Year: 1866

paper mas Dccn nulluSu us IoI pHull-
cation. 1t is from the pen Of Mrs,
Downing, of Virginia, written at
the request of friends during brief
visit to our city, Mrs, D. we hope,
will soon be extensively and better
known in the South by the produc-
tons OF her pen, now passing
through the press. She is the au-
thor Of that interesting work cnti-
tied "Namclcss" of the duplication
of which the public has already
been advised. The petition has al
ready been extensively circulated,
and wo learn has many signatures,
-RaIsigh Standard.


PETITION.


To his E.rccUcncy. AndrGw Johnson,


President of the United States:


We, the undersigned, acting on
the part Of the women Of your Elk.
cellency's native city, and actuated
by the spirit which animates the
women of the entire south, most
respectfully beg leave to present to
your Excelloncy our petition.


This is in behalf Of Jefferson Da-
Wis, lately invested with all the pre-
negatives of position similar to
the one in which your Excellency,
by the direct interposition Of the
hand of God, has been placed, now
a captive, languishing in prison
Whether that prison be the just
doom of him who is suffering from
its effects, is not question to be
argued by us, If it be conceded
that the man who is the representa-
tive OF people must suffer the
consequences Of such representation,
then the decree which consigned Mr..
Davis to imprisonment in a land
which has hitherto been the worlds s
synonym for freedom, was a proper
one, and he is undergoing only a
fitting eXpiation for the offended
majesty Of the law. But has he not
suffered it sufficiently long? Is it
impossible for justice to be temper
ed with mercy? viii not the re-
sources of your Excellcncy's mind
devise some means by which their
antagonism may be removed?


Is not America sufficiently glori-
GUS? Has she not been proved suf-
ficiently great to allow her to rise
superior to the petty conventional
codes Of smaller nations, and exhibit
to the world at once her power and
her magnanimity, by extending a
free pardon to one who, though he
may'have erred grievously against
her, is still her child, and still loves
her? Will not your Excellency be
Americas agent in this matter?-
Will you not, as the embodiment of
her strength and greatness, unloose
the bonds of the patient sufferer
who has SO meelsly and uncomplain-
ingly seen the spring blossom into
summer, and summer fade into au-
tumn-soen it through his prison
bars?


Will you not release him before
the dreary winter comes, bringing
with it so much Of material discom-
fort to his frail and delicate body,
and what is far worse than the most
acute physical suffering, the wintry
chill of hope deferred to his soul
which pines for freedom? Give
him back, we implore you, to the
women of the South. lie is ours,
and we love him.


We bound up our hearts and souls
in him and the cause which he once
represented. God has seen fit to
permit that cause to be lost forever,
and we bow to His decree. In all
the broad South there is no one so
mad as to cherish the hope that Mr..
Davis may be in any way connected
with future, consonant with what
our wishes were when he was in
vested with the dignity which has
proved so fatal to him. No such
though has an existence; he has no
future, and all our hopes in him
were connected wholly with the
past and are dead forever.


But we would be less than women
if we forsook him with whom the
cause we loved and lost was identi-
fed, and woman-lille, we cling TO
him all the more closely because he
is suffereng and stands in need OF
our sympathy.


The sweetest and holiest season
of the year is fast approaching,
bringing to human remembrance
Him who opened the prison doors
of tho enchained universe, and gave
freedom to a ransomed world.


Will not your Excellency mark
the Christmas of 1865, a year which
has witnessed the reunion of glo-
rious country and made you its
Chief Magistrate, by giving as a
Christmas gift to the women of the
South, the freedom of Jefferson Da-
Wis.


Listen, we implore your Excel
lency, to our pleadings; give us the
boon we ask, not so much because
you may consider the gift as right
1 but because there is no wrong in it.