Worcester daily spy., 1858-12-30
OR CE TER:
HIGH GRIMES UNDER STATE PATRONAGE

For several years, the name Of Gen. Walker
was before the country as the champion and
leader of the restless spirits, who are aiming at
the conquest of some of the weak republics on
the borders ofthe Gulf of Mexico. For a seas
on, there appears to have been something of the
heroic mingled in his career ofbrigandage and
piracy. For some successful adventure, or
some bold invasion, he acquired the reputation
of ofshrewdness and courage; and though there
was always something ridiculous in his pre-
tensions, he yet assumed and wore the title of
the 'grey-eyed man of destiny" with the au-
dacity and assurance Of Il genuine hero
Probably, there was never a professional SOL
der who committed so many of the meanest
crimes, and suffered so many of the most hu-
initiating and disgraceful defeats, as he, with.
out losing his credit with his comrades. Ofthe
distinguished generals who have scourged the
fair world in which they lived, none have been
wholly destitute Of generous and manly quail
ties, or have presented a record without some
thing brilliant and attractive to recommend it.
But the record of this miserable and wretched
quack IN the field Of arms-this pretender to
conquest and heroic deeds, is smutched all
over with thcfts without a provocation, lies
without motive, and defeats without a con-
test We cannot say how many times he
has been driven out of the petty dominions
which he went to plunder. The monstrous
and selfeyident falsehoods which the telegraph
has lent itself to disseminate in his behalf, are
beyond computation. The number of victims
whom, in his treachery, he left on the shores
of the Gulf, naked and starved to death, will
never be counted till the sounding of the last
trump. And yet, without an incident in his
whole life to commend him to courageous men
without virtue, or to virtuous men without
courage living in the midst of career of high
handed and unblushing defiance oflaw, he has
managed to reach the age of seventy years
an age which even honest men are not always
suffered to attain-without losing his reputa-
ton, or dying on the gallows.
1t has come to this, that the government,
professedly hostile to his movements, as it is
bound to be by its regard for the law of ma
tons, has not vigilance enough to prevent the
departure Of his gangs on their mission of pi-
racy. Yet it is well understood, that the whole
scheme of colonizing Central America is an il
legal one; that the theory of armed emigra-
ton is the most dangerous scheme Republic
could tolerate; that it could never be justified
except as a safeguard against oppression that,
in this case, it is actuated by the basest
and most selfish motives and that, at
striving, through the audacity which has fol-
lowed him through life, and has not deserted
him in his old age, at least to recover the pres
tige Of prosperity which attended his adyen-
tures on the Pacific Coast. In this state of
affairs, the intelligence reaches us that public
meetings are being held in Mississippi and
other places through the South to aid him in
his renewed invasion Of Nicaragua. The
public sympathy is pledged in advance, and it
is even whispered that the Southern journey
of Senator Douglas had bearing on the pro-
ject of these outlaws and pirates.
That class who entertain the sad belief that
the public conscience is becoming demoralized,
and that questions of principle are becoming,
among public men, secondary to aggrandize-
ment-and the number of such men is rapidly
growing-need no better argument in defence
of their atheism, than the impunity which is
granted to such men as these. When States
give their patronage to crime, when public
men, to whom we ought to look for examples
of virtue and honor, either openly endorse, or
hesitate to denomce the acknowledged out
RACES of those, who, in private capacity,
would be executed for a fraction of the crimes
they are committing atheism has too broad and
solid a foundation to be easily shaken. Whether
this arises from natural tendency to disregard
moral obligations, or from that institution of
villainy and oppression, which is the prolific
source Of more woes to us, than was ever
Achilles wrath to Greece, is an interesting
question Of ethics to which attention might
be proftably given. We think, in the result,
it would appear, that, while the instructive
hatred Of mean things and wrong things is
inherent and ineradicable, it has been for a
time forced out Of its channel by the acciden-
tai fulness of that fountain of wickedness-
American Slavery.