be
debated to the accompaniment of the music of musketry and cannon. In
some respects the situation of America at present may be said to
resemble that of France in the days of her great Revolution. But
affairs here and now are still more complicated than they were in
France from 1789 to 1793.

Formerly I took a more active part than I now take in revolutionary
and reformatory struggles, and was seldom daunted by their difficult
problems, or by their most violent tempests. But now I have a
chilling sense of weariness and disgust as I note the strange things
that are done under my very eyes.

The burden of taxes laid upon a people who have an inborn hatred of
taxation, a debt created in a few months surpassing that which
England and France contracted in half a century; and that debt
contracted as if by magic, and in the very crisis of a civil
war such as any foreign war would be mere baby's play to.

The people at large see the precipice, and hear the roaring of the
breakers ahead, but despair not! Sublime phenomena for the future
historian to dwell upon! All this is genuine American originality.
In its sublime presence, down, down upon your knees in the dust, all
you European wiseacres!

The capture of the _Circassian_, an English blockade runner, gave
birth to some very delicate international complications. The
decision of the Prize Court shows up the absolute destitution of
statesmanship in the Department of State, generally coruscated with
ignorance of international principles, rules of judicial
international decisions, and of belligerent rights and observances.
Every day shows what a masterly stroke it was of the Secretary of
State to have proclaimed the blockade in April, 1861, and to have
been the first to recognize the rebels in the character of
independent belligerents. The more blockade runners will be captured
by our cruisers, the more the complications will grow. A false first
step generates false conditions _ad infinitum_. The question of the
_Circassian_ is only the beginning, and not even the worst. The
worst will come by and by. But Seward is great before Allah! The
truth is, that Mr. Seward and the Department are as innocent of
any familiarity with international laws, as can be. The people,
the intelligent people would be horror-stricken could they suddenly
be made acquainted with all the shameful ignorance which is
corrosively fermenting in the State Department.

To every intelligent and well reg