Daily union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1865-1866, 1866-01-04
west Point Graduates In she cenfeder.
ate Army

/
From the Baltimore Gazette.l
General Brisbin has lately delivered :
discourse, We do rot know precisely where
I IN which he strongly urges that all the of
fcers who served in the Confederate army
and were graduates of West Point, shall b,
forthwith hanged. He thinks that for then
/" no mercy shoald exist this side OF tbs
grave He finds, in what he calls the
"sophisms of their friends no reason foi
their pardon, and says Unwept unpitied
g b.. any, abhorred BY all. let them Be- led
g forth speedily to the scaiIold, and there
"sutier the penalty Of the highest crime
known among men"
As Justification for this savage course.
he cites the fact that the officers were edu-
Gated at government military school. Ac-
cording TO General Brisbin they were "ed,l-
"cated at the national expense in the art Of
war, that they might successfully defend
their country We can understand how.
in time Of high excitement, people NAV
repeat certain talking words and phrases and
believe themselves to be going through some
sort Of process OF reasoning, but we cannot
quite comprehend how So many Of them
can persist in. talking t-day nonsense that
was popular two years ago. We have
heard very little throughout the war but
arguments. If they can be so-called. of the
sort put forward by General Brishin. and Il
is really time that the men should take a
more rational view OF the past four wears.
people inauguratad and carried
on for that time the most stupendous revolg-
ton that the world has eSer witnessed.
Most of the educated men of that section be-
lieved that the radical agitation in the North
had rendered that course necessary on the
part of the South, unless she was prepared
and willing to surrender tamely, at the die
tation Of a sectional party rights and insti-
tutions guaranteed her by the Constitution.
Most of them thought II their bounden duty
to assist their respective States in resisting
the aggressions with which they believed the
latter to be threatened. The South has.
however, failed. After having shown an
endurance and proves in the field which
have extorted the nobl,sst words OF praise
from General Grant, her starving and out
numbered armies have succumbed, and the
jurisdiction Of the Federal Government has
been re-established throughout her borders.
He must have a queer way of looking at all
the realities of life VINO can recall the his
tory of such q contest and gravelv speak
ter - Of the Federal troops who fell
at Gettysburg as having been MUIR
dered-of Confederate soldiers as mere ban
dts, and Confederate ships as pirates. lie
must be completely given over to fanaticism
and foolishness wEo now oraeularly asserts
that what men, like General Lee and Mr..
Davis, regarded as reasons and duties were
mere sophisms that ought not 10 have i'm
posed upon child, or were but the prompt
ings of their own perverted natures. But
still we find individuals who assume, with
the utmost GOODNESS, that there has been only
a disgraeeful riot in the South, and that every
man who participated in it was both fool
and knave, or something worse. We should
like to hear some sensible man, who takes a
juster and wiser view Of The late wai., assign
any valid reason why the graduates Of West
Point should be put upon any different foot
ing from the other officers of the Confeder-
ate armies. They had as much right 20 be
at West Point as any one living in
or New York, and we do not
suppose that any Northern graduate regards
himself as having been sold for life to /
the Federal government, when he entered
the military academy. Washington had
held the Kings commission, and taken the
King pay, but we never heard that alleged
as a special reason why he ought to have
been hanged, had he been unsuccessful The
theory that a graduate of West Point is to
obey every behest of the Federal authori-
ties, no matter whether he regards it rs ar
bitrary, disgraceful and unconstitutional or
not, is slavish and degrading to tine last de-
gree. II, in the honest Judgment of any one
Of them, the Federal government is puTsu-
ing an illegal and aggressive policy, which |
ustifes resistance on the part of a State, il |
IS the privilege and duty of the citizen to
in that resistance, even if he has /
been in the service of the government or /
educated at Its expense. That officers Of the /
lrmy' should express such sentiments a.
General Brisbin has done is particularly {
Whatever may be thought to-
lay of their political opinions, We are sure
he time will yet come when the names Of
zen. Lee and many q man who fought under
lin will be proudly mentioned at West
Point as those of graduates who contributed
10 little share to the enduring glory Of the
nStitutiOn