Diary of John Hay: November 18, 1864

. . . When the President came in, he called Blair and Banks into his office, meeting them in the hall.

They immediately began to talk about Ashley’s Bill in regard to States in insurrection. The President had been reading it carefully, and said that he liked it with the exception of one or two things which he thought rather calculated to conceal a feature which might be objectionable to some. The first was that under the provisions of that bill, negroes would be made jurors and voters under the temporary governments. “Yes,” said Banks; “that is to be stricken out, and the qualification ‘white male citizens of the United States’ is to be restored. What you refer to would be a fatal objection to the bill. It would simply throw the Government into the hands of the blacks, as the white people under that arrangement would refuse to vote.”

“The second,” said the President, “is the declaration that all persons heretofore held in slavery are declared free. This is explained by some to be, not a prohibition of slavery by Congress, but a mere assurance of freedom to persons actually there in accordance with the Proclamation of Emancipation. In that point of view it is not objectionable, though I think it would have been preferable to so express it.”

The President and General Banks spoke very favorably with three qualifications of Ashley’s Bill. Banks is especially anxious that the Bill may pass and receive the approval of the President. He regards it as merely concurring in the President's own action in the important case of Louisiana, and recommending an observance of the same policy in other cases. He does not regard it, nor does the President, as laying down any cast-iron policy in the matter. Louisiana being admitted and this Bill passed, the President is not estopped by it from recognizing and urging Congress to recognize, another state of the South, coming with constitution and conditions entirely dissimilar. Banks thinks that the object of Congress in passing the Bill at all, is merely to assert their conviction that they have a right to pass such a law, in concurrence with the executive action. They want a hand in the reconstruction. It is unquestionably the prerogative of Congress to decide as to qualifications of its own members:— that branch of the subject is exclusively their own. It does not seem wise, therefore, to make a fight upon a question purely immaterial; that is, whether this bill is a necessary one or not, and thereby lose the positive gain of this endorsement of the President's policy in the admission of Louisiana, and the assistance of that State in carrying the Constitutional Amendment prohibiting slavery.

Blair talked more than both Lincoln and Banks, and somewhat vehemently attacked the radicals in the House and Senate, who are at work upon this measure, accusing them of interested motives and hostility to Lincoln. The President said:— “It is much better not to be led from the region of reason into that of hot blood, by imputing to public men motives which they do not avow.”

SOURCES: Clara B. Hay, Letters of John Hay and Extracts from Diary, Volume 1, p. 250-2; Michael Burlingame & John R. Turner Ettlinger, Editors, Inside Lincoln’s White House: The Complete Civil War Diary of John Hay, p. 252-4.

Diary of John Hay: December 10, 1863

. . . . Sumner speaks of the Message with great gratification. It satisfies his idea of proper reconstruction without insisting on the adoption of his peculiar theories. The President repeated, what he has often said before, that there is no essential contest between loyal men on this subject, if they consider it reasonably. The only question is: — Who constitute the State? When that it is decided, the solution of subsequent questions is easy.

He says that he wrote in the Message originally that he considered the discussion as to whether a State has been at any time out of the Union, as vain and profitless. We know that they were — we trust they shall be — in the Union. It does not greatly matter whether, in the meantime, they shall be considered to have been in or out. But he afterwards considered that the 4th Section, 4th Article of the Constitution, empowers him to grant protection to States in the Union, and it will not do ever to admit that these States have at any time been out. So he erased that sentence as possibly suggestive of evil. He preferred, he said, to stand firmly based on the Constitution rather than work in the air.

Talking about the Missouri matter, he said these radical men have in them the stuff which must save the State, and on which we must mainly rely. They are absolutely uncorrosive by the virus of secession. It cannot touch or taint them. While the conservatives, in casting about for votes to carry through their plans, are tempted to affiliate with those whose record is not clear. If one side must be crushed out and the other cherished, there could be no doubt which side we would choose as fuller of hope for the future. We would have to side with the radicals.

“But just there is where their wrong begins. They insist that I shall hold and treat Governor Gamble and his supporters — men appointed by loyal people of Mo. as rep’^s of Mo. loyalty, and who have done their whole duty in the war faithfully and promptly, — who, even when they have disagreed with me, have been silent and kept about the good work, — that I shall treat these men as copperheads and ruinous to the Government. This is simply monstrous.”

“I talked to these people in this way, when they came to me this fall. I saw that their attack on

Gamble was malicious. They moved against him by flank attacks from different sides of the same question. They accused him of enlisting rebel soldiers among the enrolled militia; and of exempting all the rebels, and forcing Union men to do the duty; all this in the blindness of passion. I told them they were endangering the election of Senators; that I thought their duty was to elect Henderson and Gratz Brown;and nothing has happened in our politics which has pleased me more than that incident.”

He spoke of the newborn fury of some of these men, — of Drake stumping against Rollins in '56 on the ground that Rollins was an abolitionist; — of ci-devant rebels coming here in the radical Convention. Not that he objected; he was glad of it; but fair play! let not the pot make injurious reference to the black base of the kettle; he was in favor of short statutes of limitations.

In reply to a remark of Arnold’s about the improved condition of things in Kentucky, and the necessity of still greater improvement, and the good disposition of the Kentucky congressmen, the President said he had for a long time been aware that the Kentuckians were not regarding in good faith the Proclamation of Emancipation and the laws of Congress, but were treating as slaves the escaped freedmen from Alabama and Mississippi; that this must be ended as soon as his hands grew a little less full. . . . .

