The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1868-11-28
REVERDY JOHNSON.

during the late rebellion? The North.
Whose ships were robbed and burned by
the Alabama? The ships of the North.
For what section of the country did Eng
land build and equip navy of pirates?
The South. To whom does England now
owe a thousand millions of dollars for com
mcrce destroyed, and an equivalent apollo
gy for honor insulted? To the North.
We of the free and loyal States are the peo-
pie who have claims against the British
government and who have Il terrible ac-
count to settle yet with the Roebucks and
Lairds. The South lost not a dollar
through England; but, on the contrary,
owes to that peridious government half of
its success in the rebellion.
Now, is the North, which was so foully
wrOnscd and robbed, to allow Southern
man, whose heart was with Lee and SemmcS
i'll the rebellion, to settle the question be-
tween England and the United States? Is
Reverdy Johnson of Maryland, a stead-fast
opponent of the Government throughout
the war, the right man to settle the bust
ness of New England and New York, and
Pennsylvania No! He is unfit to be
charged with SO great a mission because of
his whole record, and doubly because of
his course i'll England, whittier he was sent
by a too magnanimOuS and mistaken Sen
ate. Putting all other causes of complaint
aside, the American people do not want,
and will not have, a minister who disgraces
himself by dining with the infamous Laird,
and who ioyfully permits the captain-gen-
cral of all modern pirates to show him
where the Alabama was built at Birken-
head, and how she was launched in Eng
fish waters to drive the American flag from
the ocean. We do not want-we will not
havc-a minister who shakes hands with
the man who said in Parliament that he
would like to bull hundred AlabamaS.
We do not want him anywhere, not even
as minister to Hottentot-lnuch less, there
fore, to England itself, of whom we de-
mand satisfaction and redress. 1t would
be shameful enough to know that such an
American lives. 1t is UNNECESSARILY dis
graceful that he should be the authorized
representative of the United States claim
ing the power to treat with our enemies,
who are his friends and deliberately pro-
posing to betray tile people who clothed
him with power. Reverdy Johnson has
placed the United States in an attitude OF
which Patagonia might lie ashamed. 1t is
no eXaggeration to say that he has humbled
his country in a way which i'll the last cen-
tury would have cost him his head. Eng
land shot Admiral Byng for Il far less obi
Gus crime than that which Reverly John
son has committed.
The American people are slow to believe
i'll treason. 1t is crime which they cam
not easily comprehend, and even now, af-
ter four years proof of it, they are reluc-
tant to accuse any man of deliberate de-
sign to bctray his country. They prefer to
call Rcverdy johnson dotard, the uncon-
| scious tool of English schemers, a sugar
fed parrot placed by a national blunder in
the eyry of the eagle. Yet if he is all this
he is something more. From a careful OK
animation of his conduct it is impossible to
resist the conclusion that he stands in Eng
| land to-day as the representative of the
Southern Confederacy, with the fixed pur-
pose to sell out the interests of the Union
i'll order to build up a permanent Southern
influence in Europe. What else did he
mean when at one of the Alabama banquets
he exclaimed: ''Iour flag passes unchal-
lenged on every sea-, protected by the pow
CT of England, whieh, thank Cad necer
failed us9' All, is this so? Did it never
fail the United Stateso Did it not drive
us to privateering in 1776? Did it not des-
olate our coasts in 1912? Did the power
of England exert itself to prevent Con-
federate fleet from sailing out of English
potts i'll 1862? On the contrary was not
the power of England thrown against the
United States when it accorded belligerent
rights to the rebellion? and did not the
jug of England appear OF Cherbourg in
1864 as tender to the Alabam:, to cheat
our victorious flag upon the kearsarge of
its prey? 1t was not the United States
therefore, that Reverdy Johnson spoke of.
When he says ''the power of England never
failed u.s. he means that it did not fail
Davis. and Lee, and Semmes, and Mason.
and Slidell, and he is right in saying that
1t was the power of England that we most
IL fhn rhpln ND fl,
of England, which he so fervently halls,
was raised above rebel cruisers for their
protection whenever the British pirate saw
the smoke of an American steamer on the
horizon.
Reveldy johnson is doubtless impressed
with the idea that before many years there
will be a new war between the North and
South and he is determined to improve the
golden opportunity afforded him of riveting
the friendship of England to the South
He vents to make sure that in the next
war the South will not be beaten, as it was
in the last, and aims to engage victory by
secureing England as an open ally He
proposes to buy the friendship of that per-
tidious power with Northern money, and
the price to be paid is the one thousand
MILLIONS which the English owe to the
North. We are to supply the cash for the
new rebellion, just as Floyd managed to
equip the Confederate armies with guns
and powder from the arsenals of the Union.
No other construction can be placed upon
Reverdy Johnson's course, for he must
have some extraordinary motive in propos-
ing to betray the interests of his county
and the ultimate triumph of the South is
the only object at all commensurate with
the gigantic sacrifice he me(litates. If the
North Is cheated out of its claims, England
will owe the gain solely to Revcrly John
son as the representative of the South, and
that achievement will create Southern in
tluence i'll Europe which will eclipse the
influence of the United States. In London
the Confederacy still has its royal court
there are the plotters and diplomatists who
so nearly won recognition for their empire
and with them Reverdy Johnson is in con-
slant communication. 1t is the dearest OBJ
ject of these men to prove that the lost
cause is not lost, and that the South will
yet be as powerful as the worst enemy of
the Union could wish. The first step to
establish that power is to make England
the ally of the South as opposed to the
North. and the only way to effect that is to
help England cheat the North out of a
thousand millions of dollars.
1t is to this end that Rcverly johnson is
working, and, knowing the briefness of his
term, he is compelled to work rapidly and
boldly. He int nds to c'ose his public
career by proving his devotion to the South
by Furnishing and betraying the North, and
hopes thus to atone to his ferocious South
ern masters for having cast vote for the
hateful reconstruction bill.
We said months ago, when we advocated
impeachment, that the last and most dcs-
perate effort of the architects of the rebel
lion to regain power would be made at the
close of Andrew Johnson's administrator
They must win now or not at all, and they
know it. The resignation of Mr.. Adams
gave them an unexpected opportunity, and
they found a larger field abroad than at
home. They recognized that the strength
of the last rebellion had it's source in Eu-
rope, and it is to Europe that they now APP
peal for assistance, and it is there that they
intend to reform their shattered ranks
Thus they have made Reveriy johnson the
instrument of their gigantic plot, and he is
to bride all England by cancelling all the
pecuniary claims of America, by giving up
all her just grounds of complaint, and re-
ferring to the arbitrament of our enemies
every question that we have urged.
Nothing can stop this plot but the vote
of the American DC O de- In the frat 9,Llce