This was in the summer of 1866.  The subsequent sessions of Congress developed new complications, when the suffrage bill for the District of Columbia and the reconstruction acts of March 2 and March 23, 1867, all passed over the veto.  It was in Cabinet consultations upon these bills that a difference of opinion upon the most vital points was developed.  Upon these questions there was perfect accord between all the members of the Cabinet and myself, except Mr. Stanton.  He stood alone, and the difference of opinion could not be reconciled.  That unity of opinion which, upon great questions of public policy or administration, is so essential to the Executive was gone.

I do not claim that a head of Department should have no other opinions than those of the President.  He has the same right, in the conscientious discharge of duty, to entertain and express his own opinions as has the President.  What I do claim is that the President is the responsible head of the Administration, and when the opinions of a head of Department are irreconcilably opposed to those of the President in grave matters of policy and administration there is but one result which can solve the difficulty, and that is a severance of the official relation.  This in the past history of the Government has always been the rule, and it is a wise one, for such differences of opinion among its members must impair the efficiency of any Administration.

I have now referred to the general grounds upon which the withdrawal or Mr. Stanton from my Administration seemed to me to be proper and necessary, but I can not omit to state a special ground, which, if it stood alone, would vindicate my action.

The sanguinary riot which occurred in the city of New Orleans on the 30th of August, 1866, justly aroused public indignation and public inquiry, not only as to those who were engaged in it, but as to those who, more or less remotely, might be held to responsibility for its occurrence.  I need not remind the Senate of the effort made to fix that responsibility on the President.  The charge was openly made, and again and again reiterated all through the land, that the President was warned in time, but refused to interfere.

By telegrams from the lieutenant-governor and attorney-general of Louisiana, dated the 27th and 28th of August, I was advised that a body of delegates claiming to be a constitutional convention were about to assemble in New Orleans; that the matter was before the grand jury, but that it would be impossible to execute civil process without a riot; and this question was asked: 

  Is the military to interfere to prevent process of court?

This question was asked at a time when the civil courts were in the full exercise of their authority, and the answer sent by telegraph on the same 28th of August was this: 

  The military will be expected to sustain, and not to interfere with,
  the proceedings of the courts.