We are of the opinion that not only Mr. Lincoln's subordinates have had to do with the telegraph, but that he has absolutely been manipulating the instrument himself; for we have noticed a sort of Presidential jocularity in some of the dispatches, the paternity of which can hardly be doubted. We know-the world knows-how the Chief Magistrate contrives to keep up his spirits in the midst of difficulties that would have overwhelmed the jocund nature of Mark Tapley himself-and we recollect a story that was told of his having called upon one of the officers during a visit to the bloody field of Antietam to sing for him "Jim along Josey," or some other spiritstirring negro melody. We are not certain whether the officer did this, but if he did not, it was not the fault of our lively and loquacious Executive.

In olden times it was customary for the monarch to wile away his tedious hours by the droll antics and the witticisms of a court fool. The ever-flowing humor and inexhaustible fund of jokes possessed by the sixteenth magistrate of the United States renders what was an indispensable adjunct to the court of olden times entirely unnecessary at the White House, for the principal occupant of the Presidential mansion is a sort of dual character, and so saves the Nation the expense of supporting a jester.

7

But we are forgetting the telegraphic joke; and as our readers may be somewhat impatient to see it, here it is as it comes over the wires:

The rebel pickets informed ours that they had a new general on their side who treats the army with great severity. On inquiring his name, they replied-General Starvation.

What do our readers think of that? If that is not in every way worthy of the last successor of Washington, we are no judge of a Presidential hit.

Is there no publisher sufficiently enterprising to collect all the witticisms, all the puns, and all the anecdotes of the Executive, and give them to the world in an imperishable form? It strikes us that Barnum is just the man to undertake the task; or the incumbent of the Presidential chair himself, when he gets through with the cares of Government, and descends to the ranks of private life, might profitably devote his leisure hours to the agreeable

work. Such a book, issued under the title of Lincolniana, would, we have no doubt, have an immense run, almost as great a run as that made by the President himself into Washington some two years ago, under cover of a Scotch cap and military cloak.

THE ABOLITION POLICY OF THE ADMINISRATION, AND WHAT IT HAS ACCOMPLISHED.

(From the METROPOLITAN RECORD, May 2, 1863.)

THAT Abolitionism has been the cause of the present condition of the country is a fact which we think no rational man will deny. There are many, however, who insist, in the very face of history itself, and in utter defiance of the most solemn and repeated asseverations of the greatest statesmen of the country, that to Slavery is attributable all the calamities with which the nation is now afflicted. There might be some ground for this assertion were the peculiar institution a thing of recent origin-were it introduced into the country after, instead of before the Revolution. But when we find that the very men who framed the Declaration of Independence, and who pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the support and maintenance of American freedom, were themselves slaveholders, holding slaves to the hour of their death, and then, at that dread hour, transmitting their proprietary interest in them to their natural heirs-there is not even a shadow of foundation on which such an assertion could rest. It is clearly, then, a fabrication-an invention; and upon this invention has, strange to say, been built up a party that has shaken the Republic to its very foundations, leaving to the world nothing but the melancholy ruins of its former greatness. While the Constitution guaranteed the peculiar institution against the assaults of this factious sectional party-while conservative Congresses passed laws which were considered necessary to fortify, as it were, the provisions of the Constitution-this party, acting through its various cliques, either denounced that instrument as 66 a league with death

and a covenant with hell," or sought its nullification through the advocacy and enforcement of the "irrepressible conflict" and "higher-law" doctrines. Urged on, in its mad, fanatical career, by a hatred as bitter against the people of the South as against Slavery, it omitted no opportunity through the press, the pulpit, the rostrum, and through the various influences of social life, to stigmatize our Southern fellow-countrymen as criminals both in the eyes of God and man. It held them up to the odium of the civilized world as men who were unworthy of Christian fellowship. It violated the compact by which the States were held together by securing the passage of Personal Liberty Bills in the Legislatures of Northern States; it organized "underground railroads" for the purpose of stealing away Southern property; it concocted the raid of John Brown and his fellow-murderers into the first State of the Union, the glorious old commonwealth of Virginia; it leagued itself with the English enemies of the Republic, and accepted the ever-ready donations of British gold to strengthen the blows which it aimed at the life of the country.

