Lamoille newsdealer. [volume] (Hyde Park, Vt.) 1860-1877, 1867-05-15

earth's noblest martyrs to freedom and
humanity.
Another subject of thanksgiving is pre-
scented in the very constitution of your
body, furnishing ocular evidence that the
age of lust and class cruelty is departed,
and the new era Of equality and justice
breaking through the clouds Of persecution
and prejudice is now dawning upon us; and
strangest Ct all, that this City Of Rich
mond should be the spot of earth to fur
nish this gracious manifestation. Rich
mond, the beautiful and abandoned seat
of the Rebellion, looking as comely and
specious as goodly apple or a gilded
sepulchre, where bloody treason fourishca
its whip of scorpions. Richmond, where
the slave trade SO long held high carnival;
where the press has found the lowest
depths of proaigacy where licentiousuess
had ruled until probably majority Of
births were illegitimate or without the
forms Of law, where the fashionable aud
popular pulpit had been SO prostitlt:d that
its full fed. rninistc,ing gay Lotharios gen.
orally recommended the worship of what
they most cspected-pleasure, property.
and power-corresponding to the pagan
and NEUROLOGICAL ideas of Bacchus, Nam
mon, and Mars
Gods brutal, partial. pass ionate, unjust.
! Whose attributes were rage, revenge. and lust.
| 1t was as If the fends prevailed
Against the seraphs they assalled
And fixed on Heavenly thrones should dwell,
The freed inherltors of hell.
I So formed for joy,
So cursed the causes that destroy.
But we are reminded that where sin aboun.
ded grace may much more abound, and in
the light Of recent changes may we not
hope material and moral future for this
City of Richmond in strong contrast to its
awful and atheistic past, and in harmony
with the salubrity of its climate. the poet
ic beauty of its scenery and the maguif.
cence of its water powers | have some.
times feared that by the usages of this
State, which have given the selection Of
Jurors to the Sheriffs and Marshals, or,
in professional language, have packed ju-
rors instead Of drawing them from box
of names selected by other officers, as is
done ia most of the States, there was dan.
ger of getting Indifferent persons upon the
panel; but the care and rare judgment
which our Marshals have always shown
in their selections prove my fears unfoun.
1ed, and am truly gratifed to find 80
many gentlemen of public and private
worth upon the present jury. We so of.
ten hear from reasonable sources around
US of cruel acts passed by Congress since
the beginning of the war acts which we
are called up to enforce; that it is well
perhaps, for one moment to consider the
utter falsehood of such charges. and tc
Gud on examination the unparalleled elem
ency and forbearsnce of the victorious
Government, which, hut for the cost ol
the Rebellion. would now be felt only in
its protection aud its blessing. While il
has heretofore been the common law Of
all nations, our own Included, to punish
treason by death, it was reserved for the
American Congress, in the midst of a gi.
gantic Rebellion, on the 18th day of July
1862, to reduce that punishment, if the
courts should see fit, to fine aud impris.
onment. Again, it has been the usage oi
all nations, in peace as well as in war, tc
make the wrong doer, even in the most
trivial trespasscs respond out of his prop.
erty to the full amount of the damages he
has committed, practice aud usage also
of victorious governments in all ordinary
wars and yet we have seen patriot
statesman. venerable alike for his age aud
the blessings. education, culture, and i'm
proyements he had conferred upon hi
State and country, statesman greatly
eminent among his fellow legislators, and
by common consent of su ccessive Congress
ses. ackuowl edged as leader and father
with a Difference that neither Clay, Fox
the Pitts. nor even Cicero had ever kGowr
this noble man we have seen assailed
with bitterness and falsehood peculiar
to the authors of and leaders Of the rebel
lion, its pimps and apologisss. And fol
what? Why. for proposing that few
Of those who had been chiefly instrumen
tai in filling the land with woe and
mourning. and debt and taxation, ant
who, like the late Secretary Of the Rebe
finances. had made millions by blockade
running. and by their speculatiDg upor
the general distress. shoul out of thei
princely estates contribute one tenth o
the damages they had done and at tb
same time expressly exempting from pen
atty all the great masses Of those who ha'
been drawn into the late war. This human
statesman also proposes not to punish an.