But admitting that negotiations were opened, and in a train of effect, what then would be our situation? Are we in capacity to insist on useful and honorable terms? There is hardly a State in the Union but has an interest in objects, which under our present circumstances are unattainable. While the enemy continue in possession of New York and Charleston, we cannot expect such a peace as every good American ought to desire. Nor shall we obtain that security, without which peace is no longer a blessing.
The successes of the last campaign will undoubtedly derange the plans of the enemy for a time, but whether or not those successes will prove decisive must depend upon ourselves. If we indolently lie still until the enemy can obtain reinforcements, our prospects at the close of next campaign may be as gloomy as at the opening of the last. If we exert ourselves to strike the enemy before he can receive aid, we may perhaps drive him entirely away, and then indeed we shall have reason to expect peace. It has been the common trick of the enemy to pretend at every success we have obtained, nay during every winter of the war, that it would immediately cease, and they have had emissaries among us to inculcate that idea. The consequences have been, that we have never been in a state of preparation as soon as they have, notwithstanding the Atlantic ocean lies between the two countries, and places them at least three months asunder as to all military operations.
No thinking man can hesitate a moment in the opinion, that we ought to prepare for an early and vigorous campaign, in order to take New York and Charleston. But some persons of sanguine temperament say, that the enemy will evacuate one of these places. If it be so, surely they will be so much stronger at the other, and of course it will be so much the more difficult to expel them from it. Possibly they may incline to evacuate one of these places, and if so they will be determined by the knowledge of our force. If we are formidable it will be an additional reason with them for evacuation. But other persons still more sanguine suppose, that they will evacuate both places. This is surely absurd, for even if they negotiate for peace, they will hold something as a ground, on which to make demands, and if they prosecute war, they will certainly not abandon the objects of it. Admitting, however, that the enemy may have some thoughts of this sort, surely the determination will be greatly influenced by the consideration of our relative force or imbecility. And even if they should entirely quit the United States, still there are objects well worth fighting for, objects too which cannot be obtained without fighting.