Tribune Essays Leading Articles Contributing To The New York Tribune From 1857 To 1863

Tribune Essays: Leading Articles Contributing To The New York Tribune From 1857 To 1863.

Charles Congdon...

7 minute read

Read Chapter

Tribune Essays

Leading articles Contributed to The New York Tribune from 1857 to 1863 by Charles T. Congdon With an Introduction by Horace Greeley...

9 minute read

Read Chapter

Prefatory Notice

In making this compilation, I have trusted that the memory of the reader would be sufficient for the explanation of most allusions; and commentary would not only have cumbered these pages, but would hardly have been fair. Nor have I ventured upon any corrections or alterations of importance. These articles are precisely what they profess to be; they were, from day to day, hastily written to serve an immediate purpose; and they are, therefore, entitled, I hope, to a lenient and charitable judgmen

7 minute read

Read Chapter

Introduction

Whenever the history of Journalism shall be truly written, One of its most interesting chapters will be that which traces the infancy and growth of that potent creation of our century, the Leader— that is, of the most important and conspicuous Editorial or Editorials, printed in the largest type, and occupying the most prominent position. I say occupying, though the axiom that “Where MacDONALDonald sits is the head of the table,” applies here as well as elsewhere. Since the Electric Telegraph ob

5 minute read

Read Chapter

Perils And Besetting Snares

An institution morally bad seldom deludes the world into the belief that it is practically a good One. Wrong and injustice are not only insufferable, theoretically, but they have a hard way of rendering nations, societies and individuals exceedingly uncomfortable. By the indulgence of petty vices, we may sometimes lapse into a dreamy slumber, and thence into decided decomposition; but a continuous and absorbing mistake, like that of Slavery, gives us no peace, and makes our mornings and our even

5 minute read

Read Chapter

Inaugural Glories

The gentlemen who do the didactic and the reflective for the picture-newspapers, have enlarged in sentences, more or less leaden, upon the moral grandeur of the inauguration spectacle; and have with patriotic pride speculated upon the wonder, not to say envy, with which the bedizened Embassadors must have gazed upon the fire-companies and the Pennsylvania militia. Admitting that we had a fine melodrama on the Fourth instant, we have now come naturally to the farce. We certainly do not think that

3 minute read

Read Chapter

Mr. Benjamin Screws

A friend has sent us the business card of a gentleman in New Orleans. It is not the custom of this newspaper to advertise gratuitously, but in this case we so far depart from our rule as to give this pleasing announcement without expense to Mr. Benjamin Screws. It is as follows: Now we do not intend to speak harshly of the enterprising Screws, as some of our more ardent brethren might do. We know it to be the custom of negro-owners to snub and to cut the negro-broker; but for our own part, if hu

5 minute read

Read Chapter

Mr. Mason's Manners

What are good manners? What is politeness as distinguished from rusticity? Miss Leslie has written a little elementary book intended to teach our Yankee girls how to behave themselves everywhere— in the church, in the drawing-room, in the railwaycar, and at the Table d'hote. Mons. De Meilhauval has also compiled a Manuel Du Scavoir, which is said to be a great polisher, but we have never seen it, and therefore, for all the good Monsieur might have done for us, we remain in our original ursine co

4 minute read

Read Chapter

The Great Rogersville Flogging

We gave the other day the First Chapter in the History of the Great Flogging behind the Second Presbyterian Church in the town of Rogersville, Tenn.— a flagellatory event which will hereafter secure for that edifice, heretofore humble and unknown, honorable mention in ecclesiastical annals. We showed how the “Boy” of Netherland— Deacon of the church aforesaid, and colonel of some regiment, the number and arms of which are to us unknown— was properly chastised beneath the shadow of the sacred eav

4 minute read

Read Chapter

Mr. Mitchel's Desires

A mysterious philosopher of Massachusetts somewhere has remarked, that “Consistency is the vice of little minds.”If this aphorism is to be accepted, then we may suppose Mr. John Mitchel's intellect to be of gigantic proportions, and his brain by several ounces heavier than that of Webster or of Cuvier was found to be. For of all the erratic men of a race notoriously erratic, Patriot Mitchel has turned the most bewildering flip-flaps. As a political artist, he may be said, like some celebrated pa

5 minute read

Read Chapter

Mr. Mason's Manners Once More

Anatomists have been much bothered to determine the uses of the pineal gland and the spleen; and what these mysterious organs are in the body physical, embassadors, ordinary and extraordinary, are in the body politic. When a respectable Boston merchant, more remarkable for his knowledge of “Domestics” than of diplomacy, was appointed by our Government to St. James (where he cut a sumptuous figure and spent double his salary for the honor of his country), he had a painful recollection of having s

6 minute read

Read Chapter

Presidential Politeness

When we parted, in by no means a heart-broken state, with Mr. Pierce, and settled ourselves to bear as best we might the reign of Mr. Buchanan, the general opinion was that we had made a change for the better. There was a notion that Mr. B. was a more respectable man than his predecessor; or, at any rate, that he would be more forbearing in his treatment of his antagonists, and less likely to do hard, ungenerous and ungracious things. In fact, despite the little Ostend escapade, Mr. Buchanan ran

5 minute read

Read Chapter

William The Conqueror

In these days of general and wide-spread modesty, we dote upon impudence. We are pleased to see or to hear from a man who, in disregard of all the decencies of public life, approaches the administration with a front of brass, and with lingual abilities of the curliest serpentine order. We have said many things sharp and severe of Mr. William Walker, the distinguished pirate. If our memory serves us, we have held him up to the public as One who, by all right and law, should be suspended from that

