Note 145 — Chapter XIV · THE HARDS AND THE SOFTS 1853

"The President offered Dix the mission to France. The time fixed was early in the summer of that year. Meanwhile passage was taken for Havre, preparations for a four years' residence abroad were made, and every arrangement was completed which an anticipated absence from home renders necessary. But political intrigue was instantly resumed, and again with complete success. The opposition now came, or appears to have come, mainly from certain Southern politicians. Charges were made—such, for example, as this: that General Dix was an Abolitionist, and that the Administration would be untrue to the South by allowing a man of that extreme and fanatical party to represent it abroad.... But though these insinuations were repelled, the influence was too strong to be resisted. In fact, the place was wanted for an eminent gentleman from Virginia."—Morgan Dix, Memoirs of John A. Dix, Vol. 1, pp. 273, 274, 275.