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immediately restrained; the men were kept to their quarters and to drill; the Provost Marshal cleared the streets and taverns of the Capital of vagrants of all ranks; the volunteer officers, compelled to submit to a Board of Examination, were driven to resign or acquaint themselves speedily with their duties; new sanitary regulations improved the physi

discipline of the troops. An effective military organization and control kept pace with the rapid and hitherto unpre cedented concentration of a vast national army.

tune of the day been altogether different. It by no means follows that if the North had gained that battle it would have been spared the cost of fighting others, or that it would have secured, at once, the confidence of Europe and the reconstruction of the Union. A defeat at that time might have earlier roused the South with yet unwasted strength to still greater demonstrations of ability than were after-cal condition and invigorated the entire wards made. The short struggle, so eagerly desired at home and abroad by the mercantile classes, would probably have been not a whit the less prolonged; for in such unhappy contests of civil war t is not one battle, but the slow and entire exhaustion of spirits aud resources which renders a people averse from and incapable of further great efforts, which renders them submissive to sound reason and judgment. It may have been that just such a defeat as that of Bull Run was required to tame the false confidence of the North, and exhibit the necessity of building its work on surer foundations. It probably saved some heavier disasters. However this may have been, its first and continued effect was to secure greater efficiency, and infuse a true military spirit into the details of the army. The negligence and license of the military camps around Washington was

Months after, when the consequences of this battle were not matters of speculation but verified by experience, General Buckner is reported to have said, after his capture at Fort Donelson, to a gentleman of Albany, when he was passing through that city, on his way to Fort Warren, "the battle of Bull Run was & most unfortunate thing for the South, and a most fortunate thing for the North. Nothing has more vexed me than the apathy of the Southern people. The effect of the battle was to inspire the Southerners with a blind confidence and lull them into a false security. The effect upon the Northerners, on the other hand, was to arouse, madden and exasperate."

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ONE of the first and most important | interests of the nation and of the princiduties of President Lincoln on his acces- ples of the new administration on which sion to his high office was to provide, by he was entering, at the different courts a judicious appointment of foreign min- of Europe. There it was felt that the isters, for a proper representation of the contest of the Government with the re

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FOREIGN DIPLOMACY.

bellion was to be fought out hardly less than on American soil. The weapons were different; the tongue and the pen were in place of sword and cannon; the force of right and truth, the adroitness of diplomacy, and the arts of persuasion and reason were the substitutes of the strategic movements in the field; the contest was to be bloodless-but it might prove not the less decisive in shaping the destinies of the struggle. The South carly sent its wily and well-informed agents abroad-Yancey, Rost, Mann and Butler King, and indeed already possessed a great advantage in the tone of opinion, which had been generated in advance by the persistent efforts of her wealthy and influential citizens abroad, who enjoyed the favor, under the late administration, of the American legations. The notion that a rupture of the American Union was at hand, and that, if attempted by the South, nothing could withstand the sovereign will and pleasure of that portion of the country in effecting the separation, was a doctrine which had been assiduously disseminated in European circles. A great number of important people of the Old World, accustomed always to speak of the American Government as a political experiment, were therefore but little surprised when the shock came; they had generally regarded the permanence of the Union as an unsettled problem; nor were they disposed to entertain any more hopeful view of its continued existence when the Message of President Buchanan informed them of the Constitutional difficulties in the way of its preservation, should the necessity, as it was evident it would, demand the interposition of active warfare. The sovereign authority of the United States, in fact, dwindled in the

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public estimation as the nullifying powers of the States were asserted, and they began to embody their doctrines in armed rebellion. An undefined jealousy of the growing strength of the rapidly rising American nation had unquestionably, with certain suggestions of self-interest, and various prejudices, predisposed the public opinion of Europe in favor of the theory, and, at the very first moment of revolt, of the recognition of what was considered the fact of the disintegration, or falling to pieces, of the Union. To counteract this unfriendly feeling and hostile judgment of affairs, if it should exhibit itself in diplomacy, and prevent, if possible, its adoption and incorporation in the public policy of leading European nations, was the arduous work before the new Secretary of State at Washington. How Mr. Seward devoted himself to the task; with what indefatigable zeal and pertinacity of argument; with what laborious industry he at one time anticipated, at another combated, the suggestions and declarations of foreign ministers; with what art he unraveled the tangled web of affairs; how he tempered the claims of self-respect with courtesy, and, appealing to generous sympathy, never forgot what was due to the honor and the rights of the nation for which he spoke,-the published volume of his diplomatic correspondence during those early anxious months of the rise and progress of the Rebellion, has abundantly exhibited to the world.

