Doc. 15.-rebel views of peace.
“Two years hence.”
Richmond, June 16.
In two years, as many persons hope, we may possibly have peace — that is, always provided we continue to repulse and defeat the invading enemy.
The Yankee “democracy” is certainly rousing itself and preparing for a new struggle (at the ballot-box) in the great cause of the “spoils,” or, as they call it, the cause of constitutional liberty.
Those Democrats are evidently beginning to raise a peace platform for their next Presidential election; and if they have the good luck to be helped on and sustained by more and more serious disasters of the Yankee army in the field, there is no doubt that the present devourers of the said spoils at Washington may soon be so discredited and decried that our enemy's country would be ripe for such peaceful ballot-box revolution.
It is sincerely to be hoped that those earnest champions of constitutional freedom will be help.
ed on and sustained in the manner they require, namely, by continued and severe reverses in the field, and it is the first and most urgent duty of our countrymen so to help and sustain that Democratic party.
It is nothing to us which of their factions may devour their “spoils;” just as little does it signify to us whether they recover or do not recover that constitutional liberty which they so wantonly threw away in the mad pursuit of Southern conquest and plunder.
But it is of the utmost importance to us to aid in stimulating disaffection among Yankees against their own government, and in demoralizing and disintegrating society in that God-abandoned country.
We can do this only in one way — namely, by thrashing their armies and carrying the war to their own firesides.
Then, indeed, conscientious constitutional principles will hold sway; peace platforms will look attractive; arbitrary arrests will become odious, and habeas corpus be quoted at a premium.
This is the only way we can help them.
In this sense and to this extent, those Democrats are truly our allies, and we shall endeavor to do our duty by them.
But they evidently look for other and further help at our hands, and of quite a different sort.
No doubt they are pleased for the present with the efficient aid which the confederate army is affording them.
Chancellorsville was a godsend to them, and the tremendous repulse at Port Hudson is quite a plank in their platform.
Yet they understand very well that no matter how soundly their armies may be happily beaten; no matter how completely Lincoln's present
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war policy may be condemned by its results, yet all this will not be enough to enable the unterrified Democracy to clutch the “spoils” --or, as they phrase it, to restore the Constitution of their fathers.
This, of itself, would never give them a peace Democrat President and Cabinet: it would only result in another abolitionist administration, with a new Secretary of War and a new Commander-in-Chief, and a slightly different programme for “crushing the rebellion.”
These Black Republicans are in power, after long waiting, pining, intriguing in the cold shade of the opposition, and they have now the numerical preponderance so decidedly that they both can and will hold on to the office with a clutch like death.
The Democrats can do absolutely nothing without “the South,” as they persist in terming these confederate States, and they cannot bring themselves to admit the thought that we would refuse to unite with them (as alas!
we used to do) in a grand universal Presidential campaign for a Democratic President with a peace platform, and “, the Constitution as it is.”
In fact, this whole two years war, and the two years more war which has yet to be gone through, is itself, in their eyes, only a Presidential campaign, only somewhat more vivacious than ordinary.
This explains the Vallandigham peace meetings in New-York and New-Jersey, and the “manly declarations” of Mr. Horatio Seymour and other patriots.
“Do not let us forget,” says Fernando Wood, writing to the Philadelphia meeting, “that those who perpetrate such outrages as the arrest and banishment of Mr. Vallandigham do so as necessary war measures.
Let us, therefore, strike at the cause, and declare for peace and against the war.”
This would sound very well if the said “declaring for peace” could have any effect whatever in bringing about peace.
If a man in falling from a tower could arrest his fall by declaring against it, then the declarations of Democrats against the war might be of some avail.
As it is, they resemble that emphatic pronouncement of Mr. Washington Hunt: “Let it be proclaimed upon the house-tops that no citizen of New-York shall be arrested without process of law.”
There is no use in bawling from the house-tops what every body knows to be nonsense.
Or this resolution of the New-Jersey meeting:
“Resolved, That in the illegal seizure and banishment of the Hon. C. L. Vallandigham, the laws of our country have been outraged, the name of the United States disgraced, and the rights of every citizen menaced, and that it is now the duty of a law-respecting people to demand of the Administration that it at once and forever desist from such deeds of despotism and crime.
