The home journal. (Winchester, Tenn.) 1858-188?, 1866-10-06
'PrOgyessiye" and "RcactiOnary.'

Progressive" and "ltcactionary."
These are descriptive terms, says
the Union and Amirican, which we oh.
serve frequently used by Radicals. BY
the former they distinguish themselves
by the LITTER they describe the Conser-
vativcs. What do they mean? BY the
use of the first they intend to assert,
and it is the chief object Of that organi-
to maintain, that during the pc.
Rod from the commencement of the
WARM 1861 to its close in 1865, great
principles Of change in our institutions,
and in our views Of government were
established and set in operation that
many alterations were made by the
war, some deliberately and some by the
stern law Of necessity; that the work
of the war and the duty of those who
waged it on behalf Of the government,
is yet in progress that the abolition Of
slavery, the grand object of those who
melted strife, and aggravated the North
and the South into collision, is discov-
cred to be but the first step; that the
helpnessness of the defeated section,
and the vast power which they learned
to use in a state of war, invite them, rs
if at the beck of manifest destiny. to
pursue every new and fantastic idea
which may offer itself as a means of
aggrandizing governmental control
over the people, and retaining the pow.
err of government in their hands as the
chosen inaugurators of the new dispen-
saticn that the form and features of
the admirable system of government
which we inherited from the era of
1889, is not stable, but intended to he
changed to suit the views of different
generations Of men that the Constitu-
ton establishment well enough adap.
ted for the narrow capacities of the
men who administered the Government
in the first scvcnty-five years Of its eX-
istcnce, and for a people who had no
experience Of a civil war, but wholly
untitled to our new condition that the
shock of i%nternecine strife lid vastly
more, as n result, than to declare the
victors and the vanquishcd; that it had
the wonderful power to solve all the
obscure problems ofgovernmcnt which
have engaged the minds of statesmen
and sagcs for centuries that the track
of hurting cannon balls blazed out II
broad path-thc high road of progress,
leading to Utopia; and, that they are
the leaders to guide. and the masters
to drive the people therein. This is
political progrcssivcness.
What these men, who assume so
much Tor themselves, term tho ''reac.
tionary' party, is that body of C tizens
who hold the Constitution us it is in its
letter, and as interpreted by the COM
mentaries of the mel who formed, and
who during three quarters Of a ccntu-
ry Of mcxampled prosperity, made it
the guide of their conduct, to be the
inviolahle law Of the land, and the wi
sest chart Of Government ever adopted
for the security of liberty and its insti-
tutions who further hold, that the par
amount and only permissible object Of
the war, on the part Of the Govern
ment, was to maintain the supremacy
Of that instrument as it vas when those
in insurrection sought to release them
from its Obligations that the re-
suit of the war achieved that obj ect,
and that, barring the changes wrought
fouryears~ ofhostility, and which
were duly ratified and acquiescedi in by
all the people as inevitable, the Consti-
at the close Of the civil contest,
covered all alike, imposing similar du-
ties and responsibilities. and imparting
equal and similar rights that the only
guarantee for u safe emergcnce from
the pcrplexing questions left unsettled
by the war is a rigid adherance to the
rule of the Constitution; that it is I'M
wise and dangerous in the highest de-
gree to attempt to reconstruct the fun
damental law, when the public mind is
in m unsettled and anxious state ; that
it is high crime. exceeded in lagi-
tiousness by none in the history of
St,tcs, for a dominant political party to
dictate amendments to the Constitution,
as a prerequisite to the establishment
of the Union Of these States as the Con-
stitution ordains it; that such a policy
as not a true and wholesome progress,
but fragrant revolution, and is calcula.
ted, ifnot intended, to embroil thepeo
pie in another civil war. This is 20.
litical conservatism.
Between these contrary views the
people of this country are called to de-
eide. Upon the determination Mt which
they arrive, depend mighty and far
reaching results. The party of the
Constitution as it is, will lead us back
into the ways Of peace and prosperity.
The party which teaches the policy of
progressive innovations upon that in
strumcnt, and thinks to calm the pas
sions, and regulate the measures of
rights and the sphere of duties of thir.
ty or forty millions Of people by the
engraftment Of new and untried ideas
of social and political progress into
the organism Of our institutions, will
SOW the seeds Of future strife, and
the nation into new calami-
ties.
SPEAKING IN IrALIcs.-Of Richard
Martin, of Galway, a noted duelist and
member of Parliament, Mr.. Jerdan has
good anecdote. IA leading morn
ing journal incurred his ire by a report
Of his speech, and he waited upon the