Drifting -- The English blue book -- Lord John could not act
differently -- Palmerston the great European fuss-maker -- Mr.
Seward's "two pickled rods" for England -- Lord Lyons -- His
pathway strewn with broken glass -- Gen. Stone arrested --
Sumner's resolutions infuse a new spirit in the Constitution --
Mr. Seward beyond salvation -- He works to save slavery -- Weed
has ruined him -- The New York press -- "Poor Tribune" -- The
Evening Post -- The Blairs -- Illusions dispelled -- "All quiet
on the Potomac" -- The London papers -- Quill-heroes can be
bought for a dinner -- French opinion -- Superhuman efforts to
save slavery -- It is doomed! -- "All you worshippers of darkness
cannot save it!" -- The Hutchinsons -- Corporal Adams --
Victories in the West -- Stanton the man! -- Strategy (hear!
hear!)
We are obliged, one by one, to eat our official high-toned assertions
and words, and day after day we drift towards putting the rebels on an
equal footing with ourselves. We declared the privateers to be pirates
(which they are), and now we proffer their exchange against our
colonels and other honorable prisoners. So one radical evil generates
numberless others. And from the beginning of the struggle this radical
evil was and is the want of earnestness, of a firm purpose, and of a
straight, vigorous policy by the administration. _Paullatim summa
petuntur_ may turn out true--but for the rebels.
The publication of the English blue book, or of official
correspondence between Lord Lyons and Lord John Russell, throws a new
light on the conduct of the English Cabinet; and, anglophobe as I am,
I must confess that, all things considered, above all the
unhappily-justified distrust of England in Mr. Seward's policy,--from
the first day of our troubles Lord John Russell could not act
differently from what he did. Lord John Russell had to reconcile the
various and immense interests of England, jeopardized by the war, with
his sincere love of human liberty. Therein Lord John Russell differs
wholly from Lord Palmerston, this great European fuss-maker, who hates
America. As far as it was possible, Lord J. Russell remained faithful
to the noble (not hereditary, but philosophical) traditions of his
blood. Lord John Russell's letter to Lord Lyons (No. 17), February 20,
1861, although full of distrust in the future policy of Mr. Lincoln's
Cabinet towards England, is nevertheless an honorable document for his
name.
Lord J. Russell was well aware that the original plan of Mr. Seward
was to annoy and worry England. Everything is known in this world, and
especially the incautious words and conversations of public men.
Months before the inauguration, Mr. Seward talked to senators of both
parties that he had in store "two pickled rods" for England. The one
was to be Green (always drunken), the Senator from Missouri, on
account of the colored man Anderson; the other Mr. Nesmith, the
Senator from Oregon, and the San Juan boundaries. Undoubtedly the
Southern senators did not keep secret the like inimical forebodings
concerning Mr. Seward's intentions towards England. Undoubtedly all
this must have been known to Lord J. Russell when he wrote the
above-mentioned letter, No. 17.
More even than Lord John Russell's, Lord Lyons's official
correspondence since November, 1860, inspires the highest possible
respect for his noble sentiments and character. Above all, one who
witnessed the difficulties of Lord Lyons's position here, and how his
pathway was strewn with broken glass, and this by all kinds of hands,
must feel for him the highest and most sincere consideration. From the
official correspondence, Lord Lyons comes out a friend of humanity and
of human liberty,--just the reverse of what he generally was supposed
to be. And during the whole Trent affair, Lord Lyons's conduct was
discreet, delicate, and generous. Events may transform Lord Lyons into
an official enemy of the Union; but a mind soured by human meanness is
soothingly impressioned by such true nobleness in a diplomat and an
Englishman.
Gen. Stone, of Ball's Bluff infamous massacre, arrested. Bravo! At the
best, Stone was one of those conceited regulars who admired slavery,
and who would have wished to save the Union in their own peculiar way.
I wish he may speak, as in all probability he was not alone.
Sumner's resolutions infuse a new spirit in the Constitution, and
elevate it from the low ground of a dead formula. The resolutions
close the epoch of the Stories, of the Kents, of the Curtises, and
inaugurate a higher comprehension of American constitutionalism.
During this session Charles Sumner triumphantly and nobly annihilated
the aspersions of his enemies, representing him as a man of one hobby,
but lacking any practical ideas. His speech on currency was among the
best. Not so with his speech about the Trent affair. It is
superficial, and contains misconceptions concerning treaties, and
other blunders very strange in a would-be statesman.
