Chase,
and others, and by Mr. Lincoln's stubborn helplessness, the patriots
in both Houses nevertheless, succeeded in redeeming the pledge which
the name of America gives to the expansive progress of humanity. The
patriots of both Houses, as the exponents of the noble and loftiest
aspirations of the American people, whipped in--and this literally,
not figuratively--whipped Mr. Lincoln into the glory of having
issued the Emancipation Proclamation. The laws promulgated by this
dying Congress initiated the Emancipation--generated the
Proclamation of the 22d September, and of January 1st. History will
not allow one to wear borrowed plumage.

--Congress ought not to have so easily abdicated its well established
rights of more absolute and direct control of the deeds of the
Administration and of its clerks, _alias_ Secretaries of Departments.
It is to be eternally regretted that Congress has shown such
unnecessary leniency; but in justice it must be said that the
patriotic and high-minded members of Congress wished to avoid the
degrading necessity of showing the nation the prurient administrative
sores. Advised, directed, tutored and pushed by Seward, Blair and
Chase, Mr. Lincoln is--innocently--as grasping for power, as are any
of those despots not over respectfully recorded by history.

With all this, the presence of Congress keeps in awe the reckless
and unscrupulous Administration, as, according to the pious belief
of medieval times, holy water awed the devil. But Congress once out
of the way, without having succeeded in rescuing Mr. Lincoln from
the hands of those mean, ignorant, egotistic bunglers, all the time
squinting towards the succession to the White House, and unable to
surround the President with men and patriots, then all the plagues
of Egypt may easily overrun this fated country. Such conjurors of
evil as the Sewards, Hallecks, and others, will have no dread of any
holy water before them, and they will be sure that the great party
of the "Copperheads" in the future Congress will applaud them for
all the mischief done, and lift them sky high, if they succeed in
treading down in the gutter, or in any way palsying emancipation,
tarnishing the people's noble creed, and endangering the country's
holiest cause.

General Fitz-John Porter's trial before court-martial ended in his
dismissal, but ought punishment to fall on him alone, when the
butchers of Fredericksburgh and when the pontoon men are in high
comman