Immense power of the President -- Mr. Seward's Egeria --
Programme of peace -- The belligerent question -- Roebucks and
Gregories scums --Running the blockade -- Weed and Seward take
clouds for camels --Uncle Sam's pockets -- Manhood, not money,
the sinews of war --Colonization schemes -- Senator Doolittle --
Coal mine speculation --Washington too near the seat of war --
Blair demands the return of a fugitive slave woman -- Slavery is
Mr. Lincoln's "_mammy_" -- He will not destroy her -- Victories
in the West -- The brave navy --McClellan subsides in mud before
Yorktown -- Telegraphs for more men -- God will be tired out! --
Great strength of the people --Emancipation in the District --
Wade's speech -- He is a monolith --Chase and Seward -- N. Y.
Times -- The Rothschilds -- Army movements and plans.
If the military conduct of McClellan, from the first of January to the
day of the embarkation of the troops for Yorktown--if this conduct
were tried by French marshals, or by the French chief staff, or by the
military authorities and chief staffs of Prussia, Russia, and even of
Austria, McClellan would be condemned as unfit to have any military
command whatever. I would stake my right hand on such a verdict; and
here the would-be strategians, the traitors, the intriguers, and the
imbeciles prize him sky-high.
Only by personal and close observation of the inner working of the
administrative machinery is it possible to appreciate and to
understand what an immense power the Constitution locates in the
hands of a President. Far more power has he than any constitutional
sovereign--more than is the power of the English sovereign and of her
Cabinet put together. In the present emergencies, such a power in the
hands of a Wade or of a Stanton would have long ago saved the country.
Mr. Seward looks to all sides of the compass for a Union party in the
South, which may rise politically against the rebels. That is the
advice of Weed, Mr. Seward's Egeria. I doubt that he will find many,
or even any. First kill the secesh, destroy the rebel power, that is,
the army, and then look for the Union men in the South. Mr. Seward, in
his generalizations, in his ardent expectations, etc., etc., forgets
to consider--at least a little--human nature, and, not to speak of
history, this _terra incognita_. Blood shed for the nationality makes
it grow and prosper; a protracted struggle deepens its roots, carries
away the indifferent, and even those who at the start opposed the
move. All such, perhaps, may again fall off from the current of
rebellion, but that current must first be reduced to an imperceptible
rivulet; and Mr. Seward, sustaining the do-nothing strategian, acts
against himself.
Mr. Seward's last programme is, after the capture of Richmond and of
New Orleans, to issue a proclamation--to offer terms to the rebels, to
restore the old Union in full, to protect slavery and all. For this
reason he supports McClellan, as both have the same plan. Of such a
character are the assurances given by Mr. Seward to foreign diplomats
and governments. He tries to make them sure that a large Union party
will soon be forthcoming in the South, and again sounds his
vaticinations of the sacramental ninety days. I am sorry for this his
incurable passion to play the Pythoness. It is impossible that such
repeated prophecies shall raise him high in the estimation of the
European statesmen. Impossible! Impossible! whatever may be the
contrary assertions of his adulators, such as an Adams, a Sandford, a
Weed, a Bigelow, a Hughes, and others. When Mr. Seward proudly
unveiled this his programme, a foreign diplomat suggested that the
Congress may not accept it. Mr. Seward retorted that he cares not for
Congress; that he will appeal to the people, who are totally
indifferent to the abolition of slavery.
Why does Mr. Seward deliberately slander the American people, and this
before foreign diplomats, whose duty it is to report all Mr. Seward's
words to their respective governments? Such words uttered by Mr.
Seward justify the assertions of Lord John Russell, of Gladstone,
those true and high-minded friends of human liberty, that the North
fights for empire and not for a principle. The people who will answer
to Mr. Seward's appeal will be those whose creed is that of the New
York Herald, the Boston Courier, the people of the Fernando and Ben
Woods, of the Vallandighams, etc.
What is the use of urging on the foreign Cabinets--above all, England
and France--to rescind the recognition of belligerents? They cannot
do it. It does not much--nay, not any--harm, as the English
speculators will risk to run the blockade if the rebels are
belligerent or not. And besides, the English and French Cabinets may
throw in Mr. Seward's face the decisions of our own prize courts, who,
on the authority of Mr. Seward's blockade, in their judicial
decisions, treat the rebels as belligerents. The European statesmen
are more cautious and more consequential in their acts than is our
Secretary.
