Newspaper Page Text
548
THE countryman.
Yankee “ Breakers Ahead.”—
The predictions and admonitions con
tained m the nrtiele from the New
York Sunday Mercury, which we copy
in this paper, aro very suggestive and
promising to ns. We have several
times heretofore taken similar views
of the dangers and difficulties which
the yankee nation has to encounter
next fall and winter. The prospect
of a split and a revolution among the
states still adhering to the old union,
as a consequence of the excitements
and tho results of their coming Presi
dential election, is much more threat
ening than the prospect of secession
by the South seemed in the spring of
X860. We repeat our conviction that
another revolution mast attend the
yankeo Presidential contest in 1S64.
The two parties are evidently going
into it as a struggle for life or death,
and any alternative will be more ac
ceptable to either than acquiescence
in its defeat at the hands cf its rival.
And even leaving out of view the ex
asperations and disappointments of
parties, as such, the novel questions
sprung are such as have never tried
American institutions 'before, avid the
triumph of the Black 'Republicans
must bring such a social revolution
as no community, claiming to. be free,
could pass through without force and
bloodshed. Our candid opinion is,
that in a few months more, our gallant
soldiers may “hang up- their bruised
arms for monuments,” and enjoy the
spectacle of such a “Kilkenny cat”
affair at the North as has not been
witnessed in Christendom foi centuries.
— Col. Enquirer.
Extermination,—The rebels are
perpetually telling us that we will-
have to-exterminate the whole popu
lation of the South hefwe we can bring
their territory back into the Union.
Now, at the late election for State offi
cers in Arkansas, held under the na
tional flag and authority, there were
polled seventeen thousand votes-—be*
ing one-third the entire vote of the
State at thelast Presidential election.
Yet in other days we heard the like
rebel cry from Arkansas,that we would
have to exterminate everybody there
before it would submit.—Probably
these rebel malignants simply mean
that they themselves must be exter
minated, which is qnite likely to be
true. Noah Webster tells us that to
exterminate means, primarily, ‘to drivo
from within the limits or borders,’ and
we shall have no peace until all ma
lignant traitors aro driven either to
tho other side of Jordan or of the Rio
Grande.—New York T**K«*-
Poem.
“A traveller through a dusty road.
Strewed acorns on the lea j
And one took root and sprouted up.
And grew into a tree.
Love sought its shade at evening time, *
To breathe its early vows ;
And age was pleased, in heats of ueonv
To bask beneath its boughs.
The dormouse loved its dangling twigs.
The bird’s sweet song it bore t
It shed- a glory in its place—
A blessing evermore.
“A little spring had lost its way
Amid the grass and fern ;
A passing stranger scooped a well.
Where weary man might turn".
Be wailed- it in, and- hung with care
A ladle at the brink—
He thought not of the deed he did.
But judged that toil might drink.
He passed again, and, lo ! the well.
By summers never dried,
Had cooled' ten thousand parching tongues,
And: saved a Life beside.
“A dreamer dropped a random thought"; '
’Twas old, and yet ’twas new—
A simple fancy of the brain.
But strong in.being true,
lit shone upon a genial inintf 1 ,
And, lo ! its light became
A lamp of light—& beacon ray ~
A monitory flame.
The thought was small, the issue great—.
A - vatch-fi-rc on the- hi if,
It sheds its radiance far adown,
And cheers the valley still..
‘■‘A nameless man, amid a crowd.
That thronged the daily mart,
Let fall a word of hope and Love,,
Unstudied, front the heart—
A whisper on. tbs tumult thrown—,
A transitory breath—
It raised a brother from the dust,
It saved a soul from death,
O germ, © fount, © word- of love
O thought, at random, cast!;
Vc were but little at the first,.
But mighty at the last”'
A Substitute Case.—The Mont
gomery Mail publishes a syllabus of
an opinion rendered in the Supreme
Court of Alabama,, in a case involving
the legality of the action of Congress
towards men who have furnished sub
stitutes, which we think presents the
question in the strongest and simplest
manner yet employed. The Court
held that the war and peace power
confetred upon Congress is the high
est, and most vital trust confided to
the Confederate Government; that it
is not only the right, but the duty cf
Congress to. hold under its control all
the males of the couutry capable of
bearing armp, and use them, if neces-.
sary. »n the preservation and execu
tion of t hip trust; that in view of this
high trust, and that great correlative
duty, conferred and imposed upon
that Government for the public de
fence, and the preservation ot life, lib
erty, and property, it is not in the
power of any Congress to grant per
manent and irrepealable exemption*
from military service upon any terms,
or any consideration whatever; but
that all exemptions granted by
Congress must he taken under the
implied condition, that, if the exigen
cies of the country require, they may
be revoked and set aside ; and that
each successive Congress must be the
judge of what the public defence ancl
the necessities of the country from
time to time require.— Col. Enq.
The Slander Acknowledged,—
“The New York papers publish the
statement of the officers who have just
returned from the Libby prison.. They
unite in stating that the charges of
starving and neglecting their men,
.published io the Northern' papers, are
false, and urge that their publication
cease, for the reason that it is unjust
to the Confederate authorities,,a-tjd in
jurious- to their men held as. prisonem
The Chicago 'limes states,.in. this con-
nection: ‘We have iuvariably urged!
that these charges of wholesale starv
ation, and murder, through filth and
want of medicines,, were false on the
general principal that hmnan, nature,,
in the aggregate, Among civilized
tions, is about the same, and, there
fore, the South would no. more wilfully
, maltreat prisoners than the North.’ ”
“Tho Richmond correspondent of
the Mobile Register tells the follow
ing anecdote of a sister o£Qen. Leet
‘Some weeks ago, the papers of this,
city contained a notice of the death,
in Baltimore, of Mrs, Ann Kinloch
Marshall, the sister of Gen, Lee, and
many years older than himself, A
curious story is told a bout lie? and the
General, When he was quite a youth,,
and while a guest at her house, he one
day playfully,, or unintentionally„
threw a knife across the table at her,,
and stiuck her in the arm. The
wound* strange to say, never healed.
A year or more afterwards, Gen. Lee
and his brother Carter-, paid their sis
ter another visit* and remained two
weeks in her house, during which time
they never laid eyes upon her. The
excuse was that she was too ill to. see
them. The fact was, as they learned
subsequently, that her wounded and
unhealed arm was amputated while
they were her gnestB, and* rather than,
mar the pleasure of their visit, she
concealed the painful truth by the de
vice which 1 have stated ’ ”