Year: 1861




HEALTHFULNEss OF THE WAR.


George Wilkes writes from Washington
to the Spirit Of tie Times" Subordi-
nate to these political positions, there runs
a vein of living hatred and contempt on
the part of the people of the South to-
wards us, which Northern men can no
longer brook; and which exceeds in ran.
cor anything ever entertained against us
by foreign foe. AS therefore we are
both of us to occupy this continent to-
gether, even if not united, it is absolutely
necessary this feeling should be cured, and
it can only be cured by the embrace of
battle. 1t is altogether probable that we
shall like each other a great deal better
after passing through such a trying Or.
deal, and the public spirit of the nation
will be, doubtless, much elevated and i'm
proved by the sacrifices which we shall all
be called upon to make. We should,
therefore, cease to look forward to the
coming struggle as an unmixed calamity.
War has been said by some philosophers
to be the natural condition of mankind.
The stagnation of long peace breeds can
kers in the soundest body, aud even
water will, at stated periods, rot and re-
bel until it purifes itself. Let us, then,
chccrfully accept this war. 1t matters
not what intermediately we may lose, so
that in the end we may save ourselves.
Let no man on either side however, mis-
lead himself with the idea that the ques-
ton is to be settled without battle
fierce, bitter stern, and bloody. battle.
No other settlement has now become de-
sirable by either side, and am well sat-
isfed that it is the fixed opinion of most
Northern men, even of those who still
feel kindly toward the South, that any
settlement which does not include battle
in it's features, would be the greatest mis-
fortune that could befall the country.
Such, too, believe, is the opinion of the
government, and it springs from the con-
viction that the entire Southern people
misunderstood US, and, in fact, despise
us, in so vital a particular that we are
not fit to live together until both are
forced to mutual respect. They actually
look upon us in regard to courage as little
better than 50 many Chinamen or Sepoys
and the secret of this whole rebellion is
not any new enlargement of slavery, but
the revolt of set Of barons, who, foI
thirty years, have encouraged themselves
to believe they are of superior race, and
fancied they had hit upon proper period
to withdraw and prove 1T. Though es
sentially astrocratical in all their senti
ments and institutions they had main.
tained an alliance with the democratic
party, because they had certain CONNER
cial principles in common, but they prompt
ly sacrificed that party as soon as theil
mistaken pride had culminated, and lcf
it captive in the hands Of the republicans
1t was some time before the democracy
could understand the philosophy of this
action by its aristocratic ally ; but tht
depth of the desertion broke upon it il
the Acknowledgements of such men as Yam
cey, Keitt, and Rhett, while the recently
developed predictions of statesmen lik'
+ Calhoun enabled it to realize the uses Il
which it had been put. The result j
that the indignant democratic party nov
} stands foremost in this war; and seeks
, fresh ascendency by new devotion to tn
nation. 1t will not be hasty to form
new alliances with party which acknowl
} edges that all its tendencies are aris
tocratical, and whose main maxim, as ut
tered by one Of its leading statesmen, is
that oil labor is dangerous" al yon