The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1875-05-29
RAD REFLECTION.

| FNb mrs hA'N
In former times when despotism sat
cnthrowned In every government of
Europe save heroic little Switzerland,
men who struck for human rights were
changed, drawn and quartered.n Had
Great Britain conquered her revolted
olonles, such would have been the fate
OF Washington, Hancock, Green, Mari
on and all our illustrlous ancestors. As
victory crowned their struggle, their
names are travelling down the high
way of time with increasing lustcr and
glory. They are to-day houurcd in the
bosom Of every man holding allegiance
to the British crown, whether in Eng
land, Wales, Scotland, ireland, Caua-
da, Australia or India. Such Is the
Judgment, ordained of God, upon the
acts Of the true the brave and the Just,
to he passed by succeeding generations
to the uttermost parts of the earth.
Following our mighty "war between
the states" instead of hanging, draw
ing and quartering, n service short,
but decisive and cruel, came dislran-
chisement, cruel, mean and cowardly.
The sober second thought of the think
ing masses of the north, revolted first
and thcnrecoied mt beholding the cow
ardly device. Their enlightened minds
and nobler natures told them that states
could not commit treason that the
citizen owed his first and original allie
glance to his state-that when his
state commanded, he must obey, and
that only by qualified and delegated
authority, secondary IN character was
he bound to obey the mandates of the
common agent for all the states, the
government Of the United States. New
England, largely the parent of this
doctrine of truth and liberty, in her
cool review after the carnage had
passed, realized that II Davis or any
other man shonld be changed, drawn
and quartercd'' as n rebel, then the
men who threw the tea overheard in
Boston harbor, the men who fired the
first gun at Lexington and Concord,
the men who bore their breasts to the
leaden storm of English bullets at
Bunker Hill, should have been chang
ed, drawn and quartered," and they
recoiled in horror at the thought Not
the drunken, crazy rabble, but the cool,
enlightened men who give tone to his
tory and some of whom always live in
history.
The sangunary resort of hui
man monsters, as kings and
emperors, was thrust aside;
but those in authority, behold-
ing a vast field of rich spoil in the
south, bounded on by bummers, hang
ers-on, thieves and plunderers, who
stood afar off during the carnage of
battle, as human vultures ever do, re-
solved upon the mean and cowardly
subterfuge of DISTINGUISHING, de-citi-
zenizing the great bulk of those over
whom they had triumphed through
the tolls and heroism of others. The
soldiers of the federal army, if left to
themselves, would have scorned the
mean device, but rather, have Joined
hands with their late foes, in a united
effort to restore peace, concord and
love to our reunited and common
country.
Ten years have rolled by, and most
of those thus meanly put under the
ban, have been rehabilitated with all
he ensignia of free born American
But the dark and dawn.
ing spirit of hate, though detested in
It's own section, has yet retained sulll-
cient power TO hold the flag of the pro-
scriptlon over chosen few of van
pushed, thus more thoroughly ce-
menting them in the love of their
and their true hearted coun-
Irymen.
such sad reflections rush upon us as
we reflect that John c. Breckenridge,
more than ten years after the war, s
lied in this favorite month of May, a
ew days since, in the midst of whole [
,eople's love, DISTINGUISHED and virtu-
lily outlawed in his own country
beloved by every Ken
lucky heart, whether born free or beat
ng in the bosom of an emancipated
on of Ham ! Breckenridge, whose
anne is respected and honored in
very country of both the old world
nd the new Breckenridge, whose
ncestors for generations have been