The Portland daily press., 1862-12-22
Political Malignitx Intensified.

In the Argus of Friday morning last, at the
conclusion OF an article on the Minnesota In
dians, is an exhibition of political malignity
that, in some respects, throws in the shade all
that we have ever before witnessed. People
at this distance from the scene of massacre
can have but a faint appreciation Of the feel
ings which possess the people of Minnesota in
relation to the outrages recently perpetrated
upon their frontier. They could do so, per-
haps, If the remnants of the Penobscot and
Passamaquoddy tribes had been guilty, within
the past few months, of stealthily creeping
around among the back settlements of Frank
lin, Somerset and Aroostook, brutally murder
ing the defenseless pioneers, violating women,
tomahawlling and sealping children, and leav-
ing in their tracks only smouldering ruins. In
Minnesota it is estimated that at least a thou
sand persons, old and young, and irrespective
of sex, have fallen before the "red devils"-
not Indians from the distant wilds, who have
felt none of the influences of civilization, but
those who, with the impositions, have also re-
ceived the full benefits and blessings of asso-
citation with civilized and humane society.
leaving the comforts and associations of child
hood and home, to carve out a future, far from
schools and churches, where at best hardship,
toll, and deprivation were unavoidably their
LOT, and who, by dint of hard effort, had reared
their humble cabins in the wilderness or on
the prairie, have been ruthlessly shot down,
their families brutally murdered, and their
durallsp.xc TO acbo q
themselves escaped, it has been in too many
instances only to see the tiends, drunken with
whiskey and passion, dancing, and celebrating
their hellish atrocities around the charred re-
mains of their wives and children, their bleed
ing scalps used to decorate and symbolic such
diabocal orgies. With news of such outra-
ges coming in from the frontier, and renewed
day by day, with frightened fugitives coming
into the settlement, fleeing for life from the
fends, who can wonder at the terrible thirst
for vengeance that has taken possession Of
the people OF that State? And when, tried by
military court, three hundred of these
wretches were found guilty and sentenced to
be executed, who can wonder that a general
aversion existed to having the sentence miti-
gated? Who can wonder that the people
shrank instinctivelv from the danger of allow
ing such fearful element to remain unexter-
minated in their neighborhood?
Representing the common, almost universal
feeling of his constituents, Senator Wilkinson
presented and supported remonstrance to
the President against mitigation of sentence,
and urged the extreme penalty of the law up
on the whole number. Far be it from us to
approve the feeling represented or manifested
by Senator Wilkinson. We think the Presi-
dent has done wisely in reviewing the matter
while allowing the law to take its course with
the ringeaders, to extend clemency to those
who were not the worst offenders. But while
we thus feel, we can readily understand why
the sufferers and their immediate neighbors
should entertain very different opinions.
But the Argus of Friday morning, in the ex-
ercise of an incarnate spirit of hate and ma
lignity, charges that Senator Wilkinson and
his abolition associates" having incurred the
opposition of the Indians by their Outrageous
frauds" so that they can no longer control their
votes, (cirilized Indians in that State are al
lowed to vote) notc irish to hare then, put TO
death to get rid Of their opposition to the
Republican party' We do not believe that
the distilled hate of political opposition ever
went beyond this Those wretcnes who have
been proved guilty, in cold blood, of murder
ing women and children, the Arg IS considers
comes within the qualification of Indian vot-
ers ,cho hare adopted the habits Of cicilized
life! And simply to get rid of their cotes
that paper is ready to charge the representa-
tives of the Sovereign people of a sovereign
State with the infamous design to put them to
death!
Does not the Argus in this matter afford the
true key to its own spirit? Can anything
short Of total political depravity discover and
appreciate such depravity in others? The
Argus has been for a year past clamoring for
the hanging.or at least incarcerating of all such
"aboltionists" as Sumner, Wilson, and Beech
er, and we submit if its accusations against
Senator Wilkinson do not afford some justif-
cation for the belief that its evil desires
against the men named have been prompted,
not by patriotic motives, but by simple vim
dictiveness, and the wish TO get rid of their
damaging influence upon the party of which
that paper is an organ and exponent!