Wilmington journal., 1875-09-24
JEFF DAVIS.

JEFF DAVIS.
A Southern WOman,s Letter - che
Soldiers Of the Grand Array -
the Republic OF lllfnOis.
[From the Memphis Appeal.l
SOLDIERS You say Jefferson Da.
Wis is O coward and an arch-traieor.
If you are brave men and true, You
will make good your words or retfact
them. If Jefferson Davis is traitor.
and treason is crime, come and take
him; prove his treason and hang him,
as traitor should be hung. A trai-
tor is one who betrays q trust. If
Jefferson Davis had ever betrayed the
trust put in him, the Southern peo-
pie would have been the swiftest and
the ioudest to cry-'Hang him! hang
him! III Jefferson Davis is guilty Of
the crime you charge, your Govern
ment is weak and criminal not to bring
him to justice. For years he lay in
prison waiting trial; he is yet wait
/ ing; at any hour, any moment, he
will stand his trial. Let his guilt or
innocence be shown to the civilized
world. When you charge Jefferson
Davis with the crime of secession, re-
member your own honored and now
sainted Horace Greeley, as we'll
as other leading men of the North,
was an earnest believer in the right of
secession. In the New York Tribune.
of December II, 1860, Greeley says
IF it (ths Declaration of Indepen-
dence) justified the secession from the
British Empire of 80. .OOO, 600 of colo
nists in l776, we do not see why it
would not justify the secession of
| 5000, 600 of the Southerners from the
Federal Union in 1861 In the Iri-
6,tae of FEBRUARY %, 1861, five days af-
ter, Jefferson Davis was inaugurated
at Montgomery, Greeley used these
words "We have repeatedly said,
and we once more insist, that the
great principles embodied by Jeffer-
son in the Declaration of Independ-
ence, that governments derive their
just powers from the consent of the
governed, is sacred and just and that
if the Gulf States choose to form an
moral right to do so.' In the Zrib,ssas
of November 9, Greeley further says
Those who would rush upon carnage
to defy or defeat separation demand
ed by the popular vote of the South
err people would clearly place them
selves in the wrong Soldiers of the
Grand Army remember which
side, rushed upon carnage to defeat
that separation to which the
South had clear moral right Re-
member there was not a day, nor even
an hour, when the South would not
gladly have made peace on the basis
of Independence. And when you talk
of thehorrors of Andersonville, remem-
ber that figures tell tale that you can
not deny; figures show the death rate in
Northern prisons was greater than in
Southern, and this despite our poverty.
our starvation, and destitu:ion of med
icines. Remember what side was al
ways willing to exchange prisoners,
and which side sternly refused to ex-
change. Grant said 1T was easier to
feed than to fight rebels Some time
ago letter appeared in the Albany
ArQus charging the Andersonville hor-
rors squarely home to Grant. Gen.
Hitchcock, Butler, and others, wanted
to exchange. Grant forbade it. Grant
sent this telegraph: ON the subject of
exchange, differ from Gen. Hancock.
1t is hard on our men held in Southern
prisons, but not to those left in the
ranks to fight our battle. To release
all the rebel prisoners North would
compromise our safety here.' Gen.
Butler said this order of Grants
caused the death of more than twenty
Thousand men. But more than all else,
soldiers of the North, when you speak
of Andersonville, or Libby, or Ssuls-
bury, or Belle Isle, you should remem-
Der these prison places were in the
bosom of a land on which your Gov
ernment had let loose the bloody dogs
of war. The prisoners were in the
bosom of 3, land fighting to defend
itself from a million of armed men.
The men who suffered in those prison
places had come to us with shot and
shell, with sword and fire in their
hand. They killed, they burned, they
destroyed, they desolated. When you
talk of your war-made widows, your
sonless mothers, come and look
on oure. Or do you sup
pose we have not hearts to feel as you
of the North ? Do you think we are
stone or dull clay, that you add to our
griefs your perpetual taunts You
US; you are our masters you have
taken our swords, our forts, our ships;
you have disbanded our armies and
DISTINGUISHED our best and most hon
ored men. If you choose to call Sc
cession a crime, you can do it; yon
can hang us, because we claimed the
right to secede If you choose to say
the belief in States rights is treason,
you can do so and hang us for such
belief. But if such opinions are to be
held as crime, you should SO set them
down in your code of laws, and annex
thereto the penalty you say they de-
serve. If you choose to play the
tyrant over us and establish an inqui-
sition over free thought and free
speech, you can do it but you should
first make out your code of laws. that
we may walk warily. What monstrous
injustice is that government guilty of
that leaves what it calls treason, 80
underlined that even wise men and
loyal souls like Horace Greeley made
the dreadful mistake of preaching it
to one hundred Thousand people
Jefferson Davis Is no greater criminal
than the men who put him at the head
of the Southern Confederacy !; if he
deserves hanging, SO do they if he is
unworthy to stand on your soil and
look your soldiers in the face, SO are
millions of our mon unworthy. When
you call him a coward and ali arch
traitor. you call them towards and
arch TRAITORS. If you hate him with
that bitter and malignant hatred, We
will accept it as our portion also.
4 SOUTHERN WOMAN.