The Proposed "Clar-Helcombe-Sanders" Negotiation.
A bombshell thrown into the midst off an assembled crowd in a time of profound peace, a clap of thunder in a clear sky, or the sudden explosion of a magazine in which no powder had been kept for a quarter of a century, could not have produced a greater sensation than the annunciation through the city press yesterday morning that the gentlemen whose names are printed at the head of this article had opened with Horace Greeley — of all other men in the world — a correspondence, requesting safe conducts to Washington, in the character of peace negotiators. The morning papers seem to have been taken entirely by surprise — so entirely that not one of them made a single remark upon the circumstance, although it is the strangest and most unaccountable that has come to notice since the commencement of this war. These men were not, it seems, invested with any power to make proposals for peace — they were only "in the confidential employ (how we hate that French-Yankee word) of the Government."--President Davis, therefore, is clear of any imputation in connection with the affair. Messrs. Clay, Holcombe, and Sanders are alone responsible for it.--This renders the matter still more curious. What circumstances had been disclosed to these gentlemen that justified them in opening a correspondence with the Federal Government upon a subject which they had no authority to discuss? Mr. Holcombe says: ‘"Exacting no condition but that we should be duly accredited from Richmond,"’ &c., "it seemed to us that the President (Lincoln) opened a door which had been previously shut against the Confederate States, " &c.--Who ever asked Lincoln to open any door for them? Not the Confederate States, most assuredly. If we are not more mistaken than ever we were in our lives, the last Congress of the Confederate States voted down by an immense majority the proposition to enter upon negotiations for peace. President Davis's letter to Governor Vance, on this subject, is certainly not yet forgotten.--What, then, had these gentlemen to propose, and who gave them the right to place the Confederate States at the footstool of Abraham Lincoln, since, confessedly, the President did not? What was the nature of that intelligence which, as soon as it was communicated to President Davis, was to convert those private gentlemen, enjoying themselves during the late sultry season at the Falls of Niagara, into full blown ambassadors, bearing the fate of nations in their carpet bags and the issues of peace or war in their portfolios?The time chosen by these self-constituted diplomatists to prostrate their country at the footstool of Abraham Lincoln is peculiarly unfortunate. Our arms have been singularly successful throughout this campaign. Our successes have struck terror to the Northern heart. But a few days since a New York paper spoke as follows:
‘ "Who is so blind as not to see that a prolongation of the war is ruin, utter and irretrievable, to the nation, or a wholesale repudiation of the entire debt. Great as this debt is — larger now no doubt than the immense, colossal debt of England — it must of necessity be largely increased when the claims of Union men for property wantonly and maliciously destroyed, and for slaves decoyed away by orders of Federal officers or by a tacit understanding with their sub-ordinates, shall be paid.
"If three years of war has produced an additional expenditure greater than the entire cost of the Government, with the large additions of territory added, since its first formation, three years more of war, with the price of everything necessary to carry it on doubled, trebled, quadrupled in price, by the depreciation of the legal tender currency, must involve a wreck of everything financial. There seems to be but one single hope for the country, and that is in peace, and that hope must soon be realized if we would have anything left us worth saving."
’ While Northern editors can see but one hope for the salvation of their country, and that the hope of peace, these men step in and tell them they are greatly mistaken; that they are not half so badly off as they think themselves; that if they will only hold on the Confederates will sue for peace. Yes! the Confederates, who all along have been acting solely on the defensive, are to beg peace of those whose unheard of enormities against them has made the whole Christian world hold its breath in horror. We are to sue at the footstool, and are to be spurned, as Lincoln spurns these self-made diplomatists! We protest against this degradation of our country. We protest against any propositions offered through such a channel as Greeley, with whom it would be a disgrace to a Southern free negro to negotiate. We protest against offering any terms to Abraham Lincoln, authorized or not authorized. Let him come to us when he grown tired of this war. It is his war. He made it, and he can stop it at any moment he may think proper. Above all, we protest against any private man undertaking, on his own account, to speak diplomatically for this people.
The haughty reply of Lincoln would please us exceedingly, were the force of it confined to the meddlers who provoked it. But it touches the country, and is therefore humiliating in the extreme. We all understand pretty well the calibre of Geo N Sanders and his associates. We know that they have not the slightest influence upon any class of men here; but when Lincoln sent this reply, he probably thought that he was answering a whole country, on its knees. It is far other-wise. The country repudiates these busybodies and we hope they will be property rebuked.
