The Africo-Americans -- Fremont -- The Orleans -- Confiscation --
American nepotism -- The Merrimac -- Wooden guns -- Oh shame! --
Gen. Wadsworth -- The rats have the best of Stanton -- McClellan
goes to Fortress Monroe -- Utter imbecility -- The embarkation --
McClellan a turtle -- He will stick in the marshes -- Louis
Napoleon behaves nobly -- So does Mr. Mercier -- Queen Victoria
for freedom -- The great strategian -- Senator Sumner and the
French minister -- Archbishop Hughes -- His diplomatic activity
not worth the postage on his correspondence -- Alberoni-Seward --
Love's labor lost.
Men like this Davis, Wickliffe, and all the like _pecus_, roar against
the African race. The more I see of this doomed people, the more I am
convinced of their intrinsic superiority over all their white
revilers, above all, over this slaveholding generation, rotten, as it
is, to the core. When emancipated, the Africo-Americans in immense
majority will at once make quiet, orderly, laborious, intelligent, and
free cultivators, or, to use European language, an excellent
peasantry; when ninety-nine one-hundredths of slaveholders, either
rebels or thus called loyal, altogether considered, as human beings
are shams, are shams as citizens, and constitute caricatures and
monsters of civilization.
Civilization! It is the highest and noblest aim in human destinies
when it makes the man moral and true; but civilization invoked by,
and in which strut traitors, slaveholders, and abettors of slavery,
reminds one of De Maistre's assertion, that the devil created the red
man of America as a counterfeit to man, God's creation in the Old
World. This so-called civilization of the slaveholders is the devil's
counterfeit of the genuine civilization.
The Africo-Americans are the true producers of the Southern
wealth--cotton, rice, tobacco, etc. When emancipated and transformed
into small farmers, these laborious men will increase and ameliorate
the culture of the land; and they will produce by far more when the
white shams and drones shall be taken out of their way. In the South,
bristling with Africo-American villages, will almost disappear
fillibusterism, murder, and the bowie knife, and other supreme
manifestations of Southern _chivalrous high-breeding_.
Fremont's reports and defence show what a disorder and insanity
prevailed under the rule of Scott. Fremont's military capacity perhaps
is equal to zero; his vanity put him in the hands of wily flatterers;
but the disasters in the West cannot be credited to him. Fremont
initiated the construction of the mortar flotilla on the Mississippi
(I positively know such is the fact), and he suggested the capture of
various forts, but was not sustained at this sham, the headquarters.
These Orleans have wholly espoused and share in the fallacious and
mischievous notions of the McClellanites concerning the volunteers.
Most probably with the authority of their name, they confirm
McClellan's fallacious notions about the necessity of a great regular
army. The Orleans are good, generous boys, but their judgment is not
yet matured; they had better stayed at home.
Confiscation is the great word in Congress or out of it. The property
of the rebels is confiscable by the ever observed rule of war, as
consecrated by international laws. When two sovereigns make war, the
victor confiscates the other's property, as represented by whole
provinces, by public domains, by public taxes and revenues. In the
present case the rebels are the sovereigns, and their property is
therefore confiscable. But for the sake of equity, and to compensate
the wastes of war, Congress ought to decree the confiscation of
property of all those who, being at the helm, by their political
incapacity or tricks contribute to protract the war and increase its
expense.
Mr. Lincoln yields to the pressure of public opinion. A proof: his
message to Congress about emancipation in the Border States. Crumb No.
1 thrown--reluctantly I am sure--to the noble appetite of freemen. I
hope history will not credit Mr. Lincoln with being the initiator.
American nepotism puts to shame the one practised in Europe. All
around here they keep offices in pairs, father and son. So McClellan
has a father in-law as chief of the staff, a brother as aid, and then
various relations, clerks, etc., etc., and the same in some other
branches of the administration.
The Merrimac affair. Terrible evidence how active and daring are the
rebels, and we sleepy, slow, and self-satisfied. By applying the
formula of induction from effect to cause, the disaster occasioned by
the Merrimac, and any further havoc to be made by this iron
vessel,--all this is to be credited to McClellan.
If Norfolk had been taken months ago, then the rebels could not have
constructed the Merrimac. Norfolk could have been easily taken any day
during the last six months, _but for strategy_ and the _maturing of
great plans_! These are the sacramental words more current now than
ever. Oh good-natured American people! how little is necessary to
humbug thee!
Oh shame! oh malediction! The rebels left Centreville,--which turns
out to be scarcely a breastwork, with wooden guns,--and they slipped
off from Manassas.
