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fidential" employés of the Rebel Government breaks down. Jefferson Davis " controls the armies now at war against the United States," as the head of that "Government" with whose "wishes and opinions" on peace they "are entirely familiar." Knowing that "their Government" is unalterably determined on maintaining independence against "the integrity of the whole Union," they declare that their rulers "have no right to barter away their priceless heritage of self-government." They also say for their people at large: "While an ardent desire for peace pervades the people of the Confederate States, we rejoice to believe that there are few, if any among them, who would purchase it at the expense of liberty, honor, and self-respect. If it can be secured only by their submission to terms of conquest, the generation is yet unborn which will witness its restitution." And so the affair terminates.

It thus appears from this last semi-official effort, conducted by these "confidential" gentlemen, that the rebel authorities and people, although anxious for peace, and anxious to throw the whole responsibility of continuing the war upon our Government and people, still insist, as the only possible basis for peace, on a total dismemberment of the Union, and a complete establishment of the Southern Confederacy as a separate nation.

MISSION TO RICHMOND. PEACE AGAIN.

About the time that the Niagara Falls conference was in progress, a mission was undertaken by two gentlemen to the rebel capital, which has generally been understood to have some connection with movements for peace; or, at least, to ascertain, if possible, the temper of the Richmond authorities on that subject.

Whatever its object may have been, it is known that

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Colonel Jaques, commanding an Illinois regiment in the Federal army, and Mr. James R. Gilmore, of Boston, made a visit to Richmond in July, and after having intercourse with the Rebel President and other officials, returned within the Union lines. Their mission was authorized or permitted by the Government at Washington, and they were passed through the lines of the army by General Grant. They were kindly and hospitably received, as they report, during their brief stay in Richmond, and had an opportunity to gain valuable information.

All that bears upon our immediate subject, so far as the object of this mission has been made public, is found in a letter of Mr. Gilmore, under date of July 22, 1864. Referring to the Niagara Falls conference, between Messrs. Greeley, Clay, and Holcombe, he says:

It will result in nothing. Jefferson Davis said to me last Sunday,— and, with all his faults, I believe him a man of truth,-"This war must go on till the last of this generation falls in his tracks, and his children seize his musket and fight our battle, unless you acknowledge our right to self-government. We are not fighting for slavery. We are fighting for Independence, and that, or extermination, we will have."

This statement shows, that the position taken by Mr. Davis as late as Sunday, the 17th of July, is precisely the same in terms, upon peace, as that declared by Messrs. Clay and Holcombe, in their final note to Mr. Greeley, under date at Niagara of July 21st. The great point which divides the parties is the same now as in the beginning, and is that which led to the war; the rebels determined on dividing the Union, destroying our nationality, and claiming self-government and independence;" and our Government determined on maintaining our nationality and preserving "the integrity of the whole Union."

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Whatever Mr. Davis,-who is indorsed by Mr. Gilmore as "a man of truth,"-may find it convenient to say at this

late period, for private or public effect, for domestic or trans-Atlantic consumption, about their "not fighting for slavery," the world well knows,-the proof comes from the rebels themselves, and we have given it in full,-that 'slavery" was the prompting cause which led them first to "secede" for "independence," and then to "fight" in order to establish it.

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Our main purpose, however, in referring to these late movements upon peace, is to hold up the fact that it is our nationality which is at stake in the war; that the rebels will not make "peace," though they may constantly clamor for it, except on the condition of a total destruction of the Union. This is their ultimatum, and it has been their position from the first. We are free to say, that as to maintain "the integrity of the whole Union" was the position taken by our Government and people from the first, we hope this position will be held to the end. If on that issue the rebels, in the words of their President, court "extermination," then let them be exterminated.

We have said, as simply indicating our opinion, that we believed there would be no peace till it was conquered by a destruction of the rebel armies, and resulted in the complete triumph of the Government and the re-establishment of the national authority over every foot of the Union. This has been our conviction from the first, and it is our conviction still. And yet, we have many times seen it illustrated since the war began, that it is safest not to prophesy. It is possible that the leading conspirators may be willing to submit to the Government before their military power is totally overthrown, but we doubt it; and it is among the possible eventualities which may occur, as the result of the pending Presidential canvass, that the people may be willing, in order to spare the effusion of

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blood, to submit to a settlement on the basis of a recognition of the Rebel Confederacy; but we have much mistaken what we believe to be their fixed purpose if this shall be finally achieved. We shall therefore adhere to our earliest and present opinions, until the event shall prove them erroneous.

CHAPTER V.

RESPONSIBILITY OF THE SOUTHERN CHURCH FOR THE REBELLION AND THE WAR.

IN charging the full responsibility for the rebellion upon the South, we must go back of the public actors on the political arena to find a proper lodgment for a large share of it.

Immediately upon the result of the Presidential election of 1860 being made known by the electric flash, the treasonable work began.

Upon the sixth of November (the day of the election) [says Dr. Palmer, speaking of the people of the seceded States generally], these masses went to bed as firmly attached to the Union as they had ever been, and awoke on the seventh, after Mr. Lincoln's election, just as determined upon resistance to his rule. The revolution in public opinion was far too sudden, too universal, and too radical, to be occasioned by the craft and jugglery of politicians. It was not their wire-dancing upon party platforms which thus instantaneously broke up the deep foundations of the popular will, and produced this spontaneous uprising of the people in the majesty of their supremacy; casting party hacks aside, who shall have no control over a movement not having its genesis in their machinations.

The substantial truthfulness, in good part, of what is here related, suggests the most painful and humiliating feature which the three years' progress of the rebellion exhibits. The above was published in April, 1861, in the Southern Presbyterian Review, of Columbia, South Carolina, before the attack upon Fort Sumter. At that time the secession of seven States had occurred. As stated in a former chapter, it is well known that a majority of the

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