HYPOCRISY OF COPPERHEAD NEWSPAPERS--COMPLICITY WITH ASSASSINATION--THE
LEADERS AND THEIR VICTIMS.
During the month of February, by Executive clemency, a number of
Copperheads were released from confinement in Washington, where they had
been placed as a measure of public safety. The _Times_ published, and
other Copperhead papers echoed the following. That paper now, in a very
pious spirit, piteously urges, and the prints of like character also
echo it, that "there should be no more party strife," "no more rancor,"
that it has not stabbed the President since he was shot, and the office
is now draped with deep mourning. Aminadab Sleek is going to them as a
comforter, and as tears mitigate woe, he bears with him an onion. The
_Times_ says:
"We submit that this fact should damn this Administration, not only for
all time, but, if there be justice hereafter, to all eternity. There is
not a single civilized government in existence to-day, against which
can be charged a similar display of tyranny. With the title of being
the freest government of modern ages, we have shown ourselves to be one
whose disregard of right and whose outrageous assumptions of power are
only paralleled in the reign of despots.
The liberty of fifty men may seem a small affair; but the matter has
not so much reference to the magnitude of the offence as it has to the
principle which underlies it. The moment Mr. Lincoln, or Mr. Seward, or
any other man, dares to deprive one person of his liberty without due
process of law, that moment has the government been changed from one of
the people to an autocracy--a tyranny. If any man to-day is free in
this country, it is not because he is a good citizen, surrounded by the
protection of the laws, but simply because Seward or Lincoln has not
chosen to order his incarceration.
The epitaph of posterity upon this people is easily anticipated. It will
be--died 24,000,000 of whites, who lost their liberties and lives in an
attempt to give a fictitious freedom to 4,000,000 negroes."
_"Sic semper tyrannis!"_ exclaims Booth, who has read the above article,
and the mission of the _Times_ is accomplished, and it now wants "no
more party rancor."
"Out of my sight thou serpent! That name best Befits thee with him
leagu'd, thyself as false!"
The palpable HYPOCRISY of rebel sympathizers, can now only excite
contempt. Who that read the evidence of Clement L. Vallandigham, before
the military commission in Cincinnati, gave him credit for sincerity
when he said substantially had he supposed there was a plot against the
Government, he would have been the first to oppose or expose it.
Have the people forgotten Mr. Vallandigham's record? Have his Dayton
neighbors forgotten his cry of "Ocoon," the cry of distress of the Order
to which he belonged, and which was to summon Sons of Liberty to
his rescue, when arrested by the Government? Have they forgotten
Vallandigham's visit to Fulton county, Illinois, during the autumn of
1864, and its consequences? This county was the stamping ground of the
leaders of the treasonable organization, which has been dissected, and
whose head and heart are now in a state of decomposition. In that county
Assistant Provost Marshal Phelps was shot, there too enrolling officer
Criss was shot; in that county is Lewiston, where resides S. Corning
Judd, Esq., the Grand Commander of the Sons of Liberty in the State of
Illinois. C.L. Vallandigham was the Supreme Commander of the Order
in the United States. This Order inaugurated the new warfare at the
instance of the Southern rebel leaders--inaugurated assassination. This
order began with Provost Marshals and enrolling officers, and ended--if
indeed the loyal people _will_ it to have ended--with the assassination
of the best, the wisest, the most deeply loved President since the
immortal Washington. It is the education of Copperhead prints, and
Copperhead secret societies that has fitted the instruments of death,
and our indulgence which has fostered them.
Vallandigham's party had been defeated, his greatness had departed, and
to wheel into line and "keep step to the music of the Union," was not
for him, and as Milton's creation once exclaimed, so might he have
uttered:
"And in my choice To reign is worth ambition, though in hell;
Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.
But wherefore let me then our faithful friends,
The associates and co-partners of our loss,
Lie thus astonished on the oblivion pool,
And call them not to share with us their part
In this unhappy mansion; or once more
With rallied arms to try what may be yet
Regained in heaven, or what more lost in hell."
And so Clement L. Vallandigham became Supreme Commander of the Sons of
Liberty.
Who is S. Corning Judd, who testifies before the Commission that _"the
organization_ (Sons of Liberty) _was being used in Indiana and Missouri
for improper purposes"?_ Who is he that says the organization in Chicago
"was looked upon by many of the leaders with great distrust; many of
those connected with the order in Chicago were radical, extreme men, and
understood to be men of little standing or character"? that one of the
delegates from Missouri stated his belief that the order in that State
was in favor of "giving aid and comfort to the Confederates"? When Judd
made these statements upon the stand, all loyal papers, with one accord,
declared that the evidence fully warranted the arrests, in the manner
and at the time they were made. No fair-minded man _then_ could come to
any other conclusion. Who, we ask, is S. Corning Judd? Stump-speakers,
last fall, would have said that he was the "Democratic" candidate for
Lieutenant Governor--and so he was. The Gubernatorial ticket bore
the name of James C. Robinson for Governor, and S. Corning Judd for
Lieutenant Governor--the former a man who, in Congress, voted against
"fighting, crushing, and destroying" the rebellion. Both Robinson and
Judd were Sons of Liberty, and to them Copperheads fondly turned, and
had they carried the State, anarchy and bloodshed would have been the
consequence; and, indeed, in the expressed opinion of Judge Morris, "had
they carried the State, he cared not who might be President, for they
would possess the reins of the General Government." S. Corning Judd
sought to serve his own ends by controlling the Sons of Liberty, and
failing in this, he gave the cold-shoulder to his Brig.-General (Walsh),
when, in consequence of executing the edicts of the order, he found
himself a close prisoner for the horrid doctrine of secession; _he_ must
be tried and convicted, but the Grand Commander, S. Corning Judd, and
the Supreme Commander, C.L. Vallandigham, and the Past Grand Commander,
or Major-General, Amos Green, each, severally appear upon the stand
against him, and they permitted to go scott free. O, cursed doctrine of
secession!
"So stretch'd out huge in length the arch-fiend lay,
Chain'd on the burning lake; nor ever thence
Had risen or heaved his head, but that the will
And high permission of All-ruling Heaven
Left him at large to his own dark designs;
That with reiterated crimes he might
Heap on himself damnation, while he sought
Evil to others."
If Vallandigham, if Judd, if Green, if Barrett, and if the many equally
guilty persons released from custody go unpunished, then "Justice, thou
art fled to brutish beasts, and men have lost their reason." Not that we
would contradict Judd in the least in aught that he has said against the
Chicago temple, but we would tell him that we know the Chicago temple,
so far from taking the lead in radicalism, was behind the order in
Peoria, in Bloomington, in Dubuque, in St. Louis, Louisville, and many
other places. Give the devil his due. In some places the boldness
of Copperheadism induced prominent members of the Sons of Liberty to
approach members of Congress, with their base proposals to enter the
order.