Democrat and sentinel. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1853-1866, 1864-12-14
MlstellaneOus.
Review of the PresId ent's Mes
sage.
From the New York World, Dec. 7th.


Considering that the President whose
fourth annual message is now before us,
Is to preside for four years more over the
destinies of the country, through period
of difficulty and peril, it would crafty the
national pride, even of his political oppo-
nents, if this document exhibited him as
a statesman of good abilities. But we
have not that consolation. A more tame,
JeJune, commonplace state paper never
emanated from man clothed with high
responsibilities. 1t is, in the main, a
tepld recital of certain points and statistics
from the reports Of the heads of the ex-
ecutIve departments, i'll style not better
than is attained by every abridger of
documents in newspaper 1t does not
reach even the subordinate merits of
method and proportion. The Navy, which
| has done next to nothing besides main
| tanning tie blockade, occupies five times
the space given to the Army and the
notice OF our military operations is in two
widely separated parts, as if the materials
OF the message had been tImbled together
| by accident Faults of arrangement,
| however, are trivial when compared with
I
F.1nessage would, under any circumstances,
be merit but in this case the merit
would have been more conspicuous, had
1t been still shorter. Succinctness result
ing from closencss and condensation, is a
very different thing from the penury of
barren intellect. The intellectual poverty
of the message is in no degree atoned for
by patriotic fcryor or elevation of senti-
ment. 1t is amazing that a man called
to be the chief actor in the most momen-
tous civil struggle the world ever saw is
lifted TO no inspiration, If Mr.. Lincoln
understood his epoch, one would naturally
expect that its grandeur would impress
his imagination. But the message is as
derstood by this criticism as implying that
a state paper should ever be rhapsody ;
but a mind deeply impressed easily stirs
other minds to their profoundest depths |
without any breach Of official dccorum.
toreclsting sagacity and vigorous grasp |
of the situation would be worth all the !
feeling in the world; but when a chief |
magistrate cannot instruct and guide, it |
would be some partial atonement if he |
could inspire, electrify, or encourage |
But in Mr.. Lincoln debility of intellect |
keeps company with a torpor and vulgari-
ty of feeling. He never rises to the level, !
or even appreciates the proprieties, of a
great occasion The coarse and scanty
drapcry in which he clothes his starvcling
conceptions is perhaps merit; it can, at
any rate, be said in his favor that his
style matches well with his matter
In each Of his last two messages, Mr..
Lincoln made a labo-ious effort to rise
above the dead level of commonplace,
by the presentation Of a project. But in
both cases his feat of craftsmanship was
unsuccessful. In 1862 he cxpounded at
great length a scheme for compensated
in all the slave States, to
be completed by the year 1900. This
was the only salient thing in that mes
sage but it was treated with contempt
even by his own party. 1t did not live
long enough TO cry SO far as we can re-
collect, ii never received the compliment
Of discussion in the body to which it was
In 1868, he propounded an
other scheme, but, to escape the contemp-
tuous treatment of its predecessor, ii was
devised to dispense with the
cooperation. This was the
famous reconstruction project, in which
he astutelY argued that setting up new
State governments and prescribing the
qualifications for suffrage was a right
which he could exercise in virtue of-the
pardoning power! His own party in
Congress was SO far from acquiescing in
this odd assumption, that the interposed
ana passed an act TO supersede his plan
and when he vetoed il, the Republican
chalrmen OF the appropriate committees
OF the two houses gave him Il public cas-
tlgatlon IN a paper marked by great force
OF reasoning and vigor of invective. Even
the party convention that nominated him
for reelection was prudently shy of insior-
sing his reconstruction PROJECT. Warned
by these failures, he makes in the present
message no attempt to turn his vehicle
mo coach but carD out of the rut of
trite commonplace. He contents his
ambition with dull abstracts of the reports
Of his secretaries, and servile echoes of
he Republican press. With one or two
significant exceptions, there is not new
dea in the message certainly none that
INV mortal will remamhar ,vhcn tho p,oa | ,