Daily Nashville patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1860-1862, 1860-11-03
A rreasonabIe movement.


As we have previously announced
secret political organization, hatched in trea-
son and brought forth in iniquity. known as
the minute Men, has been inaugurated in
our midst. We have heretofore refrained
expressing our opinion regarding this move
ment, because we knew nothing Gifts objects
and purposes, save from such indefinite in
formation as we have been able to CLEAN from
the conflicting representation Of party
press We are now cogniZant of the design
for which it has been set upon foot, aud shall
speak of it in Just such terms as 1t may
merit. Its avowed object, we are told, is the
dissolution of this Confederacy in the event
of Abraham Lincoln's election to the Presi-
dencyl The disrupting the ties of govern
ment, the Inauguration of civil war, blood
shed, aud fraternal strife, throughout the fair
land of the Sunny Sonth, because forsoOth
man, who holds opinions hostile to slavery, IS
elevated as au impotent puppet into offlcial
station shorn of bis power by the impregna-
BILE restrictions ofthe OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
of his influence by an incorruplible Judiciary
and paralyzed in the exercise of any lille
climate prerogative. down to the most III
significant and petty appointment to office,
by both Houses of Congress, a majority of
whose members are now known to be friend
Iy to the South Under these circumstances,
we would feel ourselves, recreant to duty
and disloyal to the country under which
we live, did we fail TO raise our voice
against this REASONABLE m e m e t. We
claim. not less than the most rabid and
extreme of Southern zealots, to love our ma
tive South, and are first among the foremost
to point out the danger when we see it fore
BODIED by evidences of an intention to ignore
our rights and repudiate the guarantees
which we claim under the Constitution. But
while this is so, while we are Jealous for the
integrity of the Union; jealous lest infrac-
tions and encroachments should be made
upon it by the ruthless hand of sectional par
tisansbip; Jealous lest its sacred ark should
be despoiled by ambitious men for the ac-
complishment of their nefarious purposes, we
shall not be backward in denouncing treason
to this Government, come n whatever flattering
disguise the ingenuity of political tricksters
may manage to cast about 1t. t.4-4t
It is the most ridiculous folly to speak
about the dissolution of this Union when no
infraction of the Constitution is eUen alleged!
when an abolition President has been elected
by the seditious conduct of mutineers, who
dissolved aud disrupted the Democratic party
because of their diabolical maLignuy against
man After they, by their own unjustiiable
conduct, have brought about the direful ca
lamity, they have the brazen- faced insolence
to denounce men who. having forewarned
them of it months in adudnce, now refuse 10
have collar of submission buckled upon
their neeks, and with servility, which would
disgrace the hireling parasite OF impersona
ted tyranny, be led By them into the indorse-
ment of their reasonable schemes We tell
them now, that if this result be brought
about at all, the pen of that historian, which
fails to nail the responsibility upon the am
bilious place seekers who dissolved The Dem
ocratic party at Charleston and Baltimore, it
will do violence to trlth itself, and utterly
belize the history Of the times.
For these reasons we desire to see no secret
political organizations, inaugurated under
the cover of night. for the purpose of carry
ing out an object that they dare not defend in
open daylight. 1t too much resembles the
galvanized project of reouperated kHo1o moth
ingisn, skulking aboutin dark allies and secret
club houses, bearing dark lanterns and muz-
zled mouths, with grips, signs and passwords.
If it be honorable in its design, why make it
a clandestine conclave? Why not hold lis
meetings with open doors, that all may see for
themselves before being LassOed and inveigled
into its traitOrous deliberations? These are
questions that must be answered SATISFACTORY
ly, before this 'strange god" that is brought
into our political temple, can receive homage
from the honest and loyal yeomanry of Ten
nesSee. We are glad TO announce that so far
as we have heard, its attempted engraltment
upon our Union-lOving city has proved an
unmitigated failure. Gentlemen of integrity
and high respectability, who have been pub
lished as members because they merely visited
80 the lodge" have declared that the use OF
their names in connectsOn with the concern
was unauthorized. The press of the city,
save The journal which supports the candidate
of the disunion party, have, we believe, been a
unit in announcing it. Our advice to all men,
particularly the young, is "touch no, the un-
clean ing''-Aem. App.