Diary of Adam Gurowski, December 1861

MCCLELLAN is now all-powerful, and refuses to divide the army into corps. Thus much for his brains and for his consistency.

The message — a disquisition upon labor and capital; hesitancy about slavery. The President wishes to be pushed on by public opinion. But public opinion is safe, and expects from the official leader a decided step onwards. The message gives no solution, suggests none, accounts not for the lost time — foreshadows not a vigorous, energetic effort to crush the rebellion; foreshadows not a vigorous, offensive war. The message is an honest paper, but says not much.

The question of emancipation is not clear even in the heads of the leading emancipationists; not one thinks to give freeholds to the emancipated. It is the only way to make them useful to themselves and to the community. Freedom without land is humbug, and the fools speak of exportation of the four millions of slaves, depriving thus the country of laborers, which a century of emigration cannot fill again. All these fools ought to be sent to a lunatic asylum.

To export the emancipated would be equivalent to devastation of the South, to its transformation into a wilderness. Small freeholds for the emancipated can be cut out of the plantations of rebels, or out of the public lands of each State — lands forfeited by the rebellion.

State papers published. The instructions to the various diplomatic agents betray a beginner in the diplomatic career. By writing special instructions for each minister, Mr. Seward unnecessarily increased his task. The cause, reasons, etc., of the rebellion are one and the same for France or Russia, and a single explanatory circular for all the ministers would have done as well and spared a great deal of labor. Cavour wrote one circular to all cabinets, and so do all European statesmen. So, as they are, the State papers are a curious agglomeration of good patriotism and confusion. So the Minister to England is to avoid slavery; the Minister to France has the contrary. All this is not smartness or diplomacy, but rather confusion, insincerity, and double-dealing. One must conclude that Lincoln and Seward have themselves no firm opinion. The instructions to Mexico would sound nobly worded but for the confusion and the veil ordered to be thrown upon the cause of secession. That to Italy, above all to Austria, has a smack of a schoolmaster displaying his information before a gaping boy. It is offensive to the Minister going to Vienna. It may be suspected that some of these instructions were written to make capital at home, to astonish Mr. Lincoln with the knowledge of Europe and the familiarity with European affairs. All this display will prove to Europeans rather an ignorance of Europe. The correspondence on the Paris convention is splendid, although the initiative taken by Seward on this question was a mistake. But he argued well the case against the English and French reservations.

Never any government whatever treated so tenderly its worst and most dangerous enemies as does this government the Washington secessionists, spies for the enemy, and spreading false news here to frighten McClellan.

The old regular, but partly worn-out Republican leaders throttle and neutralize the new, fresh, vigorous accessions. So Curtis Noyes, one of the most eminent and devoted men, could not come into the Senate because Greeley wished to be elected.

No living man has rendered greater services to the people during the last twenty years than Greeley; but he ought to remain in his speciality. Greeley is no more fit for a Senator than to take the command of a regiment. Besides, the events already run over his head; Greeley is slowly breaking down. McClellan is beset with all kinds of inventors, contractors, etc. He mostly endorses their suggestions, and on this authority the most extravagant orders are given by the War Department. All this ought to be investigated. Somebody back of McClellan may be found as being the real patron of these leeches.

If the genius or capacity of a commander consists not only in closely observing the movements of the enemy, but likewise in penetrating the enemy's plans and in modifying his own in proportion as they are deranged by an unexpected movement or a rapid march, then the generalship is altogether on the other side, and on ours not a sign, not a breath of it.

A civil war is mostly the purifying fire in a nation's existence. It is to be hoped that this great convulsion will purify the free States by sounding the death-knell of these small intriguing politicians. The American people at large will acquire earnestness, knowledge of men, and clear insight into its own affairs. Tricky politicians will be discarded, and true men backed by majorities.

The South has for its leaders the chiefs who for years organized the secession, who waged everything on its success, as life, honor, fortune, and who incite and carry with them the ignorant masses.

The reverse is in the North. Mr. Lincoln was not elected for suppressing the rebellion, nor did he make his Cabinet in view of a terrible national struggle for death or life. Neither Lincoln nor his Cabinet are the inciters or the inspiring leaders of the people, but only expressions — not ad hoc — of the national will. This is one reason why the administration is slower than the people, and why the rebel administration is quicker than ours.

The second reason, and generated by the first, is, that every rebel devotes his whole soul and energy to the success of the rebellion, forcibly forgetting his individuality. Our thus called leaders think first of their little selves, whose aggrandizement the public events are to secure, and the public cause is to square itself with their individual schemes.

Such is the policy of almost all those at the helm here. Not one among them is to be found deserving the name of a statesman, endowed with a great devotion, and with a great power, for the service of a great and noble aim. From the solemn hour that the fatherland honorably chains him to its service, the genuine statesman exists no more for himself, but for his country alone. If necessary, he ought to consider himself a victim to the public good, even were the public unjust towards him. He is to treat as enemies all the dirty, tricky, and mean passions and men. His enemies will hate, but the country, his enemies included, will esteem him. Such a man will be the genuine man of the American people, but he exists not in the official spheres.

It is for the first time in history that a young, insignificant man, without a past, without any reason, is put in such a lofty position as has been McClellan; he is to be literally kicked into greatness, and into showing eventually courage. All this is a psychological problem!

Kent's Commentary upon the qualifications of a President is the best criticism upon Lincoln.

These mosquitoes of public opinion, the sensation-seekers, the sentimental preachers, the lecturers, the amateurs of the thus called representative men, these oratorical falsifiers of history, but considered here as luminaries, are already at their pernicious, nay, accursed work.

They poison the judgment of the people. These hero-seekers for their sermons, lectures, and sensation productions, have already found all the criteria of a hero in McClellan, even in his chin, in the back of his horse, etc., etc., and now herald it all over the country. Curses be upon them.

No nation has ever raised idols with such facility as do the Americans. Nay, I do not suppose that there ever existed in history a nation with such a thirst for idols as this people. I may be a false prophet; but this new idol, McClellan, will cost them their life-blood.

The Blairs are now staunch supporters of McClellan. It is unpardonable. They ought to know, and they do know better. But Mr. Blair wishes to be Secretary of War in Cameron's place, and wishes to get it through McClellan.

And poor Lincoln! I pity him; but his advisers may make out of him something worse even than was Judas, in the curses of ages.

Polybius asserts that when the Greeks wrote about Rome they erred and lied, and when the Romans wrote of themselves they lied or boasted. The same the English do in relation to themselves, and to Americans. Above all, in this Trent affair, or excitement, all European writers for the press, professors, doctors, etc., pervert facts, reason, and international laws, forget the past, and lie or flatter, with a slight exception, as is Gasparin.

The Trent affair finished. We are a little humbled, but it was expedient to terminate it so. With another military leader than McClellan, we could march at the same time to Richmond, and invest Canada before any considerable English force could arrive there. But with such a hero at our head, better that it ends so. Europe will applaud us, and the relation with England will become clarified. Perhaps England would not have been so stiff in this Trent affair but for the fixed idea in Russell's, Newcastle's, Palmerston's, etc., heads that Seward wishes to pick a quarrel with England.

The first weeks of Seward's premiership pointed that way. Mr. Seward has the honors of the Trent affair. It is well as it is; the argument is smart, but a little too long, and not in a genuine diplomatic style. But Lincoln ought to have a little credit for it, as from the start he was for giving the traitors up.

The worst feature of the whole Trent affair is, that it brought back home from France this old mischief, General Scott. He will again resume his position as the first military authority in the country, confuse the judgment of Lincoln, of the press, and of the people, and again push the country into mire.

The Congress appointed a War Investigating Committee, Senator Wade at the head. There is hope that the committee will quickly find out what a terrible mistake this McClellan is, and warn the nation of him. But Lincoln, Seward, and the Blairs, will not give up their idol.

