Daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1865, 1861-05-10
10 the 20 Yorl. e


/ Prom he Nov York POst.l
Aspect OF War.
| There is one aspect, among others, in
which We may regard the conflict now
! forced upon us by the slave States rs an
extremely fortunate event.
/ That the leaders in this rebellion against
the American Government confidently exc
/ pected to make peaceful arrangement
I with the FREQ States, by which they should
be recognized as nation, and tue public
/ property, civil and military, divided be-
tween them and US, there is no doubt.
! 1t was but short time before the attack
on Fort Sumter that JEFF. Davis and his
associates spoke of such an arrangement
to gentleman from this city, whose BUSH
I ness had led him to visit Montgomery, as
an event absolutely certain to happen.
I Let US suppose that these expectations
/ had been fulfilled. Suppose we had said
to Them 1--WE will not enqnire whether
/ in :his matter the real and sober wishes
/ of the Southern people are on your side;
we Will not inquire whether it is not
bold and Intriguing minority that have
seet1ed on the power and silenced all OPP
position by force aud terror. We will as
sumo that the Southern population are
unanimous on this point Of secession. Go,
then, in peacei yours shall be the forts
and RrmOries and arsenals that lie within
your limits yours the miuts and the GUS
tom-housesj We will allow you share Of
the navy proportional TO your population,
white and black, and the extent of your
territory" Such a settlement of the diff
erence between the North and the South
would have left the.C Confederate States ut
liberty to pursue, with all the means at
their command, their plan of founding u
great empire on the basis of slavery. AT
ter they had made secession so easy pro-
cess, the same bold bad men who have hur--
t ried the Gulf States into treason would
have seized upon, every other slave State
to the north of the Virginia forest, and
added them to the new COnfederacy. That
this would have been the inevitable conse-
quence, everybody is now convinced.
With a military despotismIestablished as
we now see it, the first step OF the confed-
crate government, after being freed from
the fcar of the North, would have been to
possess itself of the nearest provinces of
Mexico. One by one, as they might be
wanted, the different portions of that re-
public, and finally its ancient capital,
would have been absorbed into the new
empire. For the thirty thousand soldiers
already on foot, and tue adventures who
migat be expected % 1pin them from the
North, this would haSe proved no very
difficult task. The WRrlike ferYor that we
now witness in the free States-sucll part
of it, we mean, as is inspired by mere love
of adventure, and Is independent of high
er virtues, such as love of country-would
have carried thousands of restless men
southwark to swell the ranks of the il-
vading army. For that part of the armed
fleet of the United States which they
claimed as their share, they would have
found ample occupation in the attempt to
add to their domain the fertile island Of
Cuba. To supply these new regions, ruled
by their proconsuls, with laborers, tile
African slave trade would have been re-
vived with an activity of which the his
tory of the world has never known an ex-
ample.
For the means of executing these plans
tue rebel leaders relied on a more liberal
commercial system than that which has
unfortunately been adopted by the United
States. They thought, and not nnreAson-
ably, that the greater liberty allowed to
foreign commerce within their limits
would attract the merchant vessels of the
world to their ports. In Norfolk they saw
the future New York of the Southern Con-
tedeacy. Freedom Of, commerce attracts
capital and enterpriset 70 the countries in
which it is establislie9s and they naturally
! counted on the influences of both from the
Northern States. The slave trade is the
most lucrative of all possible branches OF
commerce, and upon this they depended to
contribute largely toward building up the
prosperity of their great seats of traffic.
These were the long mcditAted plans of
| the ringleaders in this great mutiny against
the American government, and if we bad
| allowed them to set aside the Constitution
/ and annul ut their pleasure the laws we
I had 10 ~ ka
of the country, who shall ray that these
plans would have been mere dreams r.
Who will venture to affirm that they would
have failed to become solid realities 1t
is only by such decided measures of re
preston as we have now adopted that we
could have prevented them from being
carried into full effect.
By the war in which they have engaged,
the slave States will be weakened and
dePoPulatet, and the military despotism
by which they are ruled, is stripped of the
power of doing mischief except at home.
The army with which they hoped to sub
iugate Northern Mexico is employed to
prop up the rebel government. Navy they
have none. The blockade of their ports
diSerts commerce into other channels in
which 1t will long be likely to flow. The
system of terror by which the rebel gov
eminent is sustained is driving out of the
slave States thousands Of their best citi.
zcns, many Of whom will never RETURN
The humiliation of its commerce will de.
prive the new Gonfederacy of all revenue
except such as may be raised bya mosi
burdensome direct taxation. From the
conflict into which they have rushed, what
ever be the final result, the slave State:
must emerge, thinned in population, more
deeply sunk in barbarism, without com.
merce, Nvithoutarts, crippled with an enor.
nous public dent. and made by their own
mode of conducting this controversy, and
the objects at which they have aimed, the
scorn of the world and the opprobrium Of
the age. twill then be. easy for MS to OBJ,