The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1861-02-04


While the leaders of the Republican party are
affecting willingness to discuss fairly and adjust
honestly the questions now pending between the
North and the South, their course coaclusvely
proves the fasity of their protestations. Fearful
of losing little popularity at home, the time
serving politicians, Of whom Congress is chiefly
composed, are endeavoring to avoid the response
biity of offering or accepting any compromise
whatsoever. Convinced though they are, that
every day delay is lraught with increased danger
to the country, and that the Union may perish in
fortnight unless the tide of revolution can be
stayed, they are, nevertheless, bent upon post
poning settlement of the dispute for another
month, in order to cast on other shoulders burden
which they have not the strength and courage to as
sumo. To accomplish their ends they have resorted
to all imaginable shifts and evasons. While pro-
Tossing their loyalty to the Constitution, their de-
votion to the Union, and their readiness to make
not merely reasonable concessions, but serious
sacrifices for the sake of peace, they have not
thus far listened to any suggestion or rendered
any overture which is calculated 10 promote a.
settlement of the dispute. They have scarcely
condescended even to consider the complaints of
the South or the charges it has preferred against
the North. When Mr.. SEWARD rose in his place
in the Senate, to argue the questions upon whose
speedy settlement the permanency of the Republic
depends, he cautiously confined himself to illu-
sive generalities. He pictured to the nation the
fearful consequences of disunion, but care
fully abstained from any specific reference
to the means by which that calamity
H. H. Ia 4.
nerve either TO commit himself to any prof
fered scheme of reconciliation or to announce his
positive determination to adhere, at all risks,
to the Chicago platform. Most of the Repub-
lcan leaders have also, like Mr. SEWARD, avoided
meeting directly any of the issues involved in this
controversy; and no one of them has demeaned
himself in this respect in more thoroughly dis
graceful way than Mr.. HALE, of New Hampshire.
We quote portion of his colloquy with Mr..
CLINGMAN, on Thursday last:
Gle wished it understood that in declaring his devo
ton to the Constitution, he did not wish to evoke its
to repress the manifestations OF disafecton in
section of the country He thought the South had all she
Canted; and the Supreme Court in the bred Scott case,
hGd s decided ID. everything IN its faU9r Ma,
adopt that opinion?
''Mr. Hale-There is a vacancy the Supreme Court
Bench and when Mr. Lincoln appoints me to it will
answer the genteman-then my opinion will be worth
something. Laughter The judgment Of the Court
can't be affected By my opinion"
Nobody in the Senate understood better than
Mr.. HALE the character Of the palry subterfuge to
which he here resorted, to maintain his case.
Knowing that the South has no cause to complain
of the ruling of the Supreme Court, he yet delib-
erately insinuates that the slave States are not
content TO abide by the judgment of that tri-
bunal. But if the South was not content
with that opinion he would have no right to
blame it for not being satisfied with guar
antics which he himself does not intend to re-
spect, or to reproach it for demanding some
better security than decision which he and his
party have avowed their determination to repu-
date. He endeavors to juggle the country with
1alsehooo, and he parties its exposure with lest
he mas neither the manliness to meet the real is
sues of the crisis nor the honesty to abstain from
arraigning the South on charges which he knows
are untrue And it is in the hands of men like
this that the fate of the Republic rests. revolu.
ton is hurrying the nation towards destruction;
and they are squabbling over technicalities, pre-
yaricatng about patent facts, and quibbling about
issues which demand the instant and earnest con-
sideration of every honest and patriotic mind.