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THE COUNTRYMAN,
7
not also build up ? Must he always belong
to the opposition 1
Now is a very critical time for Gen.
Toombs’s reputation. As a powerful orator,
and afar-seeing andsagacious statesman,he
has made a reputation second to no living
man’s. His great forte, since his entry upon
political life, has been to make war upon the
yankee government: for the United States
government was a yankee concern, long
before it passed into Lincoln’s hands. For
more than 20 years he has been combatting
abolition encroachments, and calling upon
the South to awake from the fatal lethargy
which fettered her energies, and made her
the victim of yankee cupidity and villainy.
In this he did well. And when a major
ity of the Northern people showed by their
election of Lincoln that they were deter
mined to enslave us in form, as well as in
fact, then it was that his giant intellect
found full scope in arousing his countrymen
to throw off the yankee yoke. Gen. Toombs
has shown himself a great revolutionist—a
great destroyer of governments. Let him
show himself, now, a great constructor, and
sustainer of governments. To show him
self in this light, will be the crowning act
of his life. It will be the master piece of
his great intellect, and ripe statesmanship.
The country expects it of him, and has a
right to demand it of him. Let him re
member that he has become a historical
personage. Whether he wills it, or not,
he must live upon the page of history. His
biography will have to be written, and pos
terity, as well as the present generation,
will have to render a verdict upon his life
and character. Let not that verdict be,
“He could pull down, but he could not
build up !”
For our part, we desire to see Gen
Toombs enter again upon public life. We
have said, repeatedly, in these columns,
that he should never have entered the
army, because the legislative or executive
councils stood so much in need of his ser
vices. We sadly miss, in the councils of
the nation, our Toombses, our Cobbs, our
Nisbets, our Jenkinses, and others like
them. There is a dearth of intellect now
in our legislative bodies. The country
cannot afford to lose the benefit of Gen’.
Toombs’s intellect, and experience.
But it is feared, by some, that Gen.
Toombs might go into factious opposition
to the administration. We cannot beliove
that be would. Surely, surely when such
perils surround the country, he could not
be guilty of such folly, and wickedness.
Surely he could not, and would not do any
thing that could fetter or clog the adminis
tration in its great strait. If from any
cause, whatever, he has unthoughtedly
failed to give full credit to the administra
tion, the press and people should recall
him to a sense of his dereliction, and he
will doubtless heed the warning.
The country would not tolerate such a
thing in Gen. Toombs as factious opposi
tion to President Davis. He knows it—
most certainly he does. Policy, if not pa
triotism, would dictate a different course.
Gen. Toombs must yet do something
great in building up our new government.
No man did more in pulling down the old
one than he did, and in the formation and
organization of the new one, his course was
wise, prudent, conservative, and statesman
like. This is the testimony of all who
witnessed his labors. It is the testimony of
some of the wisest and most conservative
members whosat with himin the convention.
We kayo alluded to a feeling of melan
choly which came over us in hearing Gen.
Toombs criticise the measures of the ad
ministration, while he commended the ad
ministration none, and the government
none. The old government was, in many
respects, a good one. We hoped to have
a better one, in all respects—not for our
self, but for our children. The present
generation is, we fear, destined to witness
nothing but revolution, trouble, and blood.
We hoped for better things for the coming
generation. But we hardly knew how to
hope for them, when we saw that Gen.
Toombs withheld his confidence and his
support from the administration.
We repeat it—our people should give
the government an undivided, hearty, and
generous support. We would much prefer
seeing our leading men apologists for its
errors, to seeing them censors of its fail
ings. Division and faction among our
selves will not only complete our own ruin,
but will ruin our children, and cast a blight
over the prospects of all coming generations.
Far be it from us to charge Gen. Toombs
with factious opposition to the administra
tion. But we feel that we speak the gen
eral sentiment when we respectfully ask
his attention to all the points which we
have presented. We invite his attention
to the condition and welfare of the govern
ment, through its untrammeled and suc
cessful administration. We pray him to
throw all his great intellect into the scale
with his country’s weal. The eye of his
people is upon him, and demands the clown
ing act of his life—the master piece of his
statesmanship—thfe settling upon a sure ba
sis the foundations of the new-born republic.
Gen. Toombs, we know, possesses too
much magnanimity to blame us for what
we have written. If our course towards
him has not been a friendly one, in our
humble sphere, then has that of no man in
Georgia been friendly towards him. Eight
or ten years ago, when he abandoned the
Northern Whig party, and was about to
cast his lot with the Democracy in con
tending for our rights in the territories,
we, then, conducting the Independent
Press, were the first Democrat in
Georgia to welcome him to his new
position, and to defend him from Demo
cratic attacks and rebuffs—not that he
needed any help at our hands—but we gave
all the evidence we could of our good will,
and of an appreciation of his patriotic
course. Lately, when almost every press
in the Southern country was denouncing
him for planting cotton, we were the first
man in Georgia who took up the cudgels
in his defence. We have lost none of our
admiration for bis great intellect, and his
bold, manly, independent, and fearless
character. But we claim one thing at his
hands—and that is, that he shall now do
his very best to build up and sustain a good
government for our aud his children, and
lay our admiration and gratitude, with those
of all his countrymen, under still heavier
contribution.
“The first thing 1 that Lord Palmerston was seen to
do, after taking his seat in St. George’s Chapel, at
the wedding of the Prince of Wales, was to comb bis
whiskers. The circumstance was telegraphed to all
the courts of Europe.”
While Palmerston’s combing his noddle,
The lightning announces the fact,
And toadying courtiers toddle
To see, and admire the act.
But what the result of the combing
They deign not to tell us, you see—
If a zoophyte caught in his roaming,
Or (stranger than that!) an idbe.
But whether a or idea,
We hope the effect is the same—
That ’twill stir up old England, and gie’ her
To look at the depth of her shame.
For low in her fetters reclining,
Her pride in deep lethargy sleeps,
While her fame, every day, is declining,
Since Sewaed ! the prisoner keeps!
NEW ADVERTISEMENTS.
Legal advertisements at the rates adopted
by the Press Convention, and all others at 15c per
line, for each insertion, cash in advance. Obituaries
and marriages, short or long, are advertisements.
APPLICATION will be made to the first ses-
*■ sion of the Court of Ordinary of Putnam Coun
ty, after the expiration of two months, for leave to
sell a negro boy, Raiford, belonging to the estate of
J. R. Pinkerton, dec’d.
July 7, 1863. JOHN PINKERTON, Adm’r,