ed principally in the recall of the
resolute, indefatigable, far and clear-sighted patriot and
statesman, General Butler. To jump to a conclusion without much ado,
the recall of Butler from New Orleans is due principally, if not
even exclusively, to the united efforts--or conspiracy--of Mr.
Seward and Mr. Reverdy Johnson. Thirteen months ago Mr. Seward
expected, as he still expects for the future, an uprising of a Union
Party in the hottest hot-bed of Secessia. That such are the
Secretary of State's expectations, I emphatically assert, and as
proof, it may be stated that only yesterday, January 9th, Mr. Seward
most authoritatively tried to impress upon foreign diplomats the
speedy reunion and _restoration_ of the Union as it was,
notwithstanding the Proclamation, _still considered by the Secretary
of State_ as being _a waste of paper_. How far the foreign diplomats
believe the like oracular decisions, is another question; certain it
is that they shrug their shoulders.

But to return to Butler and New Orleans. The patriotic activity by
which General Butler won, conquered and maintained the rebel city
for the Union, was emphatically considered by Mr. Seward, as
crushing out every spark of any latent Union feeling among the
rebels. Thurlow Weed, then abroad, urged Mr. Seward to find out the
said Union feeling, to blow it into almighty fire and to rely
exclusively upon it. Here Reverdy Johnson was and is, the principal
Union crony of the Secretary of State, and Seaton of the
_Intelligencer_; but above all, since the murder of Massachusetts
men at Baltimore in 1861, Reverdy Johnson was the devoted advocate
of all rich traitors, as the Winans and others, who were called by
him "misled Union men." When Gen. Butler dealt deserved justice to
rich traitors in New Orleans, the Washington Unionists surrounding
Mr. Chase and Mr. Seward--some of them from New Orleans--urged an
investigation. The Secretary of State eagerly seized the occasion to
dispatch to the Crescent City Mr. Reverdy Johnson with the principal
secret mission to gather together the elements of the scattered
Union feeling in Louisiana and in the South, and to make them
blaze--in honor of the Secretary of State. It was a rich harvest in
every way for Reverdy Johnson; he harvested it, and on his return
fully convinced the Secretary of State, that the Union could not be
saved if Gen. Butler remained in his command in the Department of
the Gulf.

This surreptitious u