Cleveland daily leader. [volume] ([Cleveland, Ohio]) 1865-1873, 1866-01-06
JeR wore Pre.idenf.


General Brisbin, an officer of the regu-
lar army, has provoked the severest indig-
nation of some of the newspapers for the
manner in which he characterized the
treason of men, who after having received
their education from their government, at
West Point, broke their oaths and turned
their swords against their country. As it
is not every day that such nervous Saxon
proceeds from an officer of the regular
army, and as General Brisbin is a
Pennsylvania, we give his words entire:
"Whoever may be pardoned among
those late in rebellion against the legally
constituted authority of the United States,
there is one class of men for whom no
mercy should exist this side Of the grave
Il mean the West Pointers. In vain do
we seek to find some excuse for the infamy
Of their conduct; in vain seek to mitigate
the magnitude of their crime. The ear of
clemency finds in the sophisms of their
friends no reason for pardon, and their
little lives are seen high up in the air
when weighed in the balance against the
great considerations of duty and justice.
Trained to arms, educated at the national
expense in the art of wal that they might
successfully defend their country-nsy,
sworn to defend it against all enemies,
they, in the hour of necessity, deserted the
old flag, and turning their swords against
us, sought with perjured hands to pull
down and destroy the very government
they had sworn to protect. For such mel
there cannot, there must not, be any mercy,
for no child-murderer, no matricide, no
fratricide, was ever guilty like these.
Forgetting alike gratitude, home, country,
duty, friends and the sanctity of their
oaths, they plunged into rebellion and or
ganized it for our ruin. After a long
struggle we have overcome them in arms,
but their guilt rises above all others in re-
bellion, like the mountain above the plain,
and their blood alone can wipe out the
enormity of their treason. UntOept an
pitied By any, a6horred By all, let them be
led forth speedily to The Scafotd, and there
suffer the penalty Of the highest crime
knOI0H among men,"
The Baltimore Gazette is Mortified at
this plain talk, and reminds us of the days
of 1861, when it howled treason against
the Government, under whose shadow it
renews its publication, and shows its graft
tude as follows:
ave should like to hear some sensible
man, who takes a juster and wiser view of
the late war, assign any vivid reason why
the graduates at West Point should be put
upon any different footing from the other
officers of the Confederate armies. They
had as much right to be educated at West
Point as any one living in Massachusetts
or New York, and we do not suppose that
any Northern graduate regards himself as
/ L.-,,. L.. -11I g., lie. = Al T.Jo-ol
Government, when he entered that mill
tary academy. Washington had held the
kings commission, and taken the kings
pay, but we neve heard it alleged as a
special reason why he ought to have been
hanged, had he been unsuccessful. The
theory that a graduate at West Point is to
! obey every behest of the Federal authori-
ties,n matter whether heregardsi it as arbi-
trary, ~disgraceful and unconstitutional or
not, is slavish and degrading to the last
degree. If, in the honest judgment of
any one of them, the Federal Government
is pursuing an illegal and aggressive poll
cy, which justiies resistance on the part of
a State, it is the privilege and duty of the
citizen to participate in that resistance,
ever if he has been in the service of the
government or educated at its expense.
That officers of the army should express
such sentiments as General BrisbiI has
done is particularly surprising. What
ever may be thought to-day of their polit-
ical opinions, we are sure the time win
yet come when tho names of General Lee
and many a man who fought under him
WILDE proudly mentioned at West Point,
as those of graduates who contributed no
little share to the enduring glory of the
institution"
We have often thought how such char
acters as JEFF. Davis, Beauregard, Lee,
and the Baltimore Gazette would have de-
ported themselves had their cause been as
just as that of the Union, and had the
men they conquered been as guilty as
themselves. Taking their own example,
it is fair to presume that they would have
halted at nothing, either to carryout their
objects or to punish their enemies. Men
OE En1 class IOfOrr0d to by General REiSy
bin, blasted % sdtahf fgEs 65fsrn6f6Ip er1 sba Sne
through all their generations, subjected to
the power of JEFF. Davis and his school,
would not now be the objects of praise and
generation. Their carcasses would long
ago nave rotted into their mother earth.
Nothing but a hideous memory would
have been left to save them from oblivion,
and the civilized world, which now de-
mands justice for the enemies of a free
government, would have exulted in the
inhexibility of the "stern statesman of the
South."-PhIGdeLphtG Press.