Louis Napoleon said his word about the Trent affair. All things considered, the conduct of the Emperor cannot be complained of. The Thouvenel paper is serious, severe, but intrinsically not unfriendly. Quite the contrary. Up to this time I am right in my reliance on Louis Napoleon, on his sound, cool, but broad comprehension.

Mr. Mercier behaves well, and he is to be relied on, provided we show mettle and fight the traitors. Now, as the European imbroglio is clarified, at them, at them! But nothing to hope or expect from McClellan. I daily preach, but in the wilderness. Prince de Joinville made a very ridiculous fuss about the Trent affair.

Americans believe that a statesman must be an orator. Schoolboy-like, they judge on English precedents. In England, the Parliament is omnipotent; it makes and unmakes administrations, therefore oratory is a necessary corollary in a statesman; but here the Cabinet acts without parliamentary wranglings, and a Jackson is the true type of an American statesman. Washington was not an orator, nor was Alexander Hamilton.

SOURCE: Adam Gurowski, Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862, pp. 129-36

Senator John C. Calhoun to Anna Calhoum Clemson, March 7, 1848

Washington 7th March 1848

MY DEAR DAUGHTER, The letter from home enclosed with this, and mine to Mr Clemson will give you all the Pendleton and political news, so that you must regard this but a brief answer to your's by the Britania. I am happy to hear that you all, except yourself, escaped the Influenza, and that you have recovered from its effects.

You must not suppose, that in contending against corruption and interest, that I am impelled by the hope of success. Had that been the case, I would long since have retired from the conflict. Far higher motives impel me; a sense of duty; to do our best for our country, and leave the rest to Providence. I hold the duties of life to be greater than life itself, and that in performing them manfully, even against hope, our labour is not lost, but will be productive of good in after times. Indeed, I regard this life very much as a struggle against evil, and that to him, who acts on proper principle, the reward is in the struggle, more than in victory itself, although that greatly enhances it. So strong is my faith in this belief, my dear Daughter, that no appreciation of my efforts, either by the present, or after times, is necessary to sustain me in struggling to do my duty in resisting wrong, especially where our country is concerned, although I put a high value on renown. You will thus see, that in struggling against the downward tendency of our country, it is not because I do not take a just view of human nature, as you suppose, but because I am actuated by higher motives, than what you attribute to me. But enough of this.

I am not surprised, that the powers of Europe so much dread changes. They are right; because what are called reform, will lead to anarchy, revolution and finally to a worse state of things than now exists, through the most erroneous opinions now entertained both in Europe and this country by the movement, or popular party, as to in wh[at] liberty consists, and by what means, it can be obtained and secured. Their opinion of liberty is, neither more nor less, than Dorrism. . . .

SOURCE: J. Franklin Jameson, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1899, Volume II, Calhoun’s Correspondence: Fourth Annual Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, Correspondence of John C. Calhoun, p. 744-5

 

Senator John C. Calhoun to James Edward Calhoun, April 15, 1848

Washington 15th April 1848

MY DEAR SIR, Your letter indicates much and mature reflection on the character and tendency of the present great crisis of the civilized world. It is clear, that the old monarchies on the continent of Europe are about coming to an end. The intelligence and progress of the age have out grown them; but it is by no means certain, that they are so advanced and enlightened on political science, as to substitute more suitable ones in their place. I fear they are not. It seems to me, that what is called the progress party, both in this country and in Europe, have not advanced in political knowledge beyond Dorrism; that is, the right of a mere majority to overturn law and constitution at its will and pleasure. They must be cured of this radical and most dangerous of all errors, before they can substitute in the place of those that may be overthrown, better Governments. Nothing but woful [sic] experience can apply a remedy; except perhaps in Germany, where the advantage of an existing system of confederation of states, and the dread of France from the experience of the first revolution, may lead to establish a federal system some what like ours. I have far more hope of her, than of France, or any other of the continental Countries. Indeed, I look to her to save Europe, including France herself.

What I propose to publish on the subject of Government is not yet prepared for the press. I had hoped to have had it prepared last fall; but was so interrupted, as to fall far short of my calculation. I am, and fear will continue to be, too much occupied here during the session to do anything towards its completion, but will resume it, as soon as I return home. I do not think anything will be loast by the delay. I do not think the publick mind is yet fully prepared for the work, nor will be, until there has been such failure and embarassment in the French experiment (which will be made under highly favourable circumstances) as will bring into distrust and doubt, Dorrism, so as to prepare the publick mind to have its errors and consequences pointed out, and to reflect seriously on the question: What are the elements, which are indispensible to constitute a constitutional popular Government?

I am obliged to you for the suggestions you have made, both in reference to the topicks to be discussed, and the precautions to be adopted in securing the copy right. My plan is to divide it into two parts; an elementary treatise on political science, to be followed by a treatise on the Constitution of the United States, not in the shape of commentaries, but a philosophical discussion on its character and constitution in illustration of the elementary Treatise. To avoid details, as much as possible. I propose to annex the various Speeches,

Reports and letters, in which I have discussed Constitutional questions, and to refer to them in illustration of my opinion of the various parts of the Constitution, to which they relate. I hope I may have so far completed my labours, before I leave home next fall, as to enable me to submit the work to your perusal.

I wait the meeting of the Convention in France and the German Diet with deep interest. They will afford much light by which to judge the future.

I see no reason to doubt, but we shall [have] peace with Mexico. The administration intended to conquer and annex the country, but were defeated by my speech on my resolutions which so effectually turned the tide of publick sentiment as to compelled them to take Trist's treaty.¹

_______________

¹ The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, February 2, 1848, signed by Nicholas P. Trist as commissioner for the United States.

SOURCE: J. Franklin Jameson, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1899, Volume II, Calhoun’s Correspondence: Fourth Annual Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, Correspondence of John C. Calhoun, p. 749-51

Senator John C. Calhoun to Andrew Pickens Calhoun, April 16, 1848

Washington 16th April 1848

MY DEAR ANDREW, Everything here is in a state of uncertainty, in reference to the Presidential election. The parties are more distracted than ever. Clay's address¹ has done him great injury with his party. It has in particular deeply offended the Southern portion.

In the mean time, the address of the Barnburners, just come out, has weakened and distracted the Democratick party. They take strong ground against us on the Wilmot proviso, and proclaim that they must be received by the Baltimore Convention to the exclusion of the Hunker delegates from the State. That I take it will be impossible, and a permanent split, with the loss of the State will be the result. I trust, out of all this confusion, a sufficient number of both parties will be found to be independent enough to make a rally to save ourselves and our institutions. As bad, as you suppose things to be here, it is not worse than the reality.

We are waiting with impatience for farther information from Europe. I have little hope from France, but a good deal of reliance on Germany. She has the materials for a good Govt, if they should be skillfully used. But we shall soon see.

My love to Margeret and the children.

_______________

¹ Clay's speech at Lexington on the Mexican War, November 13, 1817, is probably referred to.

SOURCE: J. Franklin Jameson, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1899, Volume II, Calhoun’s Correspondence: Fourth Annual Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, Correspondence of John C. Calhoun, p. 751-2

Senator John C. Calhoun to Anna Calhoun Clemson, April 28, 1848

Washington 28th April 1848

MY DEAR DAUGHTER, The Sarah Sands brought me a letter from Mr Clemson and one from you to Cornelia, but none was received by the Acadia from either of you.

I was happy to hear of the continued good health of yourself and Mr Clemson and the children, and how much they grow and improve.