As it stands now, the conduct of the English government is very
correct, and not to be complained of. I do not speak of the infamous
articles in the Times, Herald, etc., or of the Gregories and such
scums as the Roebucks; but I am satisfied that Lord John Russell
wishes us no harm, and that it is our own policy which confuses and
makes suspicious such men as Russell, Gladstone, and others of the
better stamp.
As for the armaments of secesh vessels in Liverpool and the Bahamas,
it is so perfectly in harmony with the English mercantile character
that it is impossible for the government to stop it.
The English merchant generally considers it as a lawful enterprise to
run blockades; in the present case the premium is immense; it is so in
a twofold manner. 1st, the immediate profits on the various cargoes
exchanged against each other by a successful running of the blockade;
such profits must equal several hundred per cent. 2d, the prospective
profits from an eventual success of the rebellion for such friends as
are now supporting the rebels. These prospects must be very alluring,
and are partly justified by our slow war, slow policy. I am sure that
the like armaments for the secessionists are made by shares owned by
various individuals; the individual risk of each shareholder being
comparatively insignificant when compared with the prospective gains.
If Seward, McClellan, and Blair had not meddled with Stanton, not
weakened his decisions, nor befogged Mr. Lincoln, Richmond would be in
our hands, together with Charleston and Savannah; and all the
iron-clad vessels built in England for secesh would be harmless.
Mr. Weed and Mr. Seward expect Jeff. Davis to be overthrown by their
imaginary Southern Union party. O, wiseacres! if both of you had only
a little knowledge of human nature--not of that one embodied in
lobbyists--and of history, then you would be aware that if Jeff. Davis
is to be deposed it will be by one more violent than he, and you would
not speculate and take clouds for camels. During the weeks of
embarkation for Yorktown, the thorough incapacity of McClellan's chief
of the staff was as brilliant as the cloudless sun. It makes one
shudder to think what it will be when the campaign will be decidedly
and seriously going on.
It is astonishing, and psychologically altogether incomprehensible, to
see persons, justly deserving to be considered as intelligent, deny
the evidence of their own senses; forbid, so to speak, their sound
judgment to act; to be befogged by thorough imbeciles; to consider
incapacity as strategy, and to take imbecility for deep, mysterious,
great combinations and plans. Even the Turks could not long be
humbugged in such a way.
No sovereign in the world, not even Napoleon in his palmiest days,
could thus easily satisfy his military whims concerning the most
costly and variegated material for an army, as does McClellan. He
changes his plans; every such change is gorgeously satisfied and
millions thrown away. Guns, mortars, transports, spades, etc., appear
at his order as if by charm; and all this to veil his utter
incapacity. This Yorktown expedition uncovers Washington and the
North, and such a deep plan could have been imagined only by a
_strategian_.
What are doing in Europe all these various agents of Mr. Seward, and
paid by Uncle Sam? all these Weeds, Sandfords, Hughes, Bigelows, and
whoever else may be there? They cannot find means in their brains to
better direct, inform, or influence the European press. Almost all the
articles in our favor are only defensive and explanatory; the
offensive is altogether carried by the secesh press in England and in
France. But to deal offensive blows, our agents would be obliged to
stand firm on human principles, and show up all the dastardly
corruption of slavery, of slaveholders, and of rebels. Such a warfare
is forbidden by Mr. Seward's policy; and perhaps if such a Weed should
speak of corruption, some English secesh may reprint Wilkeson's
letter. In one word, our cause in Europe is very tamely represented
and carried on. Members of the Chamber of Deputies in Paris complain
that they can nowhere find necessary information concerning certain
facts. There Seward's agents have not even been able to correct the
fallacies about the epoch of the Morrill tariff,--fallacies so often
invoked by the secesh press,--and many other similar statements. I
shall not wonder if the public opinion in Europe by and by may fall
off from our cause. Our defensive condition there justifies the
assumptions of the secesh. As we dare not expose their crimes, the
public in Europe must come to this conclusion, that secesh may be
right, and may begin to consider the North as having no principle.
And to think that all these agents heavily phlebotomize Uncle Sam's
pockets to obtain such contemptible results!
Many persons, some among them of influence and judgment, still speak
and speculate upon what they call the starving of the rebellion. They
calculate upon the comparative poverty of the rebels, repeating the
fallacious adage, that money is the sinews of war. Money is so, but
only in a limited degree, and more limited than is generally supposed;
more limited even now when war is a very expensive pastime.
