Gideon Welles - Tenure in Johnson's Cabinet

Tenure in Johnson's Cabinet

After Lincoln's assassination Welles was retained by President Andrew Johnson as Secretary of the Navy. In 1866, Welles, along with Seward, was instrumental in launching the National Union Party as a third party alternative supportive of Johnson's reconciliation policies. Welles also played a prominent part in Johnson's ill-fated "Swing Around the Circle" campaign that fall. Although Welles admitted in his diary that he was dismayed by Johnson's behavior on the trip, particularly the president's penchant for invective and engaging directly with hecklers, Welles remained loyal to Johnson to the end, even congratulating him in 1875 when Johnson, now an ex-president, was launching a comeback political bid with his election to the U.S. Senate from Tennessee.

Welles ultimately left the Cabinet on March 3, 1869, having returned to the Democratic Party after disagreeing with Andrew Johnson's reconstruction policies but supporting him during his impeachment trial.

Read more about this topic:  Gideon Welles

Famous quotes containing the words tenure in, tenure, johnson and/or cabinet:

    A politician never forgets the precarious nature of elective life. We have never established a practice of tenure in public office.
    Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)

    A politician never forgets the precarious nature of elective life. We have never established a practice of tenure in public office.
    Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)

    This was a good enough dinner, to be sure; but it was not a dinner to ask a man to.
    —Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)

    I suppose an entire cabinet of shells would be an expression of the whole human mind; a Flora of the whole globe would be so likewise, or a history of beasts; or a painting of all the aspects of the clouds. Everything is significant.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)