Cleveland morning leader. [volume] (Cleveland [Ohio]) 1854-1865, 1865-04-14

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mora widely from the fountain head.
Hence it came to mean righteous indigna-
tion" and then sanger at anything unjust"
Finally, the Geeeks, employing that fertile
imagination TO which their literature and
art bear such abundant witness, persoAi8ed
the abstract noun, and then dsifed their
persOni6cstion. omitting the intermedi-
ate steps, in the later Greek mythology,
Nemesis was the goddess of retributive
justice and vengeance. An inseparsble
part of the Greek conception Of divine
Nemesis was the conviction that sooner or
later her vengeance would overtake the
guilty be their efforts to escape her what
theymight.
The Greeks groped in the thick darkness
that rested psll-liko upon the human mind
in that period, and yet it must be confessed
that they caught glimmerings of light
that has since shone with far more brill
Hsncy. Who shall deny that at the bot
tom of their belief in Nemesis there was
valusble truth2 and that that truth is the
conviction that some time or other the divine
wrath overtakes the wrong-dOer2 Many
sre the supports that history gives to the
stability of the old Greeks faith, but none
more strikiugly confrmstive than the his
toryof the now expiring Southern COnfed-
eracy.
Here was an example of nation $50 cal
led) that was born in sin, and whose con-
tinued history was one continued crime.
Confessedly the cornerstone was slavery,
undenisbly the top stone was injustice, and
the whole structure, from base TO summit,
was raised in defiance of the laws of God
and the rights of man. Consider the means
taken TO hurry the States composing it into
secession, against the cooler judgment of
their people-the fact that the secession
ordinances were in no case submitted tothe
people for their final vote; that in some
cases the votes by which the ordinances
themselves were carried in convention have
never been published; that leading spirit
of that time, since gone to his grave and
his reward, declared it necessary, when the
people were not moving fast enough to
please him, to sprinkle blood in their
faces" thing subsequently done in the
attack upon Fort Sumter; that no measures
were considered too harsh either to coerce
Southern loyslists into secession or to drive
them into exile-snd then answer if our
language is too strong.
And this Is but part of the dsmning
record. With full knowledge that there
was time when prisoners taken in war
we're slain or sold into slavery, we declare
our conviction that there is nothing worse
recorded upon history's pages than the
treatment our soldiers have received in
Southern prisons. Who would not choose
an instant death, or life of common sls-
very, to. the dying life st Salisbury or An
dersonville?
But the predictions of those who said
such q acknowledging man degrading
government could not long survive are
now meeting their fulallment. Nemesis
has, after long delay, overtsken it. And
how dire is her vengeancel Negrotroops,
marching under the national eolors, sing
ing the John Brown song, we're the first to
tread the paying-stOnes of Richmond. Mr..
Lincoln, the best abused man of the age,
gives reception in JEFF. Davis parlors;
Libby Prison and Castle Thunder are
filed with rebel prisoners; General Lee,
the proud-spirited Virginiau, of historic
family, surrenders on terms dictated by q
Yankee General Beecher utters the con-
victions of his free soul in Charleston
Surely Nemesis has overtaken the authors
of the Southern rebellion, and doing their
utmost they cannot escape her. The war
we regard as substantially ended. There
will be more fights, but no more battles.
The Southern aristocracy, through their
own vsulting ambition, cease to rule-and
few good men will shed tears at their fail
ure. To the soldiers who have been the
victims of their leaders ambition, a mag
unanimous people can be forgiving TO the
leaders, neUer. The men who fomented
the rebellion that has cost US so much can
not live on cur soil. If they have the
hardihood to let the ruins of the fabric |
their own bad ambition had builded, cover
them, the world will ssy-"dese-ved their
fatei" if they fly for safety across the
ocean they carry with them the recollec-
tion that they were the authors of long |
and bloody war, and not for humanity's |
good.