This fallacy, first uttered by the aristocrat Thucydides, was repeated
over and over again until it became a statesmanlike creed. But even
Thucydides gave not to that _dictum_ such a general sense, and
Macchiavelli scorned the fallacy and exposed it. When poor, the
Spartans have been the bravest. The historical halo surrounding the
name of Sparta originated at that epoch when the use of money and of
gold had been almost forbidden. The wealth of Athens began after the
victories over the Persians; but those victories were won when the
Athenians were comparatively poor. So it was with the Romans until the
subjugation of Carthage, and in modern Europe the Swiss, etc., etc.,
etc.
Manhood in a people, and self-sacrifice, are the genuine sinews of
war; wealth alone saved no nation from disgrace and from death, nay,
often accelerated the catastrophe.
The colonization of Africo-Americans is still discussed; very likely
inspired by Seward and by his Yucatan schemes. Senator Doolittle runs
himself down at a fearful rate. I regret Doolittle's mistake. Those
colonizers forget that if they should export even 100,000 persons a
year, an equal number will be yearly born at home, not to speak of
other impossibilities. If carried on on a small scale, this scheme
amounts to nothing; and on a grand scale it is altogether impossible,
besides being as stupid as it is recklessly cruel. Only those persons
insist on colonization who hate or dread general emancipation.
When the slaves shall be emancipated, then the owners of plantations
will be forced to offer very acceptable terms to the newly made free
laborers to have their plantations cultivated, which otherwise must
become waste and useless lands, and the planters themselves poor
starving wretches. With very little of governmental interference, the
mutual relation between planter and laborer can be regulated, and the
planter will be the first to oppose colonization.
Look from whatever side you like, a colonization schemer is a cruel
deceiver, he is an enemy of emancipation, and if he claims to be an
emancipator then he is an enemy of the planter and of the prosperity
of the southern region.
Besides, the present scheme of colonization to Chiriqui is an infamous
speculation to help some Ambrosio Thompson to work coal mines in that
part of Central America. That individual has a grant for some lands in
Chiriqui, and there these poor victims are to be exported. The grant
itself is contested by the New Grenadian government. Those poor
coolies will be the prey of speculators; there will arise claims
against the Grenadian government--a rich mine for lobbyists and
claimants. Infamy! and these fathers of the country are as blind as
moles. Central America is always in convulsions, and of course the
colonists will be robbed by every party of those semi-savages. The
colonists being Methodists, etc., will be pointed out by the stupid
Catholic clergy as being heretics and miscreants.
Washington's proximity to the theatre of war in Virginia is the
greatest impediment for rapid movements; it is the ruin of generals
and of armies.
Being within reach of the seat of government and of the material
means, the generals are never ready, but always have something to
complete, something to ask for, and so days after days elapse. In all
other countries and governments of the world the commanders move on,
and the objects of secondary necessity are sent after them.
In all other countries and wars the principal aim of commanders is to
become conspicuous by rapidity of movements. The paramount glory is to
have achieved and obtained important results with comparatively
limited means. Here, the greater the slowness with which they move,
the greater captains they are; and the more expensive their
operations, the surer they are of the applause of the administration,
and of a great many f----.
After all, the above is the result of pre-existing causes. Slowness,
indecision, and waste of money, are the prominent features of this
administration.
Stanton excepted, I again think of the dictum of Professor Steffens,
and every day believe it more.
Mr. Blair worse and worse; is more hot in support of McClellan, more
determined to upset Stanton, and I heard him demand the return of a
poor fugitive slave woman to some of Blair's Maryland friends.
Every day I am confirmed in my creed that whoever had slavery for
_mammy_ is never serious in the effort to destroy it. Whatever such
men as Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Blair will do against slavery, will never
be radical by their own choice or conviction, but will be done
reluctantly, and when under the unavoidable pressure of events.
Mr. Seward restive and bitter against all who criticise. Mr. Seward
assumes that everybody does his best, and ought therefore to be
applauded. But Mr. Seward forgets the proverb about hell being paved
with good intentions. In this terrible emergency the people want men
who _really_ do the best, and not those who only try and intend to do
it.
McClellan had the full sway so long--appointed so many, perhaps more
than sixty, brigadier generals--that it is not astonishing when those
appointees prefer rather not to see for themselves, but blindly
"hurrah" for their creator.
