Brownlow's Knoxville Whig. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1866-1869, 1866-06-20
War ar Peace

Whilethe distractions ofthe time make the grayest
Of problems in their solution there can be out Two
parties and every man should ask-not, which party
is without objection, but-which is safer ior the
country? The tendency TO ask otherwise Is grea1
even in undstracted periods and IN reference 10 tne
| National Government alone but that tendency is
| now immensely increased especially IN MISSOURI
| where we have 70 meet exciting State as well as
National questions. The intelligent patriot here
under peculiar obligation to choose his party after
| The most comprehensive survey, and on broadest
| grounds.
of nartes has been of intellectually more importance
than the specific ends which they have proposed
The specified object of the Breckenridge party was
then to elect Breckenridge but its annus was trea-
son. involving rebellion in the event of failure The
awful result shows how far more momentous, for
veal or woe is the spirit than the avowed object of
party
The so-cslled Conservative party is rallying to
choose the next President. War leaves men reader
for war; if less able for it. than before. It is
more necessary than ever to study the spirit of a
party. We affirm that the spirit of the Conserva-
tive party points and would lead back TO war, and
that of the Republican party only forward to peace
The Republican platform is for safe conditions
precedent to Southern restoration, and the Conser
vative is denial that conditions can be imposed.
The Republican spirit is to leave the decision of this
question to the people of the loyal States who have
had to be THE NATION through the rebellion by the
other States. If the decision is that no conditions
should be exacted will be. If the decision is
that certain conditions precedent must be insisted
upon, insisted upon they will be. The earnest in
tent is to abide in peace by the peaceful ballot The
utter reverse of this is the spirit of the mscaled
Conservatives.
If they win the decision they will keep the peace
as the South would have had Breckenridge been
elected But if they lose the decision there with re an
attempt to appeal TO the sword plea speciOus
as that upon which the South made war. There
will be in all likelihood, ndiscrimnate ballot for
Presidential electors in all Of the ex-rebel States,
and the plea will be that the electoral votes of those
States complement majority in the electoral col
lege. Whoever notes the temper and utterances of
the copperhead press and that the dstinctivey
Conservative press is fast losing its distnctiveness
and is daily talking like its allies, cannot shut
his eyes to this peril That with such culture, and
a National President-possibly himself the nominee
of that spirit-smiling upon it, the like temper will
not grow and ripen with returning strength IN the
South is not to be hoped for. The anti-Republicsn
party is dangerous to peace and should be abandon
ed in time by every one who would not give his in
fuence for kindling civil indescribably worse
than that which we have just and scarcely e1tin-
guished. No minor question should keep any man
in that party
The misnamed Conservative spirit is ripper, be-
cause the question which it deals with is more ad-
vanced, in this State It is no figure of speech to
say that had here problem of reconstruction to
solve, essentially the same, though neither COM
plicated nor extensive as that in the nation. We
had proportonately large rebel population, max
ing it necessary to look to security true and
loyal State. That question was disposed of at the
ballot-boX, by majority of over forty thousand,
calling and electing Convention expressly "to
secure in purity the elective franchise to loyal citi
zens" Never there a clearer case of perfectly
authorized constitutional law. So clear is the case,
that the Conservatives dare not attempt argu-
ment to show that this law has not all the authority
which the people could give to it. Yet they plainly
propose to violently resist it! They fercely appeal
to the disfranchised to go armed to the baot-box,
and say to the State officers, "Our rights or your
boodT' This is Conservatism as it now is in Mis- ,
souri, and it is to be in the whole land. The more
the need that every patriot in Missouri shall HE to
his post il this hour of State and fastening Ma
tiOnal peril and make the fate Of Conservatism in
Missouri a warning to conspirators throughout the
country.
Our new Constitution, made in the tension of
war, has faults that its best friends would most
jOice to remedy. But they who are threatening to
this tension the worst foes of such remedy
What they alone thoroughly hate is the disfranchis
ing clause, which the people most imperatively de-
manded and the faults for which many would vote |
Radical are the very features of the Constitu-
ton that its haters love. 1t becomes every citizen
who prizes peace, security and the continued prog
ress of free Missouri to through these thin dis
guises of the enemy, and treat with the contempt |
whlch II merits the hypocrisy That IN one breath
mourns that loyalty is made qualification for
preaching the Gospel of the Son of God" and in
the next with blacklist lies, appeals to the dsfran-
chsed to add perjury murder, or both, to the
crime of treason. Let every deliberate seriously
before allying himself deciding to remain in al
lance with such men. In these times the honest
should strive to be wise also, and to strength
en- and improve the better party, rather than by
any specious pretense to be won over, thousands
Of honest but unwise men in the past, to their re-
yret, have been to the party of ruin.-St. Loui,
Democrat.