

Diary of Gideon Welles: Tuesday, August 9, 1864

At the Cabinet to-day there was no special business. Seward and Stanton were not present. Mr. Fessenden is absent in Maine. Governor Hahn of Louisiana was present a short time.

Alluding to the Niagara peace proceedings, the President expressed a willingness that all should be published. Greeley had asked it, and when I went into the President's room Defrees1 was reading the proof of the correspondence. I have advised its entire publication from the first moment I had knowledge of it. Whether it was wise or expedient for the President to have assented to Greeley's appeal, or given his assent to any such irregular proceedings, is another thing, not necessary to discuss. Mr. Seward was consulted in this matter, and no other one was called in that I am aware. Mr. Fessenden says he happened, accidentally and uninvited, to come in and was knowing to it. No other member of the Cabinet was consulted, or advised with, until after the meeting took place at Niagara.

Fox left this p.m. for his annual vacation in New Hampshire. Faxon returned last Wednesday. The absence of either of them makes my duties more arduous.

General Averill is reported to have thrashed the raiders on the upper Potomac.

News of Farragut's having passed Forts Morgan and Gaines was received last night, and sent a thrill of joy through all true hearts. It is not, however, appreciated as it should be by the military. The President, I was sorry, spoke of it as important because it would tend to relieve Sherman. This is the narrow view of General Halleck, whom I tried to induce to make a joint demonstration against Mobile one year ago. He has done nothing new and only speaks of the naval achievement as a step for the army. While I regard the acts and opinions of Halleck as of little worth, I regret that from constant daily intercourse he should be able to imbue the President at times with false and erroneous notions. Halleck never awarded honest credit to the Navy; the President never knowingly deprived them of any merit. Yet I have mentioned the result.

Passing from the Executive Mansion to the Navy Department, I met the Count Gurowski, a Polish exile and a very singular man of most unhappy manners and temper. He has made himself obnoxious to almost everybody by constant and everlasting faultfinding and denunciation of almost everybody. Yet he has a strong but fragmentary mind with quite a retentive memory. Violent, self-opinionated, acrimonious, dissatisfied, he nevertheless has had great experience and often expresses opinions on questions that have passed and been disposed of that are sound and striking. They are, however, rather reminiscences of the opinions of others, reflections of their views, than original thoughts on his part. At least, such have been my conclusions of him. So far as I can judge, he has no proper discriminating powers, no just perceptions of character, is a creature of violent impulses and hatreds. Easily flattered, and as easily offended. A rough, uncouth bear, with no nice sense of honor, and when his prejudices are enlisted, has not a very great regard for truth, I fear.

He has just put out two volumes of a diary, in horrid style and bad English, commenting with great freedom on men and things, abusing in clumsy language almost all public characters. It so happens that I am one of the few that have escaped his assaults, without ever having courted favor, or, it seems, offended him. But shortly after the appearance of the last volume, a party was given by me to the Cabinet and to Congress. All my associates except Stanton he had coarsely abused and very many of the members. I did not think proper to invite the Count to meet these men, and he has exhibited unmistakable rage and disgust at the supposed slight. Of course, no cause of offense having been given, there is no way of appeasing this Polish bear. I have, therefore, not attempted it nor noticed his indignation. Meeting him to-day, as I have stated, he saw and recognized me, seemed to be embarrassed and to hesitate, then dropped his head and, turning off when within about fifty feet, he went far around, with his head bent over, shame and passion in his countenance. Poor Gurowski!
_______________ 

1 John D. Defrees, the government printer.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 99-101

Wednesday, May 27, 2020

Governor Michael Hahn to Abraham Lincoln, March 3, 1865

STATE OF LOUISIANA, EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT,                       
New Orleans, March 3, 1865.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President of the United States:

DEAR SIR: On the 22d of February, 1864, I was elected governor of the State of Louisiana and on the 4th of March following I was inaugurated into office. On the 29th of March I received from you a letter or order, in the following words:

EXECUTIVE MANSION,               
Washington City, March --, 1864.
His Excellency MICHAEL HAHN,
Governor of Louisiana:

Until further orders you are hereby invested with all the powers heretofore exercised by the military governor of Louisiana.

