The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1866-10-31

have not only failed, but they have failed On
O bad cGuse--one which the intelligent moral
sense OF the world will continue to look upon
with increasing disapprobation. In the first
place, they endeavored to overthrow the
existing order of things without just cause.
Now there is something sacred in government
itself as government, so that no man Ihas a
right arbitrarily and Iecklessly to attempt its
destruction. Its overthrow must be justified
not only by the existence Of great and crying
wrongs, but by the impossibility TO reach and
rectify them in any other way. Nobody can
pretend this on behalf of the slaveholders'
Rebellion. Where was their list of grievancesp
Where their catalogue of wrongs2 Where
their instances of unendurable oppressionP
They have never shown them; they never
can show them, for the simple reason that
there we're none. They were living under q
free representative republic, in which they
had their just and equal voice. They had no
complaints to make of the laws, for they
were laws of their own making. They had
no oppression to escape from, for the Govern
without interruption for fifty years they had
managed to control the policy of the Govern
ment both at home and abroad.
1t was in the face of these and similar facts
that they inaugurated a bloody attempt at
revolution, involving the expenditure of i'm
.mense sums of money, the waste and de-
struction of enormous amounts of property,
and a vast and mournful sacrifice of human
life. No wonder that the authors of such
stupendous public and private misfortunes
stand speechless and aghast before the bar of
history, and listen to its already audible and
inevitable sentence of condemnation
But not only was the shareholders Rebel
lion destitute of any sufficient justifying
cause-it was entered upon for an atrocious
end. The real cause of complaint that the
Rebels had with the Government of the
United States was, that it is founded upon
the principles of freedom and equality. The
glorious truth enunciated in the Declaration
OF Independence that 'all men are created
equal" was to them rock Of stumbling and
a stone OF offense. They determined, so far
as the South was concerned, to overthrow
this form of government and to found in its
stead a government which should incorpo-
rate into its very essence the idea of In
equality and oppression. This intention was
boldly avowed and most cordially elaborated
and defended in Alexander Stephens cele-
brated corner stone" Speech while he was
acting as Vice-President of the so-called
Southern Confederacy. The fact, then is
incontrovertible, that this Rebellion was an
attempted revolution against human rights,
and in favor OF human wrongs. 1t was an
effort OF tyranny to strike down liberty-of
despotism to override freedom-of the
naughty few to trample under foot the rights
of the suffering many. Its success would
have been the triumph OF cruelty and wrong,
retrogression towards darker ages, q reac-
ton in favor of might instead of right, vic
tory of the dogmas and practices of barba-
rism over the culture and refinement, and
beauty of Christian civilization.
And is it supposed that any man who has
been the leader in an attempt like this, and
has failed in 1T, is to be handed down to pos
terity as a hero, martyr, a great and good
man, a friend of his raceP Nay, verify, his
tory has but one place for such a man, and
that is the pillory. She will point to HIM as
an illustration of how the wicked are over
thrown in their own craftiness. She will hold
him up as an example of warning to those
who would overthrow free governments that
they may establish despotic ones. She will
denounce him as one who sought by bad
means to accomplish a worse end-as the
cruel author of unutterable woes to many
innocent persons, that he might overthrow a
wise and free government of the people, and
erect upon its ruins a vast empire of selfish
ness, pride, and oppression.