Jeff Davis -- Incubuerunt -- O, Youth! -- Lucubrations -- Genuine
Europe -- It is forgotten -- Fremont -- Prof. Draper -- New
Yorkers -- Senator Sumner's Gauntlet -- Prince Gortschakoff --
Governor Andrew -- New Englanders -- Re-elections -- Loyalty --
Cruizers -- Matamoras -- Hurrah for Lincoln -- Rosecrans --
Strategy -- Sabine Pass, etc., etc., etc.
_September 1: L. B._--Jeff Davis is to emancipate eight hundred
thousand slaves--calls them to arms, and promises fifty acres of
land to each. Prodigious, marvellous, wonderful--if true. Jeff Davis
will become immortal! With eight hundred thousand Africo-Americans
in arms, Secession becomes consolidated--and Emancipation a fixed
fact, as the eight hundred thousand armed will emancipate themselves
and their kindred. Lincoln emancipates by tenths of an inch, Jeff
Davis by the wholesale. But it is impossible, as--after all--such a
step of the rebel chiefs is as much or even more, a death-warrant of
their political existence, as the eventual and definitive victory of
the Union armies would be. If the above news has any foundation in
truth, then the sacredness of the principle of right and of liberty
is victoriously asserted in such a way as never before was any great
principle. The most criminal and ignominious enterprise recorded in
history, the attempt to make human bondage the corner-stone of an
independent polity, this attempt ending in breaking the corner-stone
to atoms, and by the hands of the architects and builders
themselves. Satan's revolt was virtuous, when compared with that of
the Southern slavers, and Satan's revolt ended not in transforming
Hell into an Eden, as will be the South for the slaves when their
emancipation is accomplished. Emancipation, _n'importe par qui_,
must end in the reconstruction of the Union.
_September 2: L. B._--Garibaldi to Lincoln. The letter, if genuine, is
well-intentioned trash. I am afraid that this prolific letter-writing
will use up Garibaldi. It seems that in letter-writing Garibaldi
intends to rival Lincoln or Seward.
_September 3: L. B._--More and more manifestations in favor of
Lincoln's re-election. All the New York Republican papers begin to
be lined with Lincoln. And thus politicians in and out of the press
will--
_Incubuerunt mare (people) totumque a sedibus imis._
_September 3: L. B._--In the great Barnum diplomatic tour, Seward
killed under him nearly all the diplomats, and returned to Washington
in company with one. Poor Europe, and its representatives, to be used
up in such a way! But it is only the official Europe, the crowned
privileged stratum patched up with rotten relics of massacre (December
2d,) of official, regal heartlessness and of servile cunning. That
crust presses down the genuine Europe, the marrow of mankind. The
genuine Europe is ardent, noble, progressive and coruscant; and from
Cadiz to the White Sea, that genuine Europe is on the side of freedom,
on the side of the North.
_September 3: L. B._--Lincoln to Grant, July 13. This letter shows
how the President dabbles in military operations. It clearly
establishes Mr. Lincoln's right to be considered at least a Carnot,
if not a Napoleon, _vide_ the Republican newspapers.
_September 3: L. B._--State Conventions, and the old party-hacks
under arms. Will not the younger generation rise in its might, break
the chains of this intellectual subserviency, scatter the hacks to
the winds, take the lead, enlighten the masses, find out new, not
used-up men, brains and hearts, for the sacred duty of serving the
people. To witness so much intelligence, knowledge, ardor,
elasticity, clear-sightedness as animate the American youth, to
witness all this subdued, curbed by the hacks!--O, youth, awake!
It is the most sacred duty of the younger generation, to rescue the
country from the hands of the old politicians of every kind; to call
to political paramount activity the better and purer agencies. It is
a task as emphatically, nay, even more, urgent and meritorious than
emancipation of the Africo-Americans.
_September 4: L. B._--In their official or unofficial quality,
numerous Americans amorously dabble in International questions and
laws. How much the _rights of war_, etc., have been discussed; how
many letters, signed, anonymous, official and unofficial, have been
published--and very little, if any light thrown on these questions.
What a cruel fate of a future historian, who, if conscientious, will
be obliged to read all these darkness-spreading lucubrations!
_September 5: L. B._--Mr. Lincoln's letter to the Illinois
Convention stirs up the whole country. It is a very, _very_ good
manifesto,--had it not a terrible YESTERDAY. It is a heavy bid for
re-election and may secure it. The Americans forget the _yesterday_,
and Mr. Lincoln's _yesterday!_ ... is full of shiftings,
hesitations, mistakes which draw out the people's life-blood. The
people will forget that a man of energy and of firm purpose in the
White House, such a man would have at once clearly seen his way, and
then a year ago rebellion and slavery would have been crushed.
A man of energy would not have had for his familiar demons, the
Scotts, the Sewards, the Blairs, the border-state politicians, the
Weeds, etc.
_September 5: L. B._--The siege of Charleston _tire en longueur_; it
has cost thousand of lives and millions upon millions, and will
still cost more. And it is already forgotten that when nearly two
years ago Sherman and Dupont took Port Royal, Charleston and
Savannah were defenceless; it is forgotten that Sherman asked for
orders to siege the two cities, _but such were not given_ from
Washington, because Mr. Lincoln-Seward (literally) was afraid to get
possession of the focuses of rebellion, and General McClellan, with
one hundred and fifty thousand men in Washington, could not bear the
idea that the rebels should be disturbed either in Centerville or in
their _chivalric_ homes in South Carolina. It is forgotten that
civil and military leaders and chiefs then and there refused to deal
a death blow to the rebellion.
