The home journal. (Winchester, Tenn.) 1858-188?, 1868-01-24
The Reaction,

.We expect 10 i've long enough, to
hear and see a good many persons, who
are just now acting with the Jacobiu
party, declaring that they never be.
longed to it, never voted with 1t, no,
for 1t, and never had any sympathy
with its ends, its aims, nor it's princi.
pies.
That is always how great revolutions
end; the revolutionists denying that
they ever had o hand in the excesscs,
the outrages, and the tyrannies that
Liberty had had committed in her
name, through their agency, or instru-
mentality.
1t was so, says the New York Elk.
press, at the end ofthe old French
Revolution, and SO also at the end of
the later Revolution, in 1S49. Fellows
that had been first among the foremost
in backing up Robespierre, Danton,
Murat, and the other Radicals of that
day, when the tide began to turn, were
quick to turn with it. And none were
louder than they, in lying protestations
that they had never been Extremists
had never committed excuses them.
selves, and had never c%ountenanced the
committal Of them, by others. In fact,
to put faith in their protestations, un.
der the changed or changing circum-
stances in which by the revolution of
public opinion, they found themselves
placed, II would have supposed that
they had always been conservatives
friends of Law and Order, and good
Govcrnment,-never Jacobins, Anar.
chists, Terrorists, Thieves.
English, as well as French history, |.
affords abundant illustrations of the
same thing. Macauley tells of fawn.
ing creatures, who, while the Stuarts
were playing the role Of Tyrauts, were
their readiest and most obsequious
supporters, but who, when the tide
turned, had the impudencc to assume
the role Of advocates and defenders of
Public Liberty, Free Government, the
Rights of the People, etc.
One cannot help recalling these adj
monitions Of history, as in some sense
to men and parties of our
own time and country. We have been
passing through q fearful revolution,
in this country, these six orseven years
past Ito speak more particularly. ever ,
since the Jacobins rode into power with ;
Lincoln and Hamlin, on the shoulders q,
of old John Brown but all the signs t
now indicate that that revolution is {
over, and that the inevitable reaction is I
1ot only begun, but acquiring fresh q
momentum every day. The late cleo '
ions are but the first mutterings of the
storm which ere long is destined to as n
thoroughly sweep from existence the !,
men who have Sc long had our y
by the throat, as ever the Jaco- v
bins of France were swept from exist t
nee. Some ofthem, we observe, as if "
deserving the coming doom, -
re making %pretensions of conserva- G
ISM, as if in order to escape it. We +
xpect to see the number of these hyp-
daily increasing, and as the tide
ises, it will not be according to prcce.
lent if we dc not find them soon pro. >.
against the "radicalism'' and
he "extreme views' which govern, or +,
governed their fellows, but which no
governed them, as long as tpaid 4
That now is the philosophy Of the n
'eculiar phase Of history upon which u
he American people appear ut present
o be entering. We think tits q phase
worth watching and studying, as it pro. v
from stage to stage, toward n
he grand elimination, which is to wit u
less, at no remote period, the triumph
fright over Wrong, and the rescue y
# Liberty from the debris of Despotism. :