Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1862-06-30
W CE S T E r:
MONDAY, JUNE so, 1869.


MONDAY, JUNE so, 1862.
EARLY last night we had brief announce
ment that something important had taken
place before Richmond. According to the
first brief dispatch our army had won grand
military triumph, and was about to take
Richmond. Then came a dispatch from Bal
timore promising full account of what had
been done; and soon afterwards came another
stating that the secretary of war had pro-
hibited the transmission of this dispatch.
We learned at the same time that New York
was full of eXcitement,-that all sorts of
rumors were aioat there,-that the news
of something important from Richmond
having got abroad on the street the hotels and
newspaper offices were crowded with excited
people,-and that eyeryhsdy was the more
excited because no one knew precisely what
had happened. The interference of the Sec
rotary of war to prevent the sending of dis
patches led many to the belief that the sup
posed triumph of our army had become a
disaster; and then arose wild rumors of every
kind, inventing particulars of the disaster,
although nothing of the kind was warranted
by any dispatch that had been received.
How important it was to tell the country
what had happened, and thus prevent such
carnival of rumor and such painful excite
ment and SUSPENSE The rebels in Richmond
and on the peninsula knew what had taken
place quite as well as our army. Therefore
no publication of the news could give them
additional information. We agree with Mr..
Craig that the suppression of this news is an
outrage to the press and people of the loyal
states. There may be some explanation that
will excuse it, but we find it impossible to i'm
agine any such explanation.
WHILE the sharp fight was going on
last Wednesday in front of Richmond, in
which one hundred brave men were killed,
and probably five hundred more wounded, for
the sake of securing an advantage of position,
two members of congress were making elab-
crate speeches in the senate, the drift and
purpose of which was to protect from confis-
cation the property of rebels who have caused
all this waste and sacrifice of life. Senator
Browning of Illinois first took issue with SEN
ator Sumner against the right of congress to
enact measures of confscation, and senator
Dixon of Connecticut followed on the gener,
al question of standing by the constitution in
such manner as would be least offensive to
the workers Of pro-slavery iniquity. Mr..
Sumner took no other part in the discussion
than to correct and explain his position
wherein it had been misstated or mis-
understood. Senator Wade Of Ohio,
however, met the senators from Illinois
and Connecticut on the threshold of their ar
gumcnt, viz that the constitution gives con-
gress no power to confiscate the property Of
rebels in arms. and that the power, so far as
it exists at all, rests in the commander-in-
chief whom the popular tribunal can neither
regulate nor control. Mr.. Sumner, when he
was charged with seeking certain ends with
out respect to constitutional authority, con-
tented himself for the time with the firm and
becoming reply: Il wish to meet this ques-
ton frankly under the constitution of the
United States. l know the strength of the po-
sition l occupy, and l know that it is only by
misunderstanding it that it can be answered"
But Mr.. Wade encountering the whole argu-
ment with his usual impetuous energy pro-
nounced tia pusillanimous and slavish doctrine
to maintain that though one-third of the peo-
pie had risen in revolt to overthrow the in
stitutions of the country, the hands of the
law-making power were tied and had no au-
thority TO touch the persons and property of
the traitors. He rebuked it as a dangerous
heresy unknown to the spirit of the English
law from which many of our ideas were de-
rived, and equally unknown to the constitu-
ton which our fathers erected as a barrier
against despotsm. The conservative class,
who oppose all confscaton. whether imme-
date and absolute or remote and conditional,
who hold that these just and wise measures
would justify the rebels to continue in their
revolt, and whose controlling purpose is to
restore to their old places in the government
the influences which have once betrayed it,
are greatly rejoiced over the indications
which some republican senators give of con-
ceding something to their policy. But their
joy cannot last long. They will find nothing
to encourage them among the people of the
loyal states, to whom they must soon appeal
They will find in the disloyal states that those
who have suffered and sacrificed most for
their devotion to the Union will be among
the foremost to rebuke them if their ancient
enemies are left unpublished for their crimes.
The question involved in this discussion has
been for the time disposed of by the substitu-
ton of the senate confiscation bill, once before
adopted, by the close vote of 10 to II. The
difference between the two houses must now
be disposed of by a committee of conference,
and will probably be pressed to a decision
during TIE present week. Certainly the coun-
try will be disappointed if congress should adj
iourn leaving so obvious and important duty
unperformed. Whatever fears "conserva-
tive" senators may have about carrying on
war upon other than peace principles, they
will not be able to satisfy the people at home
that it is their duty to bear the sorrows and
burdens of long war while the guilty men
who brought it upon them are carefully pro-
tected in their lives and estates.
STRAwBERRr FEsTTAL.-Some of the