It is not an unfrequent sign of a patient's approaching dissolution that the friends of the sick man are ready to leave the regular family phyiscian and betake themselves to the use of this or that nostrum, which some quack has recommended, or which some old woman says has been found to be beneficial in another case. This symptom accompanies the last hours of the Southern Confederacy. The mode of treatment which has been pursued for the past four years has not saved the patient from a speedy decline; and now in approaching extremity, his friends are recommending, one this thing and another that, each sure that his own remedy is the panacea which will restore the health, and set the patient once again and speedily on his legs.
The most remarkable of these prescriptions is that which is put forward by Gov. BROWN, of Georgia, in his recent message. It is composed of several ingredients, so remarkable and so impossible to be procured, that one can hardly believe that the Governor was in earnest in his recommendations.
The first means which BROWN proposes to use is to repeal the rebel conscription act. It is this act which has enabled the rebel leaders thus far to keep their ranks as full as they have been. By its enginery every State has been compelled alike to furnish men for the rebel armies, whether she was a leader in the movement, like South Carolina, or dragged unwillingly into it, like North Carolina. It was passed because the leaders found that without it the men could not be had, and yet now, after its operation has sent almost every able-bodied man into the rebel ranks, and driven those who escaped its action to the dens and caves of the rocks, Gov. BROWN proposes to repeal it, and "return to the constitutional mode of raising men by the States."
The next thing the Governor proposes is to "return to the observance of good faith with our troops, pay them when their wages is due, and discharge them when their terms expire." Undoubtedly prompt payment would increase the efficiency of the rebel army, but there is a little difficulty about it which BROWN does not clear up, viz: where the money is to come from. As to discharging them when their terms expire, if that had been done from the beginning, there would long ago have been no rebel army. And the experience of the last year has not been such as to make it any safer now to let the rebel soldiers go home, than it was when the first breach of faith was made with them.
The next ingredient in BROWN's remedy is "no more repudiation." Undoubtedly a good remedy in any and every case, but it involves the question again of where the money is to come from, and this question the Governor does not touch.Continue reading the main story
The next item is "no impressment of property." We must purchase what we need, says BROWN, "except in extreme cases, which justify impressment, and then we must pay just compensation for the property taken." Good again for the Governor. Robbery is a poor policy and a short-breathed one. But again BROWN slides over the question where the money is to come from to purchase or to pay just compensation.
"Representation without constituency must no longer be allowed," says the Governor. Think what a change that would be to drive out from the rebel Congress those who claim to represent Maryland, Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri. It would be to admit that the Confederacy, had actually lost ground since the war began, an admission which could hardly be expected of any genuine rebel.
"Secret sessions of Congress must be abandoned," he declares. But this is to abandon a means which the leaders have continually used to carry their measures from the time when the Virginia convention was dragooned in secret session into passing an ordinance of secession. It is no easy matter to break off at once from a habit so long continued. It would involve a reliance upon fair and open discussion, which the South has never relied on.
"Discipline," says the Governor, "must be restored and enforced in our armies." He was comparing, doubtless, the effect of the march of SHERMAN's army through Georgia with the exploits of WHEELER's cavalry, whose brutality at Columbia, and elsewhere, was such that, as a rebel letter writer said, their people "would rather see the Yankees, or old Satan himself, than a party of WHEELER's cavalry. Or perhaps he was thinking of the flood of deserters which has set so steadily from LEE's army for the last month or so -- a good remedy, no doubt, but difficult to apply, unless accompanied with his other recommendations of prompt pay and steady rations.
And, finally, the Governor says that "the President having failed in his military administration, and brought the country to the verge of ruin by his military policy, should be relieved of that part or his duties." Not very complimentary to JEFF. DAVIS, this. He would hardly be likely to lend much of his aid to compound the Governor's soothing syrup, if it was to contain this element as well as the others; and heretofore JEFF. has always been able to back Gov. BROWN down, for it is not the first time that their purposes have clashed. Whether the progress of events has so weakened the one and strengthened the other, as to make the result of a trial of strength on this point different from former trials, remains to be seen. But the result is not doubtful if the Governor shall confine his efforts, as he now proposes, to peaceful ones. He will not get rid of JEFF. in that way.
Our readers will recollect that all that was necessary to prolong Mrs. Dombey's life, was that she should "make an effort," The Confederacy seems to be in the same position, according to the Governor; and if the "effort" were made, if the Confederacy had strength enough to remove JEFF. DAVIS from military command, to restore discipline to its armies, to abandon secret sessions of its Congress, and turn out the members who, as the Governor says, "dare not show themselves publicly among the people whom they claim to represent;" if it were able in the future, as it has been in the past, to raise armies without conscription, to pay them promptly, to feed them with provisions not impressed, but purchased and paid for, and to meet all its obligations with honesty and promptitude, there would be no doubt of the truth of the Governor's declaration, that they still had enough of men and means to achieve their independence. But, like Mrs. Dombey, the Confederacy will not make the effort, and the case will, therefore, have the same result, not much, as we suspect, to the surprise of Gov. BROWN.Continue reading the main story