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
