The Western Democrat

ARRESTED FOR DISLOYALTY.—The Rev. R. J. Graves, a Presbyterian preacher living in Orange county, was arrested last week by a Confederate officer and conveyed to Richmond. It appears that Mr. Graves had recently returned from the North, and we suppose the Government has sufficient proof against him to justify his arrest.

We see that members of the "conservative" party at Raleigh are engaged in denouncing President Davis and calling him a tyrant for making this arrest, but that will not hurt the President, and we hope it will not deter him or his officers from apprehending spies and suspicious characters. We regret to see that Gov. Vance directed the Mayor of Raleigh to watch at the depot and arrest the Confederate officer who had Graves in charge, and hold both for examination at Raleigh. But the officer and prisoner had already passed on to Richmond. If the Governor wanted to investigate Mr. Graves' conduct, it would have been better to have instituted proceedings at Richmond and not direct the Mayor of a town to interfere with the Government officers for arresting a man against whom charges of disloyalty were pending. It is probably fortunate for the Mayor of Raleigh that he did not find the Confederate officer. If the State Government is determined to come in conflict with the Confederate Government then there will be two hostile parties in the State, a thing we should regret to see. The Confederate authorities should be permitted to arrest suspicious persons no matter where they are found. The people will sustain Gov. Vance in all proper acts, but we shall be much surprised if they justify any interference with Confederate officers while they are trying to rid the country of dangerous characters. One revolution at a time is enough.

The fact that Mr. Graves is a Minister is nothing in his favor, when it is remembered how meanly some of the Ministers at Wilmington, Newbern and other places deserted the South at the commencement of the war.

The Raleigh Register, speaking of the arrest, says:

"This Mr. Graves was the author of a letter which appeared some time since in the Richmond Enquirer, and in which he gave an account of a visit to the North, and a glowing description of the great prosperity of that country, and its indomitable determination to subjugate the South. We thought at the time that it was a most extraordinary production, and so stated to several gentlemen. Mr. Graves is, we learn, a Canadian by birth and education, and has been but a short time a resident of this State. It is not true, as we learn, that he was imprisoned at the North. On the contrary, he was permitted to go to the North by Gen. Dix, where he remained a month. Since his return home he has, as we are informed, been boasting of the kind treatment he received from the Northern people, and using language well calculated to bring down upon him strong suspicion that he is anything but a man who should be permitted to go at large in the South."