Weekly national intelligencer., 1863-09-17
TESTS OF LOYALTY

81
It is very evident that Gen. Burnside standard
of "loJalty" falls far below that erected by GER
tain selfstyled expounders of civil duty, who
find the highest evidence of patriotism in the un-
conditional support of the Administration, without
regard to the merits or demerits, the advantages
or disadvantages of any particular measure or
line of policy which may be temporarily adopted.
With these time-servers "whatever is, (ofhcially,)
is right" Principles, motives, results go for
nothing in their calculus. However clear man
may be in the advocacy of principle which comes
in conflict with some administrative cxpedent,
however pure and patriotic may be his motives,
and however cogent he may be in his conviction
that any particular act or course of proceeding
will lead to disastrous results he is hidden to
ignore his principles" check his impelling emo
tives," and close his eyes to impending "results,"
lest in the normal exercise Of his intellectual and
reasoning faculties he may seem to fail in the
function of that perpetual assenaton to the wisdom
peace, becomes, we are told, the highest style of
patriotism in time of war.
The patriotic and loyal population of Kentucky
do not understand their duty or interpret the
rights of freemen. They canvass the measures of
the Administration with only the more solicitude
because issues SO tremendous are suspended on the
wise or unwise determinations Of our rulers in this
great crisis of the nations fate And we all know
in what sense they have recently spoken, upholding
the Constitution and Government of the country
with steady and unfaltering hand, but for this
very reason condemning any measure or policy
which seems to them violative of the one or inju-
rous to the other. And it is of such men that
Gen. Burnside, in a recent speech delivered at
Lexington, did not scruple to speak in terms of
the highest praise and admiration, when he said
that he had found Kentucky the most loyal
State in his department, and had SO reported at
Washington. He had found more strictly loyal
men here than in Ohio or Indiana, though the
latter was his birth place."
We make no such comparisons between the
"loyalty" of Kentucky and that of Ohio or
Indiana, but we note this testimony of Gen. Burn
side to the steady patriotism of those who are
seen to be none the less faithful to the obligations
of civil duty because they are unwilling to adopt
the language of fatterers and parasites
While referring to this subject we wish to
remind our readers that two Conventions have
recently been held by professed friends of the
Administration, with radical proclivities in the
States of Missouri and of Kansas, and that in
both of them the military policy and proceedings
of the Administration in that quarter are arragned
in terms of great severity and acrimony, and a
change demanded in tones of imperous defiance.
We have waited some time to see whether those
who are so intolerant of conservative dissent from
certain acts of the Administration would have
any thing to say in rebuke of such contumacy
proceeding from radical sources, but thus far we
have waited in vain. Comment is unnecessary