Among the new ministers sent to represent the United States in Europe were several gentlemen of distinguished political reputation. Foremost in importance of these appointments, in consequence of the peculiar relations between the two countries bearing upon

the Rebellion, and the natural influence political revolution of the last year of the foreign government in guiding the marks a great era in American history, policy of Europe in any questions which second only to that of our independence. might arise as to American affairs, was It saved us from the impending dominathe mission to England. This delicate tion of slaveholding absolutism. I did and highly responsible situation was as- hope that it might have been effected signed to an eminent member of the Re- without a convulsion. I did believe that publican party, who, beside his devo- it might have been followed by a policy tion to the cause, had many claims to which, while it wronged no one, would in consideration peculiarly fitting him for a the end save even the slaveholding States residence near the Court of St. James. from the perils of their situation. In Possessed of wealth, of reputation as an these expectations it would seem, from author, identified with the political his- present appearances, that I was much tory of the country, the representative, too sanguine. The desperate agitators in the third generation, of a race of have precipitated the more moderate statesmen who had enjoyed its highest and patriotic classes of their fellow-citihonors, the son and grandson of Presi- zens into a revolution. dents of the United States, Charles Francis Adams was admirably qualified to impress the imagination and command the respect of Englishmen, when he left the Congress of the United States to present himself before that throne to which his grandfather had been the first ambassador on the recognition of the independence of his nation. The Farewell Address to the People of the Third Congressional District of Massachusetts, in which he announced his resignation of his seat in the House of Representatives, is one of the most manly and dignified state papers of the times, calmly reviewing the grounds upon which the Government had taken its stand, and supporting its action by the loftiest appeals to duty and self-sacrifice in the cause of national honor and existence. "If I am right," he said, after contrasting the assumptions and pretensions of the rebel government at Montgomery--its declarations of force and tyranny-with the beneficent principles of self-government of the Union, "if I am right, then, in my views, the conclusion inevitably must be that the

They have staked their all upon the maintenance of their political supremacy as a slaveholding oligarchy. We cannot refuse the issue tendered to us if we would. Their whole action since the sixth of November has been aggressive, insulting, treacherous and violent, a very natural corollary from the principles on which their organization is now based. We have no choice but to sacrifice our independence, if we consent to their demands. The question is between our cherished law of 1776, resting upon the rights of man, and the old notion of Alaric, the Goth, revived in 1860, that force may be preceded by fraud, and that might makes right. We are now the champions of law and republican liberty. Retreat is impossible, even if it were to be desired. We must stand firmly by the old faith, or be disgraced forever. Deeply as I regret the causes which have conspired to give the impending struggle unnecessary elements of bitterness, I cannot, on looking back, discover how it could have been avoided, excepting by the utter emasculation of a free people.

THE NEW AMBASSADORS.

I must repeat that it is with great regret I leave you in this emergency for another feld of duty. I do so only under the belief that I may be of more service there than here. Whether that be so or not, however, will after all depend much more upon the people of the United States than upon their agents abroad. Foreign nations will very naturally look with more attention to the action of the principals than to that of their representatives. If they see union in council and energy in action; if they find wisdom in deliberation and heroism in the field-above all, if they discover a calm determination to carry the Government firmly through all its trials, in steady consistency with the purposes and policy of its founders, then will follow, as the day follows the night, their brightening sympathy, their admiration, their confidence, and, perhaps, even their coöperation. So it was in 1778. So it will be ever when honest men courageously uphold the right."

