Butler emancipates slaves -- The army not organized -- Promenades
-- The blockade -- Louis Napoleon -- Scott all in all --
Strategy! -- Gun contracts -- The diplomats -- Masked batteries
-- Seward writes for "bunkum" -- Big Bethel -- The Dayton letter
-- Instructions to Mr. Adams.
The emancipation of slaves is virtually inaugurated. Gen. Butler, once
a hard pro-slavery Democrat, takes the lead. _Tempora mutantur et
nos_, &c. Butler originated the name of _contrabands of war_ for
slaves faithful to the Union, who abandon their rebel masters. A
logical Yankee mind operates as an _accoucheur_ to bring that to
daylight with which the events are pregnant.
The enemies of self-government at home and abroad are untiring in
vaticinations that a dictatorship now, and after the war a strong
centralized government, will be inaugurated. I do not believe it.
Perhaps the riddle to be solved will be, to make a strong
administration without modifying the principle of self-government.
The most glorious difference between Americans and Europeans is, that
in cases of national emergencies, every European nation, the Swiss
excepted, is called, stimulated to action, to sacrifices, either by a
chief, or by certain families, or by some high-standing individual,
or by the government; here the people forces upon the administration
more of all kinds of sacrifices than the thus called rulers can grasp,
and the people is in every way ahead of the administration.
Notwithstanding that a part of the army crossed the Potomac, very
little genuine organization is done. They begin only to organize
brigades, but slowly, very slowly. Gen. Scott unyielding in his
opposition to organizing any artillery, of which the army has very,
very little. This man is incomprehensible. He cannot be a clear-headed
general or organizer, or he cannot be a patriot.
As for the past, single regiments are parading in honor of the
President, of members of the Cabinet, of married and unmarried
_ladies_, but no military preparatory exercise of men, regiments, or
brigades. It sickens to witness such _incurie_.
Mr. Seward promenading the President from regiment to regiment, from
camp to camp, or rather showing up the President and himself. Do they
believe they can awake enthusiasm for their persons? The troops could
be better occupied than to serve for the aim of a promenade for these
two distinguished personalities.
Gen. Scott refuses the formation of volunteer artillery and of new
cavalry regiments, and the active army, more than 20,000 men, has a
very insufficient number of batteries, and between 600 and 800
cavalry. Lincoln blindly follows his boss. Seward, of course, sustains
Scott, and confuses Lincoln. Lincoln, Scott, Seward and Cameron
oppose offers pouring from the country. To a Mr. M----, from the State
of New York, who demanded permission to form a regiment of cavalry,
Mr. Lincoln angrily answered, that (patriotic) offers give more
"trouble to him and the administration than do the rebels."
The debates of the English Parliament raise the ire of the people,
nay, exasperate even old fogyish Anglo-manes.
Persons very familiar with the domestic relations of Gen. Scott assure
me that the vacillations of the old man, and his dread of a serious
warfare, result from the all-powerful influence on him of one of his
daughters, a rabid secessionist. The old man ought to be among relics
in the Patent office, or sent into a nursery.
The published correspondence between Lord Lyons and Lord Russell
concerning the blockade furnishes curious revelations.
When the blockade was to be declared, Mr. Seward seems to have been a
thorough novice in the whole matter, and in an official interview with
Lord Lyons, Mr. Seward was assisted by his chief clerk, who was
therefore the quintessence of the wisdom of the foreign affairs, a man
not even mastering the red-tape traditions of the department, without
any genuine instruction, without ideas. For this chief clerk, all that
he knew of a blockade was that it was in use during the Mexican war,
that it almost yearly occurred in South American waters, and every
tyro knows there exists such a thing as a blockade. But that was all
that this chief clerk knew. Lord Lyons asked for some special
precedents or former acts of the American government. The chief, and
his support, the chief clerk, ignored the existence of any. Lord Lyons
went home and sent to the department American precedents and
authorities. No Minister of Foreign Affairs in Europe, together with
his chief clerk, could ever be caught in such a _flagrante delicto_ of
ignorance. This chief clerk made Mr. Seward make _un pas de clerc_,
and this at the start. As Lord Lyons took a great interest in the
solution of the question of blockade, and as the chief clerk was the
_oraculum_ in this question, these combined facts may give some clue
to the anonymous advice sent to Lord Lyons, and mentioned in the month
of April.
