speech of Senator Wall--the spirit of the Press — recruiting.
The Northern papers received for several weeks past, are gloomier in their vaticination about the war, than they have been since its opening.
Each batch is more sombre than the preceding one.
To compare the editorials of this month with those of November last, is a very pleasant and genial amusement for a Confederate.
With gold at 169, and no prospect of a decline, the
Yankee nation seem at last to realize that this struggle wont "pay," and that after all is the argument with a Yankee.
While the be spangled mummery of "erecting"
Louisiana into the
Union was being acted out in New Orleans, on the twenty-second of February, a very different and more serious exhibition was taking place in
New Jersey, the
chief speaker being
Hon. James W. Wall, late a
United States Senator from that State.
The Speaker has but one thing to learn, and that is, that there can be no "reconciliation," in his meaning of the word, between the two nations; and with this explanation we copy some.
Extracts from the speech of Senator Wall.
The mad fanaticism that now rules the hour would extinguish this fire by feeding it with more fuel.
They would pour fire upon the conflagration instead of water.
They would save the
Union through the very agencies by which the
Union has been destroyed, or most seriously endangered. --They would strengthen the fabric of the
Constitution by repeated assaults upon the foundation.--They would instruct men how to amplify and preserve their own liberties by sanctioning the annihilation of the liberties of their neighbors.
They would violate one part of the
Constitution in order to preserve another.
Many of them, in their patriotic zeal, are very much like
Sir Boyle Roche, in the British Parliament, "who was willing to give up not only a part, but, if necessary, the whole of the
Constitution in order to save the remainder."
We doubt whether, if all the mad houses were let loose, there could be mustered such a collection of incomprehensible and mad theorists as now have control and are shaping the policy of this unfortunate Government.
If these men think they can calcine ice out of gunpowder and make silk out of cobwebs, or bottle up sunlight to let out upon their gardens in inclement seasons, I have the right of calling in question the system of reasoning by which they have brought their minds to such absurd conclusions.
I know that the question is time and again propounded, through what avenue can we arrive at a settlement of the grave issues of the hour, save through a vigorous prosecution of the war?
I answer, not through the agencies of continued war, certainly never through war embittered by the exasperating and insane legislation of the
North.
The plan of conciliation of the ruling powers seem to be that of the infamous
Duke of Alva toward the unhappy
Netherlander, to make every Southerner feel as he lays down at night or rises in the morning, that his house at any hour may fall and crush him. It would seem really, to read the debates in the Senate, and House at
Washington, as if these bodies were endeavoring to revive the spirit and transactions of Alva's. "Council of Blood." The experience of three years of this species of policy still finds, as every sane man knew it would, the
Southern armies in the field, strengthened in numbers, more effective by discipline, and breathing hate and defiance embittered by a policy pursued toward them that has no warrant except in the practice of the most barbarous nations.
A continuance of such a war and such a policy must only widen the breach, and render separation certain, and reconstruction impossible.
If asked how I would propose to settle the issue of the hour, my answer would be that of
Burke, in the House of Commons in 1775.
From the commencement of the breaking out of the rebellion in the colonies against the mother country,
Mr. Burke directed a most diligent attention to a plan of conciliation, as involving the primary interests of a great empire.
By maintaining a constant intercourse with many of the enlightened characters of the different colonial provinces, he acquired a more extensive and intimate knowledge of the physical and moral condition of the colonists, with their real views, disposition, and resources, than was attained by any of his contemporaries.
The result of this investigation was a decided conviction that he boldly announced through every stage of the controversy, that the exasperated feeling which existed in the colonies could only be allayed, and their alienated attachment revived and fundamentally secured by placing them exactly on the footing they stood previous to the rebellion.
If the men who now clamor for peace, and p if not granted, were traitors, so was
Mr. Burke.
The national life of the mother country was just as much endangered there by the existence of the rebellion, as it is now. And yet no man in
England who had any reputation dared to charge
Burke and such states men as
Fox,
Chatham,
Pitt;
Barre, Lutterell, Ponnall, and others who sustained his views, as traitors, disloyal to the
State.
He desired peace because it could have been had then without the dismemberment of the empire; for, as he foretold, a few more years of war and the peace would have to come, but with the loss of the very colonies to which the ministry had held on with such a death grip.
"My proposition," said this bold commoner, "is peace.
Not peace through the medium of war; but peace to be hunted through the labyrinths of negotiations; not peace to arise out of universal discord fomented in all parts of the empire; not peace to depend on the judicial determination of perplexing questions, or the precise marking of the shadowy boundaries of a complex Government — It is simple peace sought in its natural course, its ordinary haunts.
It is peace sought in the spirit of peace, and laid in principles purely pacific.
I propose, by moving the grounds of difference, and by restoring the former unsuspecting confidence of the people in the mother country, to give permanent satisfaction to your people.
I mean to give peace.
Peace implies reconciliation, and where there has been a material dispute, reconciliation does imply in a manner concession on the one part or the other.
