Eternal Vigilance

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 14, 1868

Eternal Vigilance.

It has been well said, “Eternal vigilance is the prince of liberty.” Not vigilance for a day, a month, or a year, but vigilance all the time is demanded, in order to conserve liberty.

When victory crowned our arms, and when the shackles were struck from every slave within our borders, many thought liberty was assured, and that they might rest in peace and enjoy the fruit of their long and weary contest for the rights of man. But they had scarcely begun to rest when the truth of our motto became very manifest in the condition of our land—the thief of liberty was only chained, and a few months were only needed by him to file his chains asunder; and now he is at his old trade. Under pretence of upholding the Constitution and conserving old usages, he is forging shackles for his fellows. Witness the doings of the Ku-Klux Klan in the South. The following from the correspondent of the Cincinnati Gazette will be sufficient as an illustration:

Nashville, July 12.

An extra session of the Legislature of Tennessee, as the Gazette has already been informed by telegraph, will assemble at the Capitol on the 27th of the present month. The present condition of things in the State is too bad to be endured. I speak the sober truth, and without exaggeration or coloring.

Many months since a secret society was organized in Giles County, called the Ku-Klux Klan. They always appeared in the dead hours of the night, and in deep disguise. For some time they claimed that the society had no other object than mere sport, but it soon became apparent that it was a military organization, made up chiefly of discharged Confederate soldiers, and that its object was revolution. During the pendency of the trial of Andrew Johnson, the operations of this secret rebel army were suspended; but on the very day his acquittal was announced, their depredations were resumed, and with wonderfully increased vigor. It is now a fact, which no honest man will dispute, that thousands of young men in Middle and West Tennessee have organized themselves into a secret military force, for the purpose of overthrowing liberty in this State.

I have it on the very highest authority that some of the cooler-headed Democratic politicians have taken great pains to persuade these men to abandon their organization, but without effect. The Ku-Klux have replied: “We committed the cause of Southern independence to you, during the late struggle. We obeyed your commands, and, when you surrendered, we acquiesced. Now, all we ask of you is to let us alone, and we will manage the contest to suit ourselves.”

To notice and record the instances of diabolical cruelty and outrage perpetrated by these scoundrels would be impossible. One day they take out a white school-teacher, strip him and beat him into a jelly. Another night they warn a radical citizen that his presence in the community is not desired—that, in fact, his political opinions have rendered him odious, and that, if he does not leave the community within so many days, he will be visited. Again, they go to a negro’s house, take the man out, put a chain about his neck, mount their horses, and lead him about the neighborhood, and when he is exhausted with fatigue and fright, compel him to dance and sing before them. The next night they take a white man—an officer of the State—drag him from his affrighted wife and children, take him into the woods, tie him to a tree, and then riddle him with bullets, as they did James L. Frances, of Overton County, a few nights since, poor Mrs. Frances following the scoundrels who had her husband in charge, and finding him tied to a tree, a cold corpse, riddled with twenty bullets.

It is folly to deny these things, for they are vouched for by the members of the various churches from the North engaged in the Freedman’s Mission, and show the determination of the late rebels to control the institutions of the South in, if they cannot do it out of, the Union, and also their determination to rule the colored people as serfs, if they cannot do so as slaves.

The Lost Cause is as dear to them as ever, and what is still more to be wondered at, and what calls for increased vigilance, is the fact that so many in the North now, as at the beginning of the war, are urging them on in their unholy work. Take, for example, the letter of Frank P. Blair, written as a bid for the nomination of Vice President, which nomination he obtained; and doubtless, if he should secure votes enough next November to elevate him to that position, he would do what he could to make his bond good. We lay it before our readers as another proof of the necessity of again renewing the conflict in behalf of liberty:

Washington, June 30, 1868.

COL. JAMES O. BROADHEAD:

Dear Colonel,—In reply to your inquiries, I beg leave to say that I leave you to determine, on consultation with my friends from Missouri, whether my name shall be presented to the Democratic Convention, and to submit the following as what I consider the real and only issue in this contest:

The reconstruction policy of the Radicals will be complete before the next election; the States so long excluded will have been admitted, negro suffrage established, and the carpet-baggers installed in their

seats in both branches of Congress. There is no possibility of changing the political character of the Senate, even if the Democrats should elect their President and a majority of the popular branch of Congress. We cannot, therefore, undo the Radical plan of reconstruction by Congressional action; the Senate will continue a bar to its repeal. Must we submit to it? How can it be overthrown? It can only be overthrown by the authority of the executive, who is sworn to maintain the Constitution, and who will fail to do his duty if he allow the Constitution to perish under a series of Congressional enactments which are in palpable violation of its fundamental principles.

If the President elected by the Democracy enforce, or permit others to enforce, these reconstruction acts, the Radicals, by an accession of twenty spurious Senators and fifty Representatives, will control both branches of Congress, and his administration will be as powerless as the present one of Mr. Johnson.

There is but one way to restore the Government and the Constitution, and that is for the President-elect to declare these acts null and void, compel the army to undo its usurpations at the South, disperse the carpet-bag State Governments, allow the white people to reorganize their own Governments, and elect Senators and Representatives. The House of Representatives will contain a majority of Democrats from the North, and they will admit the Representatives elected by the white people of the South, and with the co-operation of the President, it will not be difficult to compel the Senate to submit once more to the obligations of the Constitution. It will not be able to withstand the public judgment, if distinctly invoked and clearly expressed, on this fundamental issue, and it is the sure way to avoid all future strife to put this issue plainly to the country.

I repeat that this is the real and only question which we should allow to control us. Should we submit to the usurpations by which the Government has been overthrown, or shall we exert ourselves for its full and complete restoration? It is idle to talk of bonds, greenbacks, gold, the public faith, and the public credit. What can a Democratic President do in regard to any of these, with a Congress in both branches controlled by the carpet-baggers and their allies? He will be powerless to stop the supplies by which idle negroes are organized into political clubs—by which an army is maintained to protect these vagabonds in their outrages upon the ballot. These, and things like these, eat up the revenue and resources of the Government, destroy its credit, and make the difference between gold and greenbacks. We must restore the Constitution before we can restore the finances, and to do this we must have a President who will execute the will of the people by trampling into dust the usurpations of Congress, known as the reconstruction acts. I wish to stand before the Convention upon this issue, but it is one which embraces everything else that is of value in its large and comprehensive results. It is the one thing that includes all that is worth a contest, and without it there is nothing that gives dignity, honor or value to the struggle.

Your friend, FRANK P. BLAIR.

Of the same tenor is part of the Platform adopted by the Convention at New York, where it declares the reconstruction acts of Congress null and void. Truly, the times call for increased vigilance lest, after all, the rebellion succeed.—Christian Press.