Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1867-05-14


the doors 81 the Sanctuary of Justice, SC
long shat and barred against him, arc
opened TO khis prisoner OF & despotism as
absolute as that of Turkey.
It is not now JEFFERSON DAVIS only
who stands before that paltry judge,
asking that justice shall no longer in his
case be denied or delayed. 1t Is the
people Of ten States demanding 3 trial,
and acquittal Of the charge Of Treason
and Rebellion. If an Underwood is on
the bench, and three negroes and JOHN
MINOR BoTTs are of his grand jury, so
much the more extraordinary Is the
spectacle presented to the world. IfMr.
DAVIS had been left to live unmolested,
he would not only have become as IN
important in the public estimation as
others before him, who have aspired and
aimed high and signally failed, but he
would probably have been loaded with
AL the blame for the failure, by
those anxious to ~exoneFate them
/ selves. Persecution and imprison-
ment have changed all censures Of him
into praises, all dislikes into sympathies,
all re~membranees of injuries into regard
and admiration. He wears on his fore
head, Ia advance, all the gIories of
martyrdom. he alone, through the
unwisdom Of his hsters, stands before
the world as the single representative of
a whole people, in whose bosons the
hearts Of men yet beat, and the souls Of
men still feel the heroic impulses of
honour. 1t is st that the South should
be arraigned and tried in the person of
its chosen Chief. 1t is for it, and not for
him, the counsel viii plead it is against
it and not him only that a prejudiced
Judge viii charge the jury. 1t is it and
not him alone whom the jury will aequit,
deciding the law for themselves, as the
Jury did in the great cause Of the seven
Bishops.
The people of the South are fortunate
in this, that the man in whose person
they are to be tried, is one of a noble
nature, and who has Dobly borne the
tests of adversity, of suffering, and of
indignities offered him by the unworthy.
He has displayed a rare heroism and an
u~nequalled dignity, enduring his long
captivity without e~omplainings, without
repinings, without idle expostulatiOns,
without any Of the fretful peevishness
Of the great prisoner whose ineareeTa-
ton dishsnored England. He has been
more a King in his prison than when he
welded ali the powers Of a nation. The
hatred which ia ingenious in devices to
humiliste the Southern States, has made
his name immortal and tho eyss Of all
nen will watch with eager interest the
progress Of his trial. He is to-day the
central figure on the great stage Of the
world, the chief actor in such a scene as
mankind has never before Witnessed
the trial for treason, by a jury Of twelve
men, Of one who was for four years the
chosen Chief Magistrate Of the people
OF ten States, conducting a great var
for independence, which if successful
would have crowned them aud him with
honour and glory.
The issuance of this writ Of Habeas
Corpus is the m~omeutary gleam Of star
in the thick darkness o the night of des-
potism that covers Virginia and her dis
Inherited sister-States. If the result is
merely to rescue Mr.. DAVIS from an IN
lawful imprisonment, and inearcerate
him by virtue of legal process Issued by
a Court Of Justice, the law will once
more have struggled to its feet amid the
bayonets, and give some slight promise
of the resurrection from the dead of civil
liberty.