PUBLIC DOCUMENTS. 



651 



office as I occupied previous to your appointment, by 

 returning it to me in time to anticipate such action by 

 the Senate. 



This you admitted. 



Second. I then asked you if, at our conference on 

 the preceding Saturday, I had not, to avoid misun- 

 derstanding, requested you to state what you intend- 

 ed to do ; and further, if, in reply to that inquiry, 

 m had not referred to our former conversations, say- 

 g that from them I understood your position, and 

 that your action would be consistent with the under- 

 standing which had been reached. 



To these questions you also replied in the affirma- 

 tive. 



Third. I next asked if, at the conclusion of our 

 interview on Saturday, it was not understood that we 

 were to have another conference on Monday ?> be- 

 fore final action by the Senate in the case of Mr. 

 Stanton. 



You replied that such was the understanding, but 

 that you did not suppose the Senate would act so 

 soon ; that on Monday you had been engaged in a 

 conference with General Sherman, and were occu- 

 pied with "many little matters," and asked if Gen- 

 eral Sherman had not called on that day. What 

 relevancy General Sherman's visit to me on Monday 

 had with the purpose for which you were then to 

 have called, 1 am at a loss to perceive, as he cer- 

 tainly did not inform me whether you had deter- 

 mined to retain possession of the office, or to afford 

 me an opportunity to appoint a successor, in advance 

 of any attempted reinstatement of Mr. Stanton. 



This account of what passed between us at the 

 Cabinet meeting on the 14th instant widely differs 

 from that contained in your communication, for it 

 shows that, instead of having " stated our conversa- 

 tions as given in the letter" which has made this 

 reply necessary, you admitted that my recital of 

 them was entirely accurate. Sincerely anxious, how- 

 ever, to be correct in my statements, I have to-day 

 made this narration of what occurred on the 14th in- 

 stant to the members of the- Cabinet who were then 

 present. They, without exception, agree in its ac- 

 curacy. 



It is only necessary to add that on "Wednesday 

 morning, the loth, you called on me, in company 

 with Lieutenant- General Sherman. After some pre- 

 liminary conversation, you remarked that an article 

 in the National Intelligencer, of that date, did you 

 much injustice. I replied that I had not read the 

 Intelligencer of that morning You then first told 

 me that' it was your intention to urge Mr. Stanton to 

 resign his office. 



After you had withdrawn, I carefully read the arti- 

 cle of which you had spoken, and found that its 

 statements of the understanding between us were 

 substantially correct. On the 17th, I caused it to be 

 read to four of the five members of the Cabinet who 

 were present at our conference on the 14th, and they 

 concurred in the general accuracy of its statements 

 respecting our conversation^pon that occasion. 



In reply to your communication, I- have deemed it 

 proper, in order to prevent further misunderstand- 

 ing, to make this simple recital of facts. 

 Very respectfully, yours, 



ANDREW JOHNSON. 



General U. S. GRANT, commanding U. S. Armies. 



HEADQUARTEKS ARMY OF THE UNITED STATES, ) 

 WASHINGTON, D. C., February 3, 1868. f 

 SIR : I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt 

 of your communication of the 31st ultimo in answer 

 to mine of the 28th ultimo. After a careful reading 

 and comparison of it with the article in the National 

 Intelligencer of the 15th ultimo, and the article over 

 the initials " J. B. S." in the New York World of the 

 27th ultimo, purporting to be based upon your state- 

 ment and that of the members of your Cabinet there- 

 in named, I find it to be but a reiteration only some- 

 what more in detail of the "many and gross mis- 



representations " contained in these articles, nnd 

 which my statement of the facts set forth in my letter 

 of the 28th ultimo was intended to correct ; and I here 

 reassert the correctness of my statements in that letter, 

 any thingin yours in reply to it to the contrary not- 

 withstanding. 



I confess my surprise that the Cabinet officers re- 

 ferred to should so greatly misapprehend the facts in 

 the matter of admissions alleged to have been made 

 by me at the Cabinet meeting of the 14th ultimo as 

 to suffer their names to be made the basis of the 

 charges in the newspaper article referred to, or agree 

 in the accuracy, as you affirm they do, of your ac- 

 count of what occurred at that meeting. 



You know that we parted on Saturday, the llth 

 ultimo, without any promise on my part, either ex- 

 press or implied, to the effect that I would hold on to 

 the office of Secretary of War ad interim against the 

 action of the Senate, or, declining to do so myself, 

 would surrender it to you before such action was had, 

 or that I would see you again at any fixed time on 

 the subject. 



The performance of the promises alleged by you to 

 have been made by me would have involved a resist- 

 ance to law and an inconsistency with the whole his- 

 tory of my connection with the suspension of Mr. 

 Stanton. 



From our conversations and my written protest of 

 August 1, 1867, against the removal of Mr. Stanton, 

 you must have known that my greatest objection to 

 his removal or suspension was the fear that some one 

 would be appointed in his stead who would, by oppo- 

 sition to the laws relating to the restoration ot the 

 Southern States to their proper relations to the Gov- 

 ernment, embarrass the 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 statements and assumptions in your 

 communication plainly indicate was sought. 



And it was to avoid this same danger, as well as to 

 relieve you from the personal embarrassment in 

 which Mr. Stanton' s reinstatement would place you, 

 that I urged the appointment of Governor Cox, be- 

 lieving that it would be agreeable to you and also to 

 Mr. Stanton, satisfied as I was that it was the good 

 of the country, and not the office, the latter desired. 



On the 15th ultimo, in presence of General Sher- 

 man, I stated to you that I thought Mr. Stanton 

 would resign, but did not say that I would advise 

 him to do so. On the 18th I did agree with General 

 Sherman to go and advise him to that course, and on 

 the 19th I had an interview alone with Mr. Stanton, 

 which led me to the conclusion that any advice to 

 him of the kind would be useless, and I so informed 

 General Sherman. 



Before I consented to advise Mr. Stanton to resign, 

 I understood from him, in a conversation on the sub- 

 ject immediately after his reinstatement, that it was, 

 his opinion that the act of Congress entitled " An act 

 temporarily to supply vacancies in the Executive De- 



?artments in certain cases," approved February 20, 

 863, was repealed by subsequent legislation, which 

 materially influenced my action. Previous to this 

 time I had had no doubt that the law of 1863 was 

 still in force, and, notwithstanding my action, a fuller 

 examination of the law leaves a question in my mind 

 whether it is or is not repealed ; this being the case, 

 I could not now advise his resignation, lest the same 

 danger I apprehended on his first removal might 

 follow. 



The course you would have it understood I agreed 

 to pursue was in violation of law and without orders 

 from you, while the course I did pursue, and which I 

 never doubted you fully understood, was in accord- 

 ance with law, and not in disobedience of any orders 

 of my superior. 



