[98] Diary of Gideon Welles, iii, 10-12.
[99] Boutwell, Reminiscences, ii, 108.
[100] This was the second time that Sumner had shunted the nation in the direction he desired it to go; the first time was when he filibustered the Louisiana Bill to death at the end of the Thirty-ninth Congress. Edward L. Pierce, his biographer and eulogist, writing in the early nineties, says rather dubiously: "For weal or woe, whether it was well or not for the black race and the country, it is to Sumner's credit or discredit as a statesman that suffrage, irrespective of race or color, became fixed and universal in the American system." (Memoir and Letters, i, 228.)
[101] Fifty Years of Public Service, by Shelby M. Cullom, p. 146.
[102] Diary of Gideon Welles, ii, 484.
CHAPTER XX
IMPEACHMENT
Early in 1867, Congress passed an act, originating in the Senate, to prevent the President from removing, without the consent of the Senate, any office-holders whose appointment required confirmation by that body. In its inception it was not intended to include members of the Cabinet, but merely to protect postmasters, collectors, and other appointees of that grade, whom the President, in his stump speech at St. Louis, had declared his intention to "kick out." Accordingly a clause was inserted excluding Cabinet officers from the operation of the measure.
When the bill came before the House, a motion was made to strike out this exception, and it was at first negatived by a majority of four. Subsequently the motion was renewed and carried, but the Senate refused to concur. The differences between the two houses were referred to a committee of conference of which Sherman was a member. He had been extremely resolute heretofore in opposing the attempt to include members of the Cabinet, because he held that no gentleman would be willing to remain a member after receiving an intimation from his chief that his services were no longer desired. To this Senator Hendricks replied that it was not a question of getting rid of a gentleman, but of a man of different stamp, who might be in the Cabinet and desire to stay in. "The very person who ought to be turned out," he said, "is the very person who will stay in." The Conference Committee reported the following proviso, which was adopted by both houses: