Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1867-05-13
CALM. BUT FIRM.


in this State will prove terrible tax on
the temper of the people. For the hrst
time since the organization of the Gov
eminent, the personal and political
liberty s.of the citizen has been assAiied'
Men who we're born to freedom cannot
he enslaved without struggle that shall
exhaust every means OF defense when
God and nature have placed in their
hands. We owe it to the lovers of liberty
in every Stats, territory and military
district of the Union to confront our
Tennessee despotism and overthrow it, II
we can. We owe it to the Democrats
and conservative Republicans in New
York and Massachusetts as well as to the
down. trodden people of Georgia and
Mississippi to meet the issue and throttle
the monster if we can. The cause OF
free government everywhere demands 1t,
and will allow no excuse for failure ex-
cent that which shall proceed from lack
of adequate means. Certainly we shall
be despised as race of towards if we
submit without resistance to chains that
may be thrown off The last outrage
attempted to be put upon us, is that OF
an enforced silence Having BEEN de-
prived of civil rights, it is now proposed
to gag the people SO that they cannot
complain to the world-to tie their hands
so that they cannot parry the blow aimed
at them. The victim must not groan
while he is being put to the torture.
Read this monstrous paragraph from
late manifesto of W. G. Brownlew, in
which allusion is made to Emerson
Etheridge:
"Wherever these violent speeches are
made, inhaming the bad passions OF bad
men, / deem it my duty to station troops,
and shall do so, let the consequences be
what they may. And, although the
greatest imaginable freedom Of the press
and of speech should be allowed to men
of all parties, and the conduct Of public
men aud their measures should be criti-
cised without reserve, do not conceive
it to be the duty Of the State Guards to
stand quietly by and hear any man
excite the mob spirit by denouncing the
Federal and State Governments-resis-
lance to the courts-and the setting aside
of their decisions by force Of mob VIC
lenee."
Is this a State in the Union, or is II
separate despotism over which this man
presides with the spirit of a Nero2 Is
the speech. of citizen to be regulated
by State guard ? Is a corporaPs
squad, gathered, perhaps, from the
alleys and grog shops, and swamps and
rotten novels, with just sense enough to
do the work Of a tyrant for pay, to rush
from psint to point wherever Etheridge
sLall speak to the people, stand guard
over his words, and, if deemed by them
offensive to their master, drag him from
the stand and hurry him of to prison ?
This is exactly what Brownlow means
shall be done. If any one doubts that
hate is the rule of his action, we call
attention to a single paragraph in the
Knoxville Wing Of March LIST, 1865. It
was written, no doubt by Brownlow
himself In reference to secessionists,
it says;
1--WE feel as five could crowd them all
into the internal regions, and those who
sympathize with them, we think, deserve
no better fate. Let them be punished
let them be impOverished-let them be
slain-and after slain let them be
damned
There is nothing in all literature more
horrible than this. OF whom are these
terrible things said OF eighty thousand
TeIpesseeans whom he has disfranehised
of three-fourths Of the people Of the
State - Of the kinsmen Of Jackson
crundy, Polk. Trousdale, the Browns
Bell. Gentry, Jones, White, and all the
great men who fashioned this common
wealth and placed it in the front rank o.
free and enlightened States Is such
man ct to govern people whom be Wishei
impoverishei, slain, and then damned
in bellfr Il doubifulif any ther man