Newspaper Page Text
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REV- A. J. RYAN, Editor.
AUGUSTA, GA., GOT. 8, 1870.
ALL SUBSCRIPTIONS AND
BUSINESS LETTERS FOR THE “BAN
NER OF THE SOUTH” SHOULD BE
ADDRESSED TO THE PUBLISHERS—
L. T. BLOME & CO.
THE TENDENCY TO IMPERIALISM-
The tendency of the times in this
country, is toward Imperialism. Every
movement of the Party in power shows
this to be the fact. Look at the ex
travagances of the General Government,
of every Radical State Government;
look at the arrogance of Radical officials;
observe the authority with which they
exercise the functions of their offices;
observe the infamous election acts of
Radical Legislatures; as well as all of
the unconstitutional measures of the so
called Congress. These are some of the
most, unmistakable signs. But there are
others, though less prominent, not the
less significant. Among them is the fact
that the meetings of the President and
his Secretaries are no longer called
“Cabinet Meetings,” but “meetings of
the Presidentjand his Ministers.” And
the farther fact that the President has is
sued orders to the Manager of the Na
tional Theatre in Washington to hare
“his box” enlarged, the old one and the
one adjoining to be thrown together, and
a restaurant or smoking room attached,
with a large window for ventilation! In
other words, an Imperial box, where bis
Majesty can enjoy the performances with
out contaminating himself by too close
proximity to the Plebian herd around
him!
It matters not that Fisk calls him “a
fool” and “the Nation’s ho ry \” It
matters not that his own Party are some
times made to blush—-if such a corrupt
clivue can ever blush for anything-—at
his ignorance and stupidity. It matters
not that Democratic gains are reported
in Maine, and other States, Grant is
“master of the situation.” He holds the
reins of Power, and the besotted thieves
and bloated swindlers who surround
him are there to sustain him in any act
he may choose to perform, while the
millions of poor, ignorant dupes who con
stitute “the Party in power” are ready to
protest him in his lawlessness, and to
throw up their hats and hurrah for Im
perial Grant, as they did for the imbe
cile General who, by overwhelming num
bers, alone, secured the surrender of
Gen. Lee’s army.
How to prevent this calamity, then, is
the great questien for the patriotic Re
publican people of the United States to
consider. In our judgment, the only pre-
Veniative to Grant’s usurpations is to be
found in a united and determined effort
to carry all the State elections for the
Democratic Party—North and South.
Radicalism must be torn up, root and
branch, the Constitution shorn of the ex
crescences which have been grafted on it,
and restored to its original purity and
beauty; and the best and the truest men
of the country placed in offices now held
by Radical adventurers, plunderers,
swindlers, and robbers. We believe that
this can be done. But it is a great work,
and will require a great effort. It can
not be accomplished by peaceably wait
ing for it to accomplish itself. It re
quires union, courage, zeal, devotion,
labor—active and vigorous labor. It
requires self sacrifice, the immolation of
personal ambition and personal prejudi
ces on the Altar of Patriotism. It de
mands a strict and honest adherence to
Principle—no deceptions, no double
dealings with the People—a bold deelara-
tion of Principles, and a firm advocacy
of them. If we are prepared to do and
to give all this for and to the cause of
the Country, we shall surely rescue it
from the hands of traitors and design
ing knaves. If not, then stand quietly
aside, and let Emperor Grant don his pur
ple robe3 and his golden crown, take his
sceptre in his hand, mount bis Imperial
throne, and so finish the evil work which
he and his co-conspirators have so &us
pieously begun.
It will be too late, then, to recall the
memories of Washington, of Jefferson,
of Clay, of Calhoun, and the hosts of
brsve hearts that have gone down to the
dust in defence of human liberty. It
will he too late, then, to appeal to the Pa
triotism of an oppressed People, or to in
voke the shades of our past history. You
will, then, be fast iu the grip of the ty
rant, hound hand and foot, under his Im
perial authority, and totally incapable o”
resistance.
Ponder on this subject. It is no mix
ture of idle words, hut a warning which
all the signs of the times justify, anc
which the People should heedero it is too
late. Think well. Think quickly, anc
act promptly. You can save the Re
public, if you will.
THE TEST OATH-
A copy of an oath purporting to he
the Test Oath, or “Iron Clad Oath,” is
being circulated in the Press, which is
not the correct one. In view of the ap
proaching election in this and other
Southern States, we copy the following
arlicle from a late number of the Nash
ville (Tenn.,) Union & American ,
giving all the information cn the sub
ject, which will be, no doubt, of much
interest to our readers. Hence we give
it in full:
THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT—THE IRON
CLAD.
There still seems to he some discussion
about political disabilities under the
Fourteenth Amendment, and the acts
passed relative to the oath required to be
taken by members of Congress. We
therefore propose to set out these mat
ters in full, so all may judge for them
selves.
