Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1867-02-03
IOHN 5. c HOGAN a CO.
THE POLICY AND DUTY OF THE
GIT
NO. II.

E0AN - HOSAN - ~
THE POLICY AND DUTY OF THE
SOUTH
No. II.
Tie words " policy" and "duty " are
Synonymous. What it is right for the
South to do, under the pressure Of its ca
lamites, that it will be best for it to do.
The bargainings Of interest, and COM
promises Of principles, are eventually ru-
inous to nations.
The finst duty Of the South is to re-
member that a State, Ike an individual,
lives and acts not for the short Present
only, but also, and much more, for the
long Future. Reverses and distresses
sre temporary and evaneseent but dis
honors are eternal. We shall have to
submit to, because We have vainly en-
d~eavoured to prevent, the destruction Of
the great principles and safeguards OF
true and national republican freedom
but no stress Of present calamity, no sup
posed necessity Of doing evil lest a worse
evil befal US. can justify US in becoming
accessories to their humiliation. Let
the fortunes Of war and the will Of the
victor take from the States their sOver-
eighty, and prepare the future Empire of
some successful usurper. There is moth
Ing to be ashamed Of in defeat or misfor-
tune. Rome sold the land on which the
victorious army Of HANNIBAL lay en-
camped, after the battle Of Canine, and
gave the purchaser the Republics war
ranty Of title and possession: for the
Roman republic never ~despsired. Let
land and money, and the right Of voting
and holding Office, gol We can live,
and be men, without them. But
God forbid that our States should strip
Themselves Of their old prerogatives and
consent 10 become mere municipalities.
Believing, as we all do, that to confer
the right of suffrage upon the negro race
would be an act of insanity, aud that the
inevitable consequence would be anarchy
and the reign Of folly, succeeded by a mill
itary despotism, we ought, at all hazards
and utterly regardless of consequences
TO ourselves, to refuse to be parties to 90
hideous q crime. We are not at liberty
10 become the enemies Of the human
race. We have believed, and we believe
now more firmly than ever, that a per-
manent republican government is posi-
sible only upon the plan Of a federal
union Of the States, and under the
Southern as cOntradistinguished from the
Northern construction of the CoBstitu-
tion. If the people OF ali the States are
to form but one great democracy, Of ma
tives, Europeans, Chinese, Indians and
negroes, in which all are to vote, and
majority OF numbers is to govern, all
human experience and history teach US
that it is impossible for such a mis-gov-
eminent long to continue. 1t is simply
an organized anarchy, Of which, sooner
or later, some one nan will avail him
self to become Dictator or Emperor.
And the ready submission Of the
people, North and South, under the sup
posed exigeneies Of war, to the suspen-
sion Of the privilege Of the writ Of Habeas
Corpus: to the substitution Of :" the will
OF the Commanding General" in the
stead Of Constitution and law to trials
by military commissions IS murdeFons
as the Star-Chamber and the Bloody
ASHES; to unconstitutional CONSUMPTION
acts to arbitrary arrests for suspicion Of
d~isloyalty, at the nod Of q General or the
rescript OF a Secretary Of State to the
incarceration Of citizens and their depor-
tation to the Dry Tortugas, without legal
trial or n trial at all and to a military
censorship over the press, the suspension
Of public journals, and the denial Of the
right Of free speech to public men ad-
dressing public assemblages Of the peo-
ple,-toO c~onclusively proves that under
a like pressure Of supposed necessity, the
people will cheerfully and even eagerly
surrender toa CESAR, liberties and priyi-
leges that will have become too cheap
and proftless to be worth the keeping.
Defeat and calamity cannot relieve the
Southern States from the obligation OF
loyalty to the great Of Constitu-
tional liberty, as contradistinguished
from democratic anarchy and the most
odious OF ty~rannies, that Of numbers.
They have ~endeayored in vain 20 main
tain the supremacy Of their own theory.
Without repudisting it as erroneous, 1t is
their duty TO make the best Of the oppO-
site theory to give il, 81 FAR as they have
10 deal with it. 3 fair trial; to eOunteract,
a. far SIS they can, its evil tendencies,
and to delay as long as possible the
final ruin. They viii as little effect
this, on the one hand, by abandon
ing their own principles, az they
can on the other by q blind and f~actious
opposition to those destructive theories
that cannot for the time be opposed with
success. The only Union into which
they ought to wish OF consent to return,
i the Old Union Of the STATES; but
there viii always be hope Of a return Of
the States and people TO sounder and
more rational views; and even a CONSOLE
dated republic, or a great democracy, is
preferable to a military despOtism or he
reditary monarchy; and to these it will
always be possible to resort, when an
archy and disagreement become in
toleratle.
II one opposes the ideas or passions sf
the ~populace when they are swelling and
Gathering strength, be will be swept
away with them or destroyed. II he
Yields to them, he will probably be sacri-
iced in the reaction for revolutions al
WAYS devour their " children. II he
waits until the tide begins TO ebb, he viii
be able to lead and control. The reign Of
passion Is always succeeded by laSsitude
and reaction and it is quite possible then
for the old ideas, that for a time have been
odious, 10 regain their supremacy. All
epidemics must run their course, and
all, after a time, die out. The more
furiously they rage, the sooner they ex-
haust themselves and the sooner radi- {
eallsm and TEscaldom attain all their q
ends, aud reach the lowest deem. the d
sooner reaction will commence. Ii will {
neve begin until then. Popular frenzies 8
are not to be cured by logic or expostula-
ton, but only by the unanswerable ruin
that demonstrates their folly, and the !
Nyiekedness Of the plotters 10 whom the :
ruin is owing. II we are in the right in I
believing that inevitable destruction
must result from giving the rights Of sui. q
frage 70 immense masses Of emancipated
dawes OF an inferior race, we ought TO be !
,tsd 10 see the experiment. tried as !
sneedBy and as cob pletely as possible.
por when the preposterons experiment {
Las nroven, a. it viii prove, a shameful
"a ridiculous failure, It win be easy for
white race to regain It's supremacy ,
Al the consequent popular reaction win
swsep away forever all the wretched !
a~,hi,ae,s Of ruin who now strut their !
a.. sfsoe. and tfDiay such F,