Year: 1865

The attempt is useless to compare
Jefferson Davis with other hoted po-
litical offenders. The London Sat
urday Review, one of our most scur-
ri.ous enemies, says that he IS no
more guilty than Washington, or
Kossuth, or Garibaldi The London
Star, one of our truest friends, argues
that every political execution, from
Wallace to John Brown, has been 9
mistake But all the instances NAM
ed differ essentially from the case of
Davis. Thus the limits of the pre-
rogative of King Charles First had
never been precisely defined, and his
offenses were not declared capital by
any existing law. Louis Sixteenth
of France was not punished for his
own crimes, but for those of a sys-
TEN of which he was a victim. The
head of the Earl of Strafford fell by
an e.r post facto law. But the case of
jefferson Davis does mot resemble
any of these; nor was his rebellion
like that of Washington, Kossuth,
Garibaldi, or John Brown. They
appealed to the right of revolution,
and were prepared to meet the con-
sequences of failure without trying
to skulk off in petticoats. Davis
urged the constitutional right of Sc
cession. He and his advocates claim
that it was question of constitution
al Interpretation. But they can not
deny that he has deliberately incur
red certain penalty prescribed for
certain crime. When he put his
difference of Interpretation to the
judgment of the sword he assumed
the risk of suffering by the law if he
could not overthrow the law He
rose in arms to resist the Govern
ment and destaoyit. The fundamen-
tai law defines such an act as treason.
The statute law awards to a citizen
convicted of high treason the pun
ishment of death. If therefore he be
convicted, the remission or commu
tation of the penalty is purely a ques-
ton of public policy. There are no
private jealousies, no party hatreds,
no family or dynastic pride or fear
to be consulted. The sole question
is, Does the national welfare require
his execution?


If it does not, then 1t requires that
treason shall cease to be a capital
crime. If the treason of Davis, con-
splcuous for every extreme of fero-
city, inhumanity, and malignity-a
treason directly responsible for the
untold and unimaginable cruelties
practiced upon loyal citizens at the
South, and for the horrors of the
rebel prison pens, the consequences
of a deliberate poliey-ought to be
condoned in any degree whatever,
public decency and consistency de-
mand that the law be changed. For
if there were man convicted of q
single murder without any mitiga-
ting circumstances whatever except
his assertion that he had q right to
commit murder, and there were a
doubt in the public mind whether he
ought to be hung, it is plain that the
real question to be decided would be
whether murder without justification
or extenuation ought to be capital
crime. If such an offender were
pardoned, or his punishment were
committed, there could never after
ward be reason for hanging MUIR
derer.


Is there, or ought there to be, such
a doubt in the public mind in this
country in regard to treason? 1t is a
question to be discussed without pas
sion. Davis is indicted for treason,
not for the wholesale massacres by
hunger, thirst, and disease; not for
the idiocy and madness which he has
procured. That his execution would
be lawful there is no dispute. But