vulture perches on the fragments of the country he destroyed
Vilifying the ‘virtual’ northern president, who’s actions are a stimulant to ‘determined resistance’
From the Richmond Daily Dispatch December 5, 1862:
The next Yankee President.
Of course-Wm. H. Seward has not sold himself to the Devil for nothing. The Presidency has been the object of his life, and, from the beginning, he has deliberately and systematically sacrificed his soul for the attainment of this object. He commenced his career in New York at a time when politics in that State were comparatively pure, and when the public theatre was occupied by personages of lofty moral port and commanding intellectual stature. There were statesmen in that day; m[e]n who comprehended justice, truth, and honor; who had convictions and principles, and who acted upon them; who loved their country, and were no place hunters. They were men to whom their State, after she had given them the highest offices in her gift, was infinitely more indebted than they to her. Such was DeWitt Clinton, who made New York an empire. It was the ambition of men in those days to make a country, not to be made by it. Such was not the aim of Wm. H. Seward. His has been not only the grovelling last of the demagogue for selfish elevation, but a Satanic determination to unmake his country if necessary to the making of himself. He deliberately chose the demoralization and disorganization of society as the means of elevating himself, until he at last succeeded in undoing the work of Washington, and in rending the old Republic in fragments, that he might perch his dwarfish figure upon the colossal rules [ruins?]. Other statesmen have identified their names with some measure which, in their opinion at least, promised to increase the greatness and glory of the country. But nothing creative or beneficent ever proceeded at any time from Wm. H. Seward. If he has any genius, it is for destructiveness, for pulling down not building up. He has the countenance of a vulture and the instincts of one. He has sought to overthrow those Institutions of the Southern States which had given wealth and power to the whole nation; but has he ever had the capacity to propose anything in their place? Has he ever been able to suggest that anything but anarchy and ruin would be the result of his success? Yet he has deliberately sought this result, and involved the whole land in war, to secure his own elevation to a position which he could never have obtained by legitimate means. It would be idle to deny that he is now virtually the President, but his triumph will not be complete till he is President in name as well as in fact, till the South is subjugated, and he rules by Northern votes and bayonets over the whole of the old Union.
anti-Seward: noble ditch digger helped “make a country”
In spite of the terrific price he has paid for the gratification of his ambition, it is not yet certain that Seward will be the next Yankee President. The reward of his iniquity is not yet secured. If the war of invasion should fail, the arch traitor will sink to a deep of infamy, even in his own section, compared with which the reputation of Benedict Arnold is honor and renown. So far from being President, he would not be able to live in his own State, and might consider himself lucky if he escaped with his head to foreign exile. No man is more sensible than himself of the personal consequences of failure, and it is to save himself from the gulf of perdition that yawns at his feet, that he is urging on with convulsive energy the blood- hounds of war. It is not the least of the many stimulants of the South to the most determined resistance, that the defeat of the Yankees will be the personal and political ruin of the wicked author of the troubles we are suffering, who, keeping himself aloof from the trials and perils in which he has involved others, can receive no other retribution in this world than the final disappointment of that ambition which has led him to the perpetration of the most unparalleled crimes.
Boss Tweed nine years later like southern speculators in 1862?
Extortionists down South
In the same issue the Dispatch criticizes the more faceless Southerners who are believed to be ripping off their countrymen, especially the poor. The editors call for arbitrary central government action:
The Spirit of speculation.
The speculation and extortion now so shamelessly rife bode more evil to the Southern cause than all the armies of the enemy. We will not ask how the poor are to live if the present prices of articles essential to life continue; for that, unless the Government and community step in to their support, as is done in England, will be an impossibility. But now those in moderate circumstances, and who, in ordinary times, are comparatively comfortable — a class which comprises the majority of the Southern people — how they will manage to keep soul and body together, if articles of vital necessity continue as high through the winter as they are now, is more than we can imagine. We should like to see some measure adopted by the Government, no matter how arbitrary, which would save the country from the most formidable of all the peri[l]s by which it is surrounded.
According to Wikipedia, at least one modern historian agrees with the Dispatch on the impact of DeWitt Clinton, who was instrumental in the construction of the Erie Canal. In What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848 (2007 p. 241) Daniel Walker Howe wrote: “The infrastructure he worked to create would transform American life, enhancing economic opportunity, political participation, and intellectual awareness.”
Dewitt Clinton, probably on first trip along the entire length of the canal
