Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1874-03-31


chickens coming home to roost, has re.
ceived another illustration. Wher
Radicalism was fastening its fangs
upon the South; when people were be.
ing arrested and property seized with,
out due process of law; when local af.
fairs were interfered with by emissaries
OF the Federal Government and Stat
governments were overturned, the Re.
publican politicians and journals of the
North, and notably of New England,
had no word of sympathy for the op.
pressed nor Of condemnation for the
oppressors; else the affairs of South
Carolina. Florida, Alabama, Mississip.
pi and Louisiana would not be in the
deplorable condition they are to-day.
When reminded that curses like
chickens came home to reost, these
self-same politicians either laughed US
TO scorn or preserved an insultingly
studied silence. They appeared to
think that the iron hand concealed in
the velvet glove would not be laid upon
their Threats, but time has shown how
little they reckoned as to the near fu-
ture. Now we find the Troy Wing, a
Republican journal, making an earnest
protest after this fashion: %
1--WE are all concerned in the sacred
ness of person and property, and the
merchants in indicating their rights
are defending us all. In the matter of
search and seizure, the officer should
have no discretion. He should be held
to a strict compliance with the Consti-
tuition"
This Is a specimen of the protests
against searches and seizures that Re-
publican journals are now making
since the practice has been brought
home to them. They have all at once
discovered that there is such a thing as
''the s~acredness of person and proper
ty" the violation of which should not
be submitted to with impunity. There
is now such a thing as a Constitution.
with which there should be a strict
compliance. How sweetly these
phrases would have sounded upon the
ears of oppressed Southern people
years ago. But this is not all The
Boston AdUertiser, the old organ of the
Republicans of Massachusetts, has be-
come alarmed at the spetre of central
isation as it stalks over toward
the Bay State, and from all appear
ances, the NeW York Tribune tells us
for we have not seen the AduertiserJ
1t is frightened badly. On the pivot
OF Capitalization, says the Advertiser,
the history of the country is hinged.
The tendency toward such a calamity
it finds in the attempt of the National
Government to control the States by
using the Federal patronage to foist
upon them political adventurers, who
IN return elect themselves to tie SEN
ate, and combining together control
the President. Each State may thus
IN time be reduced to a mere province
subject to the Senate. What was done
In Louisiana, imposing a imam whom
no n supposed to be the popular
choice" upon the people for Governor
by national troops, may be done in
Massachusetts,, and then it viii be only
another step for the Government to ap-
point local officers. This is consolida-
ton in its worst form, and is claimed
the Advertiser to be in direct antag-
onism TO the principles of the Republi-
can party. In this a~ntagonism, the
Advertiser says, the inevitable struggle
lies, and if the men who are striving to
wrest the party from its base and use
it for a tool, win, "they will reduce the
Executive to helpless impotence, so
that at length it viii become a passive
instrument in their hands, and thus
the nation will fall under the rule of a
corrupt junta of politicians, who from
their position cannot constitutionaIly
be made responsible for their acts"
These fellows T beginning to discover
that we have drifted well nigh on to
"the dangerous edge of things" Let
us hope that the discovery, though late
in the day, will be productive of good
in arousing the Northern Republicans
to a sense of the danger into which
their leaders have brought the whole