Mr. Clay to Mr.
Seward
No. 36.]
Legation of the United States,
St. Petershurg, Russia,
January 6, 1864.
Sir: I begin my correspondence of the new year
with a grateful acknowledgment of my approval of the President’s late
message to Congress, and the accompanying proclamation. At the
suggestion of Mr. Bergh, secretary of legation, I enclose you a clipping
from the London Star, which I make a part of this despatch. This journal
has been before and since the rebellion the constant, truthful, and
courageous advocate of our country and its cause. I know not whether the
government has in any way recognized the disinterested labors of this
popular newspaper; but, in acceding to the request of Mr. Bergh, who
chanced to be in London during the first year of the rebellion, when
such malignity and falsehood were uttered against our government and
people by the English press, I realize a double pleasure in doing
justice to an able friend of our country, and in availing myself of an
opportunity to strengthen the President in his patriotic course, by
bringing to his notice one of the many pæans which more and more his
enlightened and generous course towards an inoffensive and oppressed
race is extorting from all the world.
We heard of the President’s illness with sorrow, and now rejoice in the
news of his recovery. I do not agree with Mr. Lincoln in all things, but
I am not prepared to say that he has not done the best possible under
the circumstances for the salvation of the country. It was only when we
thought that we might lose him, that we felt how to appreciate his
industry, his honesty, his balanced judgment, and above all his fidelity
to human rights.
Your obedient servant,
Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.
[From the
London Evening Star, December 28,
1863.]
[Untitled]
The reception of President Lincoln’s message by Congress and the
northern press is highly auspicious of its ultimate effect. The
electoral successes of the opposition in the fall of last year made
it doubtful whether the government would have a strong majority in
the new Congress. But the choice of Mr. Colfax as speaker and of the
Rev. W. H. Channing as chaplain, in preference to the pro-slavery
Bishop Hopkins, were hopeful indications to the contrary. These have
been confirmed by a vote of 98 to 59, refusing to entertain a
resolution by the notorious Fernando Wood in favor of sending peace
commissioners to Richmond. The offers of amnesty by the President,
resting upon his constitutional authority, do not require to be
approved by Congress; but those portions of the message and
proclamation which refer to the re-establishment of State
governments have been referred to a select committee, with
instructions to prepare bills for giving them effect. In the
minority of eighty upon this resolution there were no doubt a number
of republicans favorable to what is considered the more radical
policy of provincializing the subjugated States. It is feared by
these earnest loyalists and abolitionists that the premature
restoration of political rights to the vanquished rebels may
endanger the best fruits of republican victory—that the southern and
democratic vote may be again allied in the interests of slavery. The
apprehension derives some support from the terms of the
proclamation. The oath of obedience to the acts of government and
Congress in relation to slaves is to be taken, subject to any
modification of those acts by legislative or judicial decisions. It
is not pretended that the oath could be administered free from this
liability, but it is feared that advantage may be taken of the
President’s clemency not only to prevent his own re-election, but
[Page 282] to subvert his noblest
achievements. This feeling finds some expression in the abolitionist
journals, but they are almost unanimous in substantial approval of
the scheme of which the oath is a part. It is the copperhead press
alone that denounces the project—a fact from which we may safely
conclude that it is a project which cannot be perverted to the
revival of slavery or of the political predominance of slaveholders
and their allies. The fury of their organs against the Presidential
plan should be its passport to the acceptance of all good men— if,
indeed, its authorship is not commendation enough to the
sympathizing judgment of all who love freedom and who desire a just
and lasting peace.
The sincerity of Mr. Lincoln’s anti-slavery professions is as
unquestionable as the practical wisdom of the measures by which he
gives them effect. The history of the world affords no superior
example of an honest and enlightened ruler. He is a man whose words
are deeds, and whose deeds are as well considered as his words are
just. He answers to the Old Testament expression of true
statesmanship and patriotism, “wise, as understanding the time.” If
he has not the genius to anticipate the necessities of his
generation, he has the faculty which is even rarer—that of applying
to them the remedies which are both possible and effectual. He took
his stand upon the anti-slavery platform when to do so was to incur
the penalty of probable exclusion from those high places which his
country’s constitution opens to the ambition of the poorest. Without
aid from wealth, from family, or even the eloquence by which
multitudes are swayed, he attained a great and unexpected but most
perilous success. Never was the temptation to political apostasy
stronger than when Abraham Lincoln was offered the undisputed
enjoyment of his sudden elevation on condition of compromise with
the principles on which he had been elected. His honesty may have
cost his country a civil war; but even that price, with all its
personal perils and cares, he preferred to pay. With full
deliberation he advanced along the path on which he entered, and
with unshaken constancy he has maintained his every footstep.
Despite treason among his own officers as well as rebellion in half
the States, despite disaffection and division in the north,
threatening at one time to seat the confederate president at
Washington, despite the unfriendliness of foreign powers and the
absence of manifested sympathy even from the most friendly nations,
he formed and executed the sublime resolution to destroy slavery
with its own weapons, to regenerate as well as re-establish the
Union. In this resolve he has persevered, making his way, like our
own Cromwell, in Miltonic phrase, through “a cloud of detractions
rude,” not less formidable than the hosts of war. And now, reviewing
the year of emancipation—reciting to the Congress and people of the
loyal States the progress that has been made in the liberation of
the enslaved and the conversion of the rebels’ bondsmen into
citizens and soldiers of the republic—he spurns as “a cruel and
astounding breach of faith” the return of a single negro to his
former owner, loyal or rebellious; and aspires to the glory of
making the United States the world’s great “home of freedom,
disenthralled, regenerated, enlarged, and perpetuated.”
It is no derogation from the merits of the President to add that the
cause of emancipation is now safe beyond the power of betrayal by
any man or men. It has celebrated, in its thirtieth decade, the
virtual consummation of an enterprise than which the world has seen
none more noble in conception, more courageously prosecuted, more
happily successful. Thirty years ago it was begun by a band of
God-trusting men and women not exceeding in number the first
evangelists of the Christian faith. The seventy have converted a
nation. They have emerged from the pelting storm of social and
political persecution— a storm that often threatened life, and
sometimes took it—into the clear shining of popular favor and
governmental help. They have now the President of the Union for
their chief, Congress for their committee-room, armies and fleets
for their executive. Ten or eleven of the forty surviving members of
its first organization—the American anti-slavery society—were
present the other day at a [Page 283]
great commemorative meeting in Philadelphia. The principal hall of
that city was thronged for two days by the representatives of this
great revolution. With Garrison in the chair and a picture of John
Brown over the platform, they had senators among the orators and the
non-commissioned officers of a colored regiment among the delegates.
The greatest general in the Union service —the thrice victorious
Grant, the conqueror of Mississippi and of Tennessee—was reported by
one of the speakers, Senator Wilson, as an accession to the cause.
The general does not profess to be an abolitionist on abstract
principle, declines to say anything of politics or political
parties, but affirms his conviction that slavery is dead past
raising; and that if it were not, the north and south could never
live together again as a nation. Well might the fathers of the
abolition movement give thanks to God for his marvellous and
crowning mercies when they heard this testimony! They enlisted for a
war to which they saw no end in their lifetime. They feared that the
Union must perish ere slavery would die. Heaven has been better to
them than their hopes or fears. They rejoice to see the Union
re-establishing itself upon the grave of the institution that was
its reproach, its peril, and its curse.
