East Saginaw courier. (East Saginaw, Mich.) 1859-18??, 1865-12-13

chan IN before he had embodied them
! in his report Had he done this, We
venture 10 say from the sequel that
most of them would have never seen
the light.
When President Buchanan retired
from office, he had reason TO believe
he had parted from the General on
, terms mutually amioable. Although
! in former years their friendly inter
course had been for season inter
rupted, yet he believed all this had
been forgotten. A suspicion never
, entered his mind that the general held
in reserve culver of arrows to assail
his public character upon his retire
ment from Office.
This report does not allege that il
had been made in consequence of a
oil from President Lincoln. From
lis face it appears to have been pure
volunteer offering on the part of the
general. 1t deals with the past and
not with tho future. 1t is remarkable
that it does not contain word OF
advice to President Lincoln, snch as
might have been expected from the
commanding General, as to the man
ner of recovering the forts which before
its date had been already seized by
the Confederates. On the contrary, ii
rereals the strange fact that the General,
so late as the len Of March, and after the
so-cailed Confederate Government Of the
Cotton States was an full operation al
Montgomery, had ddpised President LIN
coin to eracwdte Fort iSitnpter. and hie "a
direct opposition to ehat had been the peH-
khown and oft-expresSed determination Of
Mr. buchanan. We need scarcely re-
mark that President Lincoln acted
wisely in disregarding this COUNSEL
1t was founded on an alleged military
necessity. Had the fort been actually
invested by hostile force so superior
as to render resistance hopeless, this
would have justified a capitulation in
order to save q useless sacrifice of life.
It's voluntary abandonment, however,
to the Confederacy, would have gone
far toward recognition Of their in
dependence.
The General, in his report, would
have President Lincoln believe, on the
authority of Richmond newspaper,
that chad Scott been able to have got
these fGrts in the condition he desired
them to be, the Southern Confederacy
would not now exist" Strange hallu-
cination In plain English, that
South Carolina, which throughout an
entire generation had determined on
disunion, and had actually passed an
ordinance of secession to carry this
purpose into effect, and the remaining
six powerful Cotton States ready to
follow her evil example, unless their
adiudged rights should be recognized
by Congress, and which together have
since sent into the field such numerous
and powerful armies, would at once
have been terrified into submission by
the distribution of four hundred troops
in October, or one thousand in De-
cember, among their numerous fortifi-
cations!
GENERAL scoTT's LETTER TO SECRETARY
SEWARD.
Very different must have been his
opinion on the Sd of March following,
when he penned his famous letter TO
Secretary Seward. In this he en-
claims: Conquer the seeded [Cotton]
States by invading armies. No doubt
this might be done in two or three
years by young and able General
Wolfe, DooooiN, a Hochc, with
three hundred thousand disciplined
men, estimating third for garrisons,
and the loss of yet greater number
by skirmishes, sieges, battles and
southern fevers. The destruction of
life and property on the other side
would be frightful, however perfect
the moral discipline of the invaders.
The conquest completed, at that enor-
nous waste of human life to the North
and the northwest, with at least $780,
000,0 900 added thereto, and Gu bono?
Fifteen devastated provinces! not to
be brought into harmony with their
conquerors but to be held for genera
tons by heavy garrisons, at an ex-
pense quadruple the net duties or
taxes it would be possible to extort
fiom them, followed by protector or
an Emperor. In view of these fearful
forebodings, we are not surprised that
he should have despaired of the Union,
and been willing to say to the Cotton
States, Maynard sisters, depart in
peace" Nor that he should have
fallen back on his opinion expressed
in the Views" Goth October, 1860
that "a smaller evil than such a civil
war1 would be to allow the fragments
of the great republic to form them
selves into new confederacies."
The general, however, in the same
letter to Secretary Seward, presents
his alternative for all these evils. He
advises Mr.. Lincoln's administration
:'..5 throw off the old and assume a
new designation-the Union party
adopt the conc:liatoiy measures pro
posed by Mr.. Crittenden, or the Peace
Convention, and my life upon it, we
shall have 40 new case of secession,
but, on the contrary, an early return
of many if not all of the States which
have already broken off from the
Union. Without some equally benign
measure, the remaining slaveholding
States Will probably join the Mont
gomery confederucy in less than sixty
lays, when this city, being included
in II foreign country, would require a
permanent garrison of at least thirty
Eve thousand troops" Ills advice to
adopt the Crittenden Compromise
would have been excellent had it been
given to his Republican friends in
Congress in tho previous December,
before any State had seeded, and be-
fore any fort had been seized, instead
of then recommending to President
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