North Branch democrat. [volume] (Tunkhannock, Pa.) 1854-1867, 1867-05-29
LOYAL LEAGUE LAID OUT.

LEY-G. w. BLUTT, J. A. KENNDY, j.
o. STONE, I. HYATT, AND THIRTY 9TH
RR LOYAL LEAGUE PAUL PRYs, Pro-
NoUNcED "NARRow MINDED BLOCK
sHEADs"-THE BLocKHEADs Whitfield
INTO FINE SHAvINGs-THE LITTLENEss
OF THE LOYAL LEAGUE CLUB DETIED-
THE EFFECT OF WAKING UPTHE WRONG
,RAssEkeER--WHAT Mr.. GREELEY
MEANS TO Do, &c. &c.
BY THESE PRESENTS, GREETING
To Messrs. George ". Blunt, John a;
Kennedy, John 0. Stone, Stephen Hy-
att, and thirty Others, members of the
Union League Club.
GENTLEMEN I was favored, on the 10th
inst, by an official note from our ever-cour-
teous President, John Jay, notifying me
that a requisition had been presented to
him for "a special meeting of the club at
an early day for the purpose of taking into
consideration the conduct of Horace Gree
ley, member of the Club, who has be-
come bondsman for Jefferson Davis, late
chief officer of the rebel government" -
Mr.. Jay continues:
"As | have reason to believe that the
signers, or some of them, disapprove of
the conduct which they propose the Club
shall consider, it is clearly one, both to the
Club and to yourself, that you should have
the opportunity of being heard on the
subject; beg, therefore, to ask on what
evening it will be convenient for you that
| call the meeting" DC, &.
MR.. GREELEY WANTS NO TINE FOR RE-
Election.
In my prompt reply, l requested the
President to give you time tor reflection
but assured him that | wanted none ; since
should not attend the meeting, nor ask
anv friend to do SO, and should make no
defence, nor offer aught in the way of self
vindication. am sure my friends in the
Club will not construe this as implying dis
respect; but it is not my habit to take
part in any discussions which may arise
among other gentlemen as to my fitness to
enjoy their society. That, is their affair
altogether, and to them | leave it.
HE REFERS TO HIS RECORD.
The single point whereon | have any
occasion or wish to address you is your
virtual implication that there is something
novel, unexpected, astounding, in my con-
d1ct in the matter suggested by them as
the basis Of their action. choose not to
rest under this assumption, but to prove
that you, being persons Of ordinary intel
ligence, must know better, On this point,
cite you to scrutiny of the record
The surrender CT General Lee was
made known in this city at IL P. N. of
Sunday, April 9, 1865, and fitly announc-
ed in the Tribune of next morning printed
in these columns, letter entitled "Mag-
nanimity in Triumph wherein | said:
We hear men say: "Yes forgive the great mass
of those who have been misled into rebellion, but
punish the leaders as they deserve" But who
can accurately draw the line between leaders and
| followers in the premises By what test shall
| they be Disseminated Where is your
touchstone of Leadership We know of none.
| SANor can we agree with those who would punish
the original plotters of secession, yet spare their
ultimate and scarcely willing converts On the
contrary, while would revive or inhame resent
ment against Of them, feel far less autipa-
thy to the original upholders of "the resolutions Of
98,'' TO the disciples of Calhoun and McDufTe, 70
| the Nulliiers of 1862 and the Estate Rights men
of l650-than to the John Bells Humphrey Mar
shalls and Alex II. H. Stuarts, who schooed
in the national faith, and who, in becoming disun-
ionists and rebels trampled the professions of
te-time, and spurred the logic wherewith they
had so often unanswerably demonstrated that seces-
| sion was treason. We consider Jefferson
| Davis this day less calculated traitor than John
! Bell.
But we cannot believe it wise or we'll to take the
life OF any man who shall have submitted 10 the
national authority The execution Of even one such
| would be felt as personal sigma by one who had
ever aided the rebel cause. Each would say to
himself, 81 am culpable as he we differ only in
| that am deemed Of compar atively little conse-
quence." A single. confederate led out to execu-
fiOn would be evermore enshrned in a million
| hearts conspicuous hero and n martyr. We
cannot realize that il would be wholesome safe
| we sure it would not be magnaLimous--to give
| the overpowered disoyalty of the South such a
shrine. Would the throne of the House of Hanover
| stand moro firmly bad Charles Edward been caught
and executed after Culloden Is Austrian domina-
ton in Hungary more stable to-day for the bang
ing of Macy Sander aud his twelve conpatrots after
the surrender of Villages
We plead against passions certain to be at this
moment fierce and insolvent but our side are
the Ages and the voice of History. We plead for a
restoration of the Union, against a policy which
would afford momentary qualification at the cost
of years of perious hate andsbittemess.
Those who invoke military eXecu lion for the van
uuished or even for their leaders, we suspect will
not generally be found among the few who have
long been exposed to unjust odum haters of the
South because they abhored slavery And, as to
the ong-oppressdd and degraded blacks so lately
the slaves, destined still to be the neighbors, and
1--WE trus) at distant day, the felIow-citizens of
the Southern whtes-we are sure that their voice,
could it be authenticafy uttered, would ring out
decidedly, sonorousy on the side of clemency, of
humanity.
On the next day, had some more in
this spirit, and on the 18th, an elaborate
leader entitled "Peace-Punishmen in
the course of which / said
The New York times, doing injustice to its own
sagacity in characteristic attempt to sail between
wind and water, says: "Let rs hang JEFF. Davis
and snare the rest" We do not concnr
in the advice Davis did not devise nor instigate
the rebellion on the contrary, he one of the
latest and most reluctant Of the notabes of the
ton States to renounce defnitively the Union
His prominence is purely official and representative
the only for hanging him is that you therein
condemn and stigmatze more persons, than in hang
| ing any else. There is not an ex.rebel in the