The third section of the Fourteenth
Amendment reads as follows :
“No person shall be a Senator or Re
presentative in Congress, or Elector of
President or Vice-President, or hold any
office, civil or military, under the United
States, or under any State, who, having
previously taken an oath, as a member of
Congress, or as executive or judicial of
ficer of any State, to support the Consti
tution of the United States, shall have
engaged in insurrection or rebellion
against the same, or given aid and com
fort to the enemies thereof. But Con
gress may, by a vote of two-thirds of
each House, remove such disability.”
By the act of Congress passed July 2,
1862
Every person elected or appointed to
any office of honor or profit under the
Government of the United States, shall
take and subscribe the following oath or
affirmation: “I, A. B. do solemnly
swear, (or affirm), that I have never vol
untarily borne arms against the United
States since I have been a citizen there
of; that I have voluntarily given no aid,
countenance, counsel or encouragement
to persons engaged in armed hostility
thereto; that I have neither sought, nor
accepted, nor attempted to exercise the
functions of any office whatever under
any authority, or pretended authority, in
hostility to the United States; that I have
not yielded a voluntary support to any
pretended government, authority, power
or constitution within the United States,
hostile or inimical thereto. And I do
further swear (or affirm) that, to the best
of my knowledge and ability, I will sup
port and defend the Constitution of the
United States against all enemies, foreign
and domestic; that I bear true faith and
allegiance to the same; that I take this
obligation freely without any mental re*
servation or purpose of evasion, and that
I will well and faithfully discharge the
duties of the office on which I am about
to enter, so help me God.”
As the law, requiring this oath of all
persons to take office under the General
Government was in full force at the time
the 14th Amendment was adopted, the
removing of a person’s disabilities did not
relieve him from taking the above oath,
and to obviate this difficulty for awhile as
to certain parties, Congress relieved them
from taking the test oath when their disa
bilities had been removed by resolution,
r MBBII ©f gffimrcm.
viz :
“Sec. 2. And be it further enacted,
That all persons from whom the disabili
ties imposed by the 14th Amendment of
the Constitution of the United States have
been or shall be removed, and who have
been or shall he removed, and who have
been or shall be elected or appointed to
any offict or place of trust in or under
the Government of the United States, or
of either of the States, or territories, shall
before entering on the duties thereof, take
and subscribe the oath prescribed in the
act approved July 11, 1868, entitled an
act, prescribing an oath of office to be
taken by persons from whom legal disa
bilities shall have been removed, instead
of the oath prescribed in the act approv
ed July 2, 1862, entitled an act to pre
scribe an oath of office and other purposes
—anything in any other act to the con
trary notwithstanding.”
From the above it will be seen that all
who take office under the United States
Government are required to take the
iron-clad oath of July 2, 1862, unless they
have had legal disabilities under the third
section of the Fourteenth Amendment,
and have had them removed by a two
thirds vote of CoDgress, and then they
are only required to take the oath pre
scribed by the act of July 11, 1868.
Many are insisting that Congress can or
may require persons whose disabilities
have been relieved to still take the iron
clad oath. This is in the face of two dif
ferent laws of Congress.
o
From reading the 14th amendment and
the acts here referred to, we think it clear
that where a person had no legal disa
bilities, or was not obnoxious to the third
section of the 14th amendment, he will
not be relieved from taking the iron-e’ad
oath of July 2, 1862, by* a Congressional
pardon or vote of two-thirds of Congress.
The act of Congress of July 11, 1868,
3rescribing the modified oath refers alone
)y its very terms to those “from whom
all legal disabilities arise therefrom have
been removed by act of Congress,” and
does not at al] apply to those who had no
disabilities, but who attempt by a Con
gressional pardon to get the benefit of this
modified oath.
The act of Congress passed March 7,
1870, relieving the disabilities of several
thousand persons, and which is similiar
to all others on the same subject, reads as
follows :
“That all legal and political disabilities
imposed by the Fourteenth Amendment
of the Constitution of the United States,
ey r reason of participation in the late re
bellion, be and they are hereby removed
Irom the following persons, viz :” ,
and it fully accords with the view above
set out.
In view of the coming election these
are important questions, and all we de
sire is to simply present all the facts to
the public.
