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EEY. A. J. RYAN, Editor-
AUGUSTA, GA., AUGUST 29, 1868.
THE ISSUE.
The grave issue before the Grand In
quest of the Country—the People—in
the present canvass, is not whether Sey
mour and Blair are sounder patriots and
better men than Grant and Colfax—
though they are; but whether Constitu
tional Liberty shall perish with this can
vass, or bo perpetuated to future genera
tions. That is the grand issue before the
Corntry ; and it is a grand issue. In it
are involved numerous minor questions,
issues, and principles, all more or less
grand and important in themselves; but
alone, little and insignificant, when com
pared with the grand issue itself.
The Radical party, through its corrupt
Congress, and through its venal office
holders, has placed itself “outside of the
Constitution has trampled upon that
sacred Charter of our Liberties ; and has
sunk the country in debt, ruin, and dis
grace. It has manacled and shackled
the South. For three long, dreary,
years, it has ruled here with the sword
and the bayonet; it has disfranchised her
intelligence and enfranchised her ignor
ance ; it has given to venal, corrupt, de
graded men, high positions in the coun
cils of the State; it has done this by
fraud, trickery and, corruption ; it has
impoverished the people, and bankrupted
corporations; it has incited animosities
between the white and black races; it
has inaugurated revolution and blood
shed by forcing illegal Governments upon
the people of the South, and depriving
them of their just rights; it has dragged
innocent men from the bosoms of their
families, to be tried for high crimes, be
fore illegal tribunals ; it has corrupted, by
false promises and bribery, men who
once held the confidence and respect of
the people ; it has established tortures in
the shape of “sweat boxes” and bayonets;
it has alienated the people of the North
and the South; it has ruined and de
graded the Negro; it has plunged the
whole country into an onerous and over
whelming debt, into anarchy, poverty,
and ruin ; it has—but why go on ? Is
not the indictment terrible enough to
alarm the people of every section of the
Union ? Is it not enough to wake them
from their lethargy, and make them open
their eyes to the awful fate that awaits
them ? Can a party with such a record
—can a party reeking with such corrup
tion and such crimes as these be tolerat
ed in a country boasting itself “the land
of the free and the home of the brave?”
We believe not. It must perish. It
must go down in shame, in degradation,
and be hidden forever in oblivion’s dark
est recesses. It must be made a thing
to be loathed and despised by honest and
true men and women everywhere. And
it will be.
The South has appealed from her ty
rants to the Grand Inquest of the Nation ;
and the verdict will be overwhelmingly
in favor of Constitutional Liberty. She
wants no war. She craves peace. She
asks to be delivered from tyranny, that
she may go to work in the fields of pro
gress and industry, and help to build up
once more the glory and grandeur of the
Nation. This is her appeal; and we be
lieve that it will not be made in vain.
The cheering answer comes from every
quarter of the Union, from the waters of
the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico;
from the Atlantic to the Pacific; from
Maine to California : “Be of good cheer;
the dawn of day is at hand ; the clouds
of Fanaticism are rolling away ; the light
in the East is breaking , the People are
aroused; they arc coming ‘terrible as an
army w 7 ith banners,’ ” and November next
will witness a great, glorious, and over
whelming victory for Constitutional Li
berty. Niagara thunders forth the glo
rious news. The shores of the Mexican
Gulf re-echo the glad tidings; and along
the Rocky Mountains the welcome rever
berations are sounding.
Let us then, people of the South, join,
heart and hand, with the gallant men
and women of the North, and standing
firm with them, shoulder to shoulder, in
this great contest, relaxing none of our
energy 7 and activity, but persevering in
our honest efforts to secure success, we
cannot, and will not, under the Providence
of God, fail to achieve a great and glo
rious triumph.
POLITICAL PROBLEMS.
When a people honorable, brave, and
accustomed to liberty—a people who have
put their honor and virtue in the scale of
war—who, reduced to poverty and slavery,
by the ruthless and bloody sword of the
oppressor, find themselves, after the dark
and turbulent storm of war, in the transi
tion state, it becomes them, as a brave
and patriotic people, to lift up their heads,
and make one more effort for liberty and
civilization, before the great cooling calm
consolidates.the conflicting and hetero
geneous elements of discord into one vast
solid rock of despotism.
For the last four years, the power and
enginery 7 of the Government, has been
in the hands of politicians; in the com
ing eventful twelve months, the people
will make an effort to regain lost authori
ty. The issue of the contest is yet veiled
in the impenetrable obscurity of the preg
nant future. The liberties of a whole
people are on solemn trial. The social
reaction, which is an inevitable conse
quence of military usurpation, has come,
and the last act, in the Drama of this
Republican Government, will now be
enacted.
