Rensselaer Union, Volume 3, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 March 1871 — Wood's Labor Lost. [ARTICLE]

Wood's Labor Lost.

It is ludicrously useless for the gentlemen who were the most notorious of the “ peace ” Copperheads during the war, to attempt to pose as patriotic Union men now. In a recent debate in the House of Representatives, Mr. Fernando Wood, whose faithful contemporary portrait is preserved in “ The new Gospel of Peace,” rose to inform Congress and the country that he was really the first man who had practically responded to the summons of the President. It was he who called the Union Square meeting. It was he and Senator Baker who made the speeches upon that occasion. It was he who raised the Mozart regiment, and paid for it money which has never been repaid to him. So ardent was his zeal, that it is only wonderful that he did not lead the regiment in person. Undoubtedly Mr. Wood made a speech at the Sumter meeting in New York, as certainly as he regretted to Robert Toombs that he could not send him arms to be used against loyal citizens. Undoubtedly he said, in Union Square, that the Union must be maintained, as cgptainly as he said, in a message to the Common Council, that the dissolution of the Union was inevitable. And undoubtedly, if Mr. Fernando Wood and bis friends could have had their way, the rebellion would have succeeded, and the government have been overthrown. Mr. Wood was too astute a politician not to surround himself at such a time with technical defenses to which he could recur in a pressing emergency; and he is now so wholly a political figure of the past that he is only useitil as an illustration. But the noble army of Copperheads may spare their pains. The people of this country know very well who were loyal. They have pot forgotten whose souls supported Abraham Lincoln in the stem trial, and whose tongues., biased treason and doubt. They remember very well whoso “friends” burned orphan asylums, and hunted negroes, and strove to array the city and the State of New York against the war. They may even recall Mr. Fernando Wood’s Peace Convention at Syracuse, as they do the speech of the WvrUT» great “War Governor,” Seymour, at the Academy of Music. Why do these modem Tories wince 1 Are they ashamed of their cause and of themselves? Tho Tories of the Revolution did not try to dodge history. The Woods and Valiandiy hams and Seymours of those days did not claim that they secured American independence, because they knew that their sympathies and attitude were well understood.

Let the Copperheads of the rebellion save their labor. They could as easily prove Abraham Lincoln to have been a rebel as persuade the country of their pwn loyalty. Who denounced the President at every step, and decried the policy of Congress as unconstitutional and anarchical? Who resisted every vigorous measure, and maligned every patriotic motive ? Who adopted with acclamation the surrender platform at Chicago, and pronounced the war for the Union a failure? Who sneered at the black soldiers, and canonized the rebel chiefs as Christian gentlemen ? Who were those for whose success at the election of 1664 rebels praved and rebel agents plotted? Mr. Fernando Wood and Lis political friends may have forgotten. But loyal hearts have long memories. And while they accurately recall the mien and tone of the Copperheads, they also perceive that the party to which thamen of that name now belong has not yet honestly accepted the result of the war, nor acquiesced in the settlement of the Union, and through its organs, derides those of the late rebels who have done both; white in Virginia, by a strict party vote, it orders a portrait of General Lee. Carrying water in a sieve is easy labor compared with that of proving the patriotism of a Copperhead. —Uatrper » Weekly.

Said a wine merchant to bin porter, whom he wanted to leave (a while) in his cellar, “ I’ll chalk your mouth, so I can tell if you drink any wine while I am gone, at the same time drawing his thumb nail over the man’s lips as though he were chalking them. The porter drank os much wine as he wanted, and then chalked his mouth so as not to be detected, and bv that means exposed himself to his shreu a master. ~ Thbv do business with dispatch in Texas. A man in a certain neighborhood, who had lost a valuable mare received the following by telegraph i M 14»» hw*. £ouw get her. Thief hung."

THE RENSSELAER UNION. Thursday, March 23, 1871,