Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1868-04-09

Inc bituhtlon. 1890. .r..
Colonel John Forsyth, editor Of the
Mobile Register, gives bis opinions of
"the situation in the following letter
from Washington to his paper;
The readers Of the Register know how
/ have been haunted for sometime back
with the apprehension that the spirit Of
Of the North was not equal to the duty
of defending its liberties against the
daring party that is openly assaulting
them. Since / have been here / have
eagerly watched the temper Of the pub.
lie mind and the public men, and have
seen nothing to lay the ghosts of my APP
preheusions. have not met the first
man who will admit that the people will
resist Except at the ballot-box) at any
extremist point Of usurpation. The gem
eral feeling is that the people have had
enough OF war, and will prefer peace in
| chains TO the turbulence and risks 10
property and life in an open struggle to
defend the free institutions of their faith
ers. In other words, that the people are
q great, big, cowardly giant, who will
pillow, and plant, and pursue his private
ends, while the government is crumbling
into ruins and its destroyers are quietly
putting handouts on his wrists. Is it
not passing strange that the same "na-
ton that rushed to arms and fought so
persistently against secession upon the
| feigned issue of defending the Union,
and who find that, three years after their
struggles and sacrifices, the Union is
still unattained, and that they were in
reality only fighting the battle OF an
Abolition party = is it not strange
that this nation /" is so exhausted
by this swindling war, and so weary OF
its sacrifices, that il has not courage left
to command the usurpers to spare their
own liberties Truth is stranger than
fiction" and it would be in keeping with
human experience and with the ways by
which mysterious Providence works
out its ends, if it should eventuate that
the intense spirit of nationality that
filed the ranks of Grants and Sher-
mans armies, was, while seemingly
turned against the South, really exerted
to destroy itself-in brief, that the man
hood of the North and West was welded
by cunning hands to overturn its own
free Constitution and bind the people to
the dominion of a party, most ignoble in
its sentiments and reckless of the public
| good. And thither are events marching.
The public apathy in the presence of a
revolution that is hurrying to its inevita-
BILE consummation is something wonder
| full. The tragedy which is being pushed
to close with hot fury and indecent
| L -. al Oh 90 IN n a
| a case of assault and battery in village
court house. And yet, that tragedy
means to tumble down one of the three
main pillars that support the Govern :
ment. The regicides of Charles pre-.
tended that their only purpose was to re-
move a tyrant out of the path of reform
and public amelioration. Yet, it turned
out that it was not the king, but the
kingly Office of the British Constitution
| that they were after. So, while the Rad
ical impeaehers personally hate Mr..
Johnson, their real aim is to absorb the
powers and destroy the majesty of the
chief executive office
While this appears to be the temper OF
the people, aud these the designs of the
| Congress, the Supreme Court has got the
Chinese weight fairly hitched to It's tail.
| This august body dares not bray for the
| Constitution it was ordained to defend,
aud pauses in its adjudication of clear
right, vested by existing laws in citi-
zen, until Congress shall have time to an
nul its jurisdiction by retrospective
act Nj principle of law is better estab-
.lished than that "the very essence Of
a new law is a rule for future cases, and
that civil right once vested, and before
| the courts, eau no more be affected by q
| new law than O man can be punished,
criminally, under an CO post facto penal
statute. But the supreme judges, six to
two, have determined to wait for the or
ders of the rump.
A Radical Tribute to our Fallen Braves.
Pure and arrant copperheadism ap-
pears in an editorial in the Springfield
| Republican, relative to the discussion
about the rebel dead. The article was
provoked by recent speech of Colonel
Rush @. Hawkins at the rooms of the
| New York Loyal League, in which he
made a violent attack upon O member OF
the club who had expressed himself in
favor of a common burial of the Union
and Confederate dead. The Republicans
| Gays:
"Out upon the thought that the rank
and lie of the Southern army were trai-
tors and crimi nails They fought hon
estly and earnestly in bad cause, en-
during in many cases privation of which
our own troops knew little. They
marched barefoot, when our boys were
we'll shod. They went hungry, when
ours were filed. They disputed every
inch of ground with desperate valor, and
yielded only to destiny at last They
proved themselves in life foemen worthy
of our steel, and their mouldering bones
may well rest in peace by the side of our
bravest and dearest. Their differences
with us were all settled when they fell
together with ours on the field Of honor.
| All that is left them now is only human.
| Vengeance need not follow them into the
grave. Pity may weep over them. Pa
| triotism may cover their failings, remem-
bering that they were children of one
mother, and their valor sprung out Of the
same heroic stock. Beauty may strew
flowers upon the green mounds that hide
such courage and high resolve. And
Col. Rush c. Hawkins may mind his own
business, and be ashamed to wage war
more fiercoly on dead than he did upon
living foe.
The Rhode Island Election.
The late Rhode Island election, with