Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1861-02-26


defense, he has accepted the resignation Of
Southern officers Of the Navy, when they
were in actual hostility against the Govern
mcnt, and had committed capital crimes,
| which the laws of the service required
should be tried by court-martial. Some Of
these were accompanied, and some preceded
10y the intelligence that they had transferred
the public property in their charge to the
rebels, and had entered into the service of
rebellion.
Captain Randolph, of the Navy, at the
J head of an iDsurgent force, appeared before
| the gates of the Pensacola Navysyard on the
18th of January, and demanded its sur
render. The account of the ignominious
surrender of the yard, stores, and vast
amount of property, was received by Secre-
tary Toucey on the 18th. On the l4th, Cap
tain Randolph's resignation reached the
Secretary and was promptly accepted. E.
Farrand, of Alabama, commander in the
navy, and second in command at the yard,
and T. B. Renshaw, of Florida, Lieutenant,
still holding their commissions, engaged act.
lively in delivering the yard to the insurg-
ents, and Immediately took the same posi-
tions in the insurgent service, and then
sent their designations to the Secretary.
Twenty. zine designations were THUS made,
some of them by telegraph, many of them
in such circumstances that they delivered
their trust to the insurgents; several others,
besides those mentioned, after the officers
had engaged in overt treason and rebellion,
and all the rest for the express purpose of
taking up arms against the Government.
Yet they were promptly accepted by Secre-
tary Toucey. Some were made by telegraph
so that the officers might begin hostilities at
Gree, and were accepted by the same expe-
ditious means. Lieutenant j. R. Hamilton,
Of South Carolina, resigned, and Immediately
issued letter, addressed to all Southern
officers in the navy, urging them to resign,
and such of them as were in active service
to bring their vessels into Southern ports
and deliver them into the hands of the in
surgents.
Certainly, if we have not as a people be-
come so demoralized that public virtue, Of
fetal ipterity, fidelity to Government and
respect for official oaths have ceased to have
any existence, we must as nation character
ize this as baser and more widely. extended
treachery, and reaching to higher officers
than any which ever before was heard of in
any Government either civilized or savage,
1t is more than doubtful, if a people where
such vast treachery is tolerated, or which
fails to bring it to justice, is fit to have a
overnment of its own creating.
Civil war is light evil compared with 50
total degradation of national character as
would be established if such open and gen
eral treachery is permitted to defy justice. If,
as our orators often reiterate, any sacrifice is
to be preferred to the loss of honor, this ma
tion has already suffered greater affliction
than that of civil war; for honor is gone, and
can only be recovered through the vindica-
ton of the nation from treason and wide
spread official treachery, by whatever means
may be required to sustain the majesty of
the laws.
If, as our orators are always reiterating,
the only sure foundation for a republican
government is in the virtue and integrity of
the people, how can we hope to maintain
government, if, when the nation is betrayed
and plundered by its highest officers and its
sworn Legislators, and treason, robbery and
rebellion demand its surrender to their
terms we have nothing to offer except sub
mission?
1t drags in the mire the plumes which we
have faunted in the face of what are termed
the "effete monarchies of Europe" that we
who have been continually boasting to the
world of our sole and exclusive capacity for
self government, should exhibit a spectacle
of official idiotic imbecility, corruption, rob
berry and treachery, pervading the highest
officers of Government, the officers intrusted
with the public defense and safety, the high
est legislators, and the managing politician IS
of "a late controlling political party, at which
the people of the effete monarchies of Europe
ard even of Asia are filled with astonish-
ment and disgust. We have our national
character TO retrieve, before we shall be re-
gsrded by the nations of the world as fit to
have national existence.