Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1863-05-21

| versaries, as we'll as of the men and measures
of the Administration, the part of its professed
friends, equally with its recognised opponents. Il
any feel called to dissent from the war policy, OF
any other policy Of the President, it is free fol
them to do so, but prudence and patriotism require
that dissent should be expressed with the modera
ton and candor which bespeak the presence Of
sincere and intelligent opinions, not of rooted pre-.
judices and factious purposes. And when we
| speak Of prudence" we mean not the polite
cautionof the {" trimmer" who speaks with " bated
breath" because of servile fear but the prudence
which recognises in all things the obligations Of
decency and propriety.
And there must be impartiality in the condem-
nation of that political fanaticism which Gen.
Burnside rebukes. 1t must be no more tolerable
for Mr. Wendell Phillips to urge the revolutionary
overthrow of the Administration, and the usurpa-
tion Of its functions by the National Legislature,
than for Mr.. Vallandigham to arraign the Presi-
dent and his minions" in terms Of political violence
and reproaoh. We know there is distinction
made by some who profess to be the Presidents
friends in favor of all the vilifcation poured upon
ton is deemed safe to make sufficiently appears
from the following terms used by the Morning
Chronicle of this city in defending the patriotism
Of Mr.. Phillips, Notwithstanding he has proclaimed
himself disunionist Of seventeen years standing,
and has publicly recommended the Senate and
Congress to "push the Administration from their
Stools, and within the last few days has denounced
the President as slave" in the hands of an i'm
beetle Cabinet 1t says:
"Tbe Integencer knows we'll that there is not in this
land more ardent friend of the Union cause and more
ardent enemy of the rebellion and its olgarchc leaders
and contrvers, than Wendell Phillips. To thrust him in
the dock with Vaandigham and to demand of the
public to make trial OF both for similar dsoya utterances
and nsolent wrong to of the purest patriots
in the nation. -
The ins;pidity of all the Chronicles political ap-
pications sufficiently acquits it of any disposition
to endorse the acrid language of Mr.. Phillips in
relation to the Administration, and we have not
cited its voluntary tribute to that intemperate de-
claimer for any other purpose than to set in a
clear light the trucking spirit which sometimes
blinds the judgment of men in their estimate of
the same offence when committed by different per-
sons. What in Mr.. Phillips is but choleric
word" becomes in Mr. Vallandigham fat bias
phemy."
We sincerely unite with our respectable Repub-
lioan contemporary, the Albany Evening Journal,
in the hope that the good sense of the American
people will put q truce to this exaggeration and
violence of speech, whether it comes from the
heated disputants of the one party or the other,
and whether it is directed against each other or
against the Administration. Political difference
does not call for political asperity, and political
dissent from any policy Of the President does
not call for the invective which seeks either to
excite the popular passions or the popular con-
tempt against the constituted authorities of the
land. There is more danger to be apprehended in
q country like ours from such political virulence
than from the most abject servility, for the expo
nents of the latter are not likely to find any more
imitators than admirers in nation of freemen,
while party spirit and intolerance of restraint have
ever been the bane of Republics.