We all, on this side of the Atlantick, look with intense solicitude on the great events, transpiring in Europe, and no one more so than myself. As frequent as the arrivals of Stemers now are, and as short as is the interval between their arrivals, there is no abatement of the anxiety with which each succeeding one is looked for. If there be the interval of but a few days, as much and more exciting news is expected, than formally there was after one of a month. I look, perhaps, with greater solicitude for the unfolding of the great events now in progress in Europe, as they afford me an opportunity to test the truth or error, of the principles, which I have laid down in my elementary discourse on Government. It is as yet in the rough draft, waiting the completion of the rough draft of the discourse on our system of Government. I cannot doubt the correctness of the principles, I have laid down, for they are drawn from facts in the moral world, just as certain, as any in the physical; but I am solicitous to see, how far they are subject to modification in their practical application to the present condition of the civilized world, which is so very different from any, that ever preceded it in many respects. There are powerful, long established, and widely extended errors now at work, which tend to universal disorder and anarchy throughout Christendom; while on the other hand there are powerful causes in operation to counteract them, and which, I trust, and believe, in time, will overpower them, and give a fairer prospect, than has ever yet existed, to the cause of real liberty and civilization. But in the meane time, it is to be feared, there will be great disorders, conflicts and suffering. You will see, that I am still hopeful. Had such a revolution—so wide and so rapid, occured 50 years ago, I would have dispaired, and regarded it, as the commencement of a great retrograde movement in the most advanced and civilized portion of the world. Even now, I regret—greatly regret its rapidity, extent, and too thorough and radical character, especially in France. It ought never be forgotten, that the past is the parent of the present, and that the past condition of Europe, which has given birth to a state of advance and civilization, far exceeding any heretofore known to the world, could not be a bad one. It may have, indeed, contained, within itself, causes calculated to retard, or prevent a farther progress, but these ought to have been removed cautiously, as experience pointed them out, without overthrowing all at once the peace of Governments, and the social condition of communities, which led to such great and happy results; especially as such an overthrow must of necessity be accompanied by such universal embarrassment and distress, and run the hazard of a retrograde, instead of an advance movement, in the condition of the race.

I had, my dear daughter, no intention of writing you such a letter, when I took up my pen. I commenced with the Intention, to relate the ordinary occurrences of the day on this side of the Ocean; but the allusion to the far greater, taking place in Europe, has led me, insensibly, in the direction I have taken. You must take it, better for worse, as I have not time to write another, or space, more than briefly to touch on, what I intended to make the subject of my letter.

My health continues as usual. When I last heard from home (a few days since) all were well and doing well. Your mother had turned to guarding and improving the yard, which Willey writes, has kept her employed, cheerful and hearty.

With love to Mr Clemson, and kisses for the children.

SOURCE: J. Franklin Jameson, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1899, Volume II, Calhoun’s Correspondence: Fourth Annual Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, Correspondence of John C. Calhoun, p. 752-3

Edward Bates to the Whig Committee of New York, February 24, 1859

St. Louis, Feb. 24, 1859.

To Messrs. J. PHILIPS PHOENIX, WILLIS BLACKSTONE, H. M. BININGER, DAVID J. LILET AND H. R. SMITH, Committee, New York.

Sirs: A short time ago I was favored with your note of the 7th inst., covering a resolution of the Committee, to the effect that it is inexpedient at this time further to discuss or agitate the Negro question, but rather to turn the attention of the people to other topics — "topics of general importance, such as our Foreign Relations, including the Extension of Territory; the building of Railroads for National purposes; the improvement of our Harbors, the navigation of our Rivers to facilitate Internal Commerce; the subject of Currency, and a Tariff of Duties, and other means of developing our own internal resources, our home wealth, and binding together by ties of national and fraternal feelings, the various parts and sections of our widely extended Republic."

Your letter, gentlemen, opens a very wide field, in asking for my "opinion upon the subject, and my views as to the signs of the times." Books have been written upon these matters, and speeches delivered by the thousand ; and yet the argument seems as far from being exhausted as it was at the beginning ; and I take it for certain that you do not expect or desire me to discuss at large, all or any of these interminable quarrels. That I have opinions upon all or most of them, is true — not the opinions of this or that party, ready to be abandoned or modified to suit this or that platform, but my own opinions — perhaps the more fixed and harder to be changed because deliberately formed in the retirement of private life, free from the exigencies of official responsibility and from the perturbations of party policy. They are my own opinions, right or wrong.

As to the Negro question — I have always thought, and often declared in speech and in print, that it is a pestilent question, the agitation of which has never done good to any party, section or class, and never can do good, unless it be accounted good to stir up the angry passions of men, and exasperate the unreasoning jealousy of sections, and by those bad means foist some unfit men into office, and keep some fit men out. It is a sensitive question into whose dangerous vortex it is quite possible for good men to be drawn unawares. But when I see a man, at the South or the North, of mature age and some experience, persist in urging the question, after the sorrowful experience of the last few years, I can attribute his conduct to no higher motive than personal ambition or sectional prejudice.

As to the power of the General Government to protect the persons and properties, and advance the interests of the people, by laying taxes, raising armies and navies, building forts and arsenals, light houses, moles, and breakwaters, surveying the coasts and adjacent seas, improving rivers, lakes, and harbors, and making roads — I should be very sorry to doubt the existence of the power, or the duty to exercise it, whenever the constituted authorities have the means in their hands, and are convinced that its exercise is necessary to protect the country and advance the prosperity of the people.

In my own opinion, a government that has no power to protect the harbors of its country against winds and waves and human enemies, nor its rivers against snags, sands and rocks, nor to build roads for the transportation of its armies and its mails and the commerce of its people, is a poor, impotent government, and not at all such a government as our fathers thought they had made when they produced the Constitution which was greeted by intelligent men everywhere with admiration and gratitude as a government free enough for all the ends of legal liberty and strong enough for all the purposes of national and individual protection. A free people, if it be wise, will make a good constitution; but a constitution, however good in itself, did never make a free people. The people do not derive their rights from the government, but the government derives its powers from the people; and those powers are granted for the main, if not the only, purpose of protecting the rights of the people. Protection, then, if not the sole, is the chief end of government.

And it is for the governing power to judge, in every instance, what kind and what degree of protection is needful — whether a Navy to guard our commerce all around the world, or an Army to defend the country against armed invasion from without, or domestic insurrection from within; or a Tariff, to protect our home industry against the dangerous obtrusion of foreign labor and capital.

Of the existence of the power and duty of the Government to protect the People in their persons, their property, their industry and their locomotion, I have no doubt; but the time, the mode and the measure of protection, being always questions of policy and prudence, must of necessity be left to the wisdom and patriotism of those whose duty it is to make laws for the good government of the country. And with them I freely leave it, as the safest, and indeed the only, constitutional depository of the power.

As to our Foreign Policy generally, I have but little to say. I am not much of a progressive, and am content to leave it where Washington [Jefferson] placed it, upon that wise, virtuous, safe maxim — "Peace [. . .] with all nations; entangling alliance[s] with none." The greedy and indiscriminate appetite for foreign acquisition, which makes us covet our neighbor's lands, and devise cunning schemes to get them, has little of my sympathy. I view it as a sort of political gluttony, as dangerous to our body politic as gluttony is to the natural man — producing disease certainly, hastening death, probably. Those of our politicians who are afflicted with this morbid appetite are wont to cite the purchase of Louisiana and Florida, as giving countenance to their inordinate desires. But the cases are wholly unlike in almost every particular. Louisiana was indispensable to our full and safe enjoyment of an immense region which was already owned, and its acquisition gave us the unquestioned control of that noble system of Mississippi waters, which nature seems to have made to be one and indivisible, and rounded off the map of the nation into one uniform and compacted whole. Nothing remained to mar and disfigure our national plat, but Florida, and that was desirable, less for its intrinsic value, than because it would form a dangerous means of annoyance, in case of war with a Maritime Power, surrounded as it is, on three sides by the ocean, and touching three of our present States, with no barrier between. The population of Louisiana and Florida, when acquired, was very small compared with the largeness of the territory; and, lying in contact with the States, was easily and quickly absorbed into and assimilated with the mass of our people. Those countries were acquired, moreover, in the most peaceful and friendly manner, and for a satisfactory consideration.

