Edwin M. Stanton: An Address on Stanton Memorial Day at Kenyon College

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Doubleday, Page, 1906 - 35 pages
 

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Page 30 - And now, Mr. President, when my honor as a soldier and integrity as a man have been so violently assailed, pardon me for saying that I can but regard this whole matter, from the beginning to the end, as an attempt to involve me in the resistance of law, for which you hesitated to assume the responsibility in orders, and thus to destroy my character before the country. I am in a measure confirmed in this conclusion by your recent orders directing me to disobey orders from the Secretary of War —...
Page 25 - Confederates and the assassination of Lincoln in the hour of victory ; Stanton and Seward, like Lincoln, being also marked for death on the conspirators' list. Stanton's report of December, 1865, opens as follows : "The military appropriations by the last Congress amounted to the sum of $516,240,131.70. The military estimates for the next fiscal year, after careful revision, amount to $33,814,461.83." The army was reduced to fifty thousand men. The million of soldiers who had left peaceful pursuits...
Page 15 - Dix: The present administration had no alternative but to accept the war initiated by South Carolina or the Southern Confederacy. The North will sustain the administration almost to a man; and it ought to be sustained at all hazards.
Page 14 - Pittsburg and went to my office every morning on a train crowded with passengers. That morning the cars resembled a disturbed bee-hive. Men could not sit still nor control themselves. One of the leading Democrats who had the previous evening assured me that the people would never approve the use of force against their Southern brethren, nor would he, came forward, greatly excited, and I am sorry to say some of his words were unquotable. "What's wrong with you?
Page 11 - Judge Holt's tribute to Stanton reveals what the republic owes to its defender. He says, "His loyalty to the Union cause was a passion. He could not open his lips on the subject without giving utterance to the strongest expressions. He never changed from first to last in his devotion to his country nor in the resolute manner in which he asserted and upheld his convictions." The decision of the Cabinet, upon which the sovereignty of the republic over all its ports depended, hung for several days in...
Page 30 - Army in the performance of duties especially imposed upon it by these laws; and it was to prevent such an appointment that I accepted the office of Secretary of War ad interim, and not for the purpose of enabling you to get rid of Mr. Stanton by my withholding it from him in opposition to law, or, not doing so myself, surrendering it to one who would, as the statement and assumptions in your communication plainly indicate was sought.
Page 10 - Judge Holt, a . member of the Cabinet, speaking from his own knowledge, tells us that Stanton also declared in the face of the President that a president who signed such an order would be guilty of treason. The President raised his hand deprecatingly, saying: "Not so bad as that, my friend, not so bad as that.
Page 25 - WAR DEPARTMENT, Washington City, November 22, 1865. Mr. PRESIDENT : The military appropriations by the last Congress amounted to the sum of five hundred and sixteen millions two hundred and forty thousand one hundred and thirty-one dollars and seventy cents...
Page 26 - Lincoln's request, a code which he had prepared whereby the states "should be organized without any necessity whatever for the intervention of rebel organizations or rebel aid." Lincoln's last telegram, April nth, following Stanton's policy, was to General Weitzel, in command at Richmond, ordering that "those who had acted as the Legislature of Virginia in support of the rebellion be now allowed to assemble even in their individual capacity.
Page 5 - He soon qualified for the law, became prosecuting attorney, and in his twenty -third year had built up a lucrative practice. He removed to Pittsburg in 1847 and it was there in his early prime that I, as telegraph messenger boy, had the pleasure of seeing him frequently, proud to get his nod of recognition as I sometimes stopped him on the street or entered his office to deliver a message.

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