Daily Nashville patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1860-1862, 1861-09-04
From the Louisville Courier Of Monday
The Turning PoInt.-The Meeting Of

the Legislature
The Legislature meets to-day; and thu
action of the Represen tatives OF TIE peepi,
will determine one of the great question:
in which the people are SO vitality inter
ested-the great question of peace or war
The Union State Convention which as
sembled in this city in January last tool
ground against any attempt to compel the
seeded States to return to the Union; and
every Union" man in the State Endorsed
the position.
The last Legislature formally resolved
against coercion, and proclaimed that Ken
lucky would make common cause with til,
South in resisting any invasion of the soil o
the South, at all hazards and to the last ex
tremity, whenever armed men should be sen
into the slave States with a view to coercine
into obedience to the Federal Government
such States. Eighty-seven members of th,
House voted for these resolutions and bu
six against them.
Still later in the session, on motion of Mr.
J. K. Goodloe, the following resolution wa:
unanimously adopted, to-wit:
Resolved, That we protest against the ust
of force or coercion by the Federal Govern
ment against the seeding States, as unwise
and inexpedient, and tending to the destruc
ton of our common country.
Kentucky was opposed to the war: and
after the Presidents proclamation inaugural
ing the conflict, the whole people felt and
said that upon his Sead rested the RESPONSE
bility for whatever consequences might fol.
low. Speaking for the most ultra wing Of
the Submission party, the Journal thus said
of that procla nation
Since writing the paragraphs above, the
teiegraphic report of the Presidents procla-
nation has reached US. We are struck with
mingled amazement and indignation. The
policy announced in the proclamation de-
serves the unqualified condemnation of every
American citizen. It is unworthy not mere
ly of statesman but of man. 1t is a
policy utterly hair-brained and Iuinous. II
Mr. Lincoln contemplated this policy in the
inaugural address, he is GUILTY dissembler;
if he has conceived it under the excitement
raised by the seizure of Fort Sumter he is a
GUILTY hot-spur. In either case he is
miserably unfit for the exalted position in
which the enemies of the country have placed
him. Let the people instantly take him and
his administration into their own hands if
they would rescue the land from blOodshed
and the Union from sudden and irretrieVable
destruction.
A few days later, pending the election for
delegates to the Border Slave State Confer
ence, the State Executive Committee for the
Union party issued an address to the people
of Kentucky relative to the position they
then thought she ought to occupy, and that
which she might be called upon to take. in
which they said
The Government of the Union has appeal
ed to her to furnish men to suppress The rev.
dictionary combinations in the Cotton States.
She has refused She has most wisely and
Justly refused. Seditious leaders in the midst
of us now appeal to her to furnish men to
uphold those combinations against the Gov
eminent of the Union. Will she comply with
this appeal Ought she to comply with it ?
We answer, with emphasis, no.
If a conviction that the policy of coercion
is wild and suicidal, promising only to del
uge the LAID in blood and dissolve the Unioh
in the crimson tide, is good
reason, as it is, for Kentucky to withhold her
and aid from the effort of the
Government to suppress by force the reyo-
lutionary combinations OF the Gulf, surely
her allegiance, undimmed as yet by solita-
~ blur, her own sovereign interest and the
all but equal interest of the combatants
themselves in the maintenance of her pres
ent independent relations towards both of
them, and, finally, the sacred and oveTarch-
ing interest of the national peace and of the
national life, are good reasons, nay. unan-
swerable and decisive ones, for Kentucky, as
the case now presents itself, to decline to
draw the sword in behalf of the seeding
States against the Government of the Union.
Kentucky could net comply with the appeal
Of the Government without outraging her
solemn convictions of duty and without
upon that natural sympathy with
the seeding States which neither their con-
tempt for her interest nor their dislOyaity to
The Union has sufficed to extinguish. She
,ould not comply with the appeal of the sedi-
Lious leaders in the midst of US without sui
ying her unspOtted loyalty, destroying her
most vital interests, quenching in the blood
Of her own sons the last hope OF re-estabilsh-
ng the Union, and lashing her free destiny
amidst the clash and Jury of arms, to the
chariot wheels of the Gulf Alliance. She
ought clearly to comply with neither the one
appeal nor the other. And, if she be not
smitten with judicial blindness, she will not.
The present duty of Kentucky is to maintain her
present INDEPENDENT position, taking sides not
With the Government aud not with the seced-
ng States, but with the Union against them
both. declaring her soil to be sacred from the
hostile tread of either, and, if necessary,
light arm. And, to the end that she may be
ully prepared for this last contingency. we
would have her arm herself thoroughly at the
earliest practicable moment
What the future duty of Kentucky may
De, we of course cannot with certainty fore
zee; but, if the enterprise announced in the
of the President should at any
ime hereafter assume the aspect OF war fer
he overrunning and subjugation of the Sc
;eding States through the full assertion
herein of the national jurisdiction by a
standing military force, we do not hesitate to
Jay that Kentucky should promptly unsheath
Tor suard in hahaIf MT what will have then
become her common cause. Such an event,
it should occur, of which we confess there
loes not appear to us to be rational proba-
,ility, could have but one meaning-a mean
ng which people jealous of their liberty
would be keen to detect, and which a people
worthy of liberty would be prompt and fear
ess to resist. When Kentucky detects this
in the action of the Government,
he ought, without counting the cost, to take
p arms at once against the Government.
Until she does detect this meaning she ought
o hold herself Independent of both sides,
nd compel both sides to respect the inviola-
ility of her soil. The portentous meaning
o question is not observable at this time.
nd we believe it never will become dicerna-
lie. We, however, deemed it fit, in consider
ton of all the extraordinary features of the
ime, to anticipate this possible contingency.
The doctrine of neutrality, of honest and
enuine neutrality. was adopted by an over
majority of the people of the
tate. as was made apparent by all their acts |
nd votes and demonstrations, and however
eluctantIy, it was accepted and, in good !!
nth as the policy of the State by those who
ad most strongly advocated and urged
mother course.
Recognizing the right of the State to de-
End her position in the contest, the people |
nd the authorities of the Confederate States
ave most religiously and faithfully respect
d the neutrality of Kentucky, doing nothing
nat can be honestly or fairly construed into
violation in word or act of that position.
ioy. Harris of Tennessee, on the appearance
f the neutrality proclamation OF Gov. Ma
offin, wrote to that gentleman assuring him
nat, as in the past, the State of Tennessee
Iould do nothing to disturb the friendly re-
atoms that had so long existed and should |
ontinue to exist between the people of the |