Now, without any right or any necessity, it is hard to tell what we do not claim in all the continent south of us, and the adjacent islands. Cuba is to be the first fruit of our grasping enterprise, and that is to be gotten at all hazards, by peaceful purchase if we can, by war and conquest if we must.² But Cuba is only an outpost to the Empire of Islands and continental countries that are to follow. A leading Senator³ has lately declared (in debate on the Thirty Million bill⁴) that we must not only have Cuba, but all the islands from Cape Florida to the Spanish Main, so as to surround the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea, and make them our "mare clausum" like the Mediterranean, in old times, when the Roman Emperor ruled both its shores, from the pillars of Hercules to the Hellespont.⁵ This claim of mare nostrum implies, of course, that we must own the continent that bounds our sea on the west, as well as the string of islands that inclose it on the east — that is, Mexico, Central America, and all South America, so far south at least as the Orinoco.⁶ In that wide compass of sea and land there are a good many native governments, and provinces belonging to the strongest maritime powers, and a narrow continental isthmus which we ourselves, as well as England and France, are wont to call the highway of nations. To fulfill the grand conception, and perfect our tropical empire, we must buy or conquer all these torrid countries, and their mongrel populations. As to buying them, it strikes me that we had better waite [sic] awhile, at least until the Government has ceased to borrow money to pay its current expenses. And as to conquering them, perhaps it would be prudent to pause and make some estimate of costs and contingencies, before we rush into war with all maritime Europe and half America.

I am not one of those who believe that the United States is not an independent and safe nation, because Cuba is not a part of it. On the contrary, I believe that we are quite capable of self-defense, even if the "Queen of the Antilles" were a province of England, France or Russia; and surely, while it remains an appendage of a comparatively feeble nation, Cuba has much more cause to fear us than we have to fear Cuba. In fact, gentlemen, I cannot help doubting the honesty of the cowardly argument by which we are urged to rob poor old Spain of this last remnant of her Western empire, for fear that she might use it to rob us.

But suppose we could get, honestly and peaceably, the whole of the country — continental and insular — from the Rio Grande to the Orinoco, and from Trinidad to Cuba, and thus establish our mare clausum, and shut the gate of the world across the Isthmus, can we govern them wisely and well? For the last few years, in the attempt to govern our home Territories of Kansas and Utah, we have not very well maintained the dignity and justice of the nation, nor secured the peace and prosperity of the subject people.⁷ Can we hope to do better with the various mixed races of Mexico, Central and South America, and the West India Islands? Some of those countries have been trying for fifty years to establish republican governments on our model, but in every instance have miserably failed; and yet, there was no obstacle to complete success but their own inaptitude.

For my part, I should be grieved to see my country become, like Rome, a conquering and dominant nation; for I think there are few or no examples in history, of Governments whose chief objects were glory and power, which did ever secure the happiness and prosperity of their own people. Such Governments may grow great and famous, and advance a few of their citizens to wealth and nobility; but the price of their grandeur is the personal independence and individual freedom of their people. Still less am I inclined to see absorbed into our system, "on an equal footing with the original States," the various and mixed races (amounting to I know not how many millions) which inhabit the continent and islands south of our present border. I am not willing to inoculate our body politic with the virus of their diseases, political and social — diseases which, with them, are chronic and hereditary, and with us could hardly fail to produce corruption in the head and weakness in the members.

Our own country, as it is, in position, form and size, is a wonder which proclaims a wisdom above the wit of man. Large enough for our posterity, for centuries to come: All in the temperate zone, and therefore capable of a homogeneous population, yet so diversified in climates and soils, as to produce everything that is necessary to the comfort and wealth of a great people: Bounded east and west by great oceans, and bisected in the middle by a mighty river, which drains and fructifies the continent, and binds together the most southern and northern portions of our land by a bond stronger than iron. Beside all this, it is new and growing — the strongest on the continent, with no neighbor whose power it fears, or of whose ambition it has cause to be jealous. Surely such a country is great enough and good enough for all the ends of honest ambition and virtuous power.

It seems to me that an efficient home-loving Government, moderate and economical in its administration, peaceful in its objects, and just to all nations, need have no fear of invasion at home, or serious aggression abroad. The nations of Europe have to stand continually in defense of their existence; but the conquest of our county by a foreign power is simply impossible, and no nation is so absurd as to entertain the thought. We may conquer ourselves by local strifes and sectional animosities; and when, by our folly and wickedness, we have accomplished that great calamity, there will be none to pity us for the consequences of so great a crime.

If our Government would devote all its energies to the promotion of peace and friendship with all foreign countries, the advancement of Commerce, the increase of Agriculture, the growth and stability of Manufactures, and the cheapening, quickening and securing the internal trade and travel of our country ; in short, if it would devote itself in earnest to the establishment of a wise and steady policy of internal government, I think we should witness a growth and consolidation of wealth and comfort and power for good, which cannot be reasonably hoped for from a fluctuating policy, always watching for the turns of good fortune, or from a grasping ambition to seize new territories, which are hard to get and harder to govern.

The present position of the Administration is a sorrowful commentary upon the broad democracy of its professions. In theory, the people have the right and ability to do anything; in practice, we are verging rapidly to the One-Man power.

The President, the ostensible head of the National Democrats, is eagerly striving to concentrate power in his own hands, and thus to set aside both the People and their Representatives in the actual affairs of government. Having emptied the Treasury, which he found full, and living precariously upon borrowed money, he now demands of Congress to entrust to his unchecked discretion the War power, the Purse and the Sword. First, he asks Congress to authorize him, by statute, to use the Army to take military possession of the Northern Mexico, and hold it under his protectorate, and as a security for debts due to our citizens⁸ — civil possession would not answer, for that might expose him, as in the case of Kansas, to be annoyed by a factious Congress and a rebellious Territorial Legislature.

Secondly: Not content with this, he demands the discretionary power to use the Army and Navy in the South, also in blockading the coast and marching his troops into the interior of Mexico and New Granada, to protect our citizens against all evil-doers along the transit routes of Tehuantepec and Panama.⁹ And he and his supporters in Congress claim this enormous power upon the ground that, in this particular at least, he ought to be the equal of the greatest monarch of Europe. They forget that our fathers limited the power of the President by design, and for the reason that they had found out by sad experience that the monarchs of Europe were too strong for freedom.

Third: In strict pursuance of this doctrine, first publicly announced from Ostend,¹⁰ he demands of Congress to hand over to him thirty millions of dollars to be used at his discretion, to facilitate his acquisition of Cuba.¹¹ Facilitate how ? Perhaps it might be imprudent to tell.

Add to all this, the fact (as yet unexplained) that one of the largest naval armaments which ever sailed from our coast is now operating in South America, ostensibly against a poor little republic far up the Plate River,¹² to settle some little quarrel between the two Presidents.¹³ If Congress had been polite enough to grant the President's demand of the sword and the purse against Mexico, Central America and Cuba, this navy, its duty done at the south, might be made, on its way home, to arrive in the Gulf very opportunely, to aid the " Commander-in-Chief " in the acquisition of some very valuable territory.

I allude to these facts with no malice against Mr. Buchanan, but as evidences of the dangerous change which is now obviously sought to be made in the practical working of the Government — the concentration of power in the hands of the President, and the dangerous policy, now almost established, of looking abroad for temporary glory and aggrandizement, instead of looking at home, for all the purposes of good government — peaceable, moderate, economical, protecting all interests alike, and by a fixed policy, calling into safe exercise all the talents and industry of our people, and thus steadily advancing our country in everything which can make a nation great, happy, and permanent.

