CHAPTER LXI. CONGRESS AT STANTON'S FEET.* The day after Stanton's reinstatement, a large delegation of members of the House, headed by Speaker Colfax, called to ask him. not to resign. This remarkable appeal was based particularly upon Stanton's answer to the President's request for his resignation, wherein he retorted: "Public considerations of a high character, which alone have induced me to continue at the head of the Department, constrain me not to resign the office of secretary of war before the next meeting of Congress." This indicated, which was the fact, that he intended to resign after Congress had convened; but on receiving the resolution reinstating him, he said: "I will obey the mandate of the Senate." Next morning, however, the city and Congress were full of unauthorized talk that he intended to resign, as he was satisfied with his vindication by the Senate. This was what Congress did not want, and Speaker Colfax, accompanied by half a hundred representatives, personally presented a letter signed by sixty others who could not be present, requesting Stanton to continue as secretary of war. The Speaker stated that "since the passage of the tenure-of-office law Mr. Stanton had become an officer of the people, and not removable without the consent of the Senate; that he ought not to resign unless the people demanded it and that the people wanted and expected him to retain his place." Mr. Colfax referred to him as "the Thermopylæ, the pass of greatest value to reconstruction by Congress; that on him rested the safety of reconstruction; that the people and the loyal press would sustain him; that the great Republican party was at his back; that Congress was ready and willing to make any laws for the greatest security and power of the commanders on whom would devolve *Prepared from notes supplied entirely by Major A. E. H. Johnson, who took them on the spot. reconstruction; that he carried his colors open and represented more than any man of the day the policy of Lincoln and the spirit of the people who crushed the great Rebellion, and who were determined to see that victory stand to give peace to the Republic." Mr. Moorhead of Pittsburg said there was now a "complete rupture between the legislative and executive departments of the Government; that there was no one left on whom Congress could rely to execute its laws but the Secretary of War; that the President was aiming to get control of the army; that to defeat that aim the public insisted that the Secretary cooperate with Congress; that in that struggle the Secretary would have the support of General Grant; that for this he had come to ask Stanton to stay." Mr. Kelley of Philadelphia said "the occasion that had brought them to the War Department was full of solemn forebodings; and for the Secretary to leave the post the Senate had put him in would mean turning the army over to the man who was plotting ways to defeat the reconstruction laws Congress had made and to use the military to undo what our great volunteer armies had gained." Mr. Van Horn said that "the Secretary's duties were severe and exacting, the hours anxious and weary; but he had won the respect and confidence of the people, who demanded that he make whatever further sacrifices might be required and stand by Congress in its bitter struggle with the President." Mr. Ferry said that "having been the mainstay in war, Mr. Stanton was now needed more than before in his Department; that, to rule or ruin, the President had the hunter's zeal for the chase, which grows from season to season, and that if there ever was a time when the statesmanship and force of the Secretary were needed to meet the impending destruction, it had come, and he must not resign." Mr. Delano said that "Congress had made a law and the Senate just reenacted it, making the Secretary of War above the President; that it was the intention of Congress that he should be the sole power of the War Department; that rumors of the wild intentions of the President were flying thick and fast and that they had come to ask him not to give up to this power; that with Congress holding the Department through him and the army through Grant, the rage of the President would undo himself instead of the country." R. W. Clarke, of Ohio, said that, "as in the dark days the nation looked to the Secretary of War, so now Congress looked to him; that as he had served Lincoln with heroic power, so now he must serve Congress, and save the country." Mr. Dodge said "the President was under the delusion that the Senate was disgusted because the Secretary of War was staying in a cabinet where he was not wanted, and that Trumbull and Fessenden would vote against his reinstatement. On the contrary Fessenden made the most earnest and able speech for the greatest war minister ever upon the earth, as the link which was destined to bind into continuity a Government that was so far imperiled to hang upon a single thread of loyalty and courage; and that the Secretary was the most promising victim of the hate and venom which characterized the official acts of the renegade at the White House toward loyal officers and people throughout the land. Mr. Stanton is not asked to stay as a member of that man's cabinet, but as a paramount member of a Congress to which he could come for any law or authority he wanted; that he had been suspended because he was true to the policy of Congress and the country, and for such fidelity Congress had given him a world-wide reputation which would survive the treachery of the President; that for this they had come to ask him to stay; that never before in the history of the Government had such a delegation with such a letter called upon any servant of the Government to ask him not to resign." One member said he "did not come to offer congratulations, but on more important business; that he did not believe that Mr. Stanton could have received the unanimous vote of the Republican senators if they had entertained a suspicion that he would resign." Mr. Lawrence said "it seemed that the crucial hour of the Government had been transferred from the field of war; that the enemy at the South had joined hands with the enemy at the North—had flanked our armies and was on the way to seize Congress, but that, fortunately, Congress still had its great captain who had just been given a new commission." Mr. Stanton's short, simple answer at the conclusion of the speeches, "I will not resign," was hailed with enthusiastic clapping of hands and expressions of supreme gladness. The great delegation withdrew, happy in the thought that the country was secure. The picture of Congress at the feet of a single cabinet minister to save themselves from a rampant president is indeed interesting and remarkable! |