Senator John C. Calhoun to Duff Green,* August 4, 1849

Fort Hill 4th Augt 1849

MY DEAR SIR, You are right, as to the source, whence Benton draws his support. He has bribed the papers at the seat of Government by jobs at the publick expense; and the only way to put down the corruption is the one you indicate. An Independent Press at Washington has long been a desideratum, but it is difficult to establish, or to maintain such an one there, against the joint influence and power of the publick plunderers, who have got possession of the organs of publick opinion and the machinery of parties.

I am glad to learn that your contract promises so well and hope it will equal your most sanguine hopes. Should you succeed as well as you expect it will give you a commanding position.

With kind respects to Mrs Green and your family I remain

_______________

* Original lent by Mr. R. P. Maynard.

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. 771

Diary of Gideon Welles: Saturday, February 24, 1866

The extremists are angry and violent because the President follows his own convictions, and their operations through the press are prolific in manufacturing scandal against him. No harm will come of it, if he is prudent and firm. The leaders had flattered themselves that they had more than two thirds of each house, and could, therefore, carry all their measures over any veto. The President says there has been a design to attempt impeachment if he did not yield to them. I am inclined to believe this has been talked of among the leaders, but they would not press a majority of their own number into the movement.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 439-40

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: October 23, 1864

Bright and frosty.

From the United States papers we learn that a great victory is claimed over Gen. Early, with the capture of forty-three guns!

It is also stated that a party of "Copperheads” (Democrats), who had taken refuge in Canada, have made a raid into Vermont, and robbed some of the banks of their specie.

The fact that Mr. McRae, who, with Mr. Henley (local forces), fell into the hands of the enemy a few miles below the city, was permitted to return within our own lines with a passport (without restrictions, etc.) from Gen. Butler, has not been mentioned by any of the newspapers, gives rise to many conjectures. Some say that "somebody" prohibited the publication; others, that the press has long been misrepresenting the conduct of the enemy; there being policy in keeping alive the animosities of the army and the people.

The poor clerks in the trenches are in a demoralized condition. It is announced that the Secretary of War has resolved to send them all to Camp Lee, for medical examination: those that have proved their ability to bear arms (in defense of the city) are to be removed from office, and put in the army. One-half of them will desert to the enemy, and injure the cause. About one hundred of them were appointed before the enactment of the act of Conscription, under the express guarantee of the Constitution that they should not be molested during life. If the President removes these, mostly refugees with families dependent upon their salaries, it will be a plain violation of the Constitution; and the victims cannot be relied on for their loyalty to the government. If the government wastes precious time in such small matters, while events of magnitude demand attention, the cause is fast reaching a hopeless condition. The able-bodied money-changer, speculator, and extortioner is still seen in the street; and their number is legion.

The generals in the field are sending back the poor, sickly recruits ordered out by the Medical Board: the able-bodied rich men escape by bribery and corruption; and the hearty officers acting adjutant-generals, quartermasters, and commissaries-ride their sleek horses through the city every afternoon. This, while the cause is perishing for want of men and horses!

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 313-4

William Preston Smith to Oliver Hoblitzell, November 30th, 1859—7:35 p.m.

Newburg, November 30th, 1859—7.35 P. M.

O. Hoblitzell.

If press at Baltimore does not fully understand that we are not responsible for event of last night, explain to the morning papers and Mr. Alexander Fulton, that it was an exceptionable case and that the parties were specifically telegraphed about from Ohio to commanding officers as “suspicious,” by detectives employed by State authorities of Virginia.

W. P. SMITH.

SOURCE: B. H. Richardson, Annapolis, Maryland, Publisher, Correspondence Relating to the Insurrection at Harper's Ferry, 17th October, 1859, p. 68

Diary of Gideon Welles: Wednesday, August 16, 1865

Wrote a letter to Paul S. Forbes in relation to his engine and the trial of the Algonquin. The letter is an answer to one from him, written evidently by his lawyer and prompter, Dickerson, designedly insolent and intended to provoke retort.

But I have contrived to keep cool and, I think, to place them in the wrong, although they have control of the New York press and correspondents, who make aggravated assaults without any knowledge of the facts. Here and there silly editors, wholly ignorant of the subject, also assume to speak oracularly, and doubtless the public become in some degree prejudiced. In due time there will be correction, the truth will come out, but to some extent the slander will long remain to taint the minds of many.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 361-2

William Preston Smith to Governor Henry A. Wise, November 21, 1859

Baltimore, Nov. 21st, 1859.

Hon. Henry A. Wise,
        Governor of Virginia,
                Charlestown, Va.

The telegraphic agents of Associated Press sent your remarks, as reported in to-day's Baltimore American, which I sent you, to the entire Eastern and I believe, the Southern press.

I send you New York papers by morning train to-morrow. Our agents at Wheeling, Benwood and Moundsville have all made full and diligent inquiry, and report by telegraph to-night, that so far they have seen nothing of suspicious men, or other indications of a gathering to rescue the prisoners.

W. P. SMITH.

SOURCE: B. H. Richardson, Annapolis, Maryland, Publisher, Correspondence Relating to the Insurrection at Harper's Ferry, 17th October, 1859, p. 46

Diary of Gideon Welles: Sunday, January 1, 1865

The date admonishes me of passing time and accumulating years. Our country is still in the great struggle for national unity and national life; but progress has been made during the year that has just terminated, and it seems to me the Rebellion is not far from its close. The years that I have been here have been oppressive, wearisome, and exhaustive, but I have labored willingly, if sometimes sadly, in the cause of my country and of mankind.

What mischief has the press performed and is still doing in the Rebel States by stimulating the people to crime by appeals to their manhood, to their courage, to all that they hold dear, to prosecute the war against the most benignant government that a people ever had! Violent misrepresentation and abuse, such as first led them to rebel, are still continued. The suppression for a period of the Rebel press in Richmond, Charleston, and one or two other points would do more than armies in putting an end to this unnatural war.

Mr. Solicitor Chandler, who has charge of the cases of fraud at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, made a report and spent some time with me this morning.

Had some talk with Mr. Merritt,¹ Fox, and Faxon concerning Osborn, the reporter for Sunday newspapers of naval matters. Merritt thinks he is misapprehended in regard to late publications. Fox thinks not, and claims he has facts showing Osborn to be an unmitigated rascal. I am inclined to think him a bad fellow, but am not altogether satisfied with the course pursued in his arrest.

_______________

¹ M. F. Merritt of Connecticut, a personal friend of Secretary Welles.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 218-9

Diary of Gideon Welles: Thursday, December 8, 1864

The Senate have since commencement of the session labored over the question of continuing or displacing Hale from the position of Chairman of the Naval Committee. He has been, without cause or reason, a constant and vindictive opponent of the Department, at times annoying and almost embarrassing its action. I have forborne any controversy with him, and, in my acts and recommendations, have generally been sustained by Congress and the country. One year ago, at the commencement of this Congress, it appeared to me that the Senate owed to itself, not less than the Department and the country, the duty of substituting another for this factious and unworthy man. As they did not do it then, I scarcely expected they would do it now. He then appealed to them feelingly, and implored them to help him because his election was pending. Some of them thought the lesson had been instructive and would prove useful, as they assured me, and therefore voted for him. His conduct disappointed them but did not me.

