In The Early Part Of The Winter, When
I Reached Washington, The Feeling Ran All The Other Way.
Northern
men did not say that they were despondent; they did not with spoken
words express diffidence as to their success; but their looks
betrayed diffidence, and the moderation of their self-assurance
almost amounted to despondency.
In the capital the parties were
very much divided. The old inhabitants were either secessionists or
influenced by "secession proclivities," as the word went; but the
men of the government and of the two Houses of Congress were, with a
few exceptions, of course Northern. It should be understood that
these parties were at variance with each other on almost every point
as to which men can disagree. In our civil war it may be presumed
that all Englishmen were at any rate anxious for England. They
desired and fought for different modes of government; but each party
was equally English in its ambition. In the States there is the
hatred of a different nationality added to the rancor of different
politics. The Southerners desire to be a people of themselves - to
divide themselves by every possible mark of division from New
England; to be as little akin to New York as they are to London, or,
if possible, less so. Their habits, they say, are different; their
education, their beliefs, their propensities, their very virtues and
vices are not the education, or the beliefs, or the propensities, or
the virtues and vices of the North.
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