5 minute read

Read Chapter

Benjamin's Second Notice

Screws again— B. Screws, Esq. The well-known B. Screws. Not to go into untimely refinements, Benjamin Screws. The individual doing business in Gravier Street, New Orleans. The only trader heretofore puffed in these columns without being distinctly ranked as an advertiser. The man who deals in the cerebrums and the cerebellums, the skulls, the wind-pipes, the chests, the abdominal regions, the legs, the heels, the great toes, and the little toes of his fellow-creatures. The man who sends out a ca

5 minute read

Read Chapter

The Reveries Of Reverdy

We have made a discovery— a literary discovery. One of the sweetest and prettiest writers in this land of Hail Columbia, is The Hon. Reverdy Johnson, of Lyndhurst, near Baltimore, in the Commonwealth of Maryland. When, as became watchful journalists, we underwent the perusal of the proceedings of the Palace Garden Democracy, we found Judge Parker not fascinating, his only joke being green with the moss of several centuries, and his serious, alarming and hortatory passages, so intolerably, consum

5 minute read

Read Chapter

The Foresight Of Mr. Fielder

A Vocalist of the last generation, celebrated in his day, and called Incledon, while listening to the performances of Braham, was accustomed to wish that his old music-master could come down from heaven to Exeter and take the mail-coach up to London, “To hear that d— d Jew sing.”Mr. Herbert Fielder, of Georgia, who is the latest champion of disunion, and who appears to have muddled himself into something like sincerity by too much reading of Mr. Calhoun, in a pamphlet which he has put out, and f

5 minute read

Read Chapter

Mr. Mitchel's Commercial Views

Among the most consistent philosophers at present engaged in the support and defence of Human Slavery, we must certainly rank that illustrious patriot, John Mitchel, the Irishman, who is at present grinding in the slaveholder's mill, and who will be transferred, when his owners are ready, to the mill at Washington, in which the grinding will be worse and the pay proportionately better. Those who are not over-nice in their moral notions, who like to behold perversion perfect, and who find a fasci

4 minute read

Read Chapter

Father Ludovico's Fancy

The Popes of Rome have accomplished some very tough and apparently hopeless work in their day; and this historical fact, we suppose, emboldened the present papal chairman, to lend his sanction— possibly without due consideration— to an enterprise apparently Utopian, which has been initiated in Naples. For there is in that charming city a certain Father Ludovico, a monk, who is highly zealous and particularly interested in the conversion of Ethiopia— it never having been the luck of the weak-mind

5 minute read

Read Chapter

Mr. Choate On Dr. Adams's Sermons

The Essex Street Church, in the city of Boston, enjoys the pastoral supervision of The Rev. Nehemiah Adams, D. D., and the distinguished confraternization of the Honorable Rufus Choate— a combination of felicities which hardly any ecclesiastical body of this age or of any country can boast. The Twenty-fifth anniversary of the settlement of Dr. Adams was held last Monday Evening, and Mr. Choate made a beautiful speech upon the occasion, in which he principally advised the congregation to study th

3 minute read

Read Chapter

University Wanted

The foundation of a seat of learning, in which for many successive generations the youth of a nation may learn the Greek and Latin languages, with a sprinkling of Conic Sections, and a mild flavor of Campbell's Rhetoric, is a matter which occupied the minds of our fathers, and not seldom appeals to the pockets of us, their degenerate descendants, inasmuch as it is the fashion, upon all possible occasions, in all proper and improper spots, to found what is called a University, and to invite juven

3 minute read

Read Chapter

Mr. Pollard's “Mammy.”

There are many instances of filial piety recorded, and very properly recorded, in history. The reader will please recall that which has most warmly touched his sensibilities, or most closely captivated his memory— of some Athenian son or Roman daughter, illustrious for obedience or devotion— and when contemplation has warmed him into an admiration of the Ancients and an inclination to depreciate the Moderns, we shall triumphantly bring forward Edward Pollard, of Washington, in the District of Co

5 minute read

Read Chapter

A Church Going Into Business

Yes, and such a business! None of your vulgar huckstering! your piddler-pedlery! your small barter of such insignificant commodities as rice, cotton, corn or tobacco! Had the General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, which met at Evansville, Indiana, on the 28th of May, A. D. 1859, speculated in steamboats, or sold plantations, or played bull or bear with dubious stocks, somebody might have protested against making God's house a house of merchandise; but the Assembly, jealous of it

6 minute read

Read Chapter

A New Laughing-Stock

Really, the gods are good. If Pan is sometimes, as during the present season, a little niggardly, or red-eyed Mars unusually rampant, have we not always Momus with us, and reason to bless the sensitive divinities that banished him from Olympus? What an intolerable world this would be, if all the fools were out of it! But we need not fear for the succession, while the sunny sections of this confederacy continue to produce such a crop of choice ones, born to the motley. The last and finest fool wh

6 minute read

Read Chapter

A Cumberland Presbyterian Newspaper

We have recently printed in these columns several articles upon the newspaper press of the South and West, and have amused ourselves, if not our readers, by a little off-hand dissection of what may be properly termed the morbid anatomy of journalism. We have observed in these sheets almost incredible ignorance, and certain radical vices, which are more to be deplored than an innocent disregard of the rules of taste and of grammar. In the course of our researches, we are sorry to say that we have

6 minute read

Read Chapter

Nil Nisi Bonum

The old and amiable rule of speaking only with kindness of the dead, is One which, in this world of small comity, we have no wish to disregard; although it is One the final violation of which is simply a question of time and the natural result of historic doubts. All character is dubious. There may be those who with perfect honesty do not admire Fenelon, and do admire Diderot or Voltaire. Indeed, it is only when a human career is closed that we are in a position to estimate its value, purport an

6 minute read

Read Chapter

Two Tomb-Stones

As a general rule, human beings in selecting the rewards of their own labor prefer cash to tomb-stones— a fact which Mr. Thomas Moore noticed in his monody on the death of Sheridan. If a master mechanic should assemble his journeymen-carpenters, and should say to them: “My dear fellows and devoted friends! I have noticed the extreme vigor with which you plane and the splendor of your sawing, and how charmingly you hit the nails on their heads. I shall not insult you by offering you money, which

