The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1874-01-22
Cushing and the Chief Justiceship.

The excitement over the nomination Of
Caleb Cushing came to an abrupt termin-
alton last week, by a message from the
President withdrawing his name. The inn
mediate cause for this was the discovery
among the captured documents of the
Coniederacy of letter from Cushing to
jeff Davis, introducing Il young man who
desired, from devotion to the Confederacy,
to leave Washington for the South. The
following is the letter.
WASHINGTON, March Goth, 1861.
Dear Sir Mr.. Archibald Roane, for the last
six or seven years a clerk in the Attorney Gen
erals Office desires from me a letter of intro
duction to you, and he desires it not in the view
or anticipation of administrative favors; but
that he may have the honor of your personal
intercourse. Of this, take pleasure in assur-
ing you, he is emnently worthy. A Southern
man by birth, family and affection, he has care
full studied and ably discussed in Mr. De Bows
Review and other Southern works, the lamenta-
BILE events which have been gradually under
mining. and hare at length ocethroecA the
american Union.
Whilst practical man. he is also Il ripe and
accomplished scholar, with predominant literary
tastes and habits. In the discharge of his Off
cia duties he has combined in Il singular degree
the purest integrity and most enlightened intel
ligence, with modest cOntentment i'll his lot
having more than once declined offices of more
conspicuous employment in the public service.
He now resigns his present office from senti-
ments of devotion to that which alone he can
feel to be his country. namely, the Confederate
States. from one of which CTeXas) he was APP
pointed.
| most heartily commend him as gentleman
and man, to your confidence and esteem. and
l am, with the highest consideration,
Your Obdt Servant,
G. CUSHING.
Hon. Jefferson Davis. President of the Con-
ederate States.
simultaneously with the withdrawal Of
his name, MI Gushing addressed letter
to tie President, requesting that it be
done. The following is the full text of this
document
WASHINGTON, Jan IA, 1874.
To the Presdent-Sir: Animated by sense
Of profound gratitude for the honor you have
done in nominating me to the high office of Chief
Justice Of the Supreme Court of the United
States, and perceiving that the continuance of
my name before the Senate may be the cause or
occasion of Inconvenience to yourself or your
political friends there, l respectfully request
you to withdraw the nomination.
Permit me to add that the charges of dsloyal-
ty to the Union and the Constitution which have
been brought against me in this connection are
utterly destitute of foundation in truth or in act.
| Indignantly repel the imputation. In all the
time anterior to the commencement of hostilitieS
i'll the Southern States every act of my political
life in whatever relation to parties, was govern
ed by the single, dominant purpose of aiming to
preserve the threatened integrity of the Union
anditO avert from my country the calamity of its
disruption and of consequent tratricidal carnage.
How could such purpose be prevented other
wise than by political association or personal
intercourse with citizens of different States, in
Guiding those States protessedly diSatiected to
the Union Should the only possible means of
laborlng to prevent civil war be stigmatized A.
disloyalty to the Constitution
But, Immediately on the occurrence of the
first act of hostility to the Union being struck
in the State of South Carolina took my stand
with the Union and its Government, publicly
announced my adhesion to them in the most
unequiyocal terms. / rendered my services to
the Government in the field orin any other way
which might testify my fidelity to it, and have
continued from that day to this, as well in Off
cial as unofficial action, to tread in the path of
answering devotion to the Union; whether
during the actual progress of hostilitics against
it, or in the subsequent events of its reconstruc-
ton and of the successive Amendments of the
Constitution, rendered necessary by the changed
condition and relations of the several States of
the United States and of their respective inhab-
itants
The recent Amendments to the Constitution,
each and all of them. rs they We're III turn
adopted, and the Legislative acts for their en-
forcement and for accomplishing reconstruction,
had my cooperation and adhesion, and have
supported them constantly; if not i'll political
debate, for which my comparatively reserved
habits of life afforded neither occasion nor op-
portunity, yet IN lega, opinion OF in the Courts
and in counsel or discussion with officers of
Government, members OF Congress and private
persons.
| entertain the same personal respect for
these amendments as for the other provisions
of the Constitution, and also rendering the
special observance due to them as the just and
necessary incidents of the reconstruction Of the
Union.
While my nomination was undergoing con-
sideration in the Senate, it would have been
unbecOming for me to speak i'll explanation of
my acts or opinions; but now with relative in
difference to whatever else may have been said
either honestly or maliciously, to my prejudice.
it belongs to my sense of public duty, and it is
my right, to reaffirm and declare that I have
never, in the long course of a not inactive life.
done an act, uttered word, or conceived Il
thought of dlsloyalty to the Constitution or the
Union.
| have the honor to be, very respectfully,
C.. Cushing.