SOURCES: Clara B. Hay, Letters of John Hay and Extracts from Diary, Volume 1, p. 135-8; For the whole diary entry see Tyler Dennett, Editor, Lincoln and the Civil War in the Diaries and letters of John Hay, p. 134-7.

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

new York, December 14, 1859.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Major-General George G. Meade to Margaretta Sergeant Meade, April 18, 1865

Headquarters Army Of The Potomac, April 18,1865.

Day before yesterday I sent Captain Emory to Richmond to see after his relatives. I have to-day a telegram from him, stating he had reached Richmond and found our friends all well.

I have heard nothing from General Grant since he left here, and am in complete ignorance of what is going to be done with this army. I note what you say about public opinion in Philadelphia and New York, but if you saw the Herald of the 14th, you ought to be satisfied with what is there said of the feeling of the army towards me.¹ So long as the soldiers appreciate my services, I am indifferent to the opinion of politicians and newspaper editors.

I see the Radicals are down on Grant for the terms he granted Lee. This I expected, but I trust they are in a miserable minority, and that the country will sustain him.

I send you a copy of an order I published announcing the death of the President. It has been well received. I also enclose a letter from an anonymous friend, which was accompanied by an elegant pair of gauntlets.

_______________

¹ For article mentioned, Bee Appendix U.

SOURCE: George Meade, The Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade, Vol. 2, p. 273

Senator James W. Grimes to Elizabeth S. Nealley Grimes, May 10, 1862

This letter (of Commodore Du Pont) will convince you of what I always told you, that Du Pont is a remarkably discreet, judicious, practical man, with generous, noble impulses, and withal a Christian gentleman.

This morning I drew up and passed through the Senate a bill for the benefit of Robert Small, giving him and his associates one-half of the value of the steamer Planter, and also one-half of the value of all the arms, munitions, etc., on board at the time she was captured. The amount to be distributed among him and his associates will be about fifteen thousand dollars.

The President has to-day rescinded Hunter's proclamation. The result will be a general row in the country. All the radical Republicans are indignant but me, and I am not, because I have expected it, and was ready for it. They did not anticipate it, though I have told them all along that it was sure to come. But the end must come, protracted by the obstinacy and stupidity of rulers it may be, but come it will nevertheless.

SOURCE: William Salter, The Life of James W. Grimes, p. 196-7

Senator John Sherman to Major General William T. Sherman, May 16, 1865

MANSFIELD, OHIO, May 16, 1865.

Dear Brother:

Your letter of the 8th is received this morning, and at the same moment I hear through K. W. that you will be in Lancaster to-day. I wrote you some days ago about public opinion as to your arrangement with Johnston, but presume you did not get it. It is now manifest that many high officials seized upon that arrangement to ruin you, and you will not be wise if you allow them to do it. Especially don't ever think of resigning. Your position is too high and valuable to be drawn from it by temporary hostile political power. Remember the case of Scott after the Mexican War. The mystery to me is that Stanton acted as he did. If his motive was malicious, he is certainly the worst devil I ever read of. He manifested and assumed the intensest kindness for you, and certainly showed it to me. I still think that with him it was mere anger, — the explosion of a very bad temper, — and if so, I sincerely trust no breach will be made. With Halleck I was not disappointed. Has Johnson any enmity to you? I have not seen him since his elevation, and have feared he was at the bottom of the business. It is also manifest to me, that the bitter hostility shown you springs partly from political jealousy, — a fear of the future. Much of this is aimed at me. I have observed that every man who is opposed to me is eager to assail you, while my personal friends, even among the Radicals, have defended you. . . .   Chase, you know, is in favor of negro suffrage, and Jay and Henry Cooke are old Republicans, yet they have uniformly, in public and in social circles, sustained you. So with the newspapers. The feeling has so subsided and reacted that you can afford to be calm and cautious. Grant is a jewel. I hope two things,— that you will have no controversy with him, and never resign.

It was my purpose to go to-morrow to Washington, but I will now delay it until Friday or Saturday. I suppose you will soon return to Washington. I may be there some days, and hope to meet you there. . . .

Now as to your arrangement with Johnston.  I think the judgment of unprejudiced men has settled upon the conviction that your terms were too liberal. The recognition of the rebel state organizations, now completely in the hands of the worst men of the South, will not answer. They could perpetuate their sway, and we should inevitably have new difficulties. Lincoln first recognized the Legislature of Virginia, but after full reflection abandoned it. Why did not Stanton and Halleck denounce Lincoln? And why suppress the fact that you were acting in accordance with that precedent? Still I think it was not advisable to recognize the state officials. In my opinion, it would have been wise for you to have insisted upon the recognition of the emancipation proclamation, at least until the courts passed upon it. It would be very wrong to let these rebels enjoy again the unpaid labor of their slaves. Both these questions are past.

As to negro suffrage, I admit the negroes are not intelligent enough to vote, but some one must vote their political representation in the States where they live, and their representation is increased by their being free. Who shall exercise this political power? Shall the rebels do so? If yes, will they not now in effect restore slavery?

Will they not oppress the negroes? Is it not hard to turn these negroes over to the laws made by the very men who endeavored to overthrow the Government? After all, how much more ignorant are these slaves than the uneducated white people down South? I assure you, that while I will not commit myself on these matters, I feel sorely troubled about them, and would be glad to talk with you in respect to them. . . .

Affectionately yours,

JOHN SHERMAN.

SOURCE: Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891, p. 249-51