American citizen. [volume] (Butler, Butler County, Pa.) 1863-1872, 1865-07-12
md parcel ot .,he same .high .attsibate.

these admissions. that there were Otner
circumstances connected with this rebel
lion that put this high quality to the Sc
verest proof, and rendered it impossible to
indulge a sentiment so elevated and en-
nobling, without great peril to the general
cause. Though war is, in all its aspects,
even the most favorable, the direst scourge
that Providence has ever permitted to at
fict the earth, it has no form SO hideous
as the intestine strife that arrays brother
against brother, and arms the father against
the son in murderous conflict, and doubly
intensifies by its very unnaturalness, all
the brutal and atrocious passions of our
fallen nature The family quarrel is pro-
verbal for its bitterness, while the odtans
heologicum is the stereotyped but feeble
expression of the rancor which has some
times crept into the controversies OF even
christian men. In the present case, how
ever, there was feature superadded on
the one side. that lent ten fold additional
horror to the contest The institution of
human Slavery, the prolific source of all
our woes, tracked into the palatial man
sions of the lordly propretors by Mem
esis which always follows upon the heels
of a great wrong-as though Providence
intended that Nature violated should al
ways vindicate herself = had expelled
from them every broad fraternal feeling
all that recognized the common brother
hood of humanity-and ended by unsex-
ing the women, and making wolves and
tigers of the men. All that was said OF
that institution, sometimes blasphemously
mis-named divine, by the author of the
great Declaration himself, had been al
ready realized in the temper and condi-
tion of Southern society. To speak of
these as barbarous, in the language of a
learned aud eloquent New England Sen
ator. was. in the judgment of the more
charitable and fastidious here, an oifense
against good taste and truth, that was
thought by them to have deserved the
telon blow that proved it to be true. The
picture drawn by him was supposed by
many to be greatly over charged. How
inadequately he portrayed its hideous as
pect. is now seen in its conduct Of thu
devastating war, which it has forced u''n
the country, and under which it harDur-
ried itself, thank God so deep, tbf IL can
produce no future eruption, eve py TURN
ing uneasily in its grave. H never en-
gendered such monster, tFugh woman
TO the waist and fair" asaer VINO sat as
Fortress at its gates. There is no page
20 L;sto,u ';Us % doTi, o,r damning as that
which will record IT, henalSn a'rocl'ies oi +
which it has bec guilty IN an age Of
LIGHT. The m"uiacture OF the bones OF
Ii,;on 5 saIdior left to bleach unburied on
tbn n'on on;I rh,G they fell, into personal or
nn,,,onts nU oy g the delicate fingers of high
horn Go hern danes, or drinking cups for
~. livalrous braves-the mutilation of
tho sorpses of the uncoffihed dead-the
o1, 1 blooded and systematic starvation,
i'd butchery OF prisoners Of war-the eff
forts to destroy, by wholesale, railroad
trains, filled with innocent women and
children-the employmentof hired incen-
diaries to swing the midnight torch over
the spires Of sleeping cities-the invoca-
ton of the pestilential agencies OF the
miasma of the Southern swamps--and the
diabolical, though unsuccessful attempt to
inoculate our seaboard towns with the
deadly virus of the plague-all are but
episodes in the bloody drama that culmin-
ated in the assassination of the President.
The canuibal OF the South Sea Islands,
and the savage of the American forests,
who darces around the blazing faggots,
that encircle and consume his victim, have
been over-matched in cold-blooded inge-
nuity of torture, by the refined barba-
rians-the Davis and Lees and other
''honorable and christian" gentlemen,
who have inspired and conducted this
revolt tod will witness for the North,
that with all these inhuman provocations,
and with necessity that seemed almost
inevitable, of putting an end to horrors
such as these, by system of just and
exemplary retaliation, it has dealtwith these
great criminals with degree OF forbear-
ance that has no example, and has but
too often been mistaken by them for want
of spirit, and wholesome fear of their
great rr)wess- W hen they went out, hey
were but wayward children, and we en-
treated them kindly. To spare their
blood, we permitted them 20 envelope our
deienses at Sumter, without resistance,
when we could have easily prevented it.
To keep the peace with them, we hesita-
ted even to victual its starving garrison.
When we were smtten, we did not even
smite them in return 1t was only when
they flung insult and defiance at our
countrys flag; that we felt our pulses
quicken, and our blood kindling into
fame But even then, we could not full
ly realize that they were indeed our enc
mics. Our camps were closed against
their slaves. Their officers when captur-
ed were treated with distinction that
made tn IN feel that they had done no
wrong, and dismissed on their paroles of
honor, although they had been guilty of
a base desertion of our flag Their men
were fed and clothed, and afterwards ex-
changed as prisoners of war. And for
much of this feeling they were indebted
to the temper of the President, who held
in check the impetuous ardor of the North
and incurred the risk of alternating his
most steadfast friends, by moderation
so unusual in stormy times There was
no period indeed IN which he would not
have opened his arms to receive them