this purpose, so
entertained by you, had been confined to yourself; if when accepting
the office you had done so with a mental reservation to frustrate the
President, it would have been a tacit deception. In the ethics of some
persons such a course is allowable. But you can not stand even upon
that questionable ground. The "history" of your connection with this
transaction, as written by yourself, places you in a different
predicament, and shows that you not only concealed your design from
the President, but induced him to suppose that you would carry out his
purpose to keep Mr. Stanton out of office by retaining it yourself after
an attempted restoration by the Senate, so as to require Mr. Stanton to
establish his right by judicial decision.

I now give that part of this "history" as written by yourself in your
letter of the 28th ultimo:[38]

"Some time after I assumed the duties of Secretary of War _ad interim_
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 position 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 instant,[39]
you held the office for the very object of defeating an appeal to the
courts. In that letter you say that in accepting the office one motive
was to prevent the President from appointing some other person who would
retain possession, and thus make judicial proceedings necessary. You
knew the President was unwilling to trust the office with anyone 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 content 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 reposed
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 conversation you did not intend to hold the office with the purpose
of forcing Mr. Stanton in