Ardently devoted to the cause of justice and of human rights, Sumner
weakens the influence which he ought to exercise, because he impresses
many with the notion that he looks more to the outside effect produced
by him than to the intrinsic value of the subject; he makes others
suppose that he is too fond of such effect, and, above all, of the
effect produced in Europe among the circle of his English and European
acquaintances.
It is positively asserted that Lincoln agreed to take Mr. Seward in
the Cabinet, because Weed and others urgently represented that Mr.
Seward is the only man in the Republican party who is familiar with
Europe, with her statesmen, and their policy. O Lord! O Lord! And
where has Seward acquired all this information? Mr. Seward had not
even the first A B C of it, or of anything else connected with it.
And, besides, such a kind of special information is, at the utmost, of
secondary necessity for an American statesman. Marcy had it not, and
was a true, a genuine statesman. Undoubtedly, nature has endowed
Seward with eminent intellectual qualities, and with germs for an
eminent statesman. But the intellectual qualities became blunted by
the long use of crotchets and tricks of a politician, by the
associations and influence of such as Weed, etc.; thereby the better
germs became nipped, so to speak, in the bud. Mr. Seward's acquired
information by study, by instruction, and by reading, is quite the
reverse of what in Europe is regarded as necessary for a statesman.
Often, very often, I sorrowfully analyze and observe Mr. Seward, with
feelings like those evoked in us by the sight of a noble ruin, or of a
once rich, natural panorama, but now marred by large black spots of
burned and dead vegetation, or by the ashes of a volcano.
Now, Mr. Seward is beyond salvation--a "disappointed man," as he
called himself in a conversation with Judge Potter, M. C.; he changed
aims, and perhaps convictions. For Mr. Seward, slavery is no more the
most hideous social disease; he abandoned that creed which elevated
him in the confidence of the people. Now he works to preserve as much
as possible of the curse of slavery; he does it on the plea of Union
and conservatism; but in truth he wishes to disorganize the pure
Republican party, which he hates since the Chicago Convention and
since the days of the formation of the Cabinet. Under the advice of
Weed, Mr. Seward attempts to form a (thus called) Union and
conservative party, which at the next turn may carry him into the
White House.
Seward considers Weed his good genius; but in reality Weed has ruined
Seward. Now Mr. Seward supports _strategy_, imbecility, and McClellan.
The only explanation for me is, that Seward, participating in all
military counsels and strategic plans, and not understanding any of
them, finds it safer to back McClellan, and thus to deceive others
about his own ignorance of military matters.
The press--the New York one--worse and worse; the majority wholly
degraded to the standard of the Herald and of the Times. The _poor_
Tribune, daily fading away, altogether losing that bold, lofty spirit
of initiative to which for so many years the Tribune owed its
all-powerful and unparalleled influence over the free masses. Now, at
times, the Tribune is similar to an old, honest sexagenarian,
attempting to draw a night-cap over his ears and eyes. The flames of
the holy fire, so common once in the Tribune, flash now only at
distant, very distant epochs. The Evening Post towers over all of
them. If the Evening Post never at a jump went as far as once did the
Tribune, the Evening Post never made or makes a retrograde step; but
perhaps slowly, but steadily and boldly, moves on. The Evening Post is
not a paper of politicians or of jobbers, but of enlightened,
well-informed, and strong-hearted patriots and citizens.
Mr. Blair, after all, is only an ambitious politician. My illusion
about both the brothers is wholly dispelled and gone. I regret it, but
both sustain McClellan, both look askant on Stanton, and belong to
the conditional emancipationists, colonizationists, and other RADICAL
preservers of slavery. All such form a class of superficial
politicians, of compromisers with their creed, and are corrupters of
others.
How ardently I would prefer not to so often accuse others; but more
than forty years of revolutionary and public life and experience have
taught me to discriminate between deep convictions and assumed
ones--to highly venerate the first, and to keep aloof from the second.
Gold is gold, and pinchbeck is pinchbeck, in character as in metal.
McClellan acts as if he had taken the oath to some hidden and veiled
deity or combination, by all means not to ascertain anything about the
condition of the enemy. Any European if not American old woman in
pants long ago would have pierced the veil by a strong reconnoissance
on Centreville. Here "all quiet on the Potomac." And I hear generals,
West Pointers, justifying this colossal offence against common sense,
and against the rudiments of military tactics, and even science. Oh,
noble, but awfully dealt with, American people!
At times Mr. Seward talks and acts as if he lacked altogether the
perception of the terrible earnestness of the struggle, of the dangers
and responsibilities of his political position, as well now before the
people as hereafter before history. Often I can scarcely resist
answering him, Beware, beware!