This year he is not present, but went to Halifax the week before the session commenced, and from there writes a beseeching letter, begging to serve out the few weeks that remain of his Senatorial life on the Naval Committee. Sumner, who too often permits his personal sympathies to overrule public duty in matters of this kind, labored hard, I am told, for Hale. Action was postponed from day to day to gather strength, but a last attempt to retain him was made this morning and he received but seven votes. I have avoided, properly, introducing the subject to any Senator while the question was pending, and to three or four who have spoken to me, I have been cool and reserved. Yet, not unlikely, Hale will be violent and abusive towards me. Perhaps not; he is uncertain and unreliable. I feel indifferent. His career is about closed. It has never been useful or wholesome. He has no constructive ability; can attack and try to pull down, but is unable to successfully defend and build up.

The Members of Congress and the press, with scarcely an exception, are complimentary to my report. Even the New York Times and Herald commend it. But the Times of to-day has a captious, faultfinding article. It is dissatisfied, because, in stating facts, I mention that the Navy has been always ready to coöperate with the army at Wilmington, was ready and waited at Mobile, Texas, etc., etc. This the Times denounces as attacking the War Department or army. If to tell the truth is so construed, I cannot help it. For a long time the Times has been profuse in its censures of the Navy Department in regard to Wilmington. Mr. Seward, knowingly, was guilty of the same injustice in his speech delivered to the crowd from his parlor window the week of the election. These men do not wish the truth disclosed. They cannot romance and falsify me as they have done in this respect.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 193-4

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: April 21, 1864

Bright sunshine all day, but cool.

Gen. Bragg received a dispatch to day from Gen. Hoke, of Plymouth, N. C., stating that he had (yesterday) stormed Plymouth, taking 1600 prisoners, 25 cannon, stores, etc. etc. This put the city in as good spirits as possible.

But the excitement from Hoke's victory was supplanted by an excitement of another kind. A report was circulated and believed that the President resolved yesterday to remove the government to South Carolina or Alabama; and the commotion was very great. The President's salary is insufficient to meet his housekeeping expenditures; and Mrs. D. has become, very naturally, somewhat indignant at the conduct of the extortioners, and, of course, the President himself partook of the indignation.

At 2 P.M. to-day the President's papers came in. Among them was one from the Commissary. General, stating that the present management of railroad transportation would not suffice to subsist the army. This had been referred to Gen. Bragg yesterday (who seems to rank the Secretary of War), and he made an elaborate indorsement thereon. He recommended that all passenger trains be discontinued, except one daily, and on this that government agents, soldiers, etc. have preference; that arrangements be made at once to hasten on the freight trains (taking military possession of the roads) without breaking bulk; and finally to reduce consumers here as much as possible by a reduction of civil officers, etc. etc. in the departments—that is, sending to other places such as can perform their duties at distant points. On this the President indorsed a reference to the Secretary of War, requiring his opinion in writing, etc. Since then, the President and cabinet have been in consultation, and we shall probably know the result to-morrow.

If the departments are sent South, it will cause a prodigious outburst from the press here, and may have a bad, blundering effect on the army in Virginia, composed mostly of Virginians; and Gen. Bragg will have to bear the brunt of it, although the government will be solely responsible.

Gov. Vance recommended the suspension of conscription in the eastern counties of North Carolina the .other day. was referred by the Secretary to the President, by the President to Gen. B. (who is a native of North Carolina), and, seeing what was desired, Gen. B. recommended that the conscription be proceeded with. This may cause Gov. V. to be defeated at the election, and Gen. B. will be roundly abused. He will be unpopular still.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 189-90

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: April 4, 1864

A cold rain all day; wind from northwest.

Mr. Ould and Capt. Hatch, agents of exchange (of prisoners), have returned from a conference with Gen. Butler, at Fortress Monroe, and it is announced that arrangements have been made for an immediate resumption of the exchange of prisoners on the old footing. Thus has the government abandoned the ground so proudly assumed—of non-intercourse with Butler, and the press. is firing away at it for negotiating with the “Beast” and outlaw. But our men in captivity are in favor of a speedy exchange, no matter with whom the agreement is made.

Forrest has destroyed Paducah, Ky.

There is a little quarrel in progress between the Secretaries of War and the Treasury. Some days ago the Postmaster-General got from the President an order that his clerks should be detailed for the use of the department until further orders. The Secretary of the Treasury made an application to the Secretary of War for a similar detail, but it was refused. Mr. Memminger appealed, with some acerbity, to the President, and the President indorsed on the paper that the proper rule would be for the Secretary of War to detail as desired by heads of departments. Nevertheless, the clerks were detailed but for thirty days, to report at the Camp of Instruction, if the detail were not renewed. To-day Mr. Memminger addresses a note to Mr. Seddon, inquiring if it was his purpose to hold his clerks liable to perform military duty after the expiration of the thirty days, and declaring that the incertitude and inconvenience of constantly applying for renewal of details, deranged and obstructed the business of his department. I know not yet what answer Mr. S. made, but doubtless a breach exists through which one or both may pass out of the cabinet. The truth is, that all clerks constitutionally appointed are legally exempt, and it is the boldest tyranny to enroll them as conscripts. But Mr. Memminger has no scruples on that head. All of them desire to retain in “soft places” their own relatives and friends, feeling but little sympathy for others whose refugee families are dependent on their salaries.

On Saturday, the cavalry battalion for local defense, accepted last summer by the President, were notified on parade that 20 days would be allowed them to choose their companies in the army, and if the choice were not made, they would be assigned to companies. They protested against this as despotic, but there is no remedy.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 181-2

Diary of Gideon Welles: Wednesday, August 31, 1864

The complaints in regard to recruiting are severe and prolonged. They come in numbers. It seems to be taken for granted that we can open a rendezvous in every county. I have no doubt that the rendezvous are overcrowded and that abuses are practiced in consequence. The impending draft for the army indirectly benefits the Navy, or induces persons to enter it. Their doing so relieves them and their localities from the draft. Hence the crowd and competition. Then come in the enormous bounties from the State and municipal authorities over which naval officers have no control, and which lead to bounty-jumping and corruption.

Admiral Porter came by order. Says he prefers remaining in his present command. In a long interview our interchange of opinion concerning men and naval matters was on the whole satisfactory.

