Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1867-06-04
The Release Of Jefferson Davis.

AAC AAcAcdBo OF - emerson Davis.
Avery great commotion seems just now
to exist in the ranks of the party of progress
those by whose instrumentality the coun-
try aoas sdred, and to whom II is said we owe
our Hbertyt And what is the cause of this
"great commotion" that is ''shaking our
country through?" Jefferson Davis, the
arch traitor of all the rebels, is allowed the
constitutional right of giving bail to ap!
swer an alleged crime! But, say the Black
Republicans, she ought not to be allowed
to. give bail--he ought to be hung" Can
you hang man legally without trial? No.
Why has he not been tried? Because il
the eye of the law he has committed no
crime. By the law of nations, where a
great body of men, numbering many thou
sands, rise up in arms and wage war even
upon, government without cause, and
are recognized as belligerents they cannot
be treated as traitors, But in the case of
the Southern States they simply seeded
from the Union and labored unsuccessfully
to establish separate form of government,
wherein lies their treasonP 1t cannot be
proved under the laws of nations, nor can
bail, except In murder cases where the
proof 1s apparent, be denied. o.. Rs al 9lr,.-
Nobody better than Salmon p. Chase,
Wade, Phillips, and the educated men of
their party, knows that the secession of the
Southern States was not treason because
whole communities cannot be indicted, and
the action of sovereign States cannot be.
made the action of individuals. Chase was
q secessionist for years, and SO We're.
the leaders of his party. Wade and
Lincoln both, .., in Congress, long
years ago declared that the States
of the American Union were at liberty
whenever they saw fit to change
the relation they bore to the General Gov
ernment- and the former announced in the
destructive of the great fundamental prin-
ciple upon which our Union was based.
why, then, was the war waged upon the
South This is a difficult question to an
swer, unless it was that the Niger might
be freed. But this was not acknowledged
in the outset of hostilities, and only by
trickery at lasG effected.
What, then, is the inference to be drawn
from all this? Plainly that the war
was fought upon false pretenses-that
the men who have controlled the
country since 1861 are totally un-
qualified to fill the high positions they
have disgraced. The ruin and misery
that this terrible war has wrought could
have been avoided, and would never
have occurred, if honest and able men
had been in power. Davis will never be
arraigned for trial, because there is no
power In tne law by which be can be in
dicted for treason. If, then, there be no
treason on the part of the South, who must
bear the horrible responsibility of the un-
utterable woes entailed upon a patriotic
and confiding and courageous people The
men through whose instrumentality the
war was carried on! They appealed by
every incentive known to man to awaken
and keep alive the zeal of our people for
blood-tbe pulpit rang with cries for
slaughter, and unlike Nehemiah of old.
who could not ''come down from his great
work." to mix with the world in the do
ings OF men, our clergy did come doaon, not
only to encourage the continuance OF
deadly hate. but bore Infinitely more
than even their full share as individuals
In the deInoniac carnival of war by which
we have been oppressed, and from which
we are now struggling with all our power
to be relieved. The party then, as an or
ganization, has shown itself utterly un-
worthy of support. They have falsified
their promises, ridiculed the confidence OF
the people, laughed at the credulity of the |
soldiers, ruined the entire South, entailed
hopeless debt upon the North, left anarchy |
where all was plain, and sacrificed the lib
erty of millions of white men that the ig-
norant negroes of the South might be, if |
possible, induced to give them aid by COM
pulsion, to riveG still tighter the bonds of
oppression upon the confdingi Can such
q party retain power long? We will not
believe it! Human nature will not bear it ! |
MAY 31st, 1867. H ' w.