"
The tone and temper of these extracts--and similar quotations might be
made indefinitely--are exactly in keeping with everything that comes
from the pens or the lips of the leaders of this Rebellion. And even
those Southern statesmen who at the outset were opposed to Secession,
and have never ceased to deplore the fruitless civil war into which the
South has plunged the nation, are compelled to admit, with a
distinguished citizen of Georgia, that "the war, with all its afflictive
train of suffering, privation, and death, has served to eradicate all
idea of reconstruction, even with those who made it the basis of their
arguments in favor of disunion."
Rely upon it, this tone and temper will never be changed so long as the
Rebels have any considerable armed force in the field ready for
service. Unless we are willing to consent to a divided country, a
dissevered Union, and the recognition of a Southern Confederacy,--in a
word, unless we are prepared to acquiesce in all the demands of our
enemies, we have no alternative but a vigorous prosecution of the war.
Fernando Wood and his followers ask for an armistice. An armistice to
whom, and for what purpose? The Rebels, represented by their Government,
ask for no armistice, except upon their own terms, and what those terms
are we have already seen.
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