The Conservative. (M'connelsville, Ohio) 1866-1871, 1866-11-23
A Characteristic Letter from
Gerrft smith 20 Pr0f. Lewis.

W AOAOSoVA AeJ'V 1SVRt " INV
College, Schenectady, on the situation
of National affairs. He says;
II see that you continueto write fol
the salvation of that dear country
Well you mayl-for che is, this day
more fearfully imperiled than she was
at any time during the clash of arms,
/ have read your pamphlet entitled
The Heroic Periods of Nations His.
tory l wish every ono could read
its wise and high-souled pages. There
is, however, one blot upon them
They favor the shedding gilmore blood.
You would have the South punished,
after laying down her arms. Some OF
her most prominent men you would
have had punished with death.
II wonder that you, who are so ia
miliar with the writings of the most
approved publicists, do not fall. in with
the conclusion that a strife, which has
reached the Dimensions and dignity of
a civil war, and especially a civil war,
which, like our own, divides a people
into distinct and complete National
organizations, has outgrown the crime
of treason. Their arguments for this
conclusion, together withsuoh az would
suggest themselves TO mind as en-
lightened as your own, must, it would
seem, lack nothing to convince. you of
its entire soundness. I need hardly
add that / dissent from your definition
Of a civil var.
ut is mainly the fault ofthe Gov
eminent, when one half of q nation
breaks away from the other. Had III
Government been ever wise and just,
the great secession, which has soaked
our soil with blood, would not have
been. When one half of England, or
France, or Spain shall break away
from the other the worlds sympathies
will pretty certainly be with the in
surgents-for the world will pretty
certainly infer that the insurgents
were wronged. Moreover, if the insur-
gents should fail to maintain their
cause and to right their wrongs, the
world will pretty certainly feel that
their failure is Of itself their quite
sufficient punishment. Who is so fool
ish as to believe that, had the whole
history Of ourlG overnment been bright
with wisdom and beautiful with justice,
there would have been this throwing
off Of its restraints and this defiance of
its power?" p,
Pity for the South, not punishment,
is then urged by Mr.. Smith, who then
continues:
Ever since the surrender Of the
South, Ihave felt that the first duty of
the North and the South was a com.
mon repentance for a common sim
The discharge of this duty, together
with the mutual forgiveness which
would have instantly followed, would
have proved a mighty upward educa-
tor Of both North and South; and it is
for the lack Of this very educator that
the character Of both North and South
has all this time been going downward.
From such repentance and forgiveness,
peace would have come long ere this,
and it would have been a permanent,
because a pure peace. Such a peace
can now hardly be looked fora peace
which cannot come until each section
shall condemn itself and forgive the
other"
Next follows some good advice to
General Butler:
"Mr. Davis has, indeed, wronged
his country; and, through his misap
prehensions of him, has particularly
wronged General Butler. But so, also.
have the country and General Butler
wronged Mr.. Davis, The country
the North as we'll "a the South-mould-
ed his pro-slavery character, and il
largely responsible for what has come
TO him and his country from that char
acter. Our guilty nation, in looking
upon Mir. Davis, should rather pity
than hate its own Legitimate offspring
And General Butler, instead Of lnvo
king punishment on the head of Mr.
Davis, had better fall on his knees be
fore him in penitent remembrance o
his own prominent connection with tn,
exceedingly wicked proslavery Dem
oeratic party"
Then as TO JEFF. Davis himself
Jefferson Davis is kept in prisol
because the North still refuses TO re
pent of her pro-slavery w~ickedness.-
OpOH lhdb W~lChtuuchsi lar ulOTo INA
upon other causes, is the ruin of Jeffer
| son Davis and the South chargeable.-
D Repentance for it would quickly ope
! his too-long closed doors. Surely
surely, if the South will forgive tn
North, the North can we'll afford {
forgive the South. But l am aske
i whether the North should forgive tn
cruelties of Andersonville. and of tn
other terrible prisons of the South2-
, Even those unparalleled cruelties Oh
n should remember were the crimes
slavery, and that slavery was her ow
is well as the South's crime-ay, thi
even her churches were blood red wit
! it. TheNorth, no less than the Sout
! had the making of the monsters wi
ruled in those prisons"
|" Next, as to the demand for the Pre-
ident's impeachment: