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THE COUNTRYMAN.
TURNWOLD, GA., DECEMBER 8, 1862.
The Reign of Terror.
We have indeed fallen upon evil times.
With an outside foe pressing upon us with
the avowed object of exterminating our peo
pie, white and black, it might be thought
that this pressure would make our people a
unit ; that they would see the necessity, 1st
of the reign of law and order, as our most
powerful auxiliary in maintaining our inde
pendence ; and 2ndlj, of upholding the
hands of our executive chief in the great
struggle in which we are engaged, particu
larly when his course has at first blush the
sanction of law, he being in authority,
and in the next place, when it has the sanc
tion of the plain letter of the statute, and
then of judicial dictum upon the constitu
tionality of the law.
Proofs are accumulating every day of the
dire intent of our foe. One of the more re
cent demonstrations is the letter of Arch
bishop Hughes counselling more vigor in
the yankee government in killing our peo
ple, when the hollow-hearted hypocrite
who presumes to be the vice gerent of God
in about the 2nd degree—he being next to
the pope—professes to teach the command
ment, Thou shalt not kill.
The Augusta Christian Advocate has re
cently received a batch pf Northern relig
ious journals. As the Advocate remarks,
all these journals “ breathe out threatenings
and slaughter—applaud the vindictive pol
icy of their government to the echo—aud
seem to think that war, and arson, and plun
der, and murder, even of women and chil
dren, is an innocent method of treatment for
those who have dared to believe that the
rights of a government are founded in the
will of the governed.” These sentiments
come from several Christian Advocates and
the N.Y.Observer. The proposition of the N.'
Y. Evening Post to exterminate the negro
race on the American Continent, is going
the rounds of all the papers. This comes
from one of the highest organs of that Chris
tian philanthropy which so long spent itself
in sympathy for the slave. Such are the
feelings ot Christians,North-protestants and
papists. God save us, then, from Northern
sinners.
But while this is true of our yankee ene
mies, what is going on among ourselves?
In the first place, we have a radical, revo
lutionary governor, who if he could but get
the people to back him in it, would get up
a revolution on the Conscript Act, when our
own representatives in congress voted for it,
and when our oivn supreme court has de
clared it constitutional. Get up this revo
lution, and there would be 3 governments—
the U. S., the C. S., and the State-—claim
ing our allegiance, and between the .3, it
would be quite strange if the necks of any
of us escaped the halter.
And not only is Gov. Brown injuring us
in this way, but see from the following
extract from the Augusta Advocate what
he and all others who are warring upon
president Davis’s administration are doing
for ns :
“ Another fact that we learn from these
hateful sheets is, that they eagerly seize ev
ery item that they can construe into a token
of our weakness, exhaustion, or disposition
to yield the contest, and ostentatiously give
such herns vent, as inducements for push
ing the war with renewed vigor. Thus, one
of the papers publishes in full ‘ P. W. A.’s’
account of our shoeless and blanketless ar
my, and takes courage from the facts set
forth. Little souls ! they know not how to
appreciate the spirit of herops. Miserable
muck worms ! they cannot comprehend the
noble spirit of freemen, which can sacrifice
everything, and fight in rags, and hungry
and athirst, for home and country and lib
erty. Let the false prophets read the les
son aright. It. means that we are not to be
subdued. We know how to suffer, even
how to die, hut not how to yield to yan
kee domination. But such statements are
crumbs of comfort to them. And the follow
ing editorial paragraph from the Chicago
paper shows who they are among ourselves,
that sustain the hopes of our bitter enemy,
with the idea that counter-revolutions and
anarchy are impending in our land. The
title is, ‘ Georgia repudiating Confederate
Authority,’ and the editor says : *
* Notwithstanding the care taken to con
ceal the fact of the great dissatisfaction of
the state of Georgia with the rebel govern
ment, evidence will now and then appear.
Not long since, a conscript was discharged
by a Georgia judge, who boldly declared
the Conscription act illegal and void. We
have not heard that thejudge was molested.
But here is stronger evidence. In an arti
cle about differences between the State of
Virginia and the Confederate Government,
the Richmond Examiner of the 6th, says :
Such a correspondence, for instance, as that
between the state of Georgia, which quietly
prohibits the enforcement of the Conscript
law in its limits, and the Confedetate Gov
ernment, which pocketed the prohibition, will
never see the light, for it will never be un
dertaken.’ ”
If this and similar outgiviugs from the
Northern press, do not prove that the fac
tious opposition to the Administration in
Georgia, is giving “ aid and comfort” to the
enemy, then I do not know what “ aid and
comfort” ale*.
But this is not all. There seems to be no
safety for person or property in Georgia.
Gov. Brown began, some time ago, his un
lawful seizures. Now the legislature is dis
posed to clothe him with supreme authori
ty in this regard, that he may go about as
a roaring lion, seeking whom be may de
vour. All this is clearly unconstitutional,
and should be, and will be resisted before
the judicial tribunals : and those tribunals
should begin to nerve, themselves up, now,
to a discharge of their duties.
I am not done yet.—The Milledgevillc
correspondent of the Southern Confederacy
wrote, a week or two ago, that some gentle
man (I know not whojwho had occupied high
official position, had been heard to declare
that extortion ought to justify the killing of
any one guilty of it. With the general im
pression among our people that all high
price is extortion, who then would be safe?
Touching this matter of extortion (real
and imaginary) charges to grand juriesfrom
the bench have been given, whose tendency
was to encourage lawless violence. The
press has been guilty in the same regard.
Even the old, staid, conservative Recorder
intimated, not long since, that some of the
overgrown fortunes made in Atlanta during
this war, might beseized and divided among
the soldiery. The Macon Telegraph can
see nothing but ‘ fun’ in the effects to be
produced by the resolution authorizing Gov.
Brown to ‘ seize’—that is, to rob. There
will be a great running of all supplies out
of the state to avoid seizufe, the Telegraph
intimates, and there will be great destitu
tion in the markets, and very -unhappy re
sults will follow : but the Telegraph sees
only ‘ fun’ in it all: it does not (so to speak)
care a darn : and why ? Because the edi
tor is a ‘ buyer’ and not a ‘ seller.’
For my part, I can see no fun in all the
matters set forth in this article. It is fast
coming to this—that we are to have no law,
no order, no government but the govern
ment of the mob. And it matters but lit
tle in its consequences whether this mob is
led by Gov. Brown, or some one who has
no official position.
Our whole sky itf filled with portentous
lowerings Let our people all gather once
more in the ark of the constitution and
laws, and having done our duty in this re
gard, trust our ark to the God who rules
the storm.