Year: 1863

liberty to hundreds of Northern prisoners; W.
trust the tale may be true; but we blush at th'
Thought of commencing an American admins
tration for undoing, so far as it can, the wori
which no American administration ought evel
to have hone. There are occasions on which
praise is insult, and this Is one of them. Al
the Government has DONE however, il cannot
undo II cannot give back to wronged and in
iured man the frank faith in their country's law;
and Justice which made obedience natural, and
the dutyof the citizen proud delight. 1t can
not restore to anxious and sorrowing friends the
hoars spent in vain endeayors after redress, in
siekoning fears, in madlening doubts for the safe,
ty and welfare Of the oppressed. It cannot en-
due the country afresh with that loyal conf
donce in IT, rulers-that sanguine reliance upon
the guarantees of liberty and the supremacy o.
law, which made all sacrifices easy, all efforts
hearty and enthusiastic in defence OF the nation
al rights.


We shall not dwell on the specific cnormity
Of specific cases which stand out from the darl;
record of the American Bastile with peculiar
and dra1atic power TO startle the consciences
and to move tie scnsbili;ies Of mankind. The
day viii aoue, If taere be truth in the messages
Of hcayen, when the single lie Of a single hum
bic c;tizen, blasted and ruined through the wick
cd geoklessness of some minion of power, will
rise up terrible as an army with banners at the
Judgment seat to confront the authors Of so
much general and particular wrong. But the
lesson OF the hour is for the hour, and it is e.
noueh for us to-day to SET it here in characters
OF fire that all may read it,


If the history Of the arbitrary arrests in A
,nerica has been closed, with the opening doors
Of Fort Lafayette this chapter of shame and
suffering ends We trust it may be so. We
trust that the edict which relieves New York OF
this great scandal may so forth throughout all
the land. ordaining liberty to al! that languish
in tie dungeons OF what we long to style in
truth the free North. But with this edict let
the sense come home more deeply than ever to
the whole people Of the incredible disgrace which
the necessity for such an edict has inflicted up
on our national name and fame.


For from what does it relieve us! From a
state of things which even the organs OF the
party by whose leaders il has been brought up
on us arc forced at last for very shame to brand
as odious and deadly. Well may the Times ex-
claim that such outrages as these backen the
honor and character Of the Government which
permits them. One might expect the very stones
Of the stlssis, nay the types of the Tribune IT.
self, to rise M against them. These things be-
ing possible, all exec :ses Of tyranny are SO: and
the people which even for a season has tamely
endured these things cannot rouse itself to the
sense Of the assertion of its liberties single
hour too. soon. Woe be to them and to it il,
like the Times, it shall not 'prorose to question:
the power bywlrich these things are done. That
power it must question, question emphatically,
and wiring from it an answer which shall insure
indemnity for the past and security for the iu-