Delaware State journal and statesman., 1865-09-01

NFNh bhebc tniuBs IL Oahhot po thet wv
President has considered the tendency of his
course with the traitors.
As before remarked we are told that he is
about to establish a Bureau Of Pardons.
Think of this, friends of constitutional lib
erty. A sort of patent Office for revamping
traitors and sending them forth as good
Union men-a factory for altering them over
into good loyal subjects, much, | suppose, as
at our national armories they would change
liint-locks into cap guns. A Bureau Of Par
dons Where are our courtsl Were they
not instituted to try criminals And are
not these traitors criminals of the deepest
dyes Where can they have SO full and fair
trial, as before the judicial tribunals ex-
pressly constituted for these purposes. Did
we elect the President TO turn his office into
a sort of Star Chamber Court, where one
man is judge, advocate and jury? Has he
nothing else to doy Is he not almost over
whelmed with his appropriate and necessary
duties No wonder that he calls for Bu-
reau But what right has he TO do this p
What need of n2 Why not turn these men
over TO the proper tribunals-the Supreme
Court, and, where there are loyal Judges, TO
the State courts also
Look at the course of things for moment
A rank, out-and-out traitor, gets his witnes-
ses trained, or procures papers signed by
men no better than himself, presents himself
at the Presidential mansions and asks to be
converted into Il good friend of the Union by
single stroke of the Executive pen. Or he
is turned over TO local Provisional Govern
or, whose loyalty needs whitewashing every
six weeks, and who then turns traitor per-
haps, if the government do not bend to his
notions, and there goes through SIMILAR farce
Another rebel comes up to headquarters and
hires some shrewd attorney, or some member
or ex-member Of Congress, who is ready to
prostitute his office and position to any base
purpose, TO put him through for certain
fee Such case is said 10 have occurred
only a few days since.
Now we ask, will the people OF this enlight-
ened-we hope as yet free nation-submit to
these thingsT Shall traitors thus be permit
ted to slip through the Executive fingers and
go clear? Shall the President thus usurp,
even nunintentionally, the authority that prop
erly belongsto Congressandthe CourtsP Nay
more, we ask with an earnestness of feeling
that no language can adequately express, shall
so much treasure-shall so much priceless
blood, so many precious lives he poured out
so much suffering endured, SO many splen-
did victories gained at fearful cost, and the
fruits of the struggle be frittered away, and
the cause virtually sacrificed Simple jus
ticc demands that these traitors should be
punished Guilty of treason and treason
against liberty instead of tyranny, and guilty
too of every species of meanness and cruelty,
if they and each of them do not deserve to be
punished, we confess we know nothing ae
yet, of crimes or criminals The safety o
the country demands their punishment -
Posterity, with outstretehed hand and plead.
ing eye, implores il. The friends oi
liberty in all countries, with rare excep.
tions, call for it, And lastly, the blood
Of our sons and brothers, shed to put
down these enemies of their country and
their race, and as they supposed for the most
sacred Of causes namely: to preserve the
life Of their country--rises from the ground,
and mingling with the voice of the living
that Of the sacred dead, and with the elnpha
sis of two worlds, demands to lie avenged -
And among those slain by Rebel hands-tht
Victims of Belle Isle, Libby and Anderson
vile, seem to rise up before me- by thousands
and tens of thousands and with their ema-
ciated and ghastly forms, and outstretehed
/ hnuU handa IN eov.- .,XVa i,nn1ora x.o,, ,,c,
to let go or lightly punish, those traitors,
tiends in human form, who killing US inch
by inch, starving, wasting, torturing us, till
famished and worried out Of life, we dropped
into our graves, some of us being shot down
like dogs or hunted and torn in pieces by
bfoodhounds-we implore you not to spare,
through any false notion of mercy or expedi-
ency, these cruel men and much less the
leaders aud instigators of their crime, who
basely and inexcusably murdered lis and oul
worthy companions No, it must not il
cannot be. We can never rest in our graves
in peace, nor will the dear ones at home
stricken and robbed of their protectors BY
rebel hands, eyerbe sppeased, till these mur
derers of their sons and brothers shall bt
punished according to the enormity of thei
crime "
And we seem 10 see the slain ones, in lonl
serried ranks and by myrads, turn in thei
graves, where they were huriedlike brutes, AM
to which they were consigned by the mos
studiedand devilish cruelty that ever actuate,
beings in the human form, in any age of til
!, world, We say then, let the traitors he pun
!, ished, and punished, too, by the proper tr
bunal-the courts, civil and military, ar til
=, case may demand, and let the President i
this, as in all other emergencies, be restricte
a to the proper duties of his office, even If "
have to alter the Constitution to secure 1t.
-
d IN AND ABOUT TOWN.