In the February 1870 issue of the Atlantic Monthly, an article titled "Edwin M. Stanton" appeared that was written by Massachusetts Senator Henry Wilson. It was a below the belt hit piece on the recently deceased former United States Attorney General and Secretary of War. The charges made by Wilson infuriated Jeremiah S. Black who had been the Attorney General in the Buchanan Administration until he was replaced by Stanton on December 17, 1860 after being appointed Secretary of State by the president.
In response to the defamation of Stanton in the Atlantic Monthly article, Black wrote a fiery and lengthy letter to Senator Wilson. In regards to Wilson's charge that Stanton had misappropriated monies from the U. S. Treasury to aid Governor Morton, Jeremiah Black responded :
" Your account of his raid upon the Treasury, in company with Governor Morton, would look very strange in a panegyric made by anybody else but you. I will restate the facts you have given, but without the drapery by which you conceal from yourself the view of them which must unavoidably be taken by all men who believe in the obligation of any law, human or divine. In the winter of 1863, the Legislature of Indiana was dissolved before the appropriations had been made to carry on the State government or aid in putting troops in the field. Of course, Congress did not and could not make appropriations for carrying on the State government, or putting troops in the field, which the State was bound to raise at her own expense. But the Governor determined to get what money he wanted without authority of law, and he looked to Washington for assistance. President Lincoln declined to aid him, because no money could be taken from the Treasury without appropriation. Mr. Stanton, being applied to, saw the critical condition of the Governor, and, without scruple, joined him in his financial enterprise. He drew a warrant for a quarter of a million dollars, and gave it to the Governor to spend as he pleased, not only without being authorized by any appropriation for that purpose, but in defiance of express law appropriating the same money to another and a totally different object. If this be true, the guilt of the parties can hardly be overcharged by any words which the English language will supply. It was getting money out of the public Treasury, not only unlawfully, but by a process as dishonest as larceny. It involved the making of a fraudulent warrant, of which the moral turpitude was no less than that committed by a private individual when he fabricates and utters a false paper. It was a gross and palpable violation of the oaths which the Governor and Secretary had both taken. It was, by the statute of 1846, a felonious embezzlement of the money thus obtained, punishable by a fine and ten years' imprisonment in the penitentiary. The parties, according to your version, were both conscious of the high crime they were perpetrating, for you make one say to the other, 'If the cause fails, you and I will be covered with prosecutions, and probably imprisoned or driven from the country.' You do not diminish or mitigate the offense one whit by saying that the money was afterward accounted for. A felony can not be compounded or condoned by a simple restitution of the spoils; and the law I have cited was made expressly to prevent officers charged with the safe-keeping, transfer, or disbursement of public money from using it to accommodate friends in a 'critical condition.' But what will be said of your trustworthiness as a contributor to history when the public comes to learn that this whole story is bogus? I pronounce it untrue in the aggregate and in the detail—in the sum total and in every item. The truth is this : In 1863 the Democratic majority of the Indiana Legislature were ready and willing to pass their proper and usual appropriation bills, but were prevented by the Republican minority, who 'bolted' and left the House without a quorum until the constitutional limit of their session expired. The Governor refused to reconvene them, and thus, by his own fault and that of his friends, he was without the ways and means to pay the current expenses of the State. He was wrong, but his error was that of a violent partisan, not the crime of a corrupt magistrate. He did not come to Washington with any intention to relieve his necessities by plundering the Federal Treasury. He made no proposition either to Mr. Lincoln or Mr. Stanton, that they or either of them should become his accomplices in any such infamous crime. His purpose was to demand payment of a debt due, and acknowledged to be due, from the United States to the State of Indiana. The money had been appropriated by Congress to pay it, and it was paid according to law! I know not how Mr. Morton may like to see himself held up as a felon confessing his guilt, but I can say with some confidence that, if Mr. Stanton were alive, he would call you to a very severe reckoning.",
Chauncey F. Black, Essays and Speeches of Jeremiah S. Black, pp. 259-260