The Daily Dispatch: January 15, 1864., [Electronic resource]

The message of President Davis at the North.

‘ But amid all these avowals and upbraidings no word escapes Mr. Davis indicating the possibility of submission. He seems to place such complete reliance on the stubborn constancy of his people that he deems it safe to state, without palliation, the most unwelcome truths. Whoever infers from this gloomy message that the rebels are about to give up, draws a conclusion which events will disappoint, and which careful reflection on the message itself should suffice to confute. If the rebels had any thought of surrender they would not thus turn their Confederacy inside out for our inspection. If they considered negotiations for submission within the range of possibility, it would be their one to conceal their weakness, in the hope of thereby obtaining more favorable terms. These bold confessions are among the most painful proofs of undaunted and invincible determination which the rebel chiefs have ever given.

’ But why is it that they are so stout and resolute under such accumulated misfortunes? What is it feeds the political passions which, so constantly rise superior to calamity? Why is it that wave after wave of our successive victories dashes against their spirit of defiance without impression? There one explanation. The Administration have none against the secession mad bull with a sword on one hand but with a red flag in the other. They infuriate him more by constantly brandishing the flag than they subdue him by their blows. Who can believe that, after all their sufferings, the South would be so stiff and high, if, throughout the war, the only issue tendered them had been a choice between allegiance to the Constitution and resumption of their old rights under it on the one side, and a continuation of the war on the other? Our military straight jacket and heroic treatment will never bring them to reason so long as we counteract the effect of our remedies by lecturing the patient about the topic on which he went mad. Until the Southern mind ceases to run solely on slavery, cure is impossible; and yet Mr. Lincoln keeps thrusting this subject upon their attention in such a way as to add new exasperation to their most inveterate prejudices.

Which is easier, to create an abolition party in the South or in the North? In the North one would presume; but it was found impossible to souse even the North over head and ears in abolitionism at once. The Republican party has steadily tended towards abolitionism from the beginning; but even to this day it durst not risk an election on the naked abolition issue. What, then, can Mr. Lincoln be thinking of in presenting the naked is sue to the South? Why does he not imitate the prudent cunning of his party in the North, and manage his politics under a less odious flag? The South is not likely to swallow without dilution, a dose which nauseates even Northern stomachs.--The Republicans carried all the recent elections on the prosecution of the war, purely and simply conscious that they would everywhere be beaten if they dared to offer an abolition front. But Mr. Lincoln presents the naked hook to the South, without any bait to cover it; surely no man out of an insane hospital can expect it to be swallowed. He has rendered a Union party in the South impossible by making union the inseparable yoke fellow of abolitions he has perpetrated the absurdity of expecting that elections can be carried on the abolition issue at the South, when it is notorious that they cannot be carried on that issue in the North. It is in consequence of such follies that victories on our side produce no submission on theirs.