atic
sentimentalism, and his associations, germinated the _Decembriseur's_
scheme for mediation and humiliation.

Further is to be found in the Yellow Book the evidence how, from the
start of this dark rebellion, Mr. Seward, the master spirit of the
Administration, dealt death blows to all energetic, unyielding
prosecution of the war for crushing the rebellion, and that he was
double-dealing in all his public actions. The published state papers
of the French government disclose the fact that nine months ago Mr.
Seward sent the French minister to Richmond with a mission to invite
the Jeff. Davises, Hunters, Wigfalls, Benjamins and others to come
back to their seats in the Senate, and in the name of the cruelly
outraged North, Mr. Seward proffered to the traitors a hearty
welcome. So says the French diplomat in his official dispatch to the
French Secretary of Foreign Affairs. Such underhanded dealings
should not be allowed, and most assuredly would be stringently
punished, if perpetrated under similar circumstances by the minister
of any European government dealing with treason in arms. But here,
Mr. Seward's impudence--if not worse--displays its flying colors.
The Republican press will swallow all this, and Senator Sumner as
Chairman of the Committee will--keep quiet.

That confidential mission entrusted to the French diplomat by Mr.
Seward, was more than sufficient to evoke the subsequent attempt at
mediation, because it revealed to the piercing eye of European
statesmanship, how the Administration, and above all how its master
spirit had little confidence in the cause; it revealed the want of
earnestness in official quarters. I hate and denounce all attempts,
even by the most friendly foreign power, to meddle with the internal
affairs of our country. But I have some little knowledge of European
statecraft, of European diplomacy, of European rulers, and of
European diplomats; and I assert, emphatically, that they are
emboldened to offer their meddlesome services because they have very
little if any respect for our official leaders; and because the want
of energy and of good faith to the principles of the North as
displayed by Seward, he nevertheless remaining at the helm, has
firmly settled the conviction in European minds, that the rebels
cannot be crushed by such traffickers and used up politicians as
have in their hands the destinies of the Union.

_February 5._--The new Copperhead Senators--in their appearance