Alexander II.
and Abraham. I.
--There have been for some weeks continual rumors of an alliance, offensive and defensive, between these potentates.
We know not what truth there may be in these rumors, but if identity of position and congeniality of taste be in any wise promotive of such alliances as that in question, we should regard it as the most probable thing in the world.
Alexander, with all the pomp and circumstance of boundless power, is but a splendid semi barbarian after all. Abraham has had no opportunity to become civilized, having spent the best part of his life among flat-boatmen, or splitting rails and drinking whiskey on shore.
Alexander, in his instructions to
Count Mouravieff,
Governor of the
Lithuanian Provinces — not the gallant officer who captured Kars, but a distant relation — directs him "to acquaint the peasants with the paternal intentions of the Czar towards them, and to demonstrate that the landholders are their enemies and oppressors." Abraham issues a proclamation denouncing all slaveholding, and informing the negroes that their masters are their natural enemies.
Mouravieff is directed to furnish the peasants with arms, that they may slaughter the land-holders.
Abe's officers are directed to form the negroes into regiments and battalions. --
Alexander directs
Mouravieff to proceed with the greatest rigor against the
Catholic clergy.
Abe's officers imprison the
Catholic clergy, no doubt by his directions, whenever they suspect them of a feeling in favor of the
Confederacy.--
Mouravieff is directed to have a list of the suspected cleargy.
Butler had a similar list, and was applauded by Abe.
Alexander, directs
Mouravieff to pursue the most energetic measures against the Catholics.
Doubtless Abraham directed
Butler to do the same, or at least never reproved him for the outrages he perpetrated upon that class of what he thought fit to call offenders.
Alexander-directs the chief of the rebels to be shot if they are taken.
Abraham's friends boast that he means to hang
President Davis and
Gen. Lee.
Alexander directs
Mouravieff to "adopt measures against families having friends in the ranks of the insurgents." The policy of Abraham in this respect is identical.
In the barbarous acts which have followed in
Poland and the
Confederate States, the instructions of their respective chiefs there is a striking resemblance.
The Cossacks slaughtered the wounded, after the battle of Mirabel, until becoming tired of the exertion they buried them while still alive.
The
Yankees permitted our wounded men to lie for days upon the field of
Gettysburg, without succor, whereby they perished by scores.
If a man gives a glass of water to the Polish insurgent prisoners he is sent to
Siberia.
If a man offer a Confederate soldier a cigar, he is sent to
Fort Delaware.
The
Russians dig out the eyes of their prisoners, fill the sockets with alcohol, and set it on fire.
The
Yankees immure their prisoners in filthy dungeons, like the hole of
Calcutta, and leave them to die of suffocation.
The
Russians flog the Polish women.
The
Yankees shoot the
Confederate women.
The partizans of
Russia in
Poland induced a party of Poles to lay aside their arms under the pretence of friendship and murdered them all. The
Yankees violate a solemn cartel, and keep their prisoners in their filthy jails, in violation of their pledged faith.
The
Russian authorities hold a man's wife and children responsible for him. The Yankee General,
McNeil, murders ten men because one missing man cannot be found, and, a few days after, the missing man is found.
Mouravieff boasts of having shot one Catholic priest and imprisoned a number of others.
At
Vicksburg the soldiers entered the church, carried off the vessels, desecrated the premises, and insulted the priest, who is still in imminent danger.
The
Russian officers encourage the peasants to murder the land owners.
The Yankee officers encourage the negroes to murder their masters.
Numbers of persons have been murdered by the peasants in Lithuania.
A whole family was murdered by the negroes in
Tennessee.
But it is unnecessary to push the parallel further.
It is natural that brutes should sympathize, and that Abe and
Alexander should form a "Holy Alliance" against civilization.
They are both engaged in the congenial task of destroying a brave people, and both rule over a race of abject slaves.
No where on earth, save in
Russia, can the
Yankees find sympathizers, far less alders and abettors.
For a detail of
Russian barbarities the reader is referred to another column of this day's paper.
They are atrocious enough to make the blood run cold; yet they do not surpass those which have been perpetrated by the
Yankees upon our own people.
The invitation to the serfs to murder their masters, and the promise to put arms in their hands for that purpose, are not more atrocious than the conduct of
Lincoln and his officers with respect to our negroes.
In one point of view, a far better excuse presents itself for
Alexander than can be found for
Lincoln.
Alexander is a hereditary despot.
The Poles are his subjects by right of conquest, at least he has been educated to think them so.
Lincoln is the head of what purports to be a Republic, and the people of the
Confederate States never were his subjects, and therefore are not rebels.
Alexander is acting upon a conviction that he is but sustaining the just rights of his Empire.
Lincoln is prompted by sheer wickedness — by the desire to humiliate and enslave a free people, upon whose allegiance he has no claim whatever.