The Shasta courier., 1865-04-01
Davis and Despair.

When Satan stood upon the battlements of
Heaven and looked down into the fathomless
abyss, through the gloom of which he felt he
must soon descend, never again to return. we
may imagine that he felt the force of disap-
pointment and dismav, felt the unutterable
punishment already begun for his rebellion
which had failed, and ere he took the plunge,
looked around and sought SINE excuse for
his terrible failure Like to Satan in his at.
tempt, like him in hypocrisy, like him in his
power to array others in great and unfor-
givable crime, like him IN his ambition, and
like him in failure, JEFF. Davis at last ac-
counts seemed initiating his great model in
contemplating the sad mistake he has made,
and trying to relieve his own soul from the
responsibility of the failure, was seeking to
lay the blame upon others. From the battle
ments Of the crumbling Rebellion he had
looked into the lmitess depth of infamv to
which his Rame has achieved inheritance.
and in his endeavcrs to make others share
with himself the odium and disgrace and ut
ter failure in wicked cause, lights upon the
Rebel Congress. His message sounds very
like an Acknowledgement that the Internal
attempt to destroy the country and rivet for
ever the shackles of the slave, has utterly and
irretrievably failed. In desperation he urges
81
the coin of the Confederacy; the suspension
of the writ of habeas corpus, an act which
although only partially ordered by the Fed
eral Government. has long furnished traitors
at the South favorite theme for denuncia-
ton and recommends an impressment law
before which the old Impressment laws for
the navy of Great Britain sink into trihes.-
His proposition is nothing less than an abro-
CATION of all power except a military despot-
ism. The rebels in Congress he accuses of
being responsible for the ineficiency of the
Negro Aiming Bill, saying it was passed too
late, and that the negroes intended to be
changed into soldiers have passed beyond
their reach. Once before jeff gave adm S.
sions of weakness and disaffection in the rebel
ranks, stating that large portion of the
troops were absent without leave We i'm.
aglne they have not yet returned to duty
Certainly they have not shown much desire
or ability to meet and check Sherman. Sher.
idan, Terry and Grant, who have swept
white and black along their paths, and are
fast drawing the strangling lines around the
beleaguered Capitol. Even the voices of the
bowling rebel press are growing delightfully."-
few. JEFF. stands upon his battlements like
the greater Satan, and bids tair. like him.
when his final plunge shall have been made
down through the ever-increasng infamv of
his fate. not to have one rebel sereecher to
initiate the gibbering fiends who gloried their
Satanic leader when
" Nine centuries he fell from cavern to rock,
And his head. he fell, went ncketv-kuock.
Like pebble in Carrisbrook we'll"
Evidently matters with the rebels are an
preaching rapidly crisis in their fate which
no hombast OF editors. nor bravado of the
valiant can long keep the world from
approaching: ericis which already JEFF.
DaVis himself, with his one blind eve, can
no. ignore, and which, with all his determ-
lneu wiz, he cannot quite avoid admitting,
with tones of despair and irrepressihle a6,
anguish.-CaH.