Year: 1867

understood if looked at superfcially-
| 1t is not because, as has been suspected


by some: [ was q Democrat and am one
/ no longer. Dying out as it has been,
! slowly bnt painfully, for the last eight
years with the dry rot, that party have


become too much accustomed to see
! men of sense withdraw their allegiance


from it to make my instance source OF


serious irritation The true reason


which explains the malevolence with
which they pursue me will be found in
/ the fact that while the recent war was
raging the honorable distinction was


awarded to me Of having put to the
sword my full share of their party who
/ fell fighting in front of my command


under the spotted flag of treason to


support their sentiments and principles.
loud applause from the floor OF tie
Nv attention having been specially
called to Horace Greeley, am free to


say totally disapprove Of his sympathy
| for jeff. and his peculiar manner OF


manifesting that sympathy. Had L
captured Jefferson Davis and his DIS


posal have been committed to my hands,
| I would have organized an able court


martial and have given him fair trial,


just sentence, and prompt execution.


Some people are morbidly sensitive


about Jeff Davis. They seem to think


hat when the name of Cassius honors


corruption, chastisement ought there
| fore to hide its head. They belong to
| that sickly class of temporizers who


would make the enormity of crime


and the rank of criminal good pleas


in bar against their conviction. Ii


efferson Davis and mis- Cabinet are


criminals, as they are. they ought to be


tried, if tried convicted, If convicted


executed, like all other felons convicted


of capital crimes. Ii they were tried


and convicted, as they ought to be, and


we're | the Chief Magistrate Of this Re-
public, no appeal for clemency in their


cases could ever reach me. | would


let him and them swing till they would
smaller traitors might profit by their ig


nominuous fate Until II traitor or two
! is tried, convicted, and executed, the
peoDle of the United States may con
ifCtently expect an annual crop of armed
traitors to spring from the tenderness


with which traitors are treated In this
| land So mild has been our mercy that


Toombs, the fugitive of yesterday. is
| back again the swaggerer of to day.
Emboidened by impunity he grows de-
FAINT and seems determined to test the


measure Of his Importance in last DIES
perate effort to draw toward him the at
tention of the Government and down
uDon his crimes the vengeance OF the
law.


But what has he to fear in n Govern


ment where rebels are pardoned before
taev are tried and where no traitor has
ever graced the gailows? John Brown


was tried, convicted and executed, but
that was for treason, not against our
national Government, but the State OF
Virginia When Northern man tres


passes upon Southern soil and commits
treason, he has the crime TO expiate on
the scaffold, but when thousands of
Southern men attempt to destroy our
national Governments, notwithstan ding
the diabolical attempt drenches our
whole land with blood and fills it with
the piercing walls of widows and or


phans and costs thousands of millions
of treasure, nevertheless nobody can be
tried for it. John Brown did not dip
deep enough into treason to make it re
spectacle. Had he managed to kill fifty
Thousand men before they captured him,
according to the new theory, he would
have stood on too lofty a pedestal to
have been taken down a criminal. But
for the life Of me / cannot see how the
same Government that assisted Virginia
to convict John Brown can refuse to try
jeff Davis. II John was held respon-
sible to the outraged law, why is not
likewise Jefferson Davis!


John Browns surviving kindred can
take to their souls one flattering JUNCTION
at least, that he did not die in vain. l
have again and again seen thousands of
Union soldiers marching into battle
singing


John Browns body lies mouldcrng in the grave,


While his soul goes marching on


And they never failed to win the fight.
There is one man on this continent at
the head Of a Government that has ex
hibited nerve enough to rule. When
usurpcrs and traitors are convicted in
Mexico we hear at one and the same
sine of their stern sentence and prompt
execution. President Juarez, however,


is saluted for his signal exhibition Of
decision and firmness with howls Of hor-
ror from the same mercy-begging lips
that are eternally whining about the
mercy due to jeff. Why do men pro
Tossing to love liberty manifest an in
tcrest SO deep and strafl se in the fate Of
the vaulting ambition Of royalty when
it presumes to invade this republican
continent and oyerleap Itself. Have mo-
narchical Governments friends here,
whose ympathles al G too keen to be e.
strained when tribulation overtakes a
toppling throne, and 90 they presump.
tuousiv propose to educate the popular
mind Of men born free on American
soil, to catch readily at excuses to de-
nounce republicanism and condole with
mourning nobility over executed empe-
rors? deplore, Mr.. Speaker, such ex
hibtions of party violence as have been
again and again recently exhibited OF
this floor. II serves to remind me mourn
fully OF the debates we had on this floor
just before the war. Rebels then used