The Portland daily press., 1862-12-27


Modest Presumption--Diffiden Demand.
The Boston Courier of the 24th-the special
organ of Massachusetts conservatism, ~
which has become the synonym Of suspected
loyalty-says:
1t seemed Mr. Seward made two indispensa-
BILE conditions to the resumption of his office.
These are presumed to be, the retirement oI
Stanton and the recall of Mcclellan to the head
of the army, involving, of course, the dIspiace-
ment of Halleck. The truth is, if the Govern
ment expects to hold together much longer, to
accomplish anything tending 10 national
strength. it ought instantly to urge Mcclellan
to resume his command, and to reinstate Buell.
In the West.
The modesty of such presumption as that
Seward demanded the retirement of Stanton,
the reinstatement of Mcclellan and the dis
placement of Halleck, could have been com
passed in no brain Of less pretenslon than that
which presdes over the Courier. Its author
ity in such matters, however, is about equal TO
the authority of James Brooks on Popery, of
Plus TX on questions of difference among
Potestants sects, or of JEFF. Davis on patriot
ism.
The demand suggested by the Courier-that
Mcclellan and Buell. should be restored to
commands quite suggestive. Buell., says
the Courier, "never lost a battle" and saved
the day at Shiloh after our forces had been de-
feated! The truth is, but for Buelfs culpable
slowness and inactivity, no defeat would have
been experienced at Shiloh on the first day,
and the necessity for the second days fight
JaI Dnff. lie
countable oversight or lack of vigilance, the
guerilla Chief, Morgan, would not have over
run the best portions Of Kentucky, nor would
SO much work in the West have needed to be
done over again. And yet it is such mana
man whose conduct demoralzed his army and
awakened painful suspicious of treachery-
that the Courier would have supersede the
active, energetic, popular and successful Rose
Grams. Comment is unnecessary, further than
to say Rosecrans supports while Buell. is ull-
derstood TO oppose the policy of emancipa-
tion.
The fact that the recall of Mcclellan is de-
manded by such a paper, and that, too, in the
same breath which demands the reinstatement
of Buell., throws more suspicion upon the for
mer than any past act of his own; and this
from a vile sheet that, III the same number,
makes base and vindictive attack upon Burn
side, now in the face of the enemy. Burnside,
it is true, has made one unsuccessful though
gallant attack upon what proved to be invin-
chile positions, and though he came within an
ace of carrying his point and of winning the
greatest victory ofthe age, he was compelled
to fall back in order. For this the Courier at
tacks him, though it is his first repulse; and
though his career for year past has been
marked by an uninterrupted series of glorious
victories, there are those who try to degrade
him, and labor to exalt an officer now out of
command above him. And they talk about
Mcclellan never having suffered defeat, when
for five or six successive days he was constant
ly driven back on the Peninsula, and saved
himself only by the strength of a position
which he reached under cover of gunboats;
losing vast quantities of supplies, many guns,
land more men by retreat alone than Burn
side has lost in crossing river in the face of
an enemy, in assaulting their strongholds, and
in retreat all combined. Mcclellan with all
his acknowledged skill and gencralship, was
once completely surrounded by rebel dash
on the peninsula, and allowed Stewards Cav
airy to make the complete circuit ofhis camp,
in a loyal State, and to escape to Virginia in
safety; Buell. allowed similar movement of
Morgan in Kentucky, and yet the Boston
Courier would allow them to supplant Burn
side and Rosecrans! Were assurance and i'm
pudence ever more glaring?
The next demand of the modest gentlemen
who sympathize with the Courier, will proba-
bly, be an invitation to seats in the Cabinet of
Van Buren, Vallandigham, and Fernando
Wood, the offer of the army command to
Beauregard, Jackson and Breckenridge, the
execution Of Sumner, Stanton and Halleck
the exclusion of Massachusetts from the re-
constructed Union, the enactment of laws
making it crime to express opinions adverse
to slavery, and the offer 10 the South to extend
the peculiar institution" dd Hbitum. On
such conditions, perhaps, the gentlemen re-
ferred to may consent for President Lincoln
to occupy the executive chair TO the close of
his constitutional term, otherwise the addi-
tional demand may be issued for him to pack
his trunks and leave. Under their inexorable
r egine love of slavery is the only door of sal
walton, and the lifelong Democrat who dares
prefer country to the slave institution, becomes
only clog upon the Government, and blot
upon humanity.
Ii there is anything absolutely sickenin.'
nauseating and disgusting, tits that self
sufficient and insuferable spirit SO often
in opposition papers, and by op-
position speakers, which claims that Demo-
c rats alone can meet and settle our troubles:
that the Republicans have no men of brains or
intelligence, and that all the wisdom, and all
the patriotism of the country, as well as all
the saving political grace, are to be found
with those under whose auspices all our trou-
bles were inaugurated, and who came within
a hairs breadth of carrying the ship of state
do wn in sea of chaos head foremost. Think .
of the brazen effrontery of men who cheered
on rebellion, and over and over again advised
the South never to submit to "black Republ-
can rule" now claiming that they and their
party should be trusted with the reins, and al
lowed to arrange with the South! The whole
mischief now abroad has resulted from their
being trusted too long To commit the affairs
of state and the control of the army to their
care, would be like installing Satan as head of
the church, or making him sovereign in the
kingdom of heaven. The absurdity of the
thing Is enough to disgust all sensible loval