When McClellan got the news of the evacuation, he gravely considered
where to lean his right or left flanks, and after the consideration,
two days after the enemy _wholly_ completed the evacuation, McClellan
moves at the head of 80,000 men--to storm the wooden guns of
Centreville. Two hours after the news of the evacuation reached the
headquarters, Gen. Wadsworth asked permission to follow with his
brigade, during the night, the retreating enemy. But it was not
_strategy, not a matured plan_. If Gen. Wadsworth had been in command
of the army, not one of the rats from Manassas would have escaped.
The reasons are, that Gen. Wadsworth has a quick, clear, and
wide-encompassing conception of events and things, a clear insight,
and many other inborn qualities of mind and intellect.
The Congress has a large number of very respectable capacities, and
altogether sufficient for the emergencies, and the Congress would do
more good but for the impediments thrown in its way by the
double-dealing policy prevailing in Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet and
administration. The majority in Congress represent well the spirit of
self-government. It is a pity that Congress cannot crush or purify the
administration.
All that passes here is maddening, and I am very grateful to my father
and mother for having endowed me with a frame which resists the blows.
The pursuit of the enemy abandoned, the basis of operations changed.
The rats had the best of Stanton. _Utinam sim falsus propheta_, but if
Stanton's influence is no more all-powerful, then there is an end to
the short period of successes. Mr. Lincoln's council wanted to be
animated by a pure and powerful spirit. Stanton was the man, but he is
not a match for impure intriguers. Also McClellan goes to Fortress
Monroe, to Yorktown, to the rivers. This plan reveals an utter
military imbecility, and its plausibility can only catch ----.
1st. Common sense shows that the rebels ought to be cut off from their
resources, that is, from railroads, and from communication with the
revolted States in the interior, and to be precipitated into the
ocean. To accomplish it our troops ought to have marched by land to
Richmond, and pushed the enemy towards the ocean. Now McClellan pushes
the rebels from the extremity towards the centre, towards the focus of
their basis,--exactly what they want.
I am sure that McClellan is allured to this strategy by the success of
the gunboats on the Mississippi. He wishes that the gunboats may take
Richmond, and he have the credit of it.
The Merrimac is still menacing in Hampton Roads, and may, some day or
other, play havoc with the transports. The communications by land are
always more preferable than those by water--above all for such a great
army. A storm, etc., may do great mischief.
McClellan assures the President, and the other intriguers and fools
constituting his supporters, that in a few days he will throw 55,000
men on Yorktown. He and his staff to do such a thing, which would be a
masterpiece even for the French military leaders and their staffs! He,
McClellan, never knew what it was to embark an army. Those who believe
him are even greater imbeciles than I supposed them to be. Poor
Stanton, to be hampered by imbecility and intrigue! I went to
Alexandria to see the embarkation; it will last weeks, not days.
From Yorktown to Richmond, the country is marshy, very marshy;
McClellan, a turtle, a _dasippus_, will not understand to move quick
and to overcome the impediments. Faulty as it is to drive the rebels
from the sea towards their centre, this false move would be corrected
by rash and decisive movements. But McClellan will stick in the
marshes, and may never reach Richmond by that road.
Any man with common sense would go directly by land; if the army moves
only three miles a day it will reach Richmond sooner than by the other
way. Such an army in a spell will construct turnpike roads and
bridges, and if the rebels tear up the railroads, they likewise could
be easily repaired. Progressing in the slowest, in the most genuine
McClellan manner, the army will reach Richmond with less danger than
by the Peninsula.
The future American historian ought to record in gold and diamonds the
names of those who in the councils opposed McClellan's new strategy.
Oh! Mr. Seward, Mr. Seward, why is your name to be recorded among the
most ardent supporters of this _strategy_?
Jeff. Davis sneers at the immense amount of money, etc., spent by Mr.
Lincoln. As he, Jeff. Davis, is still quietly in Richmond, and his
army undestroyed, of course he is right to sneer at Mr. Lincoln and
McClellan, whom he, Jeff. Davis, kept at bay with wooden guns.
Senator Sumner takes airs to defend or explain McClellan. The Senator
is probably influenced by Blair. The Senator cannot be classed among
traitors and intriguers supporting the _great strategian_. Perhaps
likewise the Senator believes it to be _distingue_ to side with
_strategy_.
If the party and the people could have foreseen that civil war was
inevitable, undoubtedly Mr. Lincoln would not have been elected. But
as the cause of the North would have been totally ruined by the
election of Lincoln's Chicago competitor, Mr. Lincoln is the lesser of
the two evils.
A great nuisance is this competition for all kinds of news by the
reporters hanging about the city, the government, and the army. Some
of these reporters are men of sense, discernment, and character; but
for the sake of competition and priority they fish up and pick up what
they can, what comes in their way, even if such news is altogether
beyond common sense, or beyond probability.
