Stanton was bound to exploit the fact as a "Republican vindication" of the wretched policy of his former chief.

To others he wrote the real feelings of his heart, as is amply shown by the following:

My dear Sir:

Washington, June 11, 1861.

It gives me great pleasure to know that in the midst of arduous duties you still bear me in kind remembrance. The meeting of the 24th of April in New York has become a national epoch; for it was a manifestation of patriotic feeling beyond any example in history. To that meeting,* the courage it inspired, and the organized action it produced, this Government will owe its salvation, if it can be saved. To the general gratification at your position as chairman of the Union Committee, there has been added in my breast a feeling of security and succor that until that time was unknown.

No one can imagine the deplorable condition of this city and the hazard of the Government who did not witness the weakness and panic of the administration, and the painful imbecility of Lincoln. We looked to New York in that dark hour as our only deliverance under Providence, and, thank God, it came.

The uprising of the people of the United States to maintain their Government and crush the Rebellion has been so grand, so mighty in every element, that I feel it a blessing to be alive and witness it!

The action of your city especially filled me with admiration, and proves the right of New York to be called the Empire City. But the picture has a dark side-dark and terrible—from the corruption that surrounds the War Department, and seems to poison with venomous breath the very atmosphere.

Millions of New York capital, the time, strength, and perhaps lives of thousands of patriotic citizens will be wasted to gorge a ravenous crew.

On every side the Government and the soldiers are pillaged. Arms, clothing, transportation, provisions, are each and all subjects of speculation and spoil. On one side the waves of treason and rebellion are dashing; on the other is the yawning gulf of national bankruptcy.

*A great non-partisan gathering at which large sums of money and all other forms of aid were pledged to the Government.

A few days previously a descent was made on the records in all telegraph offices, by which a great network of treasonable and corrupt practises was disclosed. It involved thousands of persons in high public and private stations theretofore supposed to be loyal, and was calculated to sicken and discourage the strongest patriots. L. T. Wigfall of Texas left the United States Senate, opened recruiting offices in Baltimore and Washington, under Confederate commissions, and by March 16 was telegraphing to General Beauregard with unmolested freedom, from Washington, concerning his recruits and the means of transporting them to the South-an astonishing historical fact!

Our cause is the greatest that any generation of men was ever called upon to uphold. It would seem to be God's cause, and must triumph. But when we witness the venality and corruption growing in power every day and controlling the millions of money that should be a patriotic sacrifice for national deliverance, and threatening the treasure of the nation as a booty to be divided among thieves, hope dies away.

Deliverance from this danger also must come from New York. Those who are unwilling to see blood shed, lives lost, treasure wasted in vain, must take speedy measures to reform the evil before it is too late.

Of military affairs, I can form no judgment. Every day affords fresh proof of the design to give the war a party direction. The army appointments appear (with two or three exceptions only) to be bestowed on persons whose only claim is their Republicanism-broken-down politicians without experience, ability, or any other merit. Democrats are rudely repulsed and scowled upon with jealous and ill-concealed aversion. The Western Democracy are already becoming disgusted, and between the corruption of some of the Republican leaders and the self-seeking ambition of others, some great disaster may soon befall the nation. How long will the Democracy of New York tolerate these things?

The navy is in a state of hopeless imbecility, and it is believed to be far from being purged of the treachery that has already occasioned so much shame and dishonor.

In respect to domestic affairs, Mrs. Stanton and I hoped to visit New York last month, but the critical state of affairs made it hazardous to leave our children, and we cannot take them with us. With the enemy still at our gates we cannot venture to leave home. We hoped to see you here, especially after you had received the appointment of major-general. But now that the administration has got over its panic, you are not the kind of a man that would be welcome.

There are many details that I could give you in regard to proceedings here, but it is painful to think of them and to write them down would be a tedious and disgusting task. I hope our cause may triumph despite the low passions and mean intellects that now weigh it down. But whatever may be our fate, I shall always be happy to be your esteemed friend. Mrs. Stanton and our pet are well, and join in expressions of regard.

The Honorable John A. Dix.

