The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-05-14
The Prlsoner Of state.

Ahe EEAbOmeE OF bbAtes
Fb'oDq he Tribune
Sometimes biography is history. Either by
his own force, or by eminence of Office, one
man sometimes stands as the representative of
nation or an epoch, and includes its story in
his own. Such a relation Jefferson Davis bears
to the Rebellion; he was its apostle, its de-
fender, and its chosen leader; he was the Pre-
sdent of the Confederaoy so long as the Con-
tederacy existed; long before its birth, when
to others it was but dream, he saw it as a
reality in the future growing larger and more
menacing and knew it as the instrument of
his ambition and the destiny of his people.
After its death he clung to the deluson that
it lived. Lee surrendered, Johnston surren-
dered, but he did not. As he had brought the
battle on, he fought it out to the end. and
even maintained the mockery of resistance
To this day he remains president Davis, to
the people of the South. 1t is true that the Re-
bellion was far greater than he, as the North
in subduing the Rebellion was greater than
any of our leaders, yet the changes which in
six years made Jefferson Davis dictator a
fugitive, and prisoner, are those by which
the historian will measure the swiftest and
mightiest revolution of modern times,
Six years ago, January q, 1861, Jefferson
Davis left the United States Senate: owing, as
he claimed allegiance to Mississippi his State,
which had seeded; in less than month
thereafter he was elected President of the
Southern COnfederacy, and, May 20, arrived in
Richmond, selected as the capital of the new
republic. There he ruled for four long years,
encouraging the people of the South, denOuncing
the Union armies as cruel and mercenary in
vaders; there at times he welded almost abso-
Lutte power; there he prophesied the failure
of our arms, explained away their victories,
and exaggerated their defeats; there
he remained while Grant fought his
way through the Wilderness, while Sherman
swept round from Atlanta to Savannah, and
even when the Union troops were enoamped
around the walls, and threatened to cut off all
escape. 1t was not till April 2, 1865, that he
fled from Richmond to Danvlle, whence,
three days afterward, when the capital had
fallen he issued proclamation of his
determination never to submit to the aban-
donment of one State of the Confederacy.
Swift comment on this boast came when
on April 8, Lee surrendered his whole army.
Davis fled to GoldsborOugh N. c., where
he remained to hear in swift succession that
Montgomery was taken, that Mobile had
surrendered, that Lincoln was killed. He
delayed his flight till it was known that the
truce Gen. Sherman had formed with John
ston was disapproved by the Government
when he retreated into Georgia, followed by
President Johnson's celebrated proclamation
of May 2, in which a reward of 100000 was
offered for Jefferson Davis as one of the assas-
sins of Abraham Lincoln. He was captured
May 10, and on May l9, 1865, was imprisoned
in Fortress Monroe.
Now, into Richmond, which six years ago
he entered in triumph, which two years ago
he left fugitive, Jefferson Davis returns as a
prisoner, Then half million of men could
scarcely break his power; now a company of
soldiers may guard him. In his former capi-
tai there is no uniform but the uniform of his
old foes; no flag but the flag he sought to
trample. Then he was the judge and ruler of
hundreds of thousands of men; now, solitary
and spowerless, he stands at the bar of a civil
court, accused of the highest crime known to
American law; and, by revolution of which
his widest dreams of disaster could have had
no intimation he is to be tried for his life by
men for whose perpetual enslavement he used
all the forces and the terrors of war. Five
negroes sit upon the Grand Jury in Judge I'm
derwood's Court, and before them the Presi-
dent of the Confederacy is to repeat the words,
81 will be tried before God, and by my peers"
If this is not punishment enough, it is
hnmiliating enough. Upon the greatness ofthe
evil Jefferson Davis did we need not dwell-Of
that there will be many to speak; but of our
own wrongdoing now is the time to be silent.
For two years Jefferson Davis has been hidden
in the casemates of Fortress Monroe, and for
part of that time in irons and utter solitude;
for two years he has rested under an accusa-
ton of plotting assassination-a charge urged
by the President himself, and not Withdrawn,
even when thorough search had found no facts
to sustain it; for two years he has been denied
that which just laws grant to every prisoner
trial. Does this imprisonment atone for the
crimes whereof he is accusedl No; and because
no informal punishment can by any possibility
satisfy the demands of justice those who de-
fend the long imprisonment of Mr.. Davis with
out trial, on the ground that he deserved it,
insult the dignity of the nation. The greater
the crime, the more swift should be the retri-
button.
The Freedmen and their Friends.
From The Times.