Nashville union and dispatch. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1866-1868, 1867-06-16
AGRARIANISM.

Radicaiism is sounding the whole
gamut of foolery, mischief and wicked
ness. The leaders have begun to advo-
cate agrarianism, which is but another
term for the dissolution of society. The
emancipation of slaves was conceived in
the commonest theory that all property
is robbing-that everything a man may
own in excess Of his thriftless neighbor, is
so much unjustly withheld from the latter.
Disguised plausibly as it is attempted to
be, under the names Of philanthropy and
patriotism, that is the principle that
animated the selfish and destruc-
tive wretches who provoked the
Southern people to war, and made
their natural resentment pretext
for puttingit into practice. Every step
since has been in pursuance of that idea
and purpose They have oppressed the
South since its defeat by arms, in order to
goad the people into course that would
excuse confscation Finding that the
tolerance and patience of the South in
adversely is equal to its valor during the
contest, and that no amount of oppres-
sion and contumely can drive the people
from their dignity and propriety, the
leaders have commenced to openly pro-
claim agrarianism, or the equal division
of property-that system by which the
thrifty, industrious, aud well-to-do are
made poor, and the poor are encouraged
to thriftlessness, which will end in vaga-
bondage. Butler, who is type of the
most beastly Radicals, in a late letter
concerningthe Washington election, says:
as it not selfevident political truth
that where the land is held in large tracts
by the employer, to be titled by the en-
ployed, there can be no just and true field
for the exercise of Republican citizen
ship? And it is one of the pressing ext
gencies Of the country, as the very basis of
reconstruction, that some plan must be
devised by which the lands of the South
may be divided among those who shall
occupy and till them"
Ben Wade, acting Vice President of
the United States, in rabid speech at
Lawrence, Kansas, a few days ago, set
forth the same doctrine more clearly and
at greater length He said:
d., ,-I;oL L. J.,,o 90, ,,,,,,l, G.
the slave, cannot quietly regard the terrible
distinction which exists between the laborer
and employer; property is not fairly d.
vided, and a more equal distribution must
be wrought out If you, dull heads, can
not understand this, the women will, and
canvassers upon the eve of an election will
have to tell the laborers what they will do
for them. Men should not be compelled
10 labor until life is worn out and being is
a curse, nor can this always be the case
here where every man is a capitalist to
certain extent These inequalities are not
felt as they are in the East; every man,
then, who was subject to a capitalist ought
to leave him and get two hours nearer sun
down forthwith"
This is Radicalism in all its naked
ness and hideOusness; and if this last and
most heinous crime against society should
become a plank in its party platform, it
will breed revolution 1t will beget a
disruption of the very elements Of social
order 1t has done it heretofore, and
human nature has not changed Fools
and demagogues chatter about sedition
and treason, and talk of disfranchisement
and impoverishment as penalties, but
this doctrine is a species of treason to
which the violent overthrow of any mere
form of government is a bagatelle. 1t
would render government impossible,
and remand men and women to state
of barbarism in which superior strength
is the only protection to life Or property.
When the practical assertion of such
treason becomes imminent, it will be
time to suggest the mode of treating it,
but the American people have lost their
reason and turned to british beasts, if,
when they are called to meet it, they do
not stamp it out Immediately and utterly