Dayton daily empire. [volume] (Dayton [Ohio]) 1850-1865, 1865-01-16

the most potent influence in the country. /
We mean the holders Of our National
Bonds-the men who possess the eviden-
ces Of public Indebtedness to the amount
Of thousands Of millions Of dollars. That
another year Of war will augment hcpub'
lie debt the extreme ol bankruptcy and
repudistion, is the belief Of every man
who is endowed with common sense, and
possessed Of ordinary intelligence. In
making this assertion We do not take into
account the fact that Abraham Lincoln, in
his last annual message. declared that the
nation is growing stronger by the war,
coupled with the pucrile and silly assertion
that people cannot be much oppressed by
debt which they owe to themselves.
Whether he was so idiotic as to believe
what he said. o. so false and dishonest as
J TO saw what he did not believe, may be
subject Of dispute, but is controversy in
which we feel too little interest to espouse
either side The more intelligent class OF
! Republicans know better. and the more
honest confess what Abraham Lincoln de-
mics So long ago as last summer Gree
/ lev wrote a letter to Lincoln--as we have
Just been advised through Republican
sou,cc-in which he gave so truthful and
so deSpondent an account of our National
finances, that its publication, by LincOln's
command. was suppressed. When Brough,
| in May last, called the National Guard to
aims for hundred days, he proclaimed
that that space of time must witness an
end Of the war, as the Nation could not
prosecute it longer, without plunging into
the abyss of bankruptcy.
Here, then. We have the influence of
every man who has invested in the Ma
tioual Bonds, impelled by sclf.interest ANA
sense OF self.preselvation, to demand an
end of the war.
3 The politicians of the Republican
pal ty-we do not mean the small potato
fellows who do so much abound in the or
ganization, but the more sagacious ones
know that the popularity of the war, now
that it bears so heavily, and makes such
terrible cxactons on the blood and treas
uro of every family, is gone, and that
barna rtor ., n o1not;on ca,, la an, rioI hX. tho
cry of battle, and the clangor of cannon.
Having obtained power, almost universal
ly, by the war, and with leng lease to
run, together with the absolute certainty
that nothing more is to be made by the
same instrumentality, they are quite will
ling to abandon it in good time to he safe
ly mounted on new and more available
hobby by the time of another general
election.
T 3. The bare announcement, made by the
authority of the Administration, that a
peace is n thing to be discussed, will allow
that portion of the public mind, which
arrogates to itself all the "loyalty." to ex-
ercse for the first time since the war be-
gan, the right of free and independent
opinion, and this will beget reinforce
ment to the peace sentiment already exist
ing. as to make its pressure ON our rulers
irresistible.
There are many other reasons we might
assign. which seem TO make the closing oI
the war no longer matter of choice, but
of compulson. Foreign intervention is
to be apprehended, and greater and moi
remote depreciation of the currency &C
= enormous as to render it hardly available
for the purchase of supplies, or the trans
action of business.
This article is too long. already, anC
yet we have hardly begun to specify th'
reasons why we believe that, whateve
may be the disposition of men in power
the war mHst soon cease.
The South is still more exhausted thar
North The ruin of her interests ha
been still more complete than that of ours
a Her people have suffered more than we
and must suffer still more awfully it tn
war goes on.
So that there is every reason that W
can conceive of, why, if negotiations ar
= once begun, they cannot cease until tn
e consummation so devoutly to be wished