The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1866-08-21
The Presidents Final Proclamation Of
Peace.


The remarkable resemblance Of the pro-
clamation issued yesterday by the Prcsi-
dent to the one issued by him in April
last caused us to doubt, while We read it,
whether the latter meant any more than
the former. But just before reaching the
end. we found the words which the south
ern people have so long desired to hear
from the executive office. They are these:
"Apd ! do further proclaim, that the
said insurrection is at an end, and that
peace, order, tranquility, and ciril authority
now exist in and throughout the whole Of
the United States Of America"
Civil authority "existS." That is we'll
said. 1t was previously dead. 1t did not
exist ut all. The coexistence of civil au-
thority and Of military law is thus de-
clared to be an impossibility. Yet this
has been the state of things in the
southern States, in time Of profound
peace, for more than twelve months. We
have had military officers who were to-
tally ignorant of the law sitting some
times in our courts Of justice to see that
no wrong was done to one class OF our
people that had been taken under the pc
culiar care Of the Freedmen's Bureau, and
at other times coolly informing our JUDI
cial officers that their decisions were not
approycd, and would not be submitted to.
We have had enforced an order from &C.
neral GRANT requiring the military to ar
rest persons whom the civil authorities
considered guilty Of no offence, and i'm
prison them until some civil tribunal was
found willing to try them. We have had
citizens dragged up before military tri-
bunal composed of men acting without
authority of law, to answer for imaginary
offences "againSt the peace and dignity"
not Of the Commonwealth, but of SAMBo.
In fact. we have had the forms of law
without the substance, and the enforce
ment of cdicts instead of the execution OF
iustice. From the day when, ut Runymcdc,
King JOIN, who was only prinptS inter
mares. conceded that no freeman should be
deprived of life or liberty without first
having been condemned by jury Of his
peers, until the reign Of CHARLES H.,
Eurlishmcn were, Notwithstanding, unlaw-
fully imprisoned and punished because
there had been discovered no means of COM
pelling the speedy trial of persons charged
with offences. But when the great writ of
haJeqS corpus became subject to the call of
any and every man, prison doors refused
TO remain shut, and Englishmen became
free indeed. So with us. To tell us, as
the President did in his first proclamation,
that the insurrccton was Gt an end, and
peace restored to the people Of all the
States except Texas, at the same time
leaving the military superior to the civil
authorities, was to give us Magma Chdrta
without the writ of habeaS corpus. But
the second proclamation gives us freedom.
"Civil authority exists And the Con-
stitutor of the United States provides
that "the privilege of the writ Of hateas
corpus shall not be suspended" when the
civil authority exists. The judicial er-
mine now takes precedence of the sword.
Judge MEREDITH ranks General SCHo-
FIELD. Cop be praised for Peace. There
is healing in her wings.
1t becomes the southern people so to
act as to prove that the confidence of the
President in their peaceful intentions has
not been misplaced. The Radicals have
protested to believe that we were pcacea-
bic and orderly only because the strong
arm of military power was suspended over
us. We shall show them that we can be
more orderly under our own civil rulers
than all their soldiers could make us.