The advocate., 1895-06-05
Sydney Stone, Ant-EedeEaL.
C0Rtinued from page s.

Righteous men seek light rather than darkness
There must have been some reasonable conspiracy
Matching there against the peopleP"
"Thst depends upon whom you call 'the people,
AS to the gentlemen, and the mercantile and pro
fessona classes, the purpose Of the convention was
of the strictest recttude. But if by the people you
mean the ignorant masses who prate of equality |
and actually presume to demand it, there oO0S con-
spiraey against them. To tell the truth, when our
state Constitutions were framed we were so depend
emit upon the vulgar herd to do the fighting for us
that we dared not oppose them too muCh and they /
had become so saturated with the teachings of that
fanatical Tom Paine's absurd pamphlet which he
outraged reason by emitting Common Sense" and
they had become so imbued with the notions picked
up from Jefferson's loose and dangerous talk, that
our state Constitutions leave all property at the
mercy of the mob. The stupid herd pass over our
ablest men, and men of the Chieftest families in the
state, and actually choose ordinary farmers and
even artisans as members Of the General Court, and
to gil other offices which properly belong to gentle
men Of fortune and family. The situation is dan
gerous to the upper classes Why, last fall the scum
actually took up arms and drove judges and lawyers
from the Court houses, and shut up the Courts of
Justice so that honest debts could not be collected
and when the Governor was importuned to call out
the militia provided for in our Constitution consisted
largely of the rebels themselves.
"a fine state of affairs, truly That is the kind of
government we are living under. We appealed to
the Congress- but the Federation could only send
troops under pretense of protecting the arsenal at
Springfield and hardly dared at first to do that
Besides many of the rebels had been soldiers during
the war; and they were all armed and we'll prepared.
After it was all over, went through the farce Of
irving some of the leaders, and got them convicted
only with the express understanding that the Gov
ernor would pardon them, which he did in every in
stance If 1t had not been we'll known that the
whole thing was farce we not only could not have
got single rebel convicted but the Court houses
would have been torn down and the judges and law
yeFs would have been hanged by the insOlent mob.
So-Why do you smile?"
sIsaac, you are an odd man, 1t amuses me to
hear a Massachusetts man calling other Msssachu-
setts men rebels so soon after revolution which be-
can at Lexington with the command to MasSachu-
setts men in general, 'Disperse, you rebes!' 1t
strikes me as incongruous."
"Reuben, fear your mind has been poisoned by
the absurd and seditious philosophy now so much in
vogue, am told in Paris. How can you jest about
so serious mstterP Your property is here as is
mine and that of others. What security have we
against the aggressions of the propertyless Vugar9
They are the majority and under the leadership of
some bad, ambitious man, or some fanatic with
ideas like that wretch of Tom Paine, Or that dem.
agogue- Jefferson, who knows what laws they
might make against propertyp tell you, Reuben,
t Is serious situation here for we men Of property
It Is nothing to smile at"
"Very WE'LL Isaac, will take it as seriously as you
wish, although think you omit to take advsntsgeo of
one very plain method Of avoiding all danger. Why
not deal justly by the properyless people, cultivate
their good wil and give them all chance to be-
come gentlemen of propertyp If all had property,
we would have no propertyess class to fear"
"There it is! That is some of your ine-looking,
French philosophy, Look over the world-eVery-
where the people are divided into the two classes: