Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1

by George S. Boutwell

It is not easy, from a legal point of view, to justify the action of the President. If the conduct of Fremont in refusing to recognize the authority of General Kearny was an offence, it must have rested upon the fact that Kearny exhibited to him evidence which should have satisfied a reasonable person that he had authority from the President to take command of the military forces in California; and if such authority was exhibited to Fremont and he refused obedience, his refusal constituted the crime of mutiny. The other offences charged against Fremont would have followed as a matter of course; but in the absence of proof that he was guilty of mutiny, there was no evidence whatever on which the minor charges could be sustained. Thus ended Fremont's military services and his career as an explorer when he was less than thirty-four years of age.

Fremont's subsequent career may be considered under three heads. First, in business affairs, in which, apparently, he was unsuccessful. Next, he was the first candidate of the Republican Party for the office of President of the United States. His acceptance of the nomination, and his letters and statements touching the policy and purposes of the new organization were not merely formal, but they were pronounced declarations in favor of the movement, with clear expressions in harmony with the object of the party, which was the prevention of the extension of slavery in the Territories. Although a Southern man by birth his devotion to the freedom of the Territories was as ardent as that of Lincoln, or any of the other leaders of the time. Finally, in the Civil War, he made a tender of his services to the Government, and as Major-General, and in command of the forces in the Department of Missouri, he issued a proclamation of emancipation of the slaves within his jurisdiction. This proclamation was countermanded by the President, and for the sufficient reason that he reserved to himself the absolute control of the question of the abolition of slavery in the seceding States and within the lines of our armies. It cannot be said that Fremont's military career was marked by any signal successes, but there can be no doubt of his ardent devotion to the cause of his country.

[* Chappe d'Auteroche, "Voyage en Sibirie," fait en 1761, 4 vols., 4th ed., Paris, 1768.

** Fremont "Report of the Exploring Expedition," pp. 154 and 273-276.]

XXVII ORGANIZATION OF THE INTERNAL REVENUE SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES

Before the work at Cairo was finished I received a message from Mr. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury, asking me to come to Washington and take charge of the Internal Revenue Office, or rather, to organize it under a statute then recently passed, but which I had not seen. After a conversation with Mr. Dana, who advised me to accept the place, I returned to Washington, where I arrived July 16, 1862. After an interview with Mr. Chase I took the oath of office before Mr. Justice Wayne of the Supreme Court. He was then aged and that fact may have deterred him from following the example of his younger associate, Justice Campbell, who resigned his office, and joined in the work of secession. Judge Wayne was disposed to conversation, but he made no allusion to the war and the issues involved.

I was assigned to a small room on the first floor of the Treasury building, on the right of the lower door fronting on Pennsylvania Avenue. First, I read the statute and formed for myself an idea of the process by which the machine was to be set in motion. The statute was a remarkable exhibition of legislative wisdom under the circumstances, but it was incomplete in parts rather than imperfect in plan. In the course of two or three days Mr. Chase assigned to me three clerks from other offices in the Treasury, and all of them were very competent assistants—Mr. Estes, Mr. George Parnell, and Mr. A. B. Johnson. The order of assignment I do not recall. Mr. Estes went to New York in a few months, where he engaged in business. Mr. Parnell remained in the department many years and until his death. Mr. Johnson was subsequently transferred to the Lighthouse Board, of which he is the chief clerk.

We first considered what blanks would be needed to enable assessors and collectors to perform their duties and make proper records and returns. Then we devised the books for the local offices, and for the offices in Washington. There was but one error as tested by experience in the preparations of the blanks and books, and the forms were followed in the department, except so far as changes in the law required alteration. Thus far there has never been a fraud or defalcation that was attributable to inadequate checks in the system. While I was at the head of the office, Mr. Chase never required me to retain a clerk who was incompetent or untrustworthy. There were times, however, when he looked to appointments with reference to Presidential preferences, and he always considered himself in the line of succession.

Mr. Chase's mental processes were slow, but time being given, he had the capacity to form sound opinions. Not infrequently, when I called at his office for conference, he would say: "My mind is preoccupied— you must either decide for yourself, or call again." As a result, he never gave an opinion or tendered any advice in relation to the business of the Internal Revenue Office while I was at the head of it. Mr. Chase had only a limited knowledge of the business of the department. Indeed, only a very extraordinary man could have administered the business of the department systematically, with a daily or frequent knowledge of the doings of the many heads of bureaus and divisions, and at the same time have matured and put into operation, the financial measures which were required by the exigencies of the war.

Mr. Chase's three great measures were the Abolition of State Banks and the substitution of the National Banking System, the issue of the United States legal tender notes, and the issue of the Five-Twenty Bonds. In combination, as a financial system, they enabled the country to carry a debt of three thousand million dollars, and it is probable that a debt of six thousand million would not have paralyzed the public credit. It is an instance of the frailty of human nature, when men are in the presence of great temptations, that when he became Chief Justice of the United States, he announced the opinion that the issue of United States legal tender notes was unconstitutional. That measure was the key to his financial system, and a measure indispensable to the prosecution of the war. It was a forced loan, but in an exigency a government has as good a right to force capital into the public service as to force men. If in 1862 Mr. Chase had acted upon the doctrine set forth in his judicial opinion in the Hepburn and Griswold case, the probability is that the government of Mr. Lincoln would have been reduced financially to an equality with the government of the Confederate States. The ultimate reversal of that opinion is the most important act of the Supreme Court. It gives to the political department of the Government, the power to convert all the resources of the country into the means of defence in time of war, foreign or domestic.