Daily Richmond Whig. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1865-1869, 1865-08-21
cOnnscatiOn and the $4,000 Exception

The English papers, friends and foes, are
discussing the remarks of President JOHNSON
to the Virginia delegation, in regard to the
500, 900 exception of the Amnesty Proclama-
ton. The Saturday Rsviel0 says that the de-
termination of the President to effect ga
revolutionary redistribution of property
surpasses even the power of RoBEsPIERRE
and ST. JUST. The Spectator, always friend
" to the United States, and warm sympa-
thizer with liberalism in every form, draws
a few illustrations from history, and closes
with an argument on the money question,
whose conclusions it is difficult to escape
We quote:
"Cromwell's idea was grand one when he tried
to make Of Ireland new England by pouring in
English settlers, shipping of the natives to Bar
BADGES and depriying all engaged in the revolt of
their lands. A new England in the Western Island
would have been great addition to the Empire
and benefit 10 the world, and its creation not
only seemed possible, but in Macaulay's Opinion
was almost accomplished yet We have paid for it
in three hundred years Of weakness and eXpendi-
ture and suffering. The TeTorists had great ideas
when they seized the lands of the emigreS and
broke up the arstocracy, and the result of their
years. France under their rule broke with her
past, and has ever since wasted half her energies
IN seeking TO re-cement the links. The Convention
had great ideas when it declared itself the armed
ally II every suffering people, and succeeded in
converting the mild and, on the whole, progress
sive, because fearless, monarches of Europe into
suspicious despotisms.
Mr.. johnson, if he carries out his own thought
10 its logical conclusion, will have TO do at least
as much as the Convention did, to change the
whole tenure Of property throughout States
large as large as European kingdoms, TO reduce
hundred thousand families TO comparative poverty,
IN order that their accumuatons may render il
easier for the million 10 accumulate Such a
course would not be eXpedent, even if the sole
motive were punishment. Modern society has re-
lected the notion OF Furnishing whole communities
ior political offences, of extirpating races or os-
uaclzing classes, orlevying special taxation upon
separate grades Of society, as r.dically uniust-
10 90 PACK u the old severity and lsvishness of
PehaI'y, and punish as Philip H. wanted to punish
IN the Netherlands, and Ferdinand of Austria. did
PUNISH IN Bohemia, to impoverish whole classes
NllnOut INDIVIDUAL inquiry, is TO retrograde to re-
conmehCe practice secretly justified only BIZ the
query IN whieh Dant1n excused the Septsmbrisers,
"LeEr sang done, etcit II 81 pur 81
The exemption clause if intended in se,n.., :,
prescription, not punishment. a declarst,on ~,
thar rebellion Is crime, but that wealth ia AN Of
fence. The rebel with more than 81 00O - - r.
plundered, in order that the rebel with So oOo m
go scot free, and that the rebel with NOTHING M
ind himself possessed through his rebellion of a
competence. This Is not retribution hut wa ~
The rich proclaimed by the ruler of one of eartb,s
richest communities. If il Is just TO strip plan.
ter of his wealth, for the benefit OF the poor. WIN
Is il not Just 70 strip some Of the New Workers.
who e vast incomes have lately teen recorded in
gazsttes for the self.same object They are not
rebels Neither is man with $4,000 necessarily