licans desired disunion, whenever they could effect it without making themselves directly responsible. "DISLOYALTY" OF THE RADICALS. The standard lately set up by the radicals will do to try them by. They now declare that it is "disloyal" to find any fault with the President or his policy. Let us see what they did prior to the promulgation of the proclamation. "The history of this war, on the part of both government and people, is little more than a record of the discovery of mistakes and the ratification of blunders. Among the most pernicious blunders which have embarrassed our warlike operations has been the blunder of underrating the strength of the rebels. As a matter of course we have overrated the strength of the loyal States." And yet GREELEY said this about the same time he was clamoring for the proclamation as a certain means to crush the rebellion 'be We select the following from the Janesville fore Christmas." (Wis.) Gazette: "It may be wisdom in the present administration to keep its own counsel and submit to misrepresentations rather than avow its policy. We know there are good and tried men in the cabinet. Such a representative as Mr. Chase, Ohio, may hold in check the manifestation of a feeling that needs but little incentive to break into an open expression. But it is useless to attempt to conceal the fact that fear if not distrust is creeping too fast into the minds of too many undoubted Republicans to be pleasant in present contemplation or hopeful in prospect.' And again, from the same sheet: WENDELL PHILLIPS ON THE, "LICK SPITTLE" ADMINISTRATION. At a Republican meeting in Boston, called to express their disgust at the conduct of the Government" in modifying CAMERON, Mr. PHILLIPS remarked: "The President, with senile, lick-spittle haste runs before he is bidden to revoke the Hunter Proclamation. If Hunter had issued a pro-slavery proclamation, be sure the government would have waited for red tape. It showed the old pro-slavery leaning of the Government. Mr. P. believed that President Lincoln's decree in relation to the Hunter Proclamation had lost a quarter of the chances of "Gen Halleck is waiting till his officers have hunted out all the contrabands in his army, and delivered them up to their owners, and Gen. Buell, in Kentucky, is waiting for Hal-preserving the Union. (Phillips talk about leck to move down the Mississippi before he advances into Tennessee. Some are waiting to see if Parson Brownlow will not be rescued for toasting some of our friends over there," &c. anti-slavery people to do now? They must edpreserving the Union-bosh!) What were the ucate public opinion, that was all, and force the Government up to the proper anti-slavery point. Emancipation won't save the Union now-confiscation must save it. * *The And once more this organ vented its spleen President and the Cabinet of the United States at the administration: "MODEST.-The Legislature of Kentucky has passed a resolution asking President Lincoln to dispense with Secretary Cameron, on account of his views as to the confiscation of slave property belonging to persons in rebellion to the Government. We should not wonder if the request was complied with, as the Kentucky Unionists seem to have control of the policy of the administration. A pretext for Cameron's removal can be as easily found as for the sacrifice of Fremont on account of his proclamation." The Waukesha (Wis.) Freeman said: "Just so long as the North (meaning the administration) fights the slaveholders, and holds four millions of human beings in bondage for them to build their fortifications and cultivate their lands, just so long will the South be able to prosecute the rebellion. But let the slaves be confiscated or freed, and the rebellion would be killed stone dead in a fortnight." THE NEW YORK TRIBUNE ON BLUNDERS. were treasonable in their delay. The people. want the Government to take a position. The President and Secretary of War should be impeached for allowing Mercier to go down to Richmond, with their consent, to confer with the rebel leaders. That Minister had no right for any such purpose, to hold conference with the rebels in arms, and where is the Government that would have allowed it, but this?" The Milwaukee Sentinel, though at a later date, thus exhibits its faultfinding propensity: "When an officer like Halbert E. Paine, as good as the Government has in its service, and whose men are attached to him, as much as it is possible for men to be attached to an officer, is put under arrest for the cause he was, (for disobedience of orders), haw is it possible to enlist men for service?" The Wisconsin State Journal said: "Verily, the policy upon which this war is conducted must be changed for a policy more earnest, thorough and effective." We would say amen to that, if some one The pious New York Tribune thus pitched would guarantee us immunity from arrest