Year: 1862

From the London Times Dec. Ill


THE PRESIDENTS MESSAGE


The style of the American President has fallen
With the fortunes of the Republic. Instead of the
jolly, rolcking periods offormer days, each which
seemed to suggest at its close stave of Hail Co
lumbia," we have now got dscursive and colloqual
essay, ilarranged and worse expressed. Nor does
the matter redeem the style. 1t is really wonderful
when We consider the present state of the American
Republic, how any one placed in the position of Mr..
Lincoln could have taken the trouble to produce so
strange medley, so incomposite rhapsody. There
are several sui jects which we earnestly desire
information, and on no one is it afforded. Above
all things, We want to know what view the Ameri-
can Cabinet takes of the affair of the Trent, what
advice it has received from its legal counselors and
with what feelings it approaches the coming con-
troversy. On this point there is not word Then,
we should like to hear little of the financial mea-
sures by which the equilibrium between revenue
and expenditure is to be preserved in the face of so
vast an outlay.


We should like to know what measures the Presi-
dent proposes to adopt with regard the slave pop
ulation of the Southern States whether, with one
half Of his Cabinet he is for emancipation, or with
the other half Of his Cabinet for maintenance of
the rights of the slave-owner. On all these points
our oracle is silent. But, if he tells very little
that we want to know, he amply indemnifies US by
telling US great many things in which we have no
interest He has plan for readusting the circuits
of the judges and for the codiicaton Of the statute
law. He is very minute on the receipts and dis
bursements of the Post Office. He is anxious to
extend the District of Columbia into Virginia. He
has something to say on the Exhibition of 1852
He has, in common with most of his predecessors
plan for getting rid of free negroes by system of
colonization, and has room for argument to show,
not, as he wishes that labor is independent of cap
ltal, how little progress Of the most ordinary doc
trines of political economy have made in the higher
circles Of American politicians.


1t is not easy to see why Mr.. Seward should have
omitted from his speech all notice of the case of
the Trent If ne means to give up the persons il
legally seized, one would have thought it no unwise
precauton to prepare the public mind for such .
! decision. If he means to keep them we cannot
understand why he does not grasp at all the popu-
larity that is to be had in exchange for present
war and future ruin, instead of allowing it to be
| picked up by obscure Members of Congress embark.
ing in contest whether the transcendent merits of
Com. Wilkes would be best rewarded by thanks or
| by gold medal. Possibly the simple solution may
be that the President has yet arrived at no Solu-
tion at ALL and that perplexed by the divisions of
his Cabinet he has been content to let the matter
alone till events shall determine for him that which
he is unable or unwilling to determine for himself


He will not have long to wait Each successive
mail brings us the report of some instance in which
the American nation is, step by step, committing
itself to war policy with England, TILL when chal
lenged for its final decision, it will probably find
that it has gone too far to have any power retrac
ton. The Government has received the Admiralty
has thanked Commodore Wilkes, and Congress has
now given the sealof its appreciation to proceed
ing so deeply offensive to Great Britain 1t is hardly
possible to imagine Government sunk so far below
1tc1 1,,fsa oil on
60 on and make no sign either of assent or dissent
The President is bound to lend his aid in guiding
the Legislature to a true decision on a matter SO
nearly touching the duties and the character of the
Executive. He ought to set before it the principles
involved in the question, and to give it every oppor
tunty in his power of arriving at conclusion con-
formidable to the real interests of the country. But
he has done nothing of all this, and has abandoned
the vessel of the State to drift helpless before the
gale of popular clamor.


The President has given US, instead the inform
alton we desire, his opinions on the real cause of
this present war. The North, he says, are fighting
for the integrity of the UEion-that is, as Lord
Russell said, for empire, to compel the South, by
force of arms, to live under government which
they detest The South, on the other hand, are
fighting against the rights of the people--that is
against the rights of the people Of the North to gov
ern them against their own consent. This descrp-
ton ought put an end to the statement so often
repeated that slavery is the main matter in dispute
But the South have done still worse, and not con-
tent with questioning the right Of the North to
govern them, they have even gone to the extent of
questioning the wisdom of certain Northern institu-
tions. Thus persons are actually found who wish
for restriction of the suffrage; to contend in spite
of the evidence afforded by the North Of the purity
Of election, and the high moral and intellectual quail
lties secured by such process, that it is better
elections should be confined to legislators, and not
extended to magistrates and some have even been
heard to pronounce the horrible name of Mon
archy."


! No wonder that Mr. Lincoln, luxurating in the
Paradise to which the will of an unbridled democra-
cy has introduced him. and looking forward to a
desperate struggle with England, brought about ap-
parenty by the same cause should feel pious hor-
ror of those who venture to think such experience
not conclusive, and the existing Constitution of the
United States little short of perfection! ehave
nothing to say for slavery, but if Mr.. Lncon's de-
scripton of the South is indeed true, if she is fight
ing to emancipate herself from the blind tyranny Of
degraded mob, from the elective Judges and elec-
tive Governors, he has given his antagonists bet.
ter title to European sympathy than they have
hitherto possessed, and thrown upon his govern.
ment the stigma of fighting to impose upon others
institutions, which have already brought it to the
verge Of ruin.


But the most remarkable part of Mr.. Lincoln's
speech is that in which he touches the relations Of
his government with foreign countries. The faci
seems, his showing, to be that all foreign coun
tries have hitherto preserved strict neutrality
that they have resisted all applications from the
South to make common cause with it against the
North; and that they have quietly submitted to q
blockade which grieviously Injuries their commerce.
and manufactures. These facts would have called
forth from the chief of any other government in the
world, Republican or Monarchical, q gracious and
courteous acknowledgment Of the respect and for
bearance with which q nation, not remarkable fol-
carrying either Of these qualities to excess has beer
treated by all other nations in its hour of trial.
Nothing can be more ungracious, more contrary t.