Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1867-05-24
rHE uITY 81 TYKANNY.

hhE N0EN GaAN VI LIhANNA
Such q man as HENRY WILSON would
readily advise a soldier who had fought
under LEE, JOHNSTON, BEAUREGARp,
CLARK, FORFEIT, or any other of our
Southern heroes, to unite with a herd of
negroes and 9 few Radicals in making a
Constitution for his State, and by it dis
franchising his General, his Colonel and
his Captain. He would no more imag-
inc that such a proposition could be
deemed an insult, than BENNETT Junior
thought it ~snObbery to offer to give the
Prince of Wales a yacht. Nay, he
would consider it in every point of view
an admirable hit to urge the soldier to
this, as the only means By which he
/ could himself secure enfranchisement.
1t would never occur to him that for
the soldier to do so, would be not much
better than the act of the Argyraspidian
soldiers in %betraying EUMENEs, their
General, into the bands Of ANTIGoNUs,
for which, after he had slain the cap
tive, she committed his betrayers into
the hatds of the Governor of the Prov
ince, with express commands by all
means to destroy, and bring them all to
aR evil end, so that, Of all that great
numberOf men, not SO much as n ever
returned again into Macedonia"
We cannot preVent, perhaps, the de-
privstion of the dearest privilege of a
free citizen of a Commonwealth, in the
case of these and a thousand other mill
tary and civil leaders ; but nothing COM
pels US to put our own hands to the
work and make it our own. Neither
have the vietors any right to demand
that of US. If they do, it is a base act.
1t will be a baser one for US to obey.
OF those who betray their Generals,
those to whom they owe faith, our old
friend MoNTAIGNE says,-that he who
rewards such a betrayer, "cannot, for
sll that, but look upon you as q cursed
and exeerable man and conclude you a
greater traitor than he does him against
whom you are so; for he tries the vice
Of your disposition by your own hands,
where he cannot possibly be deceived,
you having no object of preceding hatred
to move you to such an act; but he en-
ploys you IS condemned malefactors are
employed in executions Of Justice, an
Office as necessary as discreditsble. Be
sides the baseness of such commissions, y
he adds, " there is moreover a prostitu-
ton of conscience. As the daughter of
.SEJANUs could not be put to death by
the law of Rome, because she was 8 vir-
gin, she was, to make it lawful, first raw
isss1-Sy the hangmsn, and then stran-
gled mot only his hand, but his so1I, is
slave to the public convenience"
"Where / have seen,' p he continues, Eat
the taking Of some little fort by assault
in my time, some rascals who, to save
their own lives, would consent to hang
their friends and companions, 1 have4
looked upon them to be in a worse con-
dition than those that were hanged"
An imperious and insoleut body of
men welding all the powers Of govern
ment Of a foreign State, say to the Con-
federate soldiers in the South, eve
have not the power to disfranehise the
men who led you so long and whom you
love and trusted and honored. We can
only effect that by means of the negro
vote, against your will, or by your con-
sent and vote also. If you do not vote
to d~isfranchise your leaders, you shall
yourselves remain disfranchised" Let
the soldier who proposes to himself to do
the deed, under this threat and for this
dirty bride of enfranchisement and
equality with the negro, ask himselfhow
much of what we have quoted above
will apply, if not fully, st least in some
modified degree, to himself? Too much,
we should think, to be 1DilLiaglg accepted.