The Athens post. [volume] (Athens, Tenn.) 1848-1917, 1858-04-16
SOUTHERN DEMOCRATIC LEADERS.

| Southern Democratic leaders. We sincerely
believe (says the Columbus Enquirer) if they
were famed by ambrosa breezes, and their
appetites RECALLED with every thing pleasant
to the sight, the sound, and the touch, that
the demon of Disunion would still haunt
their imaginatons, and their chief business
would be TO make others fancy that they, too,
were as miserable us themselves. When their
appeals to the passions and prrjudices of their
hearers are treated with contempt, unable to
reason and ignorant of facts, they then at
tempt to CRAFTY their morbid propensties in
assigning false motives 10 those whom they
can not answer with words of soberness and
truth. They ignore the maxim of Jefferson,
that difference OF opinion may be tolerated
where reasen is left free to combat it," and
while they profess the most unboundrd tol-
erance for foreigners, they exhibit in their
actions disposition to extinguish every spark
of liberty of thought and sentiment among
those of their own kith and kin who differ
with them, and who are fully their equals in
talents, position and character. In England,
the people are free to express their honest
sentiments; il America, under Democratic
despotism, to dissent from the throne amounts
not only to a forfeiture of goods and chattels,
bread and butter, but, rs far az the impotency
of party malice will effect, it attributes what
ever motives n base heart ard a weak head
may suggest, and nssigas.to its victims any
amount of social and political degradation
Let distinguished Statesmen of their own
nish themselves with such contact,) differ in
the smallest matter iron the President, and
Immediately this tyranny over the conscience
is blazoned forth us an evidence of the sin
cerity and virtue of Democracy-"of loftiest
patriotism and exalted love Of country
These are the men who tnrn up their eyes in
holy horror at Southern American journals
and Southern American Representatives, be.
cause they are unwilling to shout for Presi-
dent who, according to their own admission,
| filings the "shell to the South and the oyster
to the North" These are the men who, be-
fore elections, boast loudly of their strength
and nationality, and with majority of forty
or fifty on joint ballot, and majority of
twenty-eight over all parties in the House of
Representatives, are now forced to call on
despised Wings and sldndered Americans, not
to save the country, but corrupt party from
utter run-aparty which again and again has
deceived both the Aoah and South, and
which has riveted the chains of IT'S own forg.
ing around the necks of Southern freemen,
even in the net which was urged as surety
Tor our political emancipation. Where, since
the supremacy of this motley band of Demo-
Gratis, Black Republicans and Disunonists,
have fled the spirits Of Clay, Calhoun and
Webster? Where, now, are the representa-
tves of that moral courage, that fidelity to
truth, that incorrupt patriotism and unswerv-
ing attachment to principle, which once made
our country loved at home and respected
abroad? Let the patriot look around and
hang his head in shame. Let Congress, turn
ed into a bear garden, answer. Let the re-
proaches heaped upon the haired patriot,
Crittenden, the almost sole survivor of a pur-
er generation of statesmen. awaken the atten-
ton and call forth the exertions of all con-
servatives as to the true condition into which
our country has been brought by Southern
Democratic leaders.
We commend the following, from the Bal
timore Daily Exchange, a new Democratic
paper, to some of our Southern journals:
at has become too much the fashion, lat
terly, to attempt to silence al! independence
of thought and action, all honest doubt and
scruplc, with hard names of unpleasant i'm
port-such as 'apostate,' renegade and 'irai-
tor Men can not so easily be whipped into
submission, or frightened into II sacrifice of
their own convictions of right and freedom of
Judgment Such spirit of intolerance and
prescription will infalibly beget a counter
split of resistance and opposition, which will
Administration now pending before Congress,
but will greatly weaken and cripple its power
and influence in the future. Whatever dis
position may be made of the Lecompton Con
stitution, we trust that cnlmer counsels and
more conciatory spirit may be suffered to
prevail in its consideration, and temper the
hot zeal OF fanatics and extremists on either
side"
A MoTHER's LovE.-Some of our readers
may recollect thrilling ballad which was
written on the death of woman who per-
ished in the snow drifts of the Green Noun
tains of Vermont. That mother bore an in
fant on her bosom, and when the storm wax
ed loud and furious, true TO mothers love,
she rent her own garments, and wrapped
then around her babe. The morning found
l. 4 L 1. 1