General McClellan was to-day nominated as the candidate of the so-called Democratic party. It has for some days been evident that it was a foregone conclusion and the best and only nomination the opposition could make. The preliminary arrangements have been made with tact and skill, and there will probably be liberality, judgment, and sense exhibited in launching and supporting the nominee, which it would become the Union men to imitate. That factious, narrow, faultfinding illiberality of radicals in Congress which has disgraced the press ostensibly of the Administration party, particularly the press of New York City, has given strength to their opponents. McClellan will be supported by War Democrats and Peace Democrats, by men of every shade and opinion; all discordant elements will be made to harmonize, and all differences will be suppressed. Whether certain Republican leaders in Congress, who have been assailing and deceiving the Administration, and the faultfinding journals of New York have, or will, become conscious of their folly, we shall soon know. They have done all that was in their power to destroy confidence in the President and injure those with whom they were associated. If, therefore, the reëlection of Mr. Lincoln is not defeated, it will not be owing to them.

In some respects I think the President, though usually shrewd and sensible, has mismanaged. His mistakes, I think, are attributable to Mr. Seward almost exclusively. It has been a misfortune to retain Stanton and Halleck. He might have brought McClellan into the place of the latter, and Blair had once effected the arrangement, but Seward defeated it. As I have not been in the close confidence of the President in his party personal selections and movements, I am left to judge of many things, as are all the Cabinet except Mr. Seward and to some extent Mr. Stanton, who is in the Seward interest. It has seemed to me a great misfortune that the President should have been so much under the influence of these men, but New York State is a power and Seward makes the most of it. I have regretted that the President should have yielded so much to Greeley in many things and treated him with so much consideration. Chase and Wade, though not in accord, have by their ambition and disappointments done harm, and, in less degree, the same may be said of Mr. Sumner. Others of less note might be named. Most of them will now cease grumbling, go to work to retrieve their folly so far as they can. Possibly the New York editors may be perverse a few weeks longer, sufficiently so to give that city overwhelmingly to the opposition, and perhaps lose the State.

Seward will, unintentionally, help them by over-refined intrigues and assumptions and blunders. It has sometimes seemed to me that he was almost in complicity with his enemies, and that they were using him. I am not certain that the latter is not true.

It is an infirmity of the President that he permits the little newsmongers to come around him and be intimate, and in this he is encouraged by Seward, who does the same, and even courts the corrupt and the vicious, which the President does not. He has great inquisitiveness. Likes to hear all the political gossip as much as Seward. But the President is honest, sincere, and confiding, — traits which are not so prominent in some by whom he is surrounded.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 129-31

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: February 27, 1864

 Bright and pleasant—dusty. But one rain during the winter.

The “associated press” publishes an unofficial dispatch, giving almost incredible accounts of Gen. Forrest's defeat of Grierson's cavalry, 10,000 strong, with only 2000. It is said the enemy were cut up and routed, losing all his guns, etc.

Sugar is $20 per pound; new bacon, $8; and chickens, $12 per pair. Soon we look for a money panic, when a few hundred millions of the paper money is funded, and as many more collected by the tax collectors. Congress struck the speculators a hard blow. One man, eager to invest his money, gave $100,000 for a house and lot, and he now pays $5000 tax on it; the interest is $6000 more—$11,000 total. His next door neighbor, who bought his house in 1860 for $10,000, similar in every respect, pays $500 tax (valued at date of sale), interest $600; total, $1100 per annum. The speculator pays $10,000 per annum more than his patriotic neighbor, who refused to sell his house for $100,000.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 159-60

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: January 15, 1864

We have no news. But there is a feverish anxiety in the city on the question of subsistence, and there is fear of an outbreak. Congress is in secret session on the subject of the currency, and the new Conscription bill. The press generally is opposed to calling out all men of fighting age, which they say would interfere with the freedom of the press, and would be unconstitutional.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 129

The N. Y. World on the Peace Plotters.

The Copperhead press out west bloviated in favor of peace, and, and endorsed the Peace Commissioners and the peace programme of the loafing diplomats at Niagara, and denounced the President without stint. But the New York World—which has more sense if not more patriotism than these Copperhead thumb-wipers of Jeff. Davis’s myrmidons—was not to be caught in such a transparent net.  It saw through the rebel scheme of Sanders & Co. to strengthen the peace wing of the party at Chicago, and denounces and ridicules it in unsparing terms.  The World says:

We are convinced that there is no sincerity in any of the parties to this singular transaction.  The rebels naturally feel a deep interest in our presidential election, and their emissaries are in Canada with a view to influence its result.  The unflinching purpose of their leaders is separation, and to this end they are plotting to divide the Democratic party at Chicago, as they divided it at Charleston in 1860.

And the World is anxious to repudiate the entire transaction, and to place the odium of the negotiation upon other parties, and thus closes its editorial on the transaction which constitutes the chief stock in trade of the dunderhead, copperbottomed politicians hereabouts.  The editor of the World says:

Since writing the above we have received the papers that passed in this odd negotiation; and, if the subject were not to serious for laughter, we should go into convulsions.  That dancing wind-bag of popinjay conceit, William Cornell Jewett, has achieved the immortality he covets; he has reversed the adage about the mountain in labor bringing forth a ridiculous mouse—the mouse has brought forth this ridiculous mountain of diplomacy.  This is Jewett’s doings, and it is marvelous in our eyes!  He got Greeley and the President’s private secretary to the Falls on a fool’s errand, and made even the President an actor in this comedy; he has bade each of them play the part so well suited to himself, of

—“A tool

That knaves do work with, called a fool.”

Sublime impudence of George Sanders!  Enchanting simplicity of Colorado Jewett!  “But—ah!—him”—how, oh benevolent Horace, shall we struggle with the emotions (of the ridiculous) that choke the utterance of THY name?  Greeley and Jewett—Jewett and Greeley; which is Don Quixote and which is Sancho Panza?

SOURCE: The Daily Gate City, Keokuk, Iowa, Tuesday, July 26, 1864, p. 1

Flag Officer Samuel F. Dupont to Gustavus V. Fox, March 14, 1862

Off St. Augustine

14 March 62

My Dear Sir

All these reports are interesting. Do have them published, they encourage the officers more than anything else.

The great want of the Govt. is an official Organ for National effect, if not for Political. The Nat, Intell^g will publish everything. I think the Ass. Press concern a curse.

I hope to catch the Casslin—but I have nothing to cross that Mosquitoe Inlet bar, but this ship's launches and they are away up at Jacksonville—and lucky they are there. I am sending to Wright to hurry troops there—he thought it ought not to be occupied—but it must be to secure loyal people.

I rec^d the Dept's mail—will take an early opp^y. to write about the blockade. None of those vessels reported from London and Liverpool ever dare approach the coast, showing what they think of the blockade— but transship at Nassau N.P. aided and abetted by those English hypercritical scoundrels—into vessels about the size of our launches.

The Fingal was the last foreign vessel that got into Savannah, after the gale of the 24, but has never got out and is sold to the rebels.

The Isabel and Nashville, with local Pilots of extraordinary skill, fogs and accident, and Steam have eluded us—but how many have been kept out? Skiddy run through Lord Cochrane's whole fleet blockading one port. Steam has quadrupled the advantage to those who run the blockade, over those who cover the ports.

But the game is up with them now, I promise you. The merchants ought to be glad the Nashville is in. This place Smyrna which I knew nothing about, has let in good many arms I am now satisfied.

