From Washington.
[special Correspondence of the Dispatch.] Washington, Dec. 27, 1860.
Seward's proposition about dividing the Territories and admitting them as States immediately, as given in my telegraphic dispatch of yesterday, seems to be yet unkown to the papers.
I see they do not mention it this morning.
But my informant assures me that he received it from a most reliable source — from Winter Davis, and from two gentlemen more trustworthy than he.
I passed Senators Hunter and Toombs yesterday as they were walking down from the Capitol after the session of the Committee of Thirteen.
Their faces were clouded and sad. If Seward submitted his proposal, they doubtless considered it as a "Yankee trick," in which no confidence was to be placed.
They, and the people of Virginia as well, cannot forget that the Northern presses have declared, in language most positive, that any concessions made now will be "snatched back" the moment our troubles are over.
Bailey is in jail again.
He is a visionary and a passionate lover of the game of faro.
He is a tall, slender, light-haired man, with a decidedly intellectual face.
His superior talent cannot be questioned.
He comes of high stock.
His father was Attorney General of South Carolina.
Raymond, editor of the Times, in a long letter to Wm. L. Yancey, declares that the Northern people will fight before they will admit that the Constitution recognizes property in slaves.
How can we come to terms, then?
Senator Dixon, of Conn., says that since the publication of his moderate speech, advocating union and conciliation, he has received letter after letter denouncing him for so doing; and Ferry, a member of the House from the same State, says that Dixon's speech by no means represents the sentiments of his constituents.
So, day by day, the possibility of Union diminishes, and the probability of civil war increases.
The Republicans, in threatening to close all the Southern ports, rely mainly on the Navy, not on the regular army.
They think the South can be coerced by a few vessels-of-war, without the aid of a single soldier.
They seem to forget that the South can issue letters of marque, and that they have a commerce to suffer, while we have none.
Adams' Express Company, to the systematic efficiency of which the South is already so much indebted, is about to assume an unexpected magnitude and importance as a carrier of the Southern mail.
I suppose no man will doubt that the Express will render the service with a promptitude and certainty that will put the former service to shame.
Since the above sentence was written, news of the abandonment of Fort Moultrie, the spiking of the guns and burning of the gun carriages, and the occupation of Fort Sumter, (which is said to be impregnable,) has reached us. It was not known at the Capitol at the time I left there, but down town it creates intense excitement.
The only question among Southern men is, "Was this evacuation, spiking and burning done without orders from the Secretary of War?
How would the commander of the forces dare abandon his post and destroy government property without direct, positive, unequivocal, imperative orders from headquarters?" We are in the midst of terrible national troubles.
The only way to meet these troubles is to face them.--We must "quit ourselves like men." Zed. 