[
72]
The Morrill tariff as a cause of embroilment.
But if there are such pleasant changes in the diplomatic and press world, there is nothing at all like them in commercial relations.
In the Senate it is proposed to clap a round ten per cent. on all the duties to be levied under the Morrill tariff, and
Mr. Simmons, the father of this wicked little bit. of political economy, declares he will thereby raise $45,000,000 of additional revenue.
The House of Representatives, on the contrary, propose to raise revenue by taxes on coffee, tea, sugar, pepper, spices, and articles of the sort, not of necessity nor of luxury, but in the intermediate position, so that every one who uses them now will continue to do so, notwithstanding the tax, and no one will be the worse for it. On these plans it is probable there will be a conference between the two branches of the Legislature, in which the contending systems may be adjusted or amalgamated.
The income tax to be adopted will give some $40,000,000, according to the calculations of the designers, and the people fondly believe it will be removed as soon as the war is over.
The mercantile interests of France and Russia-alleged opinions of the ministers of both these countries.
If the increase of ten per cent. on the Morrill tariff be actually passed, it is difficult to see how
France can continue to regard with friendly feelings such a direct attack on her great article of exportation.
England is accustomed to bear these things from the
United States,
but France cannot afford any meddling or mischief in her wine trade and her tobacco monopoly.
M. Mercier, the energetic and able representative of our ally, is said to entertain strong notions
that the contest now waging cannot terminate in the success of the North in what it proposes to itself.
M. de Stoeckl, the
Russian minister, who has lived long in
America, knows her statesmen and the genius of her people and institutions, and is a man of sagacity and vigorous intellect,
is believed to hold the same views.
Perhaps the only minister who has really been neutral, observing faithfully all engagements to actually existing powers, and sedulously avoiding all occasion of offence or irritability to an irritable people, rendered more than usually so by the evil days which have fallen upon them, is the discreet and loyal nobleman who represents
Great Britain, and who is the only one threatened with a withdrawal of passports and all sorts of pains and penalties for the presumed hostility of his Government to the
United States.
Is the North acting merely on the defensive?
The world sees that the
North has not treated the Southerners as rebels--
we will not say it has not dared to do so. But the Federalists have treated the
Confederates up to this moment as belligerents.
Rebels are hanged, imprisoned, and shot at discretion.
Their flags are not received; the exchange of prisoners with rebels is ridiculous.
A regular “blockade” of rebel ports is quite anomalous.
It remains to be seen, after
Mr. Davis's recent hints, what
the Government dares to do in the case of the “pirates” whom its cruisers caught in the act, redhanded, of privateering policy. Meantime the arm raised to chastise and subdue has been struck down,
and the attitude of the North is just now defensive. There will be on the part of the one people whom the
American press has most insulted and abused every disposition to give fair play and to listen to the call for “time.”
But the quarrel must have its limits — the time must be fixed, and the sponge must be thrown up if one or other of the combatants cannot “come up” to it; nor does it seem a case in which any amount of “judicious bottle-holding” can prolong the fight.
Now, at the present moment, the
North is less able to go into the contest than she was a month ago. She has suffered a defeat, she has lost
morale and
materiel. Besides killed, wounded, and prisoners, cannon, arms, baggage, she has lost an army of three-months men, who have marched away to their homes at the very moment the capital was in the greatest danger.
The Federal reinforcements.
Up to this period the reinforcements received do not bring up the Federalists to the strength they had before the fight.
No one can or will tell how many have strayed away and gone off from their regiments since they returned to the camps here, but the actual number of men who have come here are less than those who have gone away home by fully 8,000 rank and file.
And the change has been by no means for the better.
The three-months men at least had been three months under arms.
They were probably at least as martial and as ready to fight as the rest of their people.
Just as they are most required and likely not to be quite unserviceable, they retire to receive ill-deserved and ridiculous ovations, as though they had been glorious conquerors and patriots, instead of being broken and routed fugitives, who marched off from
Washington when it might be expected the enemy were advancing against it. In their place come levies who have not had even the three months training, and who are not as well equipped, so far as I can see, as their predecessors, to face men who are elated with success and the prestige of the first battle gained, and to be associated with regiments cowed, probably, and certainly, in some instances demoralized, by defeat.
The artillerymen who cut the traces of their horses from caisson and carriage at least knew more about guns than the men who will be put to the new field batteries which Government are getting up as fast as they can; and the muskets, of the best description, left on the field or taken, cannot be replaced for a long time to come.
In fact, much of this army must be reorganized in face of an enemy.
That enemy is either 
