. . . "I have always talked kindly to the President, and have advised Grant to do so. I do think that it is best for all hands that his administration be allowed to run out its course without threatened or attempted violence. Whoever begins violent proceedings will lose in the long run. Johnson is not a man of action but of theory, and so long as your party is in doubt as to the true mode of procedure, it would be at great risk that an attempt be made to displease the President by a simple law of Congress. This is as much as I have ever said to anybody. I have never, by word or inference, given anybody the right to class me in opposition to, or in support of, Congress. On the contrary, I told Mr. Johnson that from the nature of things he could not dispense with a Congress to make laws and appropriate money, and suggested to him to receive and make overtures to such men as Fessenden, Trumbull, Sherman, Morgan, and Morton, who, though differing with him in abstract views of constitutional law and practice, were not destructive. That if the congressional plan of reconstruction succeeded, he could do nothing, and if it failed or led to confusion, the future developed results in his favor, etc.; and that is pretty much all I have ever said or done. At the meeting of the society of the army of the Tennessee on the 13th inst., I will be forced to speak, if here, and though I can confine myself purely to the military events of the past, I can make the opportunity of stating that in no event will I be drawn into the complications of the civil politics of this country.
"If Congress could meet and confine itself to current and committee business, I feel certain that everything will work along quietly till the nominations are made, and a new presidential election will likely settle the principle if negroes are to be voters in the states without the consent of the whites. This is more a question of prejudice than principle, but a voter has as much right to his prejudices as to his vote. . . ."
I answered:
"Mansfield, Ohio, November 1, 1867. "Dear Brother:— . . . I see no real occasion for trouble with Johnson. The great error of his life was in not acquiescing in and supporting the 14th amendment of the constitution in the 39th Congress. This he could easily have carried. It referred the suffrage question to each state, and if adopted long ago the whole controversy would have culminated; or, if further opposed by the extreme radicals, they would have been easily beaten. Now I see nothing short of universal suffrage and universal amnesty as the basis. When you come on, I suggest that you give out that you go on to make your annual report and settle Indian affairs. Give us notice when you will be on, and come directly to my house, where we will make you one of the family.
"Grant, I think, is inevitably the candidate. He allows himself to drift into a position where he can't decline if he would, and I feel sure he don't want to decline. My judgment is that Chase is better for the country and for Grant himself, but I will not quarrel with what I cannot control.
"John Sherman."
And later I wrote:—
"If you can keep free from committals to Johnson, you will surely as you live be called upon to act as President. The danger now is that the mistakes of the Republicans may drift the Democratic party into power. If so, the Rebellion is triumphant, and no man active in suppressing it will be treated or honored. Grant is not injured by his correspondence with Johnson, but no doubt feels annoyed. . . ."
At this time President Johnson had come to open disagreement with Mr. Stanton, his Secretary of War, and wished to force him from the cabinet. Mr. Stanton had refused to resign and had been upheld by Congress. The President then turned for help in his difficulties to General Grant, commanding the army; but the latter found that any interference on his part would be illegal and impossible.
Mr. Johnson then planned to create a new office for General Sherman, that of brevet general of the army, in order to bring him to Washington.