In this way the best among the newspapers have confused and misled the
sound judgment of the people; so it is in relation to the overwhelming
numbers of the rebels, and by spreading absurdities concerning
relations with Europe. The reporters of the Herald and of the Times
are peremptorily instructed to see the events through the perverted
spectacles of their respective bosses.
Mr. Adams gets either frightened or warm. Mr. A. insists on the
slavery question, speaks of the project of Mason and Slidell in London
to offer certain moral concessions to English anti-slavery
feeling,--such as the regulations of marriage, the repeal of laws
against manumission, etc. Mr. Adams warns that these offers may make
an impression in England.
When all around me I witness this revolting want of energy,--Stanton
excepted,--this vacillation, these tricks and double-dealings in the
governmental spheres, then I wish myself far off in Europe; but when I
consider this great people outside of the governmental spheres, then I
am proud to be one of the people, and shall stay and fall with them.
How meekly the people accept the disgrace of the wooden guns and of
the evacuation of Manassas! It is true that the partisans of
McClellan, the traitors, the intriguers, and the imbeciles are
devotedly at work to confuse the judgment of the people at large.
Mr. Dayton's semi-official conversation with Louis Napoleon shows how
well disposed the Emperor was and is. The Emperor, almost as a favor,
asks for a decided military operation. And in face of such news from
Europe, Lincoln, Seward, and Blair sustain the _do-nothing
strategian_!
Until now Louis Napoleon behaves nobly, and not an atom of reproach
can be made by the American people against his policy; and our policy
many times justly could have soured him, as the acceptation of the
Orleans, etc. No French vessels ran anywhere the blockade; secesh
agents found very little if any credit among French speculators. Very
little if any arms, munitions, etc., were bought in France. And in
face of all these positive facts, the American wiseacres here and in
Europe, all the bar-room and street politicians here and there, all
the would-be statesmen, all the sham wise, are incessant in their
speculations concerning certain invisible, deep, treacherous schemes
of Louis Napoleon against the Union. This herd is full of stories
concerning his deep hatred of the North; they are incessant in their
warnings against this dangerous and scheming enemy. Some Englishmen in
high position stir up this distrust. On the authority of letters
repeatedly received from England, Senator Sumner is always in fits of
distrust towards the policy of France. The last discovery made by all
these deep statesmen here and in France is, that Louis Napoleon
intends to take Mexico, to have then a basis for cooperation with the
rebels, and to destroy us. But Mexico is not yet taken, and already
the allies look askance at each other. Those great Anglo-American
Talleyrands, Metternichs, etc., bring down the clear and large
intellect of Louis Napoleon to the atomistic proportions of their own
sham brains. I do not mean to foretell Louis Napoleon's policy in
future. Unforeseen emergencies and complications may change it. I
speak of what was done up to this day, and repeat, _not the slightest
complaint can be made against Louis Napoleon_. And in justice to Mr.
Mercier, the French minister here, it must be recorded that he
sincerely seconds the open policy of his sovereign. Besides, Mr.
Mercier now openly declares that he never believed the Americans to be
such a great and energetic people as the events have shown them to be.
I am grateful to him for this sense of justice, shared only by few of
his diplomatic colleagues.
In one word, official and unofficial Europe, in its immense majority,
is on our side. The exceptions, therefore, are few, and if they are
noisy, they are not intrinsically influential and dangerous. The
truest woman, Queen Victoria, is on the side of freedom, of right, and
of justice. This ennobles even her, and likewise ennobles our cause.
Not the bad wishes of certain Europeans are in our way, but our
slowness, the McClellanism and its supporters.
_Quidquid delirant reges, plectuntur achivi!_ The _achivi_ is the
people, and the McClellanists are the _reges_.
Mr. Seward, elated by victories, insinuates to foreign powers that
they may stop the "recognition of belligerents." Oh imagination! Such
things ought not even to be insinuated, as logic and common sense
clearly show that the foreign cabinets cannot do it, and thus stultify
themselves. Seward believes that his rhetoric is irresistible, and
will move the cabinets of France and of England. * * * Not the
"recognition of belligerents;" let the rebels slip off from Manassas,
etc. Mr. Seward would do better for himself and for the country to
give up meddling with the operations of the war, and backing the
bloodless campaigns of the _strategian_. But Mr. Seward, carried away
by his imagination, believes that the cabinets will yield to his
persuasive voice, and then, oh! what a feather in his diplomatic cap
before the befogged Mr. Lincoln, and before the people. But _pia
desideria_.
In all the wars, as well as in all the single campaigns and battles,
every _captain_ deserving this name aimed at breaking his enemy in the
centre or at seizing his basis of operations, wherefrom the enemy
draws its resources and forces. The great _strategian_ changed all
this; he goes directly to the circumference instead of aiming at the
heart.