Much disappointed about the Vermont, but expected nothing less. A clever old Port Captain would have taken that place.

Now my friend for the last time let me implore you to send coal. I have begged in vain. Two weeks more and this whole fleet will be laid up. Lardner writes only one vessel has arrived and this gulf people swallow that up.

The coming Equinoxial gales, will upset half the ships I have—all their Paddle wheels are nearly out of the water.

I can't tell you how I feel about it. I have written and begged Lenthall and you—but it produces nothing —two miserable schooners on the way, which will not both of them fill up the Bienville.

Yrs faithfully

S. F. DUPONT

SOURCE: Robert Means Thompson & Richard Wainwright, Editors, Publications of the Naval Historical Society, Volume 9: Confidential Correspondence of Gustavus Vasa Fox, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, 1861-1865, Volume 1, p. 112-4

Thomas W. Gilmer* to Congressman Robert M. T. Hunter, March 11, 1840

Richmond, [va.], March 11th, 1840.

Dear Hunter: I have frequently during the winter desired to write to you and to receive a letter from you, as one watchman likes occasionally to hail and to hear from another in a dark night. I hope that nothing has occurred or will ever occur to interrupt for a moment that perfect and confidential familiarity which has so long subsisted between us. From all that I learn of you through the medium (a bad one, I confess) of the newspapers, I take it for granted that we are now as nearly together in politics as we were when I saw you last summer. Nothing that has happened here or at Washington, I presume, can have shaken your steadfastness or mine in the great principles to which we have both given evidence of our attachment. But let this be as it may, though you are (without design on your part) the speaker of the H[ouse] of R[epresentatives] and though I in like manner have been appointed with the executive of Virginia, you are still Bob Hunter and I am as I always was your humble servant. We can never forget the Friar Tuck scene of the Expunging winter here, nor should either of us desire its oblivion. I suppose the labors of your station have allowed you very little time for correspondence and though I shall not be more respectful than the governor of New Jersey was to you, I venture to drop you a line, to say that I hope we may occasionally interchange a thought and a word. Is there any hope that parties will ever come back to the good old lines of honest differences of opinion as to principles. For until parties do so, there is really little or no hope that the government (in any hands) will. Are we always to see the millions of freemen in our country, marshalled as the mere clansmen of ambitious aspirants for the presidency? Many, I know, indulge the hope that after November next, there will be some more definite and durable organization of political parties. I confess, however, that I see little prospect for it. The radical fault is with the press and that I fear is past remedy. I am, however, on the outposts and can see but little of the chess board. You are at the fountain head, and I have only to ask that when you have time and can communicate any intelligence which you think would do good, that you may drop me a line, not that I would have you write as a letter writer from Washington, but that you may speak as one friend should speak to another about matters of the highest public concern. We have been grasping our way onward; so far together. I shall sink the partisan of course in my new vocation here. Indeed I have been little of one for some years past. The grease has been scarcely worth the candle. If you don't find time sooner, writer to me in the dry days.

_______________

* Governor of Virginia, 1840-1841; a Whig Representative in Congress, 1841-1843; a Democratic Representative in Congress. 1843-1844; appointed Secretary of the Navy, Feb. 15, 1844, and served until his death on the Princeton, Feb. 28, 1844.

SOURCE: Charles Henry Ambler, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1916 in Two Volumes, Volume II, Correspondence of Robert M. T. Hunter 1826-1876, p. 33-4

Diary of William Howard Russell: July 21, 1861

The calmness and silence of the streets of Washington this lovely morning suggested thoughts of the very different scenes which, in all probability, were taking place at a few miles' distance. One could fancy the hum and stir round the Federal bivouacs, as the troops woke up and were formed into column of march towards the enemy. I much regretted that I was not enabled to take the field with General McDowell's army, but my position was surrounded with such difficulties that I could not pursue the course open to the correspondents of the American newspapers. On my arrival in Washington I addressed an application to Mr. Cameron, Secretary at War, requesting him to sanction the issue of, rations and forage from the Commissariat to myself, a servant, and a couple of horses, at the contract prices, or on whatever other terms he might think fit, and I had several interviews with Mr. Leslie, the obliging and indefatigable chief clerk of the War Department, in reference to the matter; but as there was a want of precedents for such a course, which was not all to be wondered at, seeing that no representative of an English newspaper had ever been sent to chronicle the progress of an American army in the field, no satisfactory result could be arrived at, though I had many fair words and promises.

A great outcry had arisen in the North against the course and policy of England, and the journal I represented was assailed on all sides as a Secession organ, favorable to the rebels and exceedingly hostile to the Federal government and the cause of the tumors. Public men in America are alive to the inconveniences of attacks by their own press; and as it was quite impossible to grant to the swarms of correspondents from all parts of the Union the permission to draw supplies from the public stores, it would have afforded a handle to turn the screw upon the War Department, already roundly abused in the most influential papers, if Mr. Cameron acceded to me, not merely a foreigner, but the correspondent of a foreign journal which was considered the most powerful enemy of the policy of his government, privileges which he denied to American citizens, representing newspapers which were enthusiastically supporting the cause for which the armies of the North were now in the field.

To these gentlemen indeed, I must here remark, such privileges were of little consequence. In every camp they had friends who were willing to receive them in their quarters, and who earned a word of praise in the local papers for the gratification of either their vanity or their laudable ambition in their own neighborhood, by the ready service which they afforded to the correspondents. They rode Government horses, had the use of Government wagons, and through fear, favor, or affection, enjoyed facilities to which I had no access. I could not expect persons with whom I was unacquainted to be equally generous, least of all when by doing so they would have incurred popular obloquy and censure; though many officers in the army had expressed in very civil terms the pleasure it would give them to see me at their quarters in the field. Some days ago I had an interview with Mr. Cameron himself, who was profuse enough in promising that he would do all in his power to further my wishes; but he had, nevertheless, neglected sending me the authorization for which I had applied. I could scarcely stand a baggage train and commissariat upon my own account, nor could I well participate in the system of plunder and appropriation which has marked the course of the Federal army so far, devastating and laying waste all the country behind it.

Hence, all I could do was to make a journey to see the army on the field, and to return to Washington to write my report of its first operation, knowing there would be plenty of time to overtake it before it could reach Richmond, when, as I hoped, Mr. Cameron would be prepared to accede to my request, or some plan had been devised by myself to obviate the difficulties which lay in my path. There was no entente cordiale exhibited towards me by the members of the American press; nor did they, any more than the generals, evince any disposition to help the alien correspondent of the "Times," and my only connection with one of their body, the young designer, had not, indeed, inspired me with any great desire to extend my acquaintance. General McDowell, on giving me the most hospitable invitation to his quarters, refrained from offering the assistance which, perhaps, it was not in his power to afford; and I confess, looking at the matter calmly, I could scarcely expect that he would, particularly as he said, half in jest, half seriously, "I declare I am not quite easy at the idea of having your eye on me, for you have seen so much of European armies, you will, very naturally, think little of us, generals and all."

