POLITICAL TALK AT WASHINGTON.
• [hum mut SPECILL CORRESPONDENT.] Washington, March 17. ACCESSIBILITY seems the especial and universal attribute of American statesmanship. There is never any difficulty about seeing anybody, from the President downwards. Of course, at this moment the overwhelming pressure of state business renders public men more chary of their time than they would be otherwise. But, even now, the readiness with which Washington politicians will receive visits from strangers, and the openness with which they will discuss public questions and the characters of public men, are to me perfectly asto- nishing. No doubt—as would be the case anywhere—a foreigner is treated with less reserve than a chance native visitor might be, but I have been many times already in the company of men holding high official positions here, when strangers, not only to myself but to the gentlemen in whose company I was, happened to be present, and yet the conversation has been as unguarded as if we had all been friends on whose discretion complete reliance could be reposed. And this, I think, is due not so much to the perfect social equality pre- vailing in the States as to the general good natitre so common with Americans. As to the total want of solidarity," to use a French word, existing between public men, everybody seems to stand by his own merits, to expect no support from, and to admit of no re- sponsibility towards his colleagues, whether in office or in Congress. If a casual stranger were to ask Earl Russell whether he was really on cordial terms with Lord Palmerston, or if Mr. Gladstone were to state in a public room that he had absolutely no confidence in the Secretary for Ireland, these remarks would hardly be stranger than many I have heard made of and by public men in this country. With such a state of things, gossip is an institution of the country. Out of the vast amount floating about Washington I have sought to pick out such scraps as throw any light upon the working of the political system. As such, rather than for their absolute worth, I give them to you. First, then, of the President. Politically, Abraham Lincoln is regarded as a failure. Why he, individually, was elected, or rather selected, nobody to this day seems to know. One thing is certain, that the North had no behef that his election would lead to the secession movement. Had this belief been entertained, a very different man would have been chosen for the post. As it was, the North desired to make a political protest; and the name of Lincoln was as good a one to protest in as any other. It was for his negative, not for his positive qualities, that he was chosen; and the wonder is, that his positive merits have turned out as decided as they have done. A shrewd, hard-headed, self-educated man, with sense enough to per- ceive his own deficiencies, but without the instinctive genius which supplies the place of learning, he is influenced by men whom he sees through, but cannot detect. An honest man may be the noblest work of God, but he is not the noblest product of humanity, and when you have called the President, as is the fashion here, "Honest Abe Lincoln" you have said a great deal doubtless, but you have also said all that can be said in his favour. He works hard and does little—and unites a painful sense of responsibility to a still more painful sense, perhaps, that his work is too great for him to grapple with. You can- not look upon that worn, bilious, anxious countenance of his, and believe it that of a happy man. Those who know him best agree that in private life his disposition is a sombre one. But coupled with this he has a rich fund of dry American humour, not inconsistent, I think, with habitual melancholy. He has too, an extraordinary talent for warding off unpleasant questions, by turning them into jokes, with instances of which Washington is full. There are one or two, which I have reason to believe authentic, and which in them- selves are worth quoting. Not long. ago an old acquaintance called upon him, and, after American fasluon, asked him in the course of conversation why, when he turned out Mr. Cameron, he did not turn out the rest of the Ministry. " Well," the President answered, "that reminds me of a farmer down in Illinois, who was annoyed
by skunks and set a trap to catch them; he caught nine and killed the first, but that one made such an infernal stench, he let the rest go." Again, at the first Council of War held after the President assumed the command-in-chief of the army, General McClellan did not. attend, and excused himself next day by saying he had forgotten the appointment. "Au, now," remarked Mr. Lincoln, "I recollect once being engaged in a case for rape, and the counsel for the defence asked the woman why, if, as she said, the rape was committed on a Sunday, she did not tell her husband till the following Wednesday, and when the woman answered that she had happened to forget it, the case was dismissed," The wit indeed of some of the stories is too Aristophanic to be quoted. But there is one other which will bear repeating. When the rebel armies were closely beleaguering Washington, two gentlemen insisted late one night on seeing the President, to inform him of a plot they had discovered on the part of some Government officials for communicating with the enemy. The President listened attentively to their story, which was of the " gobemouche" order, and on inquiring what remedy they proposed, was informed, after some hesitation, that the best remedy would be to replace the disaffected officials by loyal men. " lh, gentlemen," burst in the President," I see, it is the same old, old coon ; why could you not tell me at once you wanted an office, and save your own time as well as mine 1"' Still this rough homely wit is more ready in supplying illustra- tions than in creating a state policy, and therefore the President is always in political matters under the influence of some one of the statesmen who have his ear, and at all times of his wife. At first Mr. Seward had an almost dictatorial influence in the Government. Then, for a time, General McClellan was the chief person practically in the State, and now since his comparative decline in popularity, Mr. Secretary Stanton is supposed to direct the Presidential policy. For very obvious reasons the public press is almost unanimously m favour of Mr. Lincoln. The republican press cannot criticize their own nominee, the champion of their first triumph, without damaging their own party. The democratic press is afraid of driving the Pre- sident into the arms of the republicans, and therefore outvies its rivals in commendations of Mr. Lincoln ; while the New York Herald is faithful to the one sole principle it has ever maintained, that of being on the side of the administration, whatever it might be. From these causes you might suppose from the tone of the press that the whole hope and confidence of the country was reposed in "Abe Lin- coln," but the truth is, that the talk of proposing him for re-election is not a genuine one, and that when the President leaves the White House he will not be more regretted, though more respected, than Mr. Buchanan.
