Richmond Whig

PRESIDENT DAVIS' PROCLAMATION AT THE NORTH.

The Washington Chronicle (Forney's Organ) comments as follows upon the recent proclamation of President Davis':

We publish, this morning, a proclamation of the President of the so-called Southern Confederacy, aimed expressly and definitely at General Butler, our energetic commander at New Orleans: We think our readers will justify us in characterizing this as the most disgraceful paper yet issued by that greatest of Gascons, the Southern Confederacy. It is filled with misrepresentations and falsehoods, and upon that it bases a mean, brutal and cowardly revenge. We do not recollect a case where a great nation, such as the Confederacy claims to be, through its constituted representatives, has recorded in such unmistakable terms its hatred and terror of a single individual. The nearest approaches to it are the execution of Charles I. by the Roundheads, and the execution of Louis XVI. by the Jacobins; and those murders had some show of reason, because each of the victims was the head of the royalist party—the centre around which all the opponents of the rebellion rallied. But Gen. Butler is simply a subordinate, commanding a small department, obeying the orders of his superiors, and responsible to them.

We look upon this simply as a portion of a concerted movement on the part of the enemies of the Government, both North and South, to have one of our most efficient and able generals removed from a position where he is doing, perhaps, more damage to the rebel cause than any other connected with the Federal Government. For months the New York "World" and "Herald" have teemed with the grossest slanders upon Gen. Butler, and have clamored most furiously for his removal. The capture of New Orleans was the hardest blow the secessionists have yet received. The vigorous administration of Gen. Butler, and his eternal vigilance, which has prevented the enemy from either getting at him or getting out of his clutches, has exasperated them to the last degree. Every exertion in their power has been made to cry down his abilities and to blacken his fame; and last of all comes this bullying and undignified threat of Davis to hang him if he catches him.

This is only another instance of the desperation of the rebel cause. A Government that felt strong and confident would never descend to so petty an exhibition of malice and revenge as this document evinces. It is a proof of the terror which the emancipation proclamation of the President has struck to the hearts of the rebels.