THE CHANCES OF PEACE IN AMERICA. T HE other day a
curious change was noted in the Liverpool cotton market. For nearly four years a Southern success always sent down the price of the staple, because it was sup- posed to involve increased probability of peace. The idea that the South could be conquered was inconceivable to specu- lators, and independence was held to be the only issue worthy of calculation by a mercantile man. The news of the fall of Savannah, however, was followed by a decline in cotton, Sherman's march having made it clear even to Liverpool pre- judice that the swiftest road to peace lay through Southern submission. Ever since that event there has been a readiness to listen to rumours of coming arrangement which may very easily become too eager, and which has this week been kept up by a series of telegrams, all, according to the popular belief, showing an inclination to peace. That belief is doubtless correct, but we would warn our readers not even in their own minds to exaggerate the tendency to admit that peace is needful into a peace immediately at hand. Peace must come some day, and it will probably come in the way suggested by these telegrams, namely, by the separate submission of individual States, but there is no sufficient ground for believing that it is near at hand. The small facts certainly known do not sustain the superstructure erected upon them, and the drift of the great facts is all towards one more hard-fought campaign. It is certainly true that Mr. Blair, formerly member of the Cabinet and a personal friend of the President, has visited Rich- mond, has returned, and has gone again, but that only proves that both Presidents have to conciliate men who cannot believe. negotiation hopeless. The resolutions passed in the Con- federate Congress point to the same design, to justify the war by exhausting proposals of compromise, Mr. Orr, who defended them, stating clearly that he thought it possible to offer terms to the North which would induce it to conclude peace without either enfranchisement or reconstruction, and that in his j udg- ment negotiation ought to be tried. In other words, he thought it possible to offer a Federal alliance for all imperial purposes, which should be as advantageous to the North as Union, and so flatter the victors, as it were, into surrendering the objects of the war. Should his terms not be accepted, and they can- not be accepted, there is no proof that Mr. Orr and the Con- gress will not resolve to fight on once more. Then the discontent in Georgia, though real and serious, is as yet rather a discontent with the Confederate Government than with secession itself. The Georgians think their State should have been defended against Sherman, and have among them a party, probably large, which is utterly weary of the war, and looks toward the old Union with longing eyes. But this party, which exists also in North Carolina and Mississippi, does not state distinctly the terms on which it would surrender independence, still less announce that it will accept the only two bases of peace,—abolition and re-entry into the Union. The utmost that North Carolina, which is from its situation the more independent of the two, has officially done, is to resolve that the President be urged to open negotiations,—a long step from opening negotiations by herself in defiance of Mr. Davis. That gentleman in his reply to the Governor of Georgia is said to have shown much temper, but still he speaks as if he were master of the situa- tica, denounces State action as treason, affirms that direct negotiation through himself would be shorter and simpler than discussion carried on by commissioners, and makes no proposal whatever to commence these direct negotiations at once. As to the Southern Press, no doubt its tone is gloomy, for the capture of Fort Fisher closes the last great port in the South against the blockade-runners. Vessels may still be run into dangerous creeks and little harbours or discharged in open roadsteads, but the difficulties, more especially in the way of reloading, will be great, and the profit on the process inde- finitely reduced. The Southern journalists begin to perceive, too, at last that the struggle cannot end their way, that the population will not consent to perish for a cause which is not really theirs, that slavery really was, as Mr. Stephens said,. the corner-stone of their edifice, and that as this is crumbling away the edifice must fall. But gloomy forebodings are not resolves to accept peace, and though they lead towards them,. it may be through a long road.
On the other hand, when leaving these rumours we come to the cardinal and permanent facts, it is by no means clear that the South is as yet thinking of peace. She cannot have peace without abolition, and rather than accept abolition she will probably make at least one more effort to dictate her owe terms. Victorious over Sherman and Grant she might yet raise a new army, or obtain full compensation for her slaves, or even —in her own judgment—compel the North to accept alliance instead of simple re-union. Beaten she could at the worst only accept the terms now offered, and which in their essence are unchangeable, enfranchisement and submis- sion. Until General Lee is defeated at all events there is nothing gained by surrender, and all accounts yet received point- to one more despairing effort. The relics of all her armies except the one before Richmond are, if we mistake- not, being slowly drawn together into an army to anticipate Sherman in his march to the North, and should he be arrested Virginia can still continue the fight. It is very doubtful, moreover, whether a device recommended by some extre me slave holders has not been adopted, whether the South is not prepar- ing a sepoy army of blacks, who will be repaid for their service by their individual freedom. Thirty thousand such men are- said by prisoners to have been trained and armed, and if they will fight they would fill up many of the gaps in the Vir- ginian ranks. We do not believe they will, but the course of the slaves in this war has disappointed expectation on all sides, and the experiment will take time even to be recognized as a failure. At the worst the Confederates can but lose the slaves, whom, if they submit, they must lose, and a . mere instinct of pride will teach them that any risk which may end in victory is better than any certainty which must imply defeat. They may of course have lost heart to a degree fatal to. pride, but the history of the whole war has shown that it is useless, and worse than useless, to calculate on their want of determination. Throughout, the. Southern leaders have done all that men could do to struggle against an irresistible superiority of moral and physical force, and they will continue to do it to the end, yield when they yield only because they must, perhaps without yielding transfer themselves and their followers into an army under the orders of the Emperor. Maximilian.
We do not argue of course that the South is not terribly weakened, or that the struggle can be prolonged for years. On the contrary, we believe that Sherman's march has revealed an exhaustion greater even than we had been induced to suspect. Not only were all the Georgian troops doing duty in front of Richmond, but they could not be spared, or in other words, three States, Georgia, Virginia, and North• Carolina, could not among them furnish an army of reserve. Hardee's defeat and the Mississippian complaints, the sub- mission of Savannah and General Lee's advice to enrol the slaves, the stories of emancipation and the rumours of new secession, the fall of Fort Fisher and the straining efforts now making to impede General Sherman's march, all tell the• same tale of exhausted resources and defeated purpose. Four years of incessant battle, of a conflict over a surface equal to half Europe, have worn out a race which at the beginning was scarcely a third of its enemies in number, and which is not recruited by immigration. There is no fear of Southern victory now, nor can submission be protracted much beyond another campaign. But that is no reason for believing that. the campaign will not be fought, that one of the proudest and bravest races of earth will submit while resistance is possible, that a nation of slaveholders will accept enfranchise- ment while a great victory might still rebind the fetters upon: its serfs. It is not that peace is distant, but that while Lee's. army remains intact it cannot be held to be near.
Previous page
