A principal reason why foreign writers and foreign politicians have failed to apprehend the real characteristics of the present war in America, and to prophecy correctly touching its issues, is, that they do not understand that the people are waging it. They speak of the government as if it were one of the European sort – a central power, residing in certain men, who possess certain prerogatives. When the government was so weak that fort after fort fell into the hands of the rebels without even an effort at resistance, they thought that the country was, even then, hopelessly ruined. What could a government do which had no army, no navy and no money? Nay, what could a government do which had no power except that which it derived from the people? And what could the people do when they were divided? They gave us over to political perdition, and they will not have it any other way.
The historian of this rebellion will notice this difference between the loyal and the disloyal powers, - that one is purely popular and the other purely political or personal. The rebellion was not a popular movement. It was initiated and perfected by politicians. To carry it into operation, and to carry it on, it has been necessary to resort to all the machinery of terrorism and conscription. The loans have all been forced loans. An irresponsible despotism has used the people simply as its tool for effecting its ambitions purposes. Now this was something that the European presses could understand and measure. This was after their own sort and style, and they did not perceive that their [sic] was to meet and master it. The power of a united people, using the machinery of the government for its purposes in crushing out rebellion, was something that it was not possible for them to appreciate. Their education, habits of thought and ideas of government rendered full appreciation impossible. The consequence is that all their reasoning and all their predictions have been wrong.
The uprising of the American people consequent upon the war opened by the rebels upon the national flag, was, in fact, the revivification of the government, and from that moment to this the people have carried it on. The people have told the government to borrow, and to promise in their name to pay. They have done this in good faith, and without the first thought of ever repudiating. The people have called upon the government to tax them, and the government is only too slow for them in this business. The people on the other side of the water have looked on and seen our government piling up its indebtedness, and confidently predicting that as soon as taxation should touch the people, it would destroy the government or dethrone its policy. But the people absolutely clamor to be taxed. We have never heard one word against it from any lip. On the contrary, we never hear the subject mentioned without impatience to get at its results at the earliest practicable moment.
It is the remark of the English officers who have recently visited our camps upon the Potomac that they have never, in any part of the world, seen so fine an army. Why? Simply because the men who compose it are men of intelligence – men who cam from the people armed with a great patriotic purpose. The armies of the United States are not composed of the off-scouring of great cities, and the poor and the helpless, or the dissipated and the vicious. There are some of all these classes represented in the army without doubt, but the masses are the bone, sinew and intelligence of the nation, who enlisted from a sense of duty, and who fight because they feel upon their own shoulders the responsibilities of the Government. These men understand what they are fighting for. They cannot be defeated. They went voluntarily into the field, their numbers limited only by the necessities of the service, and they will leave it if they leave it alive, to work in some sphere of industry to pay the debts which the war has rendered unavoidable.
So far as the United States are concerned, the war is emphatically a war of the people. The humblest plowman feels the same responsibility that the President does – the same in kind, if not in degree. The President and all the members of the Government were private citizens yesterday, and will again be to-morrow. To-day, they are only the instruments the people use to accomplish their purposes – their necessary executive machinery for carrying on war and providing means. Our neighbors across the water have looked for and predicted mobs, but the mobs will not appear, simply because the Government is the instrument of the people, and the people will not rise against the power which they institute, so long as it obey[s] their wishes. The taxes they are to pay are laid by themselves, and will not be resisted or quarreled with. If this war be carried through successfully, as the people are determined it shall be, it will be such a lesson in self-government as will shake all the old world thrones and theories to their foundations. – Springfield Republican.
– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 3, 1862, p. 2
The historian of this rebellion will notice this difference between the loyal and the disloyal powers, - that one is purely popular and the other purely political or personal. The rebellion was not a popular movement. It was initiated and perfected by politicians. To carry it into operation, and to carry it on, it has been necessary to resort to all the machinery of terrorism and conscription. The loans have all been forced loans. An irresponsible despotism has used the people simply as its tool for effecting its ambitions purposes. Now this was something that the European presses could understand and measure. This was after their own sort and style, and they did not perceive that their [sic] was to meet and master it. The power of a united people, using the machinery of the government for its purposes in crushing out rebellion, was something that it was not possible for them to appreciate. Their education, habits of thought and ideas of government rendered full appreciation impossible. The consequence is that all their reasoning and all their predictions have been wrong.
The uprising of the American people consequent upon the war opened by the rebels upon the national flag, was, in fact, the revivification of the government, and from that moment to this the people have carried it on. The people have told the government to borrow, and to promise in their name to pay. They have done this in good faith, and without the first thought of ever repudiating. The people have called upon the government to tax them, and the government is only too slow for them in this business. The people on the other side of the water have looked on and seen our government piling up its indebtedness, and confidently predicting that as soon as taxation should touch the people, it would destroy the government or dethrone its policy. But the people absolutely clamor to be taxed. We have never heard one word against it from any lip. On the contrary, we never hear the subject mentioned without impatience to get at its results at the earliest practicable moment.
It is the remark of the English officers who have recently visited our camps upon the Potomac that they have never, in any part of the world, seen so fine an army. Why? Simply because the men who compose it are men of intelligence – men who cam from the people armed with a great patriotic purpose. The armies of the United States are not composed of the off-scouring of great cities, and the poor and the helpless, or the dissipated and the vicious. There are some of all these classes represented in the army without doubt, but the masses are the bone, sinew and intelligence of the nation, who enlisted from a sense of duty, and who fight because they feel upon their own shoulders the responsibilities of the Government. These men understand what they are fighting for. They cannot be defeated. They went voluntarily into the field, their numbers limited only by the necessities of the service, and they will leave it if they leave it alive, to work in some sphere of industry to pay the debts which the war has rendered unavoidable.
So far as the United States are concerned, the war is emphatically a war of the people. The humblest plowman feels the same responsibility that the President does – the same in kind, if not in degree. The President and all the members of the Government were private citizens yesterday, and will again be to-morrow. To-day, they are only the instruments the people use to accomplish their purposes – their necessary executive machinery for carrying on war and providing means. Our neighbors across the water have looked for and predicted mobs, but the mobs will not appear, simply because the Government is the instrument of the people, and the people will not rise against the power which they institute, so long as it obey[s] their wishes. The taxes they are to pay are laid by themselves, and will not be resisted or quarreled with. If this war be carried through successfully, as the people are determined it shall be, it will be such a lesson in self-government as will shake all the old world thrones and theories to their foundations. – Springfield Republican.
– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 3, 1862, p. 2
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