Ashtabula weekly telegraph. [volume] (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1853-1873, 1865-05-13
An Appeal for Justice.


AT meeting held in Philadelphia on
Friday evening, l4th inst, Mr.. Albert N
Gilbert delivered the following pertinent
address:
1--WE owe q debt 10 the leaders Of ii,
rebellion. Wha,f Thoroughly read Ia
history, understanding the principles Of
political economy, familiar with the springs
national action, they inaugurated sll the
consequences of the venture they made. -
| They knew that if the North were loyal aad
brave, they must wade through seas o.
blood, yet they cast the die aud assumed d
The risk. They had no great moral end
10 view, no lofty political principle to
vindicate, no worthy object to achieve
But two things were TO be accomplished
personal aggrand zement aud, as they
hoped, the perpetuity. Yet they sounded
ibe tocsin whose FIRST peal made the whole
world tremble. BY fraud and force com.
bined, by falshood most foul, and intimida
tion Of every degree, they miSled The, mas
SER and organized their forces. They
lowered in the very sublimity OF all coz
ceivable crime; falshood, robbery, assassiua
tioo, starvation, savage cruelty to prisoners
sacrifice of honor aud pledged word, oil
these were but departments of the one
grea. crime that comprehended all, the
most stupeDdous treason The world has
ever seen. A million Of meu lie cold 10
death, the result Of their experiment :
Thou sands Of our homestead, have been
destroyed, the air is black with the sombre
drapery Of those who mourn, the glare Of
buriDing cities has liz the heavens, and the
earth has become crimson with blood, that
those leaders might try their experiment.
The world has stood appalled, at their
Gendish cruelty. The men, the object, the
means were all uDboly; yes, satan.c; aud
We are asked 10 take these mel 10 our
hearls; not only to forgive, but to concilAle
to love, TO honor. I . r.zT
II is shameful 1t is atrocious. care
not though thousand Ward Beechers
had said it, il is atrCcoas. 1t insults the
memory OF our dead heroes, and the faces
of our living ones. i. defes God and ridi.
cules our national existence. 1t proelaims
the satanic principle, the more heinous the
crime the less. guilt. Ii man in your
midst commits burglary you imprison
him, it he commits murder you hapg him.
Those have committed tens of thousands OF
both, aud we are 10 forgive ond embrace
them, A while ego You hung Captain
Gordon for engaging in the slave trade,
and the men whose legitimate ultimate
would have been its re establishment, we
are to embrace. You hung Captain Beall
few weeks since, aud afer him again,
Kennedy. and the devils in human form
who employees them you ask the nation 10
forgive and love. With The sunken cheeks
and lack,lustre3 eyes of our poor starved
soldiers now 10 our midst, with the sight
of the skin Of living men dried over the ex.
tremities of bones like dried meat, to blister
our eyes, with funeral columns teeming with
deaths from starvation, we are asked 10
clasp The hand Of their savage destroyer s
in fraternal pressure. .-
Never Never! Never! I call not for
vengence, but for justice No more severe
than that which you administer 10 your
courts every day, justice which proportions
punishment TO crime demand that the
| mriesiy of the Government shall be yindi-
Gated; that the sneer of Europeans a. our
rope of sand shall not be justified; that
these men. oblvious of every moral re,
straint, shall not be turned loose in the
South &c poison its springs Of life; to be
re urued again to our National councils 10
polute the mir of our capital. l demand
that premium shall not be put upou trea-
son for all time to come. demand that
the excitable people Of the South shall not
be continually tempted by the fatal facility
Of crime and improbability of punishment.
to renewed attempts upOn the National
existence. We owe to the leaders Of The
Rebellion ibAexible justice. ,ta6,sg 81