The Nashville daily union. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1862-1866, 1863-02-15
FROM the RIchu,oha Examiner, Feb, ..
No Chance for Peace.

nominal hostilities; lighting may cease
altogether and, by tacit understanding,
the greater portion OF the belligerent ar
mics may be disbanded or furlOughed.
The population Of the two countries may
earnestly desire peace, and even enter
upon mutual commerce every indica-
ton Of the cessation of actual war and
the abatement Of mutual rancor may
exist; still, no reliance could be placed
upon the existence Of peace until de6-
nitely settled and agreed upon by the
two belligerent governments,
Herein consists the great obstacle to
speedy peace. The pride Of the North,
the obstinacy of the puritanic race, the
stubborn malignity of baflled and de-
feated abolition administration, are diff
culties arising on the very threshold Of
the subject. Then there are great in
trinsic embarrassments besetting the
task. Where is there presented so mag
niflcent an empire as that which must
constitute the subject of division? The
Americans are a people, above all others
in the world, greedy of land. The ac-
QUESTION of land has been the passion of
the people and Of their common govern
ment from the beginning OF their career.
Nor was the sacfa auyi flames more uni
versal or intense in the corrupt days Of
Rome than has been the greed for land
among the American people through all
the existence of the American Union.
The original emipant abandoned the
other continent chiefly because he was
there debarred, by various circumstances,
from ho nf g.
which he might call his own. Since the
Norman conquest the lower and middle
classes of the Anglo-Saxon race had been
strangers to the privilege, the natural
right and the peculiar pleasure of owning
land. Our continent was settled in the
first instance by race famished, by six
centuries deprivation, for the possession
of land. From the Decentralization at
jamestown this has always been the
ruling passion of the American popula-
ton, almost exclusively agriculturists as
they were. The great drawback to the
agricultural development of our country
has been their hunger for land, each
farmer persistently cultivating three
times as large an area as his force of
labor would justify, and therefore be-
slowing only third of the pains which
was due upon what he cultivated.
This passion for land has been collect
i've, as well as individual. Washington
and Patrick Henry were great land cor
morants, but not more greedy than their
contemporaries. And these great men
made land getting one of the leading ideas
of tho great government which they es-
tablished. Jefferson, though moderate
land owner individually, exhibited for
land the appetite and digestive powers
| of an anaconda in his official capacity.
He caused the great Western plains to be
explored, the Rocky Mountains to be
penetrated, and the shores of the Pacific
Ocean 10 be visited, discovered, explored
and claimed, in the name of the United
States of America. He crushed, with a
high hand, the incipient conspiracy for
an Independent Mississippi entire. He
purchased Louisiana.
Even j ohm Quincy Adams, the repre-
sentative man.of New England, the lead
or of weavers, shoe, glove and ready
made clothes, makers, clock pedlers, and
travelling thinkers OF that den Of scoun-
drels--even he caught the inspiration of
land acquisition while Federal Secretary
of State, and purchased Florida, though
he surrendered Texas. a
The sectional quarrel which grew up
between North and South originated part
ly in this thirst for land. One Of the OBJ
iects of the abolition agitation was to ex-
clude the South from the vacant public
domain and to secure it all for the North
The immediate quarrel on which the
Union was split asunder was the quarrel
over Mexico and Kansas, commenced by
the two sections in 1850
There can be no settled, agreed peace
between the two belligerents in this fear
full war without an amieable division Of
the magnificent domain which has here
tofore been held as the common property
of the Union. Is Maryland to go alto
gether to the North, or to be divided &C.
cording TO the prepondersnce Of popular
sentiment in each of its divisions The
integrity Of Virginia can never be yield
ed either by the Commonwealth hersel
or by the confederacy which has guar
anteed il. Will the North insist upol
having the new State Of Kanawha as
sine qua non of peace Are time servini
Kentucky and heroic Missouri to b
given up by the confederacy, as they ar
impliedly given up by President Davi
, in his message? Or win the South in
, sist that the territorial position of on
, and the popular will Of the other rende
their possession by herself a sine qua no
4 of peace? The two great questions
/ whether States are TO be divided at al
, and whether they are to be translerre
entire or in parts 10 the one or the othC
|. party, with or without reference to the
: own election, will not be more diflicu
4 Of settlement than the important ques
/. ton, how shall the vast domain lyin
o west Of the Mississippi be disposed of
Europe was for many centuries Sc
Ting questions similar TO those aflectin
her own communities and the SETTLE
ment cost her millions Of lives and rive
"a of blood. She has at length establishC
q policy aud a set Of principles whis
y serve in some sort TO relieve her pea'
d negotiations Of the embarrassmohts Whit
rs must beset those of new communities Q
" a new theatre in settling the affairs Of
= new continent Nevertheless, all prev
W ously settled principles Of information
g. pacilication were set aide in Europe
the downfall Of Napoleon the Great; al
the leading European Powers, under d
hypocritical title Of the Holy Allian'
g set TO work with callous indifference
NJ all national instincts and traditions,
s establish boundaries, create goyernmer
"a and dispose of people with a single Q
- 70 providing effective checks and balane
~ Of power. Since, however, the arbitra
n, arrangement of 1916, the public po
tics Of Europe has again been co