In this state of things the proposal I make bold to affirm ought to originate with us — The superior power, wrong as the colonies may be, or you think they may be, can offer peace with honor and safety.
Such an offer from such a power will be attributed to magnanimity; but the concessions of the weak are the concessions of fear."
The words of wisdom were not heeded by the vigorous prosecution of the war politicians of that day; and
Great Britain lost her colonial possessions by the same blind obstinacy, shortsightedness, and insane vanity that may yet destroy this Union, and secure the final independence of the
Southern section.
Admitting that our arms had been attended with all the success which the most sanguine advocates of the war have flattered the country with, had the
South been disposed from their defeats and suffering to sue for peace, what city of refuge has been open for them, what horns of the altar could they take hold on and be saved?
What explicit terms short of degradation and dishonor worse than death have been proposed to them?
What security (innocent and guilty) that they should not be treated as a conquered people and subject to whatever yoke their haughty victors might please to impose upon them?
It would be madness to expect that men who had taken up arms so defiantly, and struggled so courageously as the
South have done, should throw them down and submit to their conquerors, especially when they had so little to hope and so much to fear.
The only hope can be, and this now, to my mind, is the faintest possible, in a change of system.--Reverse all these absurd and pernicious measures that for three years have characterized northern legislation; for if the confidence and affection we have lost is ever to be regained, it can only be by giving the
South the most undeniable proofs that we wish not to oppress them; that we are willing to remove every ground of complaint, and to afford the amplest security for the enjoyment of all their constitutional privileges in the future.
I waive all questions of authority and right.
With nearly a million of men slain or rendered useless, with a frightful debt of thousands of millions, increasing at the rate of two millions a day, and national ruin and bankruptcy, the inevitable consequences of this dreadful war, peace, speedy peace, should be our object, and to accomplish this a repeal of those obnoxious legislative acts is demanded, which are an insurmountable bar to reconciliation, and have lost us the confidence and good will of those who might have been really kindly disposed towards us in the
South.
What greater folly can there be than to expect to force a people into a friendly union with you, to intrust their rights once more into your hands, and submit their property and lives to your Government by desolating their country and spreading famine and death over their land?
And what are the laurels acquired in this destructive warfare?
We have subdued not their armies, but the small remains of their affection so the country, their reverence for its laws, and their confidence in its generosity.
Neither the men in power, or the mere pensioners of the hour who now cowardly sustain them and their policy, ever attempt to reason from the analogies of history.--We told them at the outset of the impracticability of their task, and we tell them again that their failures in the future will be even more stupendous than they have been in the past.
Ignorant of the actual resources of the
South, they supposed that a three months blockade would starve every man, woman, and child into submission, and that an army of seventy-five thousand men would be sufficient to conquer and hold the entire Southern region.
We told them that they would want a million of men and spend thousands of millions, and yet only be upon the edge of their fearful enterprise.
Nearly two millions of men have been called for, and over two thousand millions spent it and who is there, having the slightest lly, that does not know that
the rebel armies are more defeat and dangerous than ever, and may provost the war for to the utter and complete ruin of both sections.
The public credulity however, is still unbounded, and it will go on trusting and being betrayed, as it has been for the last three years, by a set of knaves whose only object is to fatten upon the public plunder that such were engender, and to rise in the scale of wealth a their country's honor and prosperity sink.
The day will come, however, when a betrayed people will take ample vengeance upon the mock patriots who have deceived them to their ruin.
There never yet was a civil war that was not followed by a counter revolution, in which ample atonement was demanded for the crimes, and from the criminals that had engendered it.--These men may escape, being influenced by the effect of logical conclusions; but, thank God, they cannot forever escape the penalties of their infamous crimes and oppressions, and
that hour is nearer at hand than some of them imagine.
The Tide Turning.
We find the following fearless and significant article in a recent number of the
Philadelphia Mercury:
Two incidents have recently occurred, and been duly recorded in the newspapers, which, although they have elicited but little interest and remark, are full of peculiar significance, in the fact that they give signal indication that the
American people are growing resentful and restive under the "reign of terror" to which they have submitted for the last two years like so many abject and crouching slaves.
We allude to an occurrence which transpired in San Francisco, California, where a Government official obtruded himself upon a meeting called for the purpose of protesting against the passage of a law by the Legislature placing greenbacks upon a par with gold in point of value, but was forced to seek safety in flight from the popular indignation that was aroused against him on account of his unwarrantable interference; and to another in
Lancaster, Ohio, where the establishment of the
Eagle, a paper devoted to peace principles and to Democracy, was destroyed by soldiers, instigated by Abolitionists, in retaliation for which outrage the Democrats arose, and attacked and gutted the dwellings of the leading fanatics of the town.
These, we reiterate, are very significant demonstrations.
It is the last hair that breaks the camel's back.
The
Americans have always been a patient, law-abiding people.
The Anglo-
Saxon element, so largely infused into their veins, makes them slow to anger, and to forbear violent and bloody resistance to wrong and oppression while a peaceful remedy lies anywhere near their grasp.
