Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1883-09-12
Judge Blacks VindecatiOn.

Judge Black intended to reply to jefferson
Davis in carefully considered written COM
munication. This his illness and sudden
death prevented, but just before he was strick-
en- he gave the substance of his reply to a
staff correspondent of the Press, who. on
several previous occasions, acted As Judge
Blacks medium of communication TO the
public, with great acceptance to that gentle
man on account of the extreme accuracy
with which not only his ideas, but his language,
was reproduced in the published interviews
The facts disclosed in this interview are
corroborative of those brought out BY the
same writer in previous interviews, and to-
gether they show that the popular concern
ton of Judge Blacks attitude towards the
rebellion in its inception is entirely wrong.
Secession found in him an uncompromisiny
enemy. 1t was his antagonism to tn, Seces-
sioni>ts who surrounded President Buchap-
an that forced the reorganization of the
Cabinet in the Union interests. driving ont
Howell Cobb and FLOYD and introducing
in their places Edwin NJ. Stanton and
John A. Dix. II Judge Black did not
rise TO full conception of the gravity
ing it, the same may be said of all the
statesmen Of that period, including the
most renowned of the republican leaders
Ii is true, nevertheless, that il was Judge
Black, as Secretary of State, who with Holt
DIX and Stanton, gave the President what
little backbone he manifested and prevented
him from couceding everything to the Seces
sionists. When the time came to meet force
by force. when the strongest republicans hes
itated and the whole North shrank back from
the threshold of impending war, Judge Black
rs the chief adviser of the President, "denied
the right of secession, urged the President 10
protect government property in the South.
and punish all offenders against the law of
the land"
II is grateful to record Judge Blacks dec.
laration as to his adherence of slavery.
though he instructed and disiked those whose
whole object was to get rid of it regardless
oil consequences. Slavery was such a deem
rooted cancer in our party politics that only
the most heroic methods would ever have rid
us of it. Judge Black was more impressed
with the dangerous character of the remedy
than of the loathsomeness of the disease hu,
he wished the slave to be free and INDUCED
the vain hope that it might be done by the
voluntary action of the states. His position
on this subject has been misunderstood here
tofore, though it was always difficult to rec
oneile his strong convictions of right and
broad humanitarian spirit with approval o,
human slavery.
That Judge Black was induced before his
death to lift the veil that had concealed bitb-
erto the inner workings of the Buchanan ad-
ministration is matter for public gratula
ton. For more than twenty years he was
the victim of misconstruction, bearing in
silence no small share of odium rather than
place himself in the attitude of a critic of his
old friend Buchanan before the lstter's lad
been made clear. Mr.. Curtis book removed
this obligation to silence, and Mr.. Davis
criticism at last excited the Judge to speech
IN his own vindication. The country now
knows thar the once maligned Jerry Black
was an uncompromising friend of the Union
IN the hour of its darkest crisis. and that his
patriotic course gained for him the deep hoe
Unity OF Jefferson Davis and would have won
for him, had it been understood, the respect
honor and gratitude of the loyal North.
Il Philadelphia Pres.