Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1870-08-31
THE CONGRESSIONAL CON
TEST.
A Card from Col. Edward L. Golla
6au oF Wilson County,

A Card from Col. Edward L. Golla-
day, OF Wilson County.
To the Voters of the Fifth Congressional District,
composed of the counties of Davidson, Wilson,
Williamson, Sumner, Robertson and Chestham-
Fellow CITIZENS Having announced
mvself candidate for Congress, at the
ensuing election in November, l deem ii
prudent and right to indicate, in brief
address, the leading political maxims and
principles which would regulate my action,
should be chosen your representative IN
Congress.
Since the conclusion of the war, feeling
myself in common with all others placed
under the same political bans which were
and are imposed upon all the people OF the
South who participated in the rebellion, |
have quietly followed the walks and
duties of a professional life, seeking
no preferment of office, and laboring
faithfully and intelligently, in legiti-
mate way, for restoration OF those
political rights which were lost in the
conflict of battle, and which blind fanati-
cism sought to erase forever from the
constitutional charts we had inherited
from our fathers. And now | rejoice
IQdL LQG VI ICNOlAPblOA eAAo w
tinge the heavens of Tennessee, and the
heavy and remorseless grasp of the op-
pressor and plunderer has been released,
and we breathe freer air. The Radical
proscriptlOnist and tyrant has laid down
| the baton of his power, and surrendered
| the insignia of command back to people
whose birthright is freedom, and whose
destiny is second to none, in the grand
empire of the Federative States. A new
| Constitution-the offspring of manhood
and the guide-star of freemen-has broken
| the bonds which held us, and swept II ON
| the land that miserable and abominable in
| stitution, the franchise law" which
| bowed to the earth the white men of the
State and made them "heWers OF
wood and drawers of waite"
| to an insulting and oppressive
tyranny. And judicious and generous
| Legislature have ''blotted from the things
| that be- those iniquitous statutes and that
| miserable class legislation which the mis-
| rule and usurpation of five years had
| foisted upon the State. Now, thank God,
the Macgregor of Tennessee treads once
more his native hillsides with step as
free, proud and erect, as when in other
davs he struggled beneath the banner of a
Jackson, Clay, a Polk, White, Bell,
q Grundy or a Brown. And it remains to
be seen if Tennesseeans are worthy of re-
covered rights, and whether, with judi
cious and Vestal virtue, they will guard
and preserve the newly acquired but long
lost chart of the olden time. We thank
the God of nations that our whole people
NAV now exercise again the long sus
pended privileges of freemen, and be
heard at the ballot-bOx. Let us do moth
ing to forfeit or destroy these rights; let
wisdom be our guide, charity and good
will our teaching; and let our power be
the eternal and immutable principles of
Justice and right. Extremes of principles,
| like extremes of heat and cold, are never
pleasant and never enduring. Returned,
as we are once more to our proper orbit,
in the great Federal compact of States,
let us labor in good faith and with hope
to restore balance TO the system, as of
wore, and to cast off those excrescences
and wrong which irregular times and bad
men have foisted upon the country,
We should remember, in taking our