ident Lincoln occurred a very short time
before the end of the Civil War. It appears that his successor in
the Presidential office did not withdraw any part of the supreme
authority which had been conferred upon General Grant by President
Lincoln a year before. Nevertheless, Secretary Stanton, who had
very reluctantly yielded to President Lincoln's order, began, soon
after the end of hostile operations, to resume the exercise of
those functions which had formerly been claimed as belonging to the
War Department, and which had been suspended by President Lincoln.
Stanton "boldly took command of the armies."( 1) By this General
Grant was deeply offended, and finally declared that the action of
the Secretary of War was intolerable; although he refers to it in
his "Memoirs" as "another little spat." The authority which Stanton
assumed was the constitutional authority of the commander-in-chief
of the army, a large part of which authority had been delegated by
the President to General Grant, not to Secretary Stanton. Hence
the Secretary's assumption was offensive alike to the general and
to the President. General Grant acted with great forbearance, and
endeavored to obtain from Secretary Stanton due recognition of his
rightful authority as general commanding the army, but with no
permanent effect.( 2)

General Grant opposed the removal of Mr. Stanton by the exercise
of the President's prerogative alone, for the reason, with others,
that such action would be in violation of the Tenure-of-Office
Act.( 3) He also objected at first to either removal or suspension,
mainly for fear that an objectionable appointment might be made in
Stanton's place.( 4) But those two objections being removed by
Johnson's tender of the appointment to Grant himself, _vice_ Stanton
suspended instead of removed, General Grant gave his full countenance
and support to President Johnson in the _suspension_ of Mr. Stanton,
with a view on the part of the President to his ultimate removal,
either with the concurrence of the Senate or through a judicial
decision that the Tenure-of-Office Act was, as Johnson claimed,
unconstitutional.( 5)

On August 12, 1867, Grant himself accepted the appointment of
Secretary of War _ad interim_, and informed Stanton that he had
done so. Stanton denied the right of the President to suspend him
without the consent of the Senate, but wrote to the President, and
to the same effect to General Grant: "But inasmuch as th