Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1865-04-27
RUTLAND HERALD
MONDAY, APRIL -, 1860,


among the conductors of Opposition
presses The language they employed
concerning him the epithets they heap
ed upon him, they are conscious cannot
be paliated. much less justified. under
the limit, properly allowable to party
controversy. The CRY OF President Lin
coins assassin. "Sl. smpr tvgD,N,. was
but the natural expression Of the idea
which any maumust have been fired with
who wa, foolish enough to take the
northern opposition presses and orators
at their word, Day after day, week al
ter week month after month year after
year the words 'tyrant and "despOt
have strcamed from their pens and lips
with q vain endeavor to overwhelm
president Lincoln, while the black heart
ed, all-guilty, southern leaders in trca-
son have been as constantly pattCd on
the back as those hgh-toned Southern
gentlemen Only last August one Of
the newspapers Of which we speak-the
La Crosse wisconsin, Democrat-open-
ly instigated the assassination Of Mr.
Lincoln. In its issue OF August Goth
that paper used these remarkable words
"The man who votes for Lincoln
now is q traitor. Lincoln is a traitor
and murderer. He who pretending to
war for, wars against the Constitution
OF our country is a traitor, and Lin
coin is one of those men. He who calls
and alluTes men TO certain butCheTy, is
a murderer, and Lincoln has done all
this. Had any former Democratic Pres
ident warred upon the Constitution or
tritied with the destinies of the Nation
as Lincoln has, he would have been
hurled to perdition long since. Ind ii
he Is c}eetcd ~ mlg0rcyH for auoth0. four
years. loe trust same b0ld hand riU pierce his
heart ruth dagger point for the pubIiG Qo0d
This, we gladly admit, is on the face
of It. one of the most heartless, malig-
and devilish utterances that has come
to our notice. That its author should
be consigned to the universal and etern-
al execration of all good men, we trust
most of the Opposition journals will
now agree Yet it's eneot could b" M
worse than the continued outrageous
charges of despotism and tyranny with
which they almost all more or less
abounded. If President Lincoln were
what they continually represented, If he
were indeed undermining our liberties,
running our republican Institutions
trampling under foot our rights, and
setting the yoke OF a despot upon the
necks of the people, as charged by the
Opposition very generally, then no fate
was too severe for him, and the call OF the
Lacrosse Democrat for his death was
little more than the natural sequence OF
all these charges. Can these Opposition
newspapers. then, as they hear the de-
moniacal expressions of JOY at the muir
der Of the president, which fall from
the lps of few men in almost every
CITY and town of the north, assure them
selves that the result of their own teach
ings is not ringing in their ears Can
they assure themselves that they have
not fed the frenzy and nerved the arm
of the traitorous assassin And Is IT
strange that they should be wincing and
smarting as this is charged home upon
them by an indignant and bereaved peo'
Pile?
We know not what to write OF The
author oil the above extract from the
Lacrosse Democrat, but in regard to the
members Of the Opposition generally il
is needless to say that they have really
had no murderous intent OF thought
They knew in their hearts that Abra
ham Lincoln, the man who was pre-em
inenty devoted to the good Of the peo
pIe. the man whose heart was tender anC
kindly as Il woman's, was the last in tn,
world to desire to play the tyrant
They either did not expect their readers
to believe their words, or they did no
stop to consider their natural effect. Ii
the blind passion of partisan contro
versv they forgot what was due to de
cency, to justice, to an imperiled coun
try. In the hour of the. nations lif
and death struggle with treasopy~the.
recklessly sacrificed the promptings 0
truth and patriotism to an insane parti
san zeal. They far outstripped the lin
it's OF just criticismi they abandonel
the field of a proper and healthful oppo
sition; they blindly and madly rushe
to the very borders of treason, and tn
effect of their course was to give mora
support and encouragement to open an
avowed traitors. That was their polit
cal sin, and it was sin enough at tim
when the nation was struggling for il
very life. Now they are startled by tn
awful assassination OF the presiden
and they are none the less Mortified t
hear in the cry of the assassin, as /
aourishes his dagger in triumph but
repetition of the epithet they have so Ion
! madly applied to the loyal and lawfl
i chief Magistrate of the nation.
\ May the lesson, begun by the dra
u riots in New York City and ended by IL
81 event over which the nation. themselve