In the next issue, July 10, he has an equally strong editorial upon “The Country’s Need.” The suppression of news, the failure to trust the people, the political intrigues at the capital, moved him to righteous and sorrowful indignation: “Did the government frankly say to this nation, We are defeated? To this hour it has not trusted the people. It held back the news for days. Nor was the truth honestly told when outside information compelled it to say something. It is even to this hour permitting McClellan’s disaster to be represented as a piece of skilfully planned strategy! After the labor of two months, the horrible sickness of thousands of men poisoned in the swamps of the Chickahominy, the loss of probably more than ten thousand as noble fellows as ever lifted a hand to defend their country, McClellan, who was four miles from Richmond, finds himself twenty-five miles from the city, wagons burned, ammunition-trains blown up, parks of artillery captured, no entrenchments, and with an army so small that it is not pretended that he can reach Richmond! The public are infatuated. The papers that regaled us two weeks ago with visions of a Fourth of July in Richmond are now asking us to rejoice and acclaim—not at victory—but that we have just saved the army! McClellan is safe!—and Richmond too! “The government, upon this disaster, procures the governors of the States to _ask it_ to call for 300,000 more men. Why did not the President take the responsibility, plainly confess our disaster, say that we were within a hand-breadth of ruin, throw himself on the people? No. The people pay taxes, give their sons and brothers—but that is all. We are sick and weary of this conduct. We have a sacred cause, a noble army, good officers, and a heroic common people. But we are like to be ruined by an administration that will not tell the truth; that spends precious time in playing at President-making; that is cutting and shuffling the cards for the next great political campaign. Unless good men awake, unless the accursed silence is broken that has fallen on the people, unless the government is held sternly to its responsibility to the people, we shall dally through the summer, make brigadier-generals until autumn, build huge entrenchments, but fight no battles till they are forced upon us, and then we shall be called upon to celebrate our defeats or retreats as masterly strategies! “We have a country. We have a cause. We have a people. Let all good men pray that God would give us a government!” This is followed by one, July 17, on the “Patriotism of the People.” Its tone will be understood by these few sentences: “There is no need of rousing the patriotism of the people. It is an inexhaustible quality. It underlies their very life. The government itself is buoyed up by it, and rides upon it, like a ship upon the fathomless ocean.