Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1864-07-28
IL Peace Attainabtel

From an able article in the New York
Times, every jot, little and dot of which
we most heartily endorse, we extract as
much as our limits will admit OF.
"Can peace be had We believe it.
In our Judgment it is sure to come with
In twelve months, if the northern people
are true to their duty. How is it to
Gomez BY negotiation with the Confed-
crate Government No. 1t is the most
baseless and the most perniCious of all
decisions to imagine that the jeff. Davis
crew will treat with our national au-
thorities on any basis that can end this
war. What they have demanded from
beginning has been to be let alone To
let them alone is to make them indepen-
dent. Upon that independence they
have staked everything they have or ex-
pect, on earth They mean to fight for
it, and they will fight for it to the last.
r. They have never yet given the slight
est sign of abating their claim, and they
only utter the absolute truth when they
say they never will. The very spirit of
the arch rebel himself possesses them.
They have an untameable lust of power,
and would sooner reign in hell than
serve in Heaven. An English correspon-
dent in Richmond as he reports, recent
" asked JEFF Davis when this war
would close? Putting his hand ON his
little sons head, the rebel replies "Not
till this boy becomes an old man." 1t
is weakness to doubt that the rebel
ruler, in making this and similar decla-
rations, spoke his fixed purpose. All Of
his past history shows him to be man
who means what he says; and no rebel
Of his mould ever took backward steps.
Independence Jeff Davis cannot
have. Here and there is a creature in
the north who would yield it, but
the great body OF the northern peo-
pie are incapable of any such treachery
to their fathers and their children
With only that alternative before Them
they will fight this war for years, and,
if need be, until the determination of
which the rebel chief talks is made a
dire reality At whatever cost to this
generation, this Republic, which was
made for centuries and ages, shall be
saved.
How then, is peace attainable2 In
two ways. By separate state action in
the south, or by conquest.
Peace is to be attained by separate
state action through the power of the
people. We are now having practical
Illustration Of the process in North Car
olina. A Governor is to be elected in
that state next month. Two candidates
are before the people Governor Vance,
the present incumbent, and w. G. Hol-
den. The former Of these is an adhe-
rent Of the Richmond Government, will
ling to stand by its fortunes to the last.
The latter is an enemy of that govern
ment, and is pledged, if elected, to call
convention to sever all connection with
it. The last accounts make it seem
very probable that he may be elected
There are two tremendous motives ope-
rating to produce this result. First, the
general falling condition of the Confed-
WniCn 10 III
spite Of all misrepresentation. Second,
the fact, staring the people of North
Carolina full in the face, that when Lee
is driven from Virginia he will fall back
into their state, and, If once allowed a
foothold there, will make it the same
terrible scene of desolation Virginia now
is. The only way to prevent this is for
sovereign convention Of the state to
assemble, to declare the state no longer
member Of the "Confederacy," to call
: home its forty or fifty thousand soldiers
to protect the state, and to ask the Fed
eral Government to assist in that work.
This request would be met with ready
and liberal spirit. Gov. Holden, if so
elected, would have but to utter the first
syllable of such solicitation to insure
from the Northern people a special army
Of hundred thousand volunteers, il
there were neel., to defend the old North
State from Confederate invasion.
Peace, SO far as there is no such vol
untary action by the southern people, Il
to be attained by conquest, in precisely
the same way that 1t has been already
secured in Tennessee, in Louisiana, and
in Arkansas. What has been effected In
the past demonstrates what can be eff
fected In the f1ture IT may cost a yraa.