Richmond enquirer. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1815-1867, 1863-07-21

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EniToRIAL No. 8.-C1v1c WISDOM AND PA.
! Tp,ortsr,-Our Common Council has not COW
cred itself with special glory in the outbreak
| which has Just disgraeed the city. 1t has not
been possible even to get together quorum OF
the members of either branch, and those who
have assembled and ventured to express any
oninion on the subject, have talked as if they
| either sympathized with the mob or stood in
terror Of its brutal power.
One Alderman Masterson is charged with
having said he "was in favor of burning the
building that was burned"
Editorial No. 9-On the Object Of the Mob,
and Lac and LiJerty-closes the subject for
that ISSUE.
So much for the 'Times" The "World,"
of the l4th, while the riot had yet ragged but
one day, has these frightened remarks:
Last night the Northern sky was red with
lurid fires lit by the hands of an Infatuated
mob; nothing but the smoking walls remain
of an asylum for negro orphans; men, a score
and more, who saw the morning sun, lie stark
and dead; workshops we're deserted, and the
passion of the laborer becoming as it ever
does the opportunity of the rutlian, a saturna.
lia of pillagc, murder and raplne threatened
again and again to set in upon the commercial
metropolis of the Union. Crowds all day
marched hither and thithcr along the streets,
reckless, unguided, with burning sense of
wrong toward the government which has I'M
dcrtaken to choose at random from among
them the compulsory soldiers OF mlscon-
Quoted WARMTH n sense OF wrong, we say,
but wreaking their wrath cowardly and mean
" on defenceless inottensiye negroes; blindly
on property owners whose buildings CHANGED
to be hired by government officials, senselessly
on the policemen whose discipline and power
day by day insure them that security and Or
der which guards their labor and lives"
+ Whatever be the result of the riots, it seems
plain, at any rate that tho unhappy negroes
who dwell amongst those philanthrOphists, are
likely to come to grief.
The "Timcs docs not believe hatopposition
to the CONSUMPTION, was the real cause of the
mob, OF that its object was merely to defeat
its opperation. 1t says:
"w ere the CONSUMPTION law to be abrogated
tomorrow, the controlling inspiration of the
mob would remain all the same. 1t comes
from sources quite independent of that law,
or any other-from malignant hate toward
those in better circumstances, from craving
for plumber, from love of commotiOn, from
burbarous spite against different race, from
a disposition to bolster mp the Jailing fortunes
ot'Me Southern rebels"
Here, then, is subjects for more serious re-
Election. Will men, who have 81 disposition
to bolster up the failing fortunes of the South
ern rebels" be likely to use the arms forced
into their hands by CONSUMPTION with the same
zcst and eagerness that Confederate uses
them in defence of his liberty and home. The
more of such conscripts that Lincoln gets the
easier will be their overthrow.
Tile mob is the most serious manifestation
Of dissatisfaction with tho war, and the most
emphatic demonstration for peace that has yet
taken place.
If Gen. Lee had remained in Maryland, or
if he should return there after the waters Of
the Potomac have subsidized, and his reinforce
ments arrive, these riots will continue
throughout the United States. New York
city has brought the United States to yield
the important point Of suspending the law
When once the mob masters the Government,
and forces it to yield in one particular, it soon
its power and will not fail to use
it again. More will be heard from these mobs.