Daily union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1865-1866, 1865-12-29
The Case Of JEFF. Davis.

The Radicals in Congress are not satisfied
TO let the person whom they call the " rep
resentative man of the rebellion" pass out Of
sight. They protest against that oblivion to
which the good sense of the country is viii
ling to consign him; they insist upon keep
ing him before the people as a culprit. And
though they do not clearly clamor for his
blood, they perhaps go as near to it as would
be consistent with Congressional propriety.
In this they follow closely those fierce bigots
Of the great rebellion in England who could
be satisfied with nothing less than the
death of Charles the First; and they put
themselves historically in the same class
with the violent elements of the French
Revolution that coolly took the life Of Louis
the Sixteenth. Was il wise to take the life
of either Charles or Louis We can see the
passions that urged to those acts-the party
hates and violence that were to be satisfied.
We can Judge the questions from a safe his
toric distance, and, so judged, the universal
decision of modern times has been that those
executions were not only unwise, but cruelty
foolish. They were blunders of the worst
character, for they belittled great national
causes into vulgar struggles that had re-
venges and thirsts for blood to crafty. The
consent of wiser men TO those acts gave the
supremacy to the worst elements of the Par
lament and the Assembly, and so paved
the way for the ruin of the popular cause.
Those executions are the blots and stains in
the history of the two great events. 1t is
useless TO say that the cases are different.
They are identical in all essential respects,
and where they differ the difference is not in
favor of those who urge the execution of
Davis. Charles and Louis were men revered
by large classes of the population as legiti-
mate s0vereigns and Davis was respected
as the representative Of the sovereign majes-
tv of a people-the chosen Executive who
could do only their will, and whose person
alitv was sunken in his office.
Jefferson Davis is not criminal In the
ordinary sense. His acts are lifted out of
the category Of crimes by their national char
acter. They are to be judged in a different
light from that in which we examine those
common offences against society for which
we prepare the prison and the halter. In
the celebrated debate in Parliament on the
American colonies, Edmund Burke recog-
nized the difficulty Of framing a bill of in
dictment against a whole people This
came difficulty embarrasses the case of Davis.
Where can we allege any act against the
people of the United States that was his per-
sonally, and that was not done by him as the
representative Of people, who, according
to the dogmas on which our government is
founded, had full right to the exercise of
sovereign powers? Did Jefferson Davis
wage war against us at Gettysburg, on July
2 1868? Then who was it waged war at
Vicksburg on the same day? If We set
about accusing of treason the whole people,
whose will this man carried out, from what
standpoint shall we frame our accusation2
Shall it be from the standpoint of those in
the government who maintain that the
Southern States now are and always have
been sovereign, or from the standpoint of
those who maintain that the Southern States
are conquered territory, and, therefore, that
the confederacy was n foreign nation
Doubtless we should frame it from this latter
as this is the view of those who clamor for
the trial of Davis. But if he was the ruler
of a foreign nation, how shall we punish him
for treason against our government?
We must take in this case higher ground
than any people or government has hitherto
had the moral courage to take. We must
throw aside the ancient fictions, and deal with
facts as facts. We must recognize that men
like Davis have had their grand uses in the
life of a nation; that they make those stands
and cause those wars that purify government
and rendered it impossible for it to become
partial and tyrannical. Davis represented
some millions of men who had believed that
they were oppressed, and who rose with the
spirit of freemen. Shall we stultify our his
tory-our immortal declaration-by saying
that the representative of all those men de-
serves death for having been their represen-
tative2 Where does government originate?
With the people-we declare by every fact
of our history. And with how many people
ifnot with eightmillions? We agree with the
radical members that Congress should take
up the case of Davis, but we believe it should
take it up only to set him at large on these
high grounds: recognizing openly and
bravely as the sense of the American people
that acts such as his do not deserve death.
We shudder as we read Of the terrible acts
Of British officials in Jamaica, who outbar-
barrie barbarism; we shudder to contemplate
British judges sending men to twenty years
penal servitude for the crime of desiring a
better government for their country. Let
us be consistent with these feelings, and set
an example of national magnanimity that
may put that Power to the blush. Our cause
does not call for any mans blood and we
must not let partisan hatred put its bloody
stains on our national history.