Staunton Vindicator

The penalty of treason is death; and while we doubt the constitutionality of the Confiscation Act as passed by Congress, it may be conceded that forfeiture of property is one of the liabilities incurred by those who can be proven to be traitors. Starting with these premises, a considerable portion of the people of the North have determined that there is only one conclusion to be reached, and that is that a great number of men must be hanged and hundreds of thousands of acres of land must be confiscated. They say, that if Mr. Davis and General Lee had resisted the authority of the Federal Government at the head of fifty or a hundred men, they would unquestionably have been brought to trial, and that it only makes the matter worse that they were the leaders of many hundred thousands.

This statement they seem to think exhaust the argument. We do not propose to discuss these points. No reasoning would probably have any effect upon those persons who can see no difference between the most gigantic civil war on record and the John Brown raid, and who would, at the end of a prolonged contest, signalized on both sides by innumerable feats of heroism, have the Southern soldiers indicted for assault and battery, or trespass. We fancy that if any such soldier should be tried at Gettysburg for shooting at Federal troops in the memorable battles of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd of July, 1863, he would be pretty sure of an acquittal, if any Pennsylvania soldiers who participated in the fights should be upon the jury.

But our present business is with the future rather than the past. In view of the fact that proceedings have been initiated against the persons and property of many of the citizens of the Southern States, it behooves us to look at the effect of such a policy upon the prosperity of the country. The condition of the South is bad enough already. A new labor system is to be organized, railroads and manufactories are to be rebuilt, vast tracts of land which have relapsed into wilderness must be again enclosed and brought under cultivation, and all this is to be done by a people who are nearly bankrupt, and when the able-bodied part of the population has just been largely diminished by the casualties of war. At such a moment comes the rumor that the confiscation law is to be rigidly enforced. This is sufficient notice to eight-tenths of the property holders of the insecurity of their titles, and they feel at once that any further outlay of energy or money may be altogether wasted. Now, the North is, of course, looking to the South to pay her portion of the national debt; and it will be some time, under the most favorable circumstances, before the latter can respond to the demands of the tax-gatherer. What must be the result if a rigorous policy is insisted on which altogether checks the efforts her people are willing to make to restore their olden prosperity.

Again, it may be assumed that it is very desirable that the people of the two sections should live in harmony together. Proceedings have already been instituted in Richmond against the property of three hundred persons, and the officers of the law are daily bringing new actions. If the same course is pursued in all other judicial districts of the South, what must be the inevitable result? A bitter feeling of hostility will be engendered towards the North such as was never developed during the war, and hundreds or thousands of men will be driven to the extreme of recklessness and desperation. A great many patriots will say that Southern rebels deserve all that can happen to them. We do not intend to discuss that question either. We simply presume that the sensible men in the North desire, if only for the sake of their own section, the prosperity of the South, and that they wish to live amicably, if not in friendship, with their late foes. How can this be accomplished? Certainly not by creating a wide spread disaffection and despair throughout all the country stretching from the Potomac to the Gulf. The question at issue touches the pacification of a nation, and we earnestly submit that it ought not be determined by those who regard the matter in the light of a street riot.--Bult. Gazette.

Since the end of the war all our towns have been overrun with the negroes from the surrounding country, who have imagined that freedom gave them the right to live in idleness and be supported by the whites.

This idea was summarily put to flight a few days since by the arrest of all the idle colored men in town, and their being required to find and pursue some means of livelihood. This is a step in the right direction and Col. Stewart, the Commandant of this post, deserves credit for it. Unless they are made to labor there must necessarily be great suffering among this class during the coming winter. We trust that they may learn from the action of the Military authorities that they will not be allowed to live idle and dissolute lives, and may conduct themselves in such a manner as to secure profit to themselves and retain the kindly feelings of their former owners.

Mr. A. T. Maupin, the newly appointed Post-Master of our town, informs us that the Post Office will be opened on to-morrow, (Saturday,) and the mails will be carried regularly thereafter on the Valley route. He hopes soon to receive the mails by the Central Railroad, and will endeavor to have the mails resumed on all the diverging routes from this point at an early day.

He desires us to say that parties can secure boxes at $2 per annum payable quarterly in advance. Postage stamps are on hand now, and the latter part of next week he will receive a lot of internal revenue stamps, which parties can get by applying at the office. It may not be amiss to state, in this connection, that Notes, Bank Checks, Receipts for $20 and upwards, &c., &c., are not valid without a stamp is affixed, a failure so to do subjects the party giving check, &c., to a penalty.