Nashville union and dispatch. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1866-1868, 1867-09-24
WENDELL PHILLIPS AND THE
UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT.


That fanatic, scold and agitator, Wen
dell Phillips, is, in view of the crisis i'm.
minent in the Radical party, giving
weekly bulletins in the Anti-SJa0eyy
Standard, and as the pioneer of the
Radical rebellion, marshalling his fol
lowers the way they should go In the
paper appended, he pronounces the SUI
preme Court senile fungus on the body
polite, whose wisdom is always a gener-
alton behind the age, and to which the
people have been accustomed to pay a
too seryile reverence He thinks the
court is an obstacle in the path of revo-
luton, and advises measures to re-
move it:
From the Anti-Slavery Standard.
OF all the instruments used by the Sonth
in old times the Supreme Court was the
most evil-intended, and the most efficient
The people have been bred in such servile
reverence for its decisions, that whichever
party got possession of that weapon was
almost sure to conquer. It's Judges, APP
pointed for life, and lingering on the bench
to extreme old age-as Sidney Smith said
of Bishops, with Episcopal pertinacity"
have always represented the opinions of
former generation. This department of
the government has always been the last to
come into line with the nation, as new
eras have opened. The South never ap-
pealed to arms until it found that this
usually formidable weapon had, in 1860,
lost its power. The nation swung away
from treason like Taney's, and the ship of
State moved on with upright keel"
Stung to madness, the South appealed to
the bullet-unsuccessfull
The signs at Washington indicate that
Mr.. Johnson means TO try to find refuge
under the old shelter He plans evidently
TO strengthen himself by putting the army
into the hands of his friends as far as
possible, but only as a reserve force. The
! checkmate he intends to call on Congress
is to be, it would seem, some action of the
Judiciary, declaring all the reconstruction
, legislation unconstitutional. How danger
Gus and embarrassing check that would
be to the nations progress, every one
familiar with the history of the anti
slavery movement will fully appreciate.
Whether Mr.. johnson will succeed in OBJ
tanning a decision, no one knows. His
counsellors evidently count upon it, we fear
with too good grounds for their trust.
Every thoughtful man has anxiously
watched that tribunal ever since 1861. Mr..
Stevens early saw the danger in that quar-
ter, and was only deferred from A vigorous
attempt 10 avert the danger by the fact,
that the appointing power resting with Mr..
Lincoln, it seemed impossible 10 secure any
sufficient change in the character of the
bench. The action of most of the Judges
who owe their appointment to Mr.. Lincoln
is evidence enough how unwise and danger
Gus it would have been to put it into his
power to saddle us with any more enemies,
empowered to balk us as long as their lives
lasted
Mr.. Johnson's main object is to confuse
public opinion, and divide the ranks Of
the Republican party. No more efectual
means could be desired than decision of
the Supreme Court adverse to Congress.
Round such decision would rally all the
timid, tired, weakened, halfway, CON-
promising, and dishonest elements which
victory has lured into the Republican
ranks. Landlocked and hampered by such
opposition, the reconstruction movement
would move very slowly and ftfully for
ward; tue youngest of us, in such circum-
stances, may reach old age before it will be
ended-in any true sense of the word.
What measures the Radical element in
Congress will adopt to meet such a con-
tingency time will show. We entreat them
to remember how much hangs on their
action The nation will support them in
going, as Franklin said, "to the extreme
verge of their constitutional power" for
means 10 meet such an emergency. Sdlts
Pop'li supread lsx.
WENDELL PHILLIPS.