Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1876-12-23


er shakes his head and suggests that we
are playing into the hands of the mill
tary party by any pointing towards
forcible resistance aud lastly friend
of the Office enquired of a member of
our publishing firm. Does the Doctor
really think there is going to be war ?
All these enquiries seem to demand
some explanation of what our friends
are pleased to call our war article"
We meet the demand and rise to ex-
plain.
In the first place it is nota war article
at all. 1t is true thatit contemplates
among the possibilities of the present
complications the idea of forcible re-
sistance to forcible aggressions by the
executive upon the constitution. but
it speaks of such contingency neither
as a probable one nor, under the pres
ent aspect of things, desirable one.
The contemplating it as possibility
we affirm, is not Inconsistent with the
most devoted loyalty to the American
government, the American constitu-
ton and all that is peculiar and special
in the American political idea. If no
amount of usurpation on the part of
the executive, no degree of violence
in its language, no degree of lawless-
ness in its use of those forces against
che people which it is sworn to use in
&heir service can justify even the dis
eussion of the question whether force
should be met with force, then we
have come to conclusion which con-
dennis Hampden and Washington and
elevates to the ranks they have hith-
erto held in mems estimation their
antagonists Charles the first and
George the third. If this is our con-
clusion then Charles and his success
sors ought to have been allowed to tax
the English people without their con-
sent, James the second to carry Eng
land back to Popery without resist
ance, and Washington, Jefferson and
Adams to have yielded to taxation
without representation, and every
shot fired in resistance, was both
treason and murder. But it will
be said that nothing has been said or
done to justify the mooting of these
dangerous questions at the present
time. We take leave to say that much
has been said and no little done to rem
der it the duty of every American to
ia ke into consideration every mode of
resistance which may or may not be
deemed expedient after consideration.
When the first executive officer of the
nation announces his intention of in
stalling one out of two conflicting
claimants of the succession to his Office
if it takes the whole army and navy,
and emphasizes his assertion by con-
centrating troops in the capital as the
period for deciding the controversy
approaches, when he unseats two elect
ed legislatures in two different States
by military force, and when he answers
an appeal to the courts of one of the
States with ferocious damn the Su-
preme Court" as if he and not the
courts had a right to decide those
questions-when in short he proelaims
himself as the agent of party rather
than the chief executive officer of the
whole nation, and proolaims his inten-
ton of using all the force entrusted to
him in the interests of that party in
defiance of all law and constitutional
restriction-then other men as we'll as
he have a right to think about force
and talk about it.
But it will be said that these are the
words of stupid, ferocious drunken
sot, and do not call for serious consid-
Grafton and action.
We will not question his stupidity
or ferocity, but he does not stand
alone; the utterances of his immedi-
ate political supportersi in Congressand
of large portion of the radical press
show that his incoherent words are,
not unprecedented ideas, but indica-
tons of systematised plot for bolster
ing up party in defiance of law and
the constitution, which demands that
he should be reminded that he is not
the master, but the servant of the
people, and that it is the right of his
masters to resist forcible rebellion on
his part by constitutional or extra CON
stitutional means whenever he in his
aggression steps outside of the consti-
tuition.
The question then is. not whether
the people have the right of forcible
resistance but whether in the present
coniuncture tits egpedient to exercise it.
And this question of expediency we
are now about to discuss at the risk of
raising the cry of treason among the
radicals, assuming that, whatever may
be the future intentions of the military
party the press is at present free, that
President Grant is one citizen and we
are another, and that one of us has as
much right to talk about force as the
other.
As things stand at present the APP
peal to force would be in our opinion
highly inexpedient. For the present
the whole question is treated at the
North as a party question. 1t is true
that many enlightened republicans as
individuals proclaim their opinion
that Tilden is fairly elected by the peo-
pie and condemn the announced in-
tention OF forcing the Inauguration of
the board elected Hayes upon the peo-
pie by military force; it is true that
four out of five of the republican jour
nails in Boston condemn it also, but we
see no symptoms of any combined and
organised action in the Republican
party or any where outside ofthe Dem
ocratic party to resist by constitutional
or any other means what is so condemn
ed.