What cared the men of which this party is composed for the sacrifices that were made by the patriots of the Revolution to build up the Union? what cared they for the freedom of white men so long as their, perverted sympathy could find an object for its exercise in an inferior race? What cared they for the physical sufferings and destitution of thousands of their own color at home and within easy reach, so long as the sable sons of Africa were to be elevated to a state of freedom for which they were never designed by nature, and to which, with a rare exception, they had no aspirations? What cared they for all this? They were bent upon the overthrow of Slavery, although the warning voice of the great statesmen of the Republic was raised in deprecation of their fiendish designs. How far they have succeeded in their fell purpose let the Abolition Administration at Washington answer. But it is said that the President and his Cabinet do not represent the extreme section of the Abolition party; that they are constitutional and law-abiding men; that their chief aim has been to administer the affairs of the country

on a national, and not on a partisan or sectional basis. Now, we venture to say, and we shall sustain our statements with irrefragable testimony, that there is not a particle of truth in any portion of this defense; that it is false in its inception, false in its utterance, and false in every word and line-in a word, that it is as false to truth as the hearts in which it was conceived are false to the spirit of the Union.

No sooner was their candidate duly installed in the Presidential chair than he revealed his policy by the appointment of Abolitionists as his Cabinet councilors. The first was his present Secretary of State, whose opposition to Slavery was notorious, while acting as a Senator of the Union. In a speech which he made in the Senate, March 11, 1850, Mr. Seward absolutely threatened the Southern States with civil war in the event of their con tinued opposition to emancipation. He said:

“When this answer shall be given, it will appear that the question of dissolving the Union is a complex question; that it embraces the fearful issue whether the Union shall stand, and Slavery, under the steady, peaceful action of moral, social, and political causes, be removed by gradual, voluntary efforts, and with compensation, or whether THE UNION SHALL BE DISSOLVED, AND CIVIL WARS ENSUE, BRINGING ON VIOLENT BUT COMPLETE AND IMMEDIATE EMANCIPATION. We are now arrived at that stage when that crisis can be foreseen, when we must foresee it. It is directly before us. Its shadow is upon us.

So much for the Secretary of State, and let us add that we could fill column after column with proofs of as strong a character in regard to his Abolition tendencies and policy. But we shall give another extract, and this we take from a speech delivered also in the Senate, but six years later, April 9th, 1856. On this occasion he made use of the following remarkable language:

"The solemnity of the occasion draws over our heads that cloud of disunion which must always arise whenever the subject of Slavery is agitated. Still the debate goes on, more ardently, earnestly, and angrily than ever before. It employs now not merely logic, reproach, menace, retort, and defiance, BUT SABERS, RIFLES, AND CANNON. Then the Free States and Slave States of the Atlantic, divided and warring with each other, would disgust the Free States of the Pacific, and THEY WOULD HAVE ABUNDANT CAUSE AND JUSTIFICATION FOR WITHDRAWING FROM A UNION PRODUCTIVE NO LONGER OF PEACE, SAFETY, AND LIBERTY TO THEMSELVES, and no longer holding up the cherished hopes of mankind."

Did it never occur to the present Secretary of State that he and his fellow-Abolitionists were giving to the South “abundant cause and justification for withdrawing from a Union productive no longer of peace, safety, and liberty to themselves ?"

It is unnecessary to furnish any evidence in regard to the Abolition character of the other members of the present Administration. Their course since their installment in office should, we think, set at rest whatever doubts might have been entertained on this point. If their views and opinions do not run altogether in harmonious accord, there is certainly a wonderful unanimity of action between them. As for the President himself, it is but justice to him to say that he has been wonderfully consistent in his efforts to give practical effect to the following remarkable expression of his political faith in the future destiny of the Republic: "I BELIEVE THIS GOVERNMENT CAN NOT NOT ENDURE PERMANENTLY HALF SLAVE AND HALF FREE."

Impressed with this belief, he took a solemn oath to faithfully execute the duties of his office, and to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. Strange contradiction; although there are some who would call it by a harsher term, and who would perhaps insist that he has made use of the power intrusted to him to fulfill his assertion, that "this Government can not endure permanently half slave and half free." Without stopping at this point to argue the matter with those who entertain such a belief as to the designs of the Chief Magistrate, we propose to present a brief review of the principal acts of his Administration during the two years that have elapsed since his inauguration. In the first place, then, his selection of leading Abolitionists as his Cabinet councilors was, to our mind, a striking indication of the course which he intended to pursue.

He has been in their hands from the very first, and he has been their instrument in the indorsement of every legislative act aimed by the last Congress at the perpetuity of the "peculiar institution." Not a single measure originated with him, or received his encouragement, looking toward conciliation and compromise with the South. They