Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1874-06-12

from the possum policy OF Missouri
down to cremation, finds sturdy advo-
Gates and opponents among us. We
take up Northern schemes much more
readily than Kentucky, which lies
above US. 1t may be that the close
proximity of three old free States has
given Kentuckians a long experience
that breeds caution which We lack.
That State stands firm by the old land
marks, while large class Of Tennes-
seeans run after every new doctrine.
Every coming struggle has its pre-
lude here. The election of james K.
Polk was not the first time that Ten
nessee decided the fate Of party
wavering in the balance. Nor was the
endorsement, in 1872, of the Cincin-
natl nominees by the Tennessee State
Convention, the last time that we have
made or marred national success. 1t
so happened that the Tennessee De-
mocracy was the first TO speak after
Greeley's nomination. The party
throughout the country were hesitating
whether to accept or ignore the Liberal
offer. If Tennessee, the first to be
heard from, had ignored it, the Cincin-
matt Convention might possibly have
collapsed as completely as its Cleveland
prototype which nominated Salmon ?.
Chase in 1866. This is recalled, not to
speculate whether we could have done
better, but TO show the practical infiu-
ence of Tennessee on the whole country
in critical periods.
We have seen the farmers move
ment ridiculc in its first efforts here,
long before the West began organizing
oranges, and we might mention other
indications that our State embodies
within itself more fully than any other,
the contending interests and forces
that strive for the mastery of the re-
public. PENNSYLVANIA is displaced and
Tennessee has become the Keystone
State.
In view of all this, it is with more
than a local interest that we have
watched the financial policy of Ten
nessee. The national Democracy must
formulate a financial policy for the
whole country before it enters the cam
paignof 1876. Tennessee will have more
influence in determining that policy
than any other single State. We &C.
cupy middle ground. Northern States
have not suffered like US, nor have we
suffered near so much as many South
ern sisters. Radicalism has arrayed
the people against the capitalists, It
has antagonized the two essential ele-
ments of national prosperity-popula-
ton and wealth. The reconciliation of
these two is essential to prosperity, but
it is a task to which Radicalism is I'M
equal, and the Democracy must take it
up.
Money is power. This is a Divine, or
natural law, as the reader prefers. 1t
means that the man who labors, and
does not spend all his earnings in riot
Gus living, but accumulates a surplus,
acquires thereby an advantage over the
indolent and the spend-thrift.
Money ought to be power, else there
would be no incentive to industry,
frugality, energy or thrift. The power
of money is the right Of property,
which all governments hold second
only to the protection of life and per-
son. The power of money may be abus-
ed-has been abused most gross
ly in this country. In cor
recting those abuses, we must
be careful against destroying the right
of property itself. Money, in whatever
shape, has natural rights, and acquires
others by contract.
For the past fourteen years the
money power of this country has been
arrayed against the Democracy. The
day is not distant when the rotten
Radical reed on which it has leaned
will break, and the money power will
find the only defender of its equitable
rights in that same Democracy which
fought for the farmer against a tariff,
for the foreigner against fanatics, and
has in every stage of its existence taken
| the part of the weak whose rights
were assailed. In that day the
Democracy will support the Just claims
of capital-no more. To use Shaks-
peare,s metaphor, it will give the bond
holder his pound Of flesh nominated in
the bond, but not one drop of blood.
In past struggles, the Democracy has
embodied the honesty and legitimate
aspirations of the American people.
1t viii rally the same elements round
its banner again. If it fail, it can only
be because Radical rule has corrupted
the masses, which we refuse to believe.
If it fail, Mexican chaos is the future
we hand down to our children.
1t is, therefore, an incumbent duty
on the Democracy in Tennessee and
throughout the country, to begin to
crystalline its financial policy. The
divergences at present, in and out OF
Congress, amount to nothing, because
the sole power of the Democracy here,
tofore has been to expose Radical class
legislation and mitigate its evils by
whatever device they could. 1t was
not without a purpose that we noted
how ex-President Johnson's views OF
State finance might be applied with 9
thousand fold of force to those of the
nation. The farmers and mechanics OF
Illinois and Indiana know what hurts
them. They know it is not the Stats
| Government. but the centralism al