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, Vol. 1, p. 439-41

Speech of George Thompson: Published August 8, 1835

In Commemoration of the Abolition of Slavery in the British West India Islands, on the First Anniversary of that event, by the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.

_______________

I shall not advert prospectively, nor retrospectively, to the emancipation of Englishmen. We who are engaged in a struggle similar to that of the British advocates of outraged humanity, are to take up their example. Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Brazil, and the French, will emulate the deed. The day of triumph is certain; — there is no human power which can prevent it, or prescribe its limits; no impiety shall say to the bounding wave “Thus far shalt thou come, and no farther.” The irresponsible spirit, the sublimity and moral prowess of Columbia, are the guarantees of the great achievement. We may be misrepresented and vilified; but be not disturbed at this. The same epithets now bestowed upon us, were bestowed upon a Clarkson and a Wilberforce, when one in Parliament, and the other out of it, devoted time, and talents, comfort, and reputation, to the noble work. All the filthy channels of the dictionary were turned upon a Wilberforce, and they fell like water upon the back of the swan, leaving its purity and loveliness unspotted and unruffled.

We learn by the event, which we commemorate, the folly of striving for less than the whole: we must struggle for complete justice; we must ask nothing, and acquiesce in nothing short of that. The planters from the West Indies, and from the Cape of Good Hope, all respectable men, besought the British nation to be moderate in doing right. O, we must cut off only the claws of the monster, leaving his jaws to crush the bodies and bones of our brethren. They said we must mitigate, mitigate, mitigate; we beseech you, be not rash, but mitigate; and in 1822, Mr. Canning, the Lords and Commons, the King and the Church, men and women, combined to mitigate. What was the result? The planters of Jamaica burned, in the public square, the mitigating act, at 12 o'clock at night. And twelve o'clock it was with the hopes of the abolitionists; for the hour approached when the dawn streaked the dark horizon, and grew brighter and brighter unto the perfect day. No matter how much we mitigate and soften; no matter whether truth come as a tomahawk, or in the form of an instrument of cupping, to a delicate lady, if the truth come at all, we are still fanatics. Wilberforce was called, to the day of his death, a hoary-headed fanatic by the whole pro-slavery phalanx, but when he died, the illustrious and the lowly, thronged around his bier. I saw with these eyes, the deep religious reverence which his memory inspired, and the heartfelt homage which his virtues drew from a vast and splendid train. Royalty, nobility, bishops, Parliament and people, pressed to pay the great tribute of tears to the pure and exalted of the earth, whose spirit had returned to its Father in heaven.

How sleep the good who sink to rest,

With all their country’s wishes blest!

The spring, with dewy fingers cold,

Returns to deck their hallowed mould.

She there shall dress a sweeter sod,

Than Fancy’s feet have ever trod.

By fairy hands their knell is rung,

By forms unseen their dirge is sung.

There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,

“To bless the turf that wraps their clay;

And Freedom shall awhile repair,

To dwell a weeping hermit there.

Who does not now wish to struggle for the mantle of Wilberforce : Who is not ambitious to be folded in its bright amplitude:

In this cause, you cannot escape calumny. Here is our brother, who has addressed us to day, (referring to Mr. May.) Do his mild and persuasive words, which one would think might soften the hardest heart, save him from the tongue of slander? Is not he a mark as well as I, who am rough and unspun, and not afraid to stir up the bile, so that men may see it, and detest it.

I accuse the press of the United States of dishonesty. There is Antigua, and there are the Bermudas, free as the air above, and the waters around them, and serene and peaceful, and prosperous as free; and what press has spoken — what daily or weekly vehicle of intelligence, has presented this prominent fact, by which the age itself will be quoted in times to come? Is it told in Charleston? No. Is it told in Richmond? Is it told in New York or New Haven? No. In Boston? No. A tempest in a slop basin has been got up in Jamaica; and a scene of desolation, and hanging slaves, has been painted for the gaze of the good people throughout the length of the land.

My friend did not mention the Cape of Good Hope and the Mauritius. More than twenty British colonies, subsisting in peace, and maintaining order in the transit of an unparalleled revolution, without crime, without violence, without turbulence or tumult! ’Tis the death knell of American slavery. American slavery cannot last ten years longer. Let who will sink or swim, American slavery perishes. The monster reels and will down, and we shall tread upon his neck.

But it is said to be presumptuous and wrong in me to meddle with this question in the United States, because I am ignorant of it; and yet those who say this have never thought proper to show any of my errors !

It is, they say, an unconstitutional question. Ay, it is unconstitutional to feel for human suffering; it is unconstitutional to be generous to the abject, or indignant at crime; it is unconstitutional to preach, to pray, to weep. Hold, weeping mother there; your tears are unconstitutional. It is unconstitutional to print, to speak, to say that two and two make four, in the country where the ashes of George Washington lie! They say we shall not prove that two and two are four.

Are the friends of abolition enemies of the Union? The fastest, firmest, fondest friends of the Union, are abolitionists. I have thought that the constitution might stand, and slavery fall; that slavery might die, and the constitution live-live healthy and perennial. I have thought it might live, and the black man and the white man rejoice under its broad and protecting banner.

But I will not dwell upon this, as our friends have gone, for whose special benefit it was intended. [The speaker was supposed to allude to a few persons, who had appeared rather restless, for some time, and had at this stage simultaneously retreated below the stairs.]

Abolition was unconstitutional in the West Indies. It was an infringement of their charter, as my friend, Mr. Child, who has shown such an intimate acquaintance with the West India colonies, knows.

But go to the hut of a free Antigonian, live with him, see a Bermudian toss up a free child, and say if there be aught unconstitutional in these. Look to them of Jamaica, when the three and five years, (a paltry chandler shop business,) have expired; and declare of those regenerated men, if the genius of emancipation have committed anything unconstitutional there.

For the present, you must be prepared to be libelled. When slavery shall have fallen, out of the ruins you may dig a pretty fair reputation. You must not expect your portraits to be-excellently drawn, especially by southern limners. You may be represented with hoofs, and horns, and other appendages of a certain distinguished personage, who shall be nameless. It is in vain to regret, or strive to eschew this. Your reputation is already gone. You are in the case of poor Michael Cassio. ‘O reputation, reputation, reputation, I’ve lost my reputation. But yesterday, rich men bowed, and bade me good morning in State street. The periodicals were delighted with my articles, and returned substantial proofs of approbation. Now my paragraphs of an inch long are suspected; and I seldom see the sunshine of a smile.

But never mind, reputation will come by and by. We have as good a reputation as the Gallileans had, or as their Master had, and who could have a better? Take it inversely, and you will hit it about right (at least if you have all given as little cause as I have.) We have the testimony of the Most High for our principles. In the language of the Declaration of sentiment, man may fail, but principles never. The mustard seed is sown, or to change the figure, the acorn is planted; nay it is not an acorn the oak is set and shall grow, and spread over the black and the white its strong and ample boughs, and when cut down it shall be the bulwark of your glory, and the guarantee of your safety. (Mr. Thompson sat down amidst great applause.)

