Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1863-11-12
PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS.

We are sure that no reader of the statements we
yesterday derived from the recent address of Mr.
CAN'T to the people of Arkansas can fail to draw
the lessons nculcated by his portraiture of the de-
solutions brought upon the Southern people, not
only by the necessary ravages of war waged on
their SOIL but also by the license and depredations
of their own military commanders and soldery.
1t is in the light of such representations that we
can clearly read the nfatuaton Of the people who,
in an evil hour, suffered themselves to be misled
by the architects of ruin who precipitated" the
Cotton States into revolution, and who, by their
violent counsels, eventually drew portion Of the
Border Slaveholding States into the same fatal
vortex.
And we see in the deeds Of lawless violence COM
mitted by Hindman in Arkansas how odious, and
at the same time how dangerous, is all arbitrary
power. This military despot professed to be the
friend and protector of the people whose substance
he was eating out and whose liberties he was tram
ping under foot We record with gratitude the
fact that, in time of revolutionary agitation and
in the service of the National Government at whose
door the charge of such excuses can be laid.
Wrongs undoubtedly have been committed, and
usurpations Of power adventured, in the name and
under the pretence of serving the cause Of the
Union, and it is proper that the true friends of
interests Of the Union, should unmask these dis
guises of simulated patriotism wherever they may
appear.
1t is sometimes common for needless partisans
to allege in extenuation of admitted abuses that
greater outrages on civil liberty and personal
protested uphoders of the Government. We have
doubt as to the truth of the fact thus alleged,
but, in the of all that gives superiority to the
cause of legitimate and recognised authority over
that Of usurped and revolutionary power, we
would ask what such representations avail when
pleaded in defence of arbitrary and lawless pro-
ceedings? Are traitors and insurgents to be the
exempsrs by whom the defenders of the Constitu-
ton and the Laws should modulate their conduct !?
Or is not their example to be cited rather for the
purpose of being condemned and Stunned than Of
being approved or initiated? The dread law of re-
taliation has its narrow circle within the bloody
code of war; it can never be extended in it's sane
tions to justify, the part of loyal and law
abiding men, participation in the excuses COM
mitted by their ipsurrectionary opponents for the
instant they SO participate in such excuses they
have forfeited the character of loyal and lawabid
ing men, aud sink pro tanto to the moral and
legal level cf those whom they profess to resist.
And when we speak of "excesses," we allude, of
course, to all those acts of arbitrary power commit
ted outside of legitimate military necessity for
none can deny that war has its necessity, though
much that is done in the name of necessity may
spring from the caprice of reckless or the ill,ad
vised zeal of an injudicious officer
And no reader of Mr.. Gantts observations on
slavery could fail to be struck with the difference
between his advocacy of emancipation and that Of
those who agitate the question merely for partisan
purposes for the qualification of fanatical prepos
sessions. And yet who can doubt that one such
candid opponent Of slavery in Arkansas is worth,
for practical purposes, hundred declaimers like
Wendell Phillips in Massachusetts, Mr.. Gantt's
right to address his fellow-ctizens in depreciation
of their pro-slavery fanaticism can be called in
question on no ground of Legitimate personal or
political dissent. He cannot be decried as busy
body in other mems matters, and he makes it az
parent by his words of truth and soberness that he
seeks the good of his fellow-ctizens not the tri-
umph of party or the degradation of hated Sec
ton. If all aboitionists would cultivate his pre-
sent spirit and initiate his present language, they
might hope for more patient hearing.