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4 , Q&k&l % . Mmam&M. 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.