December 24, Wednesday. Congress has adjourned over until the 5th of January. It is as well, perhaps, though I should not have advised it. But the few real business men, of honest intentions, will dispatch matters about as well and fast without as with them. The demagogues in Congress disgrace the body and the country. Noisy and loud professions, with no useful policy or end, exhibit themselves daily.
Most of the Members will go home. Dixon says the feeling North is strong and emphatic against Stanton, and that the intrigue against Seward was to cover and shield Stanton. Others say the same. Doolittle, though less full and explicit, has this opinion. Fox tells me that Grimes declares his object was an onslaught on Stanton. If so, it was a strange method. Grimes went over the whole debate in caucus with F.; said he believed opposition manifested itself in some degree towards every member of the Cabinet but myself; that towards one or two only slight exhibitions of dislike appeared, and most were well sustained. All who spoke were complimentary of me and the naval management, but Hale, while he uttered no complaint, was greatly annoyed with the compliments of myself and the quiet but efficient conduct of the Navy.
