The home journal. (Winchester, Tenn.) 1858-188?, 1867-03-16
Madame Roland.

ever produced, and whose geniu
guided France, through some Of th
most trying scenes Of the French Rev
olution, was eventually executed upol
the gnilotine. She met her fate calmly
TRANQUILITY; and without trepidation Of
trembling barred her neck. She was
bound to tho e.plank-it was laid hori
zontal--the whetted knife smoothly
and rapidly down and severed her head
from her body. As she ascended the
scafrold she pointed to the statue o
Liberty, and exclaimed, "Oh Liberty
Liberty, wi a. excesses are committed
in thy name'
One who has lived in America during
the past five years, might we'll use the
the same expression which Madame
Roland did on the scaffold of the guilo-
tine. The people of the United States
boasted of their illustrious descent
from the English--a nation of freed
men, where the rights of the subject
were amply protected-where the king
was over the people; but the law over
the king. Americans in 1776 went to
war over principle ofgovernment, in
volving, not great and grinding oppres-
sion, but their rights as subjects under
the constitution of England. 1t was
never alleged that the stamp act or tea
tax was oppressive, that they could not
pay it; but that it violated the sacred
rights Of English subjects descended
from those who had forced the Great
Charter from naughty monarch at
Runnimead.
In 1861, the sons of the sires who had
fought against their mother, on an alb.
stract right, submitted to the stern
arbitrament of the sword, aquestion of
political right-an abstract question:
Whether it be right at any time to refer
mere matters of right to the court
which war holds, to obtain decision,
we will not stop to inquire. In tho
Revolution Of 1776, it was for liberty;
the French Revolution, though stained
with every crime which demons could
invent, was for liberty; and the Rev.
olution of 1861, which brought forth
from its fruitful womb so much suffer.
ing, poverty and destruction of life
and property, was all forliberty. What
liberty is may be difficult to say, but it
is in times Of violent revolution one
thing, and that thing is oppression
Constitutions are overridden, laws are
disregarded, courts are trampleddown,
the altars Of holy religion ruthlcssly
torn from the sanctuary; dungeons,
low, deep, damp and loathsome, are
crowded with citizens, to pine away
and die in solitude, in open disregard
of every shield thrown around them by
law and justice; property unblushing-
ly taken and appropriated without rec
ompcnse, or wantonly destroyed; aged
men and aged women, helpless children
driven from their homes in the dark
pathway that leads to starvation, and
that pathway lit up by no light save the
lurid flames that crackle and curl from
a home that was sacred to the wander
er; grinding taxation, without repre-
sentation; the sword of the soldier
gathering on the temple floor of justice
and debating to judges; the process of
the courts stopped by military power;
and the deeper gathering gloom of
poverty, ruin and degradation setting
down over once free, happy, brave
and wealthy people, and all lor liberty
e" Oh! Liberty! Liberty what excesses
are committed in thy name!'