The Aspect of affairs.
While
Seward and
Bates are coolly proposing to grant us peace on condition of unlimited submission, and the loss of our slave property, valued at the commencement of the war at only four thousand millions of dollars, and while
Lincoln and
Chase are proposing to make the forfeiture yet more severe, the courage of this Confederacy was never higher, its means of resistance more ample, or its determination never to affiliate with the rotten despotism on the other side of the
Potomac more fixed and irrevocable.
The people of the
Confederacy did not enter into this war without having first maturely considered all the consequences, and thoroughly weighed all the chances of success.
When they drew the sword, it was with a perfect knowledge that they were about to engage in a long, bloody, and tedious war. They knew perfectly well the strength of their enemy, and the extent of his resources.
They never calculated upon uninterrupted success.
They knew that in all wars it was in the habit of constantly shilling from one side to the other, and they made up their minds to persevere in spite of the fickleness of fortune.
Prepared for the worst that could happen, and resolved not to be cast down by any reverse, they have in all cases stood disaster and defeat with a steady equanimity which is the wonder and admiration of the world.
Commencing the struggle with all the nations of the earth opposed to them, their courage, their magnanimity, and their fortitude, have subdued the hearts of all those who at first contemplated their supposed approaching annihilation with pleasure.
It is this people that
Lincoln thinks he has subdued, and that
Seward insults with proposals to submit because they have lost a single fortress, with its garrison, and failed to destroy their main army in a sanguinary battle in which they, nevertheless, came off victorious.
Proposals of submission are usually made to nations who have lost their last army — who are no longer able to raise an arm in their own defence — who are overrun, trodden down and kept under foot by the overwhelming force of their invaders.
Is that the condition of this people at this moment?
Have we no longer an armed force in the field?--Where is the army of
Gen. Lee?
Where is the army of
Johnston?
Where is the army of
Bragg?
Where are
Beauregard,
Price,
Taylor,
D. H. Hill,
Kirby Smith?
Where are the hundreds of thousands of fresh troops that the proclamation of
President Davis has just summoned to the field?
Where is
Charleston?
Have they taken that?
They not only have not taken it, but they cannot take it.--Where is
Richmond?
Have they taken that?
They have made nine and failed in every one of them.
Let them make a tenth, or a twentieth, and they will fail in them all. Where is our immense interior, which they have not yet even penetrated, but which they must not only penetrate, but subdue, before they can justly consider themselves victors, entitled to dictate the terms of peace to a prostrate and conquered people?--Above all where is the spirit of the people — that spirit which constantly rises superior to every disaster — which is as buoyant under defeat as after a victory — which no more thinks of submission the day after a reverse than it thought of it the day before?
As long as that spirit continues to exist no people can be considered as subjugated, and to treat them as such it in commit a forty which can draw upon the party committing it nothing more agreeable than the contempt and derision of the civilized world.
Is it, then, already crushed?
Are there no signs of its continued existence?--Are there any evidences of weakness — any symptoms of a collapse?
It
Lincoln and
Seward have been able to discover any, they have keener eyesight than any man in this Confederacy.
From the evidence on the trial of the Cato conspirators in
London, it appeared that two of the leaders had a vehement dispute as to which of them should have
Chatsworth, the well known seat of the
Duke of
Devonshire, after they should have overthrown the existing Government and set up one of their own in its stead.
Shakespeare has recorded a similar quarrel between Hotspur and
Owen Glendower, with regard to the boundaries of their respective kingdoms, which they had not then conquered.
The rope of the executioner, in the first instance, and the sword of King Henry, in the second, settled the claims of the rival potentates.
In the same manner the bayonets of the
Confederates will dis cse of the pretensions of
Seward and his comrades dust recovered from a mortal terror, induced by-
Lee's invasion of
Pennsylvania, the think they have won everything because the were not utterly ruined, and offer terms to a people who have half a million of men under arms, and have half a million more to take their places should they be disposed of. They remind us of nothing so strongly as the fable of the girl with her basket of eggs, which is familiar to all schoolboys.
The constancy of our people has already began to meet with its proper reward.
There never was any real cause to feel dispirits, about the loss of
Vicksburg.
In our opinion it was a great blunder to hold that town and
Port Hudson.
They rendered inactive a large army which could have been better employed in the field Nevertheless, the blow was a revere one, and it staggered our people for the moment, although they never thought of submitting.
But three weeks have elapsed, and the skies are already brightening.
The
Yankees have failed to take
Charleston.
Johnston is falling back to a strong position, with an army increasing in strength every day, while
Grant is pursuing him with an army daily diminishing
Gen. Lee is on the soil of
Virginia with one of the b vest armies that ever trod the earth.
On all sides the sun is emerging from the temporary cloud by which it was obscured, and doubtless it will soon put forth in meridian splendor.
When it shall do so, lot us not conclude that our trials are at an end. We have a long struggle still before us, but courage and perseverance will conduct it to a glorious issue.
