New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1865-09-12

would combine and buy up hundreds Of mil
lions of acres for a song, and then turn to the
holders and say, Don't make fools Of your
selves. We will fight you if you insist on it,
but why should youi Our true policy
is compromise. Here are you, Mr.. Jones,
with ten thousand acres Of Mississippi bottom,
which we have purchased Of the Government
for $500. Give us a quitclaim to one-half, and
we will give you a quitclaim to the other half.
You will then have moro land than you
want; we shall have made good thing OF our
purchase, and all be serene. Or, if you choose,
we will fight it out with you, either in law or
with arms, as you shall indicate" And, after
a season of wrath and buster, of chaos and in
dustrial stagnation, a compromise would be
patched up; and few Northern spectators
would own hundred million acres of Southern
lands, bought for song. II any one supposeS
this would be advantageous to the immigrants
soon to pour into the South by tens of thousands,
we beg leave to differ.
Unless all History is fable, the Government
would realize next to nothing from this whole
sale confiscation. Who can recall an instance
wherein Treasury was filled or a Public Debt
extinguished by the proceeds Of confiScatlon
Nlarshals, judges, informers denounceT, specu'
lators, and the whole vulture tribe whom the
scent of fat carcasc calls together, would be-
come suddenly and fabulously rich; but pre-
cous little net proceeds would ever reach the
Treasury, unless Human Nature has totally
changed within few years; and of such change
we can see no evidence.
Worse than all the Southern People would
starve TO death while the Transformation was III
progress. No one would SOW in doubt as to who
should reap; no one would build, or repair, or
make any considerable improvement, on land
seauestrated and about to be sold to the highest
bidder: all would be stagnation, disgust hesi-
tancy-no one employing labor and no one
choo1iag to add TO the valuation Of q property
he, with very scanty means, was hoping to buy
In our deliberate judgment, Mr.. Stevens'S pro-
iect, if executed, would kill more of the Blacks
than the war has sent to their graves, and not
many fewer OF the Whites.
But we object, moreover and most earnestly,
to Mr.. Stevens's project that it strongly tends
TO throw the more intelligent and substantial
Southerners into the arms OF the Northern Cop
perheads, to the lasting injury Of both North
and South and of our whole country. He
seems not TO care for the Enfranchiscment OF
the Blacks; while to US that seems Of the NJ
most consequence, the clearest benefcence, to
every part Of our country. And we protest
against any warfare upon Southern property,
for many reasons, but especially because the
Weather class of Southerners, being more en-
F, ligh,ened and humane than the ignorant
and vulgar, are less inimcal TO tho Blacks,
and are the class more likely 10 favor their en-
lfranchisement. They are not the great prop
erty holders, North or South but the rowdy,
shirtless thriitless blackguardS, who break up
Black schools, as lately at Decherd, or who as
sault. abuse and murder Black women and
children. a. was done by Seymours " friends "
in this City in July, 1868. Earnestly striving
for a true, lasting Peace between North and
South. White and Black, freemen and freed
men, We regard every scheme emanating from
an earnest and prominent Radical which will
be deemed harsh or unjust by the South as,
while ioredoomed to failure certain to work
vast and enduring mischief through its inhu-
ences on Southern opinion and action. We
trust even Mr. Stevens will think better Of it;
ard in this hope commend % his thoughtful
consideration the following passage from a
speech of Mr.. Sumner on Confscation, in Sem
ate, June o. 1862:
Let me confess frankly said Mr.. So
that | look with more hope aud confidence
10 Liberation lhe would now say Enfranchise-
mentl than to Coniisca,ion. To give free.
dom Is Hoblcr than to take property. and this
occasion cannot fail 10 be eicaoous; for in this
way, the rear guard Of the Rebellion viii be surely
changed into the advance guard Of the Union There
il in Confiscation unless when directed against the
criminal authors OF the Rebellion, harshness incon
sstent with that mercy which 1t IL always a sacred
duty to cultivate. and which should be manifest in pro-
portion TO our triumph mighest in the mghtiest.
But liberation is not harsh; and certain If properly
conducted TO carry with II the smiles OF bcnignant
Providence