4 minute read

Read Chapter

The Perils Of Pedagogy

Mr. Croaker, in a chronic condition of alarm, lends to One of Goldsmith's comedies much of its vivacity and mirth; and the dreadful fright of a certain Mr. Matthews, member of the Virginia Legislature, is comic enough to temper the austerities of the recent tragedy. We knew that John Brown would be a name wherewithal to conjure several generations of undutiful infants into obedience at bed-time, just as it has jostled children of larger growth into unwinking watchfulness, and scared the Commande

6 minute read

Read Chapter

Josiah's Jaunt

Various forms of polite invitation are upon record, such as, “Will you come to the bower I have shaded for you?”“Will you walk into my parlor?”as the spider said to the fly. “Will you come and take tea in the arbor?”etc., etc. Another matter of momentous importance, to be discussed and decided only in full family Sanhedrim, is whether the Smiths shall be asked and the Browns shut mercilessly out. But it is a still more solemn affair when a Sovereign State wishes to give a party, to determine upo

6 minute read

Read Chapter

A Biographical Battle

If poor Mr. Choate could rise this morning from the dead— and many of his admirers believe that he is restrained from returning rather by lack of inclination than lack of power— he would find an exceedingly inky battle raging over what would have been his remains if he had not arisen. But Mr. Choate undoubtedly expected to have his life taken after he left it; for it is the fate of all great men to be picked up at last by hungry biographers, who pacify their appetites as soon after the lamented

5 minute read

Read Chapter

Mr. Bancroft On The Declaration Of Independence

Mr. Rufus Choate, deceased, has left upon record his opinion, that the ethics of the Declaration of Independence are merely “Glittering generalities.”Mr. Caleb Cushing, muzzy and mazy as he is, in thought and expression, has contrived to assert, with tolerable clearness, that in his opinion “All men are Not born free and equal.”Mr. Charles O'Connor is of the same mind. So in his day was Mr. John C. Calhoun. Of course there is nothing to be astonished at in this resort to arrogant paradox. These

4 minute read

Read Chapter

Modern Chivalry— A Manifesto

We read in One of the noblest of English poems that “A gentle knight came pricking o'er the plain ;” but we do not read, in whatever other way he made an ass of himself, that he published Three close columns of nonsense in any newspaper of the period. He dabbled in blood, and not in ink; he brandished a sword, and not a goose-quill; he murdered infidels, and not his vernacular; he was invincible in respect of dragons, but he recoiled from the perils of authorship; and as he was much more expert

8 minute read

Read Chapter

Mr. Fillmore Takes A View

Ex-Presidents are undoubtedly beings vouchsafed to us by way of confirming the truth of that Scripture which declares that though One should rise from the dead, yet would not men believe. Ex-Presidents, to be sure, are not always exactly dead; and even Mr. John Tyler, who never during his official days had a superfluity of vitality, has recently shown the usual sign of life in a decayed politician, and has written a letter. The Ex-President, therefore, may be considered not so much dead as “Done

6 minute read

Read Chapter

“A Banner With A Strange Device”

Our obligations to the Anarchy of South Carolina are too enormous to be expressed. Bolted she has; quite a large amount of our personal property has she taken with her, but she has left our dear old bird. She has spoiled the gridiron, but she has spared the goose. We have him still, beak, talons and feathers! For us, dis-United States though we may be, he will continue to soar and scream and spread his wings. From our banner a star or Two may madly shoot, and a stripe or so may fade; but we keep

3 minute read

Read Chapter

A Southern Diarist

Who would not, if he could, read history in perpetual diaries, and so have done forever with philosophic historians and historic philosophers Who will not join with us in the regret that Noah kept no log? Who does not prefer Pepys to Clarendon or Hume? Who can assure us that Walter Scott's Journal will not be read long after his romances in prose and verse have been forgotten? Who would barter Byron's memoranda, smirched and hasty, for a dozen Childe Harolds, and a regiment of Laras, and who wou

5 minute read

Read Chapter

Dr. Tyler's Diagnosis

We are happy to perceive that in these days of excitement, One moderate man-One exceedingly moderate man— the most moderate man of modern times— a man without the slightest pretension to ability of any sort, is still in full possession of his inkstand and pen, if not his tongue. We need hardly say that we allude to John Tyler, of Virginia, whose recent visit to Washington, if it has not saved the Union, has at least produced a correspondence enlivened by the united abilities of Mr. Tyler and Mr.

3 minute read

Read Chapter

The Montgomery Muddle— A Specimen Day

Mr. Thoma Carlyle has given somewhere a droll and piquantly cynical description of a new-born baby, with its pink skin, its irrelevant motions, and its many and meaningless wants. A new Government, when extemporized, not because it is needed, when rather it starts from a stercoraceous bed of corruption and venality, is always the object of laughter to settled States and solid statesmen. In its assumption of regal airs, in its strut and swagger, in its monkeyfied politics, it reminds us of nothin

6 minute read

Read Chapter

Ready-Made Unity And The Society For Its Promotion

It is a pleasant thing for brethren to dwell together in unity. There can be no mistake about it. The Scriptures say so, and “The American Society for promoting National Unity” backs up the Scripture; so that the thing may be considered as good as settled. Especially when we consider that Samuel and Sidney Morse, Hubbard Winslow and Seth Bliss indorse the Society, and that in so doing they approve the Scriptures. Gentlemen amorous of unity could not certainly have done a more sensible thing than

6 minute read

Read Chapter

A Private Battery

We find the following paragraph in the Charleston (S. C.) correspondence of a contemporary: A salute was fired this afternoon by Captain James W. Meridith's Private battery in honor of the ratification of the Constitution by South Carolina, and the hoisting of the Confederate States flag. Well, in the rapid onset of Nineteenth century civilization, beautifully bewritten and philosophized as it has been, Charleston does outrun New York. There are a Hundred things which are handy to have in the ho

