The Highland weekly news. [volume] (Hillsborough [Hillsboro], Highland County, Ohio) 1853-1886, 1865-02-16
THE ATTEMPT TO MAKE
PEACE.
What is Said BY an AdmInIstrat tlon
Organ.

From the Washington ChropIee, February 6.l
Peace to be Had Alone by Union.
However some of the best friends Of
the Government may have doubted the
policy or the propriety Of the visit of
President Lincoln aud his veteran Sec
retary Of State to meet the rebel COM
missioners, there are two facts which
can not be overlooked, as We read the
history and study the result Of their So
called negotiation. First, the Presi-
dent could not have stood justified to
his countrymen and to the world, il he
had refused to meet these commission
crs. And second, having now met
them and listened to their demands, he
can 60 before his countrymen Of both
sections, and before all the nations, up.
on the record Of the case. We have
only to 60 back to the initial and recent
efforts of Mr.. Greeley, Mr.. Weed, Mr..
Raymond, and others equally eminent,
to see how essential the ripest wisdom
is to the adjustment of our national
undinternationa complications. These
gentlemen, through their three great
newspapers, however opposed on per
; sonal issues, were too conscious of their
r relations to the American people and
S their responsibility to their Govern
: ment, to hesitate at any occasion to Sc
: cure an honorable peace. As they did
!. not far to act on this high motive,
could the President be in different to
,. the public opinion they aided to culti-
vate ? They are neither brave nor sa-
gacious statesmen who, in n crisis so
terrible and so unparalleled as this, can
:, ptand upon personal ideas and refuse to
move from narrow pedestals. Ours is
, the period for large thought and sub
-. lime magnanimity. Hance, when Abru-
}, ham Lincoln and William II. Seward
proceeded to meet the Southern Com
. missioners, VIC honorel them for their
maDIiness and their libcrality. AL
, though they did not fulfill the full ex
a pecta;ions Of the rricn Is Of the Uaion
l. they nevertheless achieved substantial
r victory. Messrs. Stephens, Hunter
d Ex-J ustico Campbell, g., have before
s this laid their case before the Southern
people ; and these people have heard
q or must soon hear, that their leaders
!. would consent to nothing but the re.
n cognition of the rebellion. We arc OF
n course unable and unauthorized to say
g how much Mr.. Lincoln was willing ia
!, concede. Suffice it the only condition
n to honorable peace seems to have been
e declined by the rebel commissio norS-
l. that condition being the restoration Of
a tho Federal Union, and obedience to al
m the laws Of Congress.
q. Could a better picture be laid before
e the deluded and despairing Southern
lP people? Could they see the fendish
ness Of their despots, and tho cage
lie magnanimity Of President Lincoln in
j. brighter mirror2 We assert that Their
is not a man, or a woman, in the South
=, who has ever really believed that th
! people Of the free States would agre
"A TO make peace on the basis Of a separa
ton Of the American Republic. What
= then, must they, the lighting Southern
men, and the starving Southern mel
and women, think of leaders who refus
: to compose our great troubles, unlcs
Mr.. Lincoln agrees to sunder and sur
render the American Union Th
6rst effect of this decision will be t
unite the North and to divide the South
We observe that on Saturday Mr.. Fer
nando Wood, of New York, the YER
head and front of the Peace party, sal
. in the House, after hearing that the re
4. bells had insisted on recognition as
preliminary to a close of the war:
"Rumor said the negotiation ha
failed. It was to be regretted. But
it failed in consequence of the iudispo
sition of the rebel authorities to returr
to allegiance and duty on the basis O
NJ the common Constitution, they nigh
as we'll know, so far as ho represeste,
. the peace sentiment, that be would nc
sustain them in their position. He wa
opposed to the war, because he was op
posed to dissolution; and it has bee
one of his complaints against the Ad
ELL miuistration that so far from maxim
overtures, it had prevented proposition
of peace by denying the admittance {
com mmissioners from the Southern Coz
ernment. But if the door had no
7" been thrown open by the President, an
,is. if the answer to that was that the
would accept their recognition and sep