The Portland daily press., 1865-06-15
Letter from the National Capital.


AGAINST any human being that ever lived; The
-, ~ some of the active conspirators, and
me indictment and prospective arraignment
and trial of the chiefest rebel of all, have
served to keep the public mind fully occupied,
aud the press fully charged with all manner
OF speculations and theories concerning the
events which have so shocked the nationsl
mind. SO thrilled the heart of the whole civil
lized world.
& The reverential regard of our people for the
laws, and their implicit faith in the vihdication
ofnational honor and justice has never been bet
ter exemplifed than in Their calm aequiesence
in the tedious and formal mode of investigat-
ing the secrets of the foul plot to destroy the
peoples Representatives at the head of eur
government Whether a single conspirator
viii be sentenced to receive the penalty of trea-
son and murder is yet undetermined, but / am
sure that the decision of that stern tribunal
will be according to the demands of the times
and the occasion. There is vast amount OF
argument Of public orators and influential
Journals, deprecatory Of the idea of hanging
convicted rebels, as If. to use common phrase,
"a further effusion of blood Is needless" and
some pretend to think that the execution of
JEFF. Davis will afford the late supporters of
the rebellion a pretext to raise the cry Of,
"martyrdom." and cause them to resist the
benetcent measures being inaugurated to re-
store them to the rights and privileges of cit-
zsns Of the Republic. But If such creatures
as those who melted the masses Of the South
torebellion, and have, through more than four
years of lying, theft, robbery, murders innu-
merabie, and all the most devilish means that
can be conceived, kept up a resistance to the
national arms and authority, if such are not
traitors within the meaning of the laws and
articles of war, and if such ought not to be
punished accordingly, one can hardly perceive
the necessity of having any laws to punish
treason and its incidental crimes, or even why
SUCH damning crimes should ever, under any
circumstances, be punished at ALL If our
government is willing to act responsibility to
the demands of the peoples will, whose in
stincts and better Judgement require that trea-
son and murder shall be adequately punished,
then the arch traitors and conspirators against
the nations life will be made to forfeit with
their lives, all claims to the mercy of execu-,
tive power. Our murdered soldiers, shot in
cold blood, starved In loathsome prisons and
larzar-houses. the suffering widows and or
phan children of the whole country, with
4 united cry, demand that the authors Of their
misery and death shall be punished, and we
nave the assurance of our chief magistrate
i that punishment shall be melted to all such as
have wrought treason and death In the land
he has uttered one sentence ever to be re-
membered. "Mercy has been slainl" said he,
after the murder of Lincoln. Yet there are
many who yet sue for pardon, for pity, for
amnesty, who are stepped in the guilt of the
foulest crimes. May he stand infexible and
immoveable upon the rock of justice, and
when importuned for "pity," answer in the
language of the great poet:
ri show II most Of all when show Justice;
For then pity those do not know,
Which dismis sed offence would after gall: "a
ANA do him right that answering one foul wrong,
Lives not to act another" ts 75ts4
The subject Of comforting the elective fran
chise upon the colored freedmen OF the coun-
try, is one Of the absorbing themes of newspa-
per comment, and has elected eloquent ad-
dresses from several distinguished orators
The radicals" advocate the immediate en-
franchisement OF every negro in the country:
as measure of justice and equal right, while
that large class who sneer at radicasm, and do
not affect any confidence in the scheme to give
the negro the right to vote as loyal citizen,
| argue against it, with the exception that such
as have fought during the war, for the Union,
aud are intelligent, shall have the right to vote
This argument Is calculated to foster an old and
nearly exploded prejudice, and as there is GER
tainly no manifest danger in allowing all loyal
people to vote, white or black, it will be better
for the country that all false and proscrptive
policies be abandoned, and let the broad shield
of universal liberty and franchise protect and
cover every son Of Columbia. -
The Chronicle, paper devotedly attached
to the support of the Administration which
sometimes speaks with the assurance OF an or
acle, anu has ON some occasions exhibited no
small amount of flunkeyism, lately essayed
vehement protest against the title of the abo-
litionists proper to have any voice or share in
the directing Of public opinion, and asserted
that "they have never been controlling
power" This may appear perfectly true to
the Chronicle and many others, who affect to
ignore the origin OF the that sentiment which
prevades the great public with an intensity of
consciousness, unlike anything ever seen be-
| fore. e t9i W 'As Ats'
II may seem quite plausible to those astute
minds, who, when "Abolitionism proper,j was
only another name for heresy and ianatieism,
stood aloof from all participation ia the labor
and trial OF those who fought so persistently
against the absurd sophistries of old political
creeds, nay, who condemned, slandered and
prosecuted the apostles of freedom, until abo-
lition became necessity, fact, and as such,
of course, became popular hobby for aspir-
ing politicians. But when we remember that
1t was the Abolitionists proper, wi o, long ago,
discovered the great truths of liberty, whose
earnest preaching and writing created senti-
ment, formidable to the old parties, and who
enunciated generation ago, the grand doc
trines so popular in the present; when we re-
member that the abolitionism of Philips and
Garrison, and Loveioy, of Gerrltt, Smith,
sBeechef and all the rest a few years ago, is
mainly identical with that OF the Chronicle
and its kindred organs, Of to-day, it certainly
appears very inconsistent, to say the least, for
prominent journal to scoff at the apostles
whose gospel it has SO recently embraced, and
whose devotion to liberty loving principle
| have In more than one instance been sealed by
a martyrs fate. ,,.,6 sa,fsssa4a..a s s4us.
Miss Anna Dickinson addressed large au-
dinnca hara dn rirr The mast xroalr imam, tI.n