3 minute read

Read Chapter

Southern Notions Of The North

The Southern States have heretofore known little enough of the North; from which we infer that our summer visitors from those regions have either been too intent upon their juleps, or too much engrossed in purchasing merchandize, to carry back for the enlightenment of their stay-at-home neighbors much valuable fruit of intelligent observation. We remember to have met and to have conversed with a clever Yankee woman who undertook to teach the ideas of half a dozen boys and girls to shoot, upon a

5 minute read

Read Chapter

Alexander The Bouncer

All great men have their weak side. Alexander of Macedon was given to grog. Alexander, of Georgia, V. P. C. S., is given to gammon. His weakness is “To say the thing that is not”— this being the periphrastical way in which Dean Swift's fastidious Houyhnhnms always spoke of falsehood and of falsifiers. The Hon. Y. P. Alex. Ham. Stephens upon arriving at Atlanta, Ga., was “Received by a large crowd;” and in return he ungratefully made a speech calculated largely to delude the “Large crowd,” and co

4 minute read

Read Chapter

Roundheads And Cavaliers

What is chivalry? What is a chevalier? Why, because a person is a man-owner should he be styled a horseman? Or why call him a chevalier, if you come to that, simply because he is an ass? What is there in the fact that a man is tolerably white and lives in Virginia, by the toil of others, which should induce The Londo,, Spectator, for instance, to liken him to Prince Rupert or to Peveril of the Peak? Or to go further back, if you look into the charming pages of Froissart, you do not find that Sir

4 minute read

Read Chapter

Wise Convalescent

When, a few days since, we heard from Gov. Wise, he was in the hands of his medical man taking his pills and potions with a perseverance and a punctuality which seems to have been rewarded; for his Excellency is now clothed at least, if not in his right mind, and is making speeches with all that lunatic force which has always, in the day of his bodily health and strength, characterized his frenzied eloquence. He took the field in his finest fulgurant style at Richmond, Va., on the 1st inst. thou

4 minute read

Read Chapter

Slave-Holder's Honor

Dr. William H. Russell, the peripatetic philosopher and friend of The London Times, complains, if we may credit a telegram from Cairo “That his correspondence has been tampered with by the Rebels, his letters being altered, and in some cases not sent at all.”Had this fact come sooner to the knowledge of Mr. Russell, it would, we fear, have diminished his relish for that celebrated bottle of Old Madeira which he drank near Charleston, and his appetite for the excellent official dinners eaten by h

6 minute read

Read Chapter

No Question Before The House

We live in an age of extraordinary political exhibitions; and he whose appetite for novelty is the nearest insatiate, will have no cause to complain of the variety of the entertainment. As human nature forbids a perpetual torture and tension of anxiety, we must sometimes laugh though matters may be at the worst; $and the satirists of England have already taught us to laugh at the British House of Commons— a body with wonderful talent for impaling itself upon the horns of a dilemma, and for wrigg

5 minute read

Read Chapter

Bella Mollita— Soft War

When Osric, the water-fly, called upon Hamlet to arrange the tilt with Laertes, he did not forget to speak in high terms of the latter as “An absolute gentleman, full of most excellent differences, of very soft society and great showing— the card or calendar of gentry.”There are some men, and some of them are journalists, who, having all their lives been accustomed to speak of slaveholders and slaveholding in their mealy-mouthed way, cannot now, in the very tempest of the national danger, change

5 minute read

Read Chapter

The Humanities South

Arms have it all their own way in the regions of renegade revolt, throughout which the toga is unceremoniously discarded. Even The Rt. Rev. Father in God, Polk, of Louisiana, as our readers already know, has discarded godly lawn for golden lace and the Lives of the Saints for Scott's Tactics. But now sadder news comes to us. The Southern colleges and universities are giving up their erudite ghosts in every direction. Upon the authority of The New Orleans True Witness, a religious sheet, we have

6 minute read

Read Chapter

The Charge Of Precipitancy

The London Times says: “Though civil war is the most frightful of all wars, the Americans plunged into it with less concern than would have been shown by any European State in adopting a diplomatic quarrel.”In this little gem of malicious generalization, there is a lurking fallacy which divests the thunder of all its terrors; and which proves that a newspaper may be sufficiently pompous and at the same time insufficiently philosophical. “The Americans”— One would like to inquire civilly what thi

5 minute read

Read Chapter

The Assassination

Mr. Edwvad Everett, in his eloquent and patriotic address before the Mercantile Library Association in Boston last Wednesday Evening, admitted that in his opinion there was a plot to assassinate Mr. Lincoln before his inauguration, but with characteristic amiability, Mr. Everett added: “Wholly without the privity, I cheerfully believe, of the leaders of the Secession movement.”One is loth, in these days of mental depression, to interfere with the “Cheerful belief” of any man; but is there a pers

2 minute read

Read Chapter

Striking An Average

A certain newspaper emits the following gem of well-informed charity: “The people of the Southern States, if no better, are no worse, and certainly no more foolish than the average of mankind.”Considering that the Average of Mankind eats its guests and even its grandfather; worships idols; goes in its own skin; cannot comprehend that Two and Two make Four; is brutish, ignorant, sensual, thievish, gluttonous, improvident and superstitious, our polished friends in Richmond will pant with pleasure

4 minute read

Read Chapter

The Coming Despotism

The roving prophet of the great London newspaper, in a late letter, foretells remorselessly the downfall of the liberty of the Press in America. He has had conversations with some Army-officer who told him that presently the army would come to New York, and suppress, by violence, all criticism of military movements. After the accomplishment of this enterprise we are told, the Army will proceed to establish a Despotism and exalt a Dictator. After this— but here the prophet stops, most provokingly