Virtue and intelligence are more ne
cessary for the stability and prosperity
of a Republican Government, than for
any other form of Government yet de
vised by the wisdom of men. It must
be so, for it emanates free from man, and
is accepted and obeyed by freemen. A
Limited Monarchy, like England, will
do, where power is in the hands of the
few rich, with some checks secured to
the wealthy traders of commerce, and
where the starving millions of hungry
paupers must be kept down, and revolu
tionary instincts stifled by the iron hoof
of power. John Bright, enlarging the
Democratic element in England, may al
leviate the masses, as individuals, but it
is not too certain he is strengthening the
pillars of Monarchy. Quite different is
it in a Republic, working out its mission,
and undergoing its chamelion changes.
Here, the individual and masses must be
educated, and that education accompa
nied by virtue; for, intelligence without
virtue is a sharp weapon in the hands of
a strong child, who endangers himself, as
well as those about him. In the great
coming contest, we must hold fast to the
old landmarks of liberty; deal strong
and heavy blows for the old Constitution,
brush away the cob-webs and dirty fringe
of Amendments, or the Constitution, the
“Pillar and Ground” 0! our Republic,
falls, and the distinctive type of this free
Republican Government is for ever lost,
and passes into History as a thing that
was.
It does appear as if with slavery the
great conservative element of the coun
try was snapped and broken asunder
and with that so-called “twin relic of bar
barism,” perished also the Constitutional
Governmentof checks and balances. But,
this may be the ghost of a past issue ; let
us pass on, aud take courage ; neither
fear nor despair.
The perpetuity of this Government,
with its distinctive characteristics of De
mocratic Republicanism, depends very 7
much upon the tone and temper of the pub
lic mind within the next few months, and
the turnt hat mind will take. Though a
Democrat, we say pure Democracy, with
, universal suffrage, will ruin this or any
other country. In Democratic Athens, six
thousand names were wanted, and were
obtained, to ostracise the just Aristides.
If the mere say so of a pure majority is
right, the minority are at their mercy.
Let the majority of ignorant and vicious
vote to take away my house, or planta
tion, and there be neither law nor appeal
against the will of that majority, security
would be lost, and with it the Govern
ment. This brings us to the corner-stone
of the difficulty 7 . Who can be allowed
to vote, with less likelihood of abusing
the franchise? The excellence and beauty
of a Government consist in conferring
franchise on as many of its people as
will be consistent with security and
safety. That intelligence, at least, should
be a qualification, can scarcely be doubt
ed, for, counting the votes of mere num
bers, without taking into consideration
their weight or value, is inverting the
order of estimation, and making “confu*
sion worse confounded.” Suffrage is a
civil or political privilege, where the in
dividual unites and participates in the
personality of the State, and not a natural
right; for in a state of nature, one man
has no right over another man, and as
many as can may unite together, it will
not confer right, for the multiplication of
nothing is still nothing. If suffrage is a
natural right, why not be logical and
consistent, and extend it to all, women,
boys, children, and idiots ? The old man
votes in his dotage or second infancy ;
why not these ? In them, the right ex
ists in esse at last.
Permit us a little digression, as we
mentioned woman with the franchise*
She is wisely excluded from the preaching
and sacerdotal functions by the Church
aud Scriptures, and surrounded with a
halo of sanctity and respect, within the
domestic hearth. Her delicacy, feeble
ness, timidity, modesty 7 , with the cares
of maternity, point to a private life,
where she is happy and honored, and not
to a public life. Iu taking from her all
the vain empitiness of preaching and
political turmoil, the Scriptures cast to
the winds for ever the two domestic
pests, polygamy and divorce, and thus
contributed to place woman on the altar
of true dignity.
Suffrage, then, being a civil or politi
cal privilege, the exercise of which, more
or less restricted, is clearly allied to the
security of the State, the State, alone,
should confer the privilege, and give to
the worthy and intelligent the right to
vote, without leaving them (always a mi
nority,) to the mercy of the vile herd of
ignorant Voudooists; make voting an
honor, an incentive with inducements to
men to improve themselves, and climb
up to attain that proud privilege of par
ticipating in that moral being, the sov
ereign State, by being citizens and
being able to vote.
