Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 January 1874 — The Secretary of State. [ARTICLE]

The Secretary of State.

Ok the day that the Virginius was taken from the harbor of Havana to be returned to the United States—a proof both of the efficient energy of our Governmeal and of the good faith of that of Spain—Mr. Ox, of New York, declared in the House of Represei atatives that Congress was pusillanimous and without the courage to kill a mouse, and that the diplomacy of the Government had draggled the flag of the country in the dust. On the evening of the same day a meeting was held at the Cooper Institute at NewYork, at which a most insulting insinuation was made in regard to the Secretary of State by the Rev. Mr. Hepworth, the chief orator—an insult-which demands the most public apology. We are glad to add that on the same day, also, Mr. Beck, aDemocraticmember of the HouSb from Kentucky, said that If there was anything which the President had managed well, it, was the negotiation with Spain ; and General Hawley, of Connecticut, one of the most gallant Soldiers of the late war, eloquently and forcibly rebuked Mr. Cox, who, he said, when there was pressing opportunity, did not seem so anxious for war; and General Hawley expressed his admiration of the “Christian temper and Christian statesmanship” of the President and the Secretary of State in settling the Spanish difficulty. In these words General Hawley, as we believe, expresses also the general opinion of the American people. Mr. Cox forgets that the Donnybrook-fair kind of patriotism w ent out with slavery and the Democratic party. The country knows what war is, and has a very profound contempt for the vociferous applause and prolonged cheering with which clerical and Buncombe exhortations to bloodshed and unspeakable sorrow are received at immense meetings safely removed from the seat of war. Throughout this negotiation with Spain the Secretary of State has promptly and fully maintained -the honor of his country, "and in nothing more than in his trust in the good faith of Spain, and his candid consideration of her difficult position. If he has not been in accord with Mr. Sickles, it is probably because of the tone which Mr. Sickles would have preferred to adopt. For this politician was bred, like Mr. Cox, in a bad school. He was secretary of legation with James Buchanan in London when Buchanan, John Y. Mason, and Pierre Soule, at the instigation of Franklin Pierce, then President, whom Mr. Adams describes as “the most insignificant and unworthy candidate ever yet presented to the suffrages of the people,” concocted the Ostend Manifesto, a declaration that if Spain would not sell Cuba to the United States, they would steal it by force of arms—one of the grossest international outrages in history, and a fair illustration of the spirit of the slave-holding Democracy which so long, to the shame of humanity, controlled this Government. There is nothing in the recent negotiation which an honorable American may not regard with satisfaction, as there was nothing which involved the least humiliation to Spain. It was no more a point of honor for Spain to defend the Tornado in a violation of national right than it w&s for the United States to insist upon justifying Captain Wilkes in seizing Mason and Slidell from the Trent. No intelligent American thought his Government pusillanimous or afraid of a mouse because it had the courage to abide by its own humane traditions and to do right. The attitude of a bully is as contemptible in a nation as in an individual. It would have been very easy for the Secretary of State to put this country ip that attitude towaid Spain during the late negotiation. In not doing it he showed himself to be an honorable American citizen, a statesman and a gentleman. Since Mr. Fish took office he has had to deal with two very difficult foreign questions, the Alabama trouble with England and the prolonged Cuban complication ; and he has managed both with such good temper and address that he deserves the most cordial gratitude of the country. Had his patriotism been of the Donny-brook-fair kind, we should have had war both with England and Spain. He -has been pursued with the most constant and malignant detraction. He has been more lampooned, ridiculed, caricatured, and insulted than any of his predecessors. But neither disheartened nor foolishly angry, he has firmly and skillfully main tained the national honor and avoided war. With Sir James Mackintosh in his condemnation of the French war of 1793, the Secretary holds that ‘ war is just only to those by whom it is unavoidable; and every appeal to arms is unrighteous, except that of a nation which has no other resource for the maintenance of its security or the assertion of its honor.” How Sir Robert Walpole was abused by tlie war party I But how fine is Thackerav’s eulogy—“He gave Englishmen no conquests, but he gave them peace and ease and freedom.” There have been times during the last ■five years when there were strong influences at work for taking part with Cuba against Spain. It requires a very steady will and a very clear mind to resistthem; and the Secretary has The Cuban revolutionary’ base has been here in New York, and the sufferings of the Cubans have stronglv appealed to the general sympathy. ‘There is always a certain but s shameful popularity in the cry of war, especially if the cause seems to be worthy, and there are always demagogues ready to raise it. But the Secretary of State has plainly seen the path of duty from the first, and he has faithfully pursued it. Until our interests were involved, or the fact of belligerence was established so that we were obliged to act, it was our duty not to act. This has been the just and, in General Hawley’s phrase, the Christian policy of the Government We do not believe that the statesmanship of the Cooper Institute Or of Steinway Hall would have improved it.— Harper's Weekly.