The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-02-14
now TIE r.r,os a., ,. ,.e WAS SAVED.

The United States, or the " nation called
the United States, or the government of the
United States, must be possessed of feline
multiplicity of lives. 1t is presumed to be
hard to kill q cat; that domestic and vitatiye
creature having, according to the popular
superstition, no less than nine separate and
distinct existences, to each of which it clings
with contumacious tenacity. The national
life " of the United States we may suppose to
be equally pluriform. During the last eight
years it has been assailed often enough and
violently enough to destroy dozen national
lives" if, as we have been assured, the
ordinances Of secession, the lombard
ment of Fort Sumter, the defeats of
Manassas, and Richmond, Fredericks-
burg, Charlottesville, and Chickamauga,
the New Orleans riots, the rejection of the
Alabama carpet-bag Constitution, and the
general characterization recusancy of the
Southern rebels, were, and are, attacks on
that peculiar and invaluable form of exist
ence. On the other hand, the national
life " was saved by Lincoln, by Grant, by
Sherman, by Chase, by greenbacks, by five
twenties, by the negro soldiers who fought so
bravely "when this cruel war was over" /;
by Hollis military commissions, and STAN
tons and Buffers scafolds; by the constitu-
tional amendment and the half dozen recon-
struction laws; by negro suffrage, and vagrant
and mendicant conventions and by other
persons, things and events, entirely too
numerous to mention. But it appears now
that, unless we adopt the multiform theory,
oil the efforts of the Union army and the
Union generals, and of the "trooly loil"
caTpet-baggers, and all the expense of the war
might have been avoided. According to
Mr.. Seward the national life" was really
saved, not by the tinkle of that famous little
bell, but by twenty-five secret agents of the
state department, and at the absurdly small
cost of SAL. 1913 and some odd cents. Until now
the world has been utterly ignorant of the
names even of these vicarious saviors of the
Republic; but Congress has determined that
their modest merit shall no longer remain
hidden under the bushel of papers lying
around loose in the state department. Accord
ingly, in response to an invitation to that
effect, Mr.. Seward communicates to an admir-
ing Congress, and an astonished public, the
names of these two score or so of eminently
serviceable patriots, negotiators and diplo-
matists. In the sacred list of the twenty-five
we find the names Of Gen. Schofeld, and the
Rev. Mr. Hawley, Archbishop Hughes and
Gen. Garibaldi, A. Adrian Bishop McIlvaine,
A. Yorib Trabalske, Thurlow Weed and Hugh
J. Hastings.
1t is a comfort to the conscientious historian
to be able to state, with that confidence de-
rived from the perusal of an official document
of state, that General Sickles did not save the
Irrational life by losing his leg at Gettys-
burg but by his journey to Bogota few
months after the war ended, and that General
Schofeld did not perform that service at the
battle Of Franklin, but by carrying one of Mr..
Stewards dispatches to Europe. 1t is likewise
comforting to know that the crowned heads
Of the Old World trembled OF the frown of A.
Adrian, and that the bloated aristocrats of
England and France trembled violently at the
name of a. Yorib Trabalske II what man
ner Bishop Hughes and Thurlow Weed saved
the national life, We are not informed; but
we are willing to take the fact for granted, and
admit them into the list of saviors, on the
certificate Of the secretary of state But, on
ascertaining these facts, the public will
scarcely refrain from regrettIng that so much
"blood and treasure" was squandered to save
national life " which Mr. Seward saved at
the trifing expense of less than fifty thousand
dollars.