At the Cabinet council Fessenden introduced some trade regulations prepared with the intention of carrying out the last enactment of Congress, and designed to supersede all former regulations. This last law is, so far as he could make it so, a creation of Mr. Chase, and I am surprised that Senators Morrill and Morgan should have yielded to him. The regulations of Mr. Fessenden are tainted with Chase's schemes and errors, and belong to the same school of monopoly permits and favoritism. They met with little favor, however. The President objected at the threshold to that part of the plan which threw upon him the odium, and labor, and responsibility of selecting the agents who were to proceed within the Rebel lines. Both he and Mr. Fessenden, however, started with the assumption, and as a settled fact, that the cotton within the Rebel lines must be sought for and brought out, trading on the part of the government with the enemy. The only difference between them was whether it should be by a few selected agents specially permitted, or whether it should be open to all who wished to trade with the Rebels. Mr. Fessenden's plan was the first, the President's was the last. All gave a preference to the President's plan, or view of opening the traffic to all if to any. Mr. Stanton stated some of the objections to traffic beyond our lines, and thought, if it were to be done, it should be in concurrence with the generals in the Departments.
Mr. Blair questioned the whole policy of trading with the enemy, or having dealings with them while in a state of war. The principles of absolute non-intercourse with those in arms which I have always maintained no one undertook now to controvert when suggested by Mr. Blair. The President explained his views were that extensive regions lay open where neither army was in possession, where there was an abundance of cotton which the parties or owners (non-belligerents) would bring forward, but the moment the cotton appeared, approaching a market, it was immediately seized and appropriated by our own soldiers and others. It was plunder. He desired to correct this, and wished Mr. Fessenden to so modify and so shape his regulations as to effect it.
The position of Mr. Blair I deem eminently correct as between people of different nations. But this is not our case; ours is not an ordinary war, and our great primary fundamental purpose is a restoration of the Union. Commercial intercourse is not one of the means of attaining that end. A large portion of the people in the Rebel region are not enemies of the Union; they sincerely desire its restoration and the benefits that would flow from it. Give them, whenever amicable, the opportunity. Promote friendly intercourse. Let the people in such portions of the country as are not strictly in military occupation come forward with their cotton and begin to feel that they are of us and we of them. Tennessee and Kentucky, northern Georgia and Alabama, the entire country bordering on the Mississippi, etc., etc., can thus, under skillful and right treatment be soon reclaimed. We want no frontiers.
The success of Sherman at Atlanta, following on that of Farragut at Mobile, has very much discomposed the opposition. They had planned for a great and onward demonstration for their candidate and platform, but our naval and army successes have embarrassed them exceedingly. General McClellan, in his letter of acceptance, has sent out a different and much more creditable and patriotic set of principles than the convention which nominated him; but the two are wholly irreconcilable. It will be impossible for Vallandigham, Wood, Tom Seymour, Long, Brooks, and men of that stripe to support McClellan without an utter abandonment of all pretensions to consistency or principle. Yet some of that class will be likely to adhere to him, while those who are sincere will not. But the letter will be likely to secure him more friends than he will lose by it.
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