Year: 1865

John Forsyth, of Alabama. on But


Ter, Cushing and Dickinson and


their Agency In Precipitating the


War.


From the Mobile Register edited by J. Forsyth.


We have always believed that Gen.
Butler was as deeply implicated in the
responsibility of those political blum
ders which Immediately preceded and
brought on the late war as any other
one man, with the exception, perhaps,
of the late Mr.. Yancey. Every saga
cious man in the nation saw in the
years 1859 and 1860 that the Demo
cratic party had become the solitary
barrier to a sectional outbreak and a
violent disruption of the nation. Its
bearing and integrity was, therefore,
u vital question of consideration and
solicitude to every man who loved his
country and its peace.


1t is curious fact, while the writer
of these lines, who has been under
the ban Of this Government as a
'rebel," was wasting his strength and
energy to preserve the Democratic
party, and through it the integrity of
the Government, General Butler, who
has gained so much eciat for his "loy-
atty" was taking the very steps that
were sure to lead to the destruction of
both. We were both members of the
Nat;ono ol na,.oo.at,o Con yap t,np xubich
met ut Baltimore, over which General
Caleb Gushing presided, and we shall
never forget General Buffers farewell
speech to that body when he announced
that he was about TO ''0ecede" from it
and pass to the breckenridge standard
then flying over a convention of the
Precipitation party in the same city.
He said, in effect, that the convention
which he was about to depart from
was not sound on the question Of
Southern rights then at issue, and
that the territorial sovereignty here
sizes were offensive to his constitutional
olfactories.


He shook the dust from his feet and
went, and shortly afterward Caleb
Gushing followed him into the camp
OF the Immediate before breakfast I"
secessionists. This step from two dis
tinguished and leading Massachusetts,
Democrats did more to give backbone
to the movement to divide the Demo
cratic party and put an out-and-out
sectional candidate before the people
than anything that could have hap
pened. 1t gave an odor Of nationality
to movement before that clearly
cliquish and sectional. 1t was the
last feather that broke the camePs
back. 1t was the sealing of the olec-
ton of Mr.. Lincoln, and the prelude
to dissolution and sectional war
Great was the CONSERVATION and sur
prise of those South who witnessed
and knew Of Gen. Buffers course in
that memorable political struggle to
find him booted and spurred and
sword in hand to take part in the war
that ensued.


He had fairly indorsed the cause OF
the Southern quarrel, bounded the
South on the brink of disruption, adj
vised it, Curtius like, to leap into the
gull, and then came out to shoot and
bayonet and hang the people who
took his advice and carried out the
logic of his own politics. We thought
he might at least have kept neutral in
that fight He was as fairly commit
I Al ~ L Al. n
us Daniel -. DICKINSON, OF TNew TorlS,
who once declared in the United States
that so profound were his convictions
of the justice of the Southern cause
in its controversy with abolition, that
should war ever be declared he would
be bound to draw his sword on the
side of the South. Mr.. Dickinson s
words were written in tho sand.-
During the past four years we have
known him as the bitterest and most
truculent of the radicals.


As to Messrs. Butler and Gushing,
we really think they ought to have
the amnesty oath applied TO the pur-
cation Of their crime i'll tho fomenta-
ton of the late rebellion" AS we
are sure that some of the exceptions
of the amnesty proclamation must
catch them, their only cnance Is uii
application for special pardon. We
know many men out hero who have
had mo part or lot in the war except
to be carried along with its resistless
tide Of residents, who are asking for
pardon, and yet whose sins in regard
to it are as wool in comparison to Gen.
Buffers scarlet