ON SHAKING HANDS-
The London Saturday Review has a
very entertaining article upon the cus
tom of shaking hands, from which we
make the following extract:
The hot Sommer of 1870 must have
set many people thinking whether it is
not possible to invent some mode of salu
tation more convenient than that of shak
ing hands. When the thermometer is
at 90 in the shade, and when the only
hope of escaping a sunstroke seems to
be to drink so much tea and to wear so
little clothes as shall best promote per
spiration, then the tyranny of the social
law which compels us to grasp the hand
of a casual and very hot acquaintance,
and to give it the established vibration,
is tally felt, and becomes almost unsup
portable. But the inconvenience of the
practice of shaking hands is not confined
and at last, to fully settle the question,
Congress, on the 11th of July, 1868,
passed the following law, which is yet in
full force, viz : “Whenever any person
who participated in the late rebellion,
and from whom all legal disabilities aris
ing therefrom have been removed by act
of Congress, by a vote of two-thirds of
each House, has been or shall be elected
or appointed to any office or place of trust
in or under the Government of the United
States, lie shall before entering upon the
duties thereof, instead of the oath pre
scribed by the act of July 2, 1862, take
and subscribe the following oath or affir
mation :
“I A. 8., do solemnly swear (or affirm)
that I will support a»d defend the Consti
tution of the United States against all
enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will
bear true faith and allegiance to the
same ; that I take this obligation freely,
without any mental reservation or pur
pose of evasion, and. that I will well and
faithfully discharge the duties of the of
fice on which I am about to enter, so help
me God.”
To place the matter beyond all cavil
or doubt, Congress, on the 14th of De
cember, 1869, passed the following law,
to the season of hot weuher only. There
is probably no mode of salutation com
monly practiced by any civilized nation
which is so encompassed with difficulties
and embarrassments. The difficulty of
making a correct bow is, no doubt, con
siderable. There is the difficulty of
knowing how to bow; how to draw the
artistic hue between the unceremonious
nod and the obeisatice; and—for people
who aim at doing things in good form—
the difficulty of apportioning their due
angle of reverence to the different sexes,
and to.the different social positions ages
and degrees of intimacy of persons in
each sex. And there is also the difficulty
of knowing when to bow, so wel* de
scribed by Steele in the Sj)ectator. But
all the difficulties that cluster round the
bow are as nothing compared to those
that encompass the shaking of hands.—
The difficulties of knowing how to bow
are, after all, only the difficulties which
beset the attempt to do anything well;
and difficulties of the same kind, not in
ferior in degree, will be found to beset
the practice ot shaking hands. As for
the difficulties of knowing when to bow,
it is obvious that they must be at least
doubled in the case of hand-shaking, for
this simple reason, that that time mode
of salutation requires the consent and co
operation of two persons to execute it.
Hand-shaking as a mode of salutation has
the fundamental and fatal vice that it
necessitates personal contact, hence it is
subject to objections the same in kind,
though certainly not the same in degree!
as the nose-rubbing of the Polynesians!
and similar modes of greeting employed
by savages.
If any person should be inclined to
doubt whether hand-shaking is a difficult
operation, let him consider the different
modes in which the custom is observed
among his various friends and acquaint
ances. Ihere are negative modes and
there are positive modes of shaking hands.
There are, first of all, the people who
seem to fear that if they once give you
their hands they may never get them
back again, and who manoeuvre so that
you may not possess yourself of more
than the tips of their fingers. This mode
of hand-shaking may be called tipping,
and those who use it, tippers. Closely
allied to them is another sort of half-hand
shakers—those, namely, who do not clasp
your hand, but finger it with two digits.
This mode of shaking hands is sometimes
adopted by men of political and literary
notoriety. But it is very apt to give of
fence; aud the most serious consequences
have been known to ensue from its hav
ing been practiced by a youDg author
upon a critic whom he had mistaken for
a rival writer. These persons, who, fail
ing to give the whole hand, nevertheless
do not touch your hand with the tips of
the lingers only, but finger it with the
whole of one or more fingers, may be
called fingerers. Then there are those
who give the whole hand, but give it in
a limp, flappy manner, as a New Found
land gives its paw. These people seem to
think they have discharged the whole
duty of hand-shaking when they have
put their neighbors in possession of their
hands. Were it the custom to make our
adieu to a dear departed by shaking hands
with hts corpse, the sensation would no
doubt be very 7 like what we exDerience
when we salute these flabby shakers;
who, as they use their hands much iu the
same way the mock turtle uses his flaps,
may be called flappers. These negative
modes es shaking hands are disagreeable
enough. But the positive modes are still
more unpleasant. Among these, the
least distressing is probably the thrnsting
mode. There are some people who, when
you offer them your hand, take it; but
take it only to put it away from them, as
if it were something common and unclean,
dhey seize it with quick decision, as
brave children seize a snap-dragon or an
earwig. Then, by a rapid thrust forward
in tierce, they return it to your side; and
having got it there, they drop or shoot it
into space. These thrusters area numerous
class, and, oddly enough, their mode does
not seem to give so much offence as that of
the tippers and fingerers. More physically
painful, though ethically less injurious,
is the mode of those who squeeze. This
mode is chiefly practiced by Methodists,
by fervid preachers of evangelical persua
sions, and by other persons of power aDd
piety. Torments are sometimes suffered
by small boned or rheumatic men, and
by fragile women, who have fallen into
the hands of one of these fervid giants, and
who happen to have rings on their fingers
when the cruel clutch is effected. But
worse even than this class of squeezers is
that ot the dingers—the people who hav
ing once got hoi 3 of your hand, refuse to
let it go, but oso it as they would a but
ton-hole, or as the ancient mariner used
his glittering eye, to compel you to hear
all they have to say; giving it at inter
vals little pressures, motions or vibra- i
tions, as a running accompaniment to !
