The Portland daily press., 1865-11-13
Wlrz and Davis,

"The opponents OF capital punishment"
says the Boston Advertiser, "who urge upon
us the fact that death is not always the most
severe punishment, can find fresh illustra-
ton of their argument in the case Of Wirz.
Anxiously as he may have chung to life, from
the force of that instinct which every living
thing feels life was after all the most terrible OF
burdens for him. What could be more shock
| ing than the condition in which he was
| throughout his trial? Disease in its most
| frishtful form was consuming his very marrow
and filling his body with anguish; his strength
had wasted away; the horrible excitement as
to his fate and doubtless the tortures of CON
science added mental agony to bodily suffer
ing. Death itself, it will be remembered, had
then almost robbed justice of its due. After
the trial, suspense and at last the fearful wait
ing tor the appointed hour increased his mise
ry; ne lay in his prison, without the pity OF
| sympathy of any of human kind unless it was
bis wife; deserted by those with whom he had
partnership in guilt, and an outeast from the
whole race. "The Andersonville jailer,"-that
term seemed enough to extinguish any kind
terrible sight when man thus cuts himself
off from his race, and when even the most hui
name feel that the instructive compassion ex-
cited by such condition of bodily and men,
tai suffering, is too far beyond his deserts for
indulgence. Doubtless for man in such a
case the grave is the only home, even if he
must approach it from the scalold.
"But Wirz was not executed because any
suferings inflicted upon his miserable frame
could expiate the untold horrors which have
been endured under his hand. As far as con-
Germs any atonement for that awful sum of
misery, he might as well have been let to 60
scot free No human power can weigh out or
aXact the recompense for such multiplied an
gnish. He was hanged because something
was due to the offended sense of mankind; be-
cause tits not fit that such savage crimes as
were committed month after month by those
who protested regard for the rules of civiliz-
ed warfare, should pass without formal con-
domination from a Christian nation The
| crime was too great to be atoned for, but it
was also too great to be forgotten. Public de-
cency and the ordinary instincts of justice re-
| quired that the death of the offender should
| attest the adherence of mankind for such
merciless cruelty, as that to which our men
were subjected for long months while in his
hands.
"We do not forget, however, that after all
Wirz was but tool,-a willing tool and so de-
serving to die, but not the greatest offender
Death has already claimed Winder, one of his
superiors in guilt; Others of them have made
their escape and, we trust, will never again be
seen on this continent. But after all one man
stiii lives and is in the hands of our govern
ment, who is not only the superior of IVrz in
this atfocity' but who Is also guilty of crimes
higher than his, guilty of the greatest of all
crimes against human laws and institutions.
jefferson Davis is the great criminal in whose
crime Virus and all other crimes are involved.
Davis is the chief, the embodiment Of tbis
wckedness; and we must now declare. as we
have done from the first, that it is not becom-
ing that his offences should go uncondennad
1t is not decent that we should hang the in
strument and absolve the principal; that we
should condemn the inferior crime and ignore
the chief of ALL"