Year: 1868

from the New York Herald. Independent.


Congress ON Jeff: Davis and An.


drew JOhnsOn-A Public Dis
| grace.


| AT the end of the year 1860 and in
the early days of 1861 the air of the
whole South yibrated with the prepara-
tions for war. 1t was war to be waged
against the Union--war for the destruc-
tion Of the Government of the United
States. In those same ysevery stone
in the Capitol echoed the valedictory
eloquence of the Southern leaders, men
leaving the very halls of the national
Legislature to go and head the treasona-


BILE movement, insulting the common
sense Of the country with parade of the
reasons that impelled them to strike at
the nations life. Prominent in the mum.


Der of these men was jeff. Davis. He,
with his confederates, played this part
of the drama with simpudent Defiance
He went away denouncing the Con-
stitution and boasting what should
be done to destroy it-boasting the
way in which he would return. Cataline
to the very letter. None stepped, for
ward to impede his path. Nay, he went
with the appreciation and encourage
ment of the men who became the great
leaders of the Republican party. He
went with the applause of Mr.. Chase,
now Chief Justice of the United States;
IF Horace Greeley, the restless, vitu-
perative and inconsequent agitator of
the Radical press; of Mr.. Stanton, the
oily -tongued plotter for power. All
these men argued for the right of jeff.
Davis to go and do what he might for
the destruction of the Government, as
covered by "the sacred right of revolu-
luton against tyranny" claiming that to
prevent or oppose him would be incon-
sistent with the doctrines of the Declara-
ton of Independence.


Davis, thus applauded, thus stimula-
ted, thus encouraged to believe that he was
heading movement as noble as that
which made the colonies free,swent out to
organize and conduct the Internal work.
Davis went out thus, and every South
ern man of political note went with him
save one. One man alone of the rep
resentatives of the Southern constituent
cies in the United States Congress did
not sympathize with the purposes of the
Shareholders to establish an aristocracy
on the ruins of our freedom One South
ern man prominent in the world of poll
tics adhered earnestly, unfalteringly,
with all the intense fervot of positive
nature, to the cause of the Union; and
this man was Andrew johnson, one of
the Senators from Tennessee. He de-
nounced the whole reasonable attempt
from the first blow. No whisper of toll
erance for it ever passed his lips. From
the United States Senate he went to
Tennessee-nearer to the rage of bat
tle. He was made Military Govern
OF, and ruled the State with uncon-
querable will and unchanged fidelity to
the cause the nation had at heart. He
was thus participating in the dangers
and savage turmoil of the struggle, while
the Radical leaders were making plans
at Niagara Falls for surrender to the en-
emy, plundering the nation in the issue
of ruinous contracts to political adher-
ents, and breaking down the barriers
that guarded popular rights by arbitrary
arrests of inoffensive persons. Such
were the relative positions of men
through the terrible four years, until the
soldiers and sailors-the men of the ma
ton making their own generals and
admirals, ended the war and the at
tempt that Davis had led, that Chase,
Greeley, Stanton and Gerrit Smith had
encouraged-an attempt that came near
er success than ever did such a revolt
before-ended in failure, thanks to the
people, to the man Of the apple tree and
to the "hero in the shrouds"


Peace came and the country breathed
free in the anticipationgof returning hap
piness and prosperity. Over the whole
land men had the same hope, INDUCED
the same rejoicing that the trouble was
over. Wisely generous, the people would
have shaken hands with the South at
once and taken it without reserve into
full fellowship, conscious that the men
who had felt the war in their homes, and
the bitterness of the failure in their
hearts, needed only their own memories
to keep them from renewing the great
attempt. But: as there are over right
eous men, so there are men who have
more than the normal quantity of patri-.
.otic spirit and both classes are very
nice on particulars. 1t turned out there
were number of superabundantly pat
riotic men to be heard when it
came to- settling terms They
were the men who had helped Davis to
make the war-tlIe extravagant aboli-
.tionists whM could yet so sympathize
with slavery as to justify its revolt on
texts from the Declaration of Indepen-1
dence. These men had not been the
absolute and earnest enemies of the
Southern effort till it had failed beyond
redemption, and then their enmity
blazed out all the fiercer for being so
new and coming so late. These men
would not hear of peace on the terms
the people declared for. They made
difficulties, insisted on conditions, and
made the nigger the basis of all propo-
sitions; and thus they have kept up till
now we have reign of anarchy.


But even yet they will not consent to
the punishment of the greatest criminal
of the age, and JEFF. Davis is now at
large, with the names of Horace Greeley
and Gerrit Smith-the types and sym
bols of Radicalism-on his bail bond
yet these men seem to recognize the nat
ural necessity that some man should
suffer, that some great trial and punish
ment should signalize the close of the
war. On whom should the blow fall :
Strangest piece of satanic irony, they
have chosen for the victim that one faith
full Southern Senator. The one man who
adhered to the Union when all the South
ern Senators beside went out with the en-
AZ,