Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1870-07-27
GRANT AND HoLDEN AND kirk.

CIGANE AND htOLDHN AND AhEehAs
1t is stated that just before leaving
Washington for Long Branch, Grant was
applied to by some of the most prominent
citizens of North Carolina, who are not
Radicals, to see if he could not do some
thing to prevent the outrsges which Gov.
Holden and his man Friday (Col. Kirk)
were daily committing in the arrest,
without process of law, of citizens of that
State, and refusing them even the privi
leges of the writ of habeas corpus. But
Grant was too intent on his horses and
the seashore, and quite CURLY stated that
he could do nothing unless applied to by
the Governor or the Legislature of the
State. When the Radicals were pretend
ing to believe that there was no safety for
themselves or their property in this State,
Grant expressed TO some of them who
poured into his willing ear the tale of their
woes, determination to protect the Union
men even should Gov. Senter or the Legs
lature refuse to call upon him for aid.
Now when his partisans are 'inauguratlng
hell" in North Carolina, and peaceable,
law-abiding citizens of that State appeal
to him to protect them against unlawful
arrest and punishment, he complacently
tells them that he can do nothing unless
applied to by the very men who are
trampling upon the laws and outraging the
rights of citizens. Touching this case
the New York World says:
The imbecility of the judiciary of North
Carolina is, if possible, shade more dis
graceful to the present administration of
affairs in that commonwealth than the
insolent rapacity of its executive. A
chief Justice who first issues writ and
subsequently goes out of his way to make
excuses for the man who filings it back
into his face, Is neither pleasing nor a
dignifed pillar of jurisprudence. Yet this
is precisely what Chief Justice Pearson,
of North Carolina, appears to have been
doing. Kirk, chief of lambs, seizes a
casual citizen and prods him about the
country with vicarious bayonets. Pear
son, incarnating in singular manner the
majesty of the law, issues writ of habeas
corpus, enjoining Kirk to stop. Kirk,
glancing at the writ carelessly, mentions
TO the messenger of the law that "this
thing is played out, " and proceeds to prod
his victim with renewed vigor. The
messenger returning with this respectful
response to Pearson, Pearson acquiesces
cheerfully in the O6iter dictun1 of Kirk
as decision, and contents himself with
suggesting to Gov. Holden whether it
might not, on the whole, be better to
curb Kirk. The upshot of all which is,
that the citizens of North Carolina can
no longer look for protection in their
peaceable pursuits within the law, and
that If they are to be protected at all they
must protect themselves outside of it.
This they cannot even do by the COM
paratively inoffensive device of flight.
Another of Kinks victims, wisely sus-
picious of the power of North Carolinian
Justice to 'have his body" out of the
grip of Kirk, took it into his keeping and
ran away with himself into Virginia.
There he sat down and rested foolishly
fancying himself in safety under the agis
of the Old Dominion. But for Kirk
American State sovereignty is as much
''plsyed out'' as British muniments of
personal right He gayly transgressed
the Virginian line, bagged his North
Carolinian, and carried him back. What
refuge, then, remains TO a people so per-
secuted
''The Federal authority answers some
innocent youth fresh from the perusal of
Greeley's American Conflict, "of the best
government the world ever saw"
Ah-indeed But Kirk is loose in
North Carolina, and the best government
the world ever saw is smoking heavy
Partagas cigars at Long Branch in New
| JERSEY,