The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1865-12-11
MEPOsT.


we here in West Virginia have made in
liberal and intelligent ideas, within the
past half dozen years. Trivial Incl
dents often bring to mind the Bourbon
ism of the old Iocofoco pro-slavery
regime. One such reminder has just
caught our eye. tits an editorial para
graph in the last Clarksburg Telegraph,
inviting attention to the prospectus of
the New York Tribune published in its
columns.
1t has not been many years since a
Clarksburg grand jury indicted the
proprietor of the Tribune for sending
copies of his paper into the sacred pre-
cincts of Harrison county. Respecta-
BILE and law-abiding citizens of the
county were also indicted for giving it
circulation; and copies of the paper
were burned by post masters in the
presence of assembled mobs. If a
newspaper in Clarksburg had then
presumed to do what the Telegraph
does now, there were pro-slavery ruff
ans in Clarksburg (most of them since
in the rebel army who would have
pitched the types into the street and
have treated the editor to their favorite
remedy, suit of tar and feathers, or
an excursion by Oence) rail. You may
thank your stars, brother Northcott, or
rather the "stars" and "barsv and bay
onets, of the great army of the Union,
that you are not liable to such perils
now.
In looking back to those dark days
when, even in Wheeling, intelligent
and honest minded men, who could not
bring themselves to accept the dogma
that slavery was divine in its origin,
immaculate in its nature and beneficent
in its operation, expressed their dissent
openly only at the risk OF ruflianly out
rngc-and in noticing now how far we
have left such brutal intolerance behind,
let us, in the language of Rev. Charles
Howard Mnlcom's Thanksgiving text,
Thank God, and take courage" That
clark age" in this land, Mt least, will
never return. The Upas which exhaled
such deadly poison has been dug up by
the roots and consumed in the fierce
flames of war.
Abraham Lincoln, in striking of the
letters of the negro, emanciputed the
white man from bonds far more ignoble
than those of chattel slavery; for while
the servitudo of the African was the
necessity of force, the abasement of
public sentiment in the free States be-
fore the cXacting Moloch was the vol
untary concession made by moral cow
ardice. That era of ignorant but devil
ish bigotry and prejudice against all
who dared assert the dignity of man
hood i'll resistance to the exactions of
the most debasing, corrupting, heathen-
ish and diaboliual system that ever con-
tamiuated the social and political, i'm
situations and degraded the moral
sense of any country, can never repeat
itself.
We repeat that the white man rs well
as the negro has been set free. The
white man, North or South, refers to
slavery no more with lily-liver and
bated breath in carefully chosen phrase
of depreciation against the wrath the
Oligarch nurses toward all who dare
refer to it at all. In the North he no
longer fears to express his honest con-
yictions lest the conservative" public
sentiment Ia euphemism for popular to-
dayism) SHOULD sncer Mt him as an ssabol-
Zionist" Now three fourths of all the
States West Virginia among them)
have formally declared themselves
"abolitionists 81 and the rest nrc has
tening to do likewise. How bravelv
times alter the Significance OF words.
Time was here when to point n man
out as an "abolitionist" was to subject
him to insult, persecution or outrage.
Now we are nearly all Rbolitionists and
proud of being so. Every man who
voted for the amended constitution Of
the State became an abolitionist hy that
act. Our abolition Legislature last
winter voted themselves immediate
abolitionists by passing unanimously
the bill abolishing at once and forever
slavery in this State, and general aboli-
tionists by voting with the same unan-
unity in adopting the constitutional
amendment to abolish the institution in
the whole United States. All our peo-
pie who Improve these acts land who
but genuine copperhead does mott put
themselves in the same category. This
fear of mere names is a poor species of
cowardice Mt best. Now even the name
of "abolitionist" has lost its ancient DO
;ency. The bigotry and prejudice en-
Sendered by slavery are melting away
in the light of the new ideas that have
dawned upon our people, and they dis
cover what they could not see before.
that they had no true interests identi-
fed with slavery, and lost nothing but
gained much by its destruction. Now
the incorruptibIe principles ON which
the fathers founded the Republic, shine
with renewed luStre after their trinl in
the crucible Of war; and heneeforward.
let us hope, impartial liberty and uni.
versal tolerance of all mere differences
in opinion will go hand in hand with
general rectitude and intelligence; and
the recollection of the dangers that once
environed the Republic viii but inspire
fresh gratitude for national deliveranee
and renewed faith in the endurance of
institutions founded in equal Justice
and sustained by diffused prosperity I
and the equal devotion of the whole
people.
Newspapers for SaIe--.and Not for sale
Gen. Northeott, of the olarksbpr,
Telegraph, reconsiders his proposal to
dispose of his paper, and intends to
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