Orleans Independent Standard

Treasonable 'Peace Movements.'

The attempts of Napoleon to interfere with our domestic controversy have thus far been ostensibly friendly, and if the latest report proves true, that he has ordered Count Mercier to suggest a convention of commissioners appointed by the U. S. government and the confederacy to confer upon terms of settlement, without an armistice, there is nothing in the proposition itself that argues hostility. It shows merely a strong desire to see our civil war ended, and if time and circumstances conspired to make such a conference advisable, the plan of Napoleon is less open to objection than any other that has been proposed. It commits neither party to any terms of settlement, and the chief objection to such a conference is that it could do no good, while it might do much harm by distracting public opinion and causing delay and hesitation in the prosecution of the war. If Napoleon shall make the proposition or suggestion, it may be respectfully received, and he may be courteously told that the thing is next to impossible: that the government and people of the United States think they see no way out of the war but to fight it through to the subjugation of the rebels: that we are making good progress in the work, and that if other nations will wait patiently and let us alone, we can settle the whole thing quicker and better by fighting than in any other way.

But the peace propositions agitated by a certain set of politicians among ourselves should have no such courteous treatment. They are essentially cowardly and treasonable. They mean national degradation and dishonor such as no self-respecting people on the globe would consent to, and if these counsels prevail we are destined to a depth of infamy which shall make the name of America a byword and hissing for generations to come.

The first thing these men propose is armistice, at a moment when our armies are at their maximum in numbers and strength, and when we are just on the point of assailing the strong holds of the rebellion. It is because these men are not so stupid as not to see that an armistice now ends the war in favor of the rebellion; that the proposition is in effect and intent treasonable. It is a bold attempt to arrest the uplifted arm of the nation just as it is about to strike treason to the earth, and to give to the traitors willingly what they can never obtain by force. Nobody can believe that we could stop our armies and navies where they are and hold them in rest three or six months, and then renew the war;—or if we could, that the enemy would not meanwhile have so strengthened themselves as greatly to increase their chances for success. And what single inducement is there to armistice and negotiation while the rebels are bold and unanimous in saying they will have no peace except on the acknowledgment of their independence. To call for armistice and negotiation under such circumstances, is to take sides with the enemy and demand the surrender of the nation to armed traitors. The difference between such peace men and open rebels is only a difference of pluck. The rebels have courage enough to fight against the government; the peace democrats have only courage enough to plot against it.

Yet, preposterous and treasonable as this peace movement is, there is no denying that it has assumed alarming proportions. The democratic majorities in the legislatures of Illinois and Indiana, although they shrink from the adoption of peace resolutions, favor a convention with the legislatures of Kentucky and Ohio, with the avowed purpose to inaugurate this peace movement and to call upon the general government to stop the war, declare an armistice and call a convention of the States. And so great is the mischief threatened by this plot that the republican Senators of the Illinois legislature, have felt justified in withdrawing and leaving the legislature blocked, as the only available means of defeating a measure which they believe threatens national anarchy and ruin.

The leaders of this movement have probably gone too far to suffer defeat in it with safety to themselves, and they will therefore push it desperately. There is reason to believe the reports that come from Richmond that those men have sent agents to negotiate with the rebel leaders; and when the secret history of these strange times is revealed we have no doubt it will be seen that this peace movement was engineered at Richmond, not in order to get peace by negotiation, but to drive the North and compel peace on their own terms.

Will these treasonable peace plotters succeed? We think not. There are already many signs of healthy reaction against them, and most assuring of all is the decided opposition they encounter from the Union men of the border states. Even those papers in the border slave states that are inveterately against the emancipation policy, denounce the proposition of armistice and negotiation with unsparing severity, and well they may, for they see that it involves the surrender of their own states to the iron rule of Davis, from which they have been delivered at such great cost. The Louisville Journal, St. Louis Republican and Nashville Union denounces the democratic peace party in unsparing terms. While the border state men, even those who oppose the war policy of the government, are thus earnestly against the movement for a disgraceful peace, we cannot believe that the demagogues who are busy in it are destined to achieve anything but their own infamy.—Springfield Repub.