The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-01-19
sPxRIT OF TRH PRESS.
Editorial Opinions ofthe Leading Journals
upon Current T opics-compiIed Every
Day for the Evening Telegraph.
MIR. BLACKS REPLY TO WILSON.


we reprinted yesterday is one of the most
remarkable specimens of vigorous rhetoric
and overwhelming logic which 1t has been
our fortune to peruse for many day. But
we wish that Mr.. Black had been content to
give the uncolored argument without his vim
dictive, scathing rhetoric. His reply to Sena-
tor Wilson would not indeed have been such
piquant reading if he had dispensed with its
warmth of coloring, but it would have been
more persuasive, and more convincing to the
misguided people who regard the late Secre-
tary Stanton as a model patriot and political
saint Rhetoric has no value except as a
means of gaining attention; aud Mr.. Blacks
eminent talents and recognized standing
would have insured him readers without this
extraneous aid. The hardest lesson both for
tyros and veterans in argument is to learn
the weakening effect of excessive emphasis.
He who would convince others must adapt
himself to their points of view. The art of
doing this is the great secret of persuasive
writing.
Mr. Black and Senator Wilson together
have made it very clear that Stanton was one
of the most consummate hypocrites and
most extraordinary examples of duplicity that
ever lived. There is no longer any room to
doubt that in the memorable winter of 1861
Stanton acted a disgraceful double part; pre-
tending to President Buchanan and his
their views, and at the same time holding
clandestine interviews with the Republican
leaders, assuring them that he was devoted to
their interests, and habitually betraying to
them the secrets, or pretended secrets, of the
administration. His role in the Cabinet was
that of q staunch and thorough paced adherent
his other role was that of a spy upon the ad-
ministration and divulger to its enemies of
its secret counsels. Mr.. Black produces un-
Ia ayiIaVoa hot H.,
first of these parts; Mr.. Wilson produces evi.
dence, equally unanswerable, that he acted
the second. Now, even on the supposition
that he was tTutttW spy upon the Cabinet
which gave him their confidence, his conduct
was ineffably base and disgracefu But the
evidence shows that his midnight revelations
were INSCRIPTIONS tdlsehO0dS He libelled
the Cabinet which gave him their confidence
in order to ingratiate himself with those to
whom he pretended to dvulge their secrets.
If there be a lower depth of baseness and de-
pravity, history has not revealed the names
of those who have sunk to it.
1t must not be forgotten that at the time
when Stanton was acting this di5graceful
part, there were other men in the Cabinet
whose record is as ''loyal' as his. General
Dix was Secretary of the Treasury, and Mr..
Holt Secretary of Wharf.-The two most i'm
portant positions, at that time, in the admin
all Cabinet meetings; were cognizant of all
the Government counsels; had as ample
means as MIR. Stanton of knowing all damag-
ing secrets. If the administration was un-
faithful, General Dix and Mr., Holt were
accomplices, and Stanton's pretended revela-
tions must have implicated them as we'll as
other members of the Cabinet. Who, even
among Republicans, believes that they were
consenting witnesses and parties to treason
And vat tbau nOnGt haua haap if tbara
any truth in Stanton's midnight disclosures.
1t is clear that those pretended disclosures
were ISLANDERS, invented by Stanton to curry
favor with party which would have offices
to bestow during the ensuing four years.
He simulated zeal for Mr.. Buchanan's s admin
istration to insure the Office he then held;
and he acted the part of spy upon it, and
fabricated slanders against its loyalty, as a
means of recommending himself to the party
which was about to come into power. How
did it happen that General Dix, with equal
opportunities and equal zeal for the Union,
never discovered the enormous treachery
which Stanton made it his daily and nightly
business to convey to the camp of the enemy?
The explanation is, that the disclosures were
not facts, but fabrications.
1t is known and notorious that the first
month of Mr.. Lincoln's administration was
modelled on the last two months of Mr..
Ii lnSI6 WAS leouleu6SS duu
vacillation under the one, it was continued
under the other. Mr.. Lincoln's inaugural
was in the very spirit of President Buchanan s
conduct. Mr.. Seward, abetted by General
Scott, intrigued for the abandonment
of Fort Sumter, although President
Buchanan had been resolute aud per-
sistent in his determination to hold it. The
new administration adopted no new measures
until the firing upon Sumter aroused and
electrified the country. Mr.. Lincoln is
Just as open to accusations of treachery as
was Mr.. Buchanan during the last two
months of his administration, when Stanton
was acting the spy and deceiying both the
Cabinet and the Republicans-the admins
tration by pretended zeal for all its measures
and opinions, and the Republicans by bear
ing false witness against the men who gave
him their confidence.
MIR. Black, in his last article, nails many
fasehoods to the counter, but its chief inte-
rest consists in the damning light it sheds
upon the character of Stanton. If Stanton
had died before he was made Secretary oc
War, there could not be twoopinions respect
ing his disgraceful duplicity and baseness.
He was an energetic and INSCRIPTIONS ad-
ministrator, and was so fully supported by
the passions of the people in that passionate
era, that they would willingly ignore or con-
done the loathsome treachery of his previous
conduct. But history will give its final ver-
dict on the sound maxim, NihR he m0rtllis
niSl vERUM.
THE CRISIS on THE STPurcTp TN