Daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1865, 1863-05-21

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I,'TBe Dark ana the Brtght side OF the
1sat liis slsgs War. l.F i.,4a.i.,,
Weyare apt to discourage ourselves too
IlmnOhlinnlooking at the blunders and fail
ures,and disasters of the war. There is
enopgh on that side to stir up all the
growl that is in man; to make one
wish for the resurrection, if it we're only
of the dry bones of some Old Hickory or
Oliver Cromwell to rattle with little en-
ergy in cabinet aud in camp; to show
the painful contrast between the profuse
offerings of the nation and the reckless
squaudering of them, the magnificent
preparations and the mean product, the
heroic sacrifices of the people, and the
easy folly of their leaders. There is
enough to make honest Mr. Lincoln ex-
claim, as he is said to have done, "Can it
be that God is on the side of the rebels in
I L i H. 2. II 40. y
this war!" And enough to suggest that
the devil has pretty long hand in vari-
GUS matters on our side. The war, look
ing at it as war, seems to be poor
kind of sham, only saved from being lu-
dicrous by its too melancholy cost. It's
hard to account for the uncommonness of
the plainest kind of common sense in
those Straightforward transactions that
make up the greater part of history; SO
that we appear to be left to the care Of
about an equal proportion of knayes and
fools The Government is robbed scan
dal6usly by its own agents, as if it were
nothing but an old woman, and it don't
appear to know of any remedy. And SO
1--we might 60 through catalogue of deg,
radntions and wastes and prodigalities
and fOllies, long enough and base enough
to excite speakablocontemptand shame
and with absolutely no promise so far as
our functionaries go, of any reform. All
this is discouraging. We should try
therefore to lookat another side, if there
be better one; and we think thercis.
While the war and the public manage.
ment suggest SO much that is dishearten,
ing, there has been a marvellous and
cheering and steady progress of public
sentiment in the right direction. Poor
as have been our material victories, ou4
moral victories have been prolific. Ideas
have advanced at the double-quick. opin.
ion has marched uninteruptedIy forward
like an army that knew no defeat In
its views of the crisis the nation has
grown old century in biennium.-
Prejudices have passed away. Old per
suasions have given place to new. New
theories have become oil controlling, and
men of diverse parties and opposing fac
tions have united firmly in the adoption
and the maintenance of the same central
truth. On the main question, which uu
derlies the war, there is already unan
: unity, not merely at the North, among
men who have always, and sometimes vi
olently, differed, but also on the part o.
loyal southerners, Isuch as Hamilton Of
Texas, johnson of Tennessee and Winter
1 Davis of Maryland, and thousands repre-
sented by them, which involves a moral
phenomenon. The discussions ofan agt
could not have produced this. The leg
islation of forty Congresses would moi
have brought it about, Novels graphic
as Mrs. Stoves, speeches Ciecronian a
Summers, journalism as earnest as that
of the radical press, statistics US lumin
Gus as those of the national census, NIGH
have, all tended to it, but would have beer
inyain. Theories grappled; the division
ofsopinion only widened. But the new
experience of.war has wroughtwonderfu
harmony. aa sasss
! Here is revolution as extraordinary
as any in history. The ideas of a natior
] have met conversion, Two years hay'
wrought whole volumes of history. 10y
+ atty is unanimous that as slavery is th,
cause Of the war, so it must perish witt
it, And those reyerses which we hay'
considered unfortunate, and which v,
have deprecated with such impatience