More even than Lord John Russell's, Lord Lyons's official correspondence since November, 1860, inspires the highest possible respect for his noble sentiments and character. Above all, one who witnessed the difficulties of Lord Lyons's position here, and how his pathway was strewn with broken glass, and this by all kinds of hands, must feel for him the highest and most sincere consideration. From the official correspondence, Lord Lyons comes out a friend of humanity and of human liberty,—just the reverse of what he generally was supposed to be. And during the whole Trent affair, Lord Lyons's conduct was discreet, delicate, and generous. Events may transform Lord Lyons into an official enemy of the Union; but a mind soured by human meanness is soothingly impressioned by such true nobleness in a diplomat and an Englishman.
Gen. Stone, of Ball's Bluff infamous massacre, arrested. Bravo! At the best, Stone was one of those conceited regulars who admired slavery, and who would have wished to save the Union in their own peculiar way. I wish he may speak, as in all probability he was not alone.
Sumner's resolutions infuse a new spirit in the Constitution, and elevate it from the low ground of a dead formula. The resolutions close the epoch of the Stories, of the Kents, of the Curtises, and inaugurate a higher comprehension of American constitutionalism. During this session Charles Sumner triumphantly and nobly annihilated the aspersions of his enemies, representing him as a man of one hobby, but lacking any practical ideas. His speech on currency was among the best. Not so with his speech about the Trent affair. It is superficial, and contains misconceptions concerning treaties, and other blunders very strange in a would-be statesman.
Ardently devoted to the cause of justice and of human rights, Sumner weakens the influence which he ought to exercise, because he impresses many with the notion that he looks more to the outside effect produced by him than to the intrinsic value of the subject; he makes others suppose that he is too fond of such effect, and, above all, of the effect produced in Europe among the circle of his English and European acquaintances.
It is positively asserted that Lincoln agreed to take Mr. Seward in the Cabinet, because Weed and others urgently represented that Mr. Seward is the only man in the Republican party who is familiar with Europe, with her statesmen, and their policy. O Lord! O Lord! And where has Seward acquired all this information? Mr. Seward had not even the first A B C of it, or of anything else connected with it. And, besides, such a kind of special information is, at the utmost, of secondary necessity for an American statesman. Marcy had it not, and was a true, a genuine statesman. Undoubtedly, nature has endowed Seward with eminent intellectual qualities, and with germs for an eminent statesman. But the intellectual qualities became blunted by the long use of crotchets and tricks of a politician, by the associations and influence of such as Weed, etc.; thereby the better germs became nipped, so to speak, in the bud. Mr. Seward's acquired information by study, by instruction, and by reading, is quite the reverse of what in Europe is regarded as necessary for a statesman. Often, very often, I sorrowfully analyze and observe Mr. Seward, with feelings like those evoked in us by the sight of a noble ruin, or of a once rich, natural panorama, but now marred by large black spots of burned and dead vegetation, or by the ashes of a volcano.
Now, Mr. Seward is beyond salvation—a "disappointed man," as he called himself in a conversation with Judge Potter, M. C.; he changed aims, and perhaps convictions. For Mr. Seward, slavery is no more the most hideous social disease; he abandoned that creed which elevated him in the confidence of the people. Now he works to preserve as much as possible of the curse of slavery; he does it on the plea of Union and conservatism; but in truth he wishes to disorganize the pure Republican party, which he hates since the Chicago Convention and since the days of the formation of the Cabinet. Under the advice of Weed, Mr. Seward attempts to form a (thus called) Union and conservative party, which at the next turn may carry him into the White House.
Seward considers Weed his good genius; but in reality Weed has ruined Seward. Now Mr. Seward supports strategy, imbecility, and McClellan. The only explanation for me is, that Seward, participating in all military counsels and strategic plans, and not understanding any of them, finds it safer to back McClellan, and thus to deceive others about his own ignorance of military matters.
The press—the New York one—worse and worse; the majority wholly degraded to the standard of the Herald and of the Times. The poor Tribune, daily fading away, altogether losing that bold, lofty spirit of initiative to which for so many years the Tribune owed its all-powerful and unparalleled influence over the free masses. Now, at times, the Tribune is similar to an old, honest sexagenarian, attempting to draw a night-cap over his ears and eyes. The flames of the holy fire, so common once in the Tribune, flash now only at distant, very distant epochs. The Evening Post towers over all of them. If the Evening Post never at a jump went as far as once did the Tribune, the Evening Post never made or makes a retrograde step; but perhaps slowly, but steadily and boldly, moves on. The Evening Post is not a paper of politicians or of jobbers, but of enlightened, well-informed, and strong-hearted patriots and citizens.
Mr. Blair, after all, is only an ambitious politician. My illusion about both the brothers is wholly dispelled and gone. I regret it, but both sustain McClellan, both look askant on Stanton, and belong to the conditional emancipationists, colonizationists, and other RADICAL preservers of slavery. All such form a class of superficial politicians, of compromisers with their creed, and are corrupters of others.
How ardently I would prefer not to so often accuse others; but more than forty years of revolutionary and public life and experience have taught me to discriminate between deep convictions and assumed ones—to highly venerate the first, and to keep aloof from the second. Gold is gold, and pinchbeck is pinchbeck, in character as in metal.