Clarksville chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 186?-1872, 1868-05-01
WE HAVE often wondered what the

w T. HAVE Oltcn NODtttItu Whdi hilt
masses Of the Radical party hope to
gain by the destruction of free gov
ernment and the establishment of a
despotism. Is it negro equality p
That seems to be the prctcxt for the
lawless usupation now nearly culmi-
mating in absolutisn,- Will equality
with negroes convert curses into bless
ings, poverty into prosperity and
slaves into freemcIt? Perhaps they
flatter their hate by supposing that
the South alone will be the sufferer
by military rule, and that negro
equality will expend its horrid and
lOathsonie influences upon those alone
who live among them. But it is
worse than idle to suppose that Radi-
cal tyranny will be so directed as to
Cypress and degrade only Southerners
and Copperheads. Even if it could
sobe directed, in the beginning, none
but asinine stupidity can fail to see
that the ruin of one-half the country
and two-thirds of the people, can not
be effected without the ultimate ruin
of all.
Let tyranny once fasten its grip up
on popular liberty, in the shape of
thirty tyrants, or one horse dcspot-
ism and, as history teaches, the truck
ling tools who prepared their own
chains, in the hope that wealth or
power would follow dastardly treason,
will be the first to feel the contempt
and suspicion of the powers that be.
The man who Is base enough to sell
his country's liberty, will not hesitate
TO sell party or friends-contempt is
his honest due and suspicion his sure
reward.
The leaders in such revolution as
that now going on, so well know each
others depravity, that the man in
whom is concentrated the power
hoped for by each of his co-conspira-
tors, will feel intuitively that he dare
not trust them, and his first step, after
securely seated upon his throne, will
be to rid himself of such well known
scoundrels, and look out for honest
men to fill the offices of the govern
ment. ..... .r..
If such be the fate Of the leading
eonspirators, what hope have the
masses of attaining wealth or honor?
Who arc TO stand between them and
the tyranPs lash? Who are to shape
the policy of the government so as to
Disseminated in their favor? The cost
Of tyranny, with its standing army,
and the rapidly increasing poverty of
an oppressed people, will require the
last dollar, if not the last man, to
meet its enormous expenditures to up
hold its power and pay for its luxuries
and debauchcries. The Radicals will
share the common fate, with the sim
gle difference, that they will be cor
daily despised by every honest patriot
they have betrayed, and by every
friend of liberty whersverits blessings
are known and appreciated. They
VIII have made the name of Benedict
Arnold respectable, and created the
belief, that had they lived in the DAYS
of Christ, they would have undcrbid
Judas. The common ruin they can
not escape, and will feel it the more
intensely because their guilty con-
sciences will eternally goad them
with the memory and humiliation of
their dastardly treason to the cause of
human liberty, Mt home and abroad.
Curses, loud and deep, will follow them
through life, and their infamy he per-
pctuatcd in their children and chill.
dren's children.
The oldest of the Radical conspira-
tors are lettering on the brink of the
grave, and the same receptacle will, in
a few years, yawn for the youngest.
What, in the meantime, will they
have achieved to give cclat to their
transit from time to eternity? They
will have left behind them a ruined
government and people enslaved,
and will take with them the bitter cx-
ecNtions of the victims of their vii
lainy, The shroud has no pockets for
wealth obtained by force and fraud,
and the high places, won 10y the same
means, confer honors equivalent to
those of the pilloricd thief, elevated
to public gaze rs warning to all not
to follow in his guilty footsteps.
THE Radicals are beginning their
nntipinot fol Assault ,,,,o,, ~, r,tI,,,