nd notes. We
shall see what will come from all these preparations. But for
Congress, Lincoln or the executive, would have been disabled from
executing the laws. Congress, by its laws or statutes, aided the
Executive branch in its _sworn duty_.

_March 13._--The various Chambers of Commerce petition and ask that
the president may issue letters of marque. It is to be supposed, or
rather to be admitted, that the Chambers of Commerce know what is
the best for them, how our commerce is to be protected, how the
rebel pirates swept from the oceans, and how England, treacherous
England, perfidious Albion, be punished. But Sumner--of
course--knows better than our Chambers of Commerce, and our
commercial marine; with all his little might, Sumner opposes what
the country's interests demand, and demand urgently. I am sure that
already this general demonstration of the national wish and will,
the demonstrations made by our Chambers of Commerce, etc., will
impress England, or at least the English supporters of piracy.

Sumner will believe that his letters to English old women will
change the minds of the English semi-pirates. Sumner is a little
afraid of losing ground with the English guardians of civilization.
Sumner is full of good wishes, of generous conceptions, and is the
man for the millennium. Sumner lacks the keen, sharp, piercing
appreciation of common events. And thus Sumner cannot detect that
England makes war on our commerce, under the piratic flag of the
rebels.

_March 14._--The primitive Christians scarcely had more terrible
enemies, scarcely had to overcome greater impediments, than are
opposed to the principle of human rights, and of emancipation. All
that is the meanest, the most degraded, the most dastardly and the
most treacherous, is combined against us. Many of the former
confessors, many of our friends, many, unconscious of it--_Sewardise_
and _Blairise_.

Mud is stirred up, flows, rises and penetrates in all directions.
The _Cloaca Maxima_ in Rome, during thirty centuries scarcely
carried more filth than is here besieging, storming the
departments, all the administrative issues, and all the so-called
political issues.

I am sure that the enemies of emancipation, that Seward, Weed, etc.,
wait for some great victory, for the fall of Vicksburgh or of
Charleston, to renew their efforts to pacify, to unite, to kiss the
hands of traitors, and to save slavery. I see positive indications
of it. Seward expects