New Orleans Bee, February 14, 1861

Dispatches from Washington intimate pretty clearly the improbability of the adoption by the Peace Congress of any measure of adjustment at all satisfactory to the conflicting sentiments of the North and South. In the Congress there are numbers of Commissioners from various States. In fact, some of the most ultra Black Republican commonwealths in the Union are represented in that body. These men oppose a solid bulwark against all practical propositions of settlement. They affect to be sincerely desirous of witnessing a peaceful arrangement of impending difficulties, but no plan for that purpose meets their approbation. The Congress is manifestly constituted of elements too heterogeneous to coalesce. In this respect it resembles the Congress of the United States. Southern men and Black Republicans cannot view the subject of the grievances of the slaveholding States in the same light. Differing as to the question of wrong, they must necessarily differ as to the remedies suggested. Hence it is altogether likely that the Peace Congress will prove a failure. We cannot imagine now any scheme for saving the Union by conceding Southern rights which will receive the sanction of delegates from New England and the Northwest, and therefore we believe the members will separate without promoting the object for which they assembled. But if by some unexpected and almost miraculous display of harmony the Peace Congress should really elaborate some feasible project for reuniting the States, what earthly chance would it have of adoption by a constitutional majority of the Congress of the United States? None whatever, as we have repeatedly shown. The political character of the two Houses, especially since the withdrawal of the Representatives of six Southern States, forbids the slightest hope of such a consummation.

High expectations of the result of the deliberations of the Peace Congress were entertained by those sanguine citizens who yet cling to the idea that something will turn up to save the Union from disruption. For ourselves we have indulged in no such hopeful spirit. There could of course be no objection to an effort of the border States to effect an arrangement; but the certainty of failure, to our mind, was foreshadowed the very instant the non-slaveholding States began to appoint delegates. We knew that the latter would clog and hamper the deliberations, and would oppose the policy of the former, and this even in the doubtful presumption that they were sent to Washington from an honest disposition on the part of their constituents to arrive at a peaceable and equitable solution of the difficulty. It should be borne in mind that Black Republicanism has two elements. One refuses to recognize the right of the South to demand additional guarantees, declares the Constitution in its present form all-sufficient, styles secession treason, and would unhesitatingly combat it with fire and sword. The other professes an infinite amount of solicitude for the preservation of the Union, admits that the South may not be altogether in the wrong, and thinks that some compromises should be offered rather than proceed to extremities. From the first of these concession of any sort is out of the question. Politicians of the school of SUMNER, and WILSON, and WADE, and GREELEY will not consent to negotiate, and will not, therefore, take part in a Congress convoked for purposes of conciliation. The other element is the only one represented in the Congress. It is less openly mischievous and intractable, but in the end will prove equally so. It will concede nothing really valuable, even while mouthing its love of the Union and ardent desire for peace.

The experiment of a Peace Congress will prove abortive. Were its prospects less gloomy than they are, they would be overshadowed by the disastrous influence of recent elections in Virginia and Tennessee. It is true that in Virginia, although there are few unconditional Secessionists chosen, there are still fewer unconditional Submissionists, but the Black Republicans accept the term "Union" attached to the majority of the delegates in no other sense than that of unswerving hostility to the policy of the cotton States. Tennessee, if the reports are correct, has rendered a verdict which will fill them with ecstasy. The defeat of the Convention in that State will serve to convince them that under no conceivable circumstances will the border States take side with the South. That this is a gross and grievous error can be demonstrated by the resolutions against coercion which by nearly a unanimous vote have passed the Tennessee Legislature; but Black Republicanism like GALLIO, cares for none of these things. It rejoices at what it considers a heavy blow dealt at the South; and secure in its fancied hold upon the border States, will undoubtedly be less inclined than ever to accede to such terms as might alone re-establish the Union. The enemies of the South will discover their misapprehension of the views of the border States when they attempt to enforce the laws of the United States in the South; but in the meantime, the partial triumphs they have achieved will render them more impracticable than ever. This is another barrier to the success of the Peace Congress.