LOYAL PUBLICATION SOCIETY, S « 3 BROADWAY. •Vo. 30. REBEL CONDITIONS OF PEACE AND THE MECHANICS OF THE SOUTH. The spirit which animates the leaders of the southern rebellion, and the abject condition to which the despotism they have established in the southern territory, which still remains subject to their rule, has reduced the people of the South, are portrayed in the following articles from the Richmond En- qulrer^ entitled “ Peace,” and the “ Mechanics of the South.” The free and intelligent people of the Northern States will do well to read and ponder upon the conditions which these haughty oligarchs propose to the free Democracy of America. “ They have learned nothing, and forgotten nothing,” and with Maryland, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Mississippi, wrested from their unholy grasp, and their Minister Mason, retiring, in disgust from the doorways of the British Minister, whose anti-chambers have been steadily and constantly closed to- his entreaties, they still imagine themselves, if not the- masters of the world, at least the arbiters of American destinies.. The result of their schemes is shown in the miserable condition to which they have reduced their misguided, deluded and betrayed people, and the mechanics of the North can plainly see what their fate would be should the rebel hopes of success be frilled. Fortunately the present position of their affairs gives neither warrant to their hopes, nor reason for their insolence.
‘71 2 REBEL CONDITIONS OF PEACE. From the Richmond Enquirer of October 16, 1863. “ PEACE.” “ Save on our own terms, we can accept no peace whatever, and must fight till doomsday, rather than yield an iota of them, and our terms are : Recognition by the enemy of the independence of the Confederate States. Withdrawal of the Yankee forces from every foot of Confederate ground, including Kentucky and Missouri. Withdrawal of the Yankee soldiers from Maryland, until that State shall decide, by a free vote, whether she shall remain in the old Union, or ask admission into the Confederacy. Consent, on the part of the Federal Government, to give up ‘io the Confederacy its proportion of the navy as it stood at the dime of secession, or to pay for the same. Yielding up of all pretension, on the part of the Federal 'Government, to that portion of the old Territories which lies west of the Confederate States. An equitable settlement on the basis of our absolute independence and equal rights of all accounts of the public debt and public lands, and the advantages accruing from foreign treaties. These provisions, we apprehend, comprise the minimum of what we must require before we lay down our arms. That is to say, the North must yield all,—we nothing. The whole pretension of that country to prevent, by force, the separation of the States must be abandoned, which will be equivalent to an avowal that our enemies were wrong from the first; and, of course, as they waged a causeless and wicked war upon us, they ought, in strict justice, to be required, according to usage in such cases, to reimburse to us the whole of our expenses and losses in the course of that war. Whether this last proviso is to be insisted upon or not, certain we are that we cannot have any peace at all, until we shall be in a position, not only to • demand and exact, but also to enforce and collect treasure for ■ our own reimbursement out of the wealthy cities in the enemy’s • country. In other words, unless we can destroy or scatter ■ their armies, and break up their Government, we can have no peace; and if we can do that, then wre ought not only to extort :from them our own full terms and ample acknowledgment of their wrong, but also a handsome indemnity for the trouble and expense caused to us by their crime. Now, we are not yet in position to dictate those terms to our enemies, with Rosegbans’ army still in the heart of our country, and Meade still on Virginia soil, but though it is too soon to propose such conditions to them, yet it is important that we should keep them plainly before our own eyes as the only ad- 7^- 705^6