[The reporter does not pretend to do justice to Mr. Thomson in the above sketch: to take down the thunder and lightning in short hand, expresses his idea of the impossibility of reporting Mr. Thompson aright.  If those who heard shall be unsatisfied, he hopes they will consider this.]

SOURCES: Isaac Knapp, Publisher, Letters and Addresses by G. Thompson [on American Negro Slavery] During His Mission in the United States, From Oct. 1st, 1834, to Nov. 27, 1835, p. 84-7; “First of August, 1835,” The Liberator, Boston, Massachusetts, Saturday, August 8, 1835, p. 3. 

Nathaniel Peabody Rogers: Color-phobia, November 10, 1838

COLOR-PHOBIA.

Our people have got it. They have got it in the blue, collapse stage. Many of them have got it so bad, they can't get well. They will die of it. It will be a mercy, if the nation does not. What a dignified, philosophic malady! Dread of complexion. They don't know they have got it — or think, rather, they took it the natural way. But they were inoculated. It was injected into their veins and incided into their systems, by old Doctor Slavery, the great doctor that the famous Dr. Wayland studied with. There is a kind of varioloid type, called colonization. They generally go together, or all that have one are more apt to catch the other. Inoculate for one, (no matter which,) and they will have both, before they get over it. The remedy and the preventive, if taken early, is a kine-pock sort of matter, by the name of anti-slavery. It is a safe preventive and a certain cure. None that have it, genuine, ever catch slavery or colonization or the color-phobia. You can't inoculate either into them. It somehow changes and redeems the constitution, so that it is unsusceptible of them. An abolitionist can sleep safely all night in a close room, where there has been a colonization meeting the day before. He might sleep with It. R. Gurley and old Dr. Proudfit, three in a bed, and not catch it. The remedy was discovered by Dr. William Lloyd Jenner-Garrison.

This color-phobia is making terrible havoc among our communities. Anti-slavery drives it out, and after a while cures it. But it is a base, low, vulgar ailment. It is meaner, in fact, than the itch. It is worse to get rid of than the “seven years' itch.” It is fouler than Old Testament leprosy. It seems to set the dragon into a man, and make him treat poor, dark-skinned folks like a tiger. It goes hardest with dark-complect white people. They have it longer and harder than light-skinned people. It makes them sing out “Nigger—nigger,” sometimes in their sleep. Sometimes they make a noise like this, “Darkey—darkey— darkey.” Sometimes, “Wully—wully—wully.” They will turn up their noses, when they see colored people, especially if they are of a pretty rank, savory habit of person, themselves. They are generally apt to turn up their noses, as though there was some “bad smell” in the neighborhood, when they have it bad, and are naturally pretty odoriferous. It is a tasty disorder — a beautiful ailment; very genteel, and apt to go in “first families.” We should like to have Hogarth take a sketch of a community that had it — of ours, for instance, when the St. Vitus’ fit was on. We have read somewhere of a painter, who made so droll a picture, that he died a-laughing at the sight of it. Hogarth might not laugh at this picture. It would be a sight to cry at, rather than laugh, especially if he could see the poor objects of our frenzy, when the fit is on — which indeed is all the time, for it is an unintermittent. Our attitude would be most ridiculous and ludicrous, if it were not too mortifying and humiliating and cruel. Our Hogarth would be apt to die of something else than laughter, at sight of his sketch.

The courtly malady is the secret of all our anti-abolition, and all our mobocracy. It shuts up all the consecrated meetinghouses — and all the temples of justice, the court-houses, against the friends of negro liberty. It is all alive with fidgets about desecrating the Sabbath with anti-slavery lectures. It thinks anti-slavery pew-owners can't go into them, or use their pulpit, when it is empty, without leave of the minister whom they employ to preach in it. It will forcibly shut people out of their own houses and off their own land, — not with the respectful violence of enemies and trespassers, but the contemptuous unceremoniousness of the plantation overseer — mingled moreover with the slavish irascibility of the poor negro, when he holds down his fellow-slave for a flogging. It sneers at human rights through the free press. It handed John B. Mahin over to the alligators of Kentucky. It shot Elijah P. Lovejoy at Alton. It dragged away the free school, at Canaan. It set Pennsylvania Hall a-fire.

It broke Miss Crandall's school windows, and threw filth into her well. It stormed the female prayer meeting in Boston, with a “property and standing” forlorn hope. It passed the popish resolution at Littleton, in Grafton county. It shut up the meeting-house at Meredith Bridge, against minister and all, — and the homely court-house there, and howled like bedlam around the little, remote district school-house, and broke the windows at night. It excludes consideration and prayer in regard to the forlorn and christian-made heathenism of the American colored man, from county conferences and clerical associations. It broods over the mousings of the New York Observer, and gives keenness to the edge and point of its New Hampshire name-sake. It votes anti-slavery lectures out of the New Hampshire state house, and gives it public hearing on petitions, in a seven by nine committee room. It answers the most insulting mandate of southern governors, calling for violations of the state constitution and bill of rights, by legislative report and resolves that the paramount rights of slavery are safe enough in New Hampshire, without these violations. It sneers and scowls at woman's speaking in company, unless to simper, when she is flattered by a fool of the masculine or neuter gender. It won't sign an anti-slavery petition, for fear it will put back emancipation half a century. It votes in favor of communing with slaveholders, and throwing the pulpit wide open to men-stealers, to keep peace in the churches, and prevent disunion. It will stifle and strangle sympathy for the slave and " remembrance of those in bonds," to prevent disturbance of religious revivals. It will sell the American slave to buy Bibles, or hire negro-hating and negro-buying missionaries for foreign heathen of all quarters but christian-wasted Africa. It prefers American lecturers on slavery, to having that foreign emissary, George Thompson, come over here, to interfere with American rights and prejudices. It abhors "church action" and "meddling with politics." In short, it abhors slavery in the abstract — wishes it might be done away, but denies the right of any body or any thing to devise its overthrow, but slavery itself and slaveholders. It prays for the poor slave, that he might be elevated, while it stands both feet on his breast to keep him down. It prays God might open a way in his own time for the deliverance of the slave, while it stands, with arms akimbo, right across the way he has already opened. Time would fail us to tell of its extent and depth in this free country, or the deeds it has done. Anti-slavery must cure it, or it must die out like the incurable drunkards.

SOURCE: Collection from the Miscellaneous Writings of Nathaniel Peabody Rogers, Second Edition, p. 44-7 which states it was published in the Herald of Freedom of November 10, 1838.

Gerrit Smith: The News From England, January 3, 1862

Alas! that this news should find us still embarrassed, and still diddling with the negro question!  Alas! That we should still have one war upon our hands, while we are threatened with another?  Had we, as we should have done, disposed of this question at the beginning of the war, then would its beginning have also been its ending.  If slavery was not, as it certainly was, the sole cause of the war, it nevertheless, was that vulnerable spot in the foe at which we should have struck without a moment’s delay.  Instead of repelling the negroes, bond and free, by insults and cruel treatment we could have brought them all to our side by simply inviting them to it.  As it is, the war has grown into a very formidable one; and the threatened one whereas, had we not acted insanely on the negro question, we could have dreaded neither.  More than this, had we, as it was so easy to do, struck instant death into the first war, we should have escaped the threat of this second one.

