The southern aegis, and Harford County intelligencer. (Bel Air, Md.) 1862-1864, 1863-01-03

blunder has already, perhaps, inflicted an
irreparable blow upon the hopes of free
dom, harmony, and union in the new
world. The few journals which have ven
tured to lift voice of public indignation
against the criminal and laundering career
Of this dishonorable and dishonored man
have been invited by the less prudent of
the administration presses to bring Tor
ward evidences of his guilt. The wiser
organs of the Washington Cabinet have not
fallen into this error. TO them the crush
ing letter of the Hon. Reverdy johnson
WAS q warning of the fuller wrath to come;
and they have preferred to leave the apol-
ogy of Butler wholly uninterrupted, even
by implication, trusting, no doubt, that
when he returns to the North Gas for our
sins he may be mysteriously permitted to
do) he will come back laden with spoils
enough to purchase venal defenders in the
forum and the press. A man to whom
nothing has been >acred man whose
imperial grasp, comprehensive as the
trunk of the elephant, has shaken asun-
der the barred doorways of consular
vaults, aud Disseminated the silver from
the silver plated among the spoons Of the
widow and the orphan, can hardly fail to
have fortified his comfort against attacks
to which his conscience has long since
grown callous.
But if Butler himself must be left to
that slow operation of divine justice which
sent Jeffreys livid and bowling to his
grave, aud made the very plate aud jewels
of which a Verres bad plundered the ST.
Gillian people to be the final instruments of
his prescription and his death, the govern
ment which sent this man to torture New
Orleans into hopeless disloyalty must at
least be sensible to the shame with which
its own admissions, now publicly made,
brand both it aud him, and may perchance
be capable of pretending that its own
honor and common decency require it to
wash it's hands finally of all completely
with an official whose recklessness, brutal
ity and folly have forced it so often into
the humiliating attitude of apology and
atoncment. Mr.. Seward in his diploma
tic correspondence lays before the Ameri-
can people the fullest evidence of one scam
dalous chapter in the story of this SANDER
upon American manhood, this canker on
the "expectancy and rose Of the fair
State" One after another, the rep,esen-
tatives of France, Spain, and Holland, Gu
riously enough making up triple array
of the very powers which stood by us in
the dark days of the old revolution, have
been forced to demand of the Department
of State explanations and reparations for
the outrages committed by this man upon
subjects of their several sovereigns. Who
can read their letters and think without
burning blush that they relate occurrences
which befeIl, not in Turkey, but in Lou
isiana: that they paint the portrait,
not of an Arnaout raised by rapine
aud murder to the. rank of a pasta,
but of a New England lawyer, dubbed a
major-geueral by an American President
to serve in war osteusbly begun for the
maintenance of law and prosecuted in the
love of liberty! Insulting the most re-
spectacle people who appear at his tribu-
nal spewing out threats of the gallows
and demands for gold in single breath !;
sending word to the Captain-General of
Cuba that he wanted no more Spanish
vessels in New Orleans, and informing
the consul of the Netherlands that his
alag had been prostitu,ed to base pur-
pose" the picture which this correspond
ence paints Of the ruler of the Crescent
City, though touching with all the for
bearance Of the diplomatic pencil, wrings
even from the administration at Washing
ton an ficial shudder of contempt, and
will sting every right-ihinkiGg and loyal
American heart into highly unofficial
scorn and anger.
So bold and palpable is the character
of the man as here revealed; so clear is it
also that his character is fully known at
Washington, that We forbear to fix upon
the government all the animadversions
which its long tolerance OF such person
in such post would justify aud demand,
only because this deadly incubus has been
removed from the city he has plundered,
exaspcrated, and demoralized into "peace
and order' The administration can
hardly mean to emulate the self-stulti6ca
ton achieved by the police commissioners
of this city in their award upon the case
of Kennedy. Having themselves indicted
and convicted Butler, they cannot mean
to leave him UNPUBLISHED and it may be
that tho first Union triumph reserved for