Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1877-02-24
NUZZLING THE PRESS.

An article in the Washington Capt.
talhas been deemed of sufficient i'm
portance to occasion a Cabinet meet
ing at which it was the principal sub
iect of discussion, and it was deter
mined that the writer should be prose-
cuted for sedition.
The extract which we print below is
the portion of the article which will
probably be the pretext of this pros
secutiOn. Speaking of the Electoral
Commission the article runs as fol-
lows:
We have not the patience to argue what
the people in their broad common sense
viii not considerable fine-spun legal
technicalitieS under which these aged
ScOundreIS seek to hide their shame. Their
real brief IS TO pc lonnd In the utterahce OF
one of their Commission, James A. Car
field. who said, bOastingly: You'll have
TO grin and bear il; we hold the cards and
intend to play them."
Poor political gambler! The states for
which ne plays are the rights of forty
millions of people, the peace and pFOsperi-
ty ofthe only republic known to humanity.
For all that freemen hold most dear these
hands, stained with plumber, gamble, as the
soldiers "Of plate severed in division the
garment of the crucifed christ.
As we said a week since, this IS not law;
il is revolution, and if the people tamelY
submit we may bid long farewell TO cOnsti-
tutiOnal government. Fraud no longer
vitiates. 4 corrupt aiminis' ratien has
only by its bayOnetS. TO hold State USur-
patton long enough in power for a corrupt
returning board TO do It's vile task, and the
If man thus returned to power can ride
in safety from the executive mansion to
al - =v., a . Il
for the slavery that VIII follow the inau-
We do not believe the people of the
United States arc of the servile sort. We
do not believe that they are prepared. with
out a blow, TO part with their haTd-earned,
blOOd-stained possessions. Notice is now
served on the citizens of Louisiana and
South Carolina that they must care for
themselves. How soon lamp posts Will
bear fruit is for them to say. To tue peO-
pic of the North and West notice IS given
that all the toll to which they are subjected,
that bOndholdcrs and mOnOpOliStS may
fatten secure, is repaid by no security. for
their rights, and that q shrinkage of values
is now in order. If there is law for fraud,
there is reason for violence. And to that
we may make our last appeal.
The above, we say, will be the pre-
tcct of the prosecution, the moving
cause of it is probably the following
paragraph which it must be admitted
is not very courtier like language:
/ The appeal made to judges Ofthe Supreme
Court from the people, sorely distressed
and perpleXcd, was TO save them from the
wicked conspiracy Of men they had repu-
/ dated at the polls. They saw their faith
I less agents for years robbiug the treasury of
/ their hard-earned taxes: they saw their
/ highest officials indicted for the mCanest
/ crimes; they saw a president, coarse, brutal
/ and ignorant appointing sycophantic
/ pimps 10 the highest positions; they saw
/ him the associate 6Of rOughs and the COM
! missioner of tn ewes; they saw carpet-bag-
! gers sustained by bayOnets manipulating
/ the polls, that ignorance and Tascality
! might tyranniZe over the South.
We think perhaps this would have
excited wrath in the court of King
Louis XIV, and why not in that of
! Ulysses |.
/ Chop off his head so much for Don
/ Piatt.