Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1870-11-04
Winning Losers.

Ac journals Doth OF the South and North
which show that, in their opinion, the
cause which has been supposed to have
been lost was not, and is now entitled to
as much respect as the cause which tri-
umphed in the conflict of arms. In
commenting on these notices, under the
suggestive head of Winning Losers"
the Chicago Post says that eulogiums
pronounced upon the dead leader of the
rebel armies have not stopped with prais-
ss Of his personal character and soldier
ly abilities. They have included prais-
es OF the government which he sustain
ed, the cause for which he fought. We
might fill this newspaper with extracts
from different papers If the character Of
which we speak.
Now while it is true that a mans er-
rors are buried with him, and that we
should only speak of the good deeds of
those who have gone before us, yet at the
same time we must remember that there
are duties to be performed to the living,
and that in speaking of the late rebel.
lion there are dead on both sides to be
considered.
The great triumph Of the Union in
the recent civil war in this country was
not the triumph Of arms. The illustr;-
Gus generals and armies by which that
triumph was achieved, are, indeed, en-
titled to the deepest g attitude and i'm
mortal glory. And chiefly because they
sustained and saved just government !;
because they gave the victory to right
ideas and principles, and sent errors and
iniquities, as we trust, into eternal exile
aud disgrace. The war was a war of
ideas. 1t was conflict between free
dom and slavery; between civilization
and barbarism. There was not an op-
pressed nationality anywhere in the
world whose hopes Of coming justice were
not cheered by every victory of the Un-
ion troops; not one whose aspirations
were not repressed, and prospects Of the
future engloomed by every rebel victory.
The cause ofliberty and of human rights
were not more faithfully represented by
our forefathers at Lexington, at Concord
at Bunker Hill and at Valley Forge,
than it was to the men who captured
Fort Donelson, and Vicksburgb, and suf-
fered ten thousand deaths in the prison
pens of Andersonville and Libby. There
never was war, indeed, in which all
the right was on one side and all the
wrong on the other, so completely as was
the case in the late war in this country.
The Unionists were wholly in the right;
the traitors were wholly in the wrong.
Wherefore, the rebels not only deserv-
ed defeat in arms, but the hearty con-
demnation of all just, and truly and
wholly civilized people. Had their
ideas triumphed, it would have been
gloomy calamity to mankind. Such
triumph to injustice and wrong would
have set back the cause of human prog
ress five hundred years, and made nee
essary the shedding of rivers of blood
and the sacrifice of millions of lives to
bring the world up to where it now is,
by reason Of the triumph of right ideas
in that warm view of the promised
land of universal freedom, where neith-
er kings, nor lords vex and harrass the
people, and whence every sort of injus-
tice and slavery is banished forever
To confound the losers with the winners
in such cause as that Of the Union
against rebellion in America is to at
tempt to dignity injustice and consecrate
crime.