No news. Yet a universal expectation. What is expected is
not clearly defined. Those who are making money rapidly no doubt desire a prolongation
of the war, irrespective of political consequences. But the people, the
majority in the United States, seem to have lost their power. And their
representatives in Congress are completely subordinated by the Executive, and
rendered subservient to his will. President Lincoln can have any measure
adopted or any measure defeated, at pleasure. Such is the irresistible power of
enormous executive patronage. He may extend the sessions or terminate them, and
so, all power, for the time being, reposes in the hands of the President.
A day of reckoning will come, for the people of the United
States will resume the powers of which the war has temporarily dispossessed
them, or else there will be disruptions, and civil war will submerge the earth
in blood. The time has not arrived, or else the right men have not arisen, for
the establishment of despotisms.
Everything depends upon the issues of the present campaign,
and upon them it may be bootless to speculate. No one may foretell the fortunes
of war — I mean where victory will ultimately perch in this frightful struggle.
We are environed and invaded by not less than 600,000 men in arms, and we have
not in the field more than 250,000 to oppose them. But we have the advantage of
occupying the interior position, always affording superior facilities for
concentration. Besides, our men must prevail in combat, or lose their
property, country, freedom, everything, — at least this is their conviction. On
the other hand, the enemy, in yielding the contest, may retire into their own
country, and possess everything they enjoyed before the war began. Hence it may
be confidently believed that in all the battles of this spring, when the
numbers are nearly equal, the Confederates will be the victors, and even when
the enemy have superior numbers, the armies of the South will fight with Roman
desperation. The conflict will be appalling and sanguinary beyond example,
provided the invader stand up to it. That much is certain. And if our armies
are overthrown, we may be no nearer peace than before. The paper money would be
valueless, and the large fortunes accumulated by the speculators, turning to
dust and ashes on their lips, might engender a new exasperation, resulting in a
regenerated patriotism and a universal determination to achieve independence or
die in the attempt.
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's
Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 281-2
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