The Russellville Democrat., 1881-09-22
THE PRESIDENT Is DEAD.

THE PRESIDENT Is DEAD.
 The nation is again smitten, and the second President sleeps beneath the sod of the valley, victim to the ruthless hand Of the assassin. Mur- der, in it's widest, deepest and most horrible form, has again visited the American Union, and called her down into the valley of sorrow and disgrace. The American people have again been summoned around tho grave ot their Chief Executive who fell at the hands of the nations worst foe. They are called upon to put on the habiliments of mourning, because, in their fallen President, they see q terrible thrust at their Country's honor, and a great, broad bloch on the glorious escutcheon of her name and fame. The blood that flowed from President Garfeld's body, underscored the blackest page in American history, for dark as the deed was that robbed the nation Of her first assas sinated President, on account of the circumstances and times when 1t occurred, it appears as comparative innocence when placed beside the act that now wrings the heart of this great nation. A ten fold horror is lent to thls, from the fact that the surroundings make it fair demonstration of the awful danger in the way Of our beloved re- pubic. We had thought ours the beacon-light hung out to the coming ages to guide them to ths happiest and most perfect form of human gov. srnment. We had hugged the pride to our bosom that among the nations of the earth, there was none to rival our own in it's symmetry and beauty tits splendid adoption to the wants ofhuman society. We lad relegated to the monarchies of the Old World and to our less enlightened and christainized neighbor republics, the conditions that throw shades of un. certainty around the lives of their rulers. But with mighty shock, this great nation is walked up to the fact that, within her own borders, conditions can arise to throw uncertainty and danger around the lives of American Presi- dents. What source of solicitude to :he American people.
 How far any certain individuals may be responsible for the conditions that culminated in this great calami- ", we are not prepared to say. It is not to be denied, however, that the conviction of the country at large, is that the excitement which grew out of the antagonism to President Gsrfield's administration, by certain members of his own party, is most largely responsible for the act for which tue nation now mourhs.
 It IS plain that the ranks of dis
 
 appointed politicians and place hun ters furnished the man while the hot controversy waged by Messrs. Conk- ling and Arthur furnished the in spiratioa for this dark deed, and, if this be true, how fearful the thought that our country may be standing at the very threshold of q similar mis fortune, for once Tn motion, what is to stop the current. And we are not strangers to wild expressions of feeling and deep seated passion that settles down upon the country at large fearful conviction as to the possibilities of the near future. But. horrible as is the present calam ity, another would be ten fold more so. May Heaven forbid the forging ofanother link in the bloody chain, and turn our eyes toward the les. ! son that thls aiillction may contain. If personal aggrandizement and | bossism in American politics be a prime agency in the generation of conditions fraught with such dan ger to our institutions, then the les son is apparent that tine duty of the hour is for the people of this Union to take on new resolves, to set the seal of their disapproyal upon phese elements, both in men and parties, with such emphasis as iu the future to forever forbid tho application Of alike disreputablc to men and rninous to the country, for "eter- nal vigilance is the price of liberty" aE5zzzzEEsxz7EEIdaE
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