'TI'POLITICAL" 'CRIMINALS AND THA TORIES.
IT is curious to see the Tory papers, flushed with their 0Democratic victory, indeed almost blushing under the wreath Of honour with whickMr... Disraeli has encircled the brows of the Tory party,74.e., suppoSing , the Tory. party to have brows, which, as it has been chiefly devoted to frowning upon the people for the 'last generation, we cannot doubt, even though the frown has vanished for a moment now,— nay, almost fainting with a sort of virgin modesty as it realizes its newpopularity, — yet going back to its old fierce admiration for the great representative of a bastard aristocracy founded upon the principle of slavery. They are now once again singing hymns of personal adulation to Mr. Jefferson Davis, which would probably have been satires, invectives, or curses if he had done for the South what Mr. Disraeli has done for the Tories,—introduced a " Conser- vative " Reform Bill, which, turning out to be negro suffrage in disguise, would have prevented the war, and saved the South. But as he has ruined the South for the sake of a wicked and shameful cause, the true Tory turns aside with a sigh of relief from the constraint of his new popularity, puts off the bland smiles which he is trying to lavish on the popular cause, - and 'indulges his soul in one shriek of delight that this hero' and martyr.—hero by virtue of his treason, and martyr by virtue of two years' light imprisonment for plunging millions of souls into guilt, misery, and death,—is at length, by the clemency and contemptuous forbearance of his foes, net at liberty as a man who has lost his power to do mischief. Yet it is surely indecent for the Tory editors who have indulged no freely in wailings over Mr. Davis's imprisonment, and in exultation over the release of this man, on whose conscience there is more blood than on that of all other living beings put together, to shriek out in the very same key their anger with • the Liberal journals for pleading for the remission of Burke's sentence. The Standard on Monday, only a few days after its pasan over Mr. Davis, jeered at the Liberal. Members for wishing to see Burke spared on any other grounds than that of the coarsest expediency ;— 'A number of gentlemen," it wrote, "who have a horror of bloOdshed.—especially in the case of a convicted traitor openly bearing arms against his Sovereign, and only escaping the charge of murder because his followers ran away—have petitioned the Government in favour of the Fenian prisoner Burke. . . . We freely confess we have not the slightest sympathy with their object. There never was a rebellion so groundless, so wicked, so wanton. To Providence we owe it, and to the precautions of the Government that the blood of Irishmen was not poured out like water. And now we are asked to be merciful to the men who would have deluged their country with blood, and would have imperilled the Empire. The plea for 'mercy we canna sympathize with, but as a matter of policy it may be prudent not to shed blood. We cannot afford to make martyrs and heroes of these hired desperadoes."
Which meant, as clearly as words could say, If Lord Derby would only have hanged this man we would have praised his firmness up to the skies, but as it is almost certain he will yield to the representations made to him, we are sulkily resigned to his being spared." The Pall Mall Gazette, we are sorry to say, in an article written with its usual.ntili- tarian force, took the same line ; but as its general argument was rather directed to proving that hanging is a capital thing in the abstract, e4ecially for all criminals who are at all amiable and Oxon; any good motives mingled in their guilt, the able writer would probably have included Mr. Davis and the Emperor of Mexico in the list of persons whom it would have been desirable (but forthe feeble amiability of public opinion) to hang, unless, indeed, he thought so badly of them as to deprive the process of the fresh zest clearly given to it in his estimation by a dash of good feeling or noble purpose in the criminal. The Pall Mall Gazette therefore stands on quite different grounds .frOm'air Tory contemporaries. It has a unique fervour of belief in hanging in the abstract, and always recognizes with. regret the limits imposed on the advantages of that vigorous procedure by the growing feebleness of public opinion. 'Ent the Tory Press have openly and insolently insisted on the justice of hanging Burke and his comrades, at the very moment they were insisting' On the-injas- ties of keeping' Mr. Jefferson Davis in a comfortable prison. They indulge in poetic prose over Mr. Davis's noble domestic affections, and the proof he gave of them after "happy, babbling Richmond had sunk to rest" by going to weep over his child's grave, while they have nothing but the brutal "serve him right" for the sorrows of a rash firebrand like Burke and "the hired desperadoes," as they are pleased to call his associates. Now, for the triumphant advocates of a Democratic Reform Bill, we submit that this, undisguised loathing_ for rash and mistaken rebels when they. come from the ranks of the people, in such close juxtaposition with this rapt admiration for rasher rebels when they come from the ranks of a bastard aristocracy, is a mistake. • Nothing can point.out more clearly in what sense the Tory organs are really DemoCratic than-these little loopholes into the true feelings of the party. - Their, love for slavery' is quite as fresh as ever. If they are cultivating the people it is only with the view of making tools of them.' Mr. Jefferson Davis is their true political ideal. As Mr. Jefferson Davis would have used,—and so far as his power went,—did use, "the mean whites" of the South to serve his purposes, so these Tory Democrats,—these patrons of "the residuum,"— will use, if they can, the new voters to serve their purposes.
