Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1871-02-21


Howe, VTumbull, ana several otReIS,
take liberal, conservative views,
The view thus presented is not only
sound, but consistent with all the ex-
pressed opinions Of the leading states
men Of the country. Anterior to the
war there could have been found no
two opinions on the subject of the
power Of the President to pardon
many or few; and we suppose law
yers viii hardly differ on the subject
now, unless from partisan motives.
AS relates to matters affecting Ten
nessee, we copy the following COM
ments of the Union and american:
The question Of disabilities" was
much considered by the members of
the popular convention last July, that
nominated our present bench of the
Supreme Court Judges. That cOnven-
ton, composed as it was Of Democrats,
Wings and lifelong Union men, en-
braced some Of the ablest lawyers in
Tennessee. 1t was their opinion that
neither one of the six gentlemen then
nominated and soon afterW8rd elected
by the unprecedented majority of
one hundred thousand votes, was OBJ
nOxious to the third section of the
Fourteenth Amendment to the COnsti-
tuition. OF this opinion also were the
Judges elect themselves, together
with the bar Of Tennessee generally.
Three Of these gentlemen have been
proceeded against by quo 15GgTG1tO,
and efforts are now being made to in
dict them, if it be not already done at
Knoxville, for holding Office in def
ance Of the Fourteenth Amendment.
They have borne with quiet dignity
the filings and aspersiOnS of certain
politicians, and have gone forward in
the even tenor Of their way in the dis
charge of their labOTiOus duties, con-
sciOus Of the integrity Of their mo-
tives. and confident that the Supreme
Court at Washington will finally put
at rest the SANDER that they are viO-
latOrs Of any public law. 1t is well
known that, in addition to the gen
eral amnesty of 1865, the venerable
Chief Justice Nicholson was specially
pardOned by the President long before
the adoption Of the Fourteenth
Amendment. 1t is equally well
known among the friends of Judge
Sneed that he was indicted, arraigned
and tried for the alleged reasonable
acts Of which he is now again accused;
that upon his trial in the Federal
Court of Memphis in 1865, and before
the adoption of the Fourteenth
Amendment, he pleaded the general
amnesty of the President, and upon
that plea, under the charge Of an en-
lightened United States Judge, he was
acquitted and discharged by the jury.
As to Judge Nelson, we scarcely
know upon what grounds his pOliti-
cal enemies have proceeded. Those
OF Us who were identified with the
people of the South in the late
civil war, have occasion to know that
to his great influence in East Tennes-
see, the government of the United
States is much indebted, for the sub
stantial fact, that this Statetdid not
present a solid front for the South. He
IS a lifelong Union man, and was a
Union man when IL was perilOUs to
be one. and when some of his most
blatant prosecutors were preaching
secession and revolution to the peO-
Die. His ofense seems to be that when
he saw, during the war, that its
avOwed purposes, as declared in the
Crittenden resolutions, were about to
be perverted to the destruction of
Southern institutions-by which the
Union man and secessiOnist would
both he brought down to bankruptcy
and ruin, he issueda brave and manly
protest against it. This was his trea-
son. While it is a public annoyance
to our people that three trusted citi-
zens of known conservative views,
temperate in opinions, of unsUllied
character, and elevated to the highest
dignity of the State by an extraOrdi-
nary expression of the popular viii,
should thus be pursued, yet it is a
happiness to chronicle the fact that
their innocence is being ~vindicated on
the floor Of the National Senate, even
by their political opponents.