A. LINCOLN.

I also received from the War Department certified copies of the commission and letter of instructions to Brigadier-General Shepley, formerly military governor of Louisiana, dated June 3, 1862. I have now resigned the office of governor of this State, to take effect this day, and I therefore respectfully notify you that from and after this day I shall cease to exercise any of the powers of military governor, with which you invested me by granting me these powers. I can safely say that nothing was done by me by virtue of these powers which did not meet the approval of the convention, the legislature, and loyal people of this State, and in which I would not have been sustained even without such military powers. I conclude this letter with a quotation from my message, delivered to the legislature on the 7th of October last:

The unsettled condition of the country, the absence or destruction of most of the public archives and various other causes have conspired to throw much difficulty in the way of a full organization of a State government. The want of a legislature and the sudden uprooting of many important yet unwise and illiberal laws and institutions by military orders, render it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the executive of the State to perform his duties satisfactorily and understandingly to the public, or to properly reconcile and harmonize the various conflicting rules of government and interests of the State. I was somewhat aided in this dilemma by the President of the United States, who shortly after my inauguration, invested me, without any solicitation or suggestion on my part, "with the powers exercised hitherto by the military governor of Louisiana." Fortunately, the harmony which has characterized the intercourse of the military and civil authorities of this State has rendered the exercise of any such powers by me almost unnecessary. The principal subjects upon which I have used these powers are, the appointment of public officers, the payment of money from the State treasury for Just and pressing purposes and after recommendation by proper officers, and the exercise of executive clemency.

I remain, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
MICHAEL HAHN.

SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 48, Part 2 (Serial No. 101), p. 1064

Abraham Lincoln to Governor Michael Hahn, March 15, 1864

EXECUTIVE MANSION,               
Washington, D.C., March 15, 1864.
His Excellency MICHAEL HAHN,
Governor of Louisiana:

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

Truly, yours,
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Copy of commission of General Shepley and of instructions to him of June 3, 1862, sent in original of this to Governor Hahn March 16, 1864.

 E. D. T.

SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series III, Volume 4 (Serial No. 125), p. 182

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

Wednesday, January 16, 2019

George S. Denison to Salmon P. Chase, December 4, 1862

New Orleans, December 4th, 1862.

Dear Sir: The mail is about to close and I write in haste, to inform you of the result of the election.

In the 1st. Con. District, Mr. Flanders is elected by an overwhelming majority. His only competitor was Mr. Bouligny. So far as returns are known Mr. Flanders received more than ten times as many votes as Mr. Bouligny. You already know as much of Mr. Flanders as I can tell you. He expects to start for Washington by the next steamer.

In the other (2nd.) Congressional District, the candidates were Durell, Hahn, Barker, and Greathouse, Dr. Cottman having withdrawn his name by request (order?) of Gen. Butler, and Mr. Hahn took his place.1

Mr. Hahn is elected by a good majority. He was an original and continuous Union man, and is understood to be unconditional in his loyalty. Durell was unfortunately the candidate of the Union Association — unfortunately, for he is not popular and many members voted for Hahn, against whom I know of no objections.

Enclosed is an account of Mr. Hahn, published this morning which is correct so far as it goes.

I do not understand why Dr. Cottmann was prevented from continuing to be a candidate — by Gen. Butler. He would certainly have been elected and is a good and very popular man, who has suffered much, for the ''Confederates" have destroyed his plantations. I understand he intends visiting Washington soon, when he will probably explain the matter.

The result of the election seems to me to be very satisfactory. A good vote was cast, considering the number of men Gen. Butler has enlisted, & the number who are absent with the rebel army.
_______________

1 The vote was:

First district:

B. F. Flanders
2,370
All others
273

2,643
Second district:

M. F. Hahn
2,799
Judge Durell
1,458
Barker
453
Greathouse
357
Scattering
50

5,117

(House Reports, Thirty-seventh Congress, Third session, No. 22.)

On the floor of the House, Representative Dawes, of Massachusetts, chairman of the Committee on Elections, represented that one candidate withdrew because he was suspected of disloyalty. (Congressional Globe, February 9, 1863.)

On Dr. Cottman cf. April 30,1863, also letters following; also November 5, 1863.

Messrs. Hahn and Flanders were admitted and took the oath of office, the former on February 17, and the latter on February 23, 1863. The Thirty-seventh Congress expired on March 3, 1863.

SOURCE: Diary and correspondence of Salmon P. ChaseAnnual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1902, Vol. 2, p. 336-7