New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1861-02-25
TuR REIGN OF RUFFrANIsM.


tive, official information, that President Lincoln,
in resorting to 80 extraordinary step as to
travel in disguise and enter incognito into the
Federal Capital, did so for sufficient reasons
We take it for granted that Mr.. Lincoln Is not
wanting in personal courage, for we know that
whenever in the course Of his life he has been
called upon to exercise that quality it has never
failed him, whether for aggression or defense.
We take it for granted, therefore, that the peril
which threatened him was imminent and great,
and that it was one against which personal cour-
age could avail nothing. The danger, no doubt,
was one that did not concern him alone; it was
not probably, secret assassination or public
murder in some preconcerted riot of which so
old and so brave soldier as Gen. Scott warned
him to beware As the measures resorted to to
escape il were extraordinary, 80 also, without
doubt, was the peril ITSELF
What was it We no more know than our
readers. But this we do know-that it Is the
only instance recorded in history in which the
recognized head IF natiOn-head, whether by
choice or iuhertance-has been compelled, Tor
fear of hs life, to enter the capital in disguise.
Tyrapts have fled from their palaces under false
names and assumed characters, when the exas-
perated people have compelled them to aodlcate
their thrones; dethroned mOnarchs have escaped
in the garb of common men at the approach of
O foreign enemy; pretenders to royal seats to
which they had no right have sought from secret
hiding places and with feigned names and pur-
poses to rally the discontinued into open rebellon
but never before among civilized people has
King or President been reduced by the circum-
stances of the times to such an extremity for
protection, where his right to govern was I'M
questioned and unquestiOnable. What, then, is
the conclusion Simply that one section OF this
country is only semi.ciylzed 1t may call sell
republican; it may profess the abstract faith OF
Christianity; it may possess, to certain limited
degree the arts Of q cultivated people; II
NAV live under some OF the forms of en-
liphtened society; but il wants that in.
herent moral sense, that accurate concep-
ton of social law, that intelligent submission TO
the purpose Of civil government which mark the
highest civilization 1t is merely semi-barbarous
in its spirit savage in its instincts, rockies. Of
human life and human rights, fathess in every
thing but brute force, unintelGgent in its aims,
and INSCRIPTIONS in the means with which it
seeks to attain them. In society 80 constituted,
il il not strange there should be found many
persons who could conceive aud execute some
diabolica plot Of slaughter, sparing neither seI,
nor age, nor numbers-such as the destruction
of railroad train--that the death of one man
might be eompassed, in the hope Of accomplish
ing thereby the overthrow Of popular Consti-
tutional Government. Against such designs,
formed among people possessed of tho vices
and forces of civilization without its virtues and
restraints, personal courage, or character, or po-
siton, may avail nothing, and there is no defense
but evasion. 1t seems probable that had not
Mr. Lincoln resOrted 10 this method of escape,
neither he nor any Of bis party would have ever
reached Washington alive.
-Four years ago the reign of ruffanism was openly
instituted at the South. The popular intelligence
and morality Of that region knew no higher
method wherewith to meet the progress Of opinion
and the growth Of events. How many men and
women were banisbed and killed in the year
1856 at the South for believing that Slavery is
bic to say, or even to know. We have counted
at least Il score recorded in single newspaper
within a brief period, and those, of course,
were but fraction of the whole. When, four
years later, it is evident that the hostility to
Slavery il becoming still more universally diff
fused. and it 80 far successfully asserts itself as
TO forbid its extension into the Territories, then
ar III
are imprisoned, banished or killed not by scores,
but by hundreds When this state OF things goes
not only unpublished but almost unrebuked by the
country at large, and it assumes even an organic
form in the plunder' Of public property, the
seizure of public forts, and the defiance OF the
supreme law of the land, what reason have we for
expecting that the fierce and brutal spirit which
rules the ssciety where such ruffianism grows VIII
stop at anything which seems to dim its intelli-
gence likely to aid in the accomplishment OF its
ends? The attempted assassination OF Mr.. Van
WICK at Washington, the proposed plan to get
rid of Mr.. Lincoln, whatever it was, and at what
ever expense OF the lives Of Others even Of women
and children, are merely new developments OF
Southern and sayehOlding barbarism, the only
way in which innate ruffians can meet the new eX-
igencies of, the moment. And these will be fol-
lowed by acts with moro certain results, unless,
in the mean time, the supremacy of law shall
be asserted in obedience to Northern civilization,
and by other means than persuasive words.
-.
The Mexican correspondent of The Albion gives
the following succinct account Of the final sup.