But this very characteristic makes them, when once aroused to fury, and under the goading spur of heated and ungovernable passion, "terrible as an army with banners. "
Possibly in be well for the st directly interested to this feature of our people, and not count too largely and too surely upon that toleration which, we confess, has already shamed the
American character abroad, and provoked derision and mockery all over
Europe.
Nobody would deplore more deeply than ourselves the reign of anarchy and social chaos in our midst.
We have the example of
France before us, that in the wild maelstrom of revolution and popular phrensy humanity bleeds at every pore, and that no dove comes from the ark that floats upon its heaving and turbulent waters; that the good suffer with the bad, the innocent with the guilty.--that all alike are whelmed beneath its yeasty and remorseless waves.
And yet there is something more terrible even than this to contemplate.
It is the paralyzes of a great people struck dumb and motionless in the presence of a gigantic despotism — fearful to speak, lest some hired minion of the prevailing and abounding tyranny shale strike the audacious utterer down — fearful to write the God gifted thought, lest press and writer fall under the ban of mailed and gauntleted power — fearful to move, lest same tole bearing informer shall whisper a suspicion of disloyalty and treason.
Oh! what mental agony to live in such a rayless and starless night of bondage as this, to one who has once tasted the sweetness of refined and enlightened liberty!
To break such bonds whole hecatombs of lives have been sacrificed, and the world's history is illuminated with the chivalric deeds of those who have died in martyrdom to the holy cause of truth and justice.
What has been may be again. "History is philosophy teaching by example." Hence we say, let those most interested profit by the warnings of the past, and beware how they tax too much the patience and forbearance of this people.
Even a worm will turn when trodden upon; and is less expected of man, fashioned after God's own image, and bearing about him at least some of the ineffable attributes of his Maker?
And may we not hope that the retaliatory incidents we have cited will have their due effect in checking those disgraceful exhibitions of lawless and usurped authority which have become almost chronic, and teach their authors that it will not do "to play" with that volcanic fire which flames in the popular heart, and is constantly fed by the enjoyment and luxury of popular liberty.
Policy of the Administration — speech of Hon. D. W. Voornees.
The Hon. D. W. Voornees, of
Indiana, in his speech in Congress, recently said:
‘
, the hardest question emigrated within the scope of my remarks remains to be answered and draw them to a close.
Has the policy pursued for the last three years resulted in the formation of a more perfect Union?
’
No language that the tongue of man can utter would form so expressive an answer to such a question as a silent survey of the dreadful scene which lies before us. A gulf of blood and tears, and all of human agony which the afflicted race of man can know this side of the dread abodes of the damned, divides the suffering and miserable sections of a once fraternal and contented people.--Statesmen of Christian faith, imbued with the lofty spirit of Him who gave His blessing to the merciful, could again span this borated chasm and bind together the torn and bleeding ligaments of the
Union.
But an evil star is raging in our sky, and under its malign power of legislation of the land appears as the frenzied, murderous, disjointed dreams of a madman in his cell.
Such a penal code as now stands in the way of the return of the men, women, and children of the
South to their allegiance, has no parallel in the annals of the human race.
A thousand miles of gibbets with the dangling halter and the ready executioner; universal confiscation of property to the remotest period of an innocent posterity; the absolute extermination of a whole people and the appropriation of the depopulated country to the unsparing demands of a more than
Norman conquest; the utter extinction of every vestige of our present form of Government by States, all this and infinitely more is contained in the enactments which already stain the records of American legislation.
But why need I dwell upon these evidences of disunion?
The great leader of the Administration on this floor, the gentleman from
Pennsylvania, (
Mr. Stevens,) has deliberately here announced, after all our sacrifices, sorrows, and loss, that the
Union of our fathers is dead, and he who attempts its resurrection is a criminal instead of a patriot.
He goes further, and admits all these acceded States have ever claimed — their nationality.
They have sought in vain in all the four quarters of the earth for recognition.
They find it at last in the hands of those who speak for the Administration on this floor.
A gloomy paragraph:
The Cincinnati
Commercial, of the 8th, in a lengthy leader, says:
‘
Affairs certainly look very gloomy, and Congress certainly supposes
Mr. Chase is blessed with Aladdin's lamp, as they have failed to do anything whatever to assist him in the matter.
The Confederates have touch at the bottom of the end and are ascending, and we are in a fair way to see the bottom also, unless something is speedily done.
’
The recruiting business in New York.
The New York
Tribune says:
‘
The system of recruiting which has recently been followed in this city is one of the greatest scandals of the war. It has been one of organized pillage, resort being had to hocusing with narcotic poisons, threats, violence false representations and kidnapping in order to furnish victims to the bounty brokers and fill up the army with discontented and unfit men. Cripples, old men, mere boys, men, laboring under incurable diseases, and soldiers previously discharged for physical disability, form a great part of the recruits recently enlisted in this city.
’
