The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1863-06-12
The Reign or Terror has Rec eived
Its Death Shock.

A>OeAsAA
1t is truly an epoch of startling events.
Yesterday, the outstretched arm of exec
utive despotism brandished a sword over
the heads Of the people of the free North,
threatening the destruction of every citi-
zen, protesting the manhood and patriot
ism to stand up erectly and aefy and de-
nounce the menace. That same hand,
which yesterday brandished the sword of
despotism, presents, to-day, the olive
branch of neighhorhood peace. What is
the reason Of this change? Has the Eth
opian changed the color of his skin?
Have the radicals suddenly become con-
verts to constitutional obligations? Not
so. Read in another column of this jour-
nal. the proceedings of the secret meeting
in the Court House at Chicago, for an ex-
PLANTATION of this sudden change.
The political fanatics, knaves and luna
tics, who, using the national administra-
ton as their guillotine, and military COM
manders as their executioners, had at
tempted to inaugurate new reign of ter
ror over the people in these loyal States,
suddenly discovered, at the moment when
they were about to demonstrate their pres
ent power, and Interior purpose, by decis-
i've outrage, that they were in the
perilous situation of their exemplar the
"honest. y blood thirsty Robespierre,
their historic exemplar-when he, with his
party leaders, was suddenly surprised in
the Hotel de ViNe, by an armed force in
tent on retribution. The Robespierreian
Chicago Tribune, its stockholders and sup
porters, just before SO triumphant and
jubilant over the suppression of the rival
Times, learned, with terrible suddenness,
that the guillotine, which, in violation of
law, they had suborned prohigate authority
to erect for the decapitation of others, was
about to be seized upon by an infuriate
mob, to be made the instrument of their
own slaughter They saw that the con-
tagious alarm for constitutional liberty,
originating in Chicago, was spreading from
man to man-from population to pop
ulation-and, if not Immediately ar
rested, would soon envelope the
whole North in one devouring flame of
popular Indignation. There was no time
to be lost. In moment it might have
been too late.
These leaders and instigators of Reign
of Terror, quailed themselves with terror.
They commenced barricading their 7rib-
une. They implored the protection
of that same military power which
they had just before used to sup
press their rival. In secret they met in
the Court House, and locked the doors, to
counsel together for personal safety. The
terrorists were themselves the terror
stricken. The constitutional guarantees
upon which-to clear the track of unholy
ambition-they have laid violent hands,
and cast over the precipice, left them up
on it's perilous brink, in imminent danger
of being thrust into the dark and deep
abyss of anarchy, by the vengeance-seek-
ing populace, which crowded them to its
EXTREMIST edge. One surge of the seeth-
ing mob would have plunged them into
perdition!
Here was crisis truly-the crisis of
impending death-a moment of which
taught them more practical wisdom than
they all had learned in their aggregate
lifetimes. The scene they presented is too
dramatic for editorial pen. 1t is a fit
subject for high art-for the historical
painter-an apt illustration for the politi-
cal philosopher. 1t will pass into history
as the decisive event of this war. It was the
9th Thermidor rather, the 18th Brumaire
of our great civil war-the beginning OF
the great reaction which will lead to peace,
reunion and stability; with this difference,
the terrorists are not made to suffer the
punishment they had decreed for others,
for the constitutional guarantees restored,
in the Providence of a just God, by
the means they devised for destruction,
have become their shield of protection and
safety, as well as the sanctions of civil lib
erty for all others.
But recurring to the revelations from
Chicago, of this great, decisive event in
our political history, the extortion of an
assent to magma charta from weak SOW
ereign, who echoes only the will of his
privileged favorites, We must again call
the attention of the reader to the man.
ner in which this was accomplished. The
terrorists, terror-stricken, beseech the aid
OF the most prominent Democrats Of Chi
cago, the men whom they had all along
denounced as ''copperheads, "as traitors;
q meeting is organized, SHERMAN, the
"copperhead, is made President. TULEY
the "copperhead Secretary; HIee1Ns,
the principal Tribune stockholder is there