2. Seward hesitated between McClellan and Banks,
4. And although afraid of being finally shelved by Lincoln, he advocates Lincoln's re-election--
5. As being the paramount means to politically murder Chase.
Oh American people! Oh American people! how those foul political pilferers dice for thy blood and thy destinies!
Years ago, I justified the existence and asserted the necessity of politicians in the political public life of America. I considered them an unavoidable and harmless result of free democratic institutions. [See "America and Europe."] At that time I observed the politician from a distance, and reasoned on him altogether metaphysically, after the so-called German fashion. Since 1861 I have come into personal contact with the genus politician--and oh! what a monstrous breed they are!
_September 10. New York._--Senator Sumner on our foreign relations. The Senator enumerates all the violations of good comity, of international duties, of the obligations of neutrals, violations so deliberately and so maliciously perpetrated by England and by France. But why has the Senator forgotten to ascend to one of the paramount causes? Previous to England or France, the State Department in Washington and Mr. Lincoln recognized in the rebels _the condition of belligerents_. It was done by the Proclamation instituting the blockade. The _Blue Book_ fully proves that already months before Mr. Lincoln's inauguration the English Government had a perfect knowledge of the vascillating policy which was to be inaugurated after March 1, 1861. At the same time, the English Government knew well that already previous to March 4, the rebel conspirators were fully decided on carrying out their treacherous aim across streams of blood. A long war was imminent, and a recognition of the rebels as _in parte_ belligerents, could not have been avoided. A part of the English nation, a part of the English Cabinet, was and is overflowing with the most malicious ill will, and such ones crave for an occasion to satisfy their hatred. But our domestic and foreign policy singularly served our English ill-wishers.
I deeply regret that the Senator preferred the halls of the Cooper Institute to the hall of the United States Senate; that he threw the gauntlet to Europe as a lecturer, when for days and months he could have done it so authoritatively as a Senator of the United States; could have done it from his senatorial chair, and in the fulfilment of the most sacred public and patriotic duty. How could the Senator thus belittle one of the most elevated political positions in the world, that of a Senator of the United States?