10 war, ever waged on the face of the earth, where all the rulers were above reproach and all their subordinates unselfish ? But what will you do about it? Grant that many contractors have made dishonest fortunes out of the calamities of their country, and that there are office-holders with whom “ Stand by the Constitution ?” means, Stand by the public crib from which we are richly and regularly fed, and “Uphold the Administration I” should be translated, Give us our full four years’ enjoyment of the loaves and fishes. What then ? Shall a few worthless straws here, and a few heaps of offal there, arrest or check the onward march of a mighty army, the steady progression of a great principle? Away with such trumpery considerations I Punish with the utmost severity of the law every public plunderer whose * crimes can be dragged into the light of day ; send to the Coventry of universal contempt every lagging and lukewarm official; but, in the name of all that is holy in purpose and noble in action, move pn ! To hesitate is worse than folly ; to delay is more than madness. The salvation of our country trembles in the balance. The fate of free institutions for— who shall say how long?—may hang upon the issue of the struggle. Your catalogue of grievances, however, is still incomplete. You are dissatisfied with our generalship as displayed in the field, and with the wisdom of our policy as developed by the cabinet. Unquestionably you have a constitutional right to grumble to your heart’s content; but are you not aware that such complaints are as old as the history of the human race ? Do you believe this to be the first war that was ever mismanaged, and that our undoubted blunders are either novel or peculiar to Republics? There never was a greater mistake. If there were brave men before Agamemnon, and wise counsellors before Ulysses, there certainly have been incompetent commanders before Mager-General A., and shallow statesmen before Secretary B. We do not monopolize executive imbecility,nor are our military blunders without parallel or precedent. To attribute our occasional reverses, and our indecisive victories, our inaction in the field and our confusion in the cabinet, to our peculiar form of government, is as inconsequential as it would be to trace all our disasters to the color of President Lincoln’s hair or the number of General Halleck’s children.
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