The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1866-12-17
Political Reviews.


true, We can influence none of those pro-
c~eedings; the South lies like a MORALLY
wounded man upon the dissecting table
with surgeons about him loudly arguing
for their respective plans of amputation,
resection, or even post morten examina-
ton. But the patient Is not yet quite q
corpse though motionless, he can hear the
discussion he can see the knives and saws
brsndished around he is but o spectator,
but not an uninterested one and cannot, il
he would, abstract his attention from the
grisly preparations for his own carving-up.
1t is true, the practitioners who have as
sembled for our treatment do talk wild |;
they are only learning their profession
alas at Il expense but his does not
abste our interest in their doings-rather
the reverse.
1t is also an error to imagine that the
South car r~ecuperate and develop her
material prosperity, neglecting all conside-
ration of her civil and political status. If
the people of a subject nation, deprived of
all safeguards of law and right, will labor,
they labor not for themselves, but for their
masters and owners. Those who have the
eating of our bread also. They will find a
way, by taxing us to the quick, and by
cunningly-devised tariffs, to make all our
industry inure to their profit. In short,
a people which has no laws and no rights
has nothing--nothing which it can call its
own. Not only, then, can we not turn
away our eyes, in affected diSdain, from
the action of that Congress, but must feel,
whether we like it or no, that their action
is of very much more Importance to us
than any measures even Of Jul own State
Legislature.
But with all the attention we can give to
the proceedings at Washington, it is hard
to discover anything very certain. For
example whether we are at peace or
whether war is now actually raging. Also,
whether these southern countries are now
States, or Territories, or " Districts" Mr..
THApDEUs STEVENS p~ronounces that the
war is still going on, whatever "the gen.
tleman at the other end of the avenue "
NAV dote TO the contrary. 1t is well
known also that the amiable Secretary of
War. who cannot bear that his occupation
should be gone, is of the opinion OF Mr..
STEVENS: his voice is still for war. BY his
order, a Virginian is at this day awaiting
trial by military commission, after being
acquitted by a civil court. Alate dispatch
also, from Louisville, Kentucky, informs us
that certain vagabonds who stopped rail
road trains in that State care confined in
"the military prison, General THOMAS
"Claiming that they are rebel guerTiAaS."
Are we at peace, then, or at war! Once
il was supposed that there must go two
partiesto a war; and that ifone ofthe parties
have belligerent rights, so has the other.
Have we, then, b~elligerent rights.
And even the question of peace or wal
is not involved in such inexplicable mys-
terry as this other. Are these countries
now States, or are they not! President
JOHNSON says yea but precisely what he
says the Congress is bound to deny, and to
l~egislate in accordance with the denial.
1t is true that even the Congress has hith-
erto treated the aforesaid countries as
States, were it only by offering for their
ratification the famous Unconstitutional
Amendment" If they had accepted that
infamy they would still be regarded as
States: but that being out of the ques-
ton, the Radical party suddenly find
that there are no States here, but eds
tricts"; the new bill for the reconStruc-
ton of North Carolina uniformly deSig-
mates hat region as the district formerly
comprising the State of North Carolina y;
and then proceeds TO provide for the
building up of a new community there al
QUO, as if il were all wild land there on the
hanks of the Yadkin and Cape Fear.
What complexities the puzzle is that at
the very moment when this bill is pending
n resolution is also before the House de-
claring that the southern States will be
admitted to representation in Congress on
the simple ratification of the Constitutional
Amendment. Are we States, then, or dis
tricts, or what? Are we at peace, or at
war ? These are questions which Congress
will probably determine some time after the
Christmas holidays.
There seems no doubt that both Ne
braska and Colorado win become States OF
the Union before the end of the session
and why not Montana, Idaho, Saskat-
chewan, and a few others, TO make up the
needful majority of northern States, and
so make such constitutional amendments
as NAV be deemed necessary?
The only other notable event OF last
week is the passage of the Negro-Sutfrage
bill for the District of Columbia, which has
not vet, however, been signed by the Presi-
dent. When 1t becomes law, the Virginia
negroes will nave a great inducement to
migrate to Washington. A few scores OF
thousands of them settling in the District
would efectually turn the Federal me-
~tropolis into another Timbuctoo.
THE STAY LAw-THE REcEss.-Ihe Dill
for postponing the payment OF the interest,"