It is impossible that
Kentucky can accommodate herself to the views and demands of the
Lincoln dynasty without utterly degrading and enslaving herself.
Greeley, the Marat of the
Northern reign of terror, has plainly told the people of that State that the
Government will not be trifled with, that
Kentucky must take one side or the other.--And
Greeley has been the most accurate oracle of the
Washington despotism in the whole' Northern empire.
Mr. Crittenden may well despair when
Greeley launches his thunders against his impotent and drivelling efforts to keep
Kentucky out of the strife and re-construct the
Union!
He goes to
Washington with a plan utterly derided by the powers that be, and, if he be sincere in his professions and not in collusion with
Lincoln, the object himself of the general contempt of the
Black Republican party.
He goes there, moreover, with a plan which contemplates a humiliation of the
Southern States should they show it favor.
A plan which would place them in the attitude of once more approaching the foot stool of
Lincoln with
propositions for peace! How
Mr. Crittenden can suppose this possible, we cannot imagine.
The Southern States that have united in the Southern Confederacy have taken a stand from which there is no shadow of reason to suppose for a moment that they will retreat.
The never will propose, nor can they ever accept, terms of re-union with the
Northern States.
Mr. Crittenden is enlisted in a gratuitous task — a work of supererogation when he proposes again to introduce them into his fumbling efforts to reconstruct the dismembered Union that is never to be restored.
Let
Mr. Crittenden give up his proposition of last winter as one utterly past its time, if it ever had appropriateness, as we believe it never had — just as much as we believe there was never any propriety in the vote of thanks by our Convention to the venerable
Kentucky Senator.
In endeavoring to pull on the mantle of the immortal
Clay, as the
Union saver, he most signally failed, and rendered himself the object of commiseration, if not of ridicule, of all sides.
Let
Mr. Crittenden take care of
Kentucky, if he can. Let him, if he prefers the
North, endeavor to bind her to the car of the beast of the
Northwest; or, if he prefers the
South, let him use his declining days in a gallant effort to place his proud State of other days in a position where she indeed may be proud once more.
The South thanks him not for any officiousness of his which looks to any terms of re-construction; and the tyrants of the
North will hardly listen to his weak appeals, which, like the womanly reproofs vented upon Richard, are to be drowned by the drums and trumpets of war!
Kentucky cannot remain in her-anomalous position.
Delay but increases the gloomy prospect for her, no matter which side she takes.
Delay but embitters the two parties into which she is being divided and which will be thrown into hot and bloody conflict, no matter which side she takes.
This might have been avoided.
Her people might have been comparatively united had
Mr. Crittenden died or gone to the shades of retirement two years since, and had there been no such men as
Guthrie,
Garrett Davis, and that unscrupulous editor,
Prentice.
Providence has otherwise ordered it; and a day of woe, we fear, is in store for
Kentucky should the war last long.
That she will go with the
South, we believe is inevitable.
Every argument, every interest, every honest sympathy of her's, plainly force her to that position.
But the mismanagement, if not treachery, of some of her leaders have so obstructed her course, so imbued her public mind with conflicting views and bitter animosities, that we deeply apprehend that there is yet to be in her history added proofs of her title to the name of the ‘"dark and bloody ground!"’ May such a turn in her affairs be averted, is our heartfelt wish.
