New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1863-05-04
ALIEN ENEMY.


ALIEN ENEMY.
II i. gratifying to observe that Mr.. Chief
Justice Bosworth, of the Superior Court, has
recently distinctly ruled that a Plaintiff who
has joined the Conspiracy, and is residing in
Virginia, is not an Alien Enemy; and that
Alien Enemy cannot DO pleaded against him.
In this case, indeed, the ruling enabled a
traitor TO keep upon his legs in Court; but if
the principle'of the decision should be carried
out by the Federal Government, divers dis
honest folk would hardly DO able to keep upon
their legs 10 another place of final jurisdiction.
The truth is, the relations Of the Government
10 its nutinous citizens have. by the long con-
tiuuance of the contest, become confused in
mems minds and speeches; until it cannot be
denied that too many Of us have come to
regard the self-baptized Confederate States"
as q foreign Power, with which, by the acct
dent of events, we chance TO be- at war. This
is mous,rous mistake, and may be tue mother
of many others. If the Rebellion had been
confined TO its pestent cradle, South Carolina,
az il would have been, if We had had other
than weak old woman for President at the
time, We should have heard no talk Of abel
ligerent rights" The Secessionis.s would have
been treated like other criminals, according to
the statutes in such cases made snd provided.
The Rehan.-- become respectable only
through its formidable proportions; and the
Rebels have compelled us to disregard the
stern equities of the combat, and to treat
them with certain civility. But morally this
alters nothing. Treason still remains the
highest crime known to our jurisprudence;
every man in the civil or military or naval
employment Of the Coniederscy" is traitor,
and as such has forfeited his life. 1t is not, to
be sure, TO be supposed that under any circum-
stances, Government would proceed TO such
eItremites, nor are we contending that it
should. What we would urge is recognition
in all our thought and speech and writing Of
the moral facts Of tho case. We urge this
because We believe that the whole isnobe herd
Of Sympathizers, Compromisers. Apologists,
Peace Democrats, and Copperheads, is the
progeny of a contemplate fallacy in politics,
and lives by the impudent assumption, s,me-
times implied and sometimes direct that in
some way the Confederates" are in tho right
or to put it more accurately, are not altogether
in the wrong. These Copperheads cannot
make even what is intended 20 be patriotic
speech without limiting that the war is only
tho natural consequence of Northern
faults or follies. Then, too, famil-
arity renders the Confederate crime less
disgusting. Several years ago, divers most
intensely conservative persons Logan to pave
the way at tho North for the reception, at least
without any astonshment, Of Dayis's secession
notions Before the South had begun, except
for the temporary purposes Of brag and intm.
datiOn, to talk of dissolution, Northern men,
for purposes best known to themselves, or per-
haps out OF actual timidity, told us that five
pursued certain course-and ID was one
which We could not honorably abapdon--why,
dissolution would be inevitable. This was, in-
deed, nothing more, nothing less, than al invita-.
ton to the Shareholders TO take up arms against
sicn Of our fears which melted the enemies OF
peace and order. 1t was because we had yielded
10 threats, that threats hardened into bold, bad
deeda. We had come to talk of Treason as we
talked of petty larceny or some other simple
misdemeanor, until the wholesome horror with
which Secession was once regarded by large
masses Of voters, even at the South, dwindled
at first into dislike, and finally into liberation.
Now then, at last, We begin to find out that
Treason is q Crime:
Morally, as affecting human progress and the
cultivation of social virtues--as indissolubly
linked with bad faith and systematic falsehood
and Wholesale perjury-as diminishing the
chances Of political progress all over the world
IA Strengthening the hands OF despots and
making fairer forms Of social life less proba.
be-as bringing falsehood and perjury and
theft into certain repute in human affairs
as destroying that confidence between man and
man which alone makes existence tolerable:
Politically, as subjsctiug Us to the enormous
waste of war, to ito needless extinguishmsnt Of
life and prodigal expenditure of property-to
that general doubt which pasies industry, and
checks enterprise, and encourages speculation