The Portland daily press., 1863-12-17

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The Clemency OF Cruelty and Blood.
Is the best good of the country 10 be promoted by
bestowing the clemency of the government upon
traitors and Withholding 1t from siayehoidefs!-Ar-
gus.
Singular notions prevail and have prevailed
In the world in relation TO the character and
the conditions OF clemency. Heather rel g.
ions, looking upon Deity as being Of rage,
spite and lust, have sought to propitiate his
vengeance against its votaries by giving him
something to glut his appetite upon; hence
the human sacrifices offered TO false gods, to
satisfy or modify their rage and make them
tolerably benignant towards those who thus
serve up for them such banquet of blood and
quiverlng flesh. A savage beast, glazing with
wrathful eye upon child and ready to make
the fatal spring, may be diverted from his pur-
pose by having young kid or lamb thrown
Into his lair. This slakes his thirst for blood
and the child is saved A hungry savage, with
his cap offeathcrs and necklace OF bears claws.
In hot pursuit of pale-iaced brother, upon
whose scalp he has fixed his eye, may be di-
verted from his pursuit by the crossing Of bis
path by an antelope or deer, and the blood
OF the beast proves the salvation of the man,
Such are illustrations Of kind of bloody and
cruel clemency with which the world Is not
unfamiliar, -bloody and cruel because pur-
chased only at the sacrifice Of blood aud the
iufiction OF cruelty.
But copperhead clemency, while equally
bloody and cruel, has less to recommend it
than the kind to which we have referred, and
is infinitely more shocking to all refined no.
tions OF justice, humanity and right. The
Argus, In Its question above quoted, demands
clemency for the stakeholder. Docs not the
President offer 1t to him? Is not the slave
holder traitor, and as traitor, has he not
forfeited every right that he had under the
Constitution, except the right to be hanged?
And in sparing him from felons death is
there no clemency? Is not the measure Of
clemency allied to its brlm by President Lin
coin, In Offering not only to spare his forfeited
life, but his lands, his houses, the right to live
near the scenes Of his childhood and to die by
the graves Of his fathers, and the still dearer
privilege OF enjoying the restored rights of
life, liberty and the pursuit Of happiness, the
right of citizenship, the right of seli-govern-
ment, each and all of which have been for
felted over and over again by persistent and
repeated acts OF treason? Surely, II ever
wretched, sIrful, gallows-deserving criminals
had abundant reason for gratitude 10 any hu-
man power, the traitorous Shareholders of the
seeded States, whose skirts are recking with
the blood of all the slain In thiS most unuatu-
raj war, forced upon peaceful, happy and
prosperous country By their madness and am
bition, have such cause for gratitude to Abra-
ham Lincoln, vested as he is with the pardon
ing power, for interposing that power to save
them from the doom which by their crimes
against law and humanity they had 80 justly
inherited and merited
But copperheaded justice is not satisfied. 1t
is not enough for It's purposes that the guilty
should live, but the innocent must bleed.
II Is not enough that Shareholders should be
spared to enjoy the precious boon OF liberty,
but their former yictims-innocent Of all
crime in this matter as the unborn infsnt-
must be reduced to perpetual slavery. 1t is
not enough that shareholders should he al
lowed their personal freedom, unless they are
also made free TO rob the innocent of their
freedom and of all that life holds dear. Cop
perheaded justice would make clemency to
the guilty consist in perpetual cruelty to the
innocent; II would restore to the criminal his
usurped power to do wrong; it would open
the penitentiary and not only say to its popu-
lation Of thieves, "enjoy all the rights Of the
unonending," bat "go aud steal to your hearts
content; = it would say TO the blood-stained
murderer, athy life is spared and with 1t re-
ceivc the free permit to murder ad IIitum;;"
it would in its clemency to the guilty, wrest |
from the innocent every right conferred by |
the Creator upon the creature!
Such is copperheaded love of justice! Such |
Is the coaperhead idea of clemency! 1t would |
break a nations faith pledged to three and a
half millions Of human beings, and dash their
hopes, raised heavcn-high, to the lowest point |
Of encouragement and despair; 1t would use
African strength to break the power of rebel
lion, and having accomplished its purpose con-
sign Its allies to the tender mercies OF those |
whose criminal acts they had assisted to |
counter work; it would encourage the slave
to strike for his freedom, and having gained
IL, thrust him back into a condition ten times
worse than that from which he had escaped.
In word, copperhead justice would be elem
ent to sin at the expense of holiness; to cru
city at the expense Of innocence; to traitors at
the expense Of loyal souls, to the Devil at the
sacrifice Of the very pillars on which rests the !
throne OF God!
Eastern steam b0nt Line