The Memphis union appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1862-1862, 1862-07-07
POPULAR HALLUCINATION.

a sAAS"A GASA~A OANO -
marked that, in nine hundred and ninety-nine
cases out of thousand a very generally
accepted idea is certain to turn out mere
popular fallacy;" abecause," said he, sit is
found adapted to ahe greater number, whereas
truth is perceived but by the few" The
opinions entertained by our revolutionists on
the effects of the late battles near Richmond
have frequently recalled the aphorism to our
mind, during the last two days; and the more
we observe the secessionizing rebels of Mem
phis, and the more we read of these battles
and ponder on their fore-runners, the more
are we impressed with the truth of the
Frenchmans remark
We perceive, on the most casual investiga-
ton, that when the war passed in its duration
the term of three months, it became a war of
resources; we also see, and see clearly, that
the leaders of the rebellion are now aware of
the fact, and behold no hope of escape from
utter discontinue, save in a removal of the
theater of the war, an endeaver to make up in
the energy of crime what they lack in resour-
ces and the calmness Of true courage. 1t has
become patent to all thinking men that the
establishment of the would.be Confederacy
cannot be secured within its own limits, and
that the war must be carried beyond them to
save rebellion from the eradication that threat
ems it.
An infusion of desperation into the troops,
the abandonment and riAing and desolation of
Missouri, Kentucky, Arkansas and Tennessee
the concentration of all -~1 q forces from
the Mississippi and Shen alleys, in the
hope to rout MCCLELLAN ., ,sn the road
to invasion, is the natural sequence of this
correct reasoning. We have seen its opera
tions, and now tehold its failure The States
named have been melted by the revolutionary
oppression into strong and increasing opposi-
ton to a rebellion for which no tangible cause
can be assigned, and are now under the
national flag, growing more and more recon-
ciled to the right, to their Swn interests and
to the organized freedom of the central Gov
ernment under which they were born.
While such have been the consequences in
the border States, the object for which they
were first misled, and afterwards abandoned,
has not been attained. MCCLELLAN has been
delayed, not routed, nor even decisively beaten,
and now with much appearance Of truth,
claims victory wrenched from the very jaws
Of defeat; and Washington and the Maryland
jewel are as far from the hand of rebellion as
ever. A new call evokes new army for the
North, if it be found needed, but rebellion had
there its last armies of strength; it possesses
nothing on which it can rest for reorganiEa-
ton, or from which it can draw new vitality.
Cabinned cribbed, confined within ever mar
rowing limits, through which it has forever
failed to break, it can only repeat at Richmond
its evacuating policy, which, like the chronic
diarrheas generally attendant on debility, j:
certain to end in dissolution. The candle has
shot its last ray, and it vanishes into eternity
to light at the throne the recording angels
narrative of political turpitudes and unscrup.
ulous crimes unparalleled since the days Of
ECcELINo.
And yet people are found to say that the
uon-taking of unattached Richmond will turr
The rebels into legitimate soyereigns, and for
ever rend the Union OF verify the French
man was right in the remark that the 2opu
larity of an idea is but an index to its fallacy