The Dallas weekly herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1885, 1875-06-05
EAD REFLECTION.

SAD REFLECTION.
In former times, when dcspOtlsm sat
cnthrowucd in every government Of
Europe save heroic little Switzerland,
men who struck for human rights were
Changed, drawn and quartored." Had
Great Britain conquered her reyolted
| colonies, such would have been the fate
| of Washington, Hancock, Green, Mari
on and all our illustrious ancestors. AS
victory crowned their struggle, their
names are travelling down the high
way of time with increasing luster and
glory. They are to-day hOnurGd in the
! bosom of every man holding allegiance
to the British crown, whether in Eng
| land, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Caun-
da, Australia or India. such is the
Judgment, ordained of God, upon the
acts of the true, the brave and the just,
to be 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, service short,
but decisive and cruel, came disfran-
chisement, cruel, mean and cowardly.
The sober second thought of the think
ing masses of the north, revolted first
and then recoiled ut beholding the cow
ardly device. Their enlightened minds
and nobler natures told them that states
could not commit trcason-that the
citizen owed his first and original ale
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 if Davis or any
other man shonld he changed, drawn
and quartered" 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 sanguinary resort of hui
man monsters, as kings ana
emperors, was thrust aside;
but those in authority, behold
ing II vast field of rich spoil in the
south, bounded OH 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 toiis and heroism of others. The
soldiers of the federal army, if left to
would have scorned the
mean device, but rather, have Joined |
hands with their late foes, in 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
the ensgnia of free born American
citizenship. But the dark and dawn
ing spirit of hate, though detested in
il Is own section, has yet retained sulli-
cient power to hold the flag of the pro-
scription over chosen few of van
quished, thus more thoroughly ce-
menting them in the love of their
comrades and their true hearted coun-
trymen.
Such sad reflections rush upon us as
we reflect that John c. Breckenridge,
more than ten years after the war,
died in this favorite month of May, a
few days since, in the midst of whole
peoples love, disfranchised and virtu-
ally outlawed in his own country !!
Breckinridge, beloved by every Ken
lucky heart, whether born free or beat
ing in the bosom of an emancipated
son of Ham Breckenridge, whose
name is respected and honored in
every country of both the old world
and the new Breckenridge, whose
ancestors for generations have been
devotees to liberty and to honor
the greatest and chiefest
son ever born of the dark and bloody
land of Boone, the state of Clay, Bled-
soc, Crittenden, Rowan, Shelby and
Hardin
The pen of the future historian OF
this country, though he hail from the
foot of Bunker Hill in Boston, will
stand spell-bound and refuse to yield
its ink, when required to record the
fact that more than ten years after the
war between the states had closed,
John c. Breckenridge died on his ma
tive heath, in old Kentucky, disfran-
chised and prescribed man.