The Daily Dispatch: December 10, 1860., [Electronic resource]

Washington, D. C. Dec. 8, 1860.

Senator Pearce, of Maryland, has expressed the opinion that civil war is inevitable. On the other hand, an intelligent member from Virginia takes a more hopeful view. He thinks that even if Lincoln should get control of the Federal power, the North, being unwilling to exasperate the South, will yield the District as soon as Maryland and Virginia go out; that a defensive alliance will be formed between the two Republics, and peculiar privileges in the way of navigation and postal arrangements will be agreed upon; so that a very few years will find us, in the language of Jefferson, "one as to the rest of the world, several as to each other."

I was thrown, yesterday, in contact with the man who, beyond a doubt, carried Maryland for Breckinridge. He tells me that the National Volunteers, of Baltimore, organized at first for political purposes, is still kept up for purposes which may be necessary if Lincoln attempts to march through Baltimore with an army of Wide-Awakes behind him.--The volunteers number 1,000, all young men, and all true to the South. As Virginia goes, so will Maryland go. This was the conclusion of the Electors of the latter State in private meeting the other day.

The disposition of the various parties in Virginia to come together, as manifested in the honorable course of the Breckinridge electors and the unanimous approbation of Mr. Goggin's resolutions at the last Bedford Court, fills every Virginian here with unfeigned joy. Let us in this crisis be worthy of our name and fame.

To show the temper of the South, I relate an incident which occurred at the caucus of Southern members night before last. Representatives were present from South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and Louisiana. A member from South Carolina, wishing to get the sense of the meeting as to the Buchanan-Cobb scheme of getting his State to postpone action till the 4th of March next, put the vote direct, "Shall South Carolina postpone" Not one voice was uttered in the affirmative.

Attorney General Black's article in the Constitution sustains the views of the Message concerning secession. Of course; if it be true, as charged, that Judge Black wrote that part of the Message with his own hand.

The modest proposal of Mr. Toucey that he be permitted to purchase supplies for the Navy privately, instead of advertising for contracts, excites no comment. Disunion and the empty Treasury absorb everything else.

Gentlemen from the North tell me that the rural distract are beginning to feel the stress of the crisis, and that we may expect very soon to see the Tribune and the Black Republican politicians come down, as the N. Y. Times has already done. I see the N. Y. Express and the Tribune are giving each other the Yankee, the word Yankee beginning to smell not sweetly in the nostrils of the would-be free city of New York.

The "States" newspaper changes hands next Monday. Maj. Heiss retires, and Messrs. Harris and Savage become proprietors. Maj. H. has had little or nothing to do with the paper for many months, being absent as bearer of dispatches to Costa Rica.

Lord Lyons, the British Minister, has taken umbrage at certain passages in Secretary Floyd's late letter, which show up the hypocrisy and insincerity of the English government and people in regard to the institution of slavery. He demands to know whether Gov. Floyd's sentiments are those of the American government, and if so, the rumor is that he will at once leave Washington and return home. This, however, can be nothing more than a mere rumor, since there is no passage in Gov. F.'s letter comparable to the open, face to face insult offered some month or so ago by Lord Brougham to Mr. Dallas, our Minister at the Court of St. James. But the matter was considered of a nature so serious as to call for a special meeting of the Cabinet, which was said to have been held on Friday morning, and the result of which has not up to this time transpired.

It is remarked that the newsboys here are begging people to buy papers on the simple plea of hunger. They never did this before, that I am aware of. Poor little fellows, some of them show in their pale faces and emaciated frames that their plea is founded in the horrible truth of actual or impending starvation. And the worst is yet to come. God help the poor. Zed.