Daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1865, 1864-12-02


canvass, they had a right to expect. We
are almost tempted 70 believe that the
thinking and better class of the leaders re-
gard the defeat of their party as fortunate
for the country. 1t is certain that with
lsuccess would have come an earnest strug-
ole of the peace faction for the control of
Ithe party and the government, and Vallsn-
dipham and his followers undeniably had
the right to claim that the party was COM
mitted by their policy to the Chicago Plat
form. 1t is obvious that upon the election
of Mcclellan must have ensued great diff.
culties in the prosecution of the war, even
liz the peace faction had not carried their
favorite policy ofarmistfce and negotiation.
We think We cannot be mistaken in
discovering in the immediate acquiescence
of the defeated party in the popular will,
and the strongly expressed and evidently
sincere determination of all the most in
huential opposition press to forego fsctious
controversy and cordially support the ADJ
ministratlon, a conviction that it is best on
the whole that the government should not
change hands at this period of the war
1t was this patriotic instinct that gave to
Lincoln and Johnson thousands of Demo-
cratic votes in States like Indiana, aud
that rolled up majOrities in many places
quite as astounding to the friends as to the
foes of the Administration.
We have already quoted from the Louis
Vile Journal very strong expressions otsup-
port to the Administration since the cleo
tion-no stronger, perhaps, than from others
of the opposition press, but more gratifying,
because the Kentucky opposition have not
only the same reasons, such as they are,
with those of the free States for dissent,
but special and very influential reason of
their own, in the fact that the emancipation
and slave-arming measures of the govern
ment have rapidly destroyed slavery in
that State. 1t cannot, in the nature OF
things, be easy for loyal Kentuckians to
fall in with such measures as easily as the
loyal people of the free States, whose pre-
JUDGES were mainly in favor and not
slow or reluctant to recognize the tried
Unionism of the many thousands in Ken
lucky who, couqueriug all their Prejudices,
and overcoming the resentments, in many
instances, of personal loss, are still keep
ing almost in line with the progressive
hosts here in West Virginia, and the States
east and west of US. We shall soon find
their ranks swelling in Kentucky, for the
opposition there who are Union in their
feelings, must see that free policy in that
State is inst as inevitable as it was here in
West Virginia. We believe that the Lou
isyille Journal represents all the loyal men
of the opposition in Kentucky, when. in
response to Mr.. Lincoln's liberal and con-
ciliatory speech, it says:
1--WE certainly cannot reject this armis-
tice, and We shall have four years to ex-
haust all the resources of Craftsmanship to
bring our erring old whig friends and the
bulk of the war democracy together in per-
feet accord. While the truce lasts, then, let
us avoid all cause of Irritation. Mr.. Seward
will acknowledge that his party judged US
harshly if we agree to be Union men
hereafter. That will not be a difficult mat
ter, for we do not know man who voted
for Mcclellan who was not an uncompro-,
missing defender of the old Union and the
old flag, and one of the joint owners of the
glorious associations connected with them.
Our duty and our inclinations, then, will
lead US to submit to the overwhelming
voice of the peOplej and we will hang up
our bruised arms as monuments of the gall
liant fight we made when oVerpowered by
the avalanche of two hundred and thirteen
republican electoral votes. ViVe lie patriel"
The National Inteltigencsr, which, as we
said the other day, opposed Mr.. Lincoln
with more ability and more candor than
any paper on our exchange list, manifests
much of the spirit indicated by the Louis
vile Journal, and re-asserts its belief
"that slavery is destined to pass away
from the United States and from the face
of the whole EARTH" 1t remarks further
that "the institution has always and.e
erywhere marked a transition state of So
ciety. Slavery is born of the degradation
engendered by evil passions and animal
appetites, disqualitying for freedom."-
These expressions it quotes from its issue
of March 26th last. and re-asserts them now
80 its thorough convictions. 1t is not for us
to ask how it was possible that thus believ-
ing in regard to slavery, our old namesake
could go off in the support of policy,
which, if it had been successful in the late
canvass, would have tabOoed all such
convictions as those protested by the
National I"telligencsr. We do not care to
attempt to reconcile such, to us, obvious
Inconsistency, for We recognize as truth
that great deal of just such contradic-
ton is afloat in the land, and that IL is
the province of those who deal with things
as they are to make it as available as
possible for the Union cause. Both the
L n.;nuiIIn r...-..I -. nr..---a Z