From Washington.
[Special correspondence of the Dispatch.] Washington, Jan. 14, 1861.
Well, the Retarders have done their best to strengthen the Abolitionists; but they have left the people to decide whether Virginia shall cling to Lincoln and Seward, or to the South and the Constitution as our fathers made it. Everything works well for the good cause.
The longer Virginia is compelled, by repeating the vote on a single plain proposition — submission or resistance — to remain in the Union, the more certain it is that the Abolitionists will so act as to drive her out at last, at a sacrifice of blood and of treasure, which might have been saved if she had acted promptly.
If any man understands Seward's oracular speech, published this morning in the National Intelligencer--if any human knows the true meaning of it, I can only say, in the language of the Southwestern Virginians, "I haven't saw him." I know this, though; that it pleases every one of the Republicans, except Sumner and Bingham.
Seward is far too smart to divide the party which alone can make him President after Lincoln.
New York has voted men and money in abundance to aid Buchanan in "enforcing the laws." How mildly the rascals make war.--Pennsylvania refuses to repeal her Personal Liberty bill.
Her Wide-Awakes are arming and drilling.
His Majesty. Winfield Scott, has 79 men and 65 horses here, enough to man nine guns flying artillery, for each gun of which 200 rounds of all kinds of ammunition had been already prepared before the troop arrived here.
Pike, the Washington correspondent of the Tribune, says boldly that as slavery is the cause of war, the only way to end the war is to extinguish slavery.
This solution of the "Pro-Slavery Rebellion, " (as the Tribune calls it,) will, I imagine, turn out to be the toughest problem in Pike's Arithmetic.
With a coast line extending from Norfolk to San Antonio to blockade, and some millions of as gallant people as any in the world to put down, King Lincoln will have his hands rather full.
But the Black Republicans are eager for war, and all delays of the Border States go a long, long way to encourage them in their madness.
One faint ray of peace can be seen, and only one.
The papers this morning talk as if the troops might be withdrawn from Sumter and St. Louis.
Hardly. Still, I am told, on excellent authority that the Administration leans on Scott, and Scott on Seward, who is decidedly in favor of peace — to the extent of not sending another man to Sumter.
If the leopard can change his spots, then this is possible.
Withdrawal of the soldiers is the first indispensable step towards adjustment, and would do more to weaken the immediate secession party in the border States than all things else.
But the Gods have denied this wisdom to our rulers.
So the revolution goes on.
We have a right sharp snow this morning and the French Zouaves at the Theatre tonight.
The papers say they are the genuine fellows who acted plays in the French camp, during the Crimean war; but I'll bet my existence every mother's son of them is a Yankee, raised on codfish.
Zed. 