[From the Richmond
Examiner (opp. Organ) Aug. 15.]
Whatever may turn out to be the meaning of fact, the fact
itself begins to shine out clear that Abraham Lincoln is lost; that he will
never be president again—not even President of the Yankee remnant of States, to
say nothing of the whole six and thirty—or, how many are there, counting “Colorado”
and “Idaho,” and other Yahoo commonwealths lately invented? The obscene ape of Illinois is about to be
deposed from the Washington purple, and the White House will echo to his little
jokes no more. It is in no spirit of
exultation we contemplate this coming event, for Abraham has been a good
Emperor for us; but has served our turn; his policy has settled, established,
and made irrevocable the separation of the old Union into nations essentially
foreign, and we may be almost sorry to part with him. He was, in the eyes of all mankind, and
unanswerable argument for our secession, for he stood there a living
justification, seven feet high, of the steadfast resolution of these States to
hold no more political union with a race capable not only of producing such a
being, but of making it a ruler and king.
Certainly his elevation to that position astonished the
world, but it amazed nobody so much as the creature himself; he knew he was neither
rich nor rare, and wondered how the devil he got there, or, as he expressed it
himself the other day, to a Canadian editor, “It seems to be strange that I, a
boy born, as it were, in the woods, should have drifted into the apex of this
great event.” Why strange? One may be drifted into any apex if he only
embarks upon a chain of circumstances; and those who sneer at Abraham’s figures
are desired to observe that Noah’s ark did actually drift to an apex; and it
contained, with every other beast of his kind, a pair of baboons. If they drifted to an apex, so may he. However that may be, he is certainly now
about to come down, and even to be dragged or kicked down. The prognostications of last spring were
infallable, that the “rebellion” must be crushed this year—at least very signal
and decided successes must be gained over it, or else the war would no longer
be carried on under Lincoln’s government; let what might come of the war and
the Union, he would get no more armies to fling into the red pit of Virginia
for slaughter.
Now to put aside for the present the total loss of what
Yankees fondly believe to be their conquests in the trans-Mississippi;
pretermitting also the dead lock to which Sherman’s army has been brought, with
all Kentucky, Tennessee and half of Georgia lying between him and his own
country, and looking only to this most colossal invasion of Virginia with three
large armies all bound for Richmond—the thing is over. Grant’s army is rapidly going away from our
front at Petersburg, and returning to Washington or elsewhere. Of course Grant will not put up a notice on
the shore of the Appomattox that he hereby abandons his enterprise; either will
Stanton officially notify that the armies of “the Union” are found wholly
unable to advance one yard out of the protection of their ships, and therefore
they discontinue the campaign with a loss of one hundred fifty thousand killed,
wounded and missing. This would be unreasonable
to expect, nevertheless the enterprise is abandoned. Richmond is no more to hear the roar of
Yankee siege guns under that potentate’s reign.
One cannot but arrive at this conclusion from several
indications—from the greatly increasing excitement at the North touching the
Chicago Convention, which is to nominate a Democratic President; from the
daring violence with which some newspapers counsel resistance in arms against
the draft of half a million of men, and from the singular movement of some of
Lincoln’s own Black Republican supporters in the Washington Congress. They waited for the moment when their
sovereign’s fortunes were declining from their “apex” to give them a
treacherous shove down the hill. Two of
his most vehement and efficient allies, Wade, of Ohio, and Winter Davis, of
Maryland, gave him this blow under the fifth rib. They present, in their official capacity, what
almost amounts to a legal impeachment, save in matter of form, against their fond
and too indulgent master, now tottering to his fall; charge him with arrogance,
usurpation, knavery, in withholding his assent to a bill touching the status of these Confederate States—a matter
which though of small importance to us, is of the deepest moment, it seems in
that country; inasmuch as he has a plan of his own for readmitting States to
the Union on the application of one-tenth of their population; and this would,
they say, give him the control of the presidential election. So they inform him that an election carried
by this artifice must be resisted, and that he is inaugurating a civil war for
the Presidency.
If Grant had only taken Richmond, would they have dared to
set their names to such a document as this?
All the world suddenly, within one week, in short, since the blow up of
the campaign at Petersburg, seems to feel instinctively that Abraham’s gave is
played; and the New York Herald at once calls for a new National convention at
Buffalo to nominate some other men instead of the baboon of Illinois and the
tailor of Tennessee, and finds out that “the very winds have been whispering it
for weeks”—that is for two weeks, since the Petersburg blow up. Abe! The Emperor, is a fallen tree; no bird
of the air will ever again leather its nest under his branches; a dying gorilla
against whom the smallest cur can lift up its leg.
Taking it as certain, then, that the enemy’s present
sovereign is as good as gone, next comes the most interesting consideration of
who is to be his successor. It is not
very plain in the interest of whom, or what, Wade and Davis have so suddenly
found out the enormities of Lincoln; nor whether they mean to aid the Fremont
party of impossible ultra-radicals, or lay the pipes for themselves, Wade and Davis;
but the most interesting matter to us is the keen and active agitation in the
two branches of the Democratic party.
The peace Democrats openly avow that they will labor in the Chicago
Convention of this month to get a “platform” of instant and absolute peace. We
learn that the War Democrats are beginning, through some of their influential
papers, to give their assent to an armistice, as one of the “planks” of the
Chicago Convention—an armistice to allow negotiations for reconstruction. In other words, these war Democrats propose
that, leaving the military lines of each party where they now are, the
Confederate states should be invited to send delegates to meet the Yankee
States in Convention.
Let there be not only an armistice, but a formal
renunciation of all right and pretense to coerce these states; and of
course an entire withdrawal of all land
and sea forces which occupy any portion of our soil, or blockade any of our
ports; and then the Northern States will be in a position to propose to us
reconstruction of the Union, or a convention of States for the purpose of
negotiating that. It may safely be
promised that such proposals would then be at least considered; at present, one
cannot say what would be the result of that consideration; but, it short, let
our Northern brethren try us. With such
change in the existing relations, no doubt there may come also a great change
over men’s minds? The hideous apparition
of the blood-bolstered Lincoln will be laid; the bayonet will be no longer
point at our throats, our dead will have been buried out of our sight, and it is
vain as humorous Abraham says, to grieve over spilt milk—for so the facetious man calls blood. We do not answer for a favorable result of
this policy, but the Chicago Democrats will find it worthwhile to try it,
seeing that is the only chance they have.
SOURCE: The Brooklyn
Daily Eagle, Brooklyn, New York, Tuesday, August 16, 1864
