The Daily Nashville true Whig. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1851-1855, 1855-08-10
FRIDAY MORNING. AUG. 10. 1855.
The Louisville Riot.

sions of the mob. Twenty or thirty Others
were wounded-some of them dangerously.
Several houses were set on fire, some of which
were burned to the ground. In popular
government, the maintenance and enforcement
of THE LAW is of. paramount obligation and
importance. The law may in some instances
operate harshly upon individuals, but in forci-
bly, resisting its requirements, we give the
weight of our power and example in such case,
to sanction similar acts on the part of Others,
tending to overthrow the very foundations of
all law and justice-al security for the rights
of person or property, save by the precarious
tenure Of mere physical force.
The maintenance of Law and order at the
BALLoT-Box is peculiarly sacred duty in the
estimation of every enlightened freeman. The
ballot-box is the depository of popular rights,
and, by the majesty of the law, should be held
alike free to the peaceable approach of every
legal voter. In this light, especially, do we
regard the example at Louisville with abhor-
renee and detestation, because it may lead to
similar acts of violence elsewhere, until the
the elective franchise in the Western cities
will become as demoralized and corrupt as in
the large cities of some of the Eastern States;
where the voter must push his way through
crowd of organized DULLES, or waive this his
most precious privilege as Republican citizen.
In New York, the Editor of the Express, Hon.
James Brooks, says he has repeatedly found it
necessary to go to the polls armed with pistols
NyinlaDpa vvbila
voting. We indulge these general remarks,
merely to express our profound convictions
that so far as the riot may have grown out of
forcible attempts, by members of either party,
to monopolize the polls, and obstruct by physi-
cal force the exercise of the right Of suffrage,
those who instigated or took the initiative
in such lawless acts of violence and outrage,
should be visited by popular sentiment aud
the law with the severest penalties.
Such attempts wherever made, should be
frowned down at once, and in the very outset,
by every good citizen, and their authors con-
signed by common consent Of public opinion,
to the ranks of the VIGOROUSLY vicious and
disgraced. Yet, when the assault has once
Deen mdue-lue law ueuou, duu lIo aHbilOllNg
set at naught-we know not any better way
than to promptly fight it out upon the ground,
be the consequences what they may. Better
this than to let the elective franchise, and with
1t the vital power of Government, pass to the
control of ruffians, hired DULLES, and their af-
flliated patrons or corrupt confederates.
But we cannot credit the charges to this
effect against the American party of Louisville,
upon the authority of the Louisville Courier,
quoted by the Nashville Union and American,
contradcted as it is by the Louisville Journal
of the same date, which asserts that: "The
riots were occasioned by indiscriminate and
murderous assaults committed by foreigners,
chiefly Irish, upon inoffensive citizens, peace
ably attending to their own business at some
distance from any Of the voting places ~
"that every act of bloodshed was begun by
foreigners" A public print which, like the
Courier, has been guilty of the mOnstrous in
consistency of displaying at its masthead the
names of the American ticket, Except for
Congress- while it made war upon the Ameri-
can organization, cannot of course, be regarded
as the most reliable authority to detail the
facts of exciting scenes like these, in which
that party is involved. 1t appears from the
Journals account that the foreigners were
prepared for murderous fray, as they were
found TO have supplies Of firearms and kegs
of powder slowed away in some Of their
houses Why this previous preparation p
The question naturally arises, for what fHT-
pose had they made these collections of arms
and ammunition2
The very violent, abusive, infamatory course
Of the Democratic papers in Louisville was
well calculated to arouse such extreme jeal-
Ousy, dstrust and hatred Of the American
party in the bosoms of the foreign population,
as would naturally lead to these acts of previ |
Gus preparation, and to exaggerated or ground |
less apprehensions of danger-and it seems the |
foreigners determined to repel it by a coup de
main in GdOanee! Such monsirous folly, to
call 1T by no harsher name, shows the sad |
want of Republican training and civil qualiii- |
cation on the part OF the misguided aggressors. |
We cannot wonder that the passions Of ig-
norant and impulsive men should be wrought
mp to the highest pitch by the violent appeals
made there and elsewhere, in the columns of |
the anti-American journAls-impressing them
doubtless, with the belief that the American
party propose to wrest from them their most
precious rights and privileges as American cit
liens; merely because, while Americans will |
protect rs sacred every vested right of the !
foreign-born citizen, they would prohibit .JiI- |
ture immigrants from possessing the power 20
exert a like deleterious influence upon the
policy Of our Government, and the destiny Of
our free institutions, with a large majority OF
those already among as. The plain and simple
TRUTH probably does not occur TO most of
these men--or If il does they do not appreei-
ate it with AN AMERICAN feeling-that the in
terests, rights and duties of native and natn-
rallied citizens are identical under the consti-
tuition, and CANNOT be destroyed in the one