Year: 1865

From the Independent.


'agT The Nearest Duty.


With the morning came Liberty anf


Peace and Union, beautiful upon the


mountains as the feet Of them that bring
glad tidings. Already retrospect il
merged in prospect, and disposition
manifested, we fear too widely, to FORGE
and forgive the difference which has en-
gendered blood shed and untold misery
upon our common Soil. Already the
revelations of the conflict are being for
gotten, and well defined sympathy is
bestowed upou Gen. Lee, as one who
might rightly claim the epithet chivalric,
and deserving consideration, not to say
respectful treatment. Much will be ar
gued In his favor from the supposed re-
luctance with which he assumed the
character of traitor and liberticide--
from his professed determination to
fight only for the defense OF his native
State-frOm his submission and appar-
ent desire to prevent unprotitable slaugh-
ter, and much from the very success with
which he bafiied our incompetent com
manders, whom he easily surpassed in
audacity and personal modesty. But
there 10 nothing here from which to fash
ion a hero, while behind the dramatic
front OF the unwilling partisan, turks the
damning fact that Robert Lee deliber'
ately, intelligently broke his oath Of al
legiance to his country, used the train
ing she gave him to compass her destruc-
ton, became, if not the accomplice, the
tool Of men who sought to establish a
despotism over all this continent, and
20 secure forever their power to steal
work, torture, barter, and breed for
sale their fellow beings. At his door
lies this catalogue, and with him we al
50 link Belle Isle. What can relieve him
from, tie awful guilt Of the Confederate pris
0ns, who il he had had heart-for he
must have had the knowledge-would
have protested, as a mere soldier whose
trade Was war, against the Internal treat
ment OF our unhappy prisoners who,
II his private protest were not needed,
should have published it to the world,
and, that failing, have flung away a
sword which could not be welded in
support Of such atrocious villainy and
cruelty? Shall we SO
easily forget the testimony of the hos
pitals at Annapolis? These horrors
were not beyond the immediate inspec-
tion and cognizance of the rebel leader.
In the James River, in full view of that
capital Of which he was the bulwark. in
the streets of Richmond itself, the hor-
rors OF starvation, exposure, filth, ago
nizing outrage, wanton murder, flourish
cd and ran riot. Here the miserable
captive, surveying his attenuated frame,
could cry: II may tell all my bones
they look and stare upon me-" Here
men rotted, and froze, and housed yer
min, and died raving of hunger, and
wandered idiot skeletons, neither know
ing themselves nor to be known by dear
est friends. What little finger did Robert
Lee hji against this nightmare Of bdr6arty
There is no record that it cost him an
hours thought or n moments repose.


We are not insisting upon indemnity
for the past. There is no indemnity for
the nations sacrifices in this war. All
the cowardly lives that devised and en-
gineered this rebellion would not com
pensate, if taken, the loss of single
patriot soldier. We ask security for tie
future We insist that our charges OF
blood. guiItiness against the leading con-
spirators be withdrawn, or proved sin
cere. Either these men are. or are not
the greatest criminals in history. Ii
they are-why, we have shot deserters





work of the bottle; and have hung
spies, guerillas and hotel burners. What
have any, or all together of such offend
ers done to be compared in magnitude
with the authorship and conduct of the
rebellion which gave them birth 1t is
candle light to solar--it is the river to
the sea Ii il was not safe for them to
live, how can we rest with the arch reb-
l. sho
eight of those who have desolated the
land. and struck at the very root Of the
RepublicY We have as nation a Grim
inal code. with its classification Of pains
and penalties. If we ever believed in it
as means OF government we cannot
abrogate il now We are not speaking
vindictively. nor in the interest Of
spirit of revenge. We address those
who attach punishment TO crimes against
the individual and against society, and
we hold up the enemies of the human
race. IL cannot be wrong to demand
that they shall not be allowed to stalk
with impunity amid the ruin caused by
their unha,lowcd passions, with no dim
mutton OF their freedom and no restraint
upon their insolence This would be to
mock the hearts which have been wrung
with grief for the heroic dead-it would
be to mock the dead themselves. The
hearts of North and South,
and the graves to which their sorrowing
goes out, alike forbid US TO tolerate the
prime ministers OF destruction-the
beads. not the hands of the rebellion
the busy architects of civil war, whose
planning covered thirty years. not the
witless, deluded carriers Of brick and
mortar. For these pardon. temporary
disfrancf6 6sement, and education in free
dom for those, two courses only-ex