Bedford inquirer. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1857-1884, 1866-05-25

of the punishment of the authors of the
terrible and unprovoked rebellion with all
possible deliberation, discrimination, eau
ton and clemeney, so that no unnecessary
blood shall be added to the torrents that
have already soaked the soil OF our devoted
State.
Those at the North who assail US seem to
forget our peculiar circumstances. That
education which is almost universal with
them is here confined within very narrow
limits that the masses of the1people with
us who cannot read are necessarily depen-
dent on the educated few for their opinions
and conduct, and hense the necessity of
greater care and discrimination in ascertain
ing guilt and infiicting punishment. 1t may
be said that ignorance is not an excuse for
crime in a free government, but the truth
is, Virginia has never had really free gov
ernment, nor could freedom exist for any
class where nearly half the people were held
in abject slavery
By an irrepealable law of nature, when
ever we fasten one endof the chain upon a
fellow being the other and heavier end is
linked around ourselves, corroding our bod
les until the onenters our very souls. We
insist, therefore, that the masses Of our
people were so profoundly ignorant of the
condition of public affairs, and so misled
and deceived by the intensely selfish and
wicked aristocracy, as not to be morally re-
sponsble for their participation in the late
rebellion, and that it would be adding cruel
ty to injustice to hold them so.
To convince the most skeptical on this
subject, let us look at the condition and his
tory Of the First congressional district in
this State. That district contains more
than four times the territory of the rich,
prosperous, enlightened, happy, liberty and
equality loving State of Rhode Island once
the seat of learning and Of boasted Virgin
la hospitality, the birthplace of four presi
dents of the United States, embracing the
site of the first English settlement in Amer.
lea, the city of jamestown, which, now more
fallen than Tyre or Sidon, or Sodom or Go
morrah, has not enough Of ruins even left
for bats to fit or owls to boot in.
In the nineteen counties of that district,
there is not now, as its Representative in
Congress thirty years ago boasted a single
newspaper published, and so long has the
school-mastef been abroad that probably
more than three fourths of its native grown
men and women can neither read nor write.
Rhode Island, with its half million acres,
has nearly double the population, ten times
the wealth, enterprise and education, and
than twenty times the amount Of that dis
trict with its more than two millions of fer
tile acres lying on both sides of the Chesa-
peake bay, and on the great rivers, James,
York, Rappahann0ck and Potomac, having
the greatest commercial, oyster and fishing
capabilities Of almost any district in the
United States. What forcible illustration
Of the truth that justice, equity, industry
and virtue, or as the Bible says, Goodness,
is profitable for the life that now is as well
as that which is to come. That righteous
ness exalteth a'nation, but sin is a reproach
to any people,
We would not object to the sentiment of
the old and exeentric member of Congress
from the first district if he only referred to
those reasonable newspapers which have
advocated rebellion, for they have indeed
been curse to US all, bringing fire and
sword, desolation and death, not only upon
Richmond, but upon every extremity of
the State.
If we earnestly consider the origin and
enquire into the cause Of our calamities if
we ask why have our rivers, like ancient
Nile, ran blood why have we like the
Egyptians been overwhelmed in a Red sea,
while we were trying to prevent ourselves
from escaping to a land of ileedoml why
OF thousands until the voice of mourning
and lamentation fills the land as it once did
the land of Pharaoh why have we suffered
20 many plaques as once visited the proud
and stubborn oppressors of the old Israel
ties we shall End the answers to be be-
cause In the language of reason and philos-
Ophy, we have made war upon the rights Of
human nature Or, in the language Of the
old Hebrews, because we have oppressed the
poor, and because the God of the poor is
determined to write with His own hand His
adherence of slavery and oppression all
over our land In characters so legible that
neither we nor our children's children can
ever mistake His mind and Will in coming
generations.
To our shame and disgrace it must be ad-
mitted that so far as we are advised every
one of the numerous conflicts of races which
have occurred in this State during the past
year, has been the warton and unproyoked
work of wicked white men upon poor, quiet,
unoffending, and in most cases, unarmed aid
unresisting colored people, Why should we
murder, rob, or interrupt them, burn their
school houses and churches, insult and at
tack the teachers, who in the cause of i'm
proyement and elevation and Christian char
ity, have come to US from the ever friendly
North, In the same spirit that brought them
in 1855 to this devoted city, when tht, scourge
of yellow fever was here in its wrath. Let
us not forget that then as now it was to the
North and its generous people that we had
to look in our want for aid and assistance
Unless a stop is put to such violence and
outrage upon the freedmen, we can never
expect relief from the presence Of Northern
bayOnets, and admission to the rights and
privileges Of the Federal Union but we
shall become the by-word and scorll of the
whole civilized world, We shall be consid-
cred karbarians, and be Justly excluded from
the sympatbies of all Christian me1 1t is
your duty, gentlemen of the jury, to see to
it that people who were loyal and true to
the nations flag in the time of trial and
danger shall be protected against the perse-
cution Of those who, fresh from scenes of
treason and rebellion, are pursuing their vic
TINS with most internal hate, for no appa-
rent reason, except their fidelity and deyo-
ton to the country.
We fully appreciate the magnitude and
difficulty of the task set before you-the
monstrous wrong with which You are called
to grapple like the giant hydra, still lifts
some OF its many heads, which you must
strike down, or they will continue to disturb |
the public tranquility 1t would be childish |
to expect that so great an iniquity could be |
extirpated in single year, or even in a sin
Gle generation. It shoold be remembered |
that it had invaded every source of public, |
private social, and domestic life. Not only |
did it control the political press and all po-
litical parties IN this State, but, with rare |