The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-07-12

passed into OBLIVION, to 1ntiict pain and dis
grace upon man whose recent record, at
least, has not been discreditable to him
Why mention that q gallant soldier of the
Union, under the impulses of hot youth, pur-
sued the profession of pandarism and lived
in open concubinage with a public trull ? If
Sckles was a mail-robber, he has since been
made major-general. If he once casually
murdered man, did he not get leg shot
off at Gettysburg? And if he forged notes
in the piping times of peace, did he not fight
bravely in time of war
We answer that the World showed that all
the acts of Sickles life were of a piece We
showed how the impudent chicanery by which
he got temporary credit for having organized
brigade was the same impudent chicanery
by which he got disreputable woman pre-
sented at the Court of St. James, and another
and still more disreputable woman admitted
to pollute the floor of the Legislature of this
State, while that body was yet capable to
be polluted. We showed that the mutinous
and unscrupulous temper which led him to
betray his benefactor when he was a black
guard boy was the same quality which
led him, in the ripeness of his manhood and
his maj -generalship, to intrigue against
the superior whose orders he had DISC
beyed, whose victory he had imperilled,
and who had treated him with only
too much forbearance. We showed that the
same conscienceless callosity which led him
to take the life of man who had dishonored
him (dishonored him y, and SO bruit his dis
grace to all the world led him, years after
wards, by taking back a faithless wife, to
brand that disgrace indelibly upon himself.
He is the same man now that he was then,
for anything that appears. If he had changed,
the remorse and disgust which would follow
his first and faintest perception of himself in
his true character would drive him to a wilder
ness for lifelong penitence and penance, if
so be his memory might be blotted from the
minds of his fellow-men
What sort of men can those be who are so
eager to condone such crimes as these of
Sicles without even profession of peni-
tence from him? Do they think that mill
tary command, got by trickery and lost by
treachery, ought to make us forget life of
infamy? Can man atone by laying his leg
upon the altar of his country (not that Sicllles
would have laid it there if he had had the dis
posal of it) for laying his manhood at the
altar of wanton? 1t is better, the Bible
metaphorically tells us, to enter into life halt
or manned, than, having two hands or two
feet, to be cast into everlasting fire. But our
censors give us to understand literally that
this man walks heavenward on crutches,
although his legs always carried him in the
Numerically opposite direction What these
people mean, if they mean anything, is that
political perhdy is an ample atonement for
personal infamy, and that if a man is only
radical he may be whatever other scoundrelly
thing he pleases.
Some exceptionally stupid papers call our
account of Sickles malignant" That ac-
count was a mere and unadorned statement
of the facts of his life. In another article
we drew what may be called the immoral of
that life. There is a malignity, and there is
an indignation. 1t was the latter that we felt
and expressed. Private citizen Sickles is a
disgrace to himself Mai Or General Sickles
is disgrace to the United States army. But
Minister Sickles is a disgrace to all the people
of the country which sends him, and an insult
to all the people of the country to which he
| is sent. In this capacity, all citizens of his
| country are involved in his infamy, and we
meant to give notice, and we mean to give
notice. that there are some citizens who do
not intend tamely to partake that infamy
| We mean to prevent the elevation of other
Sickleses to any post where they in any way
officially represent the hundreds of thousands
of readers whose sentiments, in this matter
we know we speak. And we hereby give
notice that we shall serve every such scoun
drel as we have served Sickles, with a view tC
the suppression of Sickleses and the purginG
of politics.
But the radical journals are not all so stu
pid or so perverse as those whose comments
we have been considering. The Nation has
taken advantage of the opportunity for dis
play of political independence which this
Sickles business gave it in the article which
we reproduced. The article is so Just and sC
temperate that we are in hopes that it viii
carry conviction in quarters where any argu
ments or asseverations that might appear il
this journal would be logically and courteousl,
receiv ed as effusions of Copperhead Spite