Cincinnati Daily Gazette, June 25, 1861

Some of the Union candidates for Congress in Kentucky, among whom are Mr. CRITTENDEN and Mr. WICKLIFFE, assume, in their speeches and letters at home, that the Kentucky delegation in Congress is to set itself up as a mediator between the Confederate rebels and the Government, and to dictate a suspension of hostilities—on the side of the Government of course—and terms of peace and reconstruction.

The idea is not a new one. Virginia, in the first South Carolina rebellion, offered her mediation between the rebels and the Government; but she did not achieve any glory by it, and it is quite doubtful if Kentucky will.

In the first place, one who assumes the office of mediator, should be able to show clean hands and an impartial and disinterested position between the two parties. But Kentucky comes forward, in the garb of a mediator, between rebellion and her own Government, and seeks to procure concessions from it for her own benefit. She has no grievance to complain of; but there are certain extensions of the privileges of Slavery that she would like to have, and she takes the opportunity of the public danger to try to wring terms from the Government for her own advantage.

This is not the character of a mediator, however much the Unionists of Kentucky may call it by that high-sounding name. Kentucky cannot be an honorable mediator in this strife till she puts aside her desire to drive a bargain, for the fancied advantage of her own narrow Slavery interests, out of the war upon the Government. When she does that, and comes forward with clean hands, it will be time enough for her to assume the part of mediator.

But so long as she tries to impose terms upon the Government to advance her own slavery interest, or fancied interest, she will be regarded as seeking to secure the profits of rebellion without incurring its dangers; as putting on. the garb of a mediator to drive a sharp bargain for herself; as encouraging the general conflagration of the country to roast her own slavery potato; as an accomplice of the rebellion, assuming the part of a disinterested mediator only to betray the Government. There are various terms which might justly be used to characterize such a part, but any of them would be as far as possible from that of mediator.

Furthermore, the character of a neutral Government or State is requisite for the part of mediator. Kentucky cannot be neutral unless she has rebelled against the Government. If she has, she has enough to attend to in her own case, without mediating for accomplices in rebellion.

This Kentucky mediation does not propose any terms that the Confederates are to be bound by. The Government must submit and grant the rebels something they have not asked, but which Kentucky thinks will be a good thing for herself. If the Government does not submit to the terms, there is a threat implied that Kentucky will hold the Government in the wrong, and will join herself to the Confederates.

But if the Government submits to the Kentucky terms, will she then resume her allegiance and duty, and aid it in enforcing the laws and establishing the supremacy of the reduced Constitution? Not at all. She does not promise nor imply any thing of the sort; but, if the rebels do not resume their positions in the Government and come in with all their treason upon them and their hands red with the blood of the defenders of the Government,' to rule over a prostrate nation and Constitution, then Kentucky will "poise herself on her proud position of neutrality," and decide for herself what course she will pursue. In short Kentucky proposes to take all the profits without any of the risks of her game.

And what will we have if these sharp bargaining Jeremiahs—who, in all their weeping over this "unnatural war," never forget the main chance of profit to be secured out of it—should succeed, aided by the impending and inevitable defeat of the traitors, in bringing them back into the Government under a broken Constitution? We shall have secession established as a State right; rebellion virtually fixed in the Constitution as a party recourse when defeated at the elections; treason justified in the highest officers of Government; the right of the Administration to ruin a Government which it is compelled to abdicate, established as one of our boasted institutions; traitors worthy of the gallows restored to the offices of Senators and Representatives, and eligible to the highest posts in the Government.

What kind of a Government would that be for an honest man to live under? How could any such sentiment as patriotism or love of country exist under a Government where treachery, treason and thieving were enshrined over the Constitution? Does Mr. CRITTENDEN desire to take a seat in Congress by the side of JEFF. DAVIS, TOOMBS, or WIGFALL? If he does, let him go where they are. But a loyal people must never be disgraced by such a gang of knaves in the Government.

It is supposed that after all the suffering of the people by this rebellion, after all the immense destruction of property, after all the innumerable wrongs and outrages upon the loyal people, after all the generous sacrifices to establish the authority of the Government, and the blood of our people shed by this inexcusable rebellion, the loyal people of this nation will submit to have this treason re-established in the Government, coming back, in triumph over a degraded Constitution and people, to play over again the role of traitors in every department of the Government?

He who can contemplate such a picture as that, under the name of compromise, has nothing to learn in the part of treason. Better a thirty years' war—better the total dissolution of Government, than such a conclusion. A people would be unworthy to exist upon the face of the earth, who would set up such knavery as supreme in their Government.

There is only one way that this Government—by which we mean this Union—will ever be restored; that is by the complete submission of the rebels and the hanging of their ringleaders, or by their complete subjugation and exemplary punishment. If Kentuckians suppose that any other terms will be granted the rebels they deceive themselves. On no other terms can a Government be established which will be fit to exist. The war is to maintain and establish the Constitution, not to degrade it; and arms will not be laid down until the supremacy of the Constitution is vindicated, and every pretense of the right of secession or nullification, or neutrality, or any State right in contravention to the Constitution of the United States, is crushed out, so that it will never dare to show its head again.

This great country will not submit to have its immense interests, wealth, industry, commerce, finances and credit, subject to be kicked into a collapse by any gang of disappointed political knaves. Already the people of the North have been robbed of hundreds of millions by this causeless rebellion, and the industry of the whole country is prostrated. And now their sons are falling daily by the guerrilla war of the Virginia savages. They will not consent to sink all this merely to restore traitors to the Government, to repeat their role of rebellion with the improvements learned by experience; but they will have "indemnity for the past and security for the future," before they lay down their arms.