O, I know what it is!
Mr. Seward's letter, October 28, to Messrs. Connover and Palmer, is a display of that empty rhetoric whose dust he is wont to throw into the eyes of the good-natured masses. His plea for united action—of course with him—is the most bitter irony on himself. Mr. Seward's policy and action are at the helm, and he piloted "our noble ship of state" on worse breakers than those "of eighteen months ago."
Mr. Seward's letter is dumb on the object of the Cooper meeting. Of course, Mr. Seward would rather swallow a viper than applaud the abolition of slavery.
Nov. 5.—Lincoln-Seward politically slaughtered the republican party, and with it the country's honor. The future looks dark and terrible. I shudder. Dishonor on all sides. Lincoln will not understand to use the lease of power left to him—or to fall as a man. But to be candid, most of the thus called leaders prepared this defeat, and most of them at the last moment may lack decision and dignity. How repeatedly I warned the Sumners, Wilsons, and other wiseacres, that such will be the end, that the people at large will become exasperated by Lincoln's administration!
The issue brought before the people was all but dignified. It would have been better to make a straightforward issue against the incapacity and the democratic ill-will of McClellan, than to dodge the question, and force honest and noble men to speak against their convictions. The issue, as made, was concocted by journalists, by politicians; but not by statesmen, not by genuine great leaders.
Seward triumphs. His insincerity preëminently contributed to defeat Wadsworth. Mephisto-like, he rejoices in thus having humbled the pure and radical patriots.
At any rate, I shall try to expose Seward. Arrive que pourra. But for him the sacred cause would have been victorious, and now—horror! horror!
The pro-Romanist clergy is more furiously and savagely pro-slavery than are the Rhetts, the Yanceys, in the South; the poor Africo-Americans are, if not the truest Christians in this country, at any rate their Christianity is sublime when compared with the pro-Romanism.
O, for civic intrepidity, or all is lost! High-minded, intrepid, self-forgetful civism and abnegation alone can avert the catastrophe. Such is the mass of the people—but its leaders!
Nov. 8.—Hooker has the military instinct in him which lights the fire, and the inspiration of the god of battles; as Halleck has nothing of the one and of the other, and as Mr. Lincoln is—Mr. Lincoln, so Hooker is not to be put in command of the army. Lincoln and Halleck will find out their man. Similis simili gaudet, or, przywitala sie dupa z wiechciem.