News and Miscellany

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 14, 1871

News and Miscellany.

“Can ye not discern the signs of the times?”

Lawlessness in Tennessee.

SIGNIFICANT MEETING IN WINCHESTER, AND SOME PLAIN TALK.

We published yesterday details of a meeting in Lexington, Ky., to take measures to put down lawlessness in that neighborhood. To-day we have an account, given by a Democratic paper, of a similar meeting of citizens of Franklin County, Tennessee, at Winchester, on Monday, 22 inst., to take action with regard to the recent disorders in that vicinity, resulting in the assassination and murder of several persons by gangs and in disguise. After the appointment of a Chairman, Hon. A. S. Colyar, of Nashville, was invited to the stand, who spoke substantially as follows: The reported acts of violence in this county—the taking of Dotson out of the County Jail and hanging him—then the killing of Doe, the assassination of Weaver and Horton, and the murder of the three negroes by the hands of disguised men on last Wednesday night, taking them out of jail, and out of the hands of the law, made a case against the county, he said, which can only be met by confession and action. Resolutions will be of no avail. A general condemnation by the people, which he found to be the case, will not avail. The country demanded of the people of this county that the offenders shall be brought to justice. The perpetrators of such crimes as these, with vigilance, can be discovered, and to assume that they cannot is to disorganize society, and put every man on his own defense, and make him sole protector of his life, family, and property. A higher consideration than the fear of military, or the effect upon parties, should move the people to action now. You owe it to civilization and to the cause of civil liberty to bring these offenders to justice. No people was ever more delicately situated than we are; and upon no people was there ever a more imperious demand to obey the law. We have been unsuccessful in a great rebellion—a rebellion which made perfect rebels instead of making patriots—according as the world decides the question by success or failure. All agree that there is a strong tendency now to a central government, and that we are in great danger of losing our local or State Governments. The excuse or pretext for such a radical change in our form of Government, has hitherto been the assumed lawlessness of the South, and hitherto we have met these charges with these answers: First, we said the accounts of crime were greatly exaggerated; and secondly, we said: Let us have our own affairs in our own control, putting our own people in office, and we will correct these abuses. Having made this pledge, it becomes us, now that we have control in Tennessee, to keep it and be worthy of the trust. To do this, we must make no distinction between the commission of crime by one or the other party.

At the conclusion of this speech, Mr. Colyar further suggested that resolutions would do no good—but he desired to know if the people would stand by the Sheriff in anything he would do. The meeting was a very large and orderly one. The court-house and yard were crowded, and with one voice, that seemed to come from every heart, the meeting decided to stand by the Sheriff in anything he would do. Thereupon the Sheriff summoned a large number of citizens and gave notice that he would start the next morning to the neighborhood of Hockerville, whence the perpetrators of the late crimes are supposed to have come.—Daily paper.