Lincoln belittles himself more and more. Whatever he does is done
under the pressure of events, under the pressure of the public
opinion. These agencies push Lincoln and slowly move him,
notwithstanding his reluctant heaviness and his resistance. And he a
standard-bearer of this noble people!
Those mercenary, ignorant, despicable scribblers of the London Times,
of the Tory Herald, of the Saturday Review, and of the police papers
in Paris, as the Constitutionnel, the Pays, the Patrie, all of them
lie with unparalleled facility. Any one knows that those hungry
quill-heroes can be got for a good dinner and a _douceur_.
I am sorry that the Americans ascribe to Louis Napoleon and to the
French people the hostility to human rights as shown by those
_echappes des bagnes de la litterature_. Louis Napoleon and the French
people have nothing in common with those literary blacklegs.
The _Journal des Debats_, the _Opinion Nationale_, the _Presse_, the
_Siecle_, etc., constitute the true and honest organs of opinion in
France. In the same way A. de Gasparin speaks for the French people
with more authority than does Michel Chevalier, who knows much more
about free trade, about canals and railroads, but is as ignorant of
the character, of the spirit, and of the institutions of the American
people, as he is ignorant concerning the man in the moon. So the
lawyer Hautefeuille must have received a fee to show so much ill-will
to the cause of humanity, and such gigantic ignorance.
_Who began the civil war?_ is repeatedly discussed by those quill
cut-throats and allies on the Thames and on the Seine.
Here some smaller diplomats (not Sweden, who is true to the core to
the cause of liberty), and, above all, the would-be fashionable
_galopins des legations_, are the cesspools of secession news, picked
up by them in secesh society. Happily, the like _galopins_ are the
reverse of the opinions of their respective chiefs.
What superhuman efforts are made in Congress, and out of it, in the
Cabinet, in the White House, by Union men,--Seward imagines he leads
them,--by the weak-brained, and by traitors, to save slavery, if not
all, at least a part of it. Every concession made by the President to
the enemies of slavery has only one aim; it is to mollify their urgent
demands by throwing to them small crumbs, as one tries to mollify a
boisterous and hungry dog. By such a trick Lincoln and Seward try to
save what can be saved of the peculiar institution, to gratify, and
eventually to conciliate, the South. This is the policy of Lincoln, of
Seward, and very likely of Mr. Blair. Such political _gobe-mouche_ as
Doolittle and many others, are, or will be, taken in by this
manoeuvre.
Scheme what you like, you schemers, wiseacres, politicians, and
would-be statesmen, nevertheless slavery is doomed. Humanity will have
the best against such pettifoggers as you. I know better. I have the
honor to belong to that European generation who, during this half of
our century, from Tagus and Cadiz to the Wolga, has gored with its
blood battle-fields and scaffolds; whose songs and aspirations were
re-echoed by all the horrible dungeons; by dungeons of the
blood-thirsty Spanish inquisition, then across Europe and Asia, to the
mines of Nertschinsk, in the ever-frozen Altai. We lost all we had on
earth; seemingly we were always beaten; but Portugal and Spain enjoy
to-day a constitutional regime that is an improvement on absolutism.
France has expelled forever the Bourbons, and universal suffrage,
spelt now by the French people, is a progress, is a promise of a great
democratic future. Germany has in part conquered free speech and free
press. Italy is united, Romanism is falling to pieces, Austria is
undermined and shaky, and broken are the chains on the body of the
Russian serf. All this is the work of the spirit of the age, and our
generation was the spirit's apostle and confessor. And so it will be
with slavery, and all you worshippers of darkness cannot save it.
Not the one who strikes the first blow begins a civil war, but he who
makes the striking of the blow imperative. The Southern robbers cannot
claim exemption; they stole the arsenals, and struck the first blow at
Sumpter. So much for the infamous quill-heroes of the London Times,
the Herald, and _tutti quanti_.
The highest crime is treason in arms, and this crime is praised and
defended by the English would-be high-toned press. But sooner or later
it will come out how much apiece was paid to the London Times, the
Herald, and the Saturday Review for their venomous articles against
the Union.
McClellan expelled from the army the Hutchinson family. It is mean and
petty. Songs are the soul and life of the camp, and McClellan's
_heroic deeds_ have not yet found their minstrel.
After all, McClellan has organized--nothing! McDowell has, so to
speak, formed the first skeletons of brigades, divisions, of parks of
artillery, etc. The people uninterruptedly poured in men and
treasures, and McClellan only continued what was commenced before him.
