On Peace.
The Washington Chronicle (19th) has a liberal and creditable editorial on the people of the South, entitled "Worthy Thought." After asking the question, if the people of the South are so tired of the war why do they fight with such tenacity? it answers it by a reference to the social influences and their high sense of honor. It avers that no gentlemen could be more agreeable and no ladies more fascinating. It closes as follows:‘ "Personal honor was the absorbing passion of the Southerner's life. The standard may have been faulty, but was rigidly adhered to. Such men may be heartily sick of a strife, but they will not abandon those engaged in it. They may long for the close of the war, but they will not desert their colors. They may deplore the necessity for the dread onsets of forlorn battle-fields, but once on them they will conquer or die.
"As deserters or willing captives, they know they will be ostracised from the homes of the friends they love when the contest is over. Hence the war will be continued and desperate battles be fought until, by common consent, the struggle is regarded as utterly hopeless, or until such terms are offered as they feel at liberty to accept.
"Shall we deal with them as plucky but erring brethren, whose sense of honor, defective as we may think it, must be respected, and whose pride of character should not be broken down; or shall we undertake to regard them as lawless, defiant rebels, who are to be humbled, if not exterminated? Do we not want these courageous men — these enduring, high-spirited men — to unite with us in laying, broad and deep, the foundations of a democratic society that, under the inspiration of free institutions, shall throw all our past prosperity, brilliant as it was, in the shade?"
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