Train's troubles.
one of the most painful delusions of the day is that of Mr. George Francis Train, who imagines that the restoration of the American Union depends upon his eloquence. He is n't the first man who has mistaken volubility for argument. A mountebank may prattle in a fair from morn till dewy eve, but it is only to fools that he sells his corn-plasters and cough-drops. He may no doubt be overheard by many wise men, but that does not make his medicines infallible as he would have you believe; nor does the fact that Mr. Train writes for the newspapers prove that he is a statesman, for men who are forever writing to the newspapers are always in danger of bringing up in a mad-house. If Mr. Train could only for a moment comprehend how infinitely silly his productions appear to sensible men, he would we think be mortified into something like reason, and would write no more letters like this absurd one now before us, which is addressed to Charles Sumner and others, and which begins fiercely:--“Conspirators!” [298]As a general rule we suspect that a man who writes confirmed slip-slop, and is never easy unless he is gyrating absurdly through all the gymnastics of rhetoric is hardly a safe person to call to the rescue of an empire. It may be prudently assumed that a Senator of the United States is in no need of Mr. George Francis Train's instruction, and is quite above his reprehension-and for that matter, of his comprehension also. Mr. Train's only retort must be: “Well, neither does the Honorable Senator comprehend me!” --and for Mr. Train, the reply would be uncommonly just and sensible.
Mr. Train charges the gentleman to whom he addresses this lurid letter with “a damnable conspiracy against three races of men” --against the Irish, “by placing an inferior race alongside of them in the corn-field,” and against the Negroes who will all be murdered by their masters, according to Mr. G. F. T., unless the Abolitionists cease their provocations. But one of Mr. Train's vaticinations fortunately knocks the other in the head. If the Negroes are all to be murdered by their desperate masters, may not the fastidious George spare himself all painful apprehensions of anybody being compelled to work alongside the Black in any corn-field or other field in this hemisphere. Massacred Negroes do n't dig, to the best of our knowledge, Mr. Train!
There is a race of men — it is that to which Mr. Train belongs — who make a living, not by hoeing and digging, but by gabbling about the infinite superiority of being white-by denouncing those who [299] cannot see the exquisite equity of Human Servitude — by lecturing on Politics, as other men lecture on Mesmerism and Table-Tipping — who convert their country's agony into a raree-show and go about entertaining people with the public misfortunes — who achieve notoriety by rehashing stale platitudes and rejuvenating venerable libels — who were unknown yesterday, and are only notorious to-day, and will be forgotten to-morrow — and to this race Negro Emancipation will prove fatal, for it will ruin their business, which is that of frightening honest folk and manufacturing bugbears.
Mr. George Francis Train must not think that we mean to be disrespectful. On the contrary, when we put him in this race, we are paying him the greatest compliment of all he ever received in his life, if we except those which he has paid to himself. We are ranking him with Doctors of Divinity and Members of Congress and Ethnologists and Politicians of the most venerable variety, who, when Emancipation has finished them, will hail him as a brother in misfortune and will go hand in hand with him to oblivion!
It may be a satisfaction to the Cabinet to know that Mr. Train, in this very letter, announces his generous intention of standing by it to the end. He professes the most unbounded affection for Mr. Seward; but if that gentleman be as shrewd as he has the reputation of being, he will hasten to beseech Mr. Train to write him no more letters. It is n't every Administration that can stand Mr. Train's admiration. And so much for George Francis!
