Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2

by George S. Boutwell

I said in reply: "If the suit had been for $3,000 only, it might have given me some uneasiness, as a recovery would have involved payment. A judgment of $3,000,000 implies impossibility of payment."

I had no knowledge of Galvin, but his letters of advice were found on the files of the Treasury. Even after the suit, I did not examine them for the purpose of forming an opinion of their value or want of value. Galvin alleged in his declaration that he had furnished the financial policy that I had adopted, that it had benefitted the country to the amount of $300,000,000 and more, and that a claim of $3,000,000 was a moderate claim. Under the statute, the Department of Justice assumed the defence. The case lingered, Galvin died, and the case followed.

At the election of 1872, I voted at Groton in the morning, and in the afternoon I went to New York, to find that General Grant had been re-elected by a sufficient majority. On the morning of the next day, I left the hotel with time for a call upon General Dix, who had been elected Governor, and for a call upon Thurlow Weed. General Dix was not at home. Notwithstanding the criticisms of Thurlow Weed as a manager of political affairs in the State of New York and in the country, I had reasons for regarding him with favor, although I had never favored the aspirations of Mr. Seward, his chief. When I was organizing the Internal Revenue Office in 1862-1863, Mr. Weed gave me information in regard to candidates for office in the State of New York, including their relations to the factions that existed—usually Seward and anti-Seward—and with as much fairness as he could have commanded if he had had no relation to either faction.

As I had time remaining at the end of my call upon Mr. Weed, and as I had in mind Mr. Stewart's message at the Cooper Union meeting, I drove to his down-town store, where I found him. He received me with cordiality, but in respect to his health he seemed to be already a doomed man. He was anxious chiefly to give me an opportunity to comprehend the nature and magnitude of his business. As I was about to leave, he took hold of my coat button and said: "When you see the President, you give my love to him, and say to him that I am for him and that I always have been for him." Still holding me by the button, he said: "Who buys the carpets for the Treasury?"

I said: "Mr. Saville is the chief clerk, and he buys the carpets."

Mr. Stewart said: "Tell him to come to me; I will sell him carpets as cheap as anybody."

When I repeated Mr. Stewart's message to the President he made no reply, and he gave no indication that he was hearing what I was saying.

In regard to Judge Hoar's relations to President Grant, the public has been invited to accept several errors, the appointment to the bench of the Supreme Court of Justices Bradley and Strong, by whose votes the first decision of the court in the Legal Tender cases was overruled, and the circumstances which led to the retirement of Judge Hoar from the Cabinet. First of all I may say that President Grant was attached to Judge Hoar, and, as far as I know, his attachment never underwent any abatement. Whatever bond there may be in the smoking habit, it was formed without delay at the beginning of their acquaintance. While General Grant was not a teller of stories, he enjoyed listening to good ones, and of these Judge Hoar had a large stock always at command. General Grant enjoyed the society of intellectual men, and Judge Hoar was far up in that class. General Grant had regrets for the retirement of Judge Hoar from his Cabinet, and for the circumstances which led to his retirement. His appointment of Judge Hoar upon the Joint High Commission and the nomination of Judge Hoar to a seat upon the bench of the Supreme Court may be accepted as evidence of General Grant's continuing friendship, and of his disposition to recognize it, notwithstanding the break in official relations.

Judge Hoar's professional life had been passed in Massachusetts, and he had no personal acquaintance with the lawyers of the circuit from which Justices Strong and Bradley were appointed. Strong and Bradley were at the head of the profession in the States of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and in truth there was no debate as to the fitness of their appointment. Judge Hoar was not responsible for their appointment, and I am of the opinion that the nomination would have been made even against his advice, which assuredly was not so given. Judge Strong, as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, had sustained the constitutionality of the Legal Tender Act, and it was understood that Bradley was of the same opinion. As the President and Cabinet were of a like opinion, it may be said that there could have been no "packing" of the Supreme Court except by the exclusion of the two most prominent lawyers in the circuit and the appointment of men whose opinions upon a vital question were not in harmony with the opinion of the person making the appointment.

As to myself, I had never accepted the original decision as sound law under the Constitution, nor as a wise public policy, if there had been no Constitution. By the decision the Government was shorn of a part of its financial means of defence in an exigency. When the Supreme Court had reached a conclusion, Chief Justice Chase called upon me and informed me of that fact, about two weeks in advance of the delivery of the opinion. He gave as a reason his apprehension of serious financial difficulties due to a demand for gold by the creditor class. Not sharing in that apprehension, I said: "The business men are all debtors as well as creditors, and they cannot engage in a struggle over gold payments, and the small class of creditors who are not also debtors will not venture upon a policy in which they must suffer ultimately." The decision did not cause a ripple in the finances of the country.