A Dark Feature of Our Times.
By Editor
J. Holt, Judge Advocate General, in reporting to the government the result of his investigations, relative to the secret order of traitors and conspirators which is widely spread through the free states of the North, draws a graphic picture of the moral degeneracy that is exhibited in our time and nation. He marks it down as "not paralleled in the world's history," and expresses his amazement at the disclosures that have been made. Ancient times have produced individual instances of great depravity. He refers to the one Judas Iscariot of Judea, and the one Catiline of Rome; but it seems to be reserved to our own time to produce whole broods of these vile characters, whom he describes as having "trodden under foot every sentiment of honor, and every restraint of law, human and divine." If we mistake not, this is the very spirit that is to bring about the anarchy of earth's closing scenes. Where shall we put a limit to the dark deeds of mankind, when, not only the laws have no power to hold them, but the restraining grace of God is also withdrawn from the earth? If any one wants a darker and more malignant commencement of these things which are to characterize the last days, will he describe what it should be. We give the closing paragraph of Judge Holt's report, as follows:— "In the presence of the Rebellion and this secret Order—which is but its echo and faithful ally—we cannot but be amazed at the utter and wide-spread profligacy, personal and political, which these movements against the Government disclose. The guilty men engaged in them, after casting aside their allegiance, seem to have trodden under foot every sentiment of honor and every restraint of law, human and divine. Judea produced but one Judas Iscariot, and Rome, from the sinks of her demoralization, produced but one Catiline; and yet, as events prove, there has arisen together in our land an entire brood of such traitors, all animated by the same parricidal spirit, and all struggling with the same relentless malignity for the dismemberment of our Union. Of this extraordinary phenomenon—not paralleled, it is believed, in the world's history—there can be but one explanation, and all these blackened and fetid streams of crime may well be traced to the same common fountain. So fiercely intolerant and imperious was the temper engendered by slavery, that when the Southern people, after having controlled the national councils for half a century, were beaten at an election, their leaders turned upon the Government with the insolent fury with which they would have drawn their revolvers on a rebellious slave in one of their negro-quarters; and they have continued since to prosecute their warfare, amid all the barbarous atrocities naturally and necessarily inspired by the infernal institution in whose interests they are sacrificing alike themselves and their country. Many of these conspirators, as is well known, were fed, clothed, and educated at the expense of the nation, and were loaded with its honors at the very moment they struck at its life with the horrible criminality of a son stabbing the bosom of his own mother while impressing kisses on her cheeks. The leaders of the traitors in the loyal States, who so completely fraternize with these conspirators, and whose machinations are now unmasked, it is as clearly the duty of the Administration to prosecute and punish, as it is to subjugate the Rebels who are openly in arms against the Government. In the performance of this duty, it is entitled to expect, and will doubtless receive, the zealous co-operation of true men everywhere, who, in crushing the truculent foe ambushed in the haunts of this secret order, should rival in courage and faithfulness the armies which are so nobly sustaining our flag on the battle-fields of the South."