Litchfield enquirer., 1864-06-23
Fsom the Independent. Some Editorial Notes.


 Some Editorial Notes.
 We set down some hurried notes of a visit to the Baltimore Convention and to Washing. ton-not as parading the travels of our unim- portant self, but to state several gratifying in- dications of the changed and changing spirit of the time.
 One of the greatest of these evidences was the simple fact that our travelling companion was no other than that fanatical, heretical, and incendiary gentleman, Mr, William Lloyd Garrison of Bunker Hill-whose company in the cars few years ago would have rendered a journey southward eminently enviable to whom, however, on this late journey as far south of Mason and Dixon as we could get, all hats went off, all hands Were thrust in well come, and all hospitabe honors shown-in the midst of which the bewldered man stood modest and meek-minded conservative be- fore those more fiery radicals on whom the new pentecost has fallen with its tongues of flame. Not having been in Baltimore since he was there imprisoned, thirty-four years ago and never in his life having been in Washing ton, (honest manD his iou ney was full of strange emotions at every turn. Ccndemned as criminal for speaking in a slave city against slavery, Il, returned to that city to 6nd t so far rvgenerated that to-day Baltimore is ready to give larger proportional vote than Boston for universal liberty. The court in l which Mr. Garrison was tried and sentenced, is now presided over by radical Abolition ist-Judge Hugh L. Bond one of the most indefatigable and influential Unionists in the State, who, to gratify our curiosity, hunted up | from the old records of the Court, the time yellowed papers of indictment against Mr. Garrison, which that gentleman, putting on his spectacles, perused with eyes as full of merriment as we noticed in Horace Greeley on being dismissed for his contempt of Judge Barnard's Court. As we had threatened to put Mir. Garrison into hls old cell, and shut hin up for night, we were disappointed to learn that the city authorities, not foreseeing how they were spelling good historical incl dent, had torn down the old jail and built a new one in its place-where, however, not the opposers but abettors of slavery and treason are now confined Thus the gallows which was built6pr Mordecai is used for hanging Ha- man! Eight or nine of the original jurym en who gave the verdict against Mr. Garrison. arc still living, and Judge Bond jocosely threatened to summon them all into court, that Mir. Garrison might forgive them in pub lie! We bargaiued in advance for a photo graph of the scene.
 If any Northerner supposed that Presi- dental Convention held in Baltimore would necessarily lack something of the free atmos- phere which four years ago was so bracing at Chicago, one day in that changed Southern city, whose streets were not in vain baptized by the blood of Northern men, was sufficient to dispel the idea. The spirit of loyalty ill the North nowhere manifests itself so pun gently as in the Border States, where the two parties ulVlQ0 lneulSeiFtS uhe OeWS anu Od- maritans, having DO dealings with each other families and friends closing their houses against their own blood-kindred and lifelong associ ates-loyalists hanging out flags which disloy- alsts will go tiresomely out of their way rath, CT than walk under. For instance, We were told of family of Unionists whose house was between two houses of rebels-the Union house keeping out flag reaching all across the street-whereupon the rebel families would walk round the whole square to get at each other without passing under the intervening flag! The leaders of the radical party in Baltimore-such men as Bond, Streeter, Math ews, Stewart, Stirling, and others-are among the most plucky and invincible hard-worker; for the good cause whom We have any where met. Henry Winter Davis. the leader Of the Maryland radicals in Congress, deserves the thanks of all loyal men in the North for hi' noble, uncompromising advocacy of Liberty and Union. The chief stumbling-block whicl these men find In their way is Montgomer. Blair, whom they daily and hourly charge will thwartipg the progress of freedom in tha state by using his official position as mem Der of President Lincols's cabinet to pull