For what is it that the English press threatens us with war? It is for compelling the English ship to give up the rebel commissioners, so it says. This is the ostensible reason. But would not England — she who is so famous for clinging to an almost entirely unqualified and unlimited right of search — have done the same thing in like circumstances? If she would not, then she would not have been herself. Had a part of her home counties revolted and sent a couple of their rebels to America for help, would she not have caught them if she could? And in whatever circumstances they might have been found? If she says she would not, there is not on all the earth one “Jew Apella” so credulous as to believe her. If she confesses she would, then is she self-convicted, not only of trampling in her boundless dishonesty on the great and never-to-be-violated principle of doing as we would be done by, but of insulting us by claiming that we ought to be tame and base enough to forbear to do that which her self-respect and high spirit would prompt her to do.

But perhaps England would not have done as we did.  Her naval captains have taken thousands of seamen from our ships — these captains constituting themselves the sole accusers, witnesses and judges in the cases. It was chiefly for such outrages that we declared war against her in 1812. The instance of the San Jacinto and Trent is not like these. In this instance there was no question, because no doubt, of personal identity. But I repeat, perhaps England would not have done as we did.  In a case so aggravated, she would, perhaps, may, probably, have taken ship and all.  By the way, it may be that we did act illegally in not seizing the ship as well as the rebels, and subjecting her to a formal trial; but if in this we fell into a mistake, could England be so mean as to make war upon us for it? — for a mistake which was prompted by a kind and generous regard for the comfort and interests of Englishmen? Surely, if England is not noble enough to refuse to punish for any mere mistake, She is, nevertheless, not monstrous enough to punish for the mistake, which grew solely out of the desire to serve her.

But wherein have we harmed England in this matter?  We have insulted her, is the answer. We have not, however, intended to insult her: and an unintended insult is really no insult.  If, in my eagerness to overtake the man who has deeply injured me, I run rudely through my neighbor’s house he will not only not accuse me of insulting him, but he will pardon so much to my very excusable eagerness as to leave but little ground of any kind of complaint against me.  Surely, if England were but to ask her own heart how she would feel toward men in her own bosom, who, without the slightest provocation, were busy in breaking up her nation, and in plundering and slaughtering her people, she would be more disposed to shed tears of pity for us that to make war upon us.

It is not possible that England will make war on us for what we did to the Trent, and for doing which she has herself furnished us innumerable precedents.  It is not possible that she will so ignore, nay, so deny and dishonor her own history. I will not believe that England, whom I have ever loved and honored almost as if she were my own country, and who, whatever prejudiced and passionate American writers have written to the contrary, has hitherto, during our great and sore trial done nothing through her government, nor through the great body of her people, to justify the attempt by a portion (happily a very small and very unworthy portion) of our press to stir up our national feeling against her — I say I will not believe that this loved and honored England will make war upon us for a deed in which we intended her no wrong; in which, so far as her own example is authority, there is no wrong; and in which, in the light of reason, and, as it will prove in the judgment of mankind, there is no wrong. She could not make such a causeless war upon us without deeply and broadly blotting her own character and he character of modern civilization. But, after, all, what better is our modern civilization than a mere blot and blotch if the nation which is preeminently its exponent, can be guilty, and without the least real cause of provocation, and upon pretests as frivolous as they are false, of seeing to destroy a sister nation? — a sister nation, too, whose present embarrassments and distresses appeal so strongly to every good heart? Moreover, how little will it argue for the cause of human rights, and popular institutions, if the nation, which claims to be the chief champion of that cause, can wage so wicked a war upon a nation claiming no humbler relation to that precious cause?

What, then, do I hold that England should do in this case?

1st. Reprimand or more severely punish the captain of the Trent for his very gross and very guilty violation of our rights in furnishing exceedingly important facilities to our enemy. This our government should have promptly insisted on, and not have suffered England to get the start of us with her absurd counter claim.  This is a case in which not we, but England, should have been made defendant.  It is her Captain who is the real offender.  Ours is, at the most, but a nominal one.  In the conduct of her Captain were in spirit and purpose, as well as the doing, of wrong.  The conduct of ours, on the contrary, was prompted by the spirit and purpose of doing right; and if, in any respect, it was erroneous, it was simply in regard to the forms of doing right.  Moreover, the guilt of her Captain can be diminished by nothing that was seemingly or really guilty in ours. The criminality of taking the rebels into the Trent was none the less, because of any mistakes which attended the getting of them out.  Nevertheless, England takes no action against him.  Her policy is to have her guilty Captain lost sight of in her bluster about our innocent one.  To screen the thief, she cries, “Stop thief!”  Her policy is to prevent us from getting the true issue before the public mind, by occupying it with her false one.

How preposterous is the claim of England to her right to make war, because we took our rebellious subjects from her ship!  The taking of them into her ship is the only thing in the case which can possibly furnish cause of war. That, unless amply apologized for, does, in the light of international law, furnish abundant cause of war.

Did every hypocrisy and impudence go farther than in England’s putting America on trial! Was there ever a more emphatic “putting the saddle on the wrong horse”? I overtake the thief who has stolen my watch, and jerk it from his pocket.  He turns to the people, not to confess his theft, but to protest against my rudeness, and to have me, instead of himself, regarded as the criminal!

An old fable tells us that a council of animals, with the lion at their head, put an ass on trial for having “broused the bigness of his tongue.” The lion (England) was constrained to confess that he had himself eaten sheep, and shepherds too.  Nevertheless, it was the offence of the ass (America) that caused the council to shudder with horror. “What! Eat another’s grass? O shame!” and so the virtuous rascals condemned him to die, and rejoiced anew in their conscious innocence.

Moreover, England, instead of turning to her own conscience with the true case, has the brazen effrontery to appeal to our conscience with her trumped-up case.  Which of the parties in this instance needs conscience-quickening, in no less certain than in the instance of the footpad and the traveler, when he had robbed of his bags of gold.  The poor traveler meekly asked for a few coins to defray his expenses homeward. “Take them from one of the bags,” said the footpad, with an air of chivalrous magnanimity; but on seeing the traveler take half a dozen instead of two or three, he exclaimed, “Why, man, have you no conscience?”  England, through her subject and servant, entered into a conspiracy against America.  America, through her subject and servant, forbore to punish the wickedness, and simply stopped it.  And yet England bids us to our conscience!

Why Should England protect her captain?  Her Queen, in her last May’s Proclamation, warned him that, for doing what he has done, he should, “in no wise obtain any protection.” He had full knowledge of the official character of the rebles, and at least inferential knowledge of their bearing dispatches with them.  But, besides that the whole spirit of it is against what he has done, her Proclamation specifies “officers” and “dispatches” in the list of what her subjects are prohibited to carry “for the use or service of either of the contending parties.

