Richmond enquirer. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1815-1867, 1863-08-25
EXCHANGE OR NO EXCHANGE.

EXCHANGE OR NO EXCHANGE.
THIS da7 M-. Commissioner Ould meets for
the first time the new Federal commissioner.
a certain Gen. Meredith, 70 confer on the
terms Of the cartel, and endeayor TO settle the
principles Of exchange for the future. III
e~carcely possible 70 hope that any conclusion
satisfactory to both sides csn be arrived a.
in this conference. The Federal government
has planted itself insolen.ly upon the demand
that gu. runaway negroes, When aAen ~
arm, aya;nst their masters, shall be treated
~ prisoners Of war, and shall be exchanged
agains, white men. Ccnfsderatcs have borne
and fo.borne much 10 mitigate the atrocities
Of war; but this is a thing which the temper
of the country cannot endure. Our govern
men; has issued an order ss to the treatment
OF reyolted negroes when captured. Certain
CAPTURED negroes, under that order, have been
imprisoued at Charleston to await the dispo-
si,ior Of the State Government. Ihefeupon
the Yankee War Department sent forth this
letter TO their Secretary Of the Navy:
WAR DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON CIT,
August s, 1868.
s1R: Your letter Of the 3D. instant, calling
the attention of this department to the cases OF
Grin II. Brown, William Il Johnston ano
William Wilson, three colored men captured
ON the gunboa: Isaac Smith, has received con
alteration. This department has directed
tina, three Rebel prisoners of South Carolina,
if there be any such in our possession, ano II
mot three Others, be confined in close custody
and held as hostages for Brown, johnson and
Wilson, and that the fact be communicated to
the Rebel authorities at Richmond.
VERY respectfully, your obedient servant,
EpwIx NJ. Sr,S1oS, Secretary of War.
The Hon. GiDEoS WgLrrs, Sec'y OF the Navy.
Thus issue il Joined. We take it to be quite
impossible that our government will yield one
10: on this 7i,al point but the frst demand OF
the new Federal Commissioner WILDE, that We
q. once consent 10 put the negroes on the foot
ing OF our own troops, and value them against
each other, man for man. grade for grade. That
being refused, az it must be, the Conference,
no doubt, will be broken OF, and there is an
end Of the cartel, and Of all exchange OF pri-
soners.
This attempted outrage By the Yankee gov
eminent is the first fruit Of their temporary
luck in holding an excess Of prisoners. 1t
was sore!y against their will az first that they
consented to any cartel at all, and regarded
Confederate prisoners in any other light than
that of captured nalefactors due TO the peni-
Tertiary Or the sallows. With spiteful rage
they found themselves compelled TO provide
for the safety Of their own great multitude Of
prisoners in our hands, By an arrangement for
exchange, which we might have been sure
would be observed only SO long as they thought
they would suffer more than We, for want Of
such al arrangement. They avail themselves
of the first opportunity to reassert their origi-
nal tbecry-namely, that we are rebels and
criminals. and have no rights. All the rights
are on the side Of what they call "the4aw;"
they are suppressing al insurrection, they
say, in their own country; and all means are
legitimate. Thus they not only adopt the at
terly barbarous expedient Of exciting s%errile
instruction; but they inform US that if those
reTolted negroes are restored to their masters,
they will put an equal number of Confederate
citizens to hard labor. 1t is not merely thei in
solent pretension of a regular government af-
fecting to deal with "rebels )" but 1t is o
deadly stab which they are aiming at our in
situations themselves; because they know that
if We were insane enough to yield this point,
to treat black men as the equals Of white, and
insurgent slaves as equivalent to our brave
soldiers, the very foundation Of slavery would
be fatally wounded.
The pretension TO trea. US no longer as bel
ligerents, but as malefactors-to deal with US
not by the usages of civilized warfare, but by
the rules Of criminal Jurisprudence, is a fact
which we have now to look full in the face,
and to meet as best we can. The theory Is
very well expounded by a passage which We
find in the letter Of an Ohio correspondent to
the New York Tribune" describing the un-
manly outrages perpetrated upon our gallant
Gen. Morgan and his officers. The writer
says:
"Shaye and wash and clothe q general like
a general convict! If you explain that it is
Johns due, as a horse-thief, they are go angry
that they tell you it is just what the Federal
Government has been doing all through
When you point out that a government can
do some things which private bodies can't
as q sheriff can take lawfully what o burglar
c~annot-they tell you-those who know they
do so ssfely-that one is just as much a gov
eminent as the other; that the one is e gov
eminent and the other is not, and so on"
Just so-here is the principle stripped
naked. The enemy has a right to take horses
and every thing else in our country; we, if We
r~etaliate, are horsc-thieves., Milroy, and But
Ter, and Banks, are agents Of the lawful 60
vernmcnt; but Lee lisa private person, merely
stealing. They are the constituted authori-
ties; we are lawless persons erading or re-
sisting the sheriH7s officers. Their prisoners
in our hands are entitled to respectful usage:
sur's captured by them are entitled to no
thing but condign punishment for their
crimes. If they yielded for o timsto our sr-
perior force, and agreed to exchange on equal
terms, it was still under protest, and with the
firm resolution to make jig suffer for it ten-fold
the moment they should have the advantage
On the same principle also, the forbearance Of
General Lee in Pennsylvania was. received as
matter of right for the criminal at large has
no title to r~etaliate upon the officers of JUS
tioe and the enemy looked upon that chival-
rous forbearance with sincere pleasure, not so
much because their people were spared as be-
cansa orr'a were deoraded nv II. Our refrain.