is true of Grant's own army; for, since he crossed the Rapidan, he has lost more even than the total number with which he started. In the first six days of his campaign he lost over 70,000-more than the entire force with which Lee met him. man. -Shakespeare makes King Richard offer his kingdom for a horse. We are tempted to offer a Republic for a man-for a genuine One such man might save us. We have millions of politicians and "patriots," but no man. The country, for the want of a man, is as badly off as the Priestess of Pirapus, who, according to Petronius, declared: Ulique nostra regio tam possis deum quam hɔminem invenire-that is, "certainly our part the town abounds so with deities, that you may sooner find a god than a man." The case of our country is similar. We can sooner find a million of deified "patriots" than one genuine, earnest, honest man. It is manhood we want-pluck! courage! but it is not here. Politics has eaten out the heart of manhood. We are a nation of politicians, and therefore a nation of knaves. What we need to be saved from, is from politicians. Abolitionism, disunionism, and a hundred other devilisms, all come of politicians. -The London Times thinks that our Generals have not improved much in three years practice. Perhaps they have not really practiced. Cicero says, "neither physicians nor generals, though they may have drawn their precepts from books, can ever attain to any thing great without use and practice." In these three years the most of our generals have practiced very little the art of legitimate warfare. They have made themselves far greater experts in the art of stealing negroes and spoons than in the art of legiti mate war. -A German tragic writer once damned his play and his reputation by representing Scipio very jocosely smoking a pipe of tobacco upon the stage, and drinking a pot of beer, whilst he was meditating on the issue of the great battle of Zama against Hanibal, which was to decide the fate of Carthage. It was held to be a libel on Scipio. But if any dramatic author ever attempts to represent Lincolu on the stage, to be historically correct, he must picture him, on the eve of the most dreadful battles, as asking his officers to sing negro songs, or himself cracking vulgar jokes, or telling the most obscene stories. To give him the manners of a Christian gentleman on such grave occasions, would be as false to history as to represent Scipio as merrily drinking beer on such an occasion. -The press of the whole country reeks with the examples of Lincoln's low and obscene jokes. No man in any responsible office ever stooped so low before. He is the nation's buffoon. His whole administration is a play which would be properly named "He stoops to conquer." His only thought of success is to appeal to the tastes of the low, the obscene, and the profane. -Mr. Seward talks of "the great lesson of the accession of Cromwell and Napoleon to power." So it seems that he is studying that business. It was the army, an army of sectarian fanatics, that gave power to Cromwell. It was the people who gave the empire to Napoleon. The power which Cromwell seized he dared not ask the nation to sanction. Like Lincoln and Seward, he conducted every thing by stealth, craft, and soldiers. Napoleon had the confidence and love of his people, whom he ever treated with frankness, and was their leader more than their master. Seward and Lincoln will find no sympathy with Napoleon, from the fact that they are intellectually and morally incapable of appreciating the philosophy of his success and power, The narrow and intolerant puritan, Cromwell, is far more the man of their heart. Cromwell's fanaticism was only triumphant for a short space. His work soon fell to pieces. It is a good lesson for Mr. Seward to study-full of instruction and full of warning. Every page of it says to Lincoln and Seward, Take heed to your ways! You stand on slippery paths. -In a late after dinner speech Mr. Lincoln said: "The Constitution is my first love." The old brute, he has violated it a thousand times. '-Bishop Hoadly said, in 1711, "This judgment may stand good, that there cannot be a right to government, properly so called, without the consent and agreement of the community and society which is to be governed." This is the precise doctrine of our Declaration of Independence, proclaimed by a distinguished English Bishop sixty-five years before the date of that immortal instrument. Our fathers poured out their blood for this principle. We take the part in this struggle that England took in 1776. By plunder, fire, and the sword, we are, like England in 1776, trying to force the southern people to remain in an embrace we ourselves have taught them to hate. This is the simple truth of the matter. We try to hide it. Equivocate, squirm, evade and lie about it; but that is the judgment of truth-will be the eternal verdict of history. Will none be good enough to point out in what respect the position of the North is more honorable than that of England in the Revolutionary War? If any man will attempt it, we will show that our present attitude is really more dishonorable than that of England in the battle of the Revolution. Any ignoramus can abuse us; but who will venture to argue this matter? -A Massachusetts paper boasts that "the early record of New England, in relation to slavery, is far better than that of the other colonies." That is not true. The slave codes of New England not only divided negro families, but sent Indian women and boys to the West Indies, and sold them for slaves, They imported the product of slave labor, distilled the molasses into rum, exported the rum to Africa, purchased slaves with it, transported them to the West Indies, and to the Southern States, and sold them at private and public sale. By law they authorized in every place a public whipper, who received a salary of three shillings for every slave whipped. See Ancient