Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1882-04-06
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The Washington correspondent of the
Pioneer Press, recent dispatch to that
paper calls attention TO a project which
! has been terminated within the senate
military committee and one that if sue
cessful would make treason not odious
but honorable. According to the state
ment Of the correspondent an ex-confed-
crate surgeon has made application for
admission into the regular army; but rs
the granting of such application would
be IN direct opposition to section 1918 of
the revised statutes, which prohibits the
appointment of any persons who may
| have served in the confederate service,
the petitioner asks that his disabilities
be removed by congress. The military
committee of the senate, to whom the
matter was referred, are said to be so
favorably inclined as not to rest satisfied
will allowing the admission Of this one
petitioner but favor bill for wiping off
the statute books all restrictions which
were erected after the war on the prin-
ciple that treason should be made odious
The HERALD would be one of the
last to recall the memories Of the past,
willing, as are majority of the North
ern people, to let bygones be bygones
1t views with pleasure the rapid advance
ment being made by the new south and
would be far from casting even the most
tritiing obstruction in the way of this
advancement. But in the name of the
hundreds of thousands of boys in blue
who gave their lives that their country
might live and of the thousands more
who drag out a miserable existence from
wounds received while defending that
country from the assaults of its disloy al
sons THE HERALD wishes to inquire if
it is not about time that the driveling
nonsense of amnesty which has swept
away every barrier up to the last line of
out marks surrounding the citadel Of
liberty be stopped.
In n spirit of what is now universally
recognized rs mistaken kindness the
government has allowed restriction after
restriction to be torn down until the
solitary bar that remains is the chapter
Of the revised statutes which saws that
no person who took up arms against the
union shall ever again be admitted to
the army or navy. Now it is proposed
to abolish this last lyke and allow the
flood Of diSloyality to sweep over all.
To allow union soldiers to be crowded
out to make place for those who wore
the grey. TO allow the poison of dis
loyalty once more to gnaw away into
the yitalS of our government.
Such sickly sentimentality is not only
disgusting but it is reasonable. Every
department of government, with the
sole exception Of those two branches to
which WE look for our defense, has been
turned over to the ex-confederates and
their allies until the spectacle has been
witnessed in the halls of the capitol of
crippled union soldiers being driven
forth from those halls TO make room for
eX-confedcratcs from whom the unbear-
able order Of treason has been barely
hidden by the perfume of amnesty.
1t is about time a halt was called. The
people who 80 grandly kept step to the
music of the union during the dark days
of civil war have plucked one by one the
laurels from their crown and bestowed
them upon their brethren of the south
until but a battered remnant remains.
1t is necessary that they should remove
the last vestage in order to satiate the
grasping greed of these comorants.
As has been often repeated. history
does not record an instance where. after
war Of the magnitude OF the struggle
which came So near Remembering this
Republic, not only was no repriSal made
of human life but the whole government
handed over into the hands of the rebels
who sought 70 destroy it almost before
the end of the first decade after its close
This government has been generous
with a generosity surprising every
known instance where this virtue has
been INDUCED. Now let us drop senti-
ment for while and talk and act com
mon sense The present gliding on the
pill of treason is sufficient. 1t almost if
not quite obscures its nauseating and
Shiny qualities 1t is time the willing to
be forgiven spirit WAS rclegated to its
proper plane with a corresponding ele-
Walton, if necessary, Of those who with
+ stood temptation.