Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1866-12-15
ssThere Is NO Peace ~

Upon the minds of the people every
where, belief has rested that our country is
in state of Peace-absolute, positive
Peace. By proclamation President JOHN
SON sometime ago so declared. The soldiers
who fought under General GRANT, General
SHERMAN, and under Generals subordinate
to them, are of this opinion. The leader OF
the Radicals in Congress, THADDEUs STEv-
EMS, on the 1lth OF this month, declared
tn 1t "there is no Peace;" but that "this
nation is still in belligerent condition,
and the conquered belligerents are in the
power of the conquerors, to be dealt with
as captives, and not as criminals" The
Presidents Peace proclamations he pro-
nounced as of ''no Importance" and that
'the question of Peace or war is yet to be
decided by Congress" Thus everything
the President has done in the way OF
pacifying the country and rendering the
way to its material prosperity easy, is to
be undone. This undoing-this holding
the country yet to be in a state of War,
and dealing with the Southern people as
captives-all persons who are not mentally
blind must see will be most disastrous in
its consequences upon the prosperity of the
country. With redundant and cheap
currency, the business of the country is in
a acondition bordering on distress-a distress
occasioned in chief through the desolation
and poverty of the South. Whoever will
take the pains to think will realize, reluc.
tantly though it may be, that the assertions
made by Republican politicians in the past,
that the South was tax upon the industry
of other portions of the Union, were in ev-
cry particular false. In the day of her
prosperity, to the other portions OF the
Union the South was a most invaluable
tributary. So she will be again when her
prosperity is fully restored, and her people
come to look kindly upon the people COM
posing the population of the other portions
OF the Union. Look into your own human
nature, and there ascertain whether through
harsh and degrading conditions you could
be brought to look with kindness upon
those who either inflicted or sought to in
fiict such punishment upon you. As your
human nature is, so is the human nature of
the Southern people. AS you would revolt
at the infliction of vindictive measures
upon you, so they are reluctant to accept
with alacrity the same sort of measures
Did the intliction of severe vengeance upon
the Southern people affect them alone,
waving the bad morality of the thing, we
might temper our consciences into
regarding it as right; but when every busi-
ness interest throughout the adhering
States is thereby seriously affected, the
matter assumes an altogether different as
pect. Self-interest then becomes the advo-
cate of lenity and humanity. If our people
want an indefinite stagnation in business;
If they want dull times without seeming end
let them applaud THADDEUs STEVENS in
his position that ''there is no Peace" but
that we hold the Southern people as Soap
tives," on whom 1t is our duty to visit igno-
miny for long period of time. a..
Even now word is being sent out from
leading cities in the North for men and wo-
men not to come into them from the coun-
try with the expectation of securing work.
By representation, it appears that there is
an insufficiency OF work in the cities for
the people who are already in them. Doubt
less there is scarcity of work in the coun-
try for working people. A dullness in every
thing causes this scarcity in work, and as
this dullness is chiefly the offspring of the
South giving to our people no market, our
sell-interest demands that the South should
be Immediately placated, and thus put on
the road to prosperity.