The Sun.
London, England, 1868-03-10 00:00:00

THE GREAT STANTON CASE.

On the publication of the correspondence on this
case, the President,after due considerati on , forwarded
to the House the following reply and rejoinder :
Executive Mansion, Feb. 10, 1868.—General, —The
extraordinary character of your letter of the 3d
instant would seem to preclude any reply on my
part ; but the manner in which publicity has been
given to the correspondence of which that letter
forms a part, and the grave questions which are in-
volved, induce me to take this mode of giving, as a
proper sequel to the communications which have
passed between us, the statement of the five mem-
bers of the Cabinet who were present on the occa-
sion of our conversation on the 14th ultimo. Copies
of the letters which they have addressed to me are
accordingly herewith enclosed. You speak of my
letter of the 31st ultimo as a reiteration of the
many gross misrepresentations contained in cer-
tain newspaper articles, and reassert the correct-
ness of the statements contained in your commu-
nication of the 28th ultimo, adding, and here I give
your own words, " anything in yours in reply to
the contrary notwithstanding." When a contro-
versy upon matters of fact escapes the point to
which this has been brought, further assertion or
denial between the immediate parties should cease,
especially where upon either side it loses the cha-
racter of a respectful discussion, which is required
by the relations in which the parties stand to each
other, and degenerates in tone and temper. In such
a case, if there is nothing to rely upon but the op-
posing statements, conclusions must be drawn from
the statements alone, and from whatever intrinsic
probabilities they afford in favour or against either
party. I should not shrink from this :test in the
controversy, but fortunately it is not left to this test
alone. There were five Cabinet officers present at
the conversation, the detail of which, in my
letter of the 28th ultimo, you allow yourself to
say contains " many gross misrepresentations."
These gentlemen heard that conversation, and
have read my statement. They speak for
themselves ; and I have the proof, without the
word of comment. I deem it proper' before con-
cluding this communication to notice some of the
statements contained in your letter. You say that
a performance of the promise alleged to have been
made by you to the President " would have involved
a resistance to law and an inconsistency with the
whole history of my connection with the suspension
of Mr. Stanton." You then state that you had
fears the President would, on the removal of Mr.
Stanton, appoint some one in his place who would
embarrass the army in carrying out the reconstruc-
tion acts, and add—" It was to prevent such an ap-
pointment that I accepted the office of the 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, be sought."
First of all, you here admit that from the
very beginning of what you term " the whole
history" of your connection with Mr. Stantoa's
suspension you intended to circumvent the Pre-
sident. It was to carry out that intention
that you accepted the appointment. This was in
your mind at the time of your acceptance. It was
not then in obedience to the order of your superior,
3$ has been heretofore supposed, that you assumed
the duties of the office. You knew it was the Pre-
sident's purpose to prevent Mr. Stanton from re-
suming the office of Secretary of War, and you in-
tended to defeat that purpose. You accepted the
office, not in the interest of the President, but of
Mr. Stanton. If this purpose, so entertained by
you, had beenconfiuedtoyourself—if, when accept-
ing this office, you had done so with a mental re-
servation to frustrate the President, it would have
been a tacit deception. In the ethics of some per-
sons such a course is allowable. But you cannot
stand upon that questionable ground. The " his-
tory" of your connection with that transaction,
as written by yourself, places yourself in a diffe-
rent predicament, and shows that you not only
concealed your design from the President, but in-
duced him to suppose that you would carry out
his purpose to keep Mr. Stanton out of office
by retaining it yourself, after an attempted resto-
ration by the Senate, so as to require Mr. Stanton
to establish his right by judicial decision. f now give
that part of this " history," as written by yourself in
your letter of the 28th ultimo :—" Some time after
I assumed the duties of Secretary of War, ad in-
terim, the President asked me my views as to the
course Mr. Stanton would have to pursue in case
the Senate should not concur in his suspension, to
obtain possession of his office. My reply was, in
substance, that Mr. Stanton would have to appeal
to the Courts to reinstate him, illustrating my posi-
tion by citing the ground I had taken in the case
of the Baltimore Police Commissioners." Now, at
that time, as you admit in your letter of the 3d inst.,
you held the office for the very object of defeating
an appeal to the courts. In that letter you say that
in occupying the office one motive was to prevent
the President from appointing some other person
who would retain possession, and thus make judi-
cial proceedings necessary. You know the President
was unwilling to trust the office with any one who
would not, by holding it, compel Mr. Stanton to
resort to the Courts. You perfectly understood that
in this interview, " some time" after you accepted
the office, the President, not contented with your
silence, desired an expression of your views, and you
answered him that Mr. Stanton " would have to
appeal to the courts." If the President had re-
posed confidence before he knew your views, and
that confidence had been violated, it might have
been said
_he made a mistake ; but a violation of
confidence reposed after that conversation was no
mistake of his, nor of yours. It is the fact only
that needs be stated, that at the date of this con-
versation you did not intend to hold the office
with the purpose of forcing Mr. Stanton into court,
but did hold it then and had accepted it to prevent
that course from being carried out. In other words,
you said to the President, " that this is the proper
course," and you said to yourself, " I have ac-
cepted the office, and now hold it, to defeat that
course." The excuse you make—a subsequent
paragraph of that letter of the 28th ultimo—that
afterwards you changed your views as to what
would be a proper course, has nothing to do with
the point now under consideration. The point is
that before you ' changed your views, you had
secretly determined to do the very thing which
at last you did—surrender the office to Mr. Stanton.
You may have changed your views as to the law, but
you certainly did not change your views as to the
course you had marked out for yourself from the
beginning. I will only notice one more statement
in your letter of the 3d instant—that the perform-
ance of the promises which, it is alleged, were made
by you would have involved you in the resistance
of law. I know of no statute that would have been
violated had you, carrying out your promises in good
faith, tendered your resignation when you concluded
not to be a party in any legal proceedings. You
add—" I am in a measure confirmed in this con-
clusion by your recent orders directing me to dis-
obey orders from the Secretary of War, my superior
and your subordinate, without having counter-
manded his authority to issue the orders I am to
disobey." On the 24th ultimo you addressed a
note to the President requesting in writing an order
given to you verbally five days before, to disregard
orders from Mr. Stanton as Secretary of War until
you " know from the President himself that they
were his orders." On the 29th, in compliance with
your request, I did give you instructions in writing
" not to obey any orders from the War Depart-
ment assumed to be issued by the direction of
the President, unless such order is known by
the General commanding the armies of the United
States to have been authorized by the Execu-
tive." There are some orders which a Secretary of
War may issue without the authority of the Pre-
sident ; there are others which he issues simply as
the agent of the President, and which purports to
be " by direction" of the President. For such
orders the President is responsible, and he should
therefore know and understand what they are be-
fore giving such " directions." Mr. Stanton states,
in his letter of the 4th inst. which accompanies the
published correspondence, that he " has had no
correspondence with the President since 12th Aug.

