c! If the treasonable
revolt is conceded to the Cotton States, on what ground can it be
denied to the thus called Border States? I am sorry that Chase has
such notions.

It is positively asserted by those who ought to know, that Seward,
having secured to himself the Secretaryship of State, offered to the
Southern leaders in Congress compromise and concessions, to assure, by
such step, his confirmation by the Democratic vote. The chiefs
refused the bargain, distrusting him. All this was going on for weeks,
nay months, previous to the inauguration, so it is asserted. But
Seward might have been anxious to preserve the Union at any price. His
enemies assert that if Seward's plan had succeeded, virtually the
Democrats would have had the power. Thus the meaning of Lincoln's
election would have been destroyed, and Buchanan's administration
would have been continued in its most dirty features, the name only
being changed.

Old Scott seems to be worried out by his laurels; he swallows incense,
and I do not see that anything whatever is done to meet the military
emergency. I see the cloud.

Were it true that Seward and Scott go hand in hand, and that both, and
even Chase, are blunted axes!

I hear that Mr. Blair is the only one who swears, demands, asks for
action, for getting at them without losing time. Brave fellow! I am
glad to have at Willard's many times piloted deputations to the doors
of Lincoln on behalf of Blair's admission into the Cabinet. I do not
know him, but will try to become nearer acquainted.

But for the New York radical Republicans, already named, neither Chase
nor Blair would have entered the Cabinet. But for them Seward would
have had it totally his own way. Members of Congress acted less than
did the New Yorkers.

The South, or the rebels, slave-drivers, slave-breeders, constitute
the most corrosive social decompositions and impurities; what the
human race throughout countless ages successively toiled to purify
itself from and throw off. Europe continually makes terrible and
painful efforts, which at times are marked by bloody destruction. This
I asserted in my various writings. This social, putrefied evil, and
the accumulated matter in the South, pestilentially and in various
ways influenced the North, poisoning its normal healthy condition.
This abscess, undermining the national life, has burst now. Somebody,
something must die, but this apparent death will generate a fresh and
better life.

T