Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-11-02
THE PATRONS OF TREASON.

THE PATRONS OF TREASON
1t is not easy to define the limits within
which audacity may be tolerated. 1t tries the
patience of honest men when confessed cheats
assume the garb of innocence, and successfully
themselves on public confidence and
credulity. 1t is exceedingly aggrayating to
be convinced that any of the men whom we
have been instrumental in lifting into rcspec-
liability and position, have been, while
picking their neighbors' pockets with one
hand, misleading and beguiling our un-
suspecting confidence with the other
But there is nothing in tho aadacity of
such men, nothing in their unbushing as
sumption that the state and its institutions are
field for cheap piracy, that will compare with
the audacity of those soldiers of fortune who
are now engaged IN denouncing the leading
statesmen Of fghe country with conspiring with
traitpzs@, and melting domestic insurrection.
Imagine thief, under the old law, denouncing
the jury which has tried him, and the judge
who has condemned him to the gibbet, as con-
spirators against good government or one who
has been found guilty of fornication denounc-
ing the law which punished him as standing
assault upon good morals, and you have the
only conceivable parallel for their matches
and INSCRIPTIONS audacity.
Since the triumph of the Republican party
became one of the contingencies to be consid
cred and provided for, it has been difficult to
determine whether the majority of democratic
statesmen have been disunionists or not. Ger
tain it is, that no expressions of treason whcth-
er direct and explicit or qualified and contin-
gent, have affected their responsibility or weak
ened their hold upon the support and affections
of their party. The number of these orators
of sedition, who have been made into Govern
ors, members of Congress, and members of
the Cabinet may be estimated by herds but
to this hour not syllable has escaped from
democratic lips, north or south, against such
an apotheosls of sacriege to the state. Scarce
ly three years have passed since it was as CON-
mon to hear threats of sedition and disunion
in the contingency, which then seemed
probable one, of the election of Fremont to
the presidency, rs it was to hear of fights in
Congress. And some of the more impulsive
and ingenious spirits, among whom was that
Gov. Wise, whose terrible valor has been so
signally displayed in crushing the rebellion of
John Brown, conceived and developed the
heroic plan of rallying their forces, of march
ing to Washington by way of Harper's Ferry,
of Selling the treasury and other available re-
eournac of +l,a novarnmapt &c +ba I,oe;s ~
new southern confederacy. "lhesc are my
jewels, said the south, and its party at the
north applauded them to the echo.
These are the patrons of treason, who are
to-day using their Improbable time in grub
bing for accusations against pure and distin.
guished men, among the impertincnt letters
of the Scotch beggar, "Col" Forbes, and the
floating papers of an old man, whom they have
driven with indecent haste to the verge of an
luminous grave. Let it be understood that
this party, this Guy Fawkes party, this party
whose oraces taught John Brown the way to
Harper's Ferry, is the only one since the Rev
olution which has made avowed hostility to
to the Union respectable in any section of the
country, and which has given its credentials
and its patronage as readily to enemies as to
friends of the Union. And when it is repeated
again, that the doctrine of conflict between
right and wrong, between virtue and vice. be-
tween freedom and slavery, foreshadows and
provokes civil war, let it be remembered that
the charge is made by a party which places
the advocates Of civil war among its canonized
saints.