The Nashville daily union. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1862-1866, 1862-12-23
Can we Buy Peace by Selling cur
Country2 .n

A patriot IL told that he'could escape
the evils Of war, by surrendering TO the
enemy portion Of his country, would
not ask himself whether such surrender
could, but whether it ought to be made
He would inquire, is this honorable
May / sell my birthright, as did EsauF
A refined patriotism would abhOr peace |
purchased at the expense Of his country's
Integrity, and the welfare of his chill
dren. No nation ever voluntarily yielded
70 such degradation. The bloodiest
battles which have ever been fought
have been fought in defence OF national
boundaries.
But let us sink the question Of honor
and look only at that of interest in con-
nection with the present civil war, and
ask whether it be possible TO buy peace
bv bartering away our territory. Can
we. then, by diminishing our Union and
emitting loose from its jurisdiction the
immense area of hill and yally, forest,
prairie and river, stretching away South
of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, pur-
chase a peace from the Southern insur-
gents? We think the idea most unreal
sonable. Such surrender involves the
loss of our largest and most fertile terri
tories. 1t involves, too, their cession to
n government on principle wholly adj
verse to our present political institutions,
and which in its very nature is, and
must continue TO be, aggressive. The
Northern Government would be thorough
" anti slavery, while the Southern Gov
eminent would be thoroughly and en-
tirely slavery. The two great ideas OF
slavery and freedom, vitalized and ener-
gized TO the utmost degree by political
rivalry and by national and personal
preiudices, would be brought face to face
in perpetual combat, whose ferocity
would be inextinguishable and mortal.
What ueace could exist between such
rivals? England and France may be at
peace, FOR they are separated geographi-
cally, and they are both based Gu one
idea monarchy but how could two
nations, who were sundered in the
fires of a dreadful sail war, ont
geographically, and t,co in theii
Fundamental ideas jealous OF each
others power suspicious of each Others
designs and purposes, hating bitterly the
domestic systems and institutions Of
each other; and yet, with all these in
exhaustible causes Of hatred penned up
az il were, by the hand of Providence
himself, in one territory, from which
neither can lily, and where both mus
dwell forever ;--how could such nations
ever hope, nationally, for cessation O
hostilities If the rebels of the Cottor
States, with less than six millions O.
white population with the addition o.
four millions of slaves, which loyal folly
insists on allowing TO traitors), shall b.
able TO wrest the larger and better por'
ton of our soil from us, r'oio, pray wha
will they not do when they shall have
become, by our concession, consolidated
military power? In what would sucf
policy, on our part, be wiser than tina
of the fool who should allow wolf t.
nurse her litter among his children? W.
must believe the authors OF all peace
plans, which involve or contemplate Tho
possibility of our territorial separation
"a either traitors or fools None but foolI
s can really believe that we can buy an
honorable or durable peace by giving VI
our soil TO the public enemy The his
tory of nations furnishes no example Of
a peace so bought. The surrender OF oui
Southern territory involves far more than
n point of honor for it would be the
surrender of more than half Of the great
est country in the world to the eternal
curse of African slavery; it would be
the erection of Chinese wall around
eleven States of the Union, over which
free white laborers, with arts, manufac-
lures and science, might never pass We
have no moral right to thus betray and
abandon the cause of freedom, progress
and humanity, and if the spirit OF oui
ancestors survives within us, we will
perish ere He do it,