The rapid increase of the Public Expenditures (and that, too, under the management of statesmen professing to be peculiarly economical) is an alarming sign of corruption and decay.

That increase bears no fair proportion to the growth and expansion of the country, but looks rather like wanton waste or criminal negligence. The ordinary objects of great expense are not materially augmented — the Army and Navy remain on a low peace establishment— the military defenses are little, if at all, enlarged — the improvement of Harbors, Lakes and Rivers is abandoned, and the Pacific Railroad is not only not begun but its very location is scrambled for by angry sections, which succeed in nothing but mutual defeat. In short, the money to an enormous amount (I am told at the rate of $80,000,000 to $100,000,000 a year) is gone, and we have little or nothing to show for it. In profound peace with foreign nations, and surrounded with the proofs of National growth and individual prosperity, the Treasury, by less than two years of mismanagement, is made bankrupt, and the Government itself is living from hand to mouth, on bills of credit and borrowed money!

This humiliating state of things could hardly happen if men in power were both honest and wise. The Democratic economists in Congress confess that they have recklessly wasted the Public Revenue; they confess it by refusing to raise the Tariff to meet the present exigency, and by insisting that they can replenish the exhausted Treasury and support the Government, in credit and efficiency, by simply striking off their former extravagances.

An illustrious predecessor of the President is reported to have declared "that those who live on borrowed money ought to break." I do not concur in that harsh saying; yet I am clearly of opinion that the Government, in common prudence (to say nothing of pride and dignity), ought to reserve its credit for great transactions and unforeseen emergencies. In common times of peace, it ought always to have an established revenue, equal, at least, to its current expenses. And that revenue ought to be so levied as to foster and protect the Industry of the country employed in our most necessary and important manufactures.

Gentlemen, I cannot touch upon all the topics alluded to in your letter and resolution. I ought rather to beg your pardon for the prolixity of this answer. I speak for no party, because the only party I ever belonged to has ceased to exist as an organized and militant body.

And I speak for no man but myself.

I am fully aware that my opinions and views of public policy are of no importance to anybody but me, and there is good reason to fear that some of them are so antiquated and out of fashion as to make it very improbable that they will ever again be put to the test of actual practice.

Most respectfully,

EDWARD BATES.

_______________

² This was the substance of the Ostend Manifesto which Buchanan as Minister to Great Britain had joined Ministers John Y. Mason and Pierre Soulé in promulgating. As Secretary of State under President Polk, Buchanan had tried to buy Cuba. In his second, third, and fourth annual messages he urged Congress to cooperate with him in securing it by negotiation.

³ Robert Toombs of Georgia: Whig state legislator, 1837-1840, 1841-1844; states' rights Democratic congressman, 1845-1853; U. S. senator, 1853-1861. He was later a leader in the Georgia Secession Convention, and congressman, brigadier-general, and secretary of State under the Confederacy.

⁴ January, 1859, Senate Reports, 35 Cong., 2 Sess., ser. no. 994, doc. no. 351. The bill purposed to appropriate $30,000,000 "to facilitate the acquisition of Cuba by negotiation." Senator Slidell (infra, Nov. 24, 1859, note 89) introduced it on January 10. 1859 (Cong. Globe, 35 Cong., 2 Sess., 277) ; it was reported favorably by the Committee on Foreign Relations of which he was chairman, on January 24, 1859 (ibid., 35 Cong., 2 Sess., 538) ; it was debated at great length on January 24, February 9-10, February 15—17, February 21, and February 25 (ibid., 35 Cong., 2 Sess., 538-544, 904-909, 934-940, 960968, 1038, Appendix [155-169], 1058-1063, 1079-1087, 1179-1192, 1326-1363) ; but because of opposition, it was withdrawn on February 26 (ibid., 35 Cong., 2 Sess., 13S51387). At the next session, on December 8, 1859, Senator Slidell reintroduced this bill (ibid., 36 Cong., 1 Sess., 53), had it referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations on December 21 (ibid., 36 Cong., 1 Sess., 199), reported it out favorably to the Senate on May 30, 1860, but because of opposition did not push it (ibid., 36 Cong., 1 Sess., 2456). He promised to call it up again at the next session, but when that time arrived was too busy seceding to bother about Cuba.

⁵ On January 24, Toombs had said, "Cuba has fine ports, and with her acquisition, we can make first the Gulf of Mexico, and then the Caribbean Sea, a mare clausum. Probably younger men than you or I will live to see the day when no flag shall float there except by permission of the United States of America . . . that development, that progress throughout the tropics [is] the true, fixed unalterable policy of the nation." Ibid., 35 Cong., 2 Sess., 543.

⁶ I. e., as far as Venezuela.

⁷ Bitterness over the slavery question had reached the point of armed conflict, raids, and murder in Kansas in 1855-1856, and Utah was at this time subject to frequent Indian raids. It was in 1859, too, that the Republicans tried to prohibit polygamy in Utah and the Democrats succeeded, probably with slavery in other territories in mind, in preventing Congressional legislation on the subject.

⁸ Dec. 6, 1858, James D. Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, V, 514. See infra, Feb. 15, 1860.

⁹ J. D. Richardson, op. cit., V, 516-517.

¹⁰ Supra, April 20, 1859, note 2.

¹¹ J. D. Richardson, op. cit., V, 508-511.

¹² Rio de La Plata in South America.

¹³ An expedition of some 19 ships, 200 guns, and 2.500 men which was sent against Paraguay because a vessel of that nation had fired upon the United States steamer Water Witch. A mere show of force sufficed to secure both an apology and an indemnity on February 10, 1859. The President of Argentina was so interested and so pleased that he presented the commander with a sword.

SOURCE: Howard K. Beale, Editor, Annual Report of The American Historical Association For The Year 1930, Vol. 4, The Diary Of Edward Bates, pp. 1-9

Senator John C. Calhoun to Anna Calhoun Clemson, June 23, 1848

Washington 23d June 1848

MY DEAR DAUGHTER, If a long interval lies between the date of this and your last, you must attribute it to the fact, that my heavy correspondence, publick and private, and official duties, compel me to lengthen the period between my answers and the letters to which they reply, to a much greater extent than I desire in writing to you and the rest of the family. I correspond with all of them which of itself occupies a good deal of my time.

The opinions you express in reference to the state of things in Europe are very sensible and just. There is no prospect of a successful termination of the efforts of France to establish a free popular Government; nor was there any from the begining. She has no elements out of which such a government could be formed; and if she had, still she must fail from her total misconception of the principles, on which such a government, to succeed, must be constructed. Indeed, her conception of liberty is false throughout. Her standard of liberty is ideal; belongs to that kind of liberty which man has been supposed to possess, in what has been falsely called a state of nature, a state supposed to have preceded the social and political, and in which, of course, if it ever existed, he must have live[d] a part, as an isolated individual, without Society, or Government. In such a state, if it were possible for him to exist in it, he would have, indeed, had two of the elements of the French political creed; liberty and equality, but no fraternity. That can only exist in the social and political; and the attempt to unite the other two, as they would exist, in the supposed state of nature, in man, as he must exist in the former, must and ever will fail. The union is impossible, and the attempt to unite them absurd; and must lead, if persisted in, to distraction, anarchy and finally absolute power, in the hand of one man.

It is this false conception that is upheaving Europe, and which, if not corrected, will upset all her efforts to reform her social and political condition. It is at the same time threatening our institutions. Abolitionism originates in it, which every day becomes more formidable, and if not speedily arrested, must terminate in the dissolution of our Union, or in universal confusion, and overthrow of our system of Government. But enough of these general speculations.