as into the Administration: disloyal to the "Government." WENDELL PHILLIPS made a speech before the Republicans at Abbington, Massachusetts, Horace Greeley, the President says: August 1, 1862, in which occurs this language: "The Union as it Was. In his letter to other,* "The sooner the national authority is restored, the sooner the Union will be the Union as it was. * * * "There is much ambiguity in this express"We shall never have peace until slavery is ion. The 'Union as it was' is a cant phrase, destroyed. As long as you keep the present invented by the famous Vallandigham, and Turtle at the head of the Government, you fathered by his dirty tool, Dick Richardson. make a pit with one hand, and fill it with the want to see restored. They prefer a Union as But such a Union loyal men don't * If any man present believes he has light enough to allow him, let him pray the Union as it was under Buchanan's adminit ought to be. What patriotic citizen desires that Davis may be permitted to make an atistration. [Bosh!] If that is the Union to tack on Washington City, within a week!" which Mr. Lincoln refers, he should dismiss his present Cabinet and send for Cobb, Floyd, Thompson, Toucey," &c. For further information on this head, we refer the reader to a previous chapter on the radical conspiracy against ihe President: BEECHER ON THE “GOVERNMENT.??. The New York Independent of August 9, 1862, contained a most savage diatribe against the “Government." We select the following: "There has not been a line in any Government paper [under Lincoln] that might not THE NEW YORK INDEPENDENT ON THE ADMINhave been issued by the Czar, by Louis Napoleon, or by Jeff Davis. "Our State papers, during this eventful struggle, are void of genuine enthusiasm for the great doctrines on which this Government was founded. Faith in human rights is dead in Washington!" ISTRATION. We copy as follows from the New York Independent: "There is no need of rousing the patriotism of the people. It is an inexhaustible quality. It underlies their very life. The Government itself is bouyed by it, and rides upon it like a ship upon the fathomless ocean. * * "No! It is the Government that needs rousing. We do not need meetings on the Hudson, but motion on the Potomac. There is no use concealing it-the people are beginning to distrust their rulers. * X The President seems to be a man without any sense X Armies are perof the value of time. second year of the rebellion. We have been ishing. Months are wasting. We are in the just on the eve of doing something for sixteen months. "The people cannot but see that the success of our arms has been in the ratio of their distance from the Seat of Government! In all the Great West, where the Government could not meddle-on the sea board, in North Carolina, at Beaufort, S. C., at New Orleans, we have had success. But in Virginia, within reach of the influence of Washington we have had all our delays and all our misfortunes. The Milwaukee Wisconsin thus stabbed one not disguise. branch of the "Government:" "In the War Department he (Seward) has mixed in on almost every occasion. It is well known that he favored the inaction of the Grand Army-when events have proved it would have been comparatively easy to take Richmond. Seward's military policy has been a blotch and a blunder. It has consolidated the rebel Government into its present formidable power." The Chicago Tribune pitched into the President after this style for his expressions to GREELEY: We looked from stand to stand in the great meeting on Tuesday, with a sadness we could not disguise. The necessity for such a meeting was a mortification. What President was ever so royally backed; [stick a pin here.]What resources, what enthusiasm, what unity of feeling; [just as we mentioned in previous pages.] What eagerness of men to be enrolled, what confidence in the Administration !And one year has so nearly wasted all this that the Government is resorting to unusual measures to secure enlistments. Is patriotism dead? Is the love of national unity grounded? Why are such meetings needed to draw up recruits? We are obliged to say, Mr. Lincoln, the fault is not with the people." Cannot Mr. BEECHER see some reason for this apathy among the people, in the system | Gen. Scott's staff, but who is now an Inspector of arbitrary arrests without accuser, judge or jury-and the negro policy? in the rebel army, and Mrs. Campbell, wife of the Assistant Secretary of War of the rebel government, and their unimpeded return to Richmond, have provoked much comment. Many people cannot see why female spies are thus permitted to visit the Capital of the country, and after obtaining whatever information is accessible-usually an ample store-be allowed to return at pleasure through our lines to Richmond, laden with their valuable freight*age." "The war line rose up in its majesty to punish rebellion. It put a magnificent army into the President's hands. For one year that army was besieged in the capital!