The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1865-04-14

bly demonstrated that secession was
treason. Whether they weakly yielded
to the madness of the hour, hoping that
so they might ultimately ride the
wbirwind and direct the storm" to some
ill-defned but beneficent purpose, or SUI
rendered their Judgment and their loyal
| ty TO that imposture of "State sovereign
| ty," which they had always held in just
! contempt, or were driven by sheer COW
srdice aud fear of bodily violence into
course condemned by all their better i'm
pulses, we protest against any discrimiE-
alton whereby this class shall he screened
or favored We consider Jefferson Davis
this day a less culpable traitor than John
Bell ..
But We cannot believe il wise or we'll
TO take the life of any man who shall
have submitted to the national authori-
~. The execution OF even one such
would be felt as personal stigma by
every one who had ever aided the rebel
cause. Each would say TO himself, Il
am as culpable as he; we differ only that
1 am deemed of comparatively little con-
sequence" A single Confederate led out
TO execution would be evermore en-
shrined in million hearts AZ conspicu-
Gus hero aud martyr We cannot realize
that it would be wholesome or safe--we
are sure it would not he magnalnmous--
to give the overpOwcred disloyalty OF
the South such shrine. Would the
throne of the House of Hanover stand
more firmly had Charles Edward been
caught aud executed after Cullodeni Is
Austrian domination in Hungary the
more stable to-day for the hanging OF
Macy Sander and his twelve compatriot
Generals after the surrender of villagosi
We plead against passions cortam at
this moment To lie fierce and intoleranti
but on our side are the Ages and the
voice of History We plead for resto-
ration of the Union against pslicy
which would afford mOmentary gratiti-
cation at the cost of years Of perilous
hate and bitterness
We have borne for quarter of a CEN
tury the unjust imputation of hating the
South, when We hated and sought Ia sub
vert only slavery, the scourge alike OF
South and North, and the sole cause Of
discord between them. We have done
what we could OF course, not always
wisely--to battle, to circumscribe, and ul-
tinately to overthrow tho slave roMer
At length. through succession OF Sye1ts
which no human being could have de
vised or foreseen, the end which We sin
cerely hoped but hardly expected to SEQ,
is plainly before us American slavery
is visibly in the agonies of dissolution;
if we live year longer we shall almost
certainly see it laid in the grave; and,
whenever abolished here. its expulsion
from the last rood of Christendom that
it now curses cannot be postponed five
wears Let us take care that no vindic-
tive impulse shall be suffered IN imperil
this glorious contamination
Unauestionably. there are men in tho
South who have richly deserved condign
punishment Whoever is responsible for
the butchery of our black soldiers van
quished in fight, or the still more afro
cious murder of captiyes by wanton ex-
posure and privation in prison camps,
stands in his category. But the mme.
diate issue concerns not the dispensatlou
of Justice to individuals but the parif
cation of vast Republic lIo Who fan
cies that all the exhibitions of crn;,:y or
pcrlidy have been the work Of rebels has
| but a superficial knowledge Of our cur.
rent history.
Those who invoke military execution
for the vanqushed, or even for their
leaders, we suspect will not generally be
found among few who have long been
exposed to unjust odium as haters of the
South, because they abhorred slavery
And, as to the long oppressed aud de-
graded blacks, 40 lately the slaves, des-
tined still to be the noighbors, and we
trust at no distant day tho fellow-citi'
zens of the Southern whites, we are sure
their voice, could il be automatically ut
tered, would ring out decidedly, sonor.
ously, on the side of clemency-of hu-
manity