Holmes County farmer. [volume] (Millersburg, Ohio) 1857-1926, 1865-03-30
A WORD to the wise.

The, policy Of Mr. Lincoln and the Repub-
lican leaders toward the southern rebels i
precisely that of certain royal and priestlv
Christians teward the jews in the thirteenth
century. so far from desiring in that ago
ito convert Them" says Hume, ''it was en-.
acted by law, in France that IL any jew
embraced Christianity, lac forfeited all his
goods, without exception, TO the king, OF
his superior lord. These plunderers were
careful lest the profits accruing from their
,do9iilmonl over that unhappy race should
be diminished by their conversion"
Obedience 10 the Constitution and tho
laws is not what majority of the Republi-
can leaders wish to compel the southern
rebels to, any more than TO propagate q be-
! lief in Christ as the Messiah was the object
sought by the extortions of Philip Augustus
| ~ france, or the tyranny and rapine of Eng
/ llgh King John The last message of Jeffer-
son Davis is the best possible proof that
Democratic administration at Washington,
or even wise Republican one, might make
a stable peace with the rebels and restore
the authority of the government over the
seeded states at once, honorably and com
plctely. Davis says, substantially Pres
''ident Lincoln has declared that he will not
treat with the confederacy, that he will not
treat with the states separately, that he
will not give his General au-
"thority to treat. He will have nothing
from US but the voluntary dispersion ofour
forces, which arc all that shield our prop
'erty and our lives, declared by the laws of
'the United States to be forfeited and lost
for our guilt as rebels. Therefore to talk
''or think of submission is to choose the
worst Of two evils, to abandon our one only
future hope, to accept and invite the very
worst Of human evils, which by fighting
I'VE may possibly yet escape That is the
substance Of Jefferson Davis's message to
the confederate Congress. The skeleton is
padded out with diplomatic phrases, but
not one shrewd rebels, not one acute ankee,
reads it in any other sense. 70 the same
effect precisely is this most significant asser-
ton in yesterdays Tribune;
g. We are coH6dent that tie rebellion rs
cYvsied and further Lloodshed useless Only
sife that the 1cdr sioH roo end--let hin, ap-
peal 10 the people Of the South to stay this
useless, ,cdstefh efts,on Of JLood, and thro1o
herselfop he c'cneacy Of the country, and
IRE fs7nH Jciiecc that the meet thirty days
man SEE the close of tie ,rdr.
Every drop Of blood split henceforth is
crime, every life lost on southern battle
fields henceiorth is q murder ofwhlcn Pres
ident Lincoln and his present trusted ad-
visers are guilty.
But these Republicans, like their very
/ Christian predecessors, have been extreme
/ ly careful lest the profits accrulng from their
administration Of the superior power and re-
sources of the North. which now are forcing
the South to the wall, should be diminished
I by rebel repentance. If any Jew embraced
the Christianity 50 piously propagated by
4 those Christian priests and kings, as means
OF escaping the piliagc and the extortion
which found its excuse in their Jewish taIth,
he forfeited all his goods to his lord. And
so these Republicans are planning to proht
themselves, either by the cOntumacy or the
repentance of the southern rebels. If the
rebels choose the least Of the two evils,
which are the only alternative Mr.. Lincoln
/ hold, out to them. and continue fighting,
then these Republicans hold on to the ad-
ministration and glut their greed with the
profits upon the vast expenditures OF the
war, and the numberless appointments IN the
army. and Offices at the North, which 1t has
oppened TO their ambition and to their
] avarice. If the rebels make choice OF the
sharpest horn of Mr. Lincoln dilemma, the
Republicans profit equally, for the contiscat-
! ed plantations Of the South they can then
-, buy at government sales for a song; they
E can use United States troops to drive the
) emancipated negroes to their work and to
, keep them in subiectiOn, as has been done
in Louisiana. and the hundreds and thous-
ands of federal, state, county, city, and town
Offices which they would at once fill with
their northern partisans, would be new and
gigantic bribe to corrupt the public morals OF
the North to win the vepal, and retain the
allegiance Of the faithful here while at the
South it would be a most effective and easily
welded machinery for forcing the vote Of
J. Ill i,,,a c,,br torrinr
it into accordance with President Lincoln's
will
;. Again we warn our readers and the coun-
try that Democratic institutions cannot,
among us at least, survive either the success
of the Republican war-policy or the sue
cess of the Republican peace policy, II that
can be fifty called a peace-policy IN
any sense which four years ago made use OF
a peace-convention to precpitate the war,
and to-day makes use Of peace conferences
to prolong war
, And we warn those of our political oppo-
nents who, disagrceing with the Democrat
, ic party on all other points, agree with son
= these civil liberty shall not perish
, here that free Institutions shall be rescued
: alive CUT of all the perils of civil war; that
, Local selfrovernment shall be the law of this
. land in great things from the splendid Capt.
tai on the Potomac TO the humblest school
Fl house in Florida, in Maine, or in Oregon
, that we will have states and not an empire,
that our chief magistrate shall be a Presi-
/, dent in fact as well as nothing more, as well
=. As nothing less,-these men, our political
= opponents, we warn and adiure that all their
Z energies. are needed, and needed now to
: nrerent what it may cost this people years
\ of anarchy in our own cities and states, and
q years of bloodshed at our own hearthstones,
: : to care. Nothing is too high, a price for
, any people to pay for Order and Liberty
= Both together We Americans will have
: In our most serious Judgment it rests with
, honest Republicans now TO decide whether
; they shall be secured by the ounce of pre-
E vention now, or hereafter with the pound of
cure. ". y World