The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-09-09
ROsecrans and Lee.
From the Cincinnati Gazette.

From the Cincinnati Gazette.
1t has been said that the epitaph of a certain
noted public character should read:-"Ded of
doing the right thing at the wrong time" We
greatly fear that some such inscription may
now be fifty recorded concerning another of
our lost idols.
We make no objection TO the tone of manly
respect in which General Rosecrans addresses
the Rebels who have had such weighty reason
to respect him. We do object to its being
adopted at time when leading Rebel Generals
are boasting their determination to overthrow
the Fourteenth Article of the Constitution,
and when its intended effect is to aid the
election of the candidate who has announced
that revolution as the only issue before the
people.
We are heartily glad that General Lee and
his associates are now devoted to the Union.
and ready to abjure secession and slavery.
We only regret that it took four years of war
and three years OF confusion and semi-anarchy
at the South to eXtOrt such an admission
from them. We should have been rejoiced if
they had held such language when Congress
submitted to the South its first liberal and
generous terms of adjustment. They rejected
them then with scorn, and are now barred
from complaining that they are not in the pre-
sent enjoyment of the rejected gifts.
There has been no time within the past
three years when the voice of Robert E. Lee
South. He chose never to lift it. The scorn-
full rejection OF the Constitutional amen l.
ment drew from him no words of warning to
his late soldiers. The organization of the
ku-klux KlaD, the murders of Union men. the
efforts to eestablish slavery under the spe-
cious form of apprenticeship, the turbulence
and defiant tone of the conquered Rebels pro-
voked no rebuke, when word of rebuke from
him would have stilled it all. The declara-
tion OF Wade Hampton that the South
would demand the dispersion of the earpet-bag
Legislatures, and the trampling under foot of
Congressional enactments, never moved the
old commander, at whose slightest whisper
Wade Hampton would have been silent. The
declaration of Forrest that unless the late
Rebels could have their own way in Tennes-
see he would "toot his old horn, -" and call
together againh Rebel troopers, ELECTED no re-
monstrance from the General, at the wave of
whose hand Forrest would have been auieted
AT last, from Northern Democrats came the
cry OF alarm. The extravagant threats of
Southern Generals were lessening the chances
for the election of Seymour and Blair. Then,
and then only, was Robert L. Lee moved to
speak-not to quiet turbulent Rebels at the
South, but to lull the Justly aroused appre-
tensions of indignant loyalists at the North.
lie need not be surprised to find the time for
needing his voice gone by.
As for General Rosecrans, we make no doubt
of the purity of his motives. We only regret
that so gallant a soldier should fall in peace,
to do the dirty deceptions for the Rebels whom
he fought so gallantly in war. He may have
done the right thing in seeking to open ami
cable relations with the men he helped to con-
quer; but he has done it at the wrong time.