Year: 1864

would be so applied when the facts of the
case were established. Yet it is the hard,
est thing ip the world to determine how
. apply it acceptably as regards the


:, and yet effectually as regards the
South.


The primary difficulty lies in the fact
that our rebel enemies belong to lower
grade of civilization than our own. The
barbarities they have constantly been
guilty of upon our white soldiers, from
the first battle down, have long since con
vinced even those who at first were most
incredulous, that the institution of Slav-
cry has given a savage bent to the South
ern disposition Their torture of pris-
oners by starvation at Richmond, and
their outrages upon the remains of the
dead. practised in almost every form, are
of themselves conclusive proofs that we
are contending with a people essentially
barbarous. In every civilized land a
helpless prisoner receives kindness, and a
lifeless body respect. Every Northern
man knows that it would be utterly i'm
possible for a Northern soldier to convert
the skull of his enemy into drinking
cup or for a Northern Government to re-
(duce Its prisoners to skeletons. The mur-
dering of scores and hundreds of unarmed
men. as was done ut Lawrence at Fort
Pillow and perhaps also at Plymouth, no
Northern Government could possibly COM
nit, no Northern Government could pos
sibly allow.


The very fact that we 50 utterly abhor
these savage instincts Of the Southern
blood, makes it all the harder for us to
initiate them. Yet retaliation, say what
we will of it, is imitation. We should,
of course, do it-if we did it at all-in
different spirit 1t would not be to glnt
a revenge, but vindicate the laws of war.


Yet put the best face upon the matter we
may. the selection by lot of three hundred
Southern prisoners, many of them neces-
sarily conscripts,. some of them, perhaps,


Union ,nen, and all certainly inno-
cent of all participation in the


particular atrocity we .retaliate,
and shooting them down in cold blood, is
a piece of work against which all Ameri-
can civilization revolts. 1t may be a nee
essity. If it be so, it is most certainly a


shocking one, and no man will feel it more
painfully than President Lincoln himself
1t is very easy for us to say that the


rebels lose more than they gain by these


barbarities. Undoubtedly they do, at least
} in moral sense. Nothing could be more
J calculated to take away all the sympathy
they now have in Europe than this butch
. cry of the race they have always oppressed.
But the rebel chiefs have given up all
hope of receiving recognition, or, indeed,
any substantial assistance from abroad.
They no longer seek to conciliate foreign
favor as they once did. They will follow
: their own bent hereafter with very little
: regard TO foreign opinion.


We must consider, withal, that there


is something more than mere savage in


stinct in this slaughtering of black SOL


diers. 1t has practical object. The
rebel chiefs know perfectly we'll that we
shall soon have black army of not less
than one hundred thousand men, and that
this army can be increased indefinitely as
the war progresses. They know that it
: will form a most terrible agency against
them unless they can somehow make it


unwilling to fight. Therefore they seek


to paralyze it by horrifyingit But even


if they were allowed to keep up their


Atrocities, it is by no means certain that
they would gain their end. 1t is doubt
full whether the effect would not be 10 in
furiate rather than paralyze; whether the
. blacks would not, after little time, re.
spond to the no-quarter cry as Justify as


it was given, and do work that would soon
. make the white barbarians glad enough
to get back again to the shelter of the


laws vf war. St. Domingo and Southam'


ton sufficiently attest that the race, wher
e once fairly aroused, can carry pretty
d high hand in this sort Of business. w
o suppose the rebel leaders have thought ot
ltk;. a =, 4 ,ua; rh al m hoir chaucaa H ffi.t.