There is a class of persons in every community — in the Confederate States as well as elsewhere, in the State of Virginia as well as in the rest of the Confederate States, in Richmond as well as in the rest of Virginia — whose souls live but in their property. Indeed, such persons — if they really have any souls at all — think them much less worth saving than their goods, chattels and real estate. They are believed, for the most part, seldom or never to have bent a knee in adoration of their Creator; they would not only bend both knees, but would wallow in the mire, and kiss the feet of any successful invader, to preserve that which is more precious to them than honor and country, wife, children and friends. These are the men who first start the cry of "compromise" and "armistice." From them it is afterwards taken up by others who do not reflect, and at last it becomes extensive, because everybody is really tired of the war, and very few really know what armistice and compromise imply in such a situation as ours. It is the greatest mistake in the world to suppose that there are many people who hold obstinately their own opinions. There are a great many who obstinately stick to the opinions of others; but the number of those who form opinions for themselves is exceedingly small. Men, in the aggregate, do not love the trouble of thinking, and will be thankful to any one who will make out their opinions for them, and hand them over to be used at second hand. The large majority of those who are now crying for an armistice mean well, but know not what they are talking about. They are patriotic, and have done their full share in the war. But they have generally imbibed their opinions from that class to which we have alluded — that class which, in thinking about this war, attach no other idea to it than that of the degree in which it may affect their property. They would deliver up the town to-morrow to Grant, or anybody else, provided he would give sufficient security that he would save them from loss. The Honor of the Country is nothing to them. Its future welfare, save in so far as it is connected with their possessions, is with them a matter scarcely worthy a moment's consideration. They are for any terms that will save their money, and their lands, and their goods, they care not how disgraceful they may be, or how destructive of the liberty and happiness of their countrymen.
Yet even men of the character we have endeavored to describe — occupied as they are with their solitary idea — if they were not blinded by the suggestions of their own selfish fears — might see, one would think, the danger of the policy which they propose for adoption. The Yankees, too, are a one-ideal people. Their one idea is the subjugation of this Confederacy, the confiscation of its property, the reduction of its people to poverty, the establishment of negro superiority, the enslavement of the whites to the negro race, the forcing of our mothers, and sisters, and daughters to receive their slaves as gentlemen entitled to consideration — the degradation of our people, in a word, in every possible way. Upon this subject they are all mad. They believe that they are able to bring about this consummation. They believe that a majority of our people is ready to join hands with them. All the checks they have received have been insufficient to stifle the hopes springing from this source. Those hopes have been considerably damped by the results of the campaign in Virginia, it is true; but they still live, and are ready to burst into flame upon the slightest breath of encouragement. The slaughter of Grant's army caused a momentary dejection; but the trifling affair at Moorefield, the victory of the Kearsarge over the Alabama, the defeat of our little squadron at Mobile, and the capture of Fort Gaines, were sufficient to dissipate all despondency and make the whole nation as hopeful and as boastful as ever. The phenomenon is easily explained. They have fixed their eyes and their affections upon the lands and wealth of the South; and they find it almost impossible to resign dreams so full of everything that is charming to the imagination of a people whose avarice is as boundless and as bottomless as the all-devouring pit of Tophet. The only way to disenchant them is to oppose a barrier of steel to the consummation of their wishes; to show a stern and unbending purpose to repel them at all hazards and at all times; to let them see that how great so ever the treasure the danger is greater still; to bring the flaming sword full in their view whenever their eyes wander to the Paradise beyond. Instead of doing this, we find persons in our midst crying out, "armistice, armistice," thereby neutralising, in a moment, all that General Lee and his army have been doing for the last three months. Can anything be more encouraging to the Yankee, who has almost begun to despair of ever seeing his vision of confiscated lands and captive white women converted into a reality? He has always been assured that he had friends in our camps. Could anything convince him more thoroughly that he has not believed without a cause.
What do we want an armistice for? Is it that Grant may have leisure to recruit and re-organize his shattered ranks? Is it that Lincoln may have soldiers to control the elections within his dominions? Is it that the new levy of half a million may be thoroughly disciplined before it be brought into the field, and thereby be the better suited to his purpose of trampling out the life of our liberties? Is it that new iron-clads may be built, new engines of destruction be invented, new arms be imported from the arsenals of Europe? Is it that at the end of the term we may find ourselves so surrounded by bayonets, so blockaded by fleets, so beset in every quarter of our country, that we can no longer offer even the show of resistance? We can see no other result than this, for it does not seem that the fleets and armies are to be withdrawn.