* *and in the second year of the war! And how long will it be before every nation in Europe will have a right to say the South has shown itself able to maintain its independence? But one thing is sure, unless there is more purpose and vigor at Washington, all the public meetings in the land will not save this country from shame and disaster." THE HEAVY LOAD OF THE ADMINISTRATION. The New York Times, before the election in 1862, declared that all who did not sustain every act of the administration, were traitors. After the election it thus made the administration the scape goat for the sins of its party defeat: The Milwaukee Sentinel of April 18, 1863, pitches into the President's "scatteration" &c. It says: "The scattering of large armies at various points along a lengthy line of attack, and too far apart for mutual support, or speedy concentration, seems opposed, not only to the maxims of great military attributes, but to the dictates of common sense. * * * We have more and better men than the rebels. With a military policy as correct as theirs, we could not fail to whip them even with our present armies.” But the Sentinel, since that time, has obtained a new editor, and probably will "sin no more." "The heaviest load which the friends of the policy, in sending BANKS off to the Rio Grande, Government (administration) have been compelled to carry through this canvass, has been the inactivity and inefficiency of the administration. We speak from a knowledge of public sentiment in every section of the state, when we say that the failure of the Government to prosecute the war with a vigor, energy and success which the vast resources at its command warranted the country in expecting at its hands, has weighed like an incubus upon the public heart. With every disposition to sustain the Government, with the conviction that the only hope of the country lies in giving it a cordial and effective support, its friends have been unable to give a satisfactory answer to the questions that have came up from every side. Why has the war made so little progress? Why have our splendid armies achieved such slight successes? Why have they lain idle so long? And why have the victories they have won been so wholly barren of decissive results? The war has dragged on for a year and a half. The country has given the Government over a million of men, and all the money they could possibly use, yet we have made scarcely any progress towards crushing the rebellion The rebel armies still menace the capital. The privateers defy our navy and spread increasing terror among our peaceful traders on the seas: What is the use of trying to sustain an administration which lags so far behind the country, and seems so indifferent and incompetent to the dreadful task committed to its hands??? The Buffalo Express, a strong Administration paper, in a long doleful article on the failure of the Potomac Army to accomplish anything, says: "Either we must have generals who can blossom in the shade, for Generals do not thrive under the drip of the Capitol At thirtysix hours distance from Washington, armies and Generals succeed. At twenty-four hours they just held their own; but within six hours they are as dead as a field of wheat under the shadow of a upas tree." The Pittsburg Chronicle, a most radical sheet, in speaking of Rosecrans' movements, says: That while the rebels are at their old game The Chicago Tribune threw this fling at the of concentration, Halleck is at his of 'scatterAdministration: ation.' Can any sensible man tell why Grant's main army is idle at this moment, or why our best troops are wasted in idle and Quixotic expeditions to those distant and God forsaken countries, Texas and Arkansas? Do the vitals "Influence of Traitors at Washington.-The recent unrebuked presence in Washington of Mrs. Lay, whose husband was formerly on of the rebellion live away out among the Camanches or Creek Indians, or in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Virginia? We are again hacking away at the fingers and toes of the rebellion, while Rosecrans spring at its very heart is turned aside by want of numbers and concentration." Perhaps the Chronicle is one of those weak minded concerns that believe it is the object of those in power to put down the rebellion, and save the Union. It may be guilty of such weakness. "The volunteer soldiers of our army were degraded- their morals and enthusiasm impaired, and their Northern manhood insulted by this miserable half-war and halfpeace policy, and it advises any who have forgotten how much violence toward Union men, and how much master ly inactivity were the results of this policy--to take the files of any good newspaper, and wade through the shameful record of subservience, tenderness and patriotism on our side, and