We are in the midest of the presidential canvass. It will be one of great confusion. Neither party is satisfied, or united on its nominee; and there will probably be a third candidate, nominated by what are called the Barnburners, or Van Burenites. The prospect, I think, is, that Taylor will succeed, tho' it is not certain. The enclosed will give you all the home news.

It is still uncertain, when Congress will adjourn; but, I think it probable it will about the 1st August.

My health continues good. I am happy to hear you are all well, and that the children [are] growing and doing so well. Kiss them for their Grandfather, and tell them how happy he is to learn, that they are such good children. Give my love to Mr. Clemson.

SOURCE: J. Franklin Jameson, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1899, Volume II, Calhoun’s Correspondence: Fourth Annual Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, Correspondence of John C. Calhoun, p. 757-9

Diary of Adam Gurowski, April 1861

COMMISSIONERS from the rebels; Seward parleying with them through some Judge Campbell. Curious way of treating and dealing with rebellion, with rebels and traitors; why not arrest them?

Corcoran, a rich partisan of secession, invited to a dinner the rebel commissioners and the foreign diplomats. If such a thing were done anywhere else, such a pimp would be arrested. The serious diplomats, Lord Lyons, Mercier, and Stoeckl refused the invitation; some smaller accepted, at least so I hear.

The infamous traitors fire on the Union flag. They treat the garrison of Sumpter as enemies on sufferance, and here their commissioners go about free, and glory in treason. What is this administration about? Have they no blood; are they fishes?

The crime in full blast; consummatum est. Sumpter bombarded; Virginia, under the nose of the administration, secedes, and the leaders did not see or foresee anything: flirted with Virginia.

Now, they, the leaders or the administration, are terribly startled; so is the brave noble North; the people are taken unawares; but no wonder; the people saw the Cabinet, the President, and the military in complacent security. These watchmen did nothing to give an early sign of alarm, so the people, confiding in them, went about its daily occupation. But it will rise as one man and in terrible wrath. Vous le verrez mess les Diplomates.

The President calls on the country for 75,000 men; telegram has spoken, and they rise, they arm, they come. I am not deceived in my faith in the North; the excitement, the wrath, is terrible. Party lines burn, dissolved by the excitement. Now the people is in fusion as bronze; if Lincoln and the leaders have mettle in themselves, then they can cast such arms, moral, material, and legislative, as will destroy at once this rebellion. But will they have the energy? They do not look like Demiourgi.

Massachusetts takes the lead; always so, this first people in the world; first for peace by its civilization and intellectual development, and first to run to the rescue.

The most infamous treachery and murder, by Baltimoreans, of the Massachusetts men. Will the cowardly murderers be exemplarily punished?

The President, under the advice of Scott, seems to take coolly the treasonable murders of Baltimore; instead of action, again parleying with these Baltimorean traitors. The rumor says that Seward is for leniency, and goes hand in hand with Scott. Now, if they will handle such murderers in silk gloves as they do, the fire must spread.

The secessionists in Washington—and they are a legion, of all hues and positions are defiant, arrogant, sure that Washington will be taken. One risks to be murdered here.

I entered the thus called Cassius Clay Company, organized for the defence of Washington until troops came. For several days patrolled, drilled, and lay several nights on the hard floor. Had compensation, that the drill often reproduced that of Falstaff's heroes. But my campaigners would have fought well in case of emergency. Most of them office-seekers. When the alarm was over, the company dissolved, but each got a kind of certificate beautifully written and signed by Lincoln and Cameron. I refused to take such a certificate, we having had no occasion to fight.

The President issued a proclamation for the blockade of the Southern revolted ports. Do they not know better?

How can the Minister of Foreign Affairs advise the President to resort to such a measure? Is the Minister of Foreign Affairs so willing to call in foreign nations by this blockade, thus transforming a purely domestic and municipal question into an international, public one?

The President is to quench the rebellion, a domestic fire, and to do it he takes a weapon, an engine the most difficult to handle, and in using of which he depends on foreign nations. Do they not know better here in the ministry and in the councils? Russia dealt differently with the revolted Circassians and with England in the so celebrated case of the Vixen.

The administration ought to know its rights of sovereignty and to close the ports of entry. Then no chance would be left to England to meddle.

Yesterday N—— dined with Lord Lyons, and during the dinner an anonymous note announced to the Lord that the proclamation of the blockade is to be issued on to-morrow. N——, who has a romantic turn, or rather who seeks for midi a' 14¾ heures, speculated what lady would have thus violated a secret d'Etat.

I rather think it comes from the Ministry, or, as they call it here, from the Department. About two years ago, when the Central Americans were so teased and maltreated by the fillibusters and Democratic administration, a Minister of one of these Central American States told me in New York that in a Chief of the Departments, or something the like, the Central Americans have a valuable friend, who, every time that trouble is brewing against them in the Department, gives them a secret and anonymous notice of it. This friend may have transferred his kindness to England.

How will foreign nations behave? I wish I may be misguided by my political anglophobia, but England, envious, rapacious, and the Palmerstons and others, filled with hatred towards the genuine democracy and the American people, will play some bad tricks. They will seize the occasion to avenge many humiliations. Charles Sumner, Howe, and a great many others, rely on England, on her antislavery feeling. I do not. I know English policy. We shall see.

France, Frenchmen, and Louis Napoleon are by far more reliable. The principles and the interest of France, broadly conceived, make the existence of a powerful Union a statesmanlike European and world necessity. The cold, taciturn Louis Napoleon is full of broad and clear conceptions. I am for relying, almost explicitly, on France and on him.

The administration calls in all the men-of-war scattered in all waters. As the commercial interests of the Union will remain unprotected, the administration ought to put them under the protection of France. It is often done so between friendly powers. Louis Napoleon could not refuse; and accepting, would become pledged to our side.

Germany, great and small, governments and people, will be for the Union. Germans are honest; they love the Union, hate slavery, and understand, to be sure, the question. Russia, safe, very safe, few blackguards excepted; so Italy. Spain may play double. I do not expect that the Spaniards, goaded to the quick by the former fillibustering administrations, will have judgment enough to find out that the Republicans have been and will be anti-fillibusters, and do not crave Cuba.

Wrote a respectful warning to the President concerning the unvoidable results of his proclamation in regard to the blockade; explained to him that this, his international demonstration, will, and forcibly must evoke a counter proclamation from foreign powers in the interest of their own respective subjects and of their commercial relations. Warned, foretelling that the foreign powers will recognize the rebels as belligerents, he, the President, having done it already in some way, thus applying an international mode of coercion. Warned, that the condition of belligerents, once recognized, the rebel piratical crafts will be recognized as privateers by foreign powers, and as such will be admitted to all ports under the secesh flag, which will thus enjoy a partial recognition.

Foreign powers may grumble, or oppose the closing of the ports of entry as a domestic, administrative decision, because they may not wish to commit themselves to submit to a paper blockade. But if the President will declare that he will enforce the closing of the ports with the whole navy, so as to strictly guard and close the maritime league, then the foreign powers will see that the administration does not intend to humbug them, but that he, the President, will only preserve intact the fullest exercise of sovereignty, and, as said the Roman legist, he, the President, "nil sibi postulat quod non aliis tribuit." And so he, the President, will only execute the laws of his country, and not any arbitrary measure, to say with the Roman Emperor, "Leges etiam in ipsa arma imperium habere volumus." Warned the President that in all matters relating to this country Louis Napoleon has abandoned the initiative to England; and to throw a small wedge in this alliance, I finally respectfully suggested to the President what is said above about putting the American interests in the Mediterranean under the protection of Louis Napoleon.

Few days thereafter learned that Mr. Seward does not believe that France will follow England. Before long Seward will find it out.

All the coquetting with Virginia, all the presumed influence of General Scott, ended in Virginia's secession, and in the seizure of Norfolk.

