The Athens post. [volume] (Athens, Tenn.) 1848-1917, 1857-11-20
TRUE AS PREACHING.
prom the ClarksviIle ChrOnicle,l

/
frequency of crime, says this country will
soon surpass the nations of the Old World,
In the number Of assassins and desperadoes.
This is true, and there is an obvious reason
why it should be so. The United States,
like all other countries, numbers amongst its
native citizens, a considerable proportion of
men whose education, associations, necess-
ties, and natural procliyiies fit them Cor the
preparation of all manner Of crime. But,
unlike all other countries, we freely receive
and foolishly invest with the rights Of citi-
zenship, and uuwisely pet and pamper all the
desperadoes Of Europe, whose crimes have
driven them from their native lands, or whose
inclinations lead them to our shores. Thus,
in addition to the number of native crimi-
nails, and those who are fitted TO become
such, we are cursed with the thousands dis
gorged upon US from the prisons and poor
houses of Europe and Asia. And this evil
is increasing with fearful rapidity. Vice
spreads, like smallpox, by contagion. and
every desperate from Europe, by association,
educates some native for his own caree. Of
crime; and by constant Importation and con-
sequent accelerated native increase, our coun-
try has become a Botany Bay, without its
salutary regulations, and political disfran-
chsements. niHai
| Every other Government, save our own,
confines the sacred rights of citizenship to
its native-born; and whilst il may tolerate
the alien and bring him under the shelter of
its penal code, he is not permitted to exer-
else those high privileges which pertain to
the government of his adopted country
The right TO govern, is inherent in the ma
tives Of the country, and should be held as
sacred as the right of the child to inherit the
estate of the father. But here it has ever
been, judic;ally, declared that the foreigner
has better title to the rights of citizenship
than the native, and the Congress of the ma
ton has decided thar the alien, in the terri.
tories, is equal to the native citizen in all that
pertains to the administration of the govern
ment. These acts are so many invitations to
the adventures of Europe to crowd to our
shores-so many incentives to corrupt in.
dietary to violate the naturalization laws-so
many inducements to the vile demagogue to
court the foreign herd-so many examples of
corruption to weaken the impulses of virtue
embolden the viciously inclined, and harden
the criminal
In government, like this, where the PEG.
pie are the source of power, you can not cor.
rupt that source without infusing the poison
throughout the body polite. Corrupt elect.
ors make corrupt officials, and the two act
and react upon each other with constantly
increasing capacity for evil until the govern.
ment must die of moral gangrene, or owe its
renewed vitality to the stringent power of
revolution. Our government is, at this mo-
ment, in q state of rapid decay. The Presi.
dent and his stipendaries administer il, not
for its honor and prosperity, but to secure its
succession to another swarm from the same
party hive. A partizan Judiciary is made
quate to the stern duty of furnishing the
guilty; ignorant and venal juries step be-
tween the law and the criminal, and rotten
public sentiment, by conniving at every NOR
al enormty, fosters all that is evil, and crush
es most that is good in mans nature. Is it
any wonder, then, that every species of vice
and crime is on the increase? Who rebukes
their growth? Not the politician, because
he is one Of the guilty, and fattens as they
grow. Not the judge, because he is q parti-
zan and dare not offend the meanest voter,
lest he lose his office, or if he make an occa.
siona display Of indignant virtue, it is at the
expense of some friendless poor devil who
has no influence to dread--no friends to Of
fend. These, and other causes, suffice to de-
grade any people on earth, and il is a striking
proof of the purity of our original stock that
crime is not far more abundant. All the
criminals the country has produced, and all
it has imported, have not yet sunk US lower
in the scale than some o: the European ma
tons; but even this consolation will not
long be ours; the causes are in active opera.
tion-continualy gathering force, whilst the
powers of resistance are continually dimin-
ishing.
eY- Here is little bit of philosophy for