New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1866-01-12
..4he Sword and the Gown,

From the Mobile Ad7artiser1
We have no occasion to call the attention OF our
readers to the General Orders No. 40,n from
the military headquarters at Nashville. Ii will be
read fast enough, and it will be remembered long,
Bill Arp" tells us in one of his unique letters
that " Sherman's caterpillars took so many liber-
ties" when they swarmed through his section Of
Georgia. that the people there had every few
liberties left Now, Gen. Thomas has taken
such extraordinary liberties with the ecclesiastical
rights of Bishop Wilmer and the people Of his do
cese that we do not feel at liberty to discourse on
this conflict between "rlle Sword and the Gown"
in u style at all worthy of the text. An habitual
profane swearer, who, under an extraordinary
provocation, didn't swear an OATH was asked how
it happened He replied that "he couldn't begin
to do justice to the subject" We are dumb for
the same reason, and for another, to wit: that we
are not yet sufficiently reconstructed " to be
able to hold poemics with gentleman who wears
sword, and who has the power to make his bayo-
nets do his thinking. We shall have to turn the
commentary over to some OF those New York
papers that enjoy the precious privilege of being
able to speak their minds right out in meeting.n
Bishop turned loose with his Virginia blood up and
noble intellect all ablaze in reply to this military
moral and religious discourse of Gen. Thomas.
We think the gown would make the fur fly even
from the corseet. As to the facts Of the case, if
the General has condemned the Bishops offense on
the ground that his people have disapproved his
course, the order to remove the interdct the
church has no bottom to stand upon The Bishop
has been standing up for priaciple--the principle
OF the neutrality-suspicious. Of the Christian church
OF military authority under the Constitution of the
United States. The General will not be able to
persuade one living being in Alabama (not an i'm
ported radically that Bishop Wilmer was Influenced
by the seditious and reasonable motives ascribed
TO him on his order We do not pretend to doubt
that Gen. Thomas thinks So but he is mistaken al
has been msinformed. Bishop Wilmer is not only
an eminent divine, but he is 'one of natures nc
blemen Va gentleman Of the old Virginia school;
and when he took the oath Of allegiance to the
government of the United States he meant to keep
it like an honest man, and has so kept it.
1t was no part of that obligation binding on him
as the Bishop of . Church to submit to the inter-
ference of the military power with his ecclesasti-
cal functions and duties. Nay the oath to sup
port the Constitution of the United States com
manded him to resist such interference, because it
violated the Constitution as well as his Episcopal
rights.
But it yet remains to be explained why the
whole clergy and laity of this Church in Alabama
were made to suffer for the Bishops single act?
And why, any more now than then, is the Bishop
allowed to resume his suspended duties? Is he re-
pentant? Has he bowed his Episcopal crook to
the epauette and begged pardon for his ofense?
Not at all. The reason is that the order came
from Washington. 1t was plank in the Presi-
dents reconstruction platform, aud he ordered it
to be put down, We conclude that History will
write that in this contest between the sword and
the gown the gown has proved the better recon-
structionst, harmonist and uni0nists of the two,
ss---