New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1861-02-19
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Ex1E PEACE Il "a Il SS.

4
The Peace Congress AZ Washington is said te
have adopted the proposition submitted by Mr.
Guthrie Of Kentucky. The vote, which was taker
by States, was twelve in the affirmative to eight il
the negative.
aNhaf the Guthrie proposition is we are hardly
prepared 70 say. We have read it. but without
being able to arrive at an exact understanding of
its meanings 1t seems to be- in effect the Critten,
den proposition covered up with mass of YER
| htage, and needing sadly some foot.notes to
explain it.
This opieatIon, however, is not at nil serious
one, inasmach 1t makes not the slightest differ.
| ence in the world whether the proposition be an
| Ineligible one or not, This feeble attempt to
patch up compromise has proved even more
feeble than we anticipated,
Everybody will agree that no settlement of the
question is desirable unless it be cordially agreed
to BY both sections in good faith, and with firm
purpose to respect and observe all the terms of it
Tor all time to come And yet we see eight North.
ern states refusing to aecede to propositions that
We know would be repudiated, with equal prompt
ness, by the seeded States of the South.
The man must be willfully blind, it seems to us,
who fails 10 see how entirely incapable of adjust
ment this controversy is, with any view of res
teration of the old Union. Both Houses of Con-
gress appointed committees early in the session,
and these committees have been tinkering the
question for nearly three months, and what is the
resuit5 The result is, both of them have given up
the job in despair, and the committees, we be-
lleYe, have even ceased to meet The reports
they have made have caused no more sensation in
Congress than the presentation of memorial for
an increase of pension
Besides this, every tifth:rate politician in the
country has brought forward t'plan," which, in
his own opinion, will easily save the Union if
adopted. No one, however, agrees with him in
his opinion, and his " plan Z is forgotten the day
after il is proposed
Lastly comes the Peace Congress- for the avowed
purpose of doing what they themselves must ad-
nit is an impossible thing Several of the North
ern States, indeed, absolutely refused at first to
have anything 10 do with it; and they only sent
commissioners at the last moment, not with any
view to fair accommodation, but for the purpose
of voting down fair propositions, and keeping con-
cessioas to the South from being made. We are
glad Of it; for. as we have repeatedly said, we
want no concessions and no compromises wrung |
from an unwilling and reluctant people,
There are now two divisions of the Black Repub- |
Greeley and Lincoln, is the honester Of the two.
Ihey say, and they say boldly and frankly, that
hey have won the Presidential battle upon certain
ixed and defined principles, and it would now be
lnmanly and eowardly to desert those principles
upon compalsion alone, their real convictions re.
naming unchanged. And we altogether agree /
With them. As little respect as we have for Black
Repnbiicanism, we would have still less if ii
'ieded to fear what it has gained on that which it
considers principle.
A simple statement of one issue only, out of the
many that exist, will suffice to show how utterly
impossible it is to compromise this difficulty, The
'orth claims that slavery shall not be introduced
ITO the Territories and that no more slave States
ball ever be admitted into the Union. That was
he leading object of the formation of the Black
republican party. The South claims precisely the
sRerse. 10 talk about compromise in case Of
lat SORT IS as absurd as to suppose that one indi
aaai could be in Europe aud in America at the
lme moment, or that tive men could ride astraddle
morse without one Of them being behind the
ther.
There IS one way to settle this thing, and one
MY. And that is for the States to part in peace,
eeing that It's impossible for them to agree upon
he terms on which they will live together.
The South does rot desire the Republican party.
Or; the sake Of the Union, to falsify their own
lords, and cover themselves with the mantle Of
lsgraoe, by saying that they are willing that
lavery shall go into the Territories and be pro-
ected there, when we know that they are not will
ng that any such thing shall be done. The South
axes the position that this is controversy which
annot be settled in the Union without one section
+ the other yielding absolutely. Seven States Of
ne south have determined that they will yield no
onger TO the Abolition demand that their property
e excluded from their own Territories; and thew
ave solved the question in the only possible way
can be solved, as every days experience goes to
low Let the Peace Congress recognize the plain ,
nd palpable fact that the Union is dissolved be-
ond az probability Of reconstruction and earn
le tllie which has been given to by advising the
ew Administration against the folly and the mad
ess of coercion.