Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1868-06-01

Of God and Nature, and the principles
OF common justice and right Teasoa2
II y0u were to be compelled, by the
sdngings of your conseiences, TO throw
off your allegiance to that faction Of
Moloeh, Mammon and Beelzebub,-if
you were to follow your own present
convictions and sense and knowledge Of
what is right and patriotic and not
wicked and villainous and reasonable,
and join those who seek to preserve the
/ Constitution and the free government Of
the country, instead Of adhering to and
serving without pay the rascally cabal
that is virtually the committee Of Public
Safety, aud whose two heads are Stevens
and Butler,-If you were to become
again what you were in 1874, and act
uDon the principles which then, whether
wings OF Democrats, you protested, do
YOU not know that the same crushing and
brutal military despotism would be en-
throned over you, and the Inquisition
and Basale and letters de eachet estab-
ushed in Tennessee?
The Republic thst establishes Despo-
tism E its Provinces or Colonies, is
false and -trsitorous to the principles by
which it holds its own freedom and it
not only prepares itself to be enslaved,
hut makes it a laudabie act in the Cesar
or Napoleon, to put an end to license
and power which it abuses, q liberty Of
which it Is unworthy. The United
States, governing the South with the
rod of iron and whip of scorpions Of an
arrogant and insulting Military Dsapo-
tism. become unworthy and unfit to be
free. and the world and history would
spulsud the man who should strip the
arrogant Republic Of its tawdry robes Of
free government and subject it to his
imperial will,-espeeially if he should
hang, or sentence to mental occupations
the scavengers and bullies, the knaves
and pimps and parasites Of faction, who
now lord it over the dishonored land.
Rome prepared itself to submit, not
only to the successful soldiers Marius and
( Sylla, and the Soldier and Statesman
Caesar, but also to the selfish, heartless
and cruel triekster of narrow intellect,
Octavius, by creating despotisms wher-
ever its victorious arms gave Provinces
J to the Republic. For the people that is
truly imbued with the spirit OF freedom,
not only desires to be free itself, bat that
other peoples should be so likewise; and
the peonle that establishes despotisms is
like a man who should infect his neigh
bours with q loathsome and deadly dis
ease, and himself expect, remaining in
close n~eighborhood and contact with
them, to escape the contsgion OF the
pestiIence so generated, and live, while
his victims died around him, and rotted
under his very nostrils.
The eorpses of six States lie around
Tennessee, in which TENNESSEE has
assisted to plant and to spread the eOnta-
eion and hideous infection Of the selfish
and souless despotism that soon brushes
out sll courage and manliness in the
souls of a people subjected to 1.-THE des-
potism that violates and defiles the soul
before it murders and the body; that Ope-
rates on the ambitious, who once mag
ined themselves patriots, and true to the
States Of their birth, ss the lotus and the
draught Of Circe did upon the eompan-
ions Of Ulysses, changing them into
grunting and greedy swine. Can s Stats
so eirt about with despotisms, itself long
remain uncontaminated? Has not des-
potism always proven contagious? Does
il not spread and travel like the eholers?
Must not those who, ia the ruling State,
are opposed to its outragss OF human
liberty, be repressed and put down by
force and the a~brogationt OF law, lest they
should become dangerous and leopard
lie the faction in power2 Musttney not
be arrested and Imprisoned, or bought
and bribed, or in some other way ST.
fenced? Must not their steps be logged
and their residences haunted, by male
and female spies2 Must not their private
correspondence be under the suFveil-
lance Of some Fouche or Dog Butler?
Must not their Geographic dispatches be
demandsbie by Congressional or Legis-
lative Committees, from the companies
or agents to whom they were ~entrusted2
Whence has Governor Brownlow had
the power to appoint judges for the lsst
two years? Did you confer it on him ?
Would you have yielded your right to
elect your judges to any man? With
what semblanee Of constitutionality
could the Legislature, your agents, invest
him with the power TO cancel the regis
trations Of voters and deprive the people
Of a whole county Of the right to vote =?
By what warrant has he removed from
Office Registers lawfully appointed, and
annulled their action had even prior to
such pretended removal?
Are you sure that Military Commits
sions may not be established in Tennes-
see, some day, to try citizens, to try you,
for offences newly defined and created
by er post JactO laws, or if for those al
ready known to the law, then in despite
of your Constitution that guarantees you
the right Of trial by jury?
You know that, although the United
States had the right, when the war end-
ed, to regard the States that had seeded.
and been recognized as beIligerents assub.
jugated, and to exercise over them the
right of conquest, to govern them as Terri
tories or Provinces, by means of civil gov
eTnments established by act of Congress,
they had no more right, as a Christian
people OF the nineteenth century, q re-
publican people, with the Declaration
Of Independence and Constitution
for their creed, to set up Mill
tary Despotisms, and authorize
such men as Sheridan and SiekIes
to make and abrogate laws and
replace courts with military commits
sions, than they had to resort to the
rack to extort confessions, or revive the
other bloody and inhuman practices of
the middle age. To do this was a ma
tional crime. You are parties 70 il. Do
not imagine that God will not signaliy
punish it. Crime, individual or nation
al, is invariably and inevitably fol-
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