Daily union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1865-1866, 1866-10-03
ssPROGREssTvE" AND ..REAC ron
AIRY"

ssPROGREssTvE" AND ssREAC rTON-
AIRY"
These are descriptive terms which we OBJ
serve frequently used by Radicals. By the
former they distinguish themselves; by the
latterthey describe the Conservatives. Whas
do they mean? By the use ofthe first they in
tend to assert, and it is the ehiefobject Of that
organization to maintain, that during the
period from the commencement Of the war
in 1861 to its close in 1865, great principles
Of change in cur 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 il on behalf Of the government, is
yet in progress; that the abolition Of slavery,
the grand object Of those who melted
strife, and aggravatedthe North and theSOuth
into collision, is discovered to be but the
first step; that the helplessness Of the de-
feated section, and the vast power which
they learned TO use in a state of war, invite
them, as II 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 power Of government in their
hands as the chosen inaugurators Of the
new dispensation that theform and features
Of the admirable system of government
which we inherited from the era Of 1889,
is not stable, but intended to be changed to
suit the views Of different genera
tons Of men, that the Constitution
is an instrument well enough adapted
fer the narrow capacities Of the men who
. administered the Government in the first
seventy-iyc years Of its existence, and
for a of people who had had no expe-
rience OF a civil war, but wholly untitled to
our new condition; that the shock Of inter
neeine strife did vastly more, as a result
than 10 declare the victors and the yam
quished; that il had the wonderful power
to solve all the obscure problems ofgovern-
ment which have engaged the minds of
statesmen and sages for centuries T;
that the track Of hurting cannon balls
blazed out a broad path-the 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
progressiveness.
What these men, who assume SO much for
themselves, term the "reactionary" party, is
that body of citizens who hold the Constitu-
ton as It is in its letter, and as interpreted
by the commentaries Of the men who form
cd, and who, during three-quarters of a
century of unexampled prosperity, made it
the guide of their conduct, to be the inviola-
bic law Of the land, and the wisest chart of
Government ever adopted for the security of
liberty and its institutions; who further
hold, tina: the paramount and only permissi-
bic object Of the war, on the part Of the
Government, was to maintain the supremacy
Of that instrument as it was when those in
insurrection sought to release themselves
from its obligations; that the result Of the
war achieved that object, and that barring
the changes wrought during four years of
hostility. and which were duly ratified and
acquiesced in by all the people as inevitable,
lhe Constitution, at the close of the civil con-
test, covered all alike, imposing similar duties
and responsibilities, and imparting
equal and similar rights; that the
only guarantee for a safe emergence from
the perplexing questions left unsettled by
the war is a rigid adherence to the rule Of
the Constitution; that it is unwise and dan
gerous in the highest degree to attempt to
reconstruct the fundamental law, when the
public mind is in an unsettled and anxious
state; that II is a high crime, exceeded in
Righteousness by none in the history Of
States for dominant political party to die
tate amendments TO the Constitution, as n
prerequisite to the establishment Of the
Union Of these States a. the Constitution
ordains it; that such a policy is not true
and wholesome progress, but fragrant revo-
luton, and is calculated, if not intended, to
embroil the people in another civil war.
This is political conservatism.
Between these contrary views the people
of this country are called to decide. Upon
the determination at which they arrive, de-
pend mighty and far reaching results. The
party of the Constitution as it is, will lead
us back into the ways Of peace and pros
perity. The party which teaches the policy
Of progressive innovations upon that instru-
ment, and thinks TO calm the passions, and
regulate the measure of rights and the sphere
of duties Of thirty or forty millions ofpeople
by the engranment Of new and untried ideas
of social and political progress into the or
eanism Of our institutions, will sow the
seeds Of future strife, and plunge the nation
into new calamities.