their twaddle. Os ail the kinds of!
shakers above described, these dingers
are undoubtedly the most pestilential*
and when, as is occasionally the case they
combine squeezing and clinging, 'thev
are simply unendurable, and outfit to
be treated as creatures that outrage so
ciety.
There are very few people who do not
partake, in a g! eater or less degree, of
one or more of these faults iu haud-sh’ak
ing. If any reader has hitherto been
accustomed to think that hand-shaking j s
a less difficult form of salutation to
ecute well than a bow, let him consider
carefully, in one of his moments of
deepest consciousness, his own mode of
shaking-hands, and, when he has done
this, let. him consult a candid friend on
the subject. It is just possible that the
result of such consultation and self-ex
amination.may be favorable. He may
still he able to believe that he has mas
tered the accomplishment of shaking
hands, and that his shake is free from all
the defects above named—that he neither
tips, fingers, flaps, thrusts, squeezes nor
clings when saluting his acquaintance.
But at any rate he will not continue to
underrate the difficulty of the accomplish
ment, and will probably be prepared to
admit that he who can shake hands well
should be able to bow better. In truth,
the conclusion that hand-shaking is a
more difficult mode of salutation th.:n
bowing is established by two distinct, hut
equally convincing, lines of argument- -
by the argument from the reason of the
thing, because as we have said, it nece •
sitates personal contact, and requires
the co-operation of two persons to ex
ecute it; and by the argument from facts,
because it is found that fewer people do
it successfully, Even, however, if we
s ippose that the difficulties of bowing or
of shaking-hands are about equal there
remains one more conclusive argument
against the shaking of hands. It is this.
Granted that, if bowing took the place
now occupied by shaking, the number of
bad bows would be about equal to the
existing number of bad shakes, yet the
amount of social discomfort would be
materially reduced. For there is this
important difference between the bad
bow and the bad shake, that the man who
lows badly embarrasses himself < n'y; where
as the man who shakes hands badly—the
thruster or clinger, for example—caus s
annoyance to others. Common polite
ness, therefore, ought t© make us prefir
the bad bow to the bad shake; and this
one consideration alone ought to be suffi
cient to persuade society to discard hand
shaking a? an ordinary mode of saluta
tion in favor of b >wing, or some f non
which is similarly free from the evils of
personal contact.
Reference has also been made to
Steele’s paper on the difficulties of know
ing when to bow, and his description of
too troublesome circumstances in which
the indiscreet bower finds himself. No
man who mixes in society can hope en
tirely to escape embarrassing situation*.
But it may be safely declared that bowin g
can never involve so much embarrass
ment as haiid-shaking. Who has not,
at sometime cr other, been staying' with a
large party in a country-house, and felt
the necessity of shaking-hands all round
with an assembly of ten or twctve per
sons every morning before breakfast, and
every evening before bed, to weigh upon
his mitd lik3 a Dightmare? On such oc-
there is often one of the party
who, from what is supposed to be lazi
ness, lever make* h ; s appearance at
breakfast, but keeps his room till the
company is dispersed to the business and
amusements ot the day. It would be
curious to know how much of this suppos
ed laziness is really nervous horror of
the hand-shaking ordeal. In like manner
some old-fashioned people, who think it
necessary, when they are at a large
garden party, to shake hands with every
one they know, will sometimes endure
any T amount of waiting and weariness
rather than he the first to leave, and
run the gauntlet of the salutation of the
whole company. Or again, who has not
often found himself in some such situa
tions as the following: His carrying a
book in ane baud and a walking stick in
the other, when he sbddenly meets a lady
of his acquaintance. By a rapid effort,
he transiers the stick into the left hand
with the book, and with the right
hand takes off his hat. Whereupon
she oflers him her hand for a shake.
What is he to do? To choose the
m mmt when a lady is offering him
her {hand to put on his hat has a
most ungracious air. To transfer the
hit to the Iff hand is a physic and impos
sibility. To drop the hat on the ground
would seem theatrical. The situation is
simply insoluble, and enough of itself to
damn hand-shaking as a polite mode us
salutation. But it would be endless
work to describe all the horrid situations
which this custom occasions. The man
who does not bitterly fell the nuisance
of it, both in the bosom of his family and
when he takes his walks abroad, must
b? either more or less than human.