Daily Nashville patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1860-1862, 1861-05-18
To the People Of Tennessee.
YOUR HOMES ARE In DANGER.
Rouse you to the Great Conflict.

Rouse you to the Great Conflict:
THE UNDERSIGNED REPRESENTA-
TIVES OF THE PRESS, secular and religious,
at Nashville, aware of the great Importance of
the hour, beg leave to speak to the citizens of
Tennessee. Eschewing all names and argu-
ments of the past, and uniting our voice in one
common accent, we desire to utter only such
words as shall cause the people of Tennessee
to realize their danger and the necessity of
concurrent, united action. Confident that
many of our citizens are not aware of the mag
nitude of the operations going on at the North
to subjugate the South, duty, patriotism, hui
mainly and the interest of this Commonwealth
all impel us to speak to you
w-CoUNTRYMENi We are in the midst
OF great revolution. The election of a Sec
tional Administration in November last gave us
all cause of apprehension for our institutions
IN the South The country waited with pa
tience for the words of the Chief Magistrate.
They came, and to the hopeful promised peacei
| The people of Tennessee loved the Union, and
| they were willing to peril life and fortune to
preserve its integrity. Five weeks ago all of
us were looking daily for the evacuation of
| Sumter. The news few on every wire that
such was the determination of Mr.. Lincoln.
What was our surprise and the surprise of the
whole country to find that, SO far from peace
| full evacuation, secret means had been used all
along for its reinforcement At this open
perfdy the whole land was shocked. Attention
was fixed on Mr.. Lincoln from that hour
Sumter has fallen. What then? The Abo-
litiOn Administration at Washington, contrary
to the Constitution, and by purely tyrannic
power, calls out IS, 900 men, and 1000 of them
from our own State, to repossess the Federal
| property and put down the rebellion. A new
call has been since made of $4,000 men,
all of which, with the regular army, con-
stitute a force little short of $50, 900 men.
These men are mastering and arming to-day.
But these are not one-half of those getting
ready for this unholy war on Southern men.
| The North is at blood-heat from Maine TO Ne
braska. Every city, village and county is in
arms. One continuous roll of drums sweeps
the land They outnumber the South more
than two to one. They boast of untold mil
lions of wealth, and exhaustless provisions at
command They are armed and equipped :;
| they have monopolized always the manufacture
of arms on this continent, and, besides this
while they were protesting peace two months
| ago to the South they had an agent in Europe
buying SOC, 900 more arms of the most ap-
proved pattern. These are being received by
every steamer. tE
| And what is the spirit that moves the vast
North? Revenge and hate stream through
every column of their journals. Cancellation,
peace and mercy are banished words. "War
to the knife" determination of the rebels, y
''crush the traitors" are the common forms of
| their expressions. The South is to be oyerrun
and crushed forever; her proud spirit broken,
her property confscated, her families scattered
and slaughtered, and then to remain through
| all time dependency on the ''free and SOW
ereign" North. Powerful armies of fanatics
and plunderers are to be quartered in our
quiet cities and towns in the South, debating
to US laws at the point of the bayonet, and the
slaves to be turned loose with more than saw
age atrocity on helpless women and children.
Every friend We had in the Northis silenced,
the entire press is against US, and the ministers
of religion, without distinction, are praying
for the ''boly cause.-The utter reduction of
the rebels At the bottom of all this lies the
insane idea, held by many of the leaders, that
it is their religious duty to exterminate slavery,
and make the ''irrepressible conflict" doctrine
universal. The men who have acted with and
| for the South-Pierce, Buchanan, Fillmore,
| Cas- Everett, and Dickinson-all have bowed
| before the torrent of fanaticism-all have left
US, and chime their voices in the fearful chorus
of Northern indignation. Aged ministers of
| the gospel, presidents of colleges, and editors
of religious newspapers, all without exception,
| so far as we know, urge on the maddened and
bloody populace. The vast North staggers I'M
der its load of wrath, waiting only for orders
from the usurper Lincoln to overwhelm the
South with blood and chains.
Countrymen Of Tennessee! Wesay not these
sad. things to excite you We have no inter
| est in this matter except as citizens of State
| we love, and now see threatened with the
fercest foes and the most fatal overthrow re-
| corded in history. Baltimore is to submit or
be laid in ashes. 1t is believed by military
men that Virginia is to be attacked by two
powerful armies-one from New York, one
/
laid waste, with its manufactures of arms
| Thirty thousand men are now quartered at
! Washington, 5000 at Cairo, and already they
have stopped the arms and provisions quietly
coming to our State. 1t is threatened that
a powerful army is to march down the
Mississippi, destroy Memphis and rendezvous
at New Orleans, while another marches on
Montgomery and Mobile.
| The horrors of serUiLe war are to be added
to the merciless butchery and plumber to be
carried on over the South by the vandal hordes
of the Northern cities.
People of tennessee If you could sit here
| in our offices and read all the journals of the
North, as We do, this letter to you would be
useless. But you cannot do this. Allow us,
therefore, to present to you some extracts from
leading Northern journals, showing you the
state of feeling there, the barbarous work they
anticipate, and the idea of complete subsection
of the South which runs through the entire
mind of the North. Read and prepared
! The Idea of Neutrality.
From the Ne10 York EUening PoSt.1
'sMen and brethren of the border States! 1t
| is no time now to split words. You must
choose between loyalty and treason. You can
not be neutral in war which is forced upon
the Union by that Unions most bitter and de-
termined enemies. If you could maintain
your neutrality, no words would express the
| scnrn in which the natrint soldiers of this no.