Even I feel humiliated to continually ascertain, by various direct and indirect sources from Europe, in what little estimation--if not worse--is held our administration by the principal statesmen and governments of the old world.
Empty rhetoric -- The future dark and terrible -- Wadsworth defeated -- The official bunglers blast every thing they touch -- Great and holy day! McClellan gone overboard! -- The planters -- Burnside -- McClellan nominated for President -- Awful events approaching -- Dictatorship dawns on the horizon -- The catastrophe.
O God, O God! to witness how, by the hands of Lincoln-Seward-McClellan, this noblest human structure is crumbled--and, perhaps, soon
Pulvere vix tactæ poterunt monstrare ruinæ.
May God preserve this people--those noble patriots, of which Wadsworth, Wade, Potter of Wisconsin, Stanton, Governor Andrew, and many others are the types, when the country will be ruined and rended by the firm, Lincoln-Seward-McClellan, to realize the pang,--
Nessun maggior' dolor' che ricordarsi dell tempo felice Nella miseria.
Mr. Seward's letter, October 28, to Messrs. Connover and Palmer, is a display of that empty rhetoric whose dust he is wont to throw into the eyes of the good-natured masses. His plea for united action--of course with him--is the most bitter irony on himself. Mr. Seward's policy and action are at the helm, and he piloted "our noble ship of state" on worse breakers than those "of eighteen months ago."
Mr. Seward's letter is dumb on the object of the Cooper meeting. Of course, Mr. Seward would rather swallow a viper than applaud the abolition of slavery.
_Nov. 5._--Lincoln-Seward politically slaughtered the republican party, and with it the country's honor. The future looks dark and terrible. I shudder. Dishonor on all sides. Lincoln will not understand to use the lease of power left to him--or to fall as a man. But to be candid, most of the thus called leaders prepared this defeat, and most of them at the last moment may lack decision and dignity. How repeatedly I warned the Sumners, Wilsons, and other wiseacres, that such will be the end, that the people at large will become exasperated by Lincoln's administration!
The issue brought before the people was all but dignified. It would have been better to make a straightforward issue against the incapacity and the democratic ill-will of McClellan, than to dodge the question, and force honest and noble men to speak against their convictions. The issue, as made, was concocted by journalists, by politicians; but not by statesmen, not by genuine great leaders.
