Whig and tribune. [volume] (Jackson, Tenn.) 1870-1877, 1874-04-11


of the war, there arose the same
complaCcnt mode of viewing the
question of reconstruction. Give
the negroes the ballot, we said, and
prevent any political discrimination
on account of race or color or preVi-
Gus condition of scrvitude, and all
will be well. The result has been
the return of a large part of the
South to condition Of barbarism.
We have there made life and per-
sonal liberty safe, but many Of the
things which make life and liberty
worth having are gone or going"
The New York Nation, whose fl
deity to Radicalism has been un-
swerving, talks thus of the results
of reconstruction" in the South
Its sober second thought cannot re-
pair the irrcparable injury that has
already been done, but we hope it
may tend to prevent further injury
in the future. The Nation ought
never to have been caught in such q
snare as that set by the reconstruc-
tionists. The men who control it
knew that the device was at vari-
ance with the history and the dis
tinctive tendencies of the Japhetic
race, ever since il made its home in
Europe. From the battle of Mara
thon down to the present hour, that
race has battled with ineradicable
hostility against African and Asiat-
ic intrusion. Charles Martel, SObi-
eski and others, whose names are
familiar sounds all over the civil
lied world, were deemed benefac-
tors, because they beat back from
time TO time this incoming wave
1t is a part of the religion Of our
race to keep its blood pure, to vim
dictate its imperial power, and to
perpetuate forever its missionary
character. There never was de-
parlure from this rule, until New
England in the hour of q triumph
that had been won for her by the
valor of the West, actuated by hate
for the Southern whites, not by love
for the blacks, swung round to the
opposite pole, and for the first time
in the long and glorious record of
our race, made white-skinned peo-
pic subject to those OF different
hue. The Nation perceiVes at last
that this is against nature, and now
we hear from it strain of sorrow.
This we hail as the death-bed con-
fcssion of the Radical party. 1t
comes late, too late as we have said
to place us where we stood before
the recent amendments, but now,
after the memorable logic of events
has made it manifest even 10 the
blinded vision of such papers as the
Nation, that the reconstruction pol
icy of the Government is not only
failure, but a stupendOus crime,
perhaps the whites of the South will
be left TO re-assert their natural
supremacy again, in the enactment
and administration of their own
laws. They do not seek to take the
ballot from the freedman, they do
not seek to re-enslave him, but on
ly ask their rulers not to interpose
bayonets and cannon in behalf of
the blacks, when they are engaged
with them in hand to hand tussle
for mastery.
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES this caption
many of the greater journals of the
day are discussing the propriety of
burning instead of burying the dead.
AS sensation it may run it's course
without changing the habits of man
kind in this matter, or it may be
precursor of change in the mode
of sepulture at present universally
adopted. The argument seems to
be one of economy and sanitary pO-
lice, and amid the poverty and the
crowded cemeteries Of older and
denser civilizations, it may be that
the argument has weight and signi-
ficance. We have heard of the cat
acombs' of Paris, vast subterranean
chambers filled with the piles of hui
man bones removed from the burial
grounds in order to make room for
the more newly dead. In the play
of Hamlet, the grave digger is rep
resented as throwing up with his
spade, the skull of Yorick, the
Kings Jester, who had lain in his
grave only twcnty-three years.
With these hints from the old world,
we may attach something like due
weight to the arguments made in
England, Germany, and even New
York city.
In our broad land, and with our
comparatively sparse population,
we cannot regard cremation as a
matter of serious discussion, so far
as we of this generation are con-
cerned. But whether or not we
will be involved in the possible rev.
olution in the style of funeral rites,
the change seems an unnatural and
painful one to many minds not in
clined to squeamishness. In the
history of the ancients we learn that
the burning of the dead was Gus
tom with the Greeks and Romans,
but they buried as well as burned.
The Egyptians and Persians buried
their dead, and in this connection
we are reminded that the first men,
ton of burial place in the Bible, is
the purchase of the cave by Abra-
ham, after he had been in Egypt
"Let me bury my dead out of my
sight," was the wish of the patri-
arch $500 years ago, and it is the
custom of the world to-day. The
chronicles of the Old and New Tes-
lament, if we mistake not, mention
burial as the only mode of dispos-
ing of the dead, and if we read of
burning il is in case like that
where Josiah burned the bones of
buried men upon pagan alters for
the purpose of thereby polluting
those affairs and fulfilling a proph-
ecy.
The Greeks called their burial
ground Metropolis, or city of the
dead. The term Cemetery was
adopted by Christianity, as convey
ing the idea, not of death, but of
sleep, and if death be but sleep
it is certainly more natural and con-
sistent with human affection to let