6 minute read

Read Chapter

Abolition And Secession

The war has put some over-nice gentlemen in a pretty pickle. These are hard times for Mr. Facing-Both-Ways. For several years he has been blandly repeating: “Our Southern Brethren! Our poor, injured, forbearing Southern Brethren!”But the Southern Brethren having so unmistakably gone to the bad-having surrendered themselves to the most unfraternal antics— having fallen feloniously upon that Constitution which has been Mr. Both-Ways' private and public and particular pet— he is forced to look abou

7 minute read

Read Chapter

A Bacchanal Of Beaufort

The good news from the Naval Expedition has already, as to its more momentous details, been discussed and digested; but a distinguished person, deserving of historical fame, who figured, or rather who fell at Beaufort, will miss his immortality unless we amiably give him a hoist. When Capt. Ammon, with Three gun-boats, visited Beaufort on the day after the action, “But a single white man was found in the village, and he was drunk.”Such is the laconism of the telegraph, than which nothing can be

5 minute read

Read Chapter

Concerning Shirts

We mark with wonder that a contemporary goes on speculating and spinning, and spinning and speculating, until he involves himself in the following extraordinary cocoon: “If this mad scheme of Emancipation were carried into effect, the necessity for cotton would reintroduce the present system of labor in less than Ten years.”This is what may be termed, in vulgar parlance, “A settler.”We must have cotton-we cannot have cotton without enslaving human beings— therefore, we must enslave human beings.

4 minute read

Read Chapter

Fair But Fierce

In the name of Zenobia, Boadicea, Moll Flanders, Jean d'arc, and the Maid of Saragossa, we begin this article! Now that Messrs. Mason and Slidell are “Given up,” just, for all the world, like a pair of fugitive “Niggers,” another vexatious question has arisen, viz: Did the lovely Miss Slidell, upon the deck of the Trent steamer, slap the face of the unfortunate Lieut Fairfax? Commander Williams, that gallant tar, who suffered such agonies on the occasion, was the recipient of a dinner of the pub

5 minute read

Read Chapter

Bobbing Around

This Civil War has unsettled other things than the political peace of the country; it has played mischief with the intellectuals of a great many people on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, and led to a wide-spread impression that, contrary to all precedents, flax will quench fire. “Why do n't you settle your differences?”roars The London Times. “Why do n't you make up your quarrel?”bellows the British orator. “Let's fix things!”observes the remainder-newspaper of the Constitutional Union Party.

6 minute read

Read Chapter

Niobe And Latona

We remember that when we were the reporter of a respectable country newspaper, we were sent to take notes of the doings of a Whig meeting, and of the speech of a certain Southern orator who had been sent for to come over and help us. After he had finished his nonsense, he approached our humble table with the front of Jupiter. “Sir,” said he, “Do you intend to report my speech?”Certainly, “Was the response.”Sir, “He returned, you cannot do it. You might as well try to report red-hot balls.”We too

7 minute read

Read Chapter

Secession Squabbles

The reckless dissensions of leaders have been the ruin of half the revolts mentioned in history. It is not impossible that Charles Stuart might have reached London, however short might have been his stay there, if he could have kept his Highland chieftains from quarreling. The operations and efficiency of our own Revolutionary Army were often seriously embarrassed by the military intrigues of ambitious leaders; and nothing but the extraordinary good sense of Washington rescued us upon such occas

6 minute read

Read Chapter

“Biblius.”

There is not in this world a sadder spectacle than that which is presented by a seedy, Second-hand. clergyman, who has been turned out of his pulpit, writing letters to the newspapers in favor of Slavery upon Shem-Ham-and-Japheth principles. It is astonishing, considering what a poor figure such people cut, that they will persist in cutting it. But they never learn anything, and still stick to notions which were antiquated long before these choppers of cheap logic were born. For instance, here i

2 minute read

Read Chapter

Cold Comfort

Do our readers remember a newspaper entitled The Atlanta Confederacy?— a journal which has, even in gloomy times, furnished us with matter for cheerful comment. We are grieved to announce that this once jovial sheet is now deeply “Depressed at the (Rebel) reverses sustained during the winter months.”According to The Confederacy, the thermometer is greater than the sword, and the traitors must not expect to win any more battles until hot weather is well established. At present the Southern popula

4 minute read

Read Chapter

Extemporizing Production

Our statistical friend, Mr. De Bow, whose arithmetical exploits in the manufacture of Census Reports did not give the world a very lofty idea of his veracity. whatever may have been the opinion of his ingenuity, announces with some flourish that a blacking and lucifer-match-factory has been established at Lynchburg, and that North Carolina has engaged in the manufacture of pea-nut oil. Moreover, Mr. De Bow lifts up his voice jubilantly in respect of Eight tan-yards in Louisa County, (State not n

5 minute read

Read Chapter

Very Particular

Mr. John F. Munroe is the worshipful Secession Mayor of New Orleans; and although we cannot recognize any man as a public officer who has repudiated his allegiance to the United States, yet, as somebody must do the epistolizing on the insurgent side, Munroe is perhaps as good as another for the purpose. His exceedingly cool letter of the 20th ult. to Capt. Farragut shows that he does not by any means intend to be “Diddled out of the sweets of his unfortunate situation.”He is quite ready to surre

5 minute read

Read Chapter

Prudent Fugacity

It is an unquestionable fact, that a considerable prejudice has always prevailed in military circles against running away; and yet it must be said, upon the other side, that when stampeding is more favorable to health and longevity than staying, it is a man's duty to stampede: when the ice breaks, and all the boys fall in, who shall blame the rest for absconding? But coming events cast but sable shadows in the paths of Richmond editors, and they do not see clearly why “Congress” should, just abo