We see no injustice in restricting suf
frage, when the intelligent and worthy
only vote, nor injustice in this being a
pure White Man’s Government. Nature
and natural law have nothing to do
about voting, and Radicalism should not
try to make equal what Nature and natu
ral laws have made unequal. God does
not make men equal—why should the
Radical? One man is born poor, another
rich; one strong, “with Atlantian
shoulders, fit to bear the weight of might”
iest empires,” another weak, puny, and
consumptive ; one rarely gifted, erudite,
and brilliant; another dwarfedjand stu
pid ; one refined, elegant, and polished in
his manners; another awkward, gawky,
and a stammerer. Why should the Rad
icals try to make everybody equal by un
just laws ? It is because they are jealous,
and hate us, and the leveling process
levels downwards and never upwards.
The clean, snowy, tips of mountains, are
leveled down to the dirty hollows, and
not the dirty hollows up to the illumined
tops. It is for their benefit—not ours.
In her palmiest days, during the Con
suls, when mistress of the world, Rome
was very careful whom she allowed to
vote. The Pater familias , had the de
cision of all questions, and Pater fami
lias did not mean every father of family,
but the Head of a family, a House, or Es
tate, who could live within himself, sup
port his retinue, and not depend upon
others. Artisans, servants, and domestics
generally, who lived with the Pater fa
milias, though fathers of children, or
Gmilies, by Nature, were not Pater fami
lias by law, and could not exercise the
electoral franchise. The crown of reward*
when placed on the brow of a noble Pa
ter familias, was more prized and honored
than when gained as a simple Tribune or
Consul. But soon, the Radicals of Rome>
like ours, clamored for Egalite, Liberie,
et Fraternite; and lo! on freedmen,
slaves, on men who owned neither house
nor lands, on the vast multitude, was
conferred the electoral franchise, and
then the market place became a vast
sink of corruption, where votes were
bought and sold in broad day light.
From this, Rome dates her fall; and she
fell rapidly. Let this country take warn
ing. If in November next, every white
man would vote, who could vote before
the war, which we had fondly hoped, from
the President’s proclamation of July;
though now it appears otherwise, there is
little doubt that the Democratic nominees
would receive the popular vote of the
whole country. If intelligence and vir
tue could control, or had controlled since
May, 1860, all the white men could and
would vote at this election, and the coun
try might be saved, and the Republic and
Liberty perpetuated. The proud old ship
of State, with all her broad white sailsy
set, dashing through the spray, with the
colors of Liberty all flying from every
mast-head, would show a reconstructed
country, the oue we ocne loved; and we
could then feel and say:
“She walks the waters like a thing of life,
And seems to dare the elements to strife.
W 7 ho would not brave the battle fire—the wreck—
To move the monarch of her peopled deck ?”
One of the Counsel in the case
sends us the following, which, without
note or comment, we gladly publish. In
a very kind letter to us, he states that his
connexion with the case was one of the
means which led him into the Catholic
Church ; “for,” writes he, “my 7 investi
gations and study of the case, drew my
attention to many facts respecting the
English Protestant Bible, of which I
was wholly iguorant; facts, which went
far to convince me that the English Bible
was altogether too unreliable to be the
sole means of conveying the Revelations
of God to man” :
Ax Interesting Lawsuit— A Court of
Chancery to Decide wiiat is a Cor
rect Version of the Bible.
It will be remembered by 7 persons,
whose attention was called to the matter,
that quite a controversy arose amongst
Protestant Divines aud Theologians, ten
or a dozen years ago, as to the correct
ness of the version of the English Bible,
published by the American Bible So
ciety 7 .
It appeared, in the progress of the
controversy, that, in 1847, the American
Bible Society referred to its Committee
on Versions the subject of collating the
different editions of the Protestant Eng
lish Bible from that of King James, in
1611, down to the latest publications of
the Society, for the purpose of correcting
the many typographical, and other errors,
which had crept into them, and of making
a standard Bible, from which all the
Bibles of the Society should be published.
This Committee, composed of eminent
Divines, of different Protestant sects,
labored at this work for several years,
and, finally, in 1851, completed a copy of
the Bible, which they reported to the
American Bible Society as a correct
standard. The Report was adopted, and
thenceforward the Society printed its
Bibles according to this copy.
The matter attracted little attention for
several years; but, in 1856, or ’57, some
enquiring Bible reader discovered, as he
alleged, that the Committee 011 Versions
had altered the Sacred Text in some
places, and Had changed the headings of
chapters, and marginal references, so as
to make them amount to notes and com
ments, more or less sectarian; and that,
consequently, the Bibles published by
the Society were not according to the
version of King James.
