The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1865-09-08
what John Forsythe Says Of Batter
and Dickinson.

lue MOoile I1tytStcf; euitco " oohn
Forsythe, prominent Southern supper
ter of Douglas in 1860, referring to But
ler's efforts to break Gen. Grants amnes.
ty to General Lee, and to his course in
preventing the exchange of prisoners,
goes on to say:
+ We have always believed that General
Butler was as deeply implicated in Il g
responsibility of those political blunders
which Immediately preceded and bron Int
on the late war as any other one man,
with the exception perhaps OF the late
Mr. Yancey. Every sagaciOus man ~
be nation saw in the years 1859 and looO
that the Democratic party had become
he solitary barrier to n sectional out
break and violent disruption of the
Union. Its bearing and integity was,
ltion and solicitude to every man who
loved his country and its peace.
|. 1t is a curious fact that while the wri-
ter of these lines, who h's been under the
ban of this government as a rebel, was
wasting his strength and energy TO pre-
serve the Democratic party, and through
lit the integrity of the Government, Gen.
Butler, who has gained much eclat for his
..lSyalty," was taking the very steps that
were sure to lead to the destruction of
both. We were both members of the Ma
tional Democratic Convention which
met at Baltimore, over which General
Caleb Cushing presided, and we shall
never forget General Buffers farewell
speech to that body when he announced
that he was about to 'secede" from it and
pass to the Breckenridge standard then
flying over a convention of the precipita-
tion party in the same city He said in
effect that the convention he was about
to depart from was not sound on the
question of Southern rights then at issue,
and that the territorial sovereignty here
sizes were offensive to his constitutional
olfactories
He shook the dust off his feet and
went, and shortly afterward Caleb
Cushing followed him into the camp of
the Immediate before breakfast seces-
sionists." This step from two distin-
guished and leading Massachusetts dem
ocrats did more to give backbone to the
movement to divide the Democratic
party and put an out and out sectional
candidate before the people than any
thing that could have happened. 1t
gave an odor of nationa lity to move
ment before that clearly cliquish and
sectional. 1t was the last feather that
broke the camcl's back 1t was the
sealing of the election of Mr. Lincoln,
and the prelude to dissolution and sec
tional war. Great was the CONSERVATION
surprise of those South who witnessedand
and knew of General Buffers course in
that memorable political struggle to
find him booted and spurred and sword
i'm hand to take part in the war that en-
sued.
He had fairly endorsed the cause of the
Southern quarrel. bounded the South on
to the brink of disruption. advised il,
,onEtuis like, to leap into the aulf md
p 1nxVn16e ont TO shoot 4na ~ 0dtf M 1
W 1 speqpi6 Nh ook hise X dvfce -
. ti6d o6t the io9ie Of lhiS own policies.
Wethought he might at least have kept
neutral in the fight. He was as fairly CON-
mitted to the Southern side of the quar-
rel as Daniel S. Dickinson, of New York,
who once declared in the United States
Senate, that so profound were his con-
victions of the justice of the Southern
cause in its controversy with abolition,
that should war ever be declared he
would be bound to draw his sword on the
side ofthe South Mr. Dickinson's words
are written in the sand. During the
past four years we have known him as
the bitterest and most truculent of the
radicals.
AS for Messrs Butler and Cushing we
really think they ought to have the am
nesty oath applied to the purgation Of
their crime in the formation Of the late
rebellion As we are sure that some of
the exceptions of the amnesty proclamo-
tion must catch them, their only chance
is an application for a special pardon -
We know many men out here who have
had no part nor lot in this war, except to
be carried along with its restless tide
as residents, who are asking for pardon,
and yet whose sins in regard to it are
as wool in comparison to Gen. Buffers
scarlet