by admitting the idea of discussion, they commit themselves Lhuys'
proposal, and to mean merely that Mr. Vallandigham to nothing at all, and may back out at any moment. He wishes to insert the thin end of the wedge. Again, all the evidently conceives that if once the North can be tempted into papers, except the Ultra-Republican or Abolitionist organs, the trap, the body of pacific opinion there will obtain an discuss the possibilities of a mediation with a sort of hopeless advantage that will render it infinitely more difficult to yearning ; and some of the State legislatures, as, for example, break off all further hope of peace, than it would now be to New Jersey's, are beginning to toy with the thought of an refuse to entertain the suggestion. armistice or a convention. Then again, though the Repub-
We think there is a certain plausibility in this impression limn Congress is voting to Mr. Chase and to the emancipating of the French diplomatist which makes the immediate Federal States twice as much money as has been asked for the war and situation a matter of more interest than it has been for many for emancipation, this evidently springs from a grave doubt months. Let us see how it bears at this moment, both on the whether the next Congress will not wish to thwart entirely Mr. duty and on the inclination of the North. We must just Lincoln's policy, and is a sign, therefore, that the wish of the remind our readers first, that we doubt quite as little as other Republicans to carry out that policy thoroughly is by no means Englishmen that separation will be ultimately inevitable ; certainly the will of the majority of the people. On the whole, but then the North has only recently pledged its faith very it is far from certain whether, if the South showed any dis- deeply to make the terms of that separation not merely as position to be moderate in its representations to France, a favourable as possible to the Northern power, but as just as very great cry might not yet arise in the North to throw ;he possible to the policy of freedom. It would be shameful emancipation policy completely overboard, and accept any indeed if, after proclaiming emancipation to the Southern terms of peace not quite humiliating. Slaves as a " military and union" measure, it were to desert On the whole, we have every reason to conclude that this them on the first shadow of doubt as to whether the is no moment when the North ought to think of any corn- policy proposed is feasible. Having taken up the slave's cause promise which would not involve a great and very for the sake of union and empire, the Government cannot desert large gain of free territory on slave territory,—that it is no it without a hearty struggle for the cause of the instrument, as moment when it could reasonably demand such a gain as the well as for the cause of the end. To make the promise of price of peace, and that it owes to the world, therefore, to freedom for their own purposes, and yet break it directly they give a fair, and not a short trial, to the great policy it has had begun to imagine it ineffectual for their own purposes, initiated. But yet, if the Emperor of the French should now would be to prostitute the very name of freedom, and to emulate succeed in obtaining even the form of a conference or armistice the South in treating the slaves as their tools and chattels, between the hostile parties, we are inclined to think that the useful as instruments, but having no existence as beings en- inclination of the people at large might probably push the
titled to good faith. administration into a compromise disgraceful to itself, and This premised, let us look at the situation. Tennessee, lamentable for the righteous cause with which, though reluct- Western Virginia, Missouri, Kentucky, and all the territory antly and tardily, the Republican Cabinet has at last identified west of the Mississippi, including Texas, are the regions in which itself. . the promise of emancipation ought at least to take full effect, if it be anything more than a name. In every one of these THE INSURRECTION IN POLAND.
regions, except Western Virginia, a Southern army was con- Q CIENCE has brought many aids to despotism, but none, testing the ground with more or less success at the date 0 perhaps, greater than this. The absolute Governments of the last advices. In Missouri the Confederates had made circulate their own news. If Ireland were in rebellion to- a rush on Springfield, which, though said to be unsuccessful, morrow, Havas and Co. would supply all known details to left them still in considerable force in that State. The Paris before the evening, but when the next rising occurs in Southern General Morgan had re-entered Kentucky. The Hungary we shall, for a week, have only the Austrian narra- Southern General Bragg, defeated by Rosencranz, has been tive of events. Nothing can be more confused than the tele- superseded in Tennessee by one of the ablest of the Southern graphic account of the insurrection in Poland, but the items generals, Longstreet, and the Confederates are again attack- are all most suspiciously favourable to the policy of the domi- ing in force, and threatening General ltosencranz's supplies. nant power. According to these accounts, the Poles had At Vicksburg, the strongest point on the Mississippi, the Con- planned for the night of the 22nd inst. a military St. Bartho- federate triumphhas been complete, and while Vicksburg holds lomew. All Russian soldiers billeted upon Poles were to be out, the river is not commanded by the Federals. Port Hud- murdered at once, and, though the main design failed, many son, the key to two Louisiana railroads and the Hudson River, small detachments were slain, a statement barely possible, but was also held by them. In Arkansas the Confederates, though much more probably invented for the benefit of a class of lIns- defeated, are still in force, and have just been maki g reprisals TOPICS OF THE DAY. for the execution of ten officers by General It'Neil. And, most
___,___. disastrous of all, a Southern squadron has just retaken the MEDIATION AND THE NORTH. strong post of Galveston in Texas from the Union Government,
THE latest news from America is of that curiously and thus opened the whole of that vast territory to the Southern patchwork sort, both in its political and military power. Is this, then, a moment at which it would be decent, aspects, which so often renders it more than difficult to find in or even possible, to ask for a boundary which would secure it any coherent drift towards a definite issue. At the present Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Texas to the moment, with M. Drouyn de Lhuys' despatch of the 9th Janu- cause of freedom ? And yet to demand at the present moment ary to the American Minister at Washington, M. Mercier, just any territory less than this would be a hasty and shame- ringing in our ears, the question which we put to ourselves on less treachery to the cause which the emancipation decree has every item of intelligence is this,—how will it bear on the proclaimed, and which the Representative Assembly, by their French proposition of mediation ? That despatch would pro- decisive vote of 83 to 53 in favour of proceeding with bably have been read to Mr. Seward within a week after the the organization of a negro army of 150,000 men, has date of our last advices, and we may therefore regard just solemnly ratified. It is not in a day or two that the the military and political situation described by the lasteffect of a policy so broad and so slow of operation can mail, as that which would, in general outline at least, possibly be tested,—and no political crime could be imagined determine the view taken of the proposal of France by the of a more inglorious description than the adoption of such a North. The nature of the French proposition need not detain policy without giving ample time to test its influence on the us very long. It is in effect nothing more than an effort to dissolution of the fabric of the old society, and the construe- introduce the bare idea of negotiation in some shape or other ; tion of a new one in its place. in what shape M. Drouyn de Lhuys does not seem very much to But if instead of considering the duty imposed upon the care. If the North and South will but consent to talk of peace, North by the present political and military position we con- either to a French mediator, or to each other through a French sider the drift of its inclination, the conclusion will certainly mediator, or to each other without a French mediator, he will not be so clear. There is no doubt that, while the Demo- be satisfied. He will not even ask them to stop fighting cratic party do not wish to propose a compromise, they while they talk. They may fight on and discuss at the secretly favour all propositions which hold out any hope of an same time, or discuss without fighting—whichever suits early peace, of a less strained financial position, and of a Northern punctilio and Southern obstinacy the best. M. cheek-mate to the Abolitionist party. Mr. Vallandigham Drouyn de Lhuys only asks that the idea of some dis- openly cries out for a reference of the "subjects of con- cussion be fairly admitted; and whether the object be to troversy " between North and South to Switzerland or any canvass the possibility of bases of compromise, or to canvass other power which shall be prohibited from deciding any- these bases themselves, he does not mind. Indeed, at present thing whatever on the questions submitted to it—which we take his main object is to make it very clear to the North that to be a sort of American echo in plain Yankee of M. Drouyn de
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