England did not protect the Captain of her mail-steamer, Teviot, who, during our war with Mexico was guilty of carrying the Mexican General Paredez.  He was suspended.  Why does she spare the Captain of the Trent?  Is it because she has more sympathy with the Southern Confederacy than she had with Mexico? — and is, therefore, more tender toward him who serves the former, than she was toward him who served the latter?  But it will, perhaps be said, that we have not demanded satisfaction in this case as we did in that.  England, nevertheless, knows that we are entitled to it; and that she is bound to satisfy us for the wrongs she did us, before she complains of the way we took to save ourselves from the deep injury with which that great and guilty wrong threatened us.  In this connexion, I add that if, upon her own principles and precedents, the Captain of the Trent deserves punishment for what he did, she is stopped from magnifying into a grave offence our undoing what we did.

2. The next thing that England should do is to give instructions, or rather repeat those in the Queen's Proclamation, that no more rebel commissioners be received into her vessels.

3. And then she should inform us whether, in the case of a vessel that shall hereafter offend in this wise, she would have us take the vessel itself, or take but the commissioners. It is true that whatever her preference, we would probably insist on taking the vessel in every case: — for it is not probable that we shall again expose ourselves in such a case to the charge of taking too little. It is, however, also true, that, should she prefer our taking the vessel, we will certainly never take less.

But such instructions and information, although they would provide for future cases, would leave the present case unprovided for; and England might still say that she could not acquiesce in our having, in this case, taken the Commissioners instead of the vessel.  What then?  She ought to be content with the expression of our regret that we did not take the mode of her choice, and the more so as that mode could not have been followed by any different result in respect to our getting possession of the Commissioners.  But this might not satisfy her: — and what then?  She should generously wait until that unnatural and horrid war is off our hands; and if the parties could not then agree, they should submit the case to an Umpire.  If, however, she should call for an Umpire now, then, although the civilized world would think badly of her for it, and our own nation be very slow to forgive her for it, I would nevertheless, in my abhorrence of all war, have our government consent to an Umpire now. Nay, in the spirit of this abhorrence, and for the sake of peace, I would go much farther.  If no other concession we could make would satisfy England, I would have our Government propose to surrender the rebels, Mason and Slidell, in case the English Government would say, distinctly and solemnly, that it would not itself disturb neutral vessels having on board rebels who had gone out from England in quest of foreign aid to overturn the English Government.  An ineffably base Government would it prove itself to be should it refuse to say this, and yet declare war on the ground of our capture of the rebels who were on their way for foreign help to overturn our government.

I spoke of my abhorrence of all war.  Our lifelong opponents of war find themselves unexpectedly in sympathy with mighty armies.  They have to confess that they never anticipated a rebellion so fast; still less did they ever anticipate that England would be guilty of coming to the help of such a satanic rebellion.

I have said that England will not go to war with us in the case of the Trent. Nevertheless I am not without fear that her government will be driven to declare war against us. The Government of no other nation (and this is honorable to England) is more influenced by the people.  By such an affair as the capture of Mason and Slidell, the patriotism of the least-informed and superficial and excitable part of her people is easily and extensively wrought upon. With this part of her people the inviolability of the British flag is more than all earth besides.  But it is not by that capture, nor by those classes to whom it appeals with such peculiar power that the Government will be moved. If an irresistible pressure comes upon the government, it will come from those portions of the people who long for the cotton and free trade of the South, and who have allowed themselves to get angry with the North by foolishly misconstruing our high tariff (which is simply a war measure) into a hostile commercial measure. The capture of Mason and Slidell will be only the pretext, not the provocation; only the occasion, not the cause of war.

If England wishes to go to war with us for any wrongs we have done her, she shall not have the chance—for we will promptly repair the wrongs, at whatever sacrifices of property or pride. But if, as I still honor and love her too much to believe, she wishes to go to war with us at any rate, and chooses this our time of trouble as her time to make us an easy prey, then will she be gratified.  It will be but fair, however, to advertise her that she must not take our fighting in the war with the rebels as a sample of what will be our fighting in the war with herself.  The former is fooling.  The latter will be fighting.  On all subjects connected with slavery, and therefore in a war about slavery, we Americans are fools.  We cannot help it.  We have worshipped the idol so long and so devoutly, that when in its all-influential presence, we cannot be men. The powers of our moral nature are, however, not destroyed; they are but perverted.  And such an outrage as the English press threatens us with will restore their legitimate use.  Our manhood is not dead; it but sleeps.  And as it was when the Philistines fell upon the bound Samson, that the Spirit of the Lord came to his help, so, when the English shall fall upon the worse-bound Americans, this sleeping manhood will awake.  And it will awake to assert itself, not merely against the English, but against the rebels also.  And It will do this mightily, because it will, and the same time, be asserting itself against its own life-long degradations, and the hateful cause of them.  Let us but know that England, to whom we have done no wrong, has resolved to come to the help of the Pro-Slavery Rebellion, and our deep indignations against her, combining with our deeper indignation against ourselves, will arm us with the spirit of the power to snap the “cords,” and “green withs,” and “new ropes,” with which slavery has bound us to dash to dust the foul idol whose worship has so demented and debased us.  Yes, let us hear this month that England has declared war against us, and this month will witness our Proclamation of Liberty to every slave in the land.  No thanks will be due her for the happy effect upon us of her Declaration of war.  No thanks will be due her that the Declaration will have the effect to save us — to save us by making us anti-slavery.  No more half-way measures, and no more nonsense on the Subject of slavery, shall we then propose.  There will be no more talk then of freeing one sort of slaves, and continuing the other in slavery; but we shall then invite every negro in the land, bond and free, to identify himself, “arm and soul,” with our cause.  And then there will be no more talk of swapping off taxes for negroes, and no more talk of colonizing and apprenticing them.  Then we shall be eager to lift up the negroes into the enjoyment of all the rights of manhood, that so we may have in them men to stand by our side, and help us make short work with the present war, and with that with which we are threatened.

Owing to the bewitching and debauching influence of slavery upon our whole nation, there are, even in the Free States, divisions among us in regard to the present war.  But should England so causelessly, cruelly and meanly force a war upon us, there will be no divisions among us in regard to that war: — nor, indeed, will there then be in regard to the other. And so deep and abiding will be our sense of her boundless injustice, that there will never be any boundless injustice, that there will never be any among us to welcome propositions of peace with England, until her war with us shall have reached the result of our subjugation, or of her expulsion from every part of the Continent of North America.  Moreover, we shall rejoice to hear of the crushing of her power every where — for we shall feel that the nation which can be guilty of such a war is fit to govern no where — in the Eastern no more than in the Western hemisphere.

SOURCES: “News from England by Geritt Smith,” The Liberator, Boston, Massachusetts, Friday, January 3, 1862, p. 4; An abstract of thes article appears in Octavius Brooks Frothingham, Gerrit Smith: A Biography, p. 262-3