The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1862-06-16


scourt-honss, mud hcafd II -prsdicsed that ~
ungainly, vulgar, ostse attorney, Ahsshssss!'
Lincoln, would one day b President Of ths
United Stairs, be wSes!d hsxs. regarded the
prophet - fugitive from TN Madheuse. and
called for the first policeman TO restore hin 70
his keepers. It n, perhaps, suf,posed BY those
who are umacQua!ntad with the section from
which Lincoln comes, that he Is a fair specimen
Of the civilization of Springfield a greater mis-.
take could not be maze. It will not do for his
flavish escobhants to shufle on the responsi.
bility of his rufhanisin and vulgnrity upon the
barbarism Of ssthe West = region which has
more real civilization and manliness than the
boasted CENTRES of New England refinement.
In the same town to which Lincoln emigrated
from Kentucky, and at the samO bar, there
have been cmigrants from the same State, who
would have graccd any civic or social position.
The man was vulmrian and ignorainus in
Illinois rs evidently as In Washington. He
had brought with him to the la.r Of the Courts
The msfhners Of another bar, VI which he had
retailed whiskey to the icdeyed torcrs of the
village at three cents a. glass, and the culture
'and finish 81 the railsplitters and boatmen, to
whose fraternity he had belonged in early life.
What 4 magnificent illustration Of the infalli-
bility Of the popular will! what an irresistible
demonstration that the voice of the people is
the voice of God!r. was the selection of this
unmitigated bfackguard for the Presidency OF
the United States
Now, on the other hand, if wewere to hunt
over the United States for a man i'll all the ex,
tsrllals Of life, the least like abraham Lin
coin, we could find none more different from
him than VIM H. Seward He resembles Lin
coin neither in person, manners, culture, or in
tellect. lie has been highly educated, and was
once himself teacher. He il respectable
scholar, a man of the lamp, and q learned law
yer. He has mingled with good society, and
been successful in aping its manners, SO as to
present respectable counterfeit Of gentle
man to persons not Familiarity acquainted with
that currency. Yet it would be impossible to
find in the annals of history, Astounding as they
do in similar examples, a more signal proof
than Seward affords of the utter inadequacy Of
mere intellectual cultivation to eivilize human
nature, or convert a blackguard into gentle
man. You might as well undertake to trans
form pine table into mahogany by the pro-
cess of veneering, as to make a gentleman out
of such man as Seward by any amount of ex-
ternal polish. He has literally and truly no
respect whatever for honor or for good fash /;
he can descend to anything that is treacherous
and vile for the accomplishment Of his base
purposes The absurd and clowhish President
is less Of villain than the shrewd and polish
ed Premier, who has upon his shoulders, more
than any other man in the United States, the
responsibility Of the present war, and of all it's
misery and bloodshed. He deliberately work
ed up the anti-slayery sentiment Of the North
for his own political purposes, just as he had
previously done that of antimasonry, and the
religious element in the freeschool system of
New York. He, more than any other man,
had the power, when Lincoln was elected to
the Presidency, to render Impossible that re-
sort to arms which has plunged the country
in tears and blood. Lincoln was entirely under
his influence, and had called him at once to be-
come his prime minister, his counsellor, and his
friend.
coins election when Seward was not the real
President of the United States Lincoln WIS
from the beginning mere clay in the hands Of
the potter. A word from Seward would have
made him break the ominous silence which he
maintained from the time of his eleetiopte his
inauguration A word from Sew5lrd would
have induced him to extend the olive branch,
tn ln.l.,po fhot tbo 6 Al
States rested upon the mutual confidence aud
love of its people; that it had no power for CO.
ercion, and that he should exercise no powers
not granted to him by the Constitution. What
magical effects would such declaration have
produced! Who that knows anything of hu-
man nature, or Of the proud and generous
character of the Southern people, does not
know that such declaration would have saved
the old Union; that not a gun would have been
fired, not dollar added to the public debt, not
a human life lost! That he never spoke that
word, that he covered himself with darkness,
leaving his purposes, either for good or for
evil, only matter of conjecture; that, privately
and indirectly, he caused it to he understood
among the leading men Of the South that he
would not resort to coercion, and thus pre-
vented that united preparation for resistance
which might have kept off a war, and then
suddenly, when they were thrown of their
guard, called for ali army Of seventy. five thou.
sand men to crush the South into sablnissien:--
all this ia the work OF WIN. II. Seward, for
which, and all the csslanities and naiserisa that
followed i, he, more than any other human