5 minute read

Read Chapter

Extemporizing Parties

When pestilence is raging, the manufacturers of infallible pills are always uncommonly ingenious and busy; but thus far, through our terrible political troubles, the political quack-salvers have kept remarkably quiet. The Republican party was good enough to go ahead, to take the chances of praise and blame, of success and failure, of life and death— a good party enough to grumble at, after that subdued fashion of faultfinding which was moderate enough to keep the querulous out of custody. Now th

6 minute read

Read Chapter

Platform Novelties

There has just closed a week of “Anniversary Meetings” in Boston, under novel, not to say awful circumstances. While the struggle for Emancipation was going on in Congress; while the fate of General Banks's little army was yet in suspense; while Five thousand volunteers were pouring into tie city, the Men of the Platform also gathered for the yearly talk and tea; and the motley “Delegates” wended their way to this church or that “Temple” to the music of unusual fifes and drums. We all know what

5 minute read

Read Chapter

Prophecies And Probabilities

American gentlemen in London have heretofore, when invited to give a taste of their quality at Guildhall and other civic banquets, been in the habit of uttering a speech after the following formula: “Dear old Mother England-language of Shakespeare and Milton-Magna Charta— America the child of Britannia— peace, good will, fraternization forever!”Then came cheers as hearty as Old Particular by the gallon could make them; and really, One would have thought that turtle and port-wine had usurped the

6 minute read

Read Chapter

“Drawing It Mild” In Memphis

We are ready to make our solemn affidavit that there is nothing in this world like that divine philosophy which is succinctly expressed in the great command, “Grin and bear it.”The conductor of the Memphis Avalanche has so gracefully melted into this mild mood that, Secessionist as he is, we consider him to be a credit to the craft. He owns up like a man. He admits that he is “Humbled and downcast.”His pride has been wounded. “What then?”Does he wriggle and roar? Does he inefficiently flounder l

5 minute read

Read Chapter

Loyalty And Light

The attentive reader will already have noticed that the Union party in Maryland is also an Emancipation party, and regards with a certain complacency the project of the President for the abolition of Slavery. Day by day we see more and more clearly that the life of a blundering and bad institution has been set upon this desperate cast, and that the hazard of the die is against it. With a fatuity which seems to us to be perfectly wonderful, and much as if the gods, determined to destroy, had Firs

5 minute read

Read Chapter

Hedging

There is a clever play which in spite of its wickedness is still read for its wit, and the coarse comedy of which is concluded as follows: Then all's peace again; but we have been more lucky than wise. And I suppose, for us, Clarissa, we are to go on with our dears, as we used to do. Just in the same track. So in the popular song of the “Cork leg” we are told that long after the portly proportions of the Rotterdam burgher were reduced to a skeleton, The Leg kept on the same as before. Slavery is

5 minute read

Read Chapter

The Trial Of Toombs

It is related of the illustrious author of “Faust” that during One of his youthful depressions— it was, we think, of the amorous variety— he determined upon suicide, and provided himself With the necessary dagger; but upon finding that the operation would be painful, he abandoned the bare bodkin business, and consented to live. Gen. Robert Toombs, of the Secession service, ought, by all the laws which regulate rebellion, to give up cotton-growing; but he finds the temptation to keep on with the

6 minute read

Read Chapter

The Council Of Thirty-Five

On Saturday last, in Washington, Thirty-five Conservative gentlemen solemnly resolved that “The Abolitionists will leave to the country but little hope of the restoration of the Union or peace, if schemes of Confiscation, Emancipation, and other unconstitutional measures, shall be enacted under the form of laws.”The Thirty-five gentlemen voted to print this rather than else thrilling opinion, for the benefit of mankind in general, and then the Thirty-five gentlemen “Broke camp” and went back to

7 minute read

Read Chapter

Davis A Despot

The Southern Confederacy has met with a dread-fully damaging blow in the hey-day of its existence. It lapsed into a bloody treason to save itself from intolerable tyranny; and the poor fish, if we may credit The Charleston Mercury, has only tumbled from a comparatively comfortable frying-pan into a most uncomfortable fire. It is the old story of Aesop over again; for some of the most notable frogs in the puddle are beginning to croak that King Jefferson I. is no better than a Domitian or a Nero.

6 minute read

Read Chapter

All Means To Crush

If One of our Northern newspapers— rebel at heart and half rebel in speech— should propose, here in New York, a loan to the Confederacy of the Traitors, is it not fair to suppose that the office of that journal would receive an early visit from the law-officers of the United States? And yet, morally considered, this offence is One of daily occurrence. When The Herald or other sheet of like sable tint vehemently urges that property in Negroes is something that should be sacredly safe from confisc

5 minute read

Read Chapter

Northern Independence

We must conquer this Rebellion or it will conquer us. This is a fact of which we are reminded— and there is need that we should be— by the boasts of fugitive Secessionists in Canada, who, it is reported, “Openly declare that the Union shall not be broken, but that if the North is beaten, it shall be subjected to the rule of Jefferson Davis, who will be next President of the United States.”“There is nothing sacred,” said Napoleon, “After a conquest.”The theory of this war is plain enough. The Nor

6 minute read

Read Chapter

The Constitution— Not Conquest

It is extremely unfortunate that an old gentleman like Lord Brougham, who, in the course of nature, cannot talk much longer in this world, should show such an inclination to talk about things which he does not understand. There may have been a time, before his present period of senility, when he may have comprehended the real political character of the American Union; but if so, that time has certainly gone by; and his Lordship babbled the other day at Scarborough in a way which would have been

5 minute read

Read Chapter

Train's Troubles

One of the most painful delusions of the day is that of Mr. George Francis Train, who imagines that the restoration of the American Union depends upon his eloquence. He is n't the First man who has mistaken volubility for argument. A mountebank may prattle in a fair from morn till dewy eve, but it is only to fools that he sells his corn-plasters and cough-drops. He may no doubt be overheard by many wise men, but that does not make his medicines infallible as he would have you believe; nor does t

