National Democrat

In Jeff. Davis' special message, he represented Gen. Ord, the commander of the army of the James, as proposing negotiations through military men as a means of making peace. But it appears Jeff. had got matters mixed in his mind, and presented them wrong end foremost.

Gen. Lee's letter to Gen. Grant, dated March 2, opens as follows:

General: Lieutenant General Longstreet has informed me that in a recent conversation between himself and Maj. Gen. Ord, as to a possibility of arriving at a satisfactory adjustment of the present unhappy difficulties by means of a military convention, Gen. Ord states that if I desire to have an interview with you on the subject, you would not decline, provided I had authority to act.

So it was Lee who desired the interview, and who stated that, in the anxiety to leave nothing untried, he had authority to do whatever was needful. That is a large opening for negotiations, to be sure. As for Gen. Lee's authority in regard to the Southern Confederacy, it would be stupidity to question that. He is the authority, and the only one in the Southern Confederacy. Jeff. Davis is one of his subordinates. The whole tribe of original secessionists is whipped into insignificance, if not into submission. Lee who could see, as he said in a published letter, no necessity for this thing. that is, for disunion and war, because Lincoln was elected—is the master of the brawlers who left Washington a little more than four years ago, in the capacity and character of the great gen and statesman of the South. They are miserable failures, every one, and will yet be torn to pieces by the poor people of the South whom they deluded.

If Lee sees no necessity for this thing now, let him say so to Gen. Grant, and tell his army so, and there will be peace in ten days.

But there is no sense in talking about the paramount sovereignty of slavery or the independence of the Southern Confederacy. If Lee could see those things as they are, and act accordingly, he might obtain credit for saving the lives of thousands. Mr. Lincoln says all that is necessary in order to end the war, is for those who are making war upon the National authority to cease the rebellion. That ends it without negotiations of any sort; and then we will all join in the call for the exercise even unto exhaustion, of the arts of statesmanship.