The States and Union. [volume] (Ashland, Ohio) 1868-1872, 1871-11-08
More Straws.

We are glad that the American
people are likely to encounter a good,
wholesome, stout usurpation of author
ity. We congratulate them upon the
prospects of a coup d'etat and a Deem
briGdc that will put the mild tyrannies
of Louis Napoleon to the blush. We
felicitate them upon the likelihood of
soon tasting the English experiences
under Charles and James, with Kirke
for commander and Jeffries for judge
of knowing, by bodily encounter, what
sort of time the Rochellois had during
the dragonades, and how happy the
people Of Arras could be under Joseph
Lebon. For, unquestionably, we
want Shaking up" Something has
narcotized us we are stepped in apa-
thy and Indifference, like men ''drunk-
en- with maiddragora," while all the
precious essence of tic spirit of liberty
and the consciousness of Political
right is being drained out of us. There
never was a truer word spoken than
the satiricai remark of the Englishman
who said we did not know how to value
the ha6eas corpus and other precious
safeguards of private right, for the
reason that we had not fought to OBJ
tain them. One after another these
rights are invaded, and we say moth
ing, see nothing, feel nothing. What
is the law any more, with its principles
deep rooted and its robed and awful
sancitY, in the presence of a political
advantage, q popular passion, or a
pecuniary pressure? What is the
domestic hearth, that castle whose
traditionary exemption from invasion,
as it comes down to us from our En-
glish sires, is like the unsullied name
of virginity? What is the sacred
private right of a man in his own
domiciIe any longer, if a partisan pur-
pose or a supposed public expediency
choose to invade it? What is personal
liberty any longer-that grand ideal,
for the restitution of which some few
years back we were supposed to have
two millions of men in arms? Here
is South Carolina hurried as fercely
as the Assyrians hurried Hezekiah's
Jerusalem, or as the French swept the
Palatinate, and no man says them nay.
Here are men dragged off to prison
By hundreds: no redress, no hearing,
no Judge to try them; but prison to
receive them, bayonet to coerce them;
all ready, and the people ~consentingl
When an assassin shot down England's
favorite premier, and was regularly
tried, convicted, and executed in a
week, Erskine protested with horror,
and Brougham proclaimed that justice
was disgraced. Where are the protes-
tants now, while Marshall johnson
outrages law and Judge Bond mocks
at justice in the South Who dares
seize private property in England,
even under color of law? Here, last
week, in Chicago, where a certain
proprietor sets a high rent upon his
premises, wanted for private uses, and
refuses to abate, General Sheridan
marches in a file of men, takes pos
session, ~installs the Board of Trade
there, and orders the man shot if he
attempts to resist or to eject them i
Who in all Chicago protests? Who
seems to appreciate the fact that to
tolerate this is to live in a camp, not
a city Are not these things straws,
telling which way the wind blows?-
Is not the sense of personal liberty
and private right escaping out of the
American consciousness?- Weekly
Patriot.