Victories in the West, triumphantly establishing the superiority of
our soldiers in open battle-fields, and the superiority of all
generals who are distant from any contact with Washington, as Pope,
Grant, Curtis, Mitchell, Sigel, and others. The brave navy,--this pure
democratic element which assures the greatest results, and makes the
less laudatory noise. The navy is admirable; the navy is the purest
and most glorious child of the people.
The destruction of the rebellion saves the future generations of the
Southern whites. Secession would for centuries have bred and raised
only formidable social hyenas.
McClellan subsided in mud before Yorktown. Any other, only even
half-way, military capacity commanding such forces would have made a
lunch of Yorktown. But our troops are to dig, perhaps their graves,
to the full satisfaction of Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Seward, and Mr. Blair.
McClellan telegraphs for more men, and he has more already than he can
put in action, and more than he has room for. He subsides in digging.
The rebels will again fool him as they fooled him in Manassas. If
McClellan could know anything, then he would know this--that nothing
is so destructive to an army as sieges, as diggings, and camps, and
nothing more disciplines and re-invigorates men, makes them true
soldiers, than does marching and fighting. Poor Stanton! how he must
suffer to be overruled by imbeciles and intriguers. McClellan
telegraphing for reinforcements plainly shows how unmilitary are his
brains. He and a great many here believe that the greater the mass of
troops, the surer the victory. History mostly teaches the contrary;
but speak to American wiseacres about history! He, McClellan, and
others on his side, ignore the difficulty of handling or swinging an
army of 100,000 men.
A good general, confident in his troops, will not hesitate to fight two
to three. But McClellan feels at ease when he can, at the least, have
two to one. In Manassas he had three to one, and conquered--wooden guns!
We will see what he will conquer before Yorktown.
Louis Napoleon always well disposed, but of course he cannot swallow
Mr. Seward's demand about belligerents. I am so glad and so proud that
up to this day events justify my confidence in the French policy,
although our policy may tire not only Louis Napoleon, but tire the God
whom we worship and invoke. I should not wonder if God, tired by such
McClellans, Lincolns, Sewards, Blairs, etc., finally gives us the cold
shoulder. This demand concerning belligerents is a diplomatic and
initiative step made by Mr. Seward; it is unsuccessful, as are all his
initiatives, and no wonder.
Mr. Lincoln, incited by Mr. Seward and by Mr. Blair, overrules the
opinion of the purest, the ablest, and the most patriotic men in
Congress--that of Stanton, and of the few good generals unbefogged by
McClellanism. Such a power as the Constitution gives to a President is
the salvation of the people when in the hands of a Jackson, but when
in the hands of a Lincoln, ----!
The muscular strength of the American people, and the strength of its
backbone, beat all the Herculeses and Atlases supporting the globe.
Any other people would have long ago broke down under the policy and
the combined weight of Lincoln, Seward, and McClellan.
Mr. Lincoln is forced out again from one of his pro-slavery
entrenchments; he was obliged to yield, and to sign the hard-fought
bill for emancipation in the District of Columbia; but how
reluctantly, with what bad grace he signed it! Good boy; he wishes not
to strike his _mammy_; and to think that the friends of humanity in
Europe will credit this emancipation not where it is due, not to the
noble pressure exercised by the high-minded Northern masses, but to
this Kentucky ----.
Senator Wade made a powerful speech in relation to the arrest of
General Stone. It was powerful, patriotic, and rises to the skies over
the Lilliputian oratory of the thus-called scholars, etc. Wade is a
monolith,--he is cut out full in a rock.
It seems that the new law increasing the number of judges for the
Supreme Court weakened many backbones. Congress ought to have added
the clause that a senator can be nominated only after six years from
the day of the promulgation.
Mr. Seward again chalked before the dazzled eyes of foreign powers
certain future military operations; but again events have been so
impolite as to upturn Mr. Seward's prophecies.
The report of the Senate committee on the destruction of Norfolk
speaks of the "insane delusion" of the administration. I am proud to
have considered it in the same light about a year ago.
Mr. Thouvenel politely but logically refuses to acquiesce in Mr.
Seward's demand concerning the belligerents. Thouvenel's reasons are
plausible. The support given to strategy by Mr. Seward,--that support
does more mischief to us than do all the pirates and all the
violations of blockade. Let us take Richmond,--a thing impossible with
McClellan,--and take by land Charleston, Savannah, etc.; then the
pirates and belligerents are strangulated. And--as says Gen.
Sherman--Savannah and Charleston could have been taken several months
ago. Orders from Washington forbade to do it; and it would be curious
to ascertain how far Mr. Seward is innocent in the perpetration of
these orders.
