"Since my last annual report the business of negotiating two hundred million of 5 per cent bonds, and the redemption of two hundred million 6 per cent five-twenty bonds has been completed and the accounts have been settled by the accounting officers of the Treasury.
"Further negotiations of 5 per cent bonds can now be made on the basis of the former negotiation."
XXXVII GENERAL GRANT'S ADMINISTRATION
The greatness of General Grant in war, in civil affairs, and in personal qualities which at once excite our admiration and deserve our commendation, was not fully appreciated by the generation to which he belonged, nor can it be appreciated by the generations that can know of him only as his life and character may appear upon the written record. He had weaknesses, and of some of them I may speak; but they do not qualify in any essential manner his claim to greatness in the particulars named. He was not fortunate in the circumstances incident to the appointment of his Cabinet. The appointment of Mr. Washburne as Secretary of State for the brief period of one or two weeks was not a wise opening of the administration, if the arrangement was designed, and was a misfortune, if the brief term was due to events not anticipated. The selection of Mr. Fish compensated, and more than compensated, for the errors which preceded his appointment. The country can never expect an administration of the affairs of the Department of State more worthy of approval and eulogy than the administration of Mr. Fish. Apparently we were then on the verge of war with Great Britain, and demands were made in very responsible quarters which offered no alternative but war. The treaty of 1871, which was the outcome of Mr. Fish's diplomacy, re-established our relations of friendship with Great Britain, and the treaty was then accepted as a step in the direction of general peace.
In the month of February, 1869, I received an invitation from General Grant to call upon him on an evening named and at an hour specified. At the interview General Grant asked me to take the office of Secretary of the Interior. As reasons for declining the place, I said that my duties and position in the House were agreeable to me and that my services there might be as valuable to the Administration as my services in the Cabinet. General Grant then said that he intended to give a place to Massachusetts, and it might be the Secretary of the Interior or the Attorney-Generalship. He then asked for my advice as to persons, and said that if he named an Attorney-General from Massachusetts, he had in mind Governor Clifford, whom he had met. Governor Clifford was my personal friend, he had been the Attorney- General of the State during my term as Governor, he was a gentleman of great urbanity of manner, a well-equipped lawyer, and as an advocate he had secured and maintained a good standing in the profession and through many years. He had come into the Republican Party from the Webster wing of the Whig Party. To me he was a conservative, and I was apprehensive that his views upon questions arising, or that might arise, from our plan of reconstruction might not be in harmony with the policy of the party. Upon this ground, which I stated to General Grant, I advised against his appointment. I named Judge Hoar for Attorney-General and Governor Claflin for the Interior Department. I wrote the full address of Judge Hoar upon a card, which I gave to General Grant. Judge Hoar was nominated and confirmed.
At the same time, Alexander T. Stewart, of New York, was nominated and confirmed as Secretary of the Treasury. It was soon discovered that Mr. Stewart, being an importer, was ineligible for the office. Mr. Conkling said there were nine statutes in his way. A more effectual bar was in the reason on which the statutes rested, namely, that no man should be put in a situation to be a judge in his own cause. The President made a vain effort to secure legislation for the removal of the bar. Next, Judge Hilton, then Mr. Stewart's attorney, submitted a deed of trust by which Mr. Stewart relinquished his interest in the business during his term of office. The President submitted that paper to Chief Justice Cartter of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia. The Chief Justice gave a brief, adverse, oral opinion, and in language not quotable upon a printed page.
We have no means of forming an opinion of Mr. Stewart's capacity for administrative work, and I do not indulge in any conjectures. His nomination was acceptable to the leading business interests of the country, and in the city of New York it was supported generally. He was a successful man of business and an accumulator of wealth, and at that time General Grant placed a high estimate upon the presence of talents by which men acquire wealth.
Following these events, there were early indications that Mr. Stewart's interest in the President had been diminished, and gradually he took on a dislike to me. When I knew of his nomination, or when I knew it was to be made, I met him in Washington and assured him of my disposition to give my support to his administration. On two occasions when I was in New York I made calls of civility upon him, but, as he made no recognition in return, my efforts in that direction came to an end.
At a dinner given by merchants and bankers in the early part of September, 1869, at which I was a guest, Mr. Stewart made a speech in which he criticized my administration of the Treasury. In the canvass of 1872 the rumor went abroad that Mr. Stewart had given $25,000 to the Greeley campaign fund. In the month of October of that year, the twenty-eighth day, perhaps, I spoke at the Cooper Union. Upon my arrival in New York, I received a call from a friend who came with a message from Mr. Stewart. Mr. Stewart would not be at the meeting, although except for the false rumor in regard to his subscription to the Greeley fund, he should have taken pleasure in being present. As General Grant was to be elected, his attendance at the meeting might be treated by the public as an attempt to curry favor with General Grant and the incoming Administration.
As I was passing to the hall, a paper was placed into my hands by a person who gave no other means of recognizing his presence. When I reached the hall and opened the paper, I found that it was a summons to appear as a defendant in an action brought by a man named Galvin, who claimed damages in the sum of $3,000,000. At the close of the meeting and when the fact became known one gentleman said to me: "I do not see how you could have spoken after such a summons."