The Abingdon Virginian. [volume] (Abingdon [Va.]) 1849-1883, 1863-01-02

fOtN. Like Tie Iabeu DlunuoTS Gilat Pie0CS0u
| it, it has gone unalterably into history.
Heaven help us! There seems to be no
help in man. The causeis perishing. Hope
after hope has vanished, till now the only
| prospect is the very blackness OF despair;
But how can we adjure Heaven for help =
Was it not said by the wisest of Pagans that
''there is a stupidity which battles even the
gods !" and is it not a proyerb among CHRIS
tians, too, that "God helps those only who
help themselves 2" What right have veto
expect that even Infinite Mercy will stay the
laws cf the universe that We and ours may be
snatched from the track to death Is It not
impious presumption to imagine that the Eter-
nal Reason, which has ordained cause and eff
feet, will abdicate to suit the folly that now
| governs us? Alas for our country Given
over, it would seem, to the most ignoble tate
that ever befell a country -wrecked by I'M
| beetles
The World seyerely censures the conduct of
the war, and pours hot shot into The Cabinet
and the Washington authorities after the fol-
lowing fashion
! There stands his Secretary of War. an up
start in public life, with neither knowledge nor
experience, yet full of pretensions and impa-
thence, alike nuzzlesheaded and pregmatical,
his movement battling all calculation and con-
lecture, now pitching loyal men into Fort La
fayette and now running muck OF generals
in the field, blatherskite and blunderer,
mischief-maker and marplot from the begin
ning There stands the Secretary Of the Ma
vey, venerable in years, gentle at heart, mild
IN manners, admirably qualified to do the
needful for boarding school in
Murmuring streams, soft shades and springirg
flowers,
Lutes, laurels, seas of milk and ships Of amber
but as for his capacity to do the needful in
these dread times on the broad ocean-gc
read it in the flaming tracks Of the Sumpter
and the Alabama. There stands, too, the
Secretary of the Treasury, up to his eyes in
irredeemable paper, and yet without knack
enough to furnish even green backs for the
scant monthly pay Of the soldiers, though the
consequence be violation Of the public faith
pledged them, the untold suffering Of their
families at home, and their own demoraliza-
ton and desertion to degree intellectually
damaging to the national cause. There, too,
stands the man who calls himself General in
Chief, the Presidents chosen military mana
ger and adviser, whose strategy is seen in his
\
when every principle ofcommon sense required
it to bear on Richmond, whose business habits
are illustrated in his forgetting the pontoons, !.
though he had expressly promised them, and
whose Judgment in shown by his persistent
order to storm fredericksburg heights, in spite
Of the conclusive reasons of General Burnside
against it.
The World" after pronouncing the North
on the brink Of ruin, continues
How can the country be saved with such
men in charge of its destiny? Human rea-
son hopes in vain for an answer. But is there
any prospect of change How can it come
The President is blindly and obstinately CON
fdent in these men. Of public opinion he
takes no heed. In fact he knows nothing of
it as it really exists; forit is notorious that
he reads as little of newspapers (which are
the only true index of public opinion-as the
child unborn. His notion of the popular feel
ing are made up mainly from the representa-
tions of the interested lotteries about him, and
the fugitive statements Of the few visitors who
can quiet his jesting tongue long enough to I
get his. serious ear OF course notions thus
gained are mixed. crude and worthless
What then Must the nation surely perish? |
Is there no remedy against all this incapacity? /
We vouch for nothing. The case at best IS I
deplorable.
@= 49,
Bittler's Course from q Northern s1s 1 Point 81
Vaesc-A Yankee on Idnkee
It is surprising to see how bold and out
spoken some Of the Northern papers have be-
come under their recent reverses. The tide
Of reaction has set in. Language which
months ago would have consigned one to
Fort Lafayette is now boldly proclaimed, and