The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-03-14

Cede TO us, ab pOslplate not to be disputed,
that Washington was great, and that the
aud peerless virtue, and we ask no other pre-
misses for abating the pretensions of the So
called ''party Of great ideas"
The occasion for making this use of his
fame consists in the fact that the Constitution
is practically abolished and reasoning founded
upon it no longer makes any impression. 1t
is, therefore, necessary to recur to first prin-
ciples; to go back to those sound and sure
moral instincts by which minds unclouded by
transient passions recognize and reward con
spicuous virtue. The appreciation of Wash
ington has been too extensive too durable.
too uniform, too deliberate, to be accounted
for as a fitful etlervescence and frenzy. like
the popular delusions which sometimes seize
upon a community, and spread as a tempo
rary contagion. If the bigotry Of the present
excited and passionate period is in clear
conflict with the calm and settled moral
Judgment of mankind it should be classed
with the delusion which crazed Europe over
the Crusades, or that which. at a more modern
period, ran wild over the South Sea Bubble
We are accused of "baol1 handed method
of championing the South The article on
Washington was so transparent that nobody
who read it could have missed its aim--the
method adopted being obviously device to
gain attention to a subject on which public
feeling has grown torpid. As to the charge of
championing the South, we admit it, and are
willing to be judged by the standards accepted
by enlightened historians and moralists. De-
beiidTe SUperbOS ef pdrcere SubjechS-vigor in
war. but mercy to the prostrate-is an old
Roman maxim which has become modern
proyerb because it has its roots in the moral
nature of man To hdmple upon the fallen is
base; and all unperverted minds instinctiyely
regard it as base. man infuriated by pas
sion may continue 10 deal blows upon his dis
abled foe, but it shocks the sense of manhood
and fair play, and honorable bystanders spon-
taneously cry 'Shame!' If they consider the
original merits of the quarrel while such base
ness is enacted before them, their humanity
seeks out the circumstances of extenuation.
They regard the wrong as having been atoned
for and cancelled by so much of the punish
ment as was fair and adequate Against the
igneble fury which inhicts the excess, they
are justified in pleading the virtues of the
| victim and all circumstances of reasonable
| eXtenuatiOn.
The bowling declaimers who fan the fury
| by which Congress is backed in its tyranny
| descant perpetually on three charges, viz
Y That the South is a community demOralized
. by slaveholding that they were Rebels; and
1 that many of their leaders had previously
| sworn allegiance to the United States. These
| three circumstances form the whole stock-in-
| trade of the infuriated railers against the
! South; and yet every one of these charges is
| shaft shot straight at the character of Wash.
! ingtOn. He, too, was a STAKEHOLDER, a
rebel, disregarder of previous oath of
allegiance. Twist and wriggle as they will,
it is impossible for the radicals to gansay
these facts. They must admit, then, that
the furious accusations with which they
blacken and vilify the South, contain
only charges which may be consistent
with the brightest and purest virtue, or else
the railers fly in the face of the settled moral
| Judgment of the world. To Justify the vim
dictive measures adopted by the radicals, it is
| necessary to prove something more than past
slaveholding, past rebellion, or past disregard
OF oaths of allegiance, unless they are pre-
! pared to replace the eulogies of Washington
! by eXecratiOns. The mere fact of rebellion,
Oath-breaking, ETC., goes for nothing; it is
! only the circumstances in which the Southern
Rebels differ from Washington that can be
! fairly urged to their disadvantage. All the
! habitual topics of defamation must be flung
! out as irrelevont, and the tremendous severity
practised upon the PROSTATE must be justified
on other grounds, or it cannot be justified al
all. 1t is not the circumstances in which the
! Southern people resemble Washington bu
the circumstances in which they differ from
him, that must constitute the guilt which
! cries aloud for vengeance.
AS the Oath-bTeaking is erected into tht
most odious of all the charges (the disfran.
chisement of Sherman's bill resting solely OF
that), it is incumbent on the radicals to pon
! out circumstances of discrimination, which rem
der the oath breaking of the South more hei
nous than that of Washington. There is, in
deed broad discrimination between the two
but it does not tell in Washington's favor
That there must be somewhere power of alb
solving from such Oaths will, we suppose, b
seriously disputed An oath to support any
particular constitution is obviously released
when the sovereign people who framed tina
constitution substitute another in its place
The sovereignty wherever the sovereignty
resides) can cancel such oaths at its pleasure
Washington and his compatriOts were re
leased from their oaths of allegiance by tn,
| Declaration of Independence which threw
of the sovereignty of Great Britain owe
the thirteen colonies, and assumed it fo
the colonies themselves. But Washington
was a rebel in arms against the mother coun
try before independence was declared. IL
the case of the S@hth, it was the settled
and sinceSe conviction of the people that thu
ultimate sovereignty resided, not in the Fede
raj Government, but in the States. That thi
was a mistaken opinion does not affect the
moral aspect of the question in the least
A man acquts himself from mora
blame by acting according to his homes
convictions. Mistakes of the intellec
are not chargeable upon the conscience. 4
the South had been correct as to the proper
location of the ultimate sovereignty no MAJ
capable of forming an opinion on such sub
iect will say that the Rebellion had not
solid moral justification. The mistake o
the South, therefore, did not involve mora
guilt, but only intellectual error. The South
ern people believed, in their consciences, tina
their respective States could rightfully ab
solve them from their Federal allegiance. The