Chase and Seward dear-dearing each other! Amusing! Kilkenny cats! At
this game Seward will have the best of Chase, who is not a match for
tricks.
The New York Times attacks Capt. Dahlgren, of the Navy Yard. It is in
the nature of the "little villain" to bespatter men of such devotion,
patriotism, and eminent capacity as is Captain Dahlgren.
Thurlow Weed calls the Tribune "infernal," because it wishes a serious
war, and thus prevents the raising of a Union party in the South, so
flippantly looked for by him and Mr. Seward, his pupil. I see the time
coming when all these _gentlemen_ of the concessions, of the
not-hurting policy,--when all these conservative seekers for the Union
party will try, Pilatus-like, to wash their hands of the innocent
blood; but you shall try, and not succeed, to whitewash your stained
hands; you have less excuses on your side than had the Roman proconsul
on his side.
When Mr. Mercier was in Richmond, some of the rebel leaders and
generals told him that they believed not their senses on learning that
McClellan was going to Yorktown; that he never could have selected a
better place for them, and that they were sure of his destruction on
the Peninsula.
Perhaps McClellan wished to try his hand and rehearse the siege of
Sebastopol.
If McClellan's ignorance of military history were not so well
established, he would know that since Archimedes, down to Todleben,
more genius was displayed in the defence than in the attack of any
place. The making of approaches, parallels, etc., is an affair of
engineering school routine. Napoleon took Toulon rather as an
artillerist, who, having, calculated the reach of projectiles, put his
battery on a spot wherefrom he shelled Toulon. Napoleon took Mantua by
destroying the Austrian army which hastened to the relief of the
fortress. But the great American strategian knows better, and
satisfies (as said above) the rebels.
The New York Herald, the New York Times, and other staunch supporters
of McClellan, again and again trumpet that the rebels fear McClellan,
that they consider him to be the ablest general opposed to them. The
rebels are smart, and so is their ally, the New York Herald. As for
the Times, it is only a flunkeying "little villain."
McDowell, Banks, Fremont have about 70,000 men; the last two are
nearly at the head of the Shenandoah valley; they could unite with
McDowell, and march and take Richmond. They beg to be ordered to do
it, and so wishes Stanton; but, fatally befogged by McClellan, by
McClellan's clique in the councils, or by strategians, Lincoln
emphatically forbids any junction, any movement; the President forbids
McDowell to take Fredericksburg, or to throw a bridge across the
river. And thus McClellan prevents any glorious military operation; is
losing in the mud a hundred men daily by disease, and Mr.
Lincoln--still infatuated. But infatuation is the disease of small and
weak brains.
Rothschild in Paris, and very likely the Rothschilds in London, are
for the North. But if the Rothschilds show that they well understand
and respect the Old Testament, whose spirit is anti-slavery, they show
they understand better the true Christian spirit than do the
Christians. The Rothschilds show themselves more thoroughly of our
century than are such Michel Chevaliers, or such impure Roebucks, and
all the supporters of free trade in human flesh.
McClellan's supporters, and such strategians as Blair and Seward,
assert that McClellan's plan was ruined by not sending McDowell to
Gloucester; that then the whole rebel army would have been caught in a
trap. That silly plan to go to the Peninsula is defended in a still
more silly way.
By McDowell's going to Gloucester, Washington would have been wholly
at the mercy of an army of thirty to forty thousand men; the
celebrated defences of Washington, this result of the united wisdom of
Scott and McClellan, facilitating to the rebel army a raid on
Washington.
Further; McClellan, in concocting and _maturing_ his thus called
plans, probably believes that the rebels will do just the thing which,
in his calculations, he wishes them to do; and such erroneous
suppositions are the sole basis of his _plans_. But the rebels
repeatedly showed themselves by far too smart for his _Napoleonic_
brains; and besides, not much wit to the rebel generals was necessary
to see through and through what the great Napoleon was about, by
ordering McDowell to Gloucester. Of course, the rebel generals would
not have had the politeness towards McClellan to sheepishly accede to
his wishes, and go into the trap. The whole plan was worse than
childish, and I am glad to learn that several generals showed brains
to condemn it. The whole plan was up to the comprehension of
McClellanites, of consummate strategians in McClellan's official
tross, for those in the Cabinet and out of it.
Would God that all this ends not in disasters. If it ends well it will
be the first time success has crowned such transcendent incapacity.