Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1870-08-05

WE'LL may we ask, whittier are
we tending and TO what are wecom-
ing? It is surely high time for good
citizens 20 look abroad and Judge
calmly. When they do 50 they will
see that there is no civilized nation
under the sun so lawless as cur We
have Indian m~assacres, mobs by a
vile, incestuous, God-and-man defy
ing crew. Nathans is iOully muir
dered in the heart of New York city,
and Tom Dickens is assassinated upon
the public highway in Shelby county
in open daylight. In every section of
the Union the papers are filled with
hOrrid accounts of murder, fratricide,
wife killing, husband Staying, suicides,
swindling, arson and robbery. Sunday
last, the holy Sabbath day, was desc
Grated within FIVE miles of Memphis,
by a negro man, who entered the
residence Of a peaceable citizen, shot
down his own wife, and then turned
upon Mrs. A. J. Martin, an
amiabIe and estimab;e lady, the
wife Of one of our best citi-
Zans and continued his murderous
designs by firing upon her and iBflict-
ing a wound which, we fear, will
prove mortal. In North Carolina
they have a legalized and organized
mob, engaged in the pleasant pastime
Of making a crusade against p~eaeeabie,
law-abiding citizens of that unlOrtu-
nate, Radical-cursed commonwealth.
These banditti seize and i'm
prison scores Of respectable citi-
zens, cause Others to take fight with
their frightened families, defy and
disregard the writ of ha6eas corpus. 1t
is a war made by partisans for pOliti-
cal purposes. In other parts Of the
country the Bible is openly condemn
ed, the Constitution spit upon, hatred
TO neighbors considered a holy indig-
nation, violence to them a righteous
retributiOn, while the church itself
has forgotten its holy mission and
preachers prostitute their solemn call
ing to crafty their lusts. And
yet! the sun OF a just God beams kind
ly upon US, His gentle rains descend,
and our unworthy mouths filed
with the fatneSs of the land.
1t IS well for US that God
and not man reigns,in the universe. 1t
seems that a moral blindness ~cOneeals
our crimes, or a moral obliquity justi-
fies them. When Nathans is muir
dered and robbed in his own room in
New York, when Tom Dickens is
waylaid and a~ssassinated within a few
miles Of Memphis, and when the in
nOcent wife of a good citizen is
brutality shot down and numbered in
cold blood, a sudden frenzy arOuses
the curiosity Of a whole community.
But their Indignation soon slum-
bers soundly, and their curiosity
perishes with it. The Infamous
Outrages Of BroWnloW are lost
sight of in the deviltry of
Holden; but the men emasculated Of
their rights, sick Of strife and forget
full of manhood, and the instinct
which causes the worm to sting the
hoOf that treads upon it, only shrug
their shoulders and turn TO money
making. IL seems that the greatest
crimes, when committed in any sec
ton of the Union, are but as fish leap
ing from the placid bosom Of a lake
a splash, a few ripples, and everything
glides on as smoothly as before. We.
call ourselves civilized and free; but If
this be an enlightened age and the
price Of freedom, they are dearly
purchased. An historian says:
"In the prosperous days of
the Republic, the Romans thought
they could not be really free but in
making themselves the slaves Of the
laws" We are not civilized; we are
not free; we are only wicked and
licentiOus. We have enough good
laws; but instead of initiating the
Romans by becoming free in making
ourselves slaves of the laws, we exert
every ingenuity to evade the laws.
Our whole society is disjointed, jar
ring and Threatening to go TO utter
ruin. There is no safety to life but
the dagger, no s;lfety for honor but
the pistol, no safety for property at
all.
As for our national affairs, We are in a
state of civil war. There may not be
a declaration of war, but more ran
corous feeling does not exist between
France and Prussia than now subsisis
between the Radicals of the North
and the Conservatives of the South.
Where is all this to end? Are we
20 become another Venice in its worst