Pomeroy weekly telegraph. [volume] (Pomeroy, Meigs County, Ohio) 1860-1866, 1861-08-23
Retribution.

day, need not to be told, that slavery is
the prolific mother of the hideous brood
of evils now pressing upon the country
1t cannot, in the nature of things, bt
otherwise than a distul bing element tc
the age in which it is tolerated. We
say age, for nations are so interlaced in
the web of common humanity and
common destiny, that no great dep; +
ture from the natural law Of right can
be tolerated in one country without
mofeaor less affecting all others. And
henceeyery civilized nation on the globe
having, in some degree, by acquiesence
OF, compact, or profit in trade, participa-
ted in the gigantic crime of American
slavery, is now feeling, in a correspond
ing degree, the retributiye stripes cf the
punishment of that crime.
For tie qualification of avarice and
lust, four millions of slaves are held in
the most abject state of degradation
No crime is deemed so great in these
people as an attempt to improve their
mental faculties so as to rise above the
stolid condition deemed most suitable
for the qualification of the passions above
referred to.
In the very nature Of things, those
who have the control Of these millions
Of debased and degraded slaves, and use
them for the qualification of base and de-
grading passions, cannot but cultivate in
themselves these passions into uncontrol-
BILE power. Accustomed to Gesp otic sway
over these, they learnat length to claim
the Same dcspotic rule overall others with
whom they hayeany dealings. And hence
= the sbarbarous and brutal treatment of
Nofthern men, and women too, by those
imbued with the spirit of the system
This has gone on in the natural pro-
gression of events, until in the utter
madness of unreasoning passion, they
have wased the present terrible civil
war, with the purpose of subjugating
the whole nation to the control of their
unbridled ambition.
But, in the Providence of God, or in
the necessary workings of hlman i'm
pulses, these passions cannot long be in
dulged without working out terrible
retribution upon those who indulge
them. 1t is among the everlasting YER
tiles, that great wrongs must be attoned
for by great punishments. And all his
tory teaches that, in some shape or other,
SO perfect, and even poetic, is the meas
ure of justice, that the criminals them
selves become their own executioners.
This is being signally manifested in
the utter ruin which is following in the
footsteps of the frantic armies blindly
aiming at the accomplishment of the
impossible purposes of the leaders of
the rebellion. Terrible, indeed, will be
thesphnishment of the immediate sup
porters ofthe system of slavery, and to
the clear comprehension Of all the w.rld
that punishment will be inflicted on
them, through the instrumentality of
their own bad passions, which blinds
them, not only to the claims of justice
and right, but to their own worldly self
interest even. The ill-gotten gains,
extorted with bloody stripes from bruti
fed men and prostituted women, will be
swept from. their grasp by this war,
waged by them for the mad purpose of
soacontroling the Government as to in
crease these gains by increasing their
power over the multiplied gangs of their
victims. And in all probability, in
ways, and by means, not now foreseen
or contemplated, instead of extending
the system over all the continent, it will
be forever limited to its present boun-
daries, or, more probable still, ''put in
the process of final extinction" But,
in any event, the South must come out
of the war utterly, hopelessly, bank
rupted, with her strong men killed, her
credit ruined, her land filed with wild
ows and covered with mourning, to
struggle through years of poverty under
load Of debt too heavy to be borne, un-
til, by repentance, the chastisement is
accepted asa ustpunishment for sins she
will at last be willing to renounce for
ever.
But the North is not guiItless In the
great transgression In ten thousand
ways, through her trade, her politics,
herireligion, her literature, her social
connections, she has participated in the
crime-has assented to the open viola
tion of the laws of justice and right
has pocketed the profits of the manu-
facture of the very whips with which
the unpaid labor of the slaves has been
extorted-and for the sake of the sup
posed gains growing out of this partner
ship, she has apologized, compromised
and played the part Of the receiver of
the booty, at least, if not the direct
taker. And in doing SO she has, to a
large extent, blunted her conscience,
debauehed her moral sense, and called
into activity a hybrid spirit compoun-
led of servility and greed, that requires,
n the immutable ethics of impartial JUS
tice, the punishment due to accomplices.
And We are getting it. 1t requires no
extraordinary degree of penetration to