(Enthusiasm.)”
Demand, quotha?
The starling that Mr. Sterne saw in the cage said only: “I can't get out.”
It would have been more “manly” to scream--“I demand to get out; I proclaim on the house-tops that I will get out.”
Another of the New-Jersey resolutions throws an instructive light upon this whole movement and its objects:
“Resolved, That we renew our declaration of attachment to the Union, pledging to its friends, wherever found, our unwavering support, and to its enemies, in whatever guise, our undying hostility, and that, God willing, we will stand by the Constitution and laws of our country, and under their sacred shield will maintain and defend our liberty and rights, ‘ peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must.’
(Great cheering.)”
This phrase, “wherever found,” implies that there are friends of the Union in this Confederacy, and the resolution obligingly pledges to them the support of the New-Jersey Democracy — not surely without an equivalent return.
To the same meeting General Fitz-John Porter writes a letter, declaring, of course, for the Constitution and resistance to despotism, and ending thus: The contest of arms, however, will not be required; the certain and peaceful remedy will be found in the ballot-box. Let us all possess our souls in patience. The remedy is ours.General Fitz-John knows well that the remedy is not theirs, unless “the South” consent to throw its votes into that same ballot-box; and it is for this, and this only, that the Democratic hook is baited with “peace.” But in a speech of Senator Wall, of New-Jersey, before a Democratic club of Philadelphia (which we find printed in the Sentinel,) is a passage more fully expounding the Democratic plan than any other we have seen. He says:
Subjugation or annihilation being alike impossible, I am in favor of an immediate cessation of hostilities — for an armistice — that ‘mid the lull of the strife, the heat of passion shall have time to cool, and the calm, majestic voice of reason can be heard. In the midst of such a calm I am for endeavoring to learn from those in arms against us what their demands may be, and inviting their cooperation in the name of a common Christianity, in the name of a common humanity, to some plan of reconciliation or reconstruction by which the sections may unite upon a more stable basis — a plan in which the questions upon which we have differed so long may be harmoniously adjusted; and each section, by virtue of the greatness developed in this war, may profit by the experience. If it shall be found that sectional opinions and prejudices are too obstinate, and the exasperations of this war have burned too deep to settle it upon the basis of reconciliation or reconstruction, then I know that separation and reconstruction are inevitable.Here is the whole plan: an armistice, and then “inviting our cooperation.” During that armistice they hope that the “calm majestic voice of reason” and a “common Christianity” might do something considerable. The game, as they calculate, would then be on the board, with stakes so tempting. Mr. Wall would endeavor to “learn from us what our demands are.” Any thing in reason he would be prepared to grant us; but if we replied, our demands are that [54] you bring away your troops from every inch of our soil, that you leave the Border States free to decide on their own destiny, that you evacuate all our forts and towns which you now hold, and make us rid of you and the whole breed of you forever, then Mr. Wall would exclaim: What! do you call that the calm majestic voice of reason? Is that your common Christianity? He would say, when I spoke of the calm majestic, etc., I meant the spoils; when I said a common Christianity, I meant money. Let us talk rationally — how much common Christianity will you take? In vain is a net spread in the sight of any bird. We are aware of them; and we will watch them well, and the friends of the Union, “wheresoever found.” Our views go a little further than theirs. We have to so disorganize and disintegrate society in their country that they will rush into armed revolution and anarchy. We spit upon their ballot-box. We care not what they “demand” in resolutions, nor what helpless trash they proclaim on the house-tops. We do not believe in their power to attain so much as an armistice for two years to come. If an armistice, indeed, were offered, and the invading troops were withdrawn, of course we should not object to it, and good use could be made of it. But mark well, ye armistice mongers! During that suspension of hostilities all negotiations must be between government and government. Our lines should be more strictly guarded than ever. No negotiations or fraternization of parties by public meetings or private conferences; no bargaining with the “calm voice of reason ;” no secret pocketing of Wall's “common Christianity.” But armistice there will be none, and we are glad of it. Our sovereign independence is already won and paid for with treasures of brave blood. It shall not be sold by peddlers, to be built into a Yankee platform.
