Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1882-05-11
ENERGETIC EDMUNDS.
lie Draws Himself Together Long Enough 10 Ad
minister n Ranranf Ia TraaSan

lie Draws uiHtscu together Long Enough 10 Al.
minister a Reproof TO Treason.
Mr.. President, the Senator from Ar
kansas is undoubtedly correct in his
idea that all legislation ought to be made
as general as possible. Individual leg
islation is too often fayoritism, influence,
continuance, arrangement, and log-rol-
ling-all that is evil in law-making
and law-abiding community, undoubt-
cdly. This section of the statutes, there
fore, that he proposes to repeal comes
directly into consideration.
In 1866, after Il somewhat serious
period in our history the Congress of the
United States declared that people who
had been engaged in attempting to over
throw the Government should not be
employed in the Army of the United
States. That was in the light Of an ex-
perience which had shown that from
West Point and Annapolis where officers
had been educated and trained at the
expense of their country for its service,
they had taken the earliest available OPP
portunity to turn their skill and knowl-
edge to the destruction of the Govern
ment that had reared them and taught
them in its most honorable and trusty
service. That was rather a bitter exper-
fence. | am not proposing to 90 into a
discussion of the political considerations
that led to it; but it is bitter for any
country that is country TO have the
men, in whatever part of it they may
live, whom it has reared TO defend its
flag, desert it and undertake TO over
throw it. 1t matters not how good the
~ hn If ho
his duty to do it, for | do not wish to ex-
cite any bitterness in this debate; but
for the co,tntry that feels it, as we still
have a country that did feel it, it is
rather heavy and a bitter experience.
Accordingly the United States having
in despite of these assertions from the
Army. these leavings of it do not
mean desertion in the sense in which
the term is ordinarily understood been
able to preserve the existence of the
country through the officers and soldiers
who did adhere to what they had sworn
to stand by and defend, Congress pro-
vided that those who were engaged in
the rebellion should not re-enter the
Army of the United States.
Now repeal this section, and it is
within the competence of the President
of the United States and of the Senate, q
vacancy occurring, to appoint Mr.. JEFF
ferson Davis (and / only speak of him
as the representative man of this great
Disturbance to be brigader-general
and commander-in-chie if there were
vacancy suitably occurring, of the Army
of the United States. 1t may be that
Mr.. Davis would now prove perfectly
true to the flag, and that no temptation
of new rebellion would seduce him in
to leaving it and setting up another; but
what sort of a lesson would such a
spectacle be to the future? What sort
of an instruction would it hold out to
people who are to be taught to love
their country and to stick to it through
thick and thin, if they were to see here
after that the only hazard and risk in
going into rebellion against your
country is the chance of being kept out
of the fat places and good offices that
you left before, just long enough to have
your political friends OF somebody else
get an opening and put you back
again?
think that the rebellion beng over,
and over for good, il is better to pre-
serve an everlasting monument that
there was right side and a wrong side
to it, And | think inasmuch as the
Government of the United States turned
out to be on the right side and to pre-
serve itself. it is well to teach all future
generations that the moment the strug-
gle was over we did not forget that
there was any distinction in the right
and wrong of that contest. do not
think you can preserve n republican
government or any other in any other
way; and say that without any re-
Election upon the individual motives or
careers of persons who may have been
on the other side. But there cannot be
two right sides TO such question; and
as the Government turned OFT to be on
the right side. | think it is better that
this perpetual statute-book should hold
some uneXtinguished memorial that we
knew the difference between one side
! and the other.