Yours truly,

E. M. Stanton.

The foregoing is a Stanton letter, not a Buchanan letter. It is not guarded and halting, speaking gingerly of "policy," "vindication," and "defense," but heroic, virile, and patriotic, disclosing the real Stanton, the Hercules who had turned the ship about in the midst of the storm and rescued it at the brink of disunion. It is the Stanton, who, having advised Seward on March 5, the day following the inauguration, that "everything the Government possesses for the defense has been put in shape for instant use," was disgusted and angry because Lincoln made no attempt "for

forty days," as he says in one of the foregoing letters, to take advantage of that preparation, during every moment of which delay secession was gaining in strength and the Confederacy increasing its store of war munitions and its enlistment of soldiers. It is the Stanton who, having pointed out to Seward that while Buchanan had been without popular backing (the Democratic party in the North divided, the Republican party solidly hostile, and the South withdrawn into secession) Lincoln had firm ground on which to stand and ought to take decisive steps to preserve national integrity, yet saw with alarm and indignation no steps taken, no affirmative effort put forth to rescue the Union. It is the Stanton who had protested aggressively against Buchanan's secret negotiations with secession agents and put a stop to them. It is the Stanton who had heard the Republican party unanimously denouncing the negotiations with secession commissioners as one "tainting the outgoing administration with treason" and then beheld Lincoln, while doing nothing to reinforce the Southern forts, taking up anew, through his own law partner (Ward H. Lamon) and a justice of the United States Supreme Court (John A. Campbell) the tainting threads of a more offensive, humiliating, and formal negotiation with the Confederacy than any he had forced Buchanan to drop.

But why amplify? The essential averments of these letters to Buchanan and Dix are amply sustained by public records and fully establish: (1) That an “arrangement" was "negotiated" between Buchanan and "certain persons from seceding States under which the reinforcement of Sumter and Pickens was suspended"; (2) That this arrangement was denounced and "vehemently opposed" by Stanton as attorney-general; (3) That Lincoln resumed and broadened the "negotiations" with the secessionists which his party had characterized as treason on the part of Buchanan; (4) That the Lincoln administration repeatedly and in writing pledged the Confederates that Sumter would not be reinforced but should be evacuated, and broke the pledge; (5) That Stanton's characterizations of these acts and of the administration (not excluding the one alleging the "painful imbecility of Lincoln") were at that moment warranted; and finally, (6) That when he denounced the opening operations of the Lincoln administration at the same time that he described them as a "continuation" of Buchanan's idea, he condemned Buchanan in the most diplomatic and unanswerable way known to correspondence.

These letters are, in short, ample evidence from within that in the times of Buchanan and Lincoln, when others were doubting, drifting, negotiating, and prevaricating, he entertained clear and solid notions of the sufficient powers of the Government to meet the perilous crisis into which it was being rushed and to defend its life, and was full of wrath against those who, sworn to administer its affairs and preserve its integrity, were too weak, or too much tainted, or too cowardly to perform the great tasks which confronted them.

CHAPTER XIX.

RESUMES THE LAW-APPOINTED WAR MINISTER.

While the preceding correspondence was passing, Stanton resumed the practise of his profession, his first cases of importance coming from C. H. McCormick, against whom, for years hitherto, he had been successfully contending. The reaper business had grown to enormous proportions in America and Europe, and McCormick wanted his patents of 1845 and 1847 extended to protect it.

During the argument on these extension cases, which is still remembered in Washington, Stanton formulated his famous tribute to McCormick, whose "services to mankind and civilization," he said, were "vastly beyond those of aggrandizers and conquerors. His were the beneficent and everlasting victories of peace, and the world owed to their author an adequate reward." For illustration he showed upon the map how "McCormick's invention in Virginia, thirty years before, had carried permanent civilization westward more than fifty miles a year." For further illustration he referred to the Rebellion then sweeping over the country and filling the air with shout and shock and the alternating reports of victory and defeat and declared:

The reaper is as important to the North as slavery to the South. It takes the place of the regiments of young men who have left the harvest fields to do battle for the Union, and thus enables the farmers to keep up the supply of bread for the nation and its armies. McCormick's invention will aid materially to prevent the Union from dismemberment, and to grant his prayer herein is the smallest compensation the Government can make.

But it was too late. His own previous efforts against McCormick had charged public sentiment with great hostility, and the desired extension was not granted.

In the meantime, while acting as attorney for General Scott and Secretary Cameron, he was also confidential counsel for Gen