Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1867-05-25

Civilization based on Free Labor is of
higher and humaner type than that based |
on Slavery. We cannot realize that the |
qualification to enure to our friends from
the hanging of any one man, or any fifty
men, should be allowed to outweigh this
consideration"
On the following day, wrote again:
1--WE entreat the President /
promptly to do and dare in the cause of
magnanimity. The Southern mind is now
open to kindness, and may be magnetically
affected by generosity. Let assurance at
once be given that there is to be General |
Amnesty and no general Confscation.
This is none the less the dictate of wisdom,
because it is also the dictate of mercy.
What we ask is, that the President say in
effect Slavery having, through rebellion,
committed suicide, let the North and the |
South unite to bury the carcass, and then
clasp hands across the grave.'" nc7 |
The evening of that day witnessed that |
most appalling calamity, the murder of
President Lincoln, which seemed in an in
slant to curdle all the milk of human kind
ness intwenty millions of American breasts.
At once, insidious efforts were set on foot
to turn the fury thus engendered against
me, because of my pertinacious advocacy
of mercy to the vanquished. CHANGING to
enter the clubhouse the next Saturday
evening, received a full broadside of your
scowls, ere we listened to clerical har-
Il.
had been Providentially removed because
of his notorious leanings toward clemency,
in order to make way for q successor who |
would give the rebels a full measure of
stern Justice. 1 was soon made to compre-
hend that had no sympsthizers-or none
who dared seem such-in your crowded as
semblage. And some maladroit admirer
having, a few days afterward, made the
Club present of my portrait, its bare re-
ception was resisted in speech from the
chair by your then President-a speech
whose vigorous invective was justified
solely by my pleadings for lenity to the
rebels.
Atonce, concerted howl ofdenunciation
and rage was sent up from every side
against me by the little creatures whom
God for some inscrutable purpose, permits
to edit majority of our minor journals,
echoed by yell of " Stop my paperi" from
thousands of imperfectly instructed readers
OF the Tribune. One impudent puppy wrote
me to answer categorically whether 1 was
or was not in favor of hanging jeff. Davis,
adding that must stop his paper if l were
not! Scores volunteered assurances that l
was defying puplic opinion-that most of
my readers were against meas If L could
be induced to write what they wished said
rather than what they needed to be told
1 never before realized so vividly the base
ness of the editorial vocation according to
the vulgar conception Oft. The din raised
about nv ears now is nothing to that then
endured and despised. / am humiliated by
the reflection that it is Cor was) in the pow
er of such insects to annoy me, even by pre-
tending to discover with surprise something
that have for years been publically, em-
phatically proclaiming.
Il must hurry over much that deserves
a paragraph, to call your attention dis
tinctly to occurrences in November last.
Upon the Republicans having, by desper-
oeco hn,o ;a1
against formidable looking combination
of recent and venomous apostates with our
natural adversaries, a cry arose from seve-
raj quarters that ought to be chosen U. S.
Senator. At once, kind, discreet friends
swarmed about me, whispering, "Only keep
still about Universal Amnesty, and your cleo
tion is certain. Just be quiet few weeks,
and you can say what you please thereaf-
ter. You have no occasion to speak now."
slept on the well-meant suggestion, and
deliberately concluded that l could not, in
Justice to myself defer to it. 1 could not
purchase office by even passive, negative
dissimulation. No man should be enabled
to say to me, in truth, 'If l had supposed
you would persist in your rejected, con-
demned Amnesty hobby, would not have
given you my VOTE" So l wrote and pub
| lished, on the 9th of that month, my mani
festo entitled "The True Bases of Recon-
struction," wherein, repelling the idea that
| L
explicitly said:
II am for Universal Amneety-so far as
immunity from fear of punishment or con-
| fiscation is concerned-even though I'm
partial Suffrage should, for the present, be
defeated. did think it desirable that JEFF
ferson Davis should be arraigned and tried
| for treason; and it still seems to me that
this might properly have been done many
months ago. But it was not done then !;
and now / believe it would result in far
more evil than good. 1t would rekindle pas
sions that have nearly burned out or been
hushed to sleep; it would fearfully con-
vulse and agitate the South; it would ar
rest the progress OF reconciliation and
kindly feeling there; it would cost large
sum directly and far larger indirectly /;
and-unless the jury were scandalously
packed-it would result in a non-agree-
meut or no verdict. l can imagine no good
end to be subserved by such trial; and
holding Davis neither better nor worse
than several others-would have him treat
ed as they are"
Is it conc eivable that men who can read,
and who were made aware of this declara-
tion-for most of you were present and
shouted approval of Mr.. Fe-senden's con-
demnation of my views at the Club, two or
three evenings thereafter-can now pre-
tend that my aiding to have Davis bailed is
something novel and unexpected?
Gentlemen, shall not attend your meet
ing this evening. 1 have an engagement
out of town, and shall keep it. L do not
recognize you as capable of judging, or
even fully apprehending me. You evil
IDENTIFY regard me as a weak sentimentalist
misled by maudlin philosophy. Iarraign
you as narrow-minded blockheads, who
would like to be useful to great and good
cause, but don't know how. Your attempt
to base great, enduring party on the hate
and wrath necessarily engendered by a
| = T. Y,.~k, r1Ir u
plant a colony on an iceberg which had
somehow drifted into tropical ocean.
tell you here that, ont of life earnestly
devoted to the good of human kind, youI
children will select my going to Richmond
and signing that bail-bond as the wisest act
and will feel that it did more for Freedom
and Humanity than all OF you were CON-
petent to do, though you had lived to the
age of Methuselah.
1 ask nothing of you, then, but that you
proceed to your end by direct, frank,
: manly war. Don't sidle off into mild res
olution censure, but move of the expulsion
which you purposed, and which l deserve
if deserve any reproach whatever. All ]
care for is, that you make this square
stand-up fight, and record your judgment
by yeas and nays. l care not how few
vote with me, nor how many vote against
me; for l know that the latter will repent
it in dust and ashes before three years have
passed. Understand, once for all, that
dare you and defy you, and that L propose
to fight it out on the line that l have held
from the day of Lees surrender. Sc
long as any man was seeking to over
throw our Government, he was my ene-
nv; from the hour in which he laid down
his arms, he was my formerly erring coun-
tryman. So long as any is at heart op-
posed to the National unity, the Fedora
authority, or to their assertion of the
Equal Rights of All Men which has become
practically identified with Loyalty and Ma
tionality, 1 shall do my best to deprive him