Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 Part 1

Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862.

by Adam Gurowski.

DIARY.

MARCH, 1861.

Inauguration day - The message - Scott watching at the door of the Union - The Cabinet born - The Seward and Chase struggle - The New York radicals triumph - The treason spreads - The Cabinet pays old party debts - The diplomats confounded - Poor Senators! - Sumner is like a hare tracked by hounds - Chase in favor of recognizing the revolted States - Blunted axes - Blair demands action, brave fellow! - The slave-drivers - The month of March closes - No foresight! no foresight!

For the first time in my life I a.s.sisted at the simplest and grandest spectacle-the inauguration of a President. Lincoln's message good, according to circ.u.mstances, but not conclusive; it is not positive; it discusses questions, but avoids to a.s.sert. May his mind not be altogether of the same kind. Events will want and demand more positiveness and action than the message contains a.s.sertions. The immense majority around me seems to be satisfied. Well, well; I wait, and prefer to judge and to admire when actions will speak.

I am sure that a great drama will be played, equal to any one known in history, and that the insurrection of the slave-drivers will not end in smoke. So I now decide to keep a diary in my own way. I scarcely know any of those men who are considered as leaders; the more interesting to observe them, to a.n.a.lyze their mettle, their actions. This insurrection may turn very complicated; if so, it must generate more than one revolutionary manifestation. What will be its march-what stages? Curious; perhaps it may turn out more interesting than anything since that great renovation of humanity by the great French Revolution.

The old, brave warrior, Scott, watched at the door of the Union; his shadow made the infamous rats tremble and crawl off, and so Scott transmitted to Lincoln what was and could be saved during the treachery of Buchanan.

By the most propitious accident, I a.s.sisted at the throes among which Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet was born. They were very painful, but of the highest interest for me, and I suppose for others. I partic.i.p.ated some little therein.

A pledge bound Mr. Lincoln to make Mr. Seward his Secretary of State. The radical and the puritanic elements in the Republican party were terribly scared. His speeches, or rather demeanor and repeated utterances since the opening of the Congress, his influence on Mr. Adams, who, under Seward's inspiration, made his speech de lana caprina, and voted for compromises and concessions,-all this spread and fortified the general and firm belief that Mr. Seward was ready to give up many from among the cardinal articles of the Republican creed of which he was one of the most ardent apostles. They, the Republicans, speak of him in a way to remind me of the dictum, "omnia serviliter pro dominatione," as they accuse him now of subserviency to the slave power. The radical and puritan Republicans likewise dread him on account of his close intimacy with a Thurlow Weed, a Matteson, and with similar not over-cautious-as they call them-lobbyists.

Some days previous to the inauguration, Mr. Seward brought Mr. Lincoln on the Senate floor, of course on the Republican side; but soon Mr. Seward was busily running among Democrats, begging them to be introduced to Lincoln. It was a saddening, humiliating, and revolting sight for the galleries, where I was. Criminal as is Mason, for a minute I got reconciled to him for the scowl of horror and contempt with which he shook his head at Seward. The whole humiliating proceeding foreshadowed the future policy. Only two or three Democratic Senators were moved by Seward's humble entreaties. The criminal Mason has shown true manhood.

The first attempt of sincere Republicans was to persuade Lincoln to break his connection with Seward. This failed. To neutralize what was considered quickly to become a baneful influence in Mr. Lincoln's councils, the Republicans united on Gov. Chase. This Seward opposed with all his might. Mr. Lincoln wavered, hesitated, and was bending rather towards Mr. Seward. The struggle was terrific, lasted several days, when Chase was finally and triumphantly forced into the Cabinet. It was necessary not to leave him there alone against Seward, and perhaps Bates, the old cunning Whig. Again terrible opposition by Seward, but it was overcome by the radicals in the House, in the Senate, and outside of Congress by such men as Curtis, Noyes, J. S. Wadsworth, Opd.y.k.e, Barney, &c., &c., and Blair was brought in. Cameron was variously opposed, but wished to be in by Seward; Welles was from the start considered sound and safe in every respect; Smith was considered a Seward man.

From what I witnessed of Cabinet-making in Europe, above all in France under Louis Philippe, I do not forebode anything good in the coming-on shocks and eruptions, and I am sure these must come. This Cabinet as it stands is not a fusion of various shadowings of a party, but it is a violent mixing or putting together of inimical and repulsive forces, which, if they do not devour, at the best will neutralize each other.

Senator Wilson answered Dougla.s.s in the Senate, that "when the Republican party took the power, treason was in the army, in the navy, in the administration," etc. Dreadful, but true a.s.sertion. It is to be seen how the administration will act to counteract this ramified treason.

What a run, a race for offices. This spectacle likewise new to me.

