He had made the
personal acquaintance of Buchanan, when that 'old public functionary'
was our Minister in London, and felt, as was quite natural, a little
vain of this acquaintance when Buchanan became the head of the
Government of that unseen land of his most enthusiastic admiration. The
man, however, was less than the country, and he could drop him; but he
still desired to see him succeeded by a Democrat. We often had little
spats, in which I took the ground that such had been the extravagant
demands of the South, made through the platforms of that party, that
with the strongest predilections for some of its men and its earlier
antecedents, I should have felt bound to vote for both Fremont and
Lincoln, if I had been in the country. He would generally end the matter
by a pleasant and jocular dissent, calling himself a Democrat and me a
Republican. But _after the rebellion_, his friends never knew what he
was, except that he was for the Union and the putting down of the
rebels. No American could have felt in deeper sympathy with our cause.
In that land, where a thousand volunteers could not be raised to save a
throne, how did his heart swell with just pride when the President
called for seventy-five thousand, and afterward in succession for
hundreds of thousands, and they came forth at the call! How depressed at
instances of want of skill or decision in Government or generals! He
nearly lost his patience with young men who were quietly pursuing their
studies in Europe, when their country was in peril and its armies needed
them; and he quite lost it when he met Americans who sympathized with
the rebellion, or even seemed indifferent to their country's fortunes.
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