The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1859-04-09

The painful tragedy which had its consumma-
ton yesterday-though shorn of It's awful solem-
NIFTY, TO some extent, by the revolving and de-
morallZlng scenes which always render public
executions disgrace to civilization and humanity
has produced, nevertheless, deep impression
on our whole community. 1t has established
with terrible certainty the fact that the law is
yet living and irresistible power in our midst
and has proclaimed to those who habitually dis
regard its mandates, that there is day of inevta-
BILE retribntion, sooner or later, when crime shall
stand naked and helpless before the avenger,
without refuge or hope, save the mercy of GoD.
We trust IN sad sincerity, that the lesson will not
be lost upon the class to which it addresses itself
most obviously and directly. We trust that it
may teach them the folly of relying, as against
The law, upon the force and influence of those
temporary combinations of bad and interested
men, by whom the unhappy victims of yesterday
were urged on, through crime and sorrow, to the
scatfold. We hope it may convince them that
they are the wretched dupes and tools of those
who ilatter them and excite them to transeression
and who stand apart. undiscovered and secure in
the day OF reckoning and retribuhon. We trust
that the lives of their companions forfeited
ANONYMOUSLY TO justice, may impress them with
the sacredness and value Of that human life which
impunity has taught them, heretofore to hold so
cheap, and that when, hereafter, they are tempted
to shed blood, they may remember the ultimate
and awful doom, from which murder seeks a
hiding-place in vain.
But there are others, besides the open and hab-
itual violators of the law, to whom we would fan
hope that the sacrifice of yesterday has borne its
moral. To those ministers of public authority
and justice, whose dereicton of duty or still
more culpable connivance, for the last few years.
has fostered violence and riot into established
institutions, and whose faithessness to every obi
CATION incumbent on the magistrates of a
civilized community, has handed over mems
rights, for eason after season, to bloody
outrage and lndignity-the spectacle, to which
we are abiding, has, we trust, carried repentance
and reformation Upon their heads must rest
and deceive themselves as they may upon their
eads will rest forever-the largest share of that
immense responsibility which yesterdays atone
ment expiated but in part If instead of pander-
ing, for partisan purposes or personal ambition to
the worst passions Of misguided and bad men, they
had asserted and indicated as became them, the
majesty and instant supremacy of the law-they
would have crushed, in the bud, what has grown
to such bitter fruit. If-nstead of selecting the
guardians of the public security and peace, from
among those who were the most reckless and
habltual volators of both, were the friends and
sympathlzng associates of such-they had filled
the offices of the law, with men worthy and will
ing to uphold tit would have been upheld,
without the blood of victims If, instead of deny
ing with INSCRIPTIONS pertinacity, the existence of
perilous disorders and great wrongs-palpable to
every one else in the community and confessed by
themselves at last-they had set themselves to
work, in good faith and with honest purpose, to
reform, uplift and restore-there would have been
reform and reestablished order, without assassna-
ton and the gibbet. But they chose to be indig-
nant and to glorify themselves, rather than
hearken with manly candor, to what they knew
to be true and right. They believed liberation to
be more popular than good government-and they
tolerated. They found personal triumph and po-
litical success, in the victories of brute force.
and they gave license and scope to it accordingly.
They courted and received its favors-accepted
office, with gratitude aud congratulation, from its
~'>Ny
ellowship-respected its inauence-honored its
consplrators-eft it unchallenged, in its riotous
despotlsm over other mems lives and rights
When, following the memorable law of retributon,
it turned upon themselves, at last, and they were
compelled for their own preservation TO assert the
power, which an insulted and PROSTATE community
had invoked, in vain, so often-what wonder that
they should have found the transgressors rebellious
and revengeful under its exercise? What wonder
that every engine Of influence should have been
set at work, TO avert the doom and relax the
grasp of justice? What marvel that the eyes of
the most blind-unseaed at last-should turn.
from the wretched cuprits on the scaffold, to the
corrupt and abominable system which led them
there, and should see, in their crime and its mean-
choly expiration, the handiwork of others-their
superiors in education, opportunities and position
10 whom society had the right to look for better
things?
But this is not quite all the moral of The painful
story. The respectable and Christian men of this
communicative have encouraged, by their votes
and countenance, the scenes of VOL nee to which
we have referred, and have sustained, in spite of
them, the delinquent authorities by whom they
were permitted we should think, have
looked upon the spectacle of yesterday with quiet
minds or hearts. If, thinking there was not much
harm in beating and excluding from the exercise
OF the great right of suffrage, the members of an
obnoxious party-they have excused or paated
the enormty and violence involved in it, and have
gwen TO Its perpetrators their support and practical
co-operauon-they must have shuddered at the fate
of the criminals to whom announcement in this
the first stage of their nquity was but the OPEN
ing of the door to sin and death. If any man,
who reads what we are writing, has given the
sanction of his name and the aid of his pecuniary
MEANS to the clubs of banded ruffians and con-
spirators, in whose bosoms all the recent murders
punished and unpunished-haye been nnrsed-