Charters Mass., ch. 12 Trumb. Col. Rec. 332; Trumb. Conn., vol. 1, 85. Archives Conn. Laws of Conn. and Mass., and Rhode Island. -Gov. Pierrpont again charges Gen. Butler with theft. This time the "beast" stole a dozen bottles of brandy from a private sideboard, and a silver tea-caddy from an old lady, and appropriated to himself the orphans' fund of the city of Norfolk. Butler answers all these charges of theft by calling Gov. Pierrpont "disloyal." -One hundred clerks of Barney's appointment have been removed from the New York Custom House for dishonesty. What a den of thieves it was! But where among the genuine "Wide-Awakes" can better be found? -A Republican paper, in praising the New York Lincoln ratification meeting, calls it a "monstrous meeting." Yes, monstrous indeed-an amalgamation of contractors, shoddy thieves, negroes, white men, and miscegenationists of all shades of color. -The President's Washington organ says, "The Republican party is striving to bring peace to the country." Striving is good; for the peace they seek is only that which follows fatal strife. It is the peace of the graveyard. The peace the Democracy seeks is that of the living-of a happy, prosperous, and re-united country. -Fremont perceiving that he couldn't draw, has withdrawn. -On hearing of Sheridan's victory, the President rubbed his grizzly, bony hands, and exclaimed, "I guess that Jeff. Davis will begin to conclude that he has sold his shadow to the devil." Ah, Mr. Lincoln, if you had sold only your shadow to the devil! -The President's organ at Washington abuses Gen. McClellan for not throwing up his commission since he has become a candidate for the Presidency. Neither Gen. Scott nor Gen. Taylor did so when they were candidates for the Presidency. We see no occasion for Gen. McClellan to throw up his commission because he expects to be advanced to a higher one. siness. Few men, we think, will feel the necessity, or see the wisdom of it. -Montgomery Blair was recently in New York. Why did not the publishers whose papers were thrown out of the mails by his order bring him before the Courts to answer for his crime? for the laws make his acts a crime. Is he to escape punishment? Are the laws not to be vindicated? Are the innocent people whose property has been destroyed by him to have no redress? In every town in the United States where papers have been thrown out of the mails by his order, he should be arrested whenever he puts himself within the jurisdiction of their Courts. So of Seward; he should never be allowed to pass through a town where there is a victim of his illegal arrests, without being hauled up before the Courts to answer for his crimes. The same of Lincoln. When he comes within the jurisdiction of a State Court, where there is a victim of his crimes, he should be dragged before the bar of justice. So of every one of his Provost Marshals, or lesser satraps, who have executed his illegal orders. -A cotemporary correctly says, "no na tion ever boasted so much of freedom as we." Yes, we boasted, but we cannot boast. There is no present tense for us. Our freedom is historical. Whether we have a future tense or not, depends upon the virtue of our good right arms. -The following letter is proof that Mr. Lincoln is working to have none but his own tools elected to the next Congress : "EXECUTIVE MANSION, "WASHINGTON, August 16, 1864. ( "Hon. Ward Hunt: "DEAR SIR: Yours of the 9th inst. was duly received, and submitted to Secretary Seward. He makes a response, which I herewith inclose to you. I add for myself that I am for the regular nominee in all cases, and that no one could be more satisfactory to me as the nominee in that district than Mr. Conkling. I do not mean to say there are not others as good as he in the district; but I think him to be at least good enough. "Yours truly, "A. LINCOLN.” A member of Congress is Constitutionally the representative of the people of his State; but Mr. Lincoln is attempting to revolutionize all this, and make him the representative of his own dogmas and interests. In a word, he is trying to destroy the system of government established by our fathers. How much longer must it be before the people will seize the mountebank despot by the throat and choak him out of his revolutionary schemes? History will one day vindicate the patriotism and the wisdom of this question. Now this question frightens cowards and enrages traitors, but the time will come when the cowards and traitors, who now howl at us, will howl more piteously under the smartings of a universal public scorn, for their dastard part in allowing the destruction of American liberty. History, inexorable history, will vindicate our course, and more than revenge us for the load we have had to carry in the face of such ignorance, cowardice and despotism. We repeat the question-how much longer will the people shrink, with dastardly submission, to the hand of usurpation? -Gen. John A. Dix would have taken the Democratic nomination for President if it had been forced upon him; but nobody seeing it, except himself, he would have taken the Republican nomination for Governor of New York. Nobody seeing that, would he accept a suit of old clothes? Of course we mean a military suit, and a feather. A man writes to us that he "wishes to come to New York to undertake some business which will pay well." Well, we should think the undertaker's business would pay the best of anything during the remainder of Mr. Lincoln's administration. NOTE TO SUBSCRIBERS. We send THE OLD GUARD out this month without an engraving, because it has been impossible to furnish one without keeping it back till the middle of the month. We have in the hands of the engraver a splendid likeness of George II. Pendleton, which will ap pear in the November number. There are so many engravings and lithographs of General McClellan already extant, that it is not thought important to make another. |