Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1853-1862, 1859-07-20
WEDNESDAY mORNINc, july 20, 1856.
DEMOCRATIC FRIENDs!


sufficient time to secure such a triumph
as will place oppOsitionism in the
same grave TO which you have consigned
Know Nothingism. 1t was by hard aoork
that the Know Nothing party was de-
feated in 1855 and overwhelmed in 1857
We told you, in those years, that you had
the power 10 cast such a majority as
should bury Know Nothingism past all
power of resurrection. You ecerted that
poorer, and Know Nothingism became so
Odious that few men can now be found in
the State willing to avow that they took
its degrading oaths. You not only killed
the monster, but you buried its loathsome
carcass so deep that its stencil no longer
pollutes the political atmosphere. But
the men of that infamous organization still
live; live to plot new outrages on the
rights of the people under the name of
" the Opposition !" and live to have their
plots exposed and resisted by the Demo
cratic party. 1t is for the People of Ten
nessee, on the first Thursday Of August,
to mar that impious feast in which the
unprincipled Know Nothing Opposition
is indulging by anticipation, by record
ing the fate of this Opposition at the
ballot box" THOU ART WEIGHED IN THE
BALANCE AND FOUND WANTING ~
The work of ls55,-'56, and Y is again
required. Under the appropriate name
of the Opposition" the enemies of the
Democratic party are again in the field.
They propose to do nothing, except to
oppose the Democrats unless they call
their determination to place the Banks
above the control of the people and of
the Legislature doing something. They
talk of " economy" as impudently as
though they thought the people had for
gotten the reckless waste which has al
ways characterized their course when in
power, under whatever name; and of
honesty as though Burton, and Mosby,
and Cullom had never been heard of.
Their candidate for Governor has been
identified with almost every odious act of
legislation in the State for many years.
The friend and defender of chartered
monopolies, the enemy of the poor man
no politician in the State has more fully
acted up to the old federal policy that
the rich should be made richer and the
poor poorer--or as that party expressed
it-'' take care of the rich and the
rich will take care of the poor -
than JOHN NETHERLAKD. He is the fit
candidate of the party which profess
nothing but Opposition to Democracy"
his public record being an illustration of
genuine federalism, in all its ideas of
class legislation for the rich and against
the poor. The worst days of Massachu-
sets federalism could not have furnished
a more perfect embodiment of all those
odious doctrines which were resisted by
the Democratic party under JEFFERSON,
than is furnished in the person of the
Opposition candidate for Governor of
Tennessee. When, in addition to all
this, it is known, as it must be known to
all men of ordinary intelligence, that this
man is a candidate as an experiment
how far the people of the South will go
in fusing with the Opposition North,
which there means resistance to slavery"
every man may have an exact idea Of the
magnitude of the contest in Tennessee,
and of the disastrous result Of even
partial defeat of the Democratic party to
the cause of equal rights in our own
State, and of the equal rights of the
States in the Union.
We sincerely believe that the contest |
in which we are now engaged is second |
in Importance to none which has pre-
coded it in this State. 1t is important
even in its local aspect; for were the
Know Nothings to elect a majority
in the Legislature, the wise reforms in
stituted by the last Legislature in regard
To Banks, which have made coin and ex-
change at par, would be repealed, and
the people again placed at the mercy of
the Banks; while fresh brood, irrespOns-
ible to the people, would be chartered,
to food the State with their paper and
to suspend at their own will or caprice.
But it is in lis National aspect that our
brethren all over the Union are looking
TO Tennessee as the battle ground which
is to decide the fate of fusion. A diminu-
ton of the Democratic majority in Ten
nessee would be hailed by the Abolition
lists of the North as evidence that the
South is faltering. A victory, such as we
have it in our power to achieve, would |