_April 22._--"Loyalty, loyalty," resounds in speeches, is re-echoed in letters, in newspapers. Well, Loyalty, but to whom? I hope not to the person of any president, but to the ever-living principle of human liberty. Next eureka is, "the administration must be sustained." Of course, but not because it intrinsically deserves it, but because no better one can be had, and no radical change can be effected.
_April 22._--The English Cabinet takes in sails, and begins to show less impudence in the violation of neutral duties. Lord John Russell's letter to the constructors of the piratical ships. Certainly Mr. Seward will claim the credit of having brought England to terms by his eloquent dispatches. Sumner may dispute with Seward the influence on English fogies. In reality, the bitter and exasperated feeling of the people frightened England.
_April 24._--It is repulsive to read how the press exults that the famine in the South is our best ally. Well! I hate the rebels, but I would rather that the superiority of brains may crush them, and not famine. The rebels manfully supporting famine, give evidence of heroism; and why is it in such disgusting cause!
_April 23._--Senator Sumner emphatically receives and admits into church and communion, the freshly to emancipation converted General Thomas, Adjutant General, now organizing Africo-American regiments in the Mississippi valley. Better _late than never_, for such Thomases, Hallecks, etc., only I doubt if a Thomas will ever become a Paul.
_April 24._--Our State Department does not enjoy a high consideration abroad. I see this from public diplomatic acts, and from private letters. I am sure that Mr. Dayton has found this out long ago, and I suppose so did Mr. Adams. Of course not a Sanford. If the State Department had not at its back twenty-two millions of Americans, foreign Cabinets would treat us--God, alone, knows how.
_April 24._--I hope to live long enough to see the end of this war, and then to disentangle my brains from the pursuits which now fill them. Then goodbye, O, international laws, with your customs and rules. England handled them for centuries, as the wolf with the lamb at the spring. When I witness the confusion and worse, here, I seem to see--_en miniature_--reproduced some parts of the Byzantine times. All cracks but not the people, and to ---- I am indebted that my brains hold out.