The argument used by Lord Derby this day week against the analogy between Burke's and his comrades' claim for mercy, and that of the Southern prisoners, has been re- iterated again and again, by the Tory declaimers. If we understand it rightly, it only amounts to this,—that the North could not have hanged political prisoners without exposing its own prisoners to the danger of similar treatment at the South. Well, that would apply so long as the war went on, but would have "no .application at all when the South was finally con- quered, and Mr. Davis, the head and front of the whole rebel- lion, afterwards fell into the hands of the Northern men. If Lord Derby thinks that it would have been quite right to hang Southern rebels but for the fear of retaliation, he has not taken a line that is very popular with his supporters. He probably did mean, however, that the amount of moral support he received was a palliation of his guilt. We confess that seems to us a bad plea, and even if a good one, one which would palliate Burke's guilt as well. If Ireland had been polled, does any one doubt that a clear majority of the people would have been favourable to the success. of the Fenian attempt ? Would any English statesman in his senses dare to submit the question of inde- pendence to the test of a popular vote with any hope of its being loyal ? If moral support from an immense mass of people is palliation for rebellion, Burke and his friends had that quite as much as Mr. Davis. But they had not the means of mak- ing so good a fight or coming so near success, and the wanton- ness of a rebellion depends in great measure on the chance of success That is quite true, and is a very good condemnation of rebellions believed to be hopeless. But it is no argument for not extending compassion to ignorant persons who are hopeful of success without any good grounds for it. And in some respects we maintain that the chances of ultimate success, or at least of an extended struggle, should be considered an aggravation of the crime. Where, as in the case of Mr. Davis, a leader with a powerful organization at his back is perfectly aware of his power to drench a continent in blood before he can be put down,—does he not hazard infinitely more in precipitating such a struggle than men who hazard very little indeed beyond their own lives ? All Mr. Jefferson Davis's advantages over Burke were advantages in farsightedness, in statesmanship, in clear recognition of the train of calamities he was bringing down upon his country. If those advantages indeed had been backed in his case by a noble motive,—by the desire to win liberty for his people instead of slavery, by the desire to redeem them from a political oppression that could have been removed by no other means,—we should measure the grandeur of his aims by the greatness of the sacrifices incurred. But when his motive was doubly evil,—a personal ambition which could not endure the restraints of ordinary representative machinery, and an abstract love for the most loathsome institution of the age, —we must measure the evil of his aims by the greatness of the sacrifices incurred. Put it how you will, no one can - pretend to compare with any justice Burke's crime with Mr.. Jefferson Davis's crime, without conceding that the latter was infinitely the greater. It was more deliberate and voluntary,' for the man was a statesman, and Burke an ignorant fanatic.. It was compassed by one who knew that he could obtain only. too easily the redress of every pretended grievance he put forward, by political means, while Burke heartily believed
that the only remedy for Ireland's grievances was rebellion. It was, above all, avowedly due to one of the most evil inten- tions of modern times,—the intention to build up a society founded on slavery as its fundamental principle, — while Burke's rebellion was a silly, rash, and blundering blow for what he supposed to be freedom. There is not a common feature in the moral conditions of the two cases; and every contrast tells, as regards the guilt involved, fearfully against Mr. Jefferson Davis, and in favour of Burke. We are far from wishing to see Burke and his colleagues receive a free pardon. They have been guilty of one of the rashest of rebellions, involving the risk of fearful consequences, and such acts musk certainly be heavily visited. But if ever there was a plea for the use of the prerogative of mercy, it is in the case of mad, hot-headed, misguided men, who can command no power beyond their own right arms, and who unfortunately had the passive sym- pathies of half the Irish population. If, indeed, the Pall Mall is right in advocating hanging as a capital remedy for want of sense, cadit gm:F-86o ;—we cannot plead that Burke had much, and Mr. Davis clearly had a good deal. In that ease probably Burke should have been hanged, Maximilian punished by the highest of secondary punishments, and Mr. Jefferson Davis pardoned at once. But the Tory view is that while deep-laid treason in the cause of slavery is noble, —foolish treason in the cause of a quick-witted but (politi- cally) half-witted people is unpardonable, for which the last penalty of the law ought, but for the disorganized state of public opinion, to be exacted. We are happy to see the Record ranking itself with the Tory organs in lamenting the necessity of commuting the punishment. Its contempt for popular humanity on spiritual grounds, is the only rival which the Standard's, founded on political grounds, need really fear. We know of nothing much more disgraceful to the spirit of the country, than the profound regret with which a portion of the Press has been.compelled to admit that it would be inexpedient to hang these wretched Irishmen,—whose chief crime has been the ignorance which we have taken so little pains to remove, and the inherited passions which, in a former generation, England took so much pains to. mplant.
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