Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1861-05-18
The sonlhern unImn,o.

pave appeared OF late IN lue newspapers, that
there are no very violent feelings OF affection
between the people of the two sections Of our
beloved country. There is, to say the least,
reason to suspect that the people of the
South do not love the people of the North,
and Vice versa, as brethren Of the same blood,
race and origin, born in the same country,
educated under the benefcent influence ofthe
same Institutions, pursuing the same path of
intellectual, moral and material progress, and
inheritors of the same glorious destiny, ought
to love each other. The brethren of the
South appear 10 think that the best use
they Gao make Of their brethren of the
North, who come witbin their reach, is to
hang them while the brethren of the
North, not to be behind the brethren of the
South in mutual good offices, seriously con-
template shutting up the avenues, closing the
ports, stopping the steamboats, and railway
trains, and thus reducing them all at once to
a state of starvation. Just at this time the
collective North and the collective South are
o%nlis'iug and arraying enormous armies, the
object Of each of which is to fight against
the Other until one or both shall be annihi-
lated.
TIE end of the war is to bring about a
better state OF ~feeling-upon the hypothesis
that war is a softening, mitigating, pacifying
profess. These angry and unruly passions
have been the occasion of serious civil dis.
orders. The South will no longer sleep in
the ssme bed, nor live in the same house
with the North, unless it is permitted to pre-
scribe the terms of the joint domesticity; and
the North takes upon its part a correspond.
ing position.
We ho'd, and not only SO, but boast, that
ours is a Government Of opinion; that it is
the result of a voluntary agreement Of its
elements to enter into a state of national
unity-that being constructed upon opinion,
and continued by virtue of opinion, its only
hope of cohesion and endurance is through
the force of opinion. Being temporarily dis
severed through lack Of opinion, the logic of
the present condition of things p, that opin
ion is to he created, upon which to predicate
It's reconstruction. Harmony of feeling and
unity of sentiment are the things desired;
we are going to war to gain things that are
desirable; therefore harmony and unity are
the things for which we are about to fight
each other.
We have a right to ask, If Mr.. Jefferson
Davis should advance his armies, cut off the
forces of the Government, cross the border,
seize aDd plumber the principal cities Of the
North, capture and kill two or three hundred
thousands of the Inhabitants, is il probable
that we should love our Southern brethren
with any more cordially or accept a govern
mept upon the Southern basis with any more
alacrity on that account2 Would we be
likely 10 look upon the government so es'
tablished as legitimate, to swear to support
its COZ stitution with readiness and sincerity,
and to boast, ss we have been wont to boast
that it was destined to al eternity of.dura
ton? If we should do so, we should act
differently from what any other people have
acted since the foundation of the world, ant
should acquire the right to look upon our
selves either as the most prudent or the mos
pusil'aDimous Of mankind. None Of tn
descendants of Saxon or Celtic races have
done this; the Coolies Of linda have not dont
it; the Chinese, after we do not know how
many centuries of subsection to their Tartar
conauerois, have ~revolted; even the Afri-
cans have instincts or traditions Of self gov
ernment which now and then testify to theil
existence by an i~ncipient servile ~insurrec
ton; our ancestors broke loose from the ru't
Of a dynasty of their own blood, because il
ives set over them by a will other than theil
own.
II is a question which the Government
perhaps may not entertain, but which the
people may: What is to be done with the
South when it is conquered and prostra.t
beneath that overwhelming force which w
. are arraying against it? Men are prom,
to look upon beating the South as a fnaIity
but is it so in fact? Will the South be easy
in the condition of a conquered and disfran.
chised province and, if not, what then
Suppose the South be beaten to our hearts
content, and for the time being SO discour
aged and impoverished that she can no
help herself; will unity and a~ffection--thing,
that never in any remarkable degree ex,
isted-eDsue2 The Secession idea is as ole
as the Constitution it originated in rivalry,
Jealousy, hatred, unlikeness, in causes Of
Misunderstanding to all appearance perma.
nent: will 1t be worn out by a period o.
temporary prostitution?
The South must either be governed as
province, be left to govern herself unde
the Constitution in the Union, or be per
mitted tokeep up Government of her owl
creation. In the frat case, she will hav,
constantly before her eyes the badges of hel
subsection, and in the second, the elements
Of disuDion, suppressed, but not snnihilated
will be left free to act as heretofore; ant
there is no reason to suppose that they viii
not act on occasion.
We do not profess to answer all the cues
tiOns we have asked, but we have the RICH.
to ask them. Thousands are putting theu
TO themselves, and are seeking, amid the dis
ordered facts Of the times, the mean
whereon TO build an idea of the ultimate
result. War, we know, is a temporary con
ditioD; conquest and subsection are equally
so. Man and his social aud local relation
are the only elements that are entitled to b.
considered permanent. What man has done
thought, felt and become, are the only ma
terials from which to Judge what man will
do, think, feel and become. We only knoS
what we shall be, through what we are an
have been. In view OF This, what is probabl.
the condition which-when she has becom
settled, content, and her social order per1na
nently r~estored-the South will hsv
reached2
THE New Orleans Delta thinks there ma
be "strategetical reasons at this momeu
operating against the advance Of the Confet
crate troops beyond the Potomac. stratege