Bradford reporter. [volume] (Towanda, Pa.) 1844-1884, 1866-01-18
Bradford geporter,
Towanda, Thursday, January 18, 1866.
TREASON AND TRAITORS.

is so 0pr0pos that we adopt it as our own:
For four long years we have been engag
ed in the most gigantic and bloodiest war
ever waged. Wicked men, to perpetuate
a great wrong on four millions of men, at
tempted to overthrow the government, and
have caused the death of five hundred
thousand men and have involved the ma
ton in debt of three billions of dollars
their pirates have swept our seas, their
barbarous prison-keepers have starved and
tortured our prisoners, their incendiaries
have fred our dwellings,. and from a "neu-
ira" province they have sought to SNUG
gle contagious, loathsome and fatal dis
eases into our cities. Every cruelty has
been practiced, and every possible means
resorted to to dismember our nation and
bring degradation and ruin upon us By
vigorous and long continued efforts and the
smiles Of Him who regardeth the right and
hateth oppression, they have been thwar-
ted in their plans, and defeat and forcible
submission to the government they have
hated, is theirs.
While the war was raging furiously, and
good and brave men were falling thickly,
and our men suffering the unparalleled hor-
rors of Southern prisons, and tears We're
flowing freely from all parts of the North
for husbands, fathers and brothers slain,
we talked much, and to us it seemed sensi-
bly,, of confscation of rebel property and of
debarring forever from any Office under the
United States any one who voluntarily
took any part against the nations life.
Even later we have been told again and
again treason must be made odious"
Many months have passed since the taking
of Richmond, the surrender of Lee and the
capture of the prince of traitors, and is
treason less "odous" now than it was? On
he contrary if we can credit the multi
piled testimony which comes to us from va
rious sources, from rebels themselves d.
rectly, from many officers Of our army who
have been long at the South, from reports
of Generals, from competent and reliable
witnesses who are at the South, from the
action of Presbyteries, Synods, and Clerical
Conventions, from the actual rebels whom
they insultingly have elected to represent
them in our Congress, are we not compelled
to-believe that, though they have necessa-
rily submitted to the "arbitrament of the
sword" yet they have the same hostile
spirit, and that the pageantry Of treason no
longer fingers in the sunny portion of our
land but that treason itself is less unpopu-
lar, less odious now than it was at the
close of the war? 1t is not necessary
that we should go to the South in order to
observe this state of feeling We have
testimony in abundance similar to that on
which we rely for facts which are unques.
toned. Neither are we shut up to two
witnesses, one Of whom made a trip of a
few days to the South Shall We not take
all the evidence on all sides, and carefully
examine it and form our own opinions, or
shall we take the opinions of others blind
/ ly, or like a certain lawyer and senator,
apparently conscious of bad cause, reject
without examination the great mass Of ev-
idcncc which was against him and Coarse
ly," not in a polished and scholarly man
ner, dwell on the evidence of two whose
views correspond with his own They have
bOasted i'll this very city, that they will
have why to dispose of all who shall go
South to interfere with their plans they
speak Of their plans when they secure
equal rights to all sections y and while
/ they pass the constitutional amendment, as
| Gen. SchurZ says, the emancipation of the
/ slave is submitted to only so far as chattel
slavery i'll the old form could not be kept
up. But although the freedman is no Ion
ger considered the property Of the individ-
ual MASTER he is considered, the slave of
society, and all independent State Legisla-
ton will show the tendency to make him
such. The ordinance abolishing slavery
passed by the conventions under pressure
of circumstances will not be looked upon
as barring the establishment of a new form
of servitude We we'll remember the bold
and defiant air, and venomops spirit of the
aiders and abettors Of treason, who defen-
ded the South in the late General Assem-
bly, i'll this city. The truth is the effects of
the system Of slavery on masters, render
ing them tyrannical, unfeeling and selfish
are still there !: and hatred towards tie
North still exists, and they will be ready
/ to engage in any measure which will tend
to undo all the good that has been done.
We are told on the very Lest authority that
loyal men will not be able to live in certain
Southern States if the Union troops are
withdrawn. Is not the proof ample and
conclusive, that there is still much to be
done at the South to protect loyal men, and
the treedmen-to secure loyal representa-
tlves and fair representation and to pro-
tect ourselves against combinations to Sc
cure the passage of acts of reputation of
our national debt, before the men who.
since our last Congress met, were heartily
and wholly engaged in treason and rebell-
ion shall be admitted to seats in our ma