The Athens post. [volume] (Athens, Tenn.) 1848-1917, 1855-09-28


shall depend upon his station for his charac-
ter and reputation, at home and abroad. AS
we have somewhere told our readers, the no.
ton principles and not Men, is false notion,
and has done us incalculable injury. Prin-
ciples and Men are reliable; the lack of either
is ruinous. The President of these United
States should be man of experience, of de-
cision, of firmness, of far.seeing sagacity, of
great prudence, of unboundcd integrity, and
possessing the confidence of the people,
These qualities, we think, are combined in
Willard Fillmore, and he is our preference for
the Chief Magistracy in 1856"
ny- Week before last we published an ac-
count of an attempt to introduce party poll
tics into the Court and Jury rooms at Madi-
sonville. Aswe knew the democrats of Mon
roe county, with the exception of some half.
dozen of the more violent sort who were in
strumental in getting up the matter, were
heartily ashamed of it and disavowed any
connection Herewith, we had not intended
to allude to the subject again. But the Cleve-
land Banner of last week, having misrepre-
sented us, we must be allowed to correct
the errors and misstatements of that print
In the first place, the Banner says, we visited
the offending grand juror with a column Of
abuse, and charges that we are in the habit
oftreating people who have no papers through
Which to defend themselves, in that way
Now all we said about the grand juror wa,
comprised in less than twenty-five lines;
and instead Of pouring it down on the poor
fellow to the tune of column" to quote the
expressive and characteristic language of the
Banner, the hardest thing we did say of him
was, that he was "a well.enough meaning
man, without any remarkable degree OF
astuteness," and that it was, perhaps, fortu-
nate for posterity, Tint he did not live in
Buncombe county, in the neghborhood of old
Billy Jones, the fool-killer. Under the same
circumstances we would say the same thing
Of the editor of the Banner, or any other of
those terrible fellows who are so fortunate as
W nave llitfs 70 uciCuu bhoHrciNcs.
The charge that we assail persons who are
not in a position to reply, is entirely gratui-
tous and without semblance of foundation.
No paper in this State has more religiously
abstained from assaulting private individuals,
and none that dabbles in politics at all has
treated opponents with more liberality and
fairness and this DO one knows better than
the Banner man. Instead of castigating
and reprmanding them in terms commensu-
rate with their monstrous political sins and
oflashing them as we might
have done, and as their fagitious and un-
grateful conduct frequently merited-we have
overlooked the provocation, and like other
good men engaged in Just cause, have
sought by kind words and gentle arguments
to win the transgressors back to the paths of
patriotism and correct principles, from which
their blind guides had so far led them astray.
That we have not been more successful, was
no fault of the teaching, but owing entirely
to the perverse and vicious character Of the
material we had TO work upon, being Of that
description generally which prefers darkness
to light.
But to be serious. In regard to the affair
at Madisonville, our notice of which seems to
have created very profound sensation In
the neighborhood of the "Banner" office,
and to have elected a more serious article
than we usually meet with from that direction,
many democrats present were unsparing in
their condemnation of It, denouncing the
grand juror in language that we cannot re-
peat in our columns without giving offence =
For ourself we had no other feeling for the
man but that of pity, and should not have al
luded to the subject at all but for the fact that
we know he was not the author Of the inter-
rogatories--that the matter had been talked
Of weeks before-was cut and dried for the
oceasion-that it was not prompted by a real
sense of duty, or an honest seeking after truth
but was the offspring Of little low, dirty
contemplate party prejudice, that any sane
man ought to be ashamed Of Torebuke the
fell spirit Of party malevoence and prejudice,
which is daily becoming more rampant and
abusive, and which would not only destroy
social relations, create discord and ill.feelings
between neighbors, but even invade our halls
of justice, assail the Judge on the bench, and
enter into the verdcts Of juries-t was to re-
Duke this fell spirit, thus manifested, that we
introduced the matter into our columns, and
not, rs the Banner charges, for the purpose OF
castigating the simple instrument used on the
occasion. And we think the Banner would
be much more commercially employed in as
sistng us to put down and Danish the vile
spirit Of prejudice, fraught as 1t is with so
much mischief, instead Of encouraging it by
eomplimenting those who are trying to bring
iG to bear in all the relations Of life. He
would run no danger Of making himself 10
dicorous" by sueh course, and less Of hav'
ing the correctness Of his motives questioned.
tN- We arc unable to account to our
friend ut Pikcville for the non-arrival of his
paper. If the oversight occurred here we
will see that il is not repeated. We hardly