Daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1865, 1863-03-21
From the New York Time.
The Copperheads and Future His

|
The coPperheads and Future His
tory.
! It was well said by Mr. Brady in his
Brooklyn speech. that "the time will sure
| ly come when the men who oppose this
war will be deemed more Infamous than
the Tories of the Revolution" If this fact
| we're htly realized, we doubt whether there
are ten persons in this commHnity who
would quietly rest day under the name
of being, at this criss, in favor of peace
with the rebels. No memberof society is
SO abandoned rs to court tiffany under
standingly. When it comes to that, he is
mo longer member of society-be is simp-
| ly an oucast.
Our people generally fud 1T very difficult
/ to bring home to themselves the fact that
they arc living in the most momentous
| days of tls age. On little reflection,
they will allow it, and yet too many of
them conduct themselves after theiT old
political habits, as if the war.were nothing
/ more than one of the old political strug.
giles in n new shape. They do not appre.
cieie that their present public conduct
bias got to be judged more severely than
ever before, and by altogether new stand
ards. That which divides Americans now
relates not to measures of mere exped-
iency, but to practical acts involving ma
tionAl life or national death The differ
eucc lies not between Whiggism and Dem
ocracy, or between DemOcracyaud Repub.
licanism, all of which were compatible
with the most thorough loyalty but it lies
essentially between loyalty aud disloyalty-
between Iaithfuiness to the Republic in it's
hour of peril, and detection. Posterity
will so see it, and will judge in that light
| exclusively.
When this tremendous scene shall have
nassed-and il tcAnnnL- last long: ut longest
-erery actor IL twill receive honor or dis.
honor. Every American, high or low, is
an actor in it. He can't escape it if he
would, for neutrality is in itself detection
and disloyalty. 1t will be known and re-
membered how every man bore himself
in this crisis of the nations life-every
man from ocean to ocean. With men in
general it will not be written on the page
of history, but it will be written on IL tab
let yet more distinct, the living memory
Ten, twenty, thirty, fifty years hence it
will be inquired about, and it will be
known how every living American who
wns.on the stagein the great rebellion then.
acted-whether he took sides for or against
the Government; and every man, woman
| and child in the parish will understand it,
The honor or dishouor of it will cleave not
only to the individual himself, bat to his
children.
There are those living who remember
the odium which, after the Revolution,
cluug to every Tory to his latest breath.
No intellectual accomplishment, nor any
moral worth, could exempt from it. But
more than that, il was transmitted to his
children and his children's children. Eyen
to this day, the American whose ancestor
ut that time was known as Tory, hears of
\ it with burning shame. Similar contempt
was eutailed upon the Bluc.light Federal.
\ lists of the last war. So far as regards the
| private character of its members, the
Hartford Convention was probably equal
! to any political assembly ever held in this
country; but after the war closed, every
4 man of them to his dying day was held in
i dishonor. ecould no more obtain 81 pub
lie Office than If he had been positively
disqualified by law. The ban of public
opinion WAS upon him. Though it was
fvery clearly shown in subsequent years
that the majority of the Convention had
NO such treasonable intentions as were i'm
I.puted TO it, yet it is enough that it wns j,
peace assemblage, calculated to embarrnss
the Government. To this day the Hart.
ford Convention is a by.Word. There
were Federalists who,did not approve. Of
the Convention, aud yet even they do not
escape. Its still everywhere reproach
to have been at that time an opponent OF
the Administration at all.
/ What hath been will be-only in greater
measure. The revolutionary Tory at least
had the apology of retaining his Original
IlOyalty. The peace Federalist of the last
war acted against the Government only il
its external relations, and tue peace ht
sought involved no vitat injury 10 tht
lnation itself. But the Copperhead of the
present day proves false to all loyalty, anC
is reeredHI in sense which the Tory wa.
not. He is traitorous, too, in a sens
in which the last war Federalist was not
for his peace policy inevitably car
ries with it the disruption aud destruction
of the Republic, while the other peact
policy would not have affected the unit,
aud perpetuity of the Republic at ALL
. There has been in American history n
public treachsry SO unqualified, and 81
utterly incapable of extenuation, as that o
the COpPerheads of 1868 aud which wa
followed with such q terrible reckoning a
will be hereafter exacted for this. So ia
as regards the Judgment of the next gene
. ration, man OF the present day might bet
ter commit almost any crime in the calen
2 dAr, than be guilty of furtheriug the end
4 of the rebellion by advocating peace, or i
any other manner. He might better leay
his children without dollar, than euta
upon them the scandal of a father wi
:. turned against his country in the day
?, her extremity.
Il Copperheads the Main Reliance .
the Rebels,
al In recent letter from Nashville, Pa
4 = rHH-. q