Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2

by George S. Boutwell

Mr. Sumner's removal from the chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Relations was due to the fact that a time came when he did not recognize the President, and when he declined to have any intercourse with the Secretary of State outside of official business. Such a condition of affairs is always a hindrance in the way of good government, and it may become an obstacle to success. Good government can be secured only through conferences with those who are responsible, by conciliation, and not infrequently by concessions to the holders of adverse opinions. The time came when such a condition was no longer possible between Mr. Sumner and the Secretary of State.

The President and his Cabinet were in accord in regard to the controversy with Great Britain as to the Alabama Claims. Mr. Sumner advocated a more exacting policy. Mr. Motley appeared to be following Mr. Sumner's lead, and the opposition to Mr. Sumner extended to Mr. Motley. It had happened that the President had taken on a prejudice to Mr. Motley at their first interview. This I learned when I said something to the President in the line of conciliation. The President said: "Such was my impression of Motley when I saw him that I should have withheld his appointment if I had not made a promise to Sumner." My acquaintance with Mr. Motley began in the year 1849, when we were members of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and I had a high regard for him, although it had been charged that I had had some part in driving him from politics into literature.

When we consider the natures and the training of the two men, it is not easy to imagine agreeable co-operation in public affairs by Mr. Sumner and General Grant. Mr. Sumner never believed in General Grant's fitness for the office of President, and General Grant did not recognize in Mr. Sumner a wise and safe leader in the business of government. General Grant's notion of Mr. Sumner, on one side of his character, may be inferred from his answer when, being asked if he had heard Mr. Sumner converse, he said: "No, but I have heard him lecture."

As I am to speak of Mr. Sumner in our personal relations, which for thirteen years before his death were intimate, I shall use some words of preface. Never on more than two occasions did we have differences that caused any feeling on either side. Mr. Sumner was chairman in the Senate of the Committee on the Freedmen's Bureau, and Mr. Eliot was chairman of the Committee of the House. A report was made in each House, and each bill contained not less than twenty sections. Each House passed its own bill. A committee of conference was appointed. Its report was rejected. I was appointed a member of the second committee.

I examined the bills, and I marked out every section that was not essential to the working of the measure. Four sections remained. I then added a section which provided for the lease and ultimate sale of the confiscated lands to the freedmen and refugees. President Johnson's restoration of those lands made that section non-operative. The committee, upon the motion of General Schenck, transferred the jurisdiction of the Bureau from the Treasury to the War Department. The bill was accepted by the committee, and passed by the two Houses.

When within a few days I was in the Senate Chamber, Mr. Sumner came to me, and said in substance: "The Freedmen's Bureau Bill as it passed is of no value. I have spent six months upon the bill, and my work has gone for nothing. You and General Schenck cannot pretend to know as much as I know about the measure."

With some feeling, which was not justifiable, I said: "I have not spent six hours upon the measure, but after what you have said I will say that the fifth section is of more value than all the sections which you have written." I did not wait for a reply. The subject was not again mentioned; our friendly relations were not disturbed, and it is to Mr. Sumner's credit on the score of toleration that he passed over my rough remarks, even though he had given some reason for a retort.

My next difference from Mr. Sumner was a more serious difference, but it passed without any break in our relations. He had not acquired the church-going habit, or he had renounced it, and my church-going was spasmodic rather than systematic. Thus it became possible and agreeable for me to spend some small portion of each Sunday in his rooms. The controversy over Mr. Motley and his removal from the post of minister to Great Britain excited Mr. Sumner to a point far beyond any excitement to which he yielded, arising from his own troubles or from the misfortunes of the country. To him it was the topic of conversation at all times and in all places. That habit I accepted at his house with as much complacency as I could command. Indeed, I was not much disturbed by what he said to me in private, and certainly not by what he said in his own house, where I went from choice, and without any obligation to remain resting upon me. In all his conversation he made General Grant responsible for the removal of Motley, accompanied, usually, with language of censure and condemnation. On two occasions that were in a measure public, one of which was at a dinner given to me by Mr. Franklin Haven, a personal friend of twenty years' standing, when he insisted upon holding the Motley incident as the topic of conversation. On one of these occasions, and in excitement, he turned to me and said: "Boutwell, you ought to have resigned when Motley was removed."

I said only in reply: "I am the custodian of my own duty."

This was the only personal remark that I ever made to Mr. Sumner in connection with the removal of Motley. The removal was the only reasonable solution of the difficulty in which Motley was involved; but I sympathized with him in the disaster which had overtaken him, and I was not disposed to discuss the subject. The incident at the dinner led me to make a resolution. I called upon Mr. Sumner, and without accepting a seat, I said: "Senator, if you ever mention General Grant's name in my presence, I will never again cross your threshold."