New-York daily tribune., 1862-11-07
TOCNBS AND GENTLEMEN WHO
MAKE REVOLUTIONS.


it necessary, according to tho barbarian of the
epoch, to put to death the chief MOBILES who
had sided with Brutus; and accordingly some
three hundred met their fate at his hands
ave are the gentlemen of this land" says
Tombs: " and gentlemen always make revou-
tiOns." That was true in the time of the
Second Casar; who deemed it proper after
victory to execute cspitally three hundred gen.
tlemen out Of many millions Of foes Having
disposed Of the chiefs--the gentlemen who al-
ways make revoutiOns-he could afford TO let
such of the middle-class and low-yed mob as
had supported them lire iu disgrace. degrade
tion or slavery. So. too, julius Cgsar, after
a Gallo revolt only punished capitaly fifteen
hundred of the +. +. F's. aud thereafter
treated tie Gauls kindly"
We are reminded Of these historical facts,
that few gentlemen put out Of the way after
victory, whether in Italy or Gaul, and the
work Of subjugation was achieved. The gen
tlemen who sought to make the revolution
being overpowered, the popuace submitted.
The fossil readings Of the Southern "gentle.
men " bsve, by their own declarations, induced
them to initiate the revolutionary gentlemen
or mobiles of other times. But they only read
part of history. 1t is true that gentlemen
always make revolutions. But then sometimes
gentlemen, as we have shown, try to make revo-
lutions and fail utterly, and then -
Why. then, according to the very history
which Mr.. Toombs quotes generally, gentlemen
No. j, who lose the stakes, are considered by
gentlemen No. ., who win the stakes, as bad
lot, and are seyerally spitted, crucihed or
hung, drawn, and quartereJ, according to the
butcher-esthetics of the times. This part Of
tho programme hs.OricO-p philOsophic Toombs
has quite overlooked. Toombs should have
remembered that he who would rend the oak
mrs think Of tie rebound, and thh every
medal has its reverse, and then the great
Georgian would have qualified his statement in
this wise:
]. Gentlemen make revolutions, when they
do make them.
2. When they try and fail to make them,
then they are at the mercy of other gentlemen
who oppose their rotary tastes.
8. These other gentlemen, holding it to be
an rrefragable canon of the historic muse,
that gentlemen always make revolutions, viii
BOT allow gentlemen TO blunder at the business
without paying a penalty, aud so hurl them to
the Hades without benefit Of clergy.
What has been, oh ToOmbs, may be again.
Il may De that the gentlemen down South may
simply fail In their estimate Of making a revO-
lutioD. What then Should the fall OF the
gentlemen be as los as the ambition was lofty
Would you, Toom5s, be content to be gathered
unto your fathers IN after years as q parioned
convict, pitied and unhung traitor Would
you not rather fa.l on your sword, BrUtus-like, 1
or one Of those bayOnets which ex-Moyor Wood
teleglsphcd his tears about not being able to
send yOul We think you would TOqmbs. .
Such splendid lines Of unmeasured poetry rs
you er't Afforded a delighted world Of the -. f.
cdp'a'-tbe low overseer, aud the lover dough .
face, about your driving your slaves in the
cOrn-fclds OF Ohio, aud reading the roll of
them under the shadow of Bunker Hill. These /
would haunt you, oh ToOmbs, as rats do gen.
tlemeu laboring under deliriua treciens; aud
you would howl TO the Georgian gods to lie,
you die.
Aud then, that other point, Toombs, of the
argument; the people are, according to you,
mere putty, mud-pies, for your manipulation;
and your twistings and turnings Of them being, /
let as suppose, brought to end by a slight |
error in your calculation, would they play OF
their own accord solos on the Ixion.wheel Of
war Certes, Toombs, if they have 10 more
power than Barnum's Happy Family to make
revolutions. the gentlemen being secured and
punished, they will not 90 on in tie circle of
subllmated folly and suffering alone. They will
not--by your own showing. You, Toombs, have
ruled them out as human agents as regards
motive power in making revolutions. You
gentlemen are the power. Take away the
power and how can they-the masses--continue
to move 1t is all mighty fine to talk of the
South being united to mao, and that all
classes agree in fighting or working, or pray
ing, or swearing for. or drinking success TO, the
cause OF destroying the Union. II is utterly
impossible for the ignorant masses of the
South, the one hundred thousand in Viryinia
who can neither read nor write, and the
thirty thousand in South Carolina who have
similarly overlooked that part of education
which relates to letters, to hold together
as Rebel forces, the Toombs gentlemen
being driven promiscuOusly into nameless holes
and corners, or apprehended by the Union
forces. The South, Toombs, by your own
showing is defeated if the gentlemen are de-
feated. And how many Of these heavenly or
dere are there z What nroncr.;on do tbev hear