The manner in which the
Yankee Government has out loose from the
Constitution is so quiet, and with so little premonitory notice, that we are even now lost in amusement, and find it impossible to realize the truth in its fullest extent.
The great Republic, the boasted model Government upon earth, the
Government that threatened to make all others do as she would have them, that was feared and detested by every one of them — has gone to places as quietly as an old scow beached upon a rocky place of coast, as soon as the waters which had thrown it there subsided.
The idea that the
Yankees oculdcarry on a frame of Government like that of the old Union, so complicated of itself, and requiring the use of such delicate machinery, was from the beginning a dream and an illusion.
The Yankee mind is capable of no such exertion.
It could neither have invented the system nor have kept it in operation without the aid of the
South.
As soon as the
South determined to withdraw from the
Union the case became hopeless.
The fragment of the
Union left behind could no longer exist. "The best Government the world ever saw" has become a hissing and a reproach.
It is an absolute monarchy, with
Lincoln at the head of it.
The very name of Republican has been immolated by those who claim to be the only Republicans alive.
It has been done to anticipate a rival party.
For the sake of securing the power to
Lincoln against an evident majority in the country and in Congress, the
Yankee Congress has rendered him completely independent of all legislation whatever.
It has, in other words, made him a Dictator, as complete as Cœsar was at
Rome — as complete as
Cromwell was in
England — as complete as
Bonaparte was in
France.
Lincoln may have no trouble now about raising troops.
He may have no difficulty about hauling she whole population to the shambles.
But huge masses of conscripts and bodies of well drilled soldiers are two very different things.
