The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-02-12
Partisanship on the Rampage.

ParttSansh1p on the Rampage.
IT is curious to observe how a spirit of intense
bigotry and unscrupulous partisanship can
appropriate to its own ends the most incon-
gruous materials. People of ordinary sense
and candor saw nothing, we presume, of a
poltical character in the late case of a minister
who. in the endeavor to secure the obedience
of his child, punished him so severely as to
cause his death. The papers have not in
formed us whether the infatuated man was
in the habit of voting the Democratic ticket or
the Republican ticket; the evidence before the
iury on the trial did not disclose whether he
was a supporter of Congress or of the Presi-
dent. his views upon the question of recon-
struoton were not elected, we believe; nor did
the prosecuting attorney accuse the poor
wretch of having been pro-slavery man, from
his excessive use of an instrument of punish
Inent once so much in vogue among Southern
slave masters 1t was reserved for the lofty
IMAGINATION 'and the transcendent genius of
our Democratic contemporary to discover the
political bearings of the transaction. That
paper gloats over the miserable fathers con-
fession through leader of nearly column in
length, in which we are treated to 'Mrs. Har-
riet Beeoher Stowe," '.Uncle Toms Cabin,
'John Calvin" "Roger Williams 'The
Quakers," "Concrete Puritanism," "New
England influence" 'Mr. Lincoln and his
75, 900 men," "Puritan sense of duty'-all
closing up with the profound and pathetic
peroratic exclamation:-"And these are the
people ,rho talk of Southern cruelty"
This is about as reasonable as it would have
been for us to have tried to hold Catholicism
and the Democratic party responsible for the
murders committed by Probst. Yet we sup
pose there must be class of minds upon
which sophistry of this kind has its effect. We
Judge, however, that the Age is wasting its
labors in that direction, since that class of peo-
pie are already safely collected within the De-
mocratic fold.
Our contemporary sneers at the expression,
ga sense of duty" 1t says that the hard
hearted creditor collects his debts from
sense of duty; that Mrs. Stowe wrote cher
vile book from sense of duty; and that the
Calvinists drove Roger Williams out of Massa-
chusetts, and whipped Quakers, from a Sense
of duty, etc. etc. Our contemporary should
carry its illustrations further When the
Established Church of England prosecuted the
Non-conformists of every name, staying them
by thousands, are we to suppose that they did
not also pretend to act from sense of duty?
When Philip and the bloody Alva drenched
the Netherlands in human gore in the inte-
rests of Catholicism, was it from a love of
cruelty or from mistaken sense of duty? Have
none but the Puritans ever erred from a sense
of duty?
Come down to later times. Does not our
contemporary plead almost daily for JEFF.
Davis and the Southern Rebels generally, be-
cause they are assumed to have acted from
Sense of duty in rebelling against the United
StatesP Take the case of our contemporary
itself. Must we not suppose that it assisted
the Rebel cause, and did all it could against
the Government during the Rebellion, "from
sense of duty9' Has it not been, too, from
sense of duty, though mistaken one, that
it has been such persistent supporter of thai
horrible and cruel system of oppression stig
Inatized by Wesley as "the sum of all vii
lanies2" Take its present persecution of tn,
colored race-its attempts to deprive them o
all social and civil rights; to prevent then
from being educated and enlightened; and t.
thrust them down into degradation and vice
must we not suppose it acting purely from
sense of duty in thisH If Motif in its supper
Of cruelty, oppression, rebellion, treason
slavery, and injustice generally, it has beer
consciously and with malice prepease thu
acting against society, and against it's owl
S'sense of duty''-then we must give to it
much darker character than it even now pos
sesses. This is ad captGndttm, wa know; bu
it is perfectly legitimate application of on
contemporary's style of arguing. The -trut
is, mans sense of duty is merely his sens
of right. Through ignorance prejudice
bigotry, or what not, he may err in his Jude
1nent of what is right, and so may conscier
tiously do what is in itself wrong. But al
we therefore to discard conscience, and urg
men to violate their sense of duty and d
what they believe to be wrongl Such woul
seem to be our contemporaries idea