3 missible basis of any conceivable peace. This well fixed in the Confederate.mind, there will be no more fearful looking for news from Europe, as if that blessed peace were to come to us over the sea, and not to be conquered on our own ground. There will be no more gaping for hints of recognition and filling of the belly with the East wind; no more distraction or diversion from the single momentous business of bracing up every nerve and sinew of the country for battle. It is especially now, at the moment when great and perhaps •decisive battles are impending at two or three points, that we think it most essential to insist upon the grand and entire magnificence of the stake and cause. Once more we say it is all or nothing. This Confederacy or the Yankee nation, one or other, goes down, down to perdition. That is to say, one or the other must forfeit its national existence and lie at the mercy of its mortal enemy. We all know by this time the fate in store for us if we succumb. The other party has no smaller stake. As surely as we completely ruin their armies—and without that is no peace nor truce at all—so surely shall we make them pay our war debt, though we .wring it out of their hearts. And they know it well, and, therefore, they cannot make peace except through their utter exhaustion, and absolute inability to strike another blow. The stake they have to forfeit, then, if they lose this dreadful game, is vital to ours. So is the stake to be won if they win anything. It is no less than the entire possession of our whole country, with us in it, and everything that is ours, from Ohio to the Rio Grande, to have and to hold* to them and their heirs forever. But, on the other hand, what we mean to win is utter separation from them for all time. We do not want to govern their country, but after levying upon it what seemeth good to us by way of indemnity, we leave it to commence its political life again from the beginning, hoping that the lesson may have made them sadder and wiser Yankees. We shut them out forever, with all their unclean and scoundrelly ways, intending to lead our lives here in our own Confed-1 erate way, within our own well-guarded bounds, and without, as St. John says, are dogs. And let no Confederate feeble knees and tremulous backbone say to us, this complete triumph is impossible; say that we must be content with some kind of compromise, and give and take ; on the contrary, we must gain all or lose all, and that the Confederates will indeed win the giant game, we take to be as certain as any future event in this uncertain world. Meade’s army and Rosecranz’ once scattered, Lincoln can get no more armies. The draft turns out manifestly fruitless. Both the German and Irish element are now for peace. The Yankees have to bear the brunt of the war themselves, but in the meantime their inevitable bankruptcy is advancing like an
armed man. Hungry ruin has them in the wind. It cannot be long before the Cabinet of Washington will have, indeed, to consider seriously proposals for peace, under auspices and circumstances very different from the present. For the present, the war rolls and thunders on, and may God defend the right.” THE MECHANICS OF THE SOUTH. Abject Posture of Labor and Laborers. The Richmond Examiner, of the 12th inst., says: That on Saturday, the 10th inst., a very large and spontaneous meeting of the mechanics and workingmen of Richmond was held, to consider their interests, and obtain a free expression of the sentiments of the people generally. From the resolutions passed, we select the two following: Resolved, That awakened to a sense of the abject posture to- which labor and we who labor have been reduced, and to the privileges, which as citizens and people, the Institutions of our Country vest in us, we will not sleep again until our grasp has firmly clenched the rights and immunities which are ours as Americans and men: until our just demands have been met by the concessions of all opposing elements. Resolved, That it is the duty of the Government to take care- of the unfortunate, and not the rich. The Enguirer is extremely indignant at this assemblage, and deals with the 44 workingmen” in the following fashion: 44 The mechanics of Richmond enjoy all the 4 rights and immunities’ that any and every other man enjoys, and they will not be permitted to 4 grasp or clench? any more. We hope the Legislature of Virginia will not permit itsef to be influenced by such minatory resolutions' to pass a law forbidden by the experience of all history, and opposed by the teachings of every ’ public economist, and which is now opposed by some of the ablest and wisest men of their own body. The men who compose the armies of the Confederacy have, for the last two years,, permitted all their 4 rights and immunities’ to be most materially circumscribed, their 4 privileges’ reduced to the one high and holy privilege of shooting and being shot for their country. These men, without. shoes, blankets, provisions—in want, and suffering with wounds, and even unto death, have nobly and gallantly borne all these hardships, unmurmuring and uncomplaining. Upon what are these sleepless resolutionists to fix ■their 4 grasps?’ We leave the Governor and Mayor to answer these questions, and to interpret these resolutions, and to decide what their respective duties may be when the 4 grasping* and 1 clenching'* begins?*
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