3 minute read

Read Chapter

The Slaveholding Utopia

It is related that when the Utopia of Sir Thomas more was First published, “The learned Budaeus and others took it for a genuine history; and considered it as highly expedient that missionaries should be sent thither, in order to convert so wise a nation to Christianity.”Should the political dreamers of the South, by any stroke of fortune, be left to their abominable devices, and thus be enabled to try before the world an experiment of promoting the genuine prosperity of the few by reducing the

5 minute read

Read Chapter

Twelve Little Dirty Questions

We should very much like to know what in the opinion of The Rev. Dr. Hawks constitutes a large and clean question. In the Protestant Episcopal Convention last Monday, Dr. Hawks, arguing that the Church must treat its rebellious children with “Lenity, courtesy and affection,” used the following language: “We must not lug in all the little dirty questions of the day which will be buried with their agitation.”One might retort upon Dr. Hawks that the questions which have disturbed the diocese for so

4 minute read

Read Chapter

Democracy In London

This is an age of new loves and unwonted affections. That must have been a curious concatenation of events which has brought our Democratic Party into such high favor in Printing-House Square. When it was young and wickedly vigorous, the queer old women who create public opinion in England always denounced it as dangerous and disreputable; and it is only now when its vices have brought it to a premature dotage, with no virility to improve its fortuitous conquests, that they have suddenly grown i

5 minute read

Read Chapter

Laughter In New Hampshire

The late Democratic State Convention in New Hampshire, considering the fearfully funereal business upon which it met, was decidedly in luck. Remembering that it is, so to speak, a deposed dynasty, we may congratulate the New Hampshire Democracy upon the possession of a certain funny physician, named Bachelder, who introduced his method of cure— a kind of Gigglepathy— to the Convention, and made jokes for the members about the “Inevitable bigger,” which were received, we are told, with roars of m

4 minute read

Read Chapter

Slaveholding Virtues

Southern statists have asserted negro-owning to be the nurse of public virtues, just as Southern theologians have found in it an abiding stimulus of personal piety. In the Free States it has been claimed by these polished Patriarchs that we have secured Liberty only at the expense of good manners or good morals. New York is a sink of iniquity. Philadelphia is the mother of mobs. Boston is the centre of free-thinking and general licentiousness. Yankee treasurers are always defaulters. Yankee merc

5 minute read

Read Chapter

Roland For Oliver

No One will pretend that, for the purpose of philosophical discussion, personal recrimination is of any value. “You are another,” proves nothing but bad temper, and a worse cause. From this point of view Gen. Butler's retorts upon his transatlantic censors seem to be simply amusing. They remind us, as we read, of Satan, with a savor of his normal brimstone exuding, from every pore, creeping, tail and all, into some empty pulpit, and exhorting the congregation to abandon its sins. When lechers pr

6 minute read

Read Chapter

Historical Scarecrows

The cheapest and, at the same time, the readiest of all subterfuges, when logic is lacking, is the Historical Bugaboo. Its employment is quite independent of sense or of scholarship. A single event, no matter how ancient, may be turned into a fresh fight upon Twenty widely different occasions, and be pertinaciously, and often effectively obtruded, without the least regard to the indisputable fact, that the world is considerably older than it was on the day of its creation. The failure of past re

5 minute read

Read Chapter

The Other Way

“In medio tutissimus ibis,”— “Down the middle,” as they say in the dancing-schools— is a charming maxim when there is any middle to go down. But when some nice representative of the conservative species, who has adjusted his neat legs for a pleasant pirouette through unencumbered spaces of pleasantness and ease, finds his path incontinently blocked up, and discovers that there is no way through which he may glide to measureless content, it is very ridiculous in him to persist in figuring fussily

5 minute read

Read Chapter

Saulsbury's Sentiments

Mr. Scandal in the play declares that Astrology is a most valuable science, because, according Albertus Magnus, “It teaches to consider the causation of causes in the causes of things.”We suspect that Mr. Senator Saulsbury must devote his leisure hours to occult learning; for last Thursday his givings-out were extremely weighty and oracular; and if he could but have kept his temper, which we are sorry to say he lost in the most unphilosophical manner, his utterances would have been prodigiously

5 minute read

Read Chapter

Jefferson The Gentleman

There is One point upon which our rebellious citizens mean that we shall be well informed. They claim, like ladies' maids and gentlemen's own gentlemen, a monopoly of good breeding; and they prove their polish by continually advertising it. Their newspapers, presided over by the Chesterfields of ink and and shears, are forever saying: “We are refined and chivalrous, and honorable, and knightly, and dignified, and urbane, and accomplished, and elegant, and fascinating and high-toned; while the Ya

2 minute read

Read Chapter

The Contagion Of Secession

We are beginning to feel the effects of woful example. The diabolical spirit of Rebellion not only encounters us in the field, but it has entered our legislative chambers, and under the malign promptings of the Democratic party, bent upon rule or ruin, it is tampering with the popular loyalty. One year ago men only murmured treason; but success has opened their mouths and filled their hearts with abominable political devices. We are beginning to see that about the worst battle lost to the Union

6 minute read

Read Chapter

Davis To Mankind

Appeals to posterity are very cheap, because whatever may be posterity's decision, it can not disturb the repose of appellants who are snugly slumbering in their coffins. Appeals to mankind, excellent as they are, for rounding a speech, or for filling up the moral hiatus of a pronunciamento, are seldom more than specimens of pretty rhetoric. Mr. Davis being in a lofty passion at the Emancipation Edict, appeals to the civilized world, and “To the instincts of that common humanity which a benefice

6 minute read

Read Chapter

Union For The Union

Who could have thought that Northern Doughfaces had so much life in them?— that they would survive the bombardment of Fort Sumter?— that they would at last turn upon the Constitution, which they had professed to adore, and be ready to surrender the Union which they had pretended to reverence? Brooks & Co. are like Garrison, without Garrison's virtues and good conscience. We thought the Senate chamber purged of plantation insolence, and the well-weaponed Saulsbury starts up to convince us of

5 minute read

Read Chapter

The Necessity Of Servility

One of our Major-Generals recently remarked that “No nation can be great which does not have a servile class.”There is a fine fragrance of the camp about this neat bit of solemn loquacity. It could have come only from One who believes that the whole duty of man consists either in drilling or in being drilled. The philosophical warrior who emitted, should certainly have enlarged, this observation. He should have said, “No nation can be great without wars of aggression and conquest— without a rapa

5 minute read

Read Chapter

What Shall We Do With Them?