Suggested to Mr. Seward to at once elevate the American question to a
higher region, to represent it to Europe in its true, holy character,
as a question of right, freedom, and humanity. Then it will be
impossible for England to quibble about technicalities of the
international laws; then we can beat England with her own arms and
words, as England in 1824, &c., recognized the Greeks as belligerents,
on the plea of aiding freedom and humanity. The Southern insurrection
is a movement similar to that of the Neapolitan brigands, similar to
what partisans of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany or Modena may attempt,
similar to any--for argument's sake--supposed insurrection of any
Russian bojars against the emancipating Czar. Not in one from among
the above enumerated cases would England concede to the insurgents the
condition of belligerents. If the Deys of Tunis and Tripoli should
attempt to throw off their allegiance to the Sultan on the plea that
the Porte prohibits the slave traffic, would England hurry to
recognize the Deys as belligerents?
Suggested to Mr. Seward, what two months ago I suggested to the
President, to put the commercial interests in the Mediterranean, for a
time, under the protection of Louis Napoleon.
I maintain the right of closing the ports, against the partisans of
blockade. _Qui jure suo utitur neminem laedit_, says the Roman
jurisconsult.
The condition of Lincoln has some similarity with that of Pio IX. in
1847-48. Plenty of good-will, but the eagle is not yet breaking out of
the egg. And as Pio IX. was surrounded by this or that cardinal, so is
Mr. Lincoln by Seward and Scott.
Perhaps it may turn out that Lincoln is honest, but of not
transcendent powers. The war may last long, and the military spirit
generated by the war may in its turn generate despotic aspirations.
Under Lincoln in the White House, the final victory will be due to the
people alone, and he, Lincoln, will preserve intact the principle
which lifted him to such a height.
The people is in a state of the healthiest and most generous
fermentation, but it may become soured and musty by the admixture of
Scott-Seward vacillatory powders.
Scott is all in all--Minister or Secretary of War and
Commander-in-chief. How absurd to unite those functions, as they are
virtually united here, Scott deciding all the various military
questions; he the incarnation of the dusty, obsolete, everywhere
thrown overboard and rotten routine. They ought to have for Secretary
of War, if not a Carnot, at least a man of great energy, honesty, of
strong will, and of a thorough devotion to the cause. Senator Wade
would be suitable for this duty. Cameron is devoted, but I doubt his
other capacities for the emergency, and he has on his shoulders
General Scott as a dead weight.
Charles Sumner, Mr. Motley, Dr. Howe, and many others, consider it as
a triumph that the English Cabinet asked Mr. Gregory to postpone his
motion for the recognition of the Southern Confederacy. Those
gentlemen here are not deep, and are satisfied with a few small crumbs
thrown them by the English aristocracy. Generally, the thus-called
better Americans eagerly snap at such crumbs.
It is clear that the English Cabinet wished this postponement for its
own sake. A postponement spares the necessity to Russells,
Palmerstons, Gladstones, and _hoc genus omne_, to show their hands.
Mr. Adams likewise is taken in.
_Military organization_ and _strategic points_ are the watchwords.
_Strategic points_, strategy, are natural excrescences of brains which
thus shamefully conceive and carry out what the abused people believe
to be _the_ military organization.
Strategy--strategy repeats now every imbecile, and military fuss
covers its ignorance by that sacramental word. Scott cannot have in
view the destruction of the rebels. Not even the Austrian Aulic
Council imagined a strategy combined and stretching through several
thousands of miles.
The people's strategy is best: to rush in masses on Richmond; to take
it now, when the enemy is there in comparatively small numbers.
Richmond taken, Norfolk and the lost guns at once will be recovered.
