Clarksville chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 186?-1872, 1869-05-22
which wars would be pardonable-

which wars would he pardOnable-
perhaps desirable and necessary-but
foreign war to remedy internal evils
at home and reconcile Americans to
their country and to each other p
Can 1t be that we have come to this ?
Are we like the French people, who
under a semi-despotism, that to keep
us within bounds, to find field for
exotic glory, to cure the morbid beat
ing of disturbed circulation in the
body polite, to calm and quell unnat-
ural passions, to be faithful to our in
situations, and to secure contentment
among the people, we must resort to
the blood-boiling stimulus of war +?
We hope not. When we reach this
condition, and the ranking popular
discomfort which it presupposes, there
is not much hope left for US, and we
may well sit down together and lis
ten, with the resignation of despair,
to the requiem that walls over the
mournful ruins of once free and
happy country. Beyond such state
OF things, should 1t ever come, there
is little but disintegration and tears.
What is the secret OF England's
long centuries of national existence,
the continued and increasing happi-
ness of her people, and her solid
foundations? Conservatism, and ODE
dience to law. Without these, how
could she ever have built up world
wide commerce, which named her the
mistress of the seas? How could
have risen her splendidliterature, the
first ON earth, and the great fountain
from which we drew our chief knowl-
edge? Where would have been her
manufactures, her arts, her sciences,
her institutions of learning, and her
countless monuments that speak her
strength, her civilization, and her pre-
eminence in the rank of nations p
All must be referred directly or indi-
rectly to conservatism and obedience
to law. Nor have conservatism and
obedience to law always been easy to
her. She has had, as we have, radi-
calism in our midst, and has had to
wage war with it. But she saw, with
the instinct of self preservation, that
radicalism must he overcome, or the
nation sink into anarchy and decay
and ultimate ruin. And that she is
is what she Is due to the conservative
and better feelings of her people, and
their obedience to and reverence for
the laws-in the main just by COM
mon cOnsent-under which they lived.
Now, how stands it with US? Not
as We would have it, and must, before
we can have secured long lease of
national life. AS England grew pros
porous and great through conserva-
tism and obedience to law, so we
have, in the true elements Of abiding
strength and greatness, degenerated,
and put our national existence i'm
jeopardy by radicalism and disobedi-
ence to law. This is our fundamen-
tai error, and the ruin-working cause
Of all our woes. We are a headlong
people at best, and are prone to ex-
tremcs as the sparks to fly upwards.
We think we can subdue all things
unto ourselves but, in the process, We
let ourselves go unsubdued. We affect
much solicitude for the welfare of
other and weaker nations, forgetting
that welfare, like charity, should be-
gin at home.
1t would be better for us to let our
neighbors go, and study well our own
situation. There is nothing in it that
should throw us into raptures of self
praise. There is enough In 1t to
wreck US if we but go on. We are
given over to the Maynard will and
dangerous caprices of radicalism, and
are floating withersoever we may, like
helmless bark at sea. The affairs Of
the nation are in the hands of a wild
and infatuated majority, made reck-
les by long-continued power, and
they handle them like tyrants. Our
country is cut in two, and the parts
exasperated, their citizens disfran-
chised, dishonored in so far as Others
can dishonor them, and are without
redress. Laws are made to be the ad-
juncts and supports Ofthese and name
less kindred tyrannies, and other
laws, through which remedies only
can be reached, disobeyed, east down,
and trodden under foot. Might Is
right, and numbers are supreme. We
have no national councils-have not
had for years---only the councils OF
fraction of the nation, the balance
outlawed, and left unrepresented, and
robbed of their citizenship, for differ
ence Of political opinion. They are
taxed, but not represented.
For this kind of oppression, taxa
ton without representation, we once
sought cure by waging war with the
most powerful nation on earth, so
deeply did we feel the wrong. Where
shall we seek it now? The people
are bowed down with weight Of tax
alton too heavy TO be borne. Monop'
olies are all powerful, and they have
their heel upon the neck Of labor
The most reckless extravaganza and
spoilation everywhere prevail. Hon
est administration IL thing almost
unknown. Corruption through all