The Life of Lyman Trumbull

98

Diary of Gideon Welles, iii, 10-12.

99

Boutwell, Reminiscences, ii, 108.

100

This was the second time that Sumner had shunted the nation in the direction he desired it to go; the first time was when he filibustered the Louisiana Bill to death at the end of the Thirty-ninth Congress. Edward L. Pierce, his biographer and eulogist, writing in the early nineties, says rather dubiously: "For weal or woe, whether it was well or not for the black race and the country, it is to Sumner's credit or discredit as a statesman that suffrage, irrespective of race or color, became fixed and universal in the American system." (Memoir and Letters, i, 228.)

101

Fifty Years of Public Service, by Shelby M. Cullom, p. 146.

102

Diary of Gideon Welles, ii, 484.

103

On the 3d of August, 1868, shortly after his acquittal, Johnson wrote a letter to Benjamin C. Truman, his former secretary, which gives his estimate of Grant and throws some new light on the politics of the time. There is nothing to show which of the Blairs was referred to as giving him advice as to the make-up of his Cabinet, but it was probably Montgomery. He says:

"I may have erred in not carrying out Mr. Blair's request by putting into my Cabinet Morton, Andrew, and Greeley. I do not say I should have done so had I my career to go over again, for it would have been hard to have put out Seward and Welles, who had served satisfactorily under the greatest man of all. Morton would have been a tower of strength, however, and so would Andrew. No senator would have dared to vote for impeachment with those two men in my Cabinet. Grant was untrue. He meant well for the first two years, and much that I did that was denounced was through his advice. He was the strongest man of all in the support of my policy for a long while and did the best he could for nearly two years in strengthening my hands against the adversaries of constitutional government. But Grant saw the radical handwriting on the wall and heeded it. I did not see it, or, if seeing it, did not heed it. Grant did the proper thing to save Grant, but it pretty nearly ruined me. I might have done the same thing under the same circumstances. At any rate, most men would.... Grant had come out of the war the greatest of all. It is true that the rebels were on their last legs and that the Southern ports were pretty effectually blockaded, and that Grant was furnished with all the men that were needed, or could be spared, after he took command of the Army of the Potomac. But Grant helped more than any one else to bring about this condition. His great victories at Donelson, Vicksburg, and Missionary Ridge all contributed to Appomattox." (Century Magazine, January, 1913.)

104

Rhodes, History of the United States, vi, 104.

105

McPherson, Reconstruction, p. 307.

106

Diary of Gideon Welles, iii, 335.

107

Diary of Gideon Welles, iii, 355.

108

Diary of Gideon Welles, iii, 358.

109

This fact is mentioned in Dunning's Reconstruction, p. 107, on the authority of ex-senator Henderson. The latter verbally made the same statement to me.

110

Century Magazine, January, 1913.

111

History of the United States, vi, 156.

112

Cong. Globe, 1869, p. 113.

113

Mr. Wilson communicated these facts to me at the time of their occurrence, and the correctness of this narrative has been confirmed by Major-General Grenville M. Dodge, who was then in close communication with both parties.

114

Cong. Globe, March 10, 1871, p. 48.

115

Cong. Globe, 1871, p. 51.

116

E. L. Pierce, in his Life of Sumner, says that the position was first offered to Frelinghuysen, of New Jersey, and that he was confirmed by the Senate on the last day of the session. Evidently he did not accept it.

117

Mr. Charles F. Adams has shown in a recent essay that the British Ministry were perfectly aware that the capture of Mason and Slidell was justifiable by British custom and precedent, but that public opinion was so inflamed on the subject that they were swept off their feet, and could not have faced Parliament an hour if they had not demanded the surrender of the prisoners. On the other hand, our practice and precedents were directly opposite. The American doctrine was "free ships make free goods" and a fortiori free persons, but so inflamed was public opinion on this side of the water that the British demand for the surrender of the prisoners would have been refused even at the risk of war, if we had not had one war on hand already. Both nations "flopped" simultaneously. The Trent Affair—an Historical Retrospect. By Charles Francis Adams. Boston, 1912.

118

Washington letter in the Nation, January 6, 1870.

119

Cong. Globe, 1871, pp. 578-79.

120

Cong. Globe, 1871, p. 688.

121

United States v. Harris, 106 U.S. 629.

122

Cong. Globe, 1871, p. 51.

123

See House report No. 50, 37th Congress, 3d session, page 38.

124

Rhodes, History of the United States, vii, 182-89.

125

This interview was reprinted in the New York Times of December 6. It is corroborated in sentiment by the Trumbull manuscripts of that date, but it was probably not intended for publication. It purports to be a conversation between Trumbull and an ex-Senator.

126

Chicago Times, April 22.

127

Frank W. Bird, of Boston, who went to Cincinnati as an anti-Adams delegate, wrote to Charles Sumner on May 7: "Don't believe a word about the trade, in any discreditable sense, between Blair and Brown on the one part and the Greeley men on the other. Undoubtedly Blair wanted to head off Schurz, and equally truly an arrangement was made, or an understanding reached, on Thursday night, in a certain contingency to unite a portion of the Brown and Greeley forces: but, except perhaps in the motives of the leading negotiators on one side, there was nothing unusual in the affair, nothing that is not usually—indeed, almost necessarily—done in such conventions; nothing that was not contemplated and even proposed by the Adams men." (Sumner papers in Harvard University Library.)

128

This fact was given to me by General Dodge, in writing.

129

John Bigelow's Diary, under date Nov. 28, 1872, contains the following entry:

"Greeley is now in a madhouse, and before morning will probably be dead—so Swinton tells me to-day; and Reid, whom I saw to-day, confirms these apprehensions." Retrospections of an Active Life, v, 91.

130

Cong. Globe, 1873, p. 1744.

131

Rhodes thinks that the influence which prevailed with Grant in this instance was that of Morton. (History of the United States, vii, 111.)

132

Rhodes, History of the United States, VII, 231.

133

Interview, June 13, 1910.

134

Diary of Gideon Welles, III, 21.

135

Chicago Times, June 26, 1896.

136

Chicago Times, June 26, 1896.

137

Herndon's Life of Lincoln, 537, 538.