Has ever any administration, cabinet, ministry—call it what name you will—given positive, indubitable signs of want and absence of foresight, as did ours in these Virginia, Norfolk, and Harper's Ferry affairs? Not this or that minister or secretary, but all of them ought to go to the constitutional guillotine. Blindness—no mere short-sightedness-permeates the whole administration, Blair excepted. And Scott, the politico-military adviser of the President! What is the matter with Scott, or were the halo and incense surrounding him based on bosh? Will it be one more illusion to be dispelled?

The administration understood not how to save or defend Norfolk, nor how to destroy it. No name to be found for such concrete incapacity.

The rebels are masters, taking our leaders by the nose. Norfolk gives to them thousands of guns, &c., and nobody cries for shame. They ought to go in sackcloth, those narrow-sighted, blind rulers. How will the people stand this masterly administrative demonstration? In England the people and the Parliament would impeach the whole Cabinet.

Charles Sumner told me that the President and his Minister of Foreign Affairs are to propose to the foreign powers the accession of the Union to the celebrated convention of Paris of 1856. All three considered it a master stroke of policy. They will not catch a fly by it.

Again wrote respectfully to Mr. Lincoln, warning him against a too hasty accession to the Paris convention. Based my warning,

1st. Not to give up the great principles contained in Marcy's amendment.

2d. Not to believe or suppose for a minute that the accession to the Paris convention at this time can act in a retroactive sense; explained that it will not and cannot prevent the rebel pirates from being recognized by foreign powers as legal privateers, or being treated as such.

3d. For all these reasons the Union will not win anything by such a step, but it will give up principles and chain its own hands in case of any war with England. Supplicated the President not to risk a step which logically must turn wrong.

Baltimore still unpunished, and the President parleying with various deputations, all this under the guidance of Scott. I begin to be confused; cannot find out what is the character of Lincoln, and above all of Scott.

Governors from whole or half-rebel States refuse the President's call for troops. The original call of 75,000, too small in itself, will be reduced by that refusal. Why does not the administration call for more on the North, and on the free States? In the temper of this noble people it will be as easy to have 250,000 as 75,000, and then rush on them; submerge Virginia, North Carolina, etc.; it can be now so easily done. The Virginians are neither armed nor organized. Courage and youth seemingly would do good in the councils.

The free States undoubtedly will vindicate self-government. Whatever may be said by foreign and domestic croakers, I do not doubt it for a single minute. The free people will show to the world that the apparently loose governmental ribbons are the strongest when everybody carries them in him, and holds them. The people will show that the intellectual magnetism of convictions permeating the million is by far stronger than the commonly called governmental action from above, and it is at the same time elastic and expansive, even if the official leaders may turn out to be altogether mediocrities. The self-governing free North will show more vitality and activity than any among the governed European countries would be able to show in similar emergencies. This is my creed, and I have faith in the people.

The infamous slavers of the South would even be honored if named Barbary States of North America. Before the inauguration, Seward was telling the diplomats that no disruption will take place; now he tells them that it will blow over in from sixty to ninety days. Does Seward believe it? Or does his imagination or his patriotism carry him away or astray? Or, perhaps, he prefers not to look the danger in the face, and tries to avert the bitter cup. At any rate, he is incomprehensible, and the more so when seen at a distance.

Something, nay, even considerable efforts ought to be made to enlighten the public opinion in Europe, as on the outside, insurrections, nationalities, etc., are favored in Europe. How far the diplomats sent by the administration are prepared for this task?

Adams has shown in the last Congress his scholarly, classical narrow-mindedness. Sanford cannot favorably impress anybody in Europe, neither in cabinets, nor in saloons, nor the public at large. He looks and acts as a commis voyageur, will be considered as such at first sight by everybody, and his features and manners may not impress others as being distinguished and high-toned.

Every historical, that is, human event, has its moral and material character and sides. To ignore, and still worse to blot out, to reject the moral incentives and the moral verdict, is a crime to the public at large, is a crime towards human reason.

Such action blunts sound feelings and comprehension, increases the arrogance of the evil-doers.

The moral criterion is absolute and unconditional, and ought as such unconditionally to be applied to the events here. Things and actions must be called by their true names. What is true, noble, pure, and lofty, is on the side of the North, and permeates the unnamed millions of the free people; it ought to be separated from what is sham, egotism, lie or assumption. Truth must be told, never mind the outcry. History has not to produce pieces for the stage, or to amuse a tea-party.

Regiments pour in; the Massachusetts men, of course, leading the van, as in the times of the tea-party. My admiration for the Yankees is justified on every step, as is my scorn, my contempt, etc., etc., of the Southern chivalrous slaver.

Wrote to Charles Sumner expressing my wonder at the undecided conduct of the administration; at its want of foresight; its eternal parleying with Baltimoreans, Virginians, Missourians, etc., and no step to tread down the head of the young snake. No one among them seems to have the seer's eye. The people alone, who arm, who pour in every day and in large numbers, who transform Washington into a camp, and who crave for fighting, the people alone have the prophetic inspiration, and are the genuine statesmen for the emergency.

How will the Congress act? The Congress will come here emerging from the innermost of the popular volcano; but the Congress will be manacled by formulas; it will move not in the spirit of the Constitution, but in the dry constitutionalism, and the Congress will move with difficulty. Still I have faith, although the Congress never will seize upon parliamentary omnipotence. Up to to-day, the administration, instead of boldly crushing, or, at least, attempting to do it; instead of striking at the traitors, the administration is continually on the lookout where the blows come from, scarcely having courage to ward them off. The deputations pouring from the North urge prompt, decided, crushing action. This thunder-voice of the twenty millions of freemen ought to nerve this senile administration. The Southern leaders do not lose one minute's time; they spread the fire, arm, and attack with all the fury of traitors and criminals.

The Northern merchants roar for the offensive; the administration is undecided.

Some individuals, politicians, already speak out that the slaveocratic privileges are only to be curtailed, and slavery preserved as a domestic institution. Not a bit of it. The current and the development of events will run over the heads of the pusillanimous and contemptible conservatives. Slavery must perish, even if the whole North, Lincoln and Seward at its head, should attempt to save it.

Already they speak of the great results of Fabian policy; Seward, I am told, prides in it. Do those Fabiuses know what they talk about? Fabius's tactics—not policy—had in view not to expose young, disheartened levies against Hannibal's unconquered veterans, but further to give time to Rome to restore her exhausted means, to recover political influences with other Italian independent communities, to reconclude broken alliances with the cities, etc. But is this the condition of the Union? Your Fabian policy will cost lives, time, and money; the people feels it, and roars for action. Events are great, the people is great, but the official leaders may turn out inadequate to both.

What a magnificent chance-scarcely equal in history to become a great historical personality, to tower over future generations. But I do not see any one pointing out the way. Better so; the principle of self-government as the self-acting, self-preserving force will be asserted by the total eclipse of great or even eminent men.

The administration, under the influence of drill men, tries to form twenty regiments of regulars, and calls for 45,000 three years' volunteers. What a curious appreciation of necessity and of numbers must prevail in the brains of the administration. Twenty regiments of regulars will be a drop in water; will not help anything, but will be sufficient to poison the public spirit. Citizens and people, but not regulars, not hirelings, are to fight the battle of principle. Regulars and their spirit, with few exceptions, is worse here than were the Yanitschars.

When the principle will be saved and victorious, it will be by the devotion, the spontaneity of the people, and not by Lincoln, Scott, Seward, or any of the like. It is said that Seward rules both Lincoln and Scott. The people, the masses, do not doubt their ability to crush by one blow the traitors, but the administration does.

What I hear concerning the Blairs confirms my high opinion of both. Blair alone in the Cabinet represents the spirit of the people.

Something seems not right with Scott. Is he too old, or too much of a Virginian, or a hero on a small scale?