The whole formation of the Cabinet is a curious comment on the way in which affairs have been conducted here. Even at the time of its formation secession was not seriously believed in, and the Mi- nistry were selected by, or rather chosen for the President, not as the fittest men to grapple with the situation, but in order to recon- cile the conflicting sections of the political party which had carried the Presidential election. New York was the head-quarters of the moderate pro-slavery, or, more fairly speaking, un-anti-slavery re- publicans, and Mr. Seward and Mr. Thurlow Weed were the lead- ing politicians of the party in New York State. To satisfy this section, the most influential one of the party, Mr. Seward, was ap- pointed Secretary of State. To combat his influence, Mr. Chase was chosen by the anti-slavery republicans to fill the post of a Trea- surer. It was by the Seward influence that Mr. Bates was appointed, and Mr. Blair was picked out by the opposite section, not because he was an adherent of anti-slavery views, but because he was ex- pected to strengthen Mr. Chase's hands. As to Mr. Welles, the Secretary for the Navy, his nomination (unexpected as it was) was due to Mr. Lincoln's having formed a high opinion of him per- sonally, during a political visit to Illinois some years previously. Mr. Cameron owed his seat to the anti-slavery interest, and as to Mr. Smith, the Secretary for the Interior, nobody exactly seems to know why he was chosen at all. A Cabinet so formed has had to deal with extraordinary difficulties, and it is strange they also have not made a much greater failure than they have done hitherto. Mr. Seward was the one man of ability and energy amongst them, and partly by ability, still more by sheer self-assertion, became for a time almost a dictator in the Cabinet. He had, too, the merit of first recognizing that the nation was in earnest, and his passport system, his arrests, and his suspension of the Habeas Corpus, ill advised perhaps as they may have been, were at the time welcome to the nation as a proof that the Government was in earnest also. If he could have kept from writing despatches he would have remained invincible, but the Trent affair ruined him, and the latent good sense of the American people has convinced them, in spite of the New York Herald, that Mr. Seward's diplo- matic strategy has been a failure. Mr. Chase is a man of undoubted ability, and more respected probably for his private character than any of his colleagues, but he lacks the audacity required for a finan- cier in times of revolution. Mr. Blair is an able politician, but nothing more; and as for the rest, they are respectable mediocrities. Mr. Stanton is the rising star. As to General McClellan, opinions are much divided. Party feeling here runs so high, and the anti-slavery party are so hostile to the general that it is difficult to estimate the value of the praise or censure heaped upon him. Why he was ever ap- pointed is still a matter of mystery. Previous to Ins appointment he was hardly known out of a small military circle, where he had a considerable reputation as an active, intelligent officer. I gather the truth to be—that, like the President, he owes his success to his
want of note. After the battle of Bull's Run everybody was so dis- heartened and dejected, that, like drowning men, they caught at •a straw. Every general in the field had proved, more or less, a failure. General Scott, on his retirement, proposed the name of McClellan. Nothing was known against him, and he was chosen for want of a better. Luckily for him he shared in the revulsion of popular feeling. As the dismay that followed Manassas passed away, and.the North awoke to the consciousness that it was still powerful, if not invin- cible, the young general, who had been appointed at the darkest hour of the Republic, was regarded as the future saviour of the country. It would have been such a Godsend for the North to discover a young Napoleon that the wish was father to the thought, and the nation made up their minds that McClellan was the heaven- born general. It is possible that the nation may have been. right; but as yet McClellan has given no proof of his genius. During his
command a powerful army has been created, but whether its creation is due to him, or to Ins subordinate generals, or to the almost unguided energy of the people, time alone can prove. For seven long dreary months the nation has shown unbounded confidence in the ` masterly inaction" which has characterized McClellan's policy; but there is a limit to human patience. Even the President's faith has been shaken; and it is in obedience to his remark, "that if McClellan could not advance, he must get a general who could,"
that the advance has been made at last. -Unless within a very short time McClellan can show, by practical evidence, that the retreat of the insurgent army from Manassas was a part of his strategy, and not an accident for which he was unprepared, there will be an end of his command. There is a growing feeling in the country that this is an irregular volunteer war on both sides, and that it must be decided by bard fighting, not by strategical plans. An immense majority of the army is composed of volunteer regiments, whose officers look with distrust on those of the regular army; and McClellan is unpopular not only with the volunteer officers, but with those of the regular army, who consider his success unmerited.
Certainly in matters of which a civilian can judge there 'seems a
strange want of system in the military as well as in the political management of the Government. General Stone has been in prison now for months on a charge, for which, if proved, military execution by court-martial is but an inadequate punishment, yet no attempt is made to bring him to trial. General McClellan had him to supper on the night before his arrest; and Mr. Stanton sends him his kind regards in prison. Again, General Fremont is removed from his command on charges affecting not only his capacity but his integrity. A committee (unfairly, I believe) reports against him, but no action is taken upon it. At last, in self-defence, Fremont publishes a vin- dication of himself, inculpating different members of the Cabinet of gross unfairness and neglect of duty; and then, not a week after- wards, while the same Ministers remain in office, Fremont is ap- pointed to a most important command in the service of the State.
Such are specimens of the political conversation I hear in Wash- ington. There may be, and doubtless are, misstatements and ex- aggeration in them, but they may be of service as showing you how public men here are talked about.
A27 ENGLISH TRAVELLER.
Previous page
