has its school-house, and every child its teacher; a land whose matchless prosperity invites and rewards the stoutest arms, the most skillful hands, the best brains of every nation upon earth; a mighty Republic, commanding the respect of all nations! Such a nation, holding up to all mankind for wonder and admiration its glorious example of the triumph of selfgovernment, shall win, year by year, new bloodless victories over Proscription, Tyranny, and Established Wrong, prostrating thrones, and elevating everywhere "the standard of the Peoples ❞—

"Till the war-drum throbs no longer, and the battle flags are furled,
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.

There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,

And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law."

Such the nation, such the destiny that we may realize, if at this crisis of our history we have a Congress true to the people, and a people true to themselves and to Justice!

ARTICLE VI.-OUGHT TREASON AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES TO BE PUNISHED?

THERE can be no doubt, surely, as to the answer which the Constitution and laws of the United States give to this question. The Constitution defines treason as "levying war against the United States, or adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort;" and adds, "The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason." That power Congress exercised April 30th, 1790, by the following statute (I. Stat. 112.) "If any person or persons, owing allegiance to the United States of America, shall levy war against them, or shall adhere to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort, within the United States or elsewhere, and shall be thereof convicted, on confession in open court, or on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act of the treason whereof he or they shall stand indicted, such person or persons shall be adjudged guilty of treason against the United States, and shall suffer death."

It was enacted as a

This law was meant to be enforced. warning against treason, and a safeguard for the life of the nation. But it has, or will have, no power for that purpose unless it is executed. There is no power in a dead letter. The power of a law is in the certainty, at least the probability, of its execution. We may expect treason to abound, if the penalty deliberately pronounced on treason is not inflicted, at least upon the chief criminal or criminals. We say upon the chief criminal or criminals; for, in cases of wide spread rebellion, involving thousands and millions of people, the whole mass cannot be punished; nor is it necessary. The ends of public justice and security are attained by punishing the leaders, while others, on returning to allegiance and manifesting a right spirit and right purposes, are pardoned.

The crime which that law was enacted to prevent, has been committed, and to a far wider extent, and with more dreadful

effect, than were anticipated or feared by the wise legislators who framed it. War has been levied against the United States,—a war covering half its territory, calling into dreadful conflict not less than two millions of combatants, raging for four years, and causing an expenditure of treasure, suffering, blood and life, awful to contemplate, and beyond our power to estimate. The war has ended by the complete subjugation of treason and rebellion. And the traitors, the greater part of them, are in the power of the Government of the United States, either at large on parole or sufferance, or confined within the walls of prison. The leading traitor, who was more instrumental probably than any other man in forming the wide spread conspiracy to resist and overthrow the Government of the United States, though he had been one of its sworn Senators and its Secretary of War,-the chosen head of the rebelious Government, the Commander-in-chief of the army and navy by which war was carried on against the United States,is a captive in one of the fortresses of the nation, and has been for many months.

And now the question before the country is, shall these leading traitors be punished according to law? Shall any of them— shall the chief traitor, Jefferson Davis, be punished according to law? Greatly to our surprise and anxiety, there are many who think that he should not be punished, and many more who are doubtful about it.

In our judgment, it is greatly to be desired and earnestly demanded that these chief traitors, at least this chief traitor, should be adjudged guilty of the treason, of which he is guilty as everybody knows, and should suffer the penalty of treason as declared by law-the penalty of death. We say tried for treason,-not on some side issue, not even for complicity with the assassination of President Lincoln, except as that is a part and aggravation of his treason. Treason is his great crime,— a crime not merely against the life of one man, but against the NATION's life-crime against which in the future the nation demands efficient protection, in the normal way, the way declared by law, by punishment, by the punishment of death. This is the legitimate "terror" which government is divinely

ordained to wield against such "evil doers" as traitors,-a nation's assassins.

If any one takes the opposite ground that these chief traitors, or this chief traitor, should not be punished, the burden of proof is on him. He must make out a case. For here is the law demanding the traitor's death; here is the traitor; and the law is to be executed of course, unless sufficient reason can be given for setting it aside, or remitting its penalty. What reason, then, is or can be given?

It cannot be said that Jefferson Davis' treason is excusable. For his treason is of the blackest dye. The world has never seen blacker. It is the worst of treasons, for the worst of reasons. It is treason against the best of governments, and for the sake of extending and upholding and making dominant the worst form of human oppression, the accursed system of domestic slavery. A government, which has ever borne on its banner as a chief reason for its existence, that all men are created equal and have an inalienable right to liberty, he attempted to overthrow by war, because it would not permit slavery, the utter denial and ravishment of liberty, to be extended by its protection, and made controlling by its power! Was there ever a baser or wickeder motive for treason; the determination, for the sake of the gain and aggrandizement of one class of men, to ignore and trample on all the rights of millions of another class of men, and to enthrone in a nation's councils and administration the "sum of all villainies?" The unsuccessful revolutionist in behalf of liberty is entitled to high honor for his motives, and to sympathy in his misfortune, even though he was rash in his measures, and was guilty of undertaking a work involving violence and slaughter, without sufficient prospect of success. But the unsuccessful revolutionist in behalf of slavery, to what sympathy is he entitled? Or what claim can be urged for his forgiveness? Certainly none on the ground that he is innocent, or excusable, or other than the most odious of criminals.

We fully admit the right of revolution, as it is called, and would earnestly advocate it. But revolution is a fearful measure involving, as war always must, vast suffering and loss; and

therefore it is justifiable only when three things are true-intolerable oppression by the existing government; no power or prospect of a peaceful remedy; and a fair and reasonable prospect of success. Neither of these things was true in the case of attempted revolution by Jefferson Davis and his followers. Certainly the two first were not true. There was no oppression by the government. Quite the contrary. Its offense was that it refused to be the instrument of extending oppression. Its alleged oppression was that it would not contradict and transgress its first principles by lending its power to help oppressors extend their oppression. And whatever might be the complaint, there is a peaceable way of redress and remedy provided by the constitution of the government, which allows its own amendment, and is administered by officers chosen at oft recurring periods by the people of the nation; a feature which goes far to prove, if it does not fully prove, that in this, as in all really republican governments, revolution can never be justifiable.

But it is said,—and it is strange that it should be said in view of the atrocity of this treason,-that this has been only a war of ideas. Opposite ideas of the nature of our government were honestly entertained by the different parties. The difference came to a practical issue, and had to be fought out; and one side has succeeded, and the other has failed. The parties differ rather in strength and fortune than in guilt. With this plea we can have no patience. We repudiate this representation of the case most positively. Has it come to this, that the difference. between devoted loyalty and the basest treason is only an innocent difference of ideas? A war of ideas! Supposing it were. Ideas which legitimately lead to such wicked measures and such dreadful results must involve great wickedness. There may be wickedness in ideas as truly as in acts. A war of ideas! Every criminal has his ideas, and his theory by which he excuses and justifies his crime. Is crime therefore no crime? He had no right to have any such ideas!

What was the idea which those who offer this apology for the traitor Davis and his followers say was the cause of their rebellion? It was the idea of State Rights, that the sovereignty