I positively know that already in December Mr. Lincoln began to be
doubtful of McClellan's generalship. This doubtfulness is daily
increasing, and nevertheless Mr. Lincoln keeps that incapacity in
command because he does not wish _to hurt McClellan's feelings_.
Better to ruin the noble people, the country! I begin to draw the
conclusion that Mr. Lincoln's good qualities are rather negative than
positive.
Mr. Adams complains that he is kept in the dark about the policy of
the administration, and cannot answer questions made to him in London.
But the administration, that is, Lincoln and Seward, are a little _a
la_ Micawber, expecting what may turn up. And, besides this, the great
orator _de lana caprina_ (Mr. Adams) deliberately degraded himself to
the condition of a corporal under Mr. Seward's orders.
Victories in the West, results of the new spirit in the War
Department. Stanton will be the man.
It is a curious fact that such commanders as Halleck, etc., sit in
cities and fight through those under them; and there are ignoble
flatterers trying to attribute these victories to McClellan, and to
his _strategy_. As if battles could be commanded by telegraph at one
thousand miles' distance. It is worse than imbecility, it is idiotism
and _strategy_.
Stanton calls himself a man of one idea. How he overtops in the
Cabinet those myrmidons with their many petty notions! One idea, but a
great and noble one, makes the great men, or the men for great events.
Would God that the people may understand Stanton, and that
pettifoggers, imbeciles, and traitors may not push themselves between
the people and Stanton, and neutralize the only man who has _the one
idea_ to break, to crush the rebellion.
Every day Mr. Lincoln shows his want of knowledge of men and of
things; the total absence of _intuition_ to spell, to see through, and
to disentangle events.
If, since March, 1861, instead of being in the hands of pettifoggers,
Mr. Lincoln had been in the hands of _a man of one idea_ as is
Stanton, nine-tenths of the work would have been accomplished.
McClellan's flunkeys claim for him the victories in the West. It is
impossible to settle which is more to be scorned in them, their
flunkeyism or their stupidity.
_Lock-jaw_ expedition. For any other government whatever, in one even
of the most abject favoritism, such a humbug and silly conduct of the
commander and of his chief of the staff would open the eyes even of a
Pompadour or of a Dubarry. Here, _our great rulers and ministers_ shut
the more closely their mind's (?) eyes * * * * *
For the first time in one of his dispatches Mr. Corporal Adams _dares_
to act against orders, and mentions--but very slightly--slavery. Mr.
Adams observes to his chief that in England public opinion is very
sensitive; at last the old freesoiler found it out.
How this public opinion in America is unable to see the things as they
naturally are. Now the public fights to whom to ascribe the victories
in the West. Common sense says, Ascribe them, 1st, to the person who
ordered the fight (Stanton); 2d, exclusively to the generals who
personally commanded the battles and the assaults of forts. Even
Napoleon did not claim for himself the glory for battles won by his
generals when in his, Napoleon's, absence.
For weeks McClellan and his thus called staff diligently study
international law, strategy (hear, hear!), tactics, etc. His aids
translate for his use French and German writers. One cannot even apply
in this case the proverb, "Better late than never," as the like
hastily scraped and undigested sham-knowledge unavoidably must
obfuscate and wholly confuse McClellan's--not Napoleonic--brains.
The intriguers and imbeciles claim the Western victories as the
illustration of McClellan's great _strategy_. Why shows he not a
little _strategy_ under his nose here? Any old woman would surround
and take the rebels in Manassas.
Now they dispute to Grant his deserved laurels. If he had failed at
Donelson, the _strategians_ would have washed their hands, and thrown
on Grant the disaster. So did Scott after Bull Run.
Mr. Lincoln, McClellan, Seward, Blair, etc., forget the terrible
responsibility for thus recklessly squandering the best blood, the
best men, the best generation of the people, and its treasures. But
sooner or later they will be taken to a terrible account even by the
Congress, and at any rate by history.
It is by their policy, by their support of McClellan, that the war is
so slow, and the longer it lasts the more human sacrifices it will
devour, and the greater the costs of the devastation. Stanton alone
feels and acts differently, and it seems that the rats in the Cabinet
already begin their nightly work against him. These rats are so
ignorant and conceited!
The celebrated Souvoroff was accused of cruelty because he always at
once stormed fortresses instead of investing them and starving out the
inhabitants and the garrisons. The old hero showed by arithmetical
calculations that his bloodiest assaults never occasioned so much loss
of human life as did on both sides any long siege, digging, and
approaches, and the starving out of those shut up in a fortress. This
for McClellan and for the intriguing and ignorant RATS.