The Cabinet Ministers, or, as they call them here, the Secretaries, have old party debts to pay, old sores to avenge or to heal, and all this by distributing offices, or by what they call it here-patronage. Through patronage and offices everybody is to serve his friends and his party, and to secure his political position. Some of the party leaders seem to me similar to children enjoying a long-expected and ardently wished-for toy. Some of the leaders are as generals who abandon the troops in a campaign, and take to travel in foreign parts. Most of them act as if they were sure that the battle is over. It begins only, but n.o.body, or at least very few of the interested, seem to admit that the country is on fire, that a terrible struggle begins. (Wrote in this sense an article for the National Intelligencer; insertion refused.) They, the leaders, look to create engines for their own political security, but no one seems to look over Mason and Dixon's line to the terrible and with lightning-like velocity spreading fire of h.e.l.lish treason.

The diplomats utterly upset, confused, and do not know what G.o.d to wors.h.i.+p. All their a.s.sociations were with Southerners, now traitors. In Southern talk, or in that of treacherous Northern Democrats, the diplomats learned what they know about this country. Not one of them is familiar, is acquainted with the genuine people of the North; with its true, n.o.ble, grand, and pure character. It is for them a terra incognita, as is the moon. The little they know of the North is the few money or cotton bags of New York, Boston, Philadelphia,-these would-be betters, these dinner-givers, and whist-players. The diplomats consider Seward as the essence of Northern feeling.

How little the thus-called statesmen know Europe. Sumner, Seward, etc. already have under consideration if Europe will recognize the secesh. Europe recognizes faits accomplis, and a great deal of blood will run before secesh becomes un fait accompli. These Sewards, Sumners, etc. pay too much attention to the silly talk of the European diplomats in Was.h.i.+ngton; and by doing this these would-be statesmen prove how ignorant they are of history in general, and specially ignorant of the policy of European cabinets. Before a struggle decides a question a recognition is bosh, and I laugh at it.

The race, the race increases with a fearful rapidity. No flood does it so quick. Poor Senators! Some of them must spend nights and days to decide on whom to bestow this or that office. Secretaries or Ministers wrangle, fight (that is the word used), as if life and death depended upon it.

Poor (Carlylian-meaning) good-natured Senator Sumner, in his earnest, honest wish to be just and of service to everybody, looks as a hare tracked by hounds; so are at him office-seekers from the whole country. This hunting degrades the hounds, and enervates the patrons.

I am told that the President is wholly absorbed in adjusting, harmonizing the amount of various salaries bestowed on various States through its office-holders and office-seekers.

It were better if the President would devote his time to calculate the forces and resources needed to quench the fire. Over in Montgomery the slave-drivers proceed with the terrible, unrelenting, fearless earnestness of the most unflinching criminals.

After all, these crowds of office-hunters are far from representing the best element of the genuine, laborious, intelligent people,-of its true healthy stamina. This is consoling for me, who know the American people in the background of office-hunters.

Of course an alleviating circ.u.mstance is, that the method, the system, the routine, oblige, nay force, everybody to ask, to hunt. As in the Scriptures, "Ask, and you will get; or knock, and it will be opened." Of course, many worthy, honorable, deserving men, who would be ornaments to the office, must run the gauntlet together with the hounds.

It is reported, and I am sure of the truth of the report, that Governor Chase is for recognizing, or giving up the revolted Cotton States, so as to save by it the Border States, and eventually to fight for their remaining in the Union. What logic! If the treasonable revolt is conceded to the Cotton States, on what ground can it be denied to the thus called Border States? I am sorry that Chase has such notions.

It is positively a.s.serted by those who ought to know, that Seward, having secured to himself the Secretarys.h.i.+p of State, offered to the Southern leaders in Congress compromise and concessions, to a.s.sure, by such step, his confirmation by the Democratic vote. The chiefs refused the bargain, distrusting him. All this was going on for weeks, nay months, previous to the inauguration, so it is a.s.serted. But Seward might have been anxious to preserve the Union at any price. His enemies a.s.sert that if Seward's plan had succeeded, virtually the Democrats would have had the power. Thus the meaning of Lincoln's election would have been destroyed, and Buchanan's administration would have been continued in its most dirty features, the name only being changed.

Old Scott seems to be worried out by his laurels; he swallows incense, and I do not see that anything whatever is done to meet the military emergency. I see the cloud.

Were it true that Seward and Scott go hand in hand, and that both, and even Chase, are blunted axes!

I hear that Mr. Blair is the only one who swears, demands, asks for action, for getting at them without losing time. Brave fellow! I am glad to have at Willard's many times piloted deputations to the doors of Lincoln on behalf of Blair's admission into the Cabinet. I do not know him, but will try to become nearer acquainted.

But for the New York radical Republicans, already named, neither Chase nor Blair would have entered the Cabinet. But for them Seward would have had it totally his own way. Members of Congress acted less than did the New Yorkers.

The South, or the rebels, slave-drivers, slave-breeders, const.i.tute the most corrosive social decompositions and impurities; what the human race throughout countless ages successively toiled to purify itself from and throw off. Europe continually makes terrible and painful efforts, which at times are marked by b.l.o.o.d.y destruction. This I a.s.serted in my various writings. This social, putrefied evil, and the acc.u.mulated matter in the South, pestilentially and in various ways influenced the North, poisoning its normal healthy condition. This abscess, undermining the national life, has burst now. Somebody, something must die, but this apparent death will generate a fresh and better life.