of insolence, ingratitude and treachery exhibited by the slave owners of the Border States. "The Sentinel, during these same 'twelve months,' defended this very 'miserable halfwar and half-peace policy,' and denounced those who criticised it, declaring that our paper ought to be suppressed, for finding fault But now it turns round, with this policy. The anti-slavery Standard offers the follow- with a facility of sumersaulting, on a brazen ing mutterings: "By the time the Government gets ready to do anything, the time for it has passed. This has been the case too often in the past. We need vigor, more vigor, and still more vigor, and Mr. Stanton needs to learn that bullying men as he used to juries, is not vigor." The Cincinnati Gazette, an extremely loyal paper, as will be seen by a quotation from it in reference to the Mexican war (in a previous chapter) thus utters its complaints: "The great army of the West lies useless on the Mississippi, while the great shock of armies in the West will soon take place in Tennessee. This is the whole situation, and it would be difficult to describe a more total helplessness of a great power for want of an intelligent director. It is hard to account for the apathy of a military Director at Washington, under this state of affairs. * * X * The rebels have adopted the policy of concentration. Our military Director persists in scattering. In its (the war) present arrangement there is nothing to inspire hope, but everything to create disaffection and despondency." The New York Post says: "The Government has made mistakes; it has at times pursued an illogical, weak and timid policy; it has done some things calculated to alienate popular sympathy," &c. For saying no more than this, any Democratic paper would have been called "copper head.?? THE TWO "LOYAL" SIAMESE TWINS. Booth, the great Wisconsin martyr, and leader of the Wisconsin Republican mobs, takes its yoke fellow, the Milwaukee Sentinel, to task as follows. It is like Satan rebuking sin. Says the Milwaukee Daily Life (Booth's paper): "The Sentinel man denounces the conciliatory war policy of the Administration for the first twelve months of the war" as "miserable and disgraceful." It says: faced impudence worthy of the New York Herald, and denounces the very policy it then defended, in far stronger language than we used, when it accused us of treason to the Government." . [From the New York Tribune, of Nov. 22, 1863.] "Great is Halleck. Yes, great is Halleck! Had he never been called to the post that he fills-that of General-in-Chief-his Order No. Three, and his everlastingly memorable siege of Corinth would have secured for him that mention in history that is not unfrequently denied to daring and worth. In this commonsense world, and in the country of ours where common-sense is almost sure to win its way, blank stupidity is always to be mentioned:Halleck will fill a volume. "I "Halleck is General-in-Chief. To him the planning of campaigns is referred-to him as a West Pointer, and presumptively a man of science. He, under the President, who does not pretend to know the hidden mysteries that lie within inner and outer circles, is the ultimate authority. His fiat is conclusive. am the army," he may say with just as much truth as Louis XIV. used to say, "I am the State!" And now behold what he has ordered: An expedition to Brownsville of-we know not of how many men-an expedition that might be in order when all the other enemies of the Republic are put down; but which is now sadly out of keeping with the exigency of the national situation. He is for nipping the rebellion on its edges, while its heart beats loud and strong. He is the champion of exterior lines. Besides this the expedition of what is that but a stroke of genius of which Washburn, Texasward, by way of OpelousaOrder No. 3 was but the premonition-genius that triumphs over swamps, bayous and timber though it may not conquer the enemy? And while these expeditions are floundering, the one in the surf and the other in the mud, we see what we want elsewhere. 7 "Burnside, beleagured by a superior force, cries for help that cannot reach him, and Grant shut up at Chattanooga at the head of an army that is battered and bruised by a late encounter, cannot move a peg. Meade cannot go forward and cross the Rapidan, because his force weakened by the sending off detachments to the Cumberland, has not the strength to overcome the obstacles opposed! Defeat stares the armies in the face, because our forces are divided and sent off on Tomfool's errands to do something that will have no influence on the final and much desired result. Had Grant half of the men that are butting their brains out against cypress trees in that Opelousas country, he could push on; and his first move would call back to his front the columns that now, under Longstreet, threaten Knoxville and the continuity of our