New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1864-11-30
rrw.voRK daily TRIBUNE WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 80 1864

no more right to lie about us in the mass than
it has to Lie about US individually. We perfectly
understand the full import Of tho words which
we are using when we speak thus plainly. A
foreign observer, who sees no shame in war
waged for the publicly .avowcd purpose of per.
pctuating Slavery-nO crime in treason utterly
causeless, or for which no valid cause has thus
far been assigned-no barbarism in numbering
prisoners by inches instead Of mercifully putting
them to death at Once-nothing but ordinary
retaliation in a plot to burn thousands of women
and children in their beds-a critic who finds in
ali these iniquities no reason for even the mildest
ccnsure, cOnfesses by his silence. or by stam-
merng excavations, that he is prcjudccd, or in
terested, or malicious. There is no room for argu-
ment. There is no question for debate. Theitera
ton Of few thresdbare phrases and stale inslnua
tons amounts to nothing. The member OF
Parliament who has, or who thinks he has an
interest in promoting the Shareholders Rebel
lion. may rise in his place. may hem and haw,
may stutter and sOphsticate and insinuate TO
some purpose for night or week; but he
really changes nothing; he does not make seces-
sion virtue nor the seceder patriot. And as
if those who have undertaken to carry bad
cause upon their shoulders were not already
dreadfully overloaded, they must now find room
for one of the most diabolical projects of the
age; and whereas they have found excuses for
murder and treason and man-owning they
must now invent some pretty subtcrtuge by
which to make the attempted coniagration
Of great city an act of cOmmendable bravery
and of righteous retribution. They are welcome
to try it Lot them seek in their repertory OF
soft words for a neat and mild one which can be
twisted into an application Fl tied to their preSen
embarrassing emergency! Let them exert
themselves to show that We ourselves brought
this great peril to our own doors!-that we are
more fortunate than deserving that the Guy
Fawkeses of Mr.. Davis did not, after all, the limo
cent creatures effect what they attempted, and
that if they had effected it, they were duly pro-
yoked and are not to be severely censured The
charitable ingenuity which has already been so
strenuously exerted in softening Confederate
crimes, and in exaggerating Federal failure, has
now fairer field for its exercise. Not man
stealing, nor murder, nor theft nor perjury, nor
brutal cruelty are now to be argued into some
thing like virtue but here is hellish scheme
worthy of the glibbest lawyer-logic of the lead
ing columns! Tho devil himself never had
better opportunity of making the worse appear
the better reason
But if this same old whine Of apology is to be
persisted in, let us hear no more from newspa-
pors printed in England, or from borough
mongers pressing in Parliament of Sepoy cruel
ties, Of Chinese treachcries, of Kafir crimes!
Fighting is fighting, bombarding is lombard
ing, and besieging is besieging; but sending
spies. in the garb Of civilians, into the enemys
cities TO fire them under cover of the night, and
to doom sleeping population to the most fright
full of deaths--this is o feature Of war akin to
poisoning wells, and to like strokes of military
genius. Something of the old African nature,
which kindles villages that cattle may be con-
yenently stolen, must have been transmitted,
perhaps through concubinage, to the Confede-
rate leaders. If So the relationship must be q
remote one, and the blood debased by mixture.
An ordinary slave would shrink from such o
crime. We were told that emancipation would
bring terror; but when our houses are to be
burned. the torches are applied by the hands of
the lordly and superior race. This opens fine
field for speculation, which we leave to the
shrewd and learned pro-Savery ethnologists.