I Have Been Informed
That A Very Able Report Was Sent In By Them To The Government On
Their Return, And That This Was Drawn Up By McClellan.
But in
America a man is not only a soldier, or always a soldier, nor is he
always a clergyman if once a clergyman:
He takes a spell at
anything suitable that may be going. And in this way McClellan
was, for some years, engaged on the Central Illinois Railway, and
was for a considerable time the head manager of that concern. We
all know with what suddenness he rose to the highest command in the
army immediately after the defeat at Bull's Run.
I have endeavored to describe what were the feelings of the West in
the autumn of 1861 with regard to the war. The excitement and
eagerness there were very great, and they were perhaps as great in
the North. But in the North the matter seemed to me to be regarded
from a different point of view. As a rule, the men of the North
are not abolitionists. It is quite certain that they were not so
before secession began. They hate slavery as we in England hate
it; but they are aware, as also are we, that the disposition of
four million of black men and women forms a question which cannot
be solved by the chivalry of any modern Orlando. The property
invested in these four million slaves forms the entire wealth of
the South. If they could be wafted by a philanthropic breeze back
to the shores of Africa - a breeze of which the philanthropy would
certainly not be appreciated by those so wafted - the South would be
a wilderness. The subject is one as full of difficulty as any with
which the politicians of these days are tormented. The Northerners
fully appreciate this, and, as a rule, are not abolitionists in the
Western sense of the word. To them the war is recommended by
precisely those feelings which animated us when we fought for our
colonies - when we strove to put down American independence.
Secession is rebellion against the government, and is all the more
bitter to the North because that rebellion broke out at the first
moment of Northern ascendency. "We submitted," the North says, "to
Southern Presidents, and Southern statesmen, and Southern councils,
because we obeyed the vote of the people. But as to you - the voice
of the people is nothing in your estimation! At the first moment
in which the popular vote places at Washington a President with
Northern feelings, you rebel. We submitted in your days; and, by
Heaven! you shall submit in ours. We submitted loyally, through
love of the law and the Constitution. You have disregarded the law
and thrown over the Constitution. But you shall be made to submit,
as a child is made to submit to its governor."
It must also be remembered that on commercial questions the North
and the West are divided. The Morrill tariff is as odious to the
West as it is to the South.
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