The daily clarion. [volume] (Meridian, Miss.) 1863-1866, 1866-02-09
Judge Chase and JeG. Davis.

/ From the Springfield (Mass) Republican,
/ Chief Justice Chases position with regard
! to the trial of Jefferson Davis continues sin
/ gular, aud would be incredible, if it were not
| stated by the President and his Cabinet Min
| listers. The opinion of the Government is
that such trial should be by civil court,
and in Virginia, where the offence chiefly
! lay. But Mr.. Chase declines to proceed with
! it, on the pretence-for we cannot regard 1t
| as any thing more than a pretence-that
| that State is under military authority, and
/ not fully restored to civil law. There GER
/ tainly is no hindrance to the proceedings of
/ the United States Supreme Court III the pres
cncc of few troops to keep order between
the freedmen and their former masters We
may look elsewhere for the real cause of
Judge Chases conduct. Does it lie in his
fear that there, among Davis old friends and
/ associates in the cause for which he Is ar
raigned, no impartial trial can be secured ;
no jury, who can judge impartially of law
and fact, can be empannelleds There GER
! tainly is room for doubt and danger here /;
/ between the two parties of lOyalists and
/ rebels into whom our whole population has
been sharply divided, it would be impossible
! to obtain anywhere, indeed thoroughly
Independent and impartial jury for this great
case.
But Judge Chase would hardly make n
point on this certainly, if he did, he should
( have some remedy to propose at least no
/ hesitation to avow it. His barren excuse
seems to cover the reality of different rea-
I son; and may not find it in the fact of
his being still Presidential candidate, and
the natural consequent dislike to meet such
/ an issue rs the trial and conviction of the
head of the rebellion, all parties to which are
to vote for the next Chief Magistracy This
| is not very tlattering suggestion, but we do
not hesitate to make it; it is no more dis
| creditable than the fact that, being Chief
Justice of the Republic, he is also dreaming
and planning how to get into the Presiden-
tial chair.
No man has fallen more in public esteem,
1 in public confidence. than has Judge Chase,
through this now notorious circumstance of
his ambition. That it would be so was Mr..
Lincoln's chief objection to appointing him
to Judge Taneys place. That it would not
be SO was the repeated and doubtless honest
assurance of Mr.. Chases friends. But Mr.
Lincoln proved wisest; and the fact is no
more lamentable and disgraceful than it is
true. And to it, and the caution and diplo-
macy inspired by it, is the country probably
indebted for the circumstance that Mr. Davis
remains an untried and unconvicted prisoner
--~ ono ~--------------
Ia The Richmond Examiner, in an article
full of much slang about Henry Ward
Beecher, gives the following very truthful
and scholarlike view of hisstyle:
Beecher's style is quite sui generis; it pos
sesses life, vigor and ectaf of its own, and
now and then "babbles O. green fields" OIL
flashes out electrically with quite genuine
effectiveness. But for all that the Brooklyn
apostle speaks a Babylonish dialect. Its
habit is vicious; its dress pie-bald and parti
colored. He may know what good taste is
but he invariably sacrifices it for effect, as
the clown wears motley to create a laugh
The points of his style are always stdcoatO
its pungency is derived from capsicum; its
brilhancy is blue-lght. 1t is false style
without genuineness, without smoothness
without harmony, and consequently without
beauty. 1t aims always to startle, and hence
perpetually resorts to clap-trap. 1t embraces
quite as much twaddle as sparkle 1t com
bines Emerson and Elder Knapp, A. Lincoln
and Parson Brownlow; it probes the dung
hill and enjoys the soap-factory; it flies from
rotten sheep to transcendentalism it couples
in one sentence the mango and the seven
Heavens; it sails from the duck-pond to the
Pacific; it goes with skip from oil wells tC
ChimborazO; in short, it is that indescri
bable compound of the sublimely ridieu
lous: Beecher's style.