Nothing could be more ridiculous and insignificant than many of the reports which have been forwarded to the North, respecting the character and demeanor of the emancipated Slaves. It has been our misfortune, in too many cases, to find this information miserably deficient in liberality, intelligence, and sympathy. A corporal trusts his shirts with a sable laundress, who receives Three of these garments and returns Two, and those perhaps aggravatingly bereft of buttons, whereupon this indignant b

7 minute read

Read Chapter

Pocket Morality— War For Trade

In the year, 1787, Benjamin Franklin wrote to an English gentle man as follows: “I read with pleasure the account you give of the flourishing state of your commerce and manufactures, and of the plenty you have of resources to carry the nation through all its difficulties. You have One of the finest countries in the world; and if you can be cured of the folly of making war for trade, in which war more has been expended than the profits of any trade can compensate, you may make it One of the happi

5 minute read

Read Chapter

Waiting For A Partner

An eminent journal, printed in a neighboring city, the managers of which care more for their own crotchets than for the country, has promulgated a patent labor-saving method of saving the Union, to which we extend the benefit of this advertisement, Imprimis, Gen. Geo. B. McClellan, at present upon a tour of exhibition in the principal cities, is to be restored to all his honors, dignities and commands. We object to this, though not very strenuously, because Gen. McClellan having received a great

4 minute read

Read Chapter

At Home And Abroad

The style of The London Times, in its observations upon the President's Proclamation, is simply One of fussy impertinence. It is certain that, in private life, any vulgarian assuming similar airs, would be either laughed at or kicked out of the company. Men would not endure, probably, to be told, by a dogmatic and testy companion, that they lied, that they were hypocrites, that they were devising fraud, that they were attempting a disreputable swindle. Unless we are willing to believe each other

3 minute read

Read Chapter

Mr. Davis Proposes To Fast

Mr. Davis's continual resort to religion indicates something of the straits of a condemned malefactor, who, when he hears the carpenter at work upon the gallows, concludes to send for the chaplain. The Confederate President has issued another Proclamation for a public fast in his dominions, which, considering the condition of the flesh-pots in those demesnes, strikes us as just a little supererogatory. We have no fear that any of the Rebels will eat too much. There is yet another point upon whic

3 minute read

Read Chapter

Mr. B. Wood's Utopia

Ben Wood's speech that was not spoken, has, of course, been printed by him, just as the play-wrights of the last century, when managers were inexorable, exclaimed: “Zounds, I'll print it.”It is in this way that Brother Ben, when not permitted to bore the House, with malice prepense, attempts to bore the nation. We have read, at least a part of the document— that part in which the tender Benjamin assures us that “Were he certain that, in a military sense, this war would prove successful, neverthe

5 minute read

Read Chapter

Mr. Buxton Scared

Fowell Buxton's philanthropy, we are compelled to believe, is of that description which is limited by the price of beer and the rent of ale-houses. It is of the hereditary description, and, like most hereditary virtues, it has suffered a diminution by transmission. The present Buxton would never have divided the House of Commons, with only a meagre minority to back him. His father did this, and divers other bold things, of which even the tradition seems to have prematurely faded out in the famil

4 minute read

Read Chapter

Charleston Cozy

If we may credit the epistle-monger in Charleston, who writes with a kind of rosy rapture to The London Times, that city, so far from partaking of the pains and poverty of the Confederacy, is a scene of sybaritical pleasures and Corinthian joys. Though half the town has been burned, the moiety is an Earthly Paradise, in the midst of which stands that eminent caravansary yeleped “The Mills House,” at the bar of which, we suppose, fluid happiness is still dispensed, albeit at gigantic prices per d

4 minute read

Read Chapter

The Twin Abominations

Most men would think polygamy to be an offence carrying with it its own punishment. If the tendency of even monogamous simplicity be to tiffs and breakfast-table debates, what must be the magnificent wrath of a patriarch who can arraign a score of wives upon an indictment of cold tea and half-baked rolls; but who is still compelled to withdraw his charges by the rattling musketry of Twenty nimble tongues? Brigham of Utah is represented to be a stout creature, with quite an oriental talent for ad

5 minute read

Read Chapter

Victory And Victuals

Up through the agonized esophagus of the Confederacy comes the piteous prayer for prog. The most ardent rebel must eat— so must his rib and his responsibilities, both of the sable and the Caucasian tint— so must the gallant steed which bears him to the battle. Jeremy, in Congreve's “Love for love” pathetically protests his utter inability to breakfast upon a certain chapter of Epictetus, although his more philosophical master declares it to be “A feast for an emperor.”The insurgents are just dis

5 minute read

Read Chapter

Sus. Per Coll

The Charleston Mercury, with that charming suavity which characterizes Man-stealing civilization, calls loudly upon the magnates of the insurrection summarily to hang all those Union officers who may be captured while in command of Black Regiments. There is a spice here of the old ferocity which whilom tar-feathered Northern travelers, and ravaged the portmanteaus of Yankee school-mistresses. It is a curious philosophical fact, that the Slaveholder always connects energy and murder. He has no id

4 minute read

Read Chapter