Nashville union and dispatch. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1866-1868, 1867-04-16
A RADICA RECORD.
THE CHAIRMAN OF THE RADICAL
STATE COMMITTEE.


by the name of Butler He is the mos
insatiate place-hunter that the State ha
produced, and has never been out Of Of
fee when there was one to be filed with
in the range of his grasp. He first mad
his appearance in the House Of Repre-
sentatives in October, 1859. During tina
session action was taken by the Legisla
ture on the recent announcement of al
irrepressible conflict" by Mr. Seward
and on the Harpers Ferry insurreetioI
by John Brown. Tue excitement in thu
South was then rapidly intensifying
and the opposition to the Democracy wa'
severely put to it to resist the increasing
torrent Of feeling that finally illuminated
in the most stubborn and disastrous wal
of modern times. Butler, while profes
sing to be for the Union and opposed tC
the Democratic party, which was ther
confessedly at the head of the party which
ayowed the doctrine ofsecession, on most
important questions and votes deserted
the opposition to Democracy, and voted
with the secession Democracy" He
served out the session of l859-60 he
attended Harris called session Of 1861
He returned at the April call, which
resulted in the passage Of the "Ordi-
nance of Separation" lie appeared at
the adjourned session in June of the
same year ,afterthe ordinance desperation
had been ratified by the popular vote. He
went home and was reelected in August,
1861, came TO that "Rebel Legislature, .
and when it was precipitately removed to
Memphis, by reason of the fall of Fort
Donelson, he was found "right side up
with care at Memphis and stuck to it
until the last day in the morning,
when he received his pay and a free
ticket on The railroad, and retired to
" the mountains of Carter and johnson "
to raise regiment for the Confederate
service s-a
A "Reber defeat, however did not
turn him down. lie turned up a mem
Der of the reorganizing convention in this
city in January 1865 Was elected a
Senator, by general ticket in the Legis.
lature Soon found better thing in a
JudgshiP; was appointed and now holds
the Office of Judge and in addition is a
candidate for Congress, and chairman of
the Radical State Executive Committee.
We propose, this morning to make a
few extracts from the written record of
this man, in order to let the peopleof his
district know what he was doing while
he was away from them The record
runs thus:
BUTLER on sEwARD's "rRREPRRsslBLE CON-
FLIcT' AND JOHN BROWN HARPERs FER
RY RESURRECTION.
On the 25th of October, 1859, the fol-
lowing preamble and resolutions, for
which Mr.. Butler afterwards voted, seri-
atm, were introduced in the House of
Representatives
Whereas, A most dangerous epoch has
arisen in the history of our country. based
upon the fanatical aggressions of Northern
Black Republicans on the reserved rights
of the States and the institutions of the
South, seeking 10 abolish slavery by pre-
venting the extension into common terri
tory and rendering insecure and hazardous
in our midst and whereas, in the recent
instruction at Harper's Ferry as well as
in the revolutionary scenes in Kansas. we
recognize the legitimate fruits of that trea-
sOnable policy avowed by the acknowledged
head Of the Black Republican party, VIM.
II. Seward, in his famous Rochester speech,
in which he said.
These antagonistic systems free and
slave labor are continually coming into
closer contact and collision results. Shall
tell you what the collision means They
who think that il is accidental, unneces-
sary, the work of interested or fanatical
agitators, and therefore ephemeral, mistake
the case altogether. 1t is an irrepressible
conflict between opposing and enduring
forces, and il means that the United States
must and will, sooner or later, become
either entirely a slaveholding nation, or
entirely free labor nation. Either the
cotton and rice fields of South Carolina.
and the sugar plantations of Louisiana,
will ultimately be titled by free labor, and
Charleston and New Orleans become marts
for Legitimate merchandise alone, or else
the rye fields and wheat fields of Massachu-
sets and New York must again be surren-
dered by their farmers 10 slave culture and
to the production of slaves, and Boston and
New York become once more markets for
trade III the bodies and souls Of men. II is
the failure 10 .apprehend this great truth
that induces so many unsuccessful attempts
at final compromise between the slave and
the free States, and il is the existence of
this great fact that renders all such pre-
tended compromises, when made, vain and
ephemeraL'
And whereas Henry Wilson, another
Black Republican Senator from Massachu-
sets, has declared
Let us remember that more than three
millions of bondsmen, grooming under
nameless woes, demand that we shall re-
prove each other, and that we lsbor for
their deliyerance. / tell you here tonight
that the agitation Of this question of hui
man slavery will continue while the foot of
a slave presses the soil Of the American re
public"
And Mr.. Wade, another Black Republi-
can Senator from Ohio, has said
There is really no union now between
the North and South, and he believed no
two nations upon the earth entertained feel
lngs of more bitter rancor towards each
other than these two nations Of the repub-
lac, The only salvation of the Union,
therefore was 10 be found in divesting it
entirely from all faint Of slavery -
And, whereas, Senator Seward address
ing Southern Senators from his Mace in
that body, has boldly proclaimed to ,he
world that
Al last a new voice issues from vonr
own regi0n,s from the South, from Che slave
States, and protests against your farther
persistence in this mad enterprise Tof ex.
tending slavery, and admonishes YOU that
Il must and wall fail. The cohorts are gath
oring from the South; the men Of modera-
tion and conservatism, who, as they have
heretofore moderated in favor of slavery
and against freedom, will now be Obliged
in consistency with their just and well-es-
tablished character, and their habitual pa.
triotism 10 moderate against Won in favor