eople. In the Senate, as
in the House, are many, very many true men, and men of pure devotion,
and of clear insight into the events; men superior to the
administration; such are, above all, those senators and
representatives who do not attempt or aim to sit on a pedestal before
the public, before the people, but wish the thing to be done for the
thing itself. But for _the formula_ which chains their hands, feet,
and intellect, the Congress contained several men who, if they could
act, would finish the secession in a double-quick time. But the whole
people move in the treadmill of formulas. It is a pity that they are
not inspired by the axiom of the Roman legist, _scire leges non est
hoc verba earum tenere, sed vim ac potestatem_. Congress had positive
notions of what ought to be done; the administration, Micawber-like,
looks for that something which may turn up, and by expedients patches
all from day to day.

What may turn up nobody can foresee; matter alone without mind cannot
carry the day. The people have the mind, but the official legal
leaders a very small portion of it. Come what will, I shall not break
down; I shall not give up the holy principle. If crime, rebellion,
_sauvagerie_, triumph, it will be, not because the people failed, but
it will be because mediocrities were at the helm. Concessions,
compromises, any patched-up peace, will for a century degrade the name
of America. Of course, I cannot prevent it; but events have often
broken but not bent me. I may be burned, but I cannot be melted; so if
secesh succeeds, I throw in a cesspool my document of naturalization,
and shall return to Europe, even if working my passage.

It is maddening to read all this ignoble clap-trap, written by
European wiseacres concerning this country. Not one knows the people,
not one knows the accidental agencies which neutralize what is grand
and devoted in the people.

Some are praised here as statesmen and leaders. A statesman, a leader
of such a people as are the Americans, and in such emergencies, must
be a _man_ in the fullest and loftiest comprehension. All the noblest
criteria of moral and intellectual manhood ought to be vigorously and
harmoniously developed in him. He ought to have a deep and lively
moral sense, and the moral perception of events and of men around him.
He ought to have large brains and a big heart,--an almost
all-embracing comprehension of the inside and outside of events,--and
when he has those quali