Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1869-08-26

from their solid bases than to place an
to keep the yoke upon the necks Of me
who were born to be free. we've 3.
81 will not, however" continued th
speaker, "resurrect old and unholy mem
ories. am here simply to join IN,
heartfelt thanks with yours in an anthem
that shall swell to heaven. We are nov
over Pisgah's top, marching on, ever
man Moses, and if we should fall,
thousand Joshuas would arise and follow
in our steps. Not to the old men do ]
now speak-for an old man, if he is good
has one eye on the grave, and the othel
on heaven; not to the young men either
for they have both eyes on the pretty
girls laughter; but to you, the young
fathers and mothers, l am now address,
ing myself most particularly. The most
alarming feature Of the times is the
| Vl DECAY OF PUBLIC VIRTUE
and the general disregard Of legal ard
constitutional forms and restrictions. II
| ever there was people morbidly sensi-
tive about charges of corruption in office,
it was the American people as they were
before these great changes. Old men
will remember the law called and known
as the fallen and sedition laws" in which
one man was arrested for speaking of and
criticising the acts Of the President.
This was enough to hurl from power the
elder Adams and the old Federal D r.y.
The people were shocked at the very idea
of any such abrogation of their rights
and Infringement upon their constitu>
tional privileges. Are you shocked at
anything now? Less than four years ago
an innocent woman (since admitted
to have been innocent) in Washington
City, where there never had been an
armed Rebel, under the shadow of the
Capitol, within the sight of the Supreme
Court, with all the courts open, was
dragged in chains before an. Infamous
gang of outlaws, a usurping self-styled
tribunal, called a military commission
where she was accused of an impossible
crime-that of being accessory to an ac-
cessory to murder. She was denied
counsel, convicted without testimony,
condemned without law, and hurled be-
fore her God a murdered woman. God
himself has been her avenger. Four of
her accusers have since been declared
infamous, and are now serving out their
terms in the penitentiary. Her daugh-
tets, clothed in the habiliments of woe,
went to the White House and implored
for admission to the President, there to
intercede for their mother, whom they
knew to be innocent. They were spurned
from the door by Jim Lane and Preston
King. What has become of these two
Preston King leaped into the Hudson,
there, in the dark waters of North river,
to expiate with his wretched life the great
and infamous crime. Jim Lane for the
same reason applied to his head a pistol,
and blew out his brains. God has been
after every one of the murderers, and the
balance of them will surely pay the PEN
atty. But few days ago young man
in the employ of the government, who had
met and for her misfortune had loved,
one of these unfortunate children, mar
ried her; and, 80 far did the malignity |
and hate of great government extend,
that he was dismissed his situation.
The speaker then briefly alluded in the
same scathing terms to the cases of
McCardle and Yerger, both of whom
were tried by military commission in |
a time of the profoundest peace. He
passed rapidly thence to a historical |
sketch Of the attempt of Joel r. Poinsett,
Secretary of War under Van Buren,, who
wished to raise 100000 militia for parade
and show simply, and showed how it was
sauelched and made political capital of,
as wero also the petty defalcations of a
few Democratic officials about the same
date He referred to the lampoon of
Prentice on this subject, which he said
made the Old Wings scream with joy and
the Democrats hang their heads with
shame. And yet, said he, here we have
for four years endured BrownloW's mills
tia in every part Of the State, rufians
from East Tennessee sent among the
people to teach gentlemen how to behave
themselves Laughter He referred
to the school fund, kept sacred by the
Rebels through four years OF misery,
want and bloodshed, and returned to the
State intact Now, he said, it is like the
regalia of the loyal leagues thing that
was. Laughter The men who got it
are going around the country arrayed in
fine linen, and with rings on their fingers
as big as a whip cord-arrayed as Solo
mon in all his glory never dreamed of
being. Laughter. He passed over,
he said, the gigantic mOnOpOlies which
the Radicals had foisted upon the State
railroads, banks, rings, monopolies to
which the East India company was not
circumstance 1t is almost time that
they should be kicked out of Office and
gentlemen put in their places.
TAXATION.
81 assert" said Mr.. Etheridge, leaping,
as is his custom, with the rapidly of
lightning from one subject to another,
shat materially as well as morally and
socially the condition of people is in
dictated by the rate of the taxation which
they pay. In England high taxes and
high rates Of import duties have ever
been the fruitful cause Of perjury and
smuggling. Show me the people that
have light taxes to pay, and will show
you people happy and cOntented, proud
of their nationality, and relying on them
selves. In the words of Pope:
Fools on the form of government contest,
Show me, on the contrary, heavily
taxed people, and will show you an in
ert and slavish race, whose discussions
will make them sooner OF later a prey to
tyrants and despots A great traveller
has said that Palestine was the saddest
and most miserable country that he had
ever seen, He had not travelled through
Tennessee since she has been under Rad
ical rule. There never was a people
more deeply in debt or less able to pay
their way out of it Counting the debt
of the United States in round numbers
at twenty-five hundred millions, the
amount owed by every man, woman and
child, black and white, in the country, is
sixtyrseven dollars. The debt of the
State of Tennessee, in round numbers,
is forty millions of dollars-this makes
another installment of twenty-six dol
lars per capita-or total of ninety.four
dollars owed by every human soul in
Tennessee, and all this the excrescence
of few short years, for up to the time
of the war we owed nothing, and had
but a few outstanding bonds"
REVOLUTIONARY DEBTS NEVER PAID.
Mr.. Etheridge, pursuing this course of
statistical reasoning, continued "His,
tory has shown US that no great revolu-
tionary war debt was ever paid. There
may be, he said, "some rev things under
the sun-Brownlow's Legislature, COM
posed of men who had not been in the
State long enough to earn even the right
to vote, was a new thing. Laughter +
the payment of a great revolutionary
war debt would be one of these, not that
believe that the American people can
not pay the debt; but if they do it will
have to be under new order of things.
But look again said he, "the interest on
this twenty-fi i've or thirty hundred mill