The Burlington weekly hawk-eye. [volume] (Burlington [Iowa]) 1860-1876, 1863-10-03

SYMPATHY FOR CRIME PRETENDING
ZEAL FOR LAw.-Law is for the protection
of society. Its careful process is to secure
the innocent against mistaken Judgment
1t is for the protection of innocence that
the accused are hedged about with legal
forms. If there were an infallible stamp
of guilt on the brow of every man who
has committed crime, there would be no
necessity for the careful process which is
made to save innocence from hasty conyic-
ton. Although for the protection of the
innocent it is necessary that the same legal
safeguards be extended over the guilty I'M
| til their guilt is established by the force of
the law, yet it is not in honest human ma
ture to take an ardent interest in the forms
of law, and to desire to strain its techni-
calities solely to protect:personsw whose pub
lie conduct has made them infamous, or
whose notorious crimes deserve penalties
far more severe than the penalties of the
law prescribes.
1t is notable feature in ali the clamor
of the Democratic Party about hdbenS COR
puS and military authority, that in every
case on which it has been raised, was not
for the protection Of the innocent, but as a
shield for crime. Thus in the case of Val
landigham, he is known to be an ally of
the rebels, in full sympathy and commu-
MON with them, carrying out here their
purposes, recognized by them as helping
their cause, and himself openly declaring
that our only course is to permit the re-
bellion to triumph, and that his election is
intended to advance this and to array the
State of Ohio on their side.
All this is notorious. None OF the DEM
ocratic speakers or organs in Ohio pretend
to deny it. Yet this makes him traitor
who deserves to be hung up by the neck by
the first military force that catches him.
This is the moral conviction of every loyal
man, and it is strictly according to well
settled legal principles. 1t was declared
by the United States Supreme Court, at
the time when Marshall was Chief JUS
tice, that when the overt act of levying
war has been committed, all, whether
near or remote, who conspired, aided or
abetted, have committed the overt act,
and are traitors. In time of war traitors
are liable to the fate Of war. Neither trea-
son or war are affected by latitude or State
lines.
This is the nature and degree of Vallan-
digham's crime, open and confessed
His own adherents admit the premises
the acts and intention which constitute
the guilt, but they dissent from the una
voidable conclusion that he deserves to be
hung, Just as, if pressed, they would
deny that JEFF. Davis or any of the other
COnfederates ought to be hung, or that
they have committed any crime. 1t is
this vile traitor, who disgraces the State
and pollutes the earth, who lives only be-
cause the Government has not inflicted
the penalty he deserves, that the Demo-
cratic party has made the great embodi
ment of the privilege of the writ of ha-
6eds corpus. When did honest men Sc
lect the vilest criminal to be the represen-
tative of the liberties Of the peoples Who
ever became such enthusiasts for Judas as
to investigate the terms of the bargain be-
tween him and the Chief Priests, to see if
they had not driven him to suicide? Who
but a traitor would rave about a trial by
jury or ha5ens corpus if JEFF. Davis and
his gang were hung as soon as caught?
1t is not in honest human nature to be-
come excited for the protection of crime
Mr.. Pugh said in the Columbus Conyen-
ton that he did not approve the course his
fiend Vallandigham had pursued, but he was
going to vindicate his right to pursue it.
Men do not take upon themselves the
except from sympathy with it. Mr. Pugh
has undergone changes enough in this re-
belllon to prove that he is ar instrument
whose stops and ventages are easily mast
| cred, and like a .iewsharp, as easily played
! upon by a bad breath as a healthy one. If
Mr.. Pugh believes rebellion crime which
deserves death, he believes that Vallandig-
ham deserves the same penalty for aiding
and abetting it. His exceptions to that
can only be technical not moral. And
technichalities, when they stand in the
way of Justice, honest men regret. Only
the offenders would become enthusiastic
of them.
So it is in the interference os the local
courts with lawful military authority. and
in the Democratic outcry because it has
been prevented. It was not that the writ of
hd5ea3 corpus might relieve meritOrious
cases from hardship, but that it might be
abused to promote and protect rascality, in
| robbing the Government of money and
men. Persons enlist, having made oath
that they are of lawful age to do so, receive
the bounty money, and then swindle the
Government out of it by the oaths of other
parties that they are minors, and by the
aid of some shyster judge who has found a
way of indulging his criminal propensities
under cover of judicial Office. 1t was to
favor this rascality that the writ of habeas
c0rpns has been exercised so nimbly by
our Probate Judge; and it was the abetting
OF this fraud upon the United States that
he successfully pleaded in the Carthage
| Convention for denomination.
1t was to aid this swindling that Probate
Judge Paddock asserted his right to re-
verse decisions of the United States Su-
preme Court, and to decide upon the ma
ture of the original compact, and how far
l the States were bound by it, and how
much sovereignty they possessed, laying
it down like a faithful Democratic Judge
from the last Democratic platform, which
of course is the extent of MS learning, and
his ultimate authority.
So it has been in every instance. There
is no case in which the Democratic parti-
sans have invoked constitutional or Legal
protection, Or State Rights or human
rights, TO protect the worthy. Il is all tc
give impunity to treason. 1t is al, with &
single ,aim-the success of the rebellion
The howl against authority is nothing else
than that hostility to the Law, which the
4 consciousness of deserving the halter al
/ ways excites. tncinaGt5 Gazette.
BURNsrDE's ScruATIoN--A Boots DIS
PATCH ExPosED.-As special dispatchto the
| New York Post, from Washington, which
was telegraphed to this city, and appeared
in our yesterdays edition, exhibits as com
plete a tumble of Misrepresentation and
misinformation as could well have beer
crowded into the same number of lines on
a wager. It irnputes the failure of Rose.
Grams to overwhelJn Bragg to the fact that
Burnside did not punctually obey the or,