And as I am _en train_ to recall to memory what is already
forgotten, and what the Illinois letter intends to wholly erase from
the people's memory; I go on.
In the first days and months after the explosion of the rebellion,
Mr. Lincoln was as innocent of any wish to emancipate the slaves, as
could be a Seward, or a Yancey, or McClellan, or a Magruder or a
Wise or a Halleck. All this is forgotten. It is forgotten that
General Butler is the earliest initiator of emancipation, and that
to him exclusively belongs the word and the fact of an emancipated
_contraband_. It is forgotten that when Butler began to emancipate
the contrabands, the _big men_ in the Administration, Lincoln,
General Scott, and Seward, became almost frantic against Butler for
thus introducing the "nigger" into the struggle. The fate of Fremont
is forgotten. Fremont was ahead of the times. Fremont emancipated
when Lincoln-Seward-Scott-Blair, etc., heartily wished to save and
preserve slavery. Down went Fremont.
Early in the summer of 1861 General Fremont wished to do what was now
accomplished by the, until yet, _sans pareil_ Grant--that is, to clear
the Mississippi at a time when neither Island No. 10, nor Vicksburgh,
nor Port Hudson nor any other port was fortified. But the plan
displeased and frightened the powers in Washington. Fremont was never
to be pardoned for having shown farsightedness when _the great men_
deliberately blindfolded themselves. Fremont might not be a Napoleon,
not a captain; Fremont committed military mistakes,--other generals
commit military crimes.
The angel of justice very easily will white-wash Fremont from
military responsibility for the unnecessary waste of human life; and
with all his various faults Fremont's aspirations are patriotic and
lofty, and he is by far a better and nobler man than all his
revilers put together. But all this seems to be forgotten.
It is, or will be forgotten, what a bloody trail over the North is
left, and has been imprinted by the half measures, the indecisions,
and the vascillations of the Administration.
The medley composed of politicians, jobbers, contractors, and
newspapers, already scream "Hosanna," and attempt to spatter with
lies and dust the road to the White House, and thus to prepare the
way. And the medley already shakes hands, and enemies kiss each
other, because if their _elect_ succeeds, there will be peace over,
and pickings for all the world. But the justice of history will
overtake them all, and the better, younger generation will crush
them to atoms.
_September 6. L. B._--Wilkes' _Spirit of the Times_ maintains its
paramount, independent position in the American press. I cannot
detect any shadow of a politician in its columns. It is all over
independent and patriotic. The _Spirit_ fights the miscreants.
"_Principles not men_," is an axiom, but the axiom must be well
understood and applied, and it has its limitations. Are bad,
worthless, insincere, selfish men to be the agencies and the factors
of great and lofty principles? Is such a thing possible? Is the
example of Judas forgotten? O, you Bible-reading people, can Judases
and rotten consciences carry out good principles? The press that
teaches and preaches _principles not men_, that never dares to
attack bad men in its own ranks, such a press betrays the confidence
of the people, and degrades below expression the elevated and noble
position which the press ought to occupy in the development of the
progress of human society.
_September 6._--Computing together and comparing the mental and
intellectual characteristics, the manifestations and utterances of
passions in the Africo American and in the Irish of the Iro-Roman
nursery, the anthropologist, the psychologist and the philosopher
must give the palm to the Africo-American. And nevertheless Doctors
of Divinity and many truly religious men plead in favor of slavery,
that is, of brute force. I ask all such to meditate the words of
Professor J. W. DRAPER, in his great and profound _History of the
Intellectual Development of Europe: That brute force must give way
to intellect, and that even the meanest human being has rights in
the sight of God._
_September 10: New York._--Head-quarters of all kinds of politicians,
of schemers, of perpetrators of treasonable attempts, of falsifiers,
of poisoners of the people's mind. The rendezvous of those who
devour the vitals of the country--who, as contractors, jobbers,
brokers, stock and gold speculators, _agioteurs_, etc. are the most
ardent patriots, and wish that the war may be indefinitely
continued. In the columns of the _Herald_ the future historian will
find the best information concerning all that--not-blessed race. The
race deserves to be recorded and _scavenged_ in the _Herald_.
And nevertheless New York contains the most pure and the most
devoted patriots. New York and New Yorkers have been foremost in
coming to the rescue when the matricide rebels dealt their first
blow. From New York came the best and the most energetic urgings on
the gasping and vascillating Administration.
The New Yorkers originated the Sanitary Commission, for which I can
find no words of sufficiently warm praise. New York contains many
young, fresh, elevated and noble minds and intellects. Why, O why do
some of them disappear in the muddy part of the great city, and
others are overawed and overleaped by the hacks and by the
politicians, or the so-called wire-pullers.
_September 10. New York._--It is the place to ascertain the
manoeuvres of political schemers. Those who know, most emphatically
assure me of the existence of the following _Sewardiana_.
1. Seward has given up in despair all dreams of finding people to
back him for the next Presidency.