The month of March closes, but the administration seems to enjoy the most beatific security. I do not see one single sign of foresight,-this cardinal criterion of statesmans.h.i.+p. Chase measures the empty abyss of the treasury. Senator Wilson spoke of treason everywhere, but the administration seems not to go to work and to reconstruct, to fill up what treason has disorganized and emptied. Nothing about reorganizing the army, the navy, refitting the a.r.s.enals. No foresight, no foresight! either statesmanlike or administrative. Curious to see these men at work. The whole efforts visible to me and to others, and the only signs given by the administration in concert, are the paltry preparations to send provisions to Fort Sumpter. What is the matter? what are they about?

APRIL, 1861.

Seward parleying with the rebel commissioners - Corcoran's dinner - The crime in full blast! - 75,000 men called for - Ma.s.sachusetts takes the lead - Baltimore - Defence of Was.h.i.+ngton - Blockade discussed - France our friend, not England - Warning to the President - Virginia secedes - Lincoln warned again - Seward says it will all blow over in sixty to ninety days - Charles F. Adams - The administration undecided; the people alone inspired - Slavery must peris.h.!.+ - The Fabian policy - The Blairs - Strange conduct of Scott - Lord Lyons - Secret agent to Canada.

Commissioners from the rebels; Seward parleying with them through some Judge Campbell. Curious way of treating and dealing with rebellion, with rebels and traitors; why not arrest them?

Corcoran, a rich partisan of secession, invited to a dinner the rebel commissioners and the foreign diplomats. If such a thing were done anywhere else, such a pimp would be arrested. The serious diplomats, Lord Lyons, Mercier, and Stoeckl refused the invitation; some smaller accepted, at least so I hear.

The infamous traitors fire on the Union flag. They treat the garrison of Sumpter as enemies on sufferance, and here their commissioners go about free, and glory in treason. What is this administration about? Have they no blood; are they fishes?

The crime in full blast; consummatum est. Sumpter bombarded; Virginia, under the nose of the administration, secedes, and the leaders did not see or foresee anything: flirted with Virginia.

Now, they, the leaders or the administration, are terribly startled; so is the brave n.o.ble North; the people are taken unawares; but no wonder; the people saw the Cabinet, the President, and the military in complacent security. These watchmen did nothing to give an early sign of alarm, so the people, confiding in them, went about its daily occupation. But it will rise as one man and in terrible wrath. Vous le verrez mess. les Diplomates.

The President calls on the country for 75,000 men; telegram has spoken, and they rise, they arm, they come. I am not deceived in my faith in the North; the excitement, the wrath, is terrible. Party lines burn, dissolved by the excitement. Now the people is in fusion as bronze; if Lincoln and the leaders have mettle in themselves, then they can cast such arms, moral, material, and legislative, as will destroy at once this rebellion. But will they have the energy? They do not look like Demiourgi.

Ma.s.sachusetts takes the lead; always so, this first people in the world; first for peace by its civilization and intellectual development, and first to run to the rescue.

The most infamous treachery and murder, by Baltimoreans, of the Ma.s.sachusetts men. Will the cowardly murderers be exemplarily punished?

The President, under the advice of Scott, seems to take coolly the treasonable murders of Baltimore; instead of action, again parleying with these Baltimorean traitors. The rumor says that Seward is for leniency, and goes hand in hand with Scott. Now, if they will handle such murderers in silk gloves as they do, the fire must spread.

The secessionists in Was.h.i.+ngton-and they are a legion, of all hues and positions-are defiant, arrogant, sure that Was.h.i.+ngton will be taken. One risks to be murdered here.

I entered the thus called Ca.s.sius Clay Company, organized for the defence of Was.h.i.+ngton until troops came. For several days patrolled, drilled, and lay several nights on the hard floor. Had compensation, that the drill often reproduced that of Falstaff's heroes. But my campaigners would have fought well in case of emergency. Most of them office-seekers. When the alarm was over, the company dissolved, but each got a kind of certificate beautifully written and signed by Lincoln and Cameron. I refused to take such a certificate, we having had no occasion to fight.

The President issued a proclamation for the blockade of the Southern revolted ports. Do they not know better?

How can the Minister of Foreign Affairs advise the President to resort to such a measure? Is the Minister of Foreign Affairs so willing to call in foreign nations by this blockade, thus transforming a purely domestic and munic.i.p.al question into an international, public one?

The President is to quench the rebellion, a domestic fire, and to do it he takes a weapon, an engine the most difficult to handle, and in using of which he depends on foreign nations. Do they not know better here in the ministry and in the councils? Russia dealt differently with the revolted Circa.s.sians and with England in the so celebrated case of the Vixen.

The administration ought to know its rights of sovereignty and to close the ports of entry. Then no chance would be left to England to meddle.

Yesterday N-- dined with Lord Lyons, and during the dinner an anonymous note announced to the Lord that the proclamation of the blockade is to be issued on to-morrow. N--, who has a romantic turn, or rather who seeks for midi a 14-3/4 heures, speculated what lady would have thus violated a secret d'etat.