last ;" and he further says that since he resumed
the duties of the office he has continued to discharge
them " without any personal or written communi-
cation with the President ;" and he adds, "No
orders have been issued from this department in the
name,of the President with my knowledge, and I
have received no orders from him." It thus seems
that Mr. Stanton now discharges the duties of the
War Department without any referenCe to the
President, and without using his name. My order
to you had only reference to orders " assumed to be
issued by direction of the President." It would
appear from Mr. Stanton's letter that you have re-
ceived no such orders from him. However, in your
note to the President of the 30th ult., in which you
acknowledge the receipt of the written order of the
29th, you say that you have been informed by Mr.
Stanton that he has not received any order limiting
his authority to issue orders to the army according to
the practice of the Department, and state that
" while this authority to the War Department is
not countermanded, it will be satisfactory evidence
to me that any orders issued from the War Depart-
ment by direction of the President are authorized
by the Executive." The President issues an order
to you to obey no order from the War Department,
purporting to be made " by the direction of the
President," until you have referred it to him for his
approval. You reply that you have received the
President's order, and will not obey it, but will
obey an order purporting to be given by his
direction if it comes from the War Department.
You will not obey the direct order of the Pre-
sident, but will obey his indirect order. If, as
you say, there has been a practice in the War
Department to issue orders in the name of tne Pre-
sident without his direction, does not the precise
order you have requested and have received change
the practice as to the General of the army ?
Could not the President countermand any such
commands issued to you from the War Depart-
ment? If you should receive an order from the
War Department, issued in the name of the Pre-
sident, to do a special act, and an order from the
President directly not to do the act, is there a
doubt which you ought to obey ? You answer
the question when you say to the President, in your
letter of the 3d instant, the Secret ary of War is
" my superior and your subordinate," and yet you
refuse obedience to the superior out of deference to
the subordinate. Without further comment upon
the subordinate attitude you have assumed, I am
at a loss to know how you can release yourself from
obedience to the orders of the President, who is
made by the Constitution Commander-in-Chief of
the army and navy, and is, therefore, the official
superior as well of the general of the army as of
the Secretary of War. ANDREW JOHNSON.
The documents referred to were the answers from
the five. Cabinet Ministers present at the conversa-
tion alluded to, sent by request of the President,
who called for their versions of the affair. These
were Messrs. Welles, M'Culloeh, Randall, Brown-
ing, and Seward. The Secretary of State's ver-
sion was so characteristic of that gentleman that it
elicited much laughter when read. The corre-
spondence closed with the following reply from
Grant :—" His Excellency A. Johnson, President
of the United States. Sir,—l have the honour to
acknowledge the receipt of your communication of
the 10th inst., accompanied by statements of five
Cabinet Ministers, of their recollection of what oc-
curred in Cabinet meeting on the 14th of Janu-
ary. Without admitting anything in these where
they differ from anything heretofore stated by
me, I propose to notice only that portion of your
communication wherein I am charged with in-
subordination. I think it will be plain to the
reader of my letter of the 30th of January that I
did not prepare to disobey any legal order of the
President distinctly given, but only gave an inter-
pretation of what would be regarded as satisfactory
evidence of the President's sanction to orders com-
municated by the Secretary of War. I will say
here that your letter of the 10th instant contains
the first intimation I have had that you did not
accept that interpretation. Now for reasons for
giving that interpretation. It was clear to me be-
fore my letter of January 30th was written that I,
the person having more public business to trans-
act with the Secretary of War than any other
of the President's subordinates, was the only
one who had been instructed to disregard the
authority of Mr. Stanton where his autho-
rity was denied as agent of the President.
On the 27th of January I received a letter from the
Secretary of War (copy herewith) directing me to
furnish escort to public treasure from the Rio
Grande to New Orleans, &c., at the request of the
Secretary of the Treasury to him. I also send two
other enclosures showing recognition of Mr. Stan-
ton as Secietary of War by both the Secretary of
the-Treasury and the Postmaster-General, in all of
which cases the Secretary of War had to call upon
me to make the orders requested, or give the infor-
mation desired, and where his authority to do so is
derived in my view as agent of the President. With
an order so clearly ambiguous as that of the Presi-
dent here referred to, it was my duty to inform the
President of my interpretation of it and to abide
by that interpretation until I receivedfurther orders.
Disclaiming any intention now or heretofore of dis-
obeying any legal order of the President distinctly
commutiicated--•I remain, very respectfully, your
obedient servant,

