The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-05-25

punishing anybody, and that the sooner we
can lead the South 10 forgive and forget the
better will it be for all parties, and that there
is no better mode of doing this than having
prominent anti-slavery man like himself help
to get the chief of the Rebellion restored to
liberty.
Now, this is statement of Just half the
truth. The restoration of peace and harmony
between North and South is no doubt of great
importance, but the means taken TO secure 1t
is Of Just as great Importance. If there be
anything which the press, the pulpit, the
prayers, the hymns, the speeches, the con-
versations of the North have been emphatic in
affirming during the last six years, it is that
the late war was not merely contest for en-
pire, as Earl Russell called it, not merely
struggle to settle a political difference, but a
struggle between moral right and moral
wrong. II was on this special ground that
the invectives hurled against France and Eng
land were justified. These countries were
told over and over again, that were the war
simply war for the Union we should neither
ask nor expect their sympathy. II was not to
be expected that they should greatly care
whether the North American continent was
covered by one political organization or by
two. To Frenchmen and Englishmen the
American flag, from purely political point of
view, was no more than the Brazilian or
Paraguayan flag.
we JOOk nlBleT pOULlCal BfOunQs
We said that the Rebellion was an immoral
enterprise, conceived and carried out not by
mistaken men, but by bad and unsorupulous
men, animated by corrupt and selfish motives,
and determined to gain their ends at whatever
cost or suffering to others. We said, too, that
not only was the enterprise immoral, but that
the means deliberately employed to ensure its
success was incOnceivably wicked, and involved
the commission of the foulest crimes-perjury,
nd Nnuhara hos
the deliberate villany of the Confederate
leaders been more uproariously exposed than
in the columns of the Tribune, and in fact it is
this very villany which has been always used
by Mr.. Greeley as a reply to the statement that
the South voluntarily seeded from the Union,
which he has always maintained stoutly she
had right to do.
1t was, therefore, not solely because the
South sought to leave the Union, but because
she sought to leave it by vile means, for vile
ends, that we invoked the sympathy of the
civilized and enlightened world for the North.
We said Justice and humanity and truth, and
not the Union only, were at stake in our
struggle, and that the place of all good men,
whatever their political creed might be, was
on our side If anybody wants proof of all
this let him take up the files of the Tribune
during the lastNsix years, and read the lead
ing articles. The struggle being now over,
Mr.. Greeley sets us the example OF going to
the South not to relieve the sufferings of our
late enemies-for this as Christians we are
bound to do; nor yet to assure of forgiveness
and peace-for of this everybody sees the wis
dom; but of testifying to them, by unasked
and officious polteness, by offer of aid in
escaping the legal consequences OF their trans
gressions by, in short, the usual marks of SYM
pathy, esteem, and respect-for this is what is
meant by bailing man out of Jail when you
have no personal acquaintance with him, and
he neither asks nor needs your aid--that there
has been nothing in their conduct to offend
our conscences or lower them morally in our
estimation. In other words, when Horace
Greeley went down to put his name on Davis
bond, he said to all the world, 81, the most
prominent representative of Northern feeling
and opinion, who have had, perhaps, a larger
share than any other man in bringing about
the struggle which has just terminated, do
hereby declare that my opinion of you, Jeffer-
son Davis, is higher than ever it was; that
see in you simply an unfortunate enemy; that
look on your course during the past four
years, your slaughterings, starvings, hang
ings,yOur spoliatiOn, your ratings and threat
enings, as simply parts of the process for
settling an honest difference of opinion; that
you have done nothing and said nothing and
sought nothing which a good and pure and
high-minded man might not do and say and
seek; and that the denunciatiOns of you and
your cause Oh uOrdl SrOuhuS WIN WhlVh
the Northern press, and my own paper
the foremost, have been filled during
the war, were all CANNON, the wretched,
frothy rhetoric, 'all sound and fury, signifying
nothing which we editors make our living by
producing and selling; that when Northern
preachers prayed for Gods blessing on our
arms they prayed for the divine interposition
in game of pitch and toss, in which the
right was on neither side and that when
Northern young men went out to fight, as
they believed, for something nobler and holier
still than either flag or country or laws, they
fought and died under sentimental delusion.
You and l are too old to be humbugged in
this way as practical men, we know that in
cases of this kind the masses have to be kept
up to the fighting by fine words, but that war
is simply means of settling the construction
of legal instruments, and that when all is over
nothing is more natural than that the leaders
should embrace, as you and do, over the
fresh graves and amidst the ruined homes"
We have as our readers know, opposed all
forms of persecution of the South. We have
objected to confscatiOn and to the infiction
of every other penalty not clearly called for
to secure peace and good order. But, then,
we believe in such thing as national dignity
national selfrespect, and national conscience;
and we say that a decent regard for these
things makes Mr. Greeley's performances at
Richmond-all except his Speech which was
able and sensible-simply detestable, and calls
ior more emphatic reprObation than they
have yet received, although we have no
doubt whatever as to the intensity of the
disgust with which the public generally re-
CARDS them. No man could in private life go
On Ior years accusing another OF fraud and
perjury, and pursuing him with the utmost
| ilgor OF the law, and then, when he had got
Judgment against him, invite him to his own