line. Hooker and his corps would have been saved to Meade and the fortifications that his army could not have safely assaulted, could not have been turned. Meanwhile a dozen gunboats on the Mississippi could have kept every rebel on the west side of that stream Five hundred men afloat could have done the work of five and thirty thousand in the field. Is not the wisdom, the foresight and necessity of Order No. 3 vindicated in what we relate? . The country inquires why is it that Halleck with that cabbage head of his, retains his place-why is he not permitted to retire to his ancestral krout gardens on the Mohawk, and there, among his kindred, find, in the killing of cut-worms and the care of his cabbage crop, the employment for which his genius is fitted. And if Burnside is gobbled up, and Grant is forced to retreat, that inquiry will grow into a demand that will be sure to make itself heard. We, who do not care for all the epauletted dignity that the Presicent can confer on mediocrity, press the demand now. Cabbages for Halleck, and war for those who have genius to comprehend it!" In a subsequent number of the same paper, we find the following: "We know no reason, outside of the inefficiency and incompetency of General Halleck, why this array of evils should now confront the country and send a chill down to the soles of every loyal man's boots. And we know of no remedy save that heroic one of sending Halleck, who is responsible for the army's movements, back to the captaincy for which he is best fitted, or to the Mohawk and the cabbages among which he was raised. The disaster now threatening has been foreseen for more than a month, It has been the constant theme of the rebel papers, and their loudest boasts There is not a man in the land who did not know of the movement intended. There is not, save one at Washington, a General-in- | Chief, who would not have made a counter movement to check it. If Knoxville falls, and Burnside is destroyed, let the hero of Corinth -the author of Order No. 3-look out. Not even Presidential favor can save him! of no more effect than the 'Pope's bull against the comet; and after he had given it to the world he regards it as the greatest folly of his life,' and did not scruple to so inform one of the most influential leaders of the fanatical faction who had forced him into the objectionable measure. President Lincoln has made many notable remarks since he has been in office, but none that is likely to attract so much attention as the above."' CHAPTER XXVI. THE PROCLAMATION...THE RADICAL WAR POLICY. Mr. Lincoln's Letter to the Utica-Springfield Meetings Editor's Remarks on the Negro Policy..." New York Tribune" Pledges the President, &c ...John P. Hale's Bill to Abolish the Constitution... The Proclamation in England..."New York Tribune" on "Servile Insurrections"...Opinions of English Abolitionists... Mr. Wilberforce on the Folly of the Proclamation... Wendell Phillips on the Rampage... The Proclamation Confessed a Failure... Caleb B. Smith Pledges the Administration against the Proclamation... Mr. Madison on Emancipation...Lord Dunmore's Proclamation... Bancroft, the Historian on the Same...Thurlow Weed's Prediction...Mr. Lincoln on Federal Authority... The Chicago Platform... General Remarks...Post Master General Blair as a Witness... His Rockville Speech. THE PROCLAMATION AND THE PRESIDENT'S WAR POLICY. The following is President LINCOLN's letter to the Union Mass Meeting at Springfield, Illinois, and Utica, New York: "To Hon. James C. Conklin: "EXECUTIVE MANSION, "August 26th, 1862. "MY DEAR SIR:-Your letter inviting me to attend a mass meeting of Union men, to be held at the Capitol of Illinois on the third day of September, has been received. It would be very agreeable to me thus to meet my old friends, at my own home, but I cannot just now be absent from this city so long as a visit there would require. "The meeting is to be of those who maintain unconditional devotion to the Union, and I am sure that my old political friends will thank me for tendering, as I do, the Nation's gratitude to those other noble men, whom no partisan hopes make false to the Nation's life. me. "There are those who are dissatisfied with To such I would say, you desire peace, and you blame me that we do not have it: but how can we attain it? There are but three conceivable ways: "First To suppress the rebellion by force of arms. This I am trying to do. Are you for it? If you are, so far we are agreed. "If you are not for it, a second way is to give up the Union. I am against this. If you are not for force nor yet for dissolution, there remains only some imaginable compromise. I do not believe that any compromise under the maintenance of the Union is now possible. All that I learn, tends directly to the opposite belief-that the strength of the rebellion is in its military-its army; and that the army dom |
