Valley Spirit

The universal failure of the people to respond to the late call for troops is the strongest proof yet developed to show how heartily sick and tired they are of this war. The most urgent appeals and entreaties of a whining Governor proved ineffectual to arouse their dormant enthusiasm. The border was invaded and the capital of the nation was threatened, yet the people manifested the most stolid indifference. And this indifference was not confined to any particular class or party, but was seen among all classes and all parties. The blatant "Loyal Leaguer" seemed as loth to shoulder a musket as his "Copperhead" neighbor. Indeed, when Col. Thomas, of Philadelphia, issued a card making a personal appeal to the "Leaguers" to enlist, they regarded it as an insult to their dignity, and the Press and North American, the organs of the League, refused to publish the card in their columns. What right had Col. Thomas to ask "Leaguers" to enlist? He should have known better. It is true, they howl themselves hoarse in favor of war in their League Houses, but then they want others to do the fighting. Patriotic Leaguers!

But to return. Why is it that this apathy and indifference exists? The people have lost all confidence in a successful termination of the war. They regard the country as hopelessly ruined through the mismanagement, imbecility and fanaticism of this administration. They have seen the resources of the country wasted and hundreds of thousands of the precious lives of their countrymen sacrificed in, what must now appear plain to all, a vain effort to subjugate the Southern people. They have seen the object of the war subverted from a high and holy purpose to a mere crusade against African slavery. They are beginning to realize the fact that under the present relentless and vindictive policy the war must be interminable; or at least that it can never end except through sheer exhaustion of both sections, when nothing but poverty, desolation, ruin and anarchy will be left as the inheritance of a once proud, prosperous and happy people.

In view of these facts is it any wonder that the people are growing weary, very weary, of this bloody, ghastly, inhuman war? Is it any wonder that a feeling of despondency rests upon the country when the word of promise has so frequently been kept to the ear only to be broken to the hope?

When the great buffoon who glories in the signature of "A. Lincoln" left his accluded home in Sangamon county, Illinois, for Washington, in the spring of 1861, the country was agitated and rent with civil feuds from center to circumference. Civil war was imminent and the minds of patriotic men in both sections of the country were filled with the gravest apprehensions for the fate of the Republic. They naturally looked to the man who, in an evil hour, had been elected to the highest position in the nation, for words of hope and encouragement; but they looked in vain. On his way to the National Capital he regaled the people who assembled to greet him at the various stopping places along the route--not with sound statesman-like views of public policy--but with stale jokes which he had picked up in bar-rooms and places of amusement and by telling them that there was "nothing going wrong" and there was "nobody hurt!" The whole country was shocked at such levity from a man occupying so high a position in a time of such fearful peril. Sober and reflecting men of all parties then formed the opinion, from which they have since had no reason to depart, that either the imbecility of his mind was such as to render him incapable of comprehending the crisis, or else that he was wickedly and premeditatedly bent on accomplishing the ruin of his country. From a feeling of charity we are inclined to give him the benefit of the former conclusion. Such was the foretaste of the people of the United States had of Abraham Lincoln. His conduct since he assumed the reins of government has not been calculated to elevate his character in the public estimation. Blunder upon blunder has marked the whole course of his administration. His foolish intermeddling with the movements of our armies has been fruitful of the most serious disasters, and his mistaken civil policy has needlessly prolonged the war and increased the public debt to so great an extent as to make it a burden almost too great to be borne. A third-rate back-woods lawyer, without any knowledge of military science, assumes command of the army, undertaken to direct its movements, sets up his opinion against the judgment of educated and distinguished officers of the army and then triumphantly asks: "Wherein is your plan better than my plan?" The feasibility of "my plan" has been repeatedly and sorrowfully tested during the past two years at the cost, in the aggregate, of at least two hundred thousand men and one thousand million dollars. Rather a costly experiment!

The truth is Mr. Lincoln's administration has proved a miserable failure. Every military operation which was peculiarly his own was an abortion. His Emancipation Proclamation, to use his own expressive language, proved "a Pope's bull against the comet." The currency of the country depreciated to thirty cents on the dollar under the operation of the "grand financial scheme" of late Secretary of the Treasury. In short his administration has cost the nation one million men and three thousand million dollars, leaving the country in a tenfold worse condition than it was on the day he assumed the chair of State; and it is fair to presume that four years more of the imbecility, corruption and fanaticism that have prevailed during the last three would result in, not only the complete ruin and exhaustion of the country, but in division, and the total overthrow of republican institutions. Will the people try the experiment? We trust not.

That Pennsylvania is unprepared to respond immediately to the call of the Government for troops for instant service, is altogether to be ascribed to the last Legislature. That body met in January last, and with the experience of Gettysburg and Chambersburg, and the memories of 1862 before it, proceeded deliberately to do everything else but attend to the interests of the country. The public Halls at Harrisburg were filled with venal and corrupt men. The full attention of the "honorable members" was given to schemes which promised them personal advantages. Their time and their efforts could not be commanded for anything which did not promise them crops of bribes and harvests of corruption. Hence their whole time was taken up with subjects of special legislation. Charters for corporations of all kinds were the only matters that were in favor. Almost every man sent to Harrisburg seemed to imagine that he was deputed for the especial purpose of making himself rich. The public interests were nothing to him. He had enough to do to take care of his own. Hence the statute book is loaded down with special laws, and little of public character is to be found therein.

We cut the above from the Philadelphia Inquirer of yesterday. It is the sad truth, told by a Republican journal of a Republican Legislature.