Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1865-04-20
RUTLAND HERALD.
TUESDAY, APRIL IS, 1865.
Leniency TO Rebel Leaders.


rebel leaders, JEFF Davis included. 1t
is passing strange that we have heard
this from undoubtedly loyal and we'll
meaning sources, like the New York Tri-
bune.
1t seems clear, from the dispatches all
ready received, that the horrible work Of
Friday night in Washington, was per
petrated in pursuance of long premed-
itated and deep laid plot in which many
traitors We're concerned and which was
doubtless known to the rebel leaders.
If President Lincoln displayed fault
in the treatment of traitors it was a.
disposition to too great leniency. Yet
he is selected as the chief victim Of the,
diabolical plot of assassination, With
that same blind and fatal madness which
has led the rebels from the beginning
on to their own destruction, they shout
csc semper tyraans" as they STAY the
very man who was the least disposed
to act the "tyrant,n who was the most
disposed, of all loyal and patriotic men,
to exhibit every possible leniency and
kindness towards them. By the same
act, too, they have aroused a storm of
indignation at the north which those
who plead for pardon to the traitor
chiefs, will find it hard to breast. We
doubt if we shall hear much more sui
ing at present for full and free pardon toi
jeff Davis and his fellow conspirators.I
And yet Abraham Lincoln was but one
of the numberless patriots that have
been murdered with a cool and devilishI
elaboration unparalleled even by saw
ages. His death, startling and shocking!
as it was, bears no comparison in delib-I
crate fendishness to the murder byl
starvation of tens of thousands of ours
young and brave soldiers in rebel pris-
ons. That wholesale murder by slowI
torture was committed, that agony wass
inflicted week after week and month af-t
ter month, in pursuance of aplan coOllyE
determined upon at the rebel capital byt
JEFF, Davis and his co-workerS. 1t WASH
not merely an unprovoked violation of
the rules Of civilized warfare but it wasi
work unequaled in the number of itsg
victims, unequaled in deliberate and I'M
provoked and long. continued and devil /
ish cruelty by any untutored heather off
the old world or painted savage of thes
new.
And this deliberate tOrturing to deaths
of thousands Of our braves, by the slows
process of starvation and exposure, isl
but one in the long list of appallings
crimes with which these men haves
heaped the measure of their guilt. ToA
satisfy the cravings of their own satanics
they have destroyed the lives
Of hundreds Of thousands of other menE
south and north; they have spread des-
olation and mourning through the length
and breadth of the land they have done
their utmost to overthrow the govern
ment and destroy the Union in whose
existence were bound up the hopes off
the world for free government with allE
Its untold blessings they have in shorty
committed the foulest, the blacklist, thes
most causeless and gigantic treasonE
against the mildest and most benefcents
government on earth, and they have &C
companied it's commission with an aban-R
doned, reckless and malignant cruelty, Il
at which q savage of the forest wouldE
blush, and whose latest exhibition is thes
cowardly and brutal midnight assassin 1
alton of lenient and forgiving Presi- 1
dent.
Said the New York Times of last
Wednesday:
ave are going to hang the murderert
of Harry Lazarus, a week from nextk
Friday. Why? A young varlet born,
haply, Of q rag picker in back attic off
Cow Bay, his swaddling clothes a rag
ged dish -clout, sucked in adulteratedS
gin, weaned over an apple stall, his first
lessons the choicest phraseology of bias
phemy and obscenity, knowing nothing
that he had soul, and witless of allE
distinction between himself and theE
street ours, save that the dogs bit HING
and he kicked the dogs, well grounded
for his early years in the rudiments off
picking and stealing, pupil of Jack /
Sheppard at the Bowery Theatre, and inE
due course removed to the Benicia Boy 81
Finishing School--for aught we knowE
Bernard Friery was guilty of all that /
and now having brought his villafny toE
a climax by getting drunk as lord, Y
and idiotically killing the first man heI
ran against, the law has decided that It'll
is high time he should be put out Of theS
way, and this it is going to do"
What mockery to hang this man,
reared in crime and ignorance, becauseE
in drunken brawl he stabs one other!
man as useless as himself to the com
munity, and at the same time to preach
pardon to others who, despite all theI
advantages of education and CAREFUL
training,-bestowed upon some of them,
like JEFF. Davis himself at the govern
ment's expense,-are guilty of the muir
der of half million Of the flower of theI
land ARE ouilty of that greatest of ALL