" U. S. GRANT, General."

EMIGRATION OF MINERS TO AMERICA.—On ac-
count of the great depression which still exists in the
mining and iron trade, a considerable number of miners in
the Dunfermline district left last week for America,
acting on the suggestion of Mr. M'Donald, president of
the Miners' Association. The mining trade is giving no
evidence of improvement, and many men are still unem-
ployed. The markets are dull, and coal continues to ac-
cumulate at the pitheads. One colliery in the district hag
a stock on hand of about 36,000 tons.

The Cunard steamer Palmyra, which arrived at
New York on the 18th ultimo, reports that on the 12th
ult., at 6 p.m., off Sable Island, she observed a ship on
fire. Captain Watson at once bore down and steamed
round her. Rockets and bluelights were sent up, but were
not responded to. She appeared to bo an American built
ship of about 1,500 tons ; had jibbooms standing, with jibe
carefully furled, and was burning below deck. After hover"
ing around her for some time, and finding none of the
crow, he left her at 8.15 p.m. Captain Billinge, of the
steamship William Penn, also passed the burning vessel.
He said the light could be seen for 70 miles. On approach-
ing ho found her to be an American ship of about 1,000
tons, the position being about 90 miles from Sable Island.
The flames shot out of the hold with great fury. As it
was night rockets were fired by them at intervals, as en
evidence to the crew that there were friends present readl
to relieve them. There was no response, and a boat WO
lowered with the second mate in command, who pulled
round the burning wreck. This examination led the oral(
of the boat to surmise—and this suspicion is endorsed 11
the captain that the vessel was laden with petroleunif
and had been on fire at least two days. She was a blaet"
hulled ship, and the fire had commenced in her hold, the
name on her stern being totally obliterated. It being fan'
weather, with the sea fortunately smooth, Capt. Billings
believes that the crew of the ship had, as soon as they
covered that she was on fire, taken to their boats, al"
unless rescued by some passing vessel not yet heard fr°ll3'
had sailed for and reached Sable Island.

Births.
FIRTH- On the 9th inst., at Vineyard House, Richninildi
Surrey, the wife of A. W. Firth, of a son.
GANDY—On the 7th inst., at Roefield, Clitheroe, the Wif°
of Captain Henry Gandy, of a son.
SAwrouts -On the Bth inst., at 19, Hertford-street, liar
fair, the Hon. Mrs. Alfred Sartoris, of a son.
Marriages.
BUTCHER—STROI:D- On the 7th inst., at St. Jude's,
ton, Frederick William Butcher, of Upper Clapton,
Clifford's-inn, to Harriet Anne, only daughter of J•
Stroud, of Mil imay-park.
KEELING—BARDONS—On the 7th lust., at Christ Lid„r--e tlio
St. Marylebone, W. E. Keeling, Esq., of Devizes'
Frances Anne, second daughter of P. S. Bardons,l3'
of Milton-street, Dorset-square.
Deaths. d
DUNLOP—On the 7th, inst., Miss Isabella Dualop,
cave House, Mahon, Yorkshire, aged 92.
Drake'
DRAKE.—On the 4th inst., at Aldershot, John G. -
Esq., 4th Dragoon Guards, aged 55. JO•
FERRIS On the ath inst., at Westbourne-park, VTln*

Ferris, Esq. aged 61.
,
MOWLEM—On the Bth inst., at Purbeck House, SvralroScis
John Mowlem, Esq., senior partner in the firm of J
Mowlum and Co., Westminster, aged 80.
eri road,
RAWLINGS—On the 7th inst., at Finebley Nee
Hampstead, Daniel Rawlings, Esq., late of Chip
_....!

aged-70.
AND London : Printed and Published by WILLIA.II , 112 t
of No. 112, Strand, Printer, at TRH SON 00100, N° ,v of
Strand, in the Precinct of the Savoy, in the 0‘413
Iliddlon.—Tuesday, March 10, NM