William Lewis Dayton, who was appointed to succeed Mr. Faulkner of Virginia at Paris, a native of New Jersey, born in the year 1807, was a lawyer by profession, early created a Judge of the Supreme Court in his State, and on the death of Mr. Southard, in 1842, appointed to fill the vacant seat in the United States Senate. Mr. Dayton held this position through the succeeding term till 1851. To the principles of the old Whig party he united a support of the freesoil doctrines which were prominent in the settlement of the territorial questions arising out of the conquests from Mexico. He voted for the various limitations of slavery brought forward at the time, and his services to the cause were remembered in his nomination as Vice-Presi

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dent on the Fremont Presidential ticket in the election of 1856. He subsequently held the position of Attorney-General of New Jersey.

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Cassius M. Clay, the Minister to Russia, a native of Kentucky and a relative of the eminent Henry Clay, brought to the service of the new Republican administration a reputation acquired in the advocacy of its principles when their maintenance required courage and self-sacrifice. had advocated the claims of liberty, and successfully asserted the rights of freedom of the press in the face of a vindictive mob which had destroyed his property and threatened his life in his native State; and had acquired a claim to notice in military affairs by his service as captain of a company of mounted men in the Mexican war. Pushed forward in advance of the column of General Taylor, he had been taken prisoner and carried to Mexico. On the way thither, a part of the captives escaped, when the rest, it is said, would have been massacred but for the influence he brought to bear in his gallant bearing and presence of mind for their safety. He was afterward anti-slavery candidate for Governor in Kentucky.

Mr. George P. Marsh, the Minister to Sardinia, carried to the new kingdom of Italy the prestige of an eminent career in literature and diplomacy. A native of Vermont, born at the beginning of the century, he had devoted his youth and manhood to law, politics, and thorough and varied scholarship. As a member of his State Legislature, of the national Congress, as resident minister to Turkey under the appointment of President Taylor, and in other capacities at home, he had filled a round of public duties, and by his recent critical works on the Eng

lish language, had extended his influence The rising difficulties of America were to a wider sphere. His appointment to confidently pointed to as the necessary Italy was every way honorable to the consequence of the license of democratic administration. The Hon. Anson Bur- institutions, and the example was held lingame, a Republican member of Con- up as a salutary warning to the old gress from Massachusetts, was nominated world to resist similar tendencies. These minister to Austria, but the appointment impressions were greatly strengthened by being objected to by that government, in the fact that none of those measures of consequence of the part he had taken in repression or restraint were taken by the affairs of Italy, he was withdrawn, the Government at Washington, which and J. Lothrop Motley, the eminent his- the first decided symptoms of rebellion torian of the Dutch Republic, received would certainly have called forth in any the mission in his stead. Carl Schurz state of Europe. President Buchanan's of Wisconsin, distinguished for the part Message, carefully demonstrating the imhe had borne as an asserter of liberty in becility and the powerlessness of the his native Germany in the Revolution of Government in face of the existing dan1848, a man alike of thought and action, ger, had, indeed, been generally conwas appointed minister to Spain, Nor- demned as an illogical production; but man P. Judd of Illinois to Prussia, and its doctrine, so disheartening to AmeriHenry S. Sanford of Connecticut to Bel- can nationality, began to be freely adgium. mitted. When to this was added the Previously to noticing the diplomatic passage of the Morrill Tariff, imposing relations of the United States with the greatly increased taxation on British Old World, it may be well to look for a products and fabrics, magnified to the moment at the state of public opinion in trading classes by the specious promises Europe, and especially in Great Britain, of free-trade from the South, a powerful in regard to the new phenomena exhib-appeal of self-interest came to warp a ited in the great revolt in America. The judgment already biased. The magniaccession of President Lincoln to office found the people of England in a peculiar state of mind. They had watched with interest the first movements of the Rebellion, and though they may have looked upon it with suspicion and incredulity in the beginning, were seemingly not reluctant to recognize in its imposing pretensions the reality of the long-threatened dissolution of the Union. This idea not unnaturally found favor in the minds of the dominant aristocratic class, which had always been inclined to look with jealousy or distrust upon the working of a system of government and society in many respects antagonistic to their own.

tude and importance of the rebellion were at the outset presented in an exaggerated form in England. The subject of the powers of the Federal and State Governments, but little understood at any time, was also greatly misconceived and confused. While previously it had been difficult to convince an Englishman that the general Government was not responsible for all the acts of the individual States, a position which he was prone to take when the repudiation of debts by some of the States induced him to look to Washington for redress, it now required a still greater effort to drive from his mind the assumption that

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