In the month of February, 1869, I received an invitation from General Grant to call upon him on an evening named and at an hour specified. At the interview General Grant asked me to take the office of Secretary of the Interior. As reasons for declining the place, I said that my duties and position in the House were agreeable to me and that my services there might be as valuable to the Administration as my services in the Cabinet. General Grant then said that he intended to give a place to Massachusetts, and it might be the Secretary of the Interior or the Attorney-Generalship. He then asked for my advice as to persons, and said that if he named an Attorney-General from Massachusetts, he had in mind Governor Clifford, whom he had met. Governor Clifford was my personal friend, he had been the Attorney- General of the State during my term as Governor, he was a gentleman of great urbanity of manner, a well-equipped lawyer, and as an advocate he had secured and maintained a good standing in the profession and through many years. He had come into the Republican Party from the Webster wing of the Whig Party. To me he was a conservative, and I was apprehensive that his views upon questions arising, or that might arise, from our plan of reconstruction might not be in harmony with the policy of the party. Upon this ground, which I stated to General Grant, I advised against his appointment. I named Judge Hoar for Attorney-General and Governor Claflin for the Interior Department. I wrote the full address of Judge Hoar upon a card, which I gave to General Grant. Judge Hoar was nominated and confirmed.
At the same time, Alexander T. Stewart, of New York, was nominated and confirmed as Secretary of the Treasury. It was soon discovered that Mr. Stewart, being an importer, was ineligible for the office. Mr. Conkling said there were nine statutes in his way. A more effectual bar was in the reason on which the statutes rested, namely, that no man should be put in a situation to be a judge in his own cause. The President made a vain effort to secure legislation for the removal of the bar. Next, Judge Hilton, then Mr. Stewart's attorney, submitted a deed of trust by which Mr. Stewart relinquished his interest in the business during his term of office. The President submitted that paper to Chief Justice Cartter of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia. The Chief Justice gave a brief, adverse, oral opinion, and in language not quotable upon a printed page.
