Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1865-04-15

Horace GreeIey's Peace Pro-
gramme-He Is In Favor of For
giving all in the RebeIIiOus States.
From The New York Tribune, Tuesday. April II !
MAGNANMITY IN TRIUMPH. III
We had hoped to print herewith the Pres
ident's Proclamation of Amnesty and OBJ
livion to the partisans of the bafiled rebel
lion, and we do not yet despair of receiving
it before we 60 to press, though no portion
of it has yet been received. We are ap-
prised, however, by telegraph from Wash
ington, that its tenor was publicly debated
in that city yesterday, while our State Sem
ate was agitated by kindred discussion.
We cannot shut our eyes to the fact that
strenuous efforts are being made to swerve
the President from the course to which his
judgment and his feelings alike incline him,
by stigmatizing it as involving infidelity to
principle or to party. Others will be heard
on this point though we were to keep ST.
lence we claim, therefore, our equal right
to set forth our views, that they be accord
ed such weight as they shall be deemed to
deserve. .e.
We hear men say, "Yes, forgive the great
mass of those whs have been misled into
the rebellion, but punish the leaders as they
deserve" But who can accurately draw
the line between leaders and followers in
the premises? By what test shall they be
Disseminated? Some of the arch-plotters
of disunion have never taken up arms in its
support, nor have they held any important
post in its civil service. Where is your
touchstone OF leadership? Weknow none.
Nor can we agree with those who would
punish the original plotters Of secession,
vet spare their ultimate and scarcely will
ing converts. On the contrary, while we
would revive or inflame resentment against
none of them, we feel far less antipathy to
the original upholders of the resolutions Of
'9S-to the disciples of Calhoun and McDuffie
to the Nullifiers of 1882, and the State
Rights men OF 1850-than to the John Bells,
Humphrey Marshalls and Alex. III. III.
Stuarts, who were schooled in the National
faith, and who, in becoming disunionists
and rebels, trampled on the professions of
alifetime and spurned the logic wherewith
they had so often unanswerably demon
strated that secession was treason. Whether
they weakly yielded to the madness of the
hour, hoping that so they might ultimately
"ride the whirlwind and direct the storm"
to some ill-defned but benefcent purpose,
or surrender their judgment and their 10y
atty to that imposture OF Estate soyer-
eignty,p which they had always held in
cowardice and fear of bodily violence into
course condemned by all their better i'm
pulses, we protest against any discrimina-
tion whereby this class shall be screened or
favored. We consider Jefferson Davis this
day less culpable traitor than John Bell.
4 But we can not believe it wise or well to
take the life of any man who shall have
submitted to the National authority. The
execution of even one such would be felt as
a personal stigma by every one who had
ever aided the rebel cause. Each would say
to himself, Il am as culpable as he; we dit |
fer only in that L am deemed of compara-
lively little consequence" A single Con- |
tederate led out to execution would be |
evermore enshrined in a million hearts as |
a conspicuous hero and martyr. We can |
not realize that it would be wholesome or |
safe-we are sure it would not be magnani- |
mous--to give the overpowered disloyalty |
of the South such a shrine. Would the |
throne of the House of Hanover stand more |
firmly had Charles Edward been caught |
and executed after Culloden? 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 Vilagos? a4..e.
We plead against passions certain at this
moment to be fierce and intolerant; but on |
our side are the Ages and the voice of His
tory. We plead for a restoration of the |
Union, against policy which would afford |
a momentary qualification at the cost OF |
years of perilous hate and bitterness.
We have borne for aquarter of a century |
the unjust imputation of hating the South,
when we hated and sought to subvert only |
slavery, the scourge alike Of South and
North, and the sole cause of discord be-
tween them. We have done what we could |
--of course, not always wisely-tO battle,
to circumscribe, and ultimately to over
throw, the slave power. At length, through |
succession of events which no human be-
ing could have devised or foreseen, the end |
which we sincerely hoped but hardly ex-
pected to see, is plainly before us. Ameri-
can slavery is visibly In the agonies of dis
solution: If we live year longer, we shall |
almost certainly see it laid in the grave;
and, whenever abolished here, its expul- |
sion from the last rood of Christendom, that |
it now curses can not be postponed five
wears. Let us take care that no vindictive |
impulse shall be offered to imperil this glo-
riOus consummati0n., tn .laG,f tx lr4a,oorl
Unauestionably, there are men in the
South who have richly deserved condign
punishment. Whoever is responsible for
the butcheIy Of our black soldiers, v9n-
quished in fight, or the still more atrocious
murder of captives by wanton exposure,
and priyation in prison-camps,. stands in
this category. But the immediate issue
concerns not the dispensation of Justice to
individuals, but the pacifcation of a'vast
Republic. He who fancies that all the ex-
hibitions of cruelty or perfdy have been
the work of rebels, has but superficial
knowledge Of current history.
Those who invoke military execution for
the vanquished, or even for their leaders,