Daily State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis, Ind.) 1861-1865, 1864-08-18
The Reaction.

In the great political reaction upon which the
country has entered during the lost month or
two, il is gratifying to observe a revision and
modification of certain extreme opinions in
quarters which We might have supposed would
have been among the last to confess the pres.
ence of the meliorating influence under which
the public judgment is gradually but surely re-
gaining the balance il has lost. Every student
of history has lived, of course, during the last
two or three years, in the sure expectation and
foresight that a rebound from the modes OF
thought and action into which the people have
been plunged by spirit of phrenzy was newt
able in the course of events Its coming was
question of time, dependent in part upon the pru-
dence with which extreme measures should be
pressed By their patrons, and in part upon the
greater or less degree of success which should
attend the operations of our armies.
If the spirit of innovation and OF social reform
had graduated It's measures according TO the OK
igencies OF the crisis through which we were
passing, and had not sought TO build anew the
foundations of the republic at time when the
ground was quaking beneath our feet. we might
have witnessed such a wise adaptation OF means
TO ends as would have carried US through the ar
duous struggle without spasmodc fits and starts
and therefore without the revulsons of feeling
by which they never fail. sooner or later. TO be
followed.
And so, if We could have had an unbroken
succession of military successes, (omtting from
our view for the moment the fact that such sue
cesses were rendered impossible by the policy
into which We drifted under the sway of our pas
sions,) there would have been little nducement to
revise the theory on which the war was conduct
ed. And accordingly We observe that it is in
the shadows of military disappointment that the
national conscience has come TO be Quickened
and the national intelligence enlightened with
regard to the true ends and objects of the war;
AS a single illustration of the amended
thought which is pervadng all classes of the
people at the present time, inducing them TO re.
wise opinions adopted under the promptings OF
revenge, mistaken for the instigations of patri-
otism, we cite the significant fact that the New
York Tribune, within the last two or three weeks,
has formally renowned the policy of confscation,
TO which it once looked as a thunderbolt of war.
In his celebrated prayer of twenty millions
addressed To the President Mr.. Greeley wrote:
We think you are strangely and disastrously
remiss in the discharge of your official and i'm
perative duty with regard to the emancipation
provisions OF the new cOnfscation act" We
complain that the eontscation act which you ap
proved is habitually disregarded by your Gener-
ALE, and that no word of rebuke for them from
you has vet reached the public ear" I'VE re-
quire OF you, as the first servant of the republic
duty, that you execute the laws. Most emphati-
cally do we demand that such laws as have been
recently enacted. which therefore may fairly be
presumed 10 embOdy the present will and to be
dictated by the present needs of the republic.
shall be carried into full effect and that YOU shall
publicly and decisively instruct your subordin-
ates that such laws exist, that they ere binding
on all functonaries and citizens, and that they
TO be obeyed 10 the letter"
This demand" we thought misplaced and in
applicable at the time. but every reader will per-
ceive the higher aud wiser inspirations under
which the Tribune now writes, when il holds the
following language:
The zanies in the Loyal States who talk as
though broad empire could be subjected to mil
itary execution supply the venomous. desperate
traitors in Dixie with the very alment they need !:
aud we deeply regret that one of the resolves OF
the late Baltimore Convention seems calculated
10 give them lii. Gen. Fremont did wise,
generous. manly act in stamping instead of
standing on the wholesale cOnfiscation plank of
the Cleveland platform. thereby aiding to smooth
The path 70 peace. - National Inteliigeucer.