Daily National Democrat

The Eastern News.

The news by the Pony is of an intensely exciting character. It is to be hoped that the newspaper reporters have given it too high a coloring, and that the adherents of the Cotton States Government have not yet fully decided to rush upon certain destruction. If, however, the Secession cause has to die out or else live by the precipitation of the country into a bloody civil war, there can be no doubt in the mind of any intelligent person, that the fanatical traitors in whose keeping that cause is, will resort to arms. The non-action of the Federal authorities during the past six months has so inflated the rebels with the idea that they are invincible, that it is very possible Jefferson Davis has decided upon trying the coercive virtues of "the sword and the torch" with which he threatened the cities of the loyal States in a recent speech.

The dispatch of the morning of the 12th inst. is contradictory. It states that hostilities were undoubtedly commenced early in the morning of that day, while another portion of the dispatch says that the evacuation of Fort Sumter would not be demanded until the following day, at noon.

We do not credit the rumor of a proposed attack upon Washington, in the face of the other rumor that 7,000 men had enlisted in the border States to go South and join the Secession army. It is very probable that as fast as United States troops in service at Washington are transferred to other points their places may be supplied by volunteers from the Union States. It is eminently proper that every precaution should be taken to guaranty the public peace at the Federal capital. Much allowance should be made, in considering the news, to the disposition of the Eastern press to create sensations, upon slight foundations.

The news from Virginia is of a discouraging character. The vote in favor of the recognition of the Southern Confederacy is reported to have been 121 to 20. We believe there is some error in this statement. The convention had adopted resolutions indicating that Virginia will secede if hostilities are precipitated by the Federal Government. It is not likely that she will ever have any just cause for secession, if she waits for such an event. It is, however, highly probable that the national authorities will not permit those who are defending the American Flag at Charleston, to starve, for fear that blood may flow and treasure be expended, in the effort to supply them with beef and bread. Starvation is too severe a penalty for men to suffer whose only crime is brave and heroic devotion to the Nation's flag. If the French gentleman with the long name, who leads the rebel army, unable to endure the idea of seeing Major Anderson and his men furnished with provisions by National vessels, has interposed with military force to prevent it, it would make the face of every decent man in the country burn with shame at being an American, were such forcible interposition not to be met with all the force that the Federal Government can command, and all the power that has so long slumbered in the strong arms of the loyal people of the several States.

The whole tenor of the dispatches received is to the effect that a civil war was about to be precipitated by the Cotton States authorities because the great and powerful nation against which they have rebelled will not consent to allow its soldiers, within one of its own forts, to go hungry in its service. The highwayman says: "Your money or your life;" the secessionists say: "Your fort, or starvation for your soldiers." The difference between the two demands is too slight to penetrate our poor understanding. If the news should be confirmed, and if an attempt to supply Fort Sumter with provisions has indeed involved the country in a civil war, it will trouble even as great a master of words and ideas as is the Chairman of the Breckinridge Central Committee to show that feeding Major Anderson and his men is "coercion" on the part of the Government, or that brutal and bloody resistance to the proceeding, by the rebels, entitles them to a renewal of "fraternal" outpourings in their behalf.

We believe that the justice of the border States will lead them to abhor any outrageous acts of war committed by the Cotton States leaders, as deeply as they would similar acts on the part of the legitimate Government. Men who have labored honestly to avert civil war, can have no sympathy with those who madly plunge the country into all its horrors, because a garrison is supplied with provisions. The Border States may hold the rebel to a fearful accountability if the latter have destroyed the last hope of peace.