If, as they say, the President is guided by Scott's advice, such advice, to judge from facts, is not politic, not heroic, not thorough, not comprehensive, and not at all military, that is, not broad and deep, in the military sense. It will be a pity to be disappointed in this national idol.

Scott is against entering Virginia, against taking Baltimore, against punishing traitors. Strange, strange!

Diplomats altogether out of their senses; they are bewildered by the uprising, by the unanimity, by the warlike, earnest, unflinching attitude of the masses of the freemen, of my dear Yankees. The diplomats have lost the compass. They, duty bound, were diplomatically obsequious to the power held so long by the pro-slavery party. They got accustomed to the arrogant assumption and impertinence of the slavers, and, forgetting their European origin, the diplomats tacitly — but for their common sense and honor I hope reluctantly admitted the assumptions of the Southern banditti to be in America the nearest assimilation to the chivalry and nobility of old Europe. Without taking the cudgel in defence of European nobility, chivalry, and aristocracy, it is sacrilegious to compare those infamous slavers with the old or even with the modern European higher classes. In the midst of this slave-driving, slave-worshipping, and slave-breeding society of Washington, the diplomats swallowed, gulped all the Southern lies about the Constitution, state-rights, the necessity of slavery, and other like infamies. The question is, how far the diplomats in their respective official reports transferred these pro-slavery common-places to their governments. But, after all, the governments of Europe will not be thoroughly influenced by the chat of their diplomats.

Among all diplomats the English (Lord Lyons) is the most sphinx; he is taciturn, reserved, listens more than he speaks; the others are more communicative.

What an idea have those Americans of sending a secret agent to Canada, and what for? England will find it out, and must be offended. I would not have committed such an absurdity, even in my palmy days, when I conspired with Louis Napoleon, sat in the councils with Godefroi Cavaignac, or wrote instructions for Mazzini, then only a beginner with his Giovina Italia, and his miscarried Romarino attempt in Savoy.

Of what earthly use can be such politique provocatrice towards England? Or is it only to give some money to a hungry, noisy, and not over-principled office-seeker?

SOURCE: Adam Gurowski, Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862, p. 22-36

Employment of Negroes in the Army: September 3, 1863

This knotty subject is exciting comment in nearly all of the newspapers in the confederacy, (says the Selma Mississippian,) and thoughtful men throughout the country are giving it their serious attention.  It seems to us there should be no difficulty in its solution.  We must either employ the negroes ourselves or the enemy will employ them against us.  While the enemy retains so much of our territory, they are, in the present avocation and status, a dangerous element, a source of weakness.  They are no longer negative characters, but subjects of volition as other people.  They must be taught to know that this is peculiarly the country of the black man—that in no other is the climate and soil so well adapted to his nature and capacity.  He must further be taught that it is his duty as well as the white man’s, to defend his home with arms, if need be.

We are aware that there are persons who shudder at the bare [idea] of placing arms in the hands of negroes, and who are not willing to trust them under any circumstances.—The negro, however, is proverbial for his faithfulness under kind treatment.  He is an affectionate, grateful being, and we are persuaded that the tears of such persons are groundless.

There are in the slaveholding States four millions of negroes, and out of this number at least six hundred thousand able-bodied men capable of bearing arms can be found.  Lincoln proposes to free and arm them against us.  There are already 50,000 of them in arms in the federal ranks.  Lincoln’s plan has worked well so far, and if not checkmated, will most assuredly be carried out.  The Confederate Government must adopt a counter policy.  It must thwart the enemy in this gigantic scheme, at all hazards, and if nothing else will do it—if the negroes cannot be made effective and trustworthy to the Southern cause in no other way, we solemnly believe it is the duty of this Government to forestall Lincoln and proceed at once to take steps for the emancipation or liberation of the negroes itself.  Let them be declared free, placed in the ranks, and told to fight for their homes and country.

We are fully sensible of the grave importance of the question, but the inexorable logic of events has forced it upon us.  We must deal with it, then, not with fear and trembling—not as timid, time serving men—but with a boldness, a promptness and a determination which the exigency requires, and which should over characterize the action of a people resolved to sacrifice everything for liberty.  It is true, that such a step would revolutionize our whole industrial system—that it would, to a great extent, impoverish the country and be a dire calamity to both the negro [and] the white race of this and the Old World; but better this than the loss of the negroes, the country and liberty.

If Lincoln succeeds in arming our slaves against us, he will also succeed in making them our masters.  He will reverse the social order of things in the South.  Whereas, if he is checkmated in times, our liberties will remain intact; the land will be ours, and the industrial system of the country will still [be] controlled by Southern men.

Such action on the part of our Government would place our people in a purer and better light before the world.  It would disabuse the European mind of a grave error in regard to the cause of our separation.  It would prove to them that there were higher and holier motives which actuated our people than the mere love of property.  It would show that although slavery is one of the principles that we started out to fight for, yet it falls far short of being the chief one; that for the sake of our liberty were are capable of any personal sacrifice; that we regard the emancipation of slaves and the consequent loss of property as an evil infinitely less than the subjugation and enslavement of ourselves; that it is not a war exclusively for the privilege of holding negroes in bondage.  It would prove to our own soldiers, three-fourths of whom never owned a negro, that it is not “the rich man’s war and the poor man’s fight;” but a war for the most sacred of all principles, for the dearest of all rights—the right to govern ourselves.  It would show them that the rich man who owned slaves was not willing to jeopardize the precious liberty of the country by his eagerness to hold on to his slaves, but that he was ready to give them up and sacrifice his interest in them whenever the cause demanded it.  It would lend a new impetus, a new enthusiasm, a new and powerful strength to the cause, and place our success beyond a peradventure.  It would at once remove all the odium which attaches to us on account of slavery, and bring us speedy recognition, and, if necessary, intervention.

We sincerely trust that the Southern people will be found willing to make any and every sacrifice which the establishment of our independence may require.  Let it never be said that to preserve slavery we were willing to wear the chains of bondage ourselves—that the very avarice which prompted us to hold on to the negro for the sake of the money invested in him, riveted upon us shackles more galling and bitter than ever a people yet endured.  Let not slavery prove a barrier to our independence.  If it is found in the way—if it proves an insurmountable obstacle to the achievement of our liberty and separate nationality, away with it!  Let it perish!—We must make up our minds to one solemn duty—the first duty of the patriot—and that is to save ourselves from the rapacious North WHATEVER THE COST.

SOURCE: “Employment of Negroes in the Army,” The Clarke County Democrat, Grove Hill, Alabama, Thursday, September 3, 1863, p. 2

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EDITOR'S NOTE: This post, originally posted on March 26, 2020, was recently "unpublished" by Blogger for violating Blogger's Community Guidelines which states: "Note that when applying the policies below, we may make exceptions based on artistic, educational, documentary, or scientific considerations or where there are other substantial benefits to the public from not taking action on the content," and when reported, the "content is reviewed by our team to verify it violates those Community Guidelines." 

I categorize this blog as a documentary editing project, intended for the education of its readers. As such, with the notable exception of book reviews, my voice is kept entirely off this blog. As the old familiar saying states, "Those who do not remember history are condemned to repeat it." Another more modern view has surfaced in recent years which states "history does not repeat itself, but it rhymes."

Letters, diaries, official reports & correspondence, newspaper articles and biographies found on this blog, are for the vast majority in the public domain, or if not are used under the "fair use" clause of United States copyright law and are fully documented as to origin or source of the content. These posts appear as exact to their original form as I can get and are the words and thoughts of those who lived through the fiery trial that was the American Civil War.

I have read and reviewed the community guidelines and reread this post in their entireties and failed to see what community guidelines were broken which led to this post being unpublished. Therefor I am republishing this article in its original form, unedited and with no changes. 

— Jim Miller, December 24, 2022.