Border and Bastille

by George A. Lawrence

That same Proclamation has done less harm than was expected, after all. Maryland has suffered, perhaps, most: the whole Constitution is rendered null and void there now, without her gaining any European credit as a voluntary free State. The negroes stay or run away according to their fancy, and work as it suits their convenience; the chances against recapture being about 1000 to 1, so it says something for the system, that so many have chosen to remain: hardly any household or domestic servants are found among the fugitives.

Putting abolition aside, let us examine the condition of the North's "second charger"—battle-horse—Restoration of the Union at any cost. The question of the right of the Southern States to secede has been discussed till every European ear must be weary of the theme; so we will let the justice of the case alone, and only look at the wild improbability of any such result being achieved. In the North, of course, there is a strong peace-party; in the South I do not think that any man would venture to suggest to his nearest friend any compromise short of the acknowledgment of the Confederacy as an independent nation. It is an utter mistake to suppose that, if the Emancipatory Proclamation were revoked, the road towards peace would be smoothed materially: it might have a good effect in displaying a spirit of conciliation on the part of the Federal Government—nothing more. The wedges that will keep the South apart from the North, forever, were moulded and sharpened long before they were driven home. For years far-seeing men, especially on the Border States, had provided, in their financial and domestic arrangements, for a certain disunion: not for the first time in history has an aristocracy grown up in the centre of a democracy, and, while the world shall last, such a state of things can never long endure without a collision, involving temporary subjugation or permanent disruption.

The New Englander sees this just as plainly as the Virginian, and both have an equal pride in thinking that Cavalier and Roundhead are fighting the old battle once more. Disputes about tariffs and falsified compromises have only been specious pretexts for indulging in a spirit of antagonism, which was then scarcely dissembled, and can never be glossed over again. But the Federal Government are not only pursuing a mirage, in trying to enforce a Union which could scarcely be maintained if all the South country lay depopulated and desolate: they are risking, every day, more perilously, the cohesion of the States that still cling to the old Commonwealth. The Black Republican tendency to put down all political opposition with the armed hand, or with the lettre de cachet, is perpetually conflicting with the State rights, which many true-hearted Americans value no less highly than their allegiance to the Union. The Democrats are almost strong enough to defy their opponents, even while the latter are in power; and resistance to the Conscription may be only the beginning of a struggle that will terminate in a second solution of political continuity, not less earnest than the first. Listen to The World, of the 19th May, speaking of Vallandigham's arrest:

"The blood that already makes crimson Virginian and Kentucky hill-sides, is but a drop to that which will flow on northern soil, when the American people discover that the battle has begun to save the Constitution from tyrants."

Brave words, these! Yet, making allowance for editorial blatancy, they may contain a germ of bitter truth. When New York, the Empress City, has been threatened with martial law, it is fair to conclude that Federaldom may soon have other enemies to deal with than those who are vexing her borders.

No Government can hope successfully to carry out the principle of arbitrary and irresponsible power, unless its standing ground be as unassailable, and its resolves as unanimous as those of any individual autocrat.

Yet, no administration—civil, political, or military—can be otherwise than unsound to the core where no mutual confidence or reliance subsists among its constituent members. Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet do not even keep up the appearances of a Happy Family; in all the subordinate departments, scarcely a week elapses without the promulgation of some disgraceful scandal. For instance, last spring, before men had had time to discuss the gigantic Custom-house frauds, there appeared a quiet paragraph to the effect that one hundred and forty thousand dollars had disappeared mysteriously from the Navy Office on the eve of pay-day; a huge reward was offered for the discovery of the criminal, or recovery of the money; but even Unionists laughed openly at such an advertisement, which probably did not cause the real robber, whoever he was, to turn once uneasily in his gorgeous bed. Even in the Commissariat, which, in all ages and in all armies, has been the presumed headquarters of the Autolyci, no one has yet emulated the evil renown of the Butlers at New Orleans (it was openly stated in Congress, and scarcely contradicted, that the profits and plunder carried off by that noble pair of brothers, exceeded seven millions of dollars); but many of the contractors appear to have used their opportunities much as if they were scrambling for eagles, or robbing "against time." The corruption that has long prevailed in Congress, whenever a "private bill" is in question, has long been notorious; but this, at least, was shrouded with a thin vail of decorum which the peculators in military and civil high places disdained to encumber themselves with in these latter days.

Instances of all this might be multiplied to weariness, but you have only to look at a week's files of any northern journal to be convinced of the existing state of things, which even the Black Republicans not unfrequently bewail.

There is another sort of extra-horse that the Government, or its organs, are fond of riding for a short "spell," when the others have been hacked rather too hardly. They have christened it—"Perfidious Albion." To speak the truth, however, the Anglophobia is not confined to the Abolitionists or Republicans when anything occurs to make any particular journal cross or querulous, you are almost sure to meet, that same week, a sanguinary leader, with the threadbare motto—"delenda est Britannia." Lately, it has been suggested that the most certain fact to secure the adhesion of the South, would be an invitation to join in an internecine war with England and France, with Canada and Mexico for prizes.

Truly Secessia has little cause to love us; for our practical sympathy with her in her dire strait has been confined to the furnishing of war-munitions at a moderate profit of three hundred per cent.; yet, I think, even in such a cause, Georgia, Carolina, and Virginia would stand aloof, rather than dress up in line with the Yankee battalions. The mobocracy are "all for a muss," of course, as they always are till they see the glitter of bayonets; but I cannot believe that the bellicose ideas they are so fond of mooting have ever been seriously entertained by the Government. The Federal navy is too utterly inefficient now, save for attack and defense along its own shores, to give cause for apprehension even to a second-class Power: it cannot even protect Northern commerce. For a year or more, the Florida and Alabama have laughed at the beards of all the cruisers, and carry on depredation still with a high hand. The only grave aggression must be made on the frontier of Canada; and there the invaders would be met by a militia quite as well drilled as themselves, who have held their own, once before, gallantly; to say nothing of the reinforcement of our own regular army; if the crack regiments of New York or Massachusetts should chance, in such a case, to find the Guards or Highlanders in their front, it is just possible that the "veterans" might have some fresh ideas as to the realities of a "charge in line."