Year: 1861

before, Since Tie NhuOn HTal uIch INC Dito'u VI
life, did its great council have such vital and far.
reaching issues to deal with. And yet we do
not think that anxiety mixes very deeply In The
mingled feelings which stir the National heart
For it does not seem as if it were possible for
the best. disposed blunderers or the worst-ds-
posed traitors to 60 far wrong this Summer. The
way Of duty is so narrow that the dullest have
only to follow their noses to keep IN 1t, Whiie


the gate is so straight that no mschiei-loyer Will
fud it easy TO squeeze himself in with his bundle
of compromises On his back. 1t is too soon for


folly or for viainy to try their hands at putting
things to rights. Let them bide their time, and
it will be strange if they do not have o chance
by and bye of bungling and botchiDg to their
hearts content. But just now it will be the
part of prudence on their part to let common
sense and common honesty have their way with
as little mOest1tiOn as it is in their nature to
give to anything wise and good. For, let us tell
them, the Nation is in temper to stand little
fooling ard no knayery.


We know that there have been forebodngs
and msgiyngs as to possible surrenders at dis
cretion to JEFF. Davis on the part of Congress,
wrapped up in some cunning vesture of words
and phrases. Voices have been heard in the air
muttering hoarsely of Compromise, the most ILL
bodng word that hoarsest raven ever croaked.
Political augurs, taking their auspices from the
flight of the obscene fowl that have usually indi-
Gated the course Of our destinies, have vatici-
mated that the future is TO be as the past. Ii we
must indeed, infer what is to be from what has
been, and found our prophecy on our history, we
must allow that the direst Cassandra could not
prognosticate too black fate for us. But we
have faith to believe that it is our past that has
been exceptional, and that it is to be corrected
and redeemed by the normal fitness of our
future. Slayeholdng Injustice does not sit In
this Congress, as in all that have gone before it,
holding in one hand the balance of power and her
sword in the other, aud with her eyes very WIDE
open TO her own ntercsts. Through the fcImenta-
tion in the general mind generated by the collision
Of Southern aud Northern ideas. the Nation has by
degrees been purifying its National representa-
ton, as it has grown purer itself and we are
bold TO say that there was never the same num-
Der Of men 10 Congress assembled in whose hands
the interests of Freedom could be better in-
trusted than those now collected there. While it
is natural and not uDwise to be greatly jealous
of men placed in position which so many OF
their predecessors had found one of overwhelming
temptation, and to watch them narrowly that
they do not through ignorance or crime, betray
the trust reposed in them, il Is no moro than
just to believe that they generally mean to be
true to il and TO do all that we can TO hold up
their hands in what they find Of good TO do.


Indeed, il is scarcely conceivable that any
man from the North, with sense enough 10 have
Won his place in Congress, and with future
before him, should be found ready TO risk every.
thing on the desperate chances Of any such gano.
1t had its reasonable probabilities Of success
once, though every gamester that tried his luck
at it found only rum and death at its issue.
But now it would be hazaTdiDg ones whole
stock of credit, honor, and prosperity, on a die
which can have but one face to ii. IL is very
possible that a broken-dOwn Southern politician
may make the attempt TO daub with that untem-
pered mortar, for he risks nothing, either poiti-
cally or socially, whether he fail or succeed.
He can lose nothing in the South where
he lives by any attempt to give it VIC
tory without the wager of battle. Bot very
different would be- the fate Of any man from
the Free States who should, through weakness
or wckedness, make himself the tool Of the
Slaveholders' party in the North, who are al-
ready laying their nets and preparing
their pitfalls that the Nation may be
delivered over, bound hand and foot, to the
mercy of the Slayemastery they love. Treason
at the North is not dead, but sleeping only. The
men who Dragged the week before Sumter of
the secret associations to which they belonged,
that were to revolutionize the North and ami
hate the Republican party the miscreants whom
the Mayor of Northern City (not Baltirnore)
had rallied to attack the Massachusetts, troops
on the 10th Of April, hindered only by the great
uprising which trampled them into nothingness;
the men who openly ayowed their sympathy with
umph of Davis, all these are only skulking, not
converted. Their organs The Day BOOk, The
Journal Of Commerce, and the like, are even now
preparing the way for foul surrender under the
false preteDse of peace and reorganization. But we
must think the bird must belong to the very
stupidest category known to Ornithoogy or to
Fable, in whose sight such snares shall not be
laid in vain.


We will not affirm that q time when comprO-
mise may be attempted with q chance Of sue
cess may not arrive, for that rottenness has been
SO bred in our bones that it is hard to say that
it will never again break out in our flesh. But
that time is not yet, and with reasonable fore
cast and spirit, it may never come. For, COM
promise being bargain, il takes two parties TO