The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1872-07-01
eovERsoR wisE,s LETTER.

1t is impossible not to admire the atti-
tude of Ex-Governor Wise in some of its
heroic predicaments. His letter, which we
publish from this mornings Enquirer. is
not too long to be read, nor to summarize
in single word-defant. Whatever ''sub-
jugation," so called, may have done for 9th
ers, it has not touched the soul of Henry A.
Wise. Napoleon was not more absolutely
and impcriously himself on the island of
st. Helena than is Henry A. Wise to-day
on the soil Of his boosted Virginia; and it
is as impossible for our admiration to de-
tach itself from the hero Of Austerlitz as
to desert Henry A. Wise in this his polti-
cal extremity. If Virginia is the 'Niobe
of Nations as the General delights
to call her, he is the Prometheus of
political history, whose liver is being
gnawed by the "vulturc of Liberty, y
without the first twinge of submission
on his part. His proud and defiant spirit
is neither Inundated by chains nor broken
by flesh-tearing beaks. His offence of
fire from Heaven is deserving of
mo punishment, either from gods or men,
and he will not debase his soul by sueing
for clemency. This is the lofty and def
ance-bearing attitude of Wise, and who,
looking at the late rebellion from his own
standpoint, can fail to admire his heroic
pluck? Of course, as we look upon the
war and its issues, the position he occupies
is not quite so admirable in its surround
ings. The vulture takes the form of that
more noble bird, the eagle, and if his beak
touches the too sensitive flesh of our poetic
and imaginative townsman, it is only for
correctional and not for punatve purposes.
We undertake to say that this symbolical
bird owes him no grudge, and that Leda
was not safer under the wings of the
enamored swan than General Wise would
be under the protecting beak of the Ameri-
can eagle. 1t is only because his imagination,
fertile to a fault, has worked this bird up
into another and more vllainous one of
prey, that he breads its beal, or has the
remotest suspicion that it will modest hair
of bis head
But similc and extended metaphor aside.
The letter of General Wise is a readable
document. Logically, it cannot be shaken.
His premises admitted, land not one Vir-
ginia Conservative in thousand will deny
them,) there is no escape from his deduct
ions. His Conservative antagonist is GER
tain to be impaled on the first horn of his
dilemma. OF evils, there is no choice be-
tween any two, nor any ten thousand, for
that matter. They are all Of the deyips
own brood of chickens, and there is not the
choice of a feather between them. This is
Mr.. Wise's position. and it is ours. We
only differ as to the paternity of the brood.
He sees so many DEVILS chickens in the
Greeley movement, that all chickens come
under his ban just now. AS he looks
more discriminatory over the political field.
this deceptive appearance will be corrected,
In one particular, and that involving his
political sagacity, his observations were
never more entirely level. He says:
"Grant will be elected overwhelmingly. !
Where will Gresley's followers then be |
The 'aolite hats' will be sent TO the dyer,
and those who wore them will swear that