So speaks the people, and they are right; here among the wiseacres not
one understands the superiority of the people over his own little
brains.
Warned Mr. Seward against making contracts for arms with all kinds of
German agents from New York and from abroad. They will furnish and
bring, at the best, what the German governments throw out as being of
no use at the present moment. All the German governments are at work
to renovate their fire-arms.
The diplomats more and more confused,--some of them ludicrously so.
Here, as always and everywhere, diplomacy, by its essence, is
virtually _statu quo_; if not altogether retrograde, is conservative,
and often ultra conservative. It is rare to witness diplomacy _in
toto_, or even single diplomats, side with progressive efforts and
ideas. English diplomacy and diplomats do it at times; but then
mostly for the sake of political intrigue.
Even the great events of Italy are not the child of diplomacy. It went
to work _clopin, clopan_, after Solferino.
Not one of the diplomats here is intrinsically hostile to the Union.
Not one really wishes its disruption. Some brag so, but that is for
small effect. All of them are for peace, for _statu quo_, for the
grandeur of the country (as the greatest consumer of European
imports); but most of them would wish slavery to be preserved, and for
this reason they would have been glad to greet Breckinridge or Jeff.
Davis in the White House.
Some among the diplomats are not virtually enemies of freedom and of
the North; but they know the North from the lies spread by the
Southerners, and by this putrescent heap of refuse, the Washington
society. I am the only Northerner on a footing of intimacy with the
diplomats. They consider me an _exalte_.
It must be likewise taken into account,--and they say so
themselves,--that Mr. Seward's oracular vaticinations about the end of
the rebellion from sixty to ninety days confuse the judgment of
diplomats. Mr. Seward's conversation and words have an official
meaning for the diplomats, are the subject of their dispatches, and
they continually find that when Mr. Seward says yes the events say no.
Some of the diplomats are Union men out of obedience to a lawful
government, whatever it be; others by principle. The few from Central
and South American republics are thoroughly sound. The diplomats of
the great powers, representing various complicated interests, are the
more confused, they have so many things to consider. The diplomatic
tail, the smallest, insignificant, fawn to all, and turn as whirlwinds
around the great ones.
Scott continually refused the formation of new batteries, and now he
roars for them, and hurries the governors to send them. Governor
Andrew, of Massachusetts, weeks ago offered one or two rifled
batteries, was refused, and now Scott in all hurry asks for them.
The unhappy affair of Big Bethel gave a shock to the nation, and
stirred up old Scott, or rather the President.
Aside of strategy, there is a new bugbear to frighten the soldiers;
this bugbear is the masked batteries. The inexperience of commanders
at Big Bethel makes already _masked batteries_ a terror of the
country. The stupid press resounds the absurdity. Now everybody begins
to believe that the whole of Virginia is covered with masked
batteries, constituting, so to speak, a subterranean artillery, which
is to explode on every step, under the feet of our army. It seems that
this error and humbug is rather welcome to Scott, otherwise he would
explain to the nation and to the army that the existence of numerous
masked batteries is an absolute material and military impossibility.
The terror prevailing now may do great mischief.
Mr. Seward was obliged to explain, exonerate, expostulate, and
neutralize before the French Cabinet his famous Dayton letter. I was
sure it was to come to this; Mr. Thouvenel politely protested, and Mr.
Seward confessed that it was written for the American market (alias,
for _bunkum_). All this will make a very unfavorable impression upon
European diplomats concerning Mr. Seward's diplomacy and
statesmanship, as undoubtedly Mr. Thouvenel will semi-officially
confidentially communicate Mr. Seward's _faux pas_ to his colleagues.
Mr. Seward emphatically instructs Mr. Adams to exclude the question of
slavery from all his sayings and doings as Minister to England. Just
to England! That Mr. Adams, once the leader of the constitutional
anti-slavery party, submits to this obeisance of a corporal, I am not
astonished, as everything can be expected from the man who, in support
of the compromise, made a speech _de lana caprina_; but Senator
Sumner, Chairman of the Committee of Foreign Affairs, meekly swallowed
it.