North Branch democrat. [volume] (Tunkhannock, Pa.) 1854-1867, 1862-12-10
Spirit Of the Northern Press.

home some of the political prisoners who
have been discharged, "no fault being found
f in them," says:
The people turned out to welcome them
as martyrs in the sacred cause of liberty and
individual right, which had been coven down
in their persons. Those who have instgated
and participated in these illegal arrests will
be held to, the severest responsibility. Math
: ew Lyon, a Democratic patriot of Vermont
who was fined and imprisoned for utterne
Democratic sentiments in the days of the el-
, der Adams, in 1893, under the sedition laws
of the modern Aboltionists, had his fine o
5 1000 refunded to him in 1S40, ,forty-too
years dt1er,bard.
d Exemplary damages will be given fol, years
to every victim of false Imprisonment in the
loyal States in 1861 and 1862, during the
reign Of terror. The attempt to bind the par
ties who have been kidnapped to an oath that
they will not seek legal redress for those
wrongs, will prove as it ought, ALI utter failure
Somebody has got to answer for the enor-
nous outrages that have been committed
against personal property in the last year.
1t is no slight matter to seize man without
warrant and conffne him in a dungeon for
months, and then confess that he is innocent
by discharging him without a trial. No DANA
ges can pay for such an injury. Of the hun
dreds of Democrats who have been arrested
in the North by political violence, not one
was legally arrested, nor was ever allowed
trial, but was pushed in dungeon without
one: Of the whole lot not one had violated
a la" of the land, or transcended any of his
constitutional privileges. Their arrest and
Imprisonment was simply ain act of unmiti-
gated ard despotic usurpation of power to the
worst and vilest of Purposes, and the gratifi-
cation of political and personal hate
The New York World calls attention to the
fact that its cotemporaries, the Evening Post
Times and Tribune, bull few short months
ago teemed with complaints of the " rose wa
ter" policy of guarding property and endeav-
oring to restrain the soldiers from ravagIng
the country as they passed through and, says
Pope's savage orders were hailed as begin
ming OF new era Of sterner measures against
the Rebels, and Senator Sherman's monstrous
proposition that to eight savage5 we must be
come savaees ourselves" was tacitly admitted
to be true. But presto what change has
come over the spirit of their dreams. The
| (tnvarnmnnt odyartiSodtba :, 10 Of so,,o o,I -.
left by their owners at B ,aufort, South Caro-
lima. " This wont do" shouts the Post; ,,ony
| bar5arians make war on books" 90 Its un
christian, uncivilized,' ccEoes the Times. "The
freedmen, after they have learned how to read
will want whatever books are sealed
adds the Tribune. And SO Mr.. Barney is
compelled to adjourn the sale Indefinitely.
| We hail all this as an evidednce of return.
ing reasen but will these joa.nals be good
enough, now that they arc studying up the
laws Of war and the usages ofoiriIize6 nations,
to point DIT The chapter and paragraph that
will justify an enemy in seeking to incite
servile Instruction Has it ever before
been an appliance of warfare in ancient or
modern times? Then again, if confisca;ing
books is so very wrong, what shall we say to
Jaws confiscating the entire property of a
people with whom we are at war? Does
not the Post, Times and Tribune see that in
choakng over very small gnat, they are
: swallowing very large and very crooked
camel head, hoofs, humps, and all 2
Sna,m, he War Succeed" is the title of
significant article in the Nep York Woric.. " ~
IL asks
"Who to-day is hopeful of the snccess of
o1f. arms, ofprotracted immunity from foreign
Intervention, the conquest of an honorable
peace and reunited country, save only the
radicals whose Vaccinations have thrice cheat
ed us of victories, whose lack of national
spirit invites foreign insolence, and whose
labor of years has been to .beiittle the value
Of the Uuion which they now pretend 20 be
alone able to save? Who does not say in his
secret mind that the future is unutterably
dark, the hope Of saving the nation feeble as
never before ? Who does not denounce-
friend or foe the imhecllty of the admins
tration, the vascillatons, ofts policy the
selfish intriguos Of its highest members
who cannot trace to the beginning Of he radi-
cal policy which now is dominant around the
green baize of the cabinet table, the beginning
and the cause ofall our past disasters and our
present hopeessness The evils which the
men who now sway the mind of President
I Lincoln combined with Southern extremt Ii IS
to being upon the nation, the same men now
labor to make rremediable. But for them
the country would have been plunged into the
present war. But for them the war might to-
day be approaching its honorable and success
full termination.
"Of the wal, as now conducted there is no
visible end. Of the policy which now rules
in the field and the council chamber, there is
no issue except bankruptcy, foreign interven-