The subject was taken up by the re
ligious newspapers and periodicals, and a
vigorous attack was made on the Society’s
Bible, in a pamphlet, entitled, “An
Apology for the Common English Bible,”
published in 1857, by Joseph Robinson,
in Baltimore, an<’ by Dana A Cos., in \\ M .
York.
The Maryland Bible Society took tr
the subject, and made earnest remou
strances to the American Bible Society
against the alleged changes, particularly
those where the sense f the text L a *d
been altered. The Bib.* Societies ,»f
Pennsylvania, Virginia, and many other
auxiliary Societies, soon joined in the re*
monstrance, and quite a breeze of con
troversy sprung up in the Protestant
Theological world.
The detailed Report of the Committee
on Versions was published by the Ameri
can Bible Society, in the same year, 1857 .
but this, so far from allaying the disturb
ance, seemed to add fuel to the flame, fi
appeared from the Report, that the
“number of variations recorded by tin*
collator, solely in the text and punctua
tion of the six copies compared, falls but
little short of twenty-four thousand.”-.
Report, page 31. And they add, with u
simplicity which did not seem to satisfy
their more orthodox brethren : “Yet, of
all this great number, there is not one
which mars the integrity of the text, or
affects any 7 doctrine or precept of tip
Bible.”
The Committee were evidently actuated
by an honest purpose to “present a correct
version of the Bible in the English lan
guage, and when, from the collation of
different copies, they discovered a mani
fest error, they 7 went back to the Greek,
or Hebrew, and, consequently, made soon'
passages to differ from any previous edi
tion. And whatever may have been the
effect of the twenty-four thousand varia
tions discovered iu the six copies com
pared, it is evident, and, indeed, admit
ted by 7 the Committee, t.ha'c some of their
own changes affected the sense of the
text. See Report, page 25. To a disin
terested spectator, it is clear, that, in some
instances, at least, the Committee were
right in making the changes, if the object
of the translation be to convey the sense
of the originals. But, to men, who be
lieved that King James’ version was
made under immediate Divine guidance,
any change in the text seemed to be little
better than an attack on the Bible itself.
The breeze grew to be almost a storm, and
was not quieted until the American Bible
Society 7 , on the 28th January, Iffu
adopted the following resolutions:
“ Resolved , That this Society’s present
Standard English Bible be referred to
the Standing Committee on Versions for
examination, and in all cases where the
same differs in the text, or its accessories,
from the Bible previously published by
the Society, the Committee are directed
to correct the same by conforming it to
previous editions printed by this Society,
or by the authorized British presses:
reference being also had to the original
edition of the translation printed in lfill:
and to report such corrections to tiff
Board, to the end that anew edition, thus
perfected, may be adopted as the
standard edition of the Society 7 .
“ Resolved, That until the completion
and adoption of such new Standard
Edition, the English Bibles to be issued
by this Society shall be such as confirm
to the editions of the Society, anterior to
the late revision, so far as may 7 be practi
cable, and excepting cases where the per
sons, or auxiliaries, applying for Bibles,
shall prefer to be supplied from copies of
the present Standard Edition, now <-:i
hand, or in process of manufacture.” >
42 d Annual Report of American LP
Society , 1858, page 31.
This terminated the theological con*:o
- ; but a lawsuit has grown out of it,
and the Court of Chancery at M >nt
gomery, Ala., is called upon to decide,
whether the Committee on Versions di
make such changes in the text of the
Bible as to make a version different from
that previously in common use, and
whether the changes made in the head
ings of the chapters, and marginal rc‘ ; t
ences, amounted to notes and comment--
Abner McGehee, a wealthy citizen or
Montgomery County, Alabama, made Iff
will January, 1855, and died the follow:: ;
month. Ilis will was duly probated,ram
amongst other charitable bequest.-, en
tains the following clause: “7. I
give, bequeath, and devise, to my -•
Executors, hereinafter named, a suff
number of shares of my Stock in
Montgomery and West Point Rail B
Company, to amount to fifty tlimi- tr
dollars; this bequest is made in tv > r
and upon the conditions and limitat: a
following, viz : My r said Executors
collect and receive all such divide
and payments as may he allowed. 1
made by said Rail Road Corporati"’*
apon the said shares of Stock, anl iff
over the same to the American
citey, a corporation located in the Cff-
New York, and chartered by the
New York in the year 1835, the ff,ff
having been formed in the year
Such dividends, or payments, are to
made by my said Executors, to be
by said Corporation, for the object-'