Mr. Seward, answering Mr. Dayton's dispatch concerning his, Dayton's,
conversation with Louis Napoleon, points to Europe being likewise
menaced by revolutionists. Unnecessary spread-eagleism, and an awful
want of any, even diplomatic, tact. I hope that Mr. Dayton, who has so
much sound sense and discernment, will keep to himself this freak of
Mr. Seward's untamable imagination.
Under the influence of insinuations received from his English friends,
Senator Sumner said to Mr. Mercier (I was present) that with every
steamer he expects a joint letter of admonition directed by the French
and English to our government. Mr. Mercier retorted, "How can you,
sir, have such notions? you are too great a nation to be treated in
this way. Such letters would do for Greece, etc., but not for you." I
was sorry and glad for the lesson thus given.
Archbishop Hughes was not over-successful in France, and went off
rather second-best in the opinion of the press, of the public, and of
the Catholic, even ultra-Montane clergy of France. All this on
account of his conditional anti-slaverism and unconditional
pro-slaverism. All this was easily to be foreseen. His Eminence is in
Rome, and from Rome is to influence Spain in our favor.
Oh diplomacy! oh times of Capucine and Jesuit fathers and of Abbes!
We, the children of the eighteenth century, we recall you to life. I
do not suppose that the whole diplomatic activity of his Eminence is
worth the postage of his correspondence. But Uncle Sam is generous,
and pays him well. So it is with Thurlow Weed, who tries to be
economical, is unsuccessful, and cries for more monish. A schoolboy on
a spree!
It seems that Weed loses not his time, and tries with Sandford to turn
_a penny_ in Belgium. Oh disinterested saviors of the country, and
patriots!
But for this violent development of our domestic affairs, Mr. Seward
would have appeared before the world as the mediator between the Pope
and the insubordinate European nations, sovereigns, and cabinets.
Oh, Alberoni! oh, imaginary! It beats any of the wildest poets. In
justice it must be recorded, that this great scheme of mediation was
dancing before Mr. Seward's imagination at the epoch when he was sure
that, once Secretary of State, his speeches would be current and read
all over the South; and they, the speeches, would crush and extinguish
secession. This Mr. Seward assured one of the patriotic members of
Buchanan's expiring Cabinet.
Mr. Seward is now busy building up a conservative Union party North
and South to preserve slavery, and to crush the rampant Sumnerism, as
Thurlow Weed calls it, and advises Seward to do so.
Mr. Seward's unofficial agents, Thurlow Weed, his Eminence, and
others, are untiring in the incense of their benefactor. Occasionally,
Mr. Lincoln gets a small share of it.
Sandford in Paris and Brussels, Mr. Adams and Thurlow Weed in London,
work hard to assuage and soften the harsh odor in which Mr. Seward is
held, above all, among certain Englishmen of mark. It seems, however,
that _love's labor is lost_, and Mr. Adams, scholar-like, explains the
unsuccess of their efforts by the following philosophy: That in great
convulsions and events it is always the most eminent men who become
selected for violent and vituperative attacks. This is Mr. Seward's
fate, but time will dispel the falsehoods, and render him justice.
Well, be it so.
Weed tried hard to bring the Duke of Newcastle over to Mr. Seward; but
the Duke seems perfectly unmoved by the blandishments, etc. To think
that the strict and upright Duke, who knows Weed, could be shaken by
the ubiquitous lobbyist! Rather the other way.
One not acquainted with Mr. Seward's ardent republicanism may suspect
him of some dictatorial projects, to judge from the zeal with which
some of the diplomatic agents in Europe, together with the unofficial
ones there, extol to all the world Mr. Seward's transcendent
superiority over all other eminent men in America. Are the European
statesmen to be prepared beforehand, or are they to be befogged and
prevented from judging for themselves? If so, again is _love's labor
lost_. European statesmen can perfectly take Mr. Seward's measure from
his uninterrupted and never-fulfilled prophecies, and from other
diplomatic stumblings; and one look suffices European men of mark to
measure a Hughes, a Weed, a Sandford, and _tutti quanti_.
In Mr. Lincoln's councils, Mr. Stanton alone has the vigor, the
purity, and the simplicity of a man of deep convictions. Stanton alone
unites the clear, broad comprehension of the exigencies of the
national question with unyielding action. He is the _statesman_ so
long searched for by me. He, once a friend of McClellan, was not
deterred thereby from condemning that do-nothing _strategy_, so
ruinous and so dishonorable. Stanton is a Democrat, and therefore not
intrinsically, perhaps not even relatively, an anti-slavery man, but
he hesitates not now to destroy slavery for the preservation of the
Union. I am sure that every day will make Stanton more clear-sighted,
and more radical in the question of Union and rebellion. And Seward
and Blair, who owe their position to their anti-slavery principles,
_arcades ambo_, try now to save something of slavery, and turn against
Stanton.