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Show CONTEPMT OF THE LAW. The events which have been occurring occur-ring so rapidly in Kentucky during the past fortnight, are but the acute expression ex-pression of a disregard of law, which finds existence in other states than Kentucky. Given an occasion similar to that in Kentucky, and it is a moral certainty that like rusiults would follow in nehrly ovcit state in the Union. AVe are not concerned here with locating the right or the wrong of the dispute in the Blue Grass state; but, rather with the larger causes that have led all classes of the people to disregard the law, if they do not held it in utter contempt. The occurrences in Kentucky are the results of a condition which had its origin long Ik? fore the election which is the immediate cause of dispute in that state. As the editor of this paper pointed out in a lecture three years ago the popular conscience of the United States ; hits been shocked and staggered by the public proceedings in politics, poli-tics, religion and finance fur the last twenty-live years. The practices of ! federal governments have been such : a.s to bring the blush of shame to the f check of every advocate of a repub- . ; Ik-an form of government Men have I 1m -come so abrupt that they have not hessitated to place in the highest of-, j fieo:-; m-tii who were clearly defeated at , t Tic- polls. This a.pplies to the oldest and what are popularly supposed to be the most conservative states, as well ;,s the newest and most radical. When the people have witnessed, such shame-; shame-; Irs-? aed unblushing corruption on the I part of men in exalted positions, dire evils should be expected. It is only the good, hard, common s. -nse of the masses of the people that has kept thorn from following the example ex-ample of more illustrious men in setting set-ting all law at defiance and overturning overturn-ing the government. Men who defie and ret aside courts if justice must .expect to reap aa they have sown. Those who are even now j iuidest in condemning the actions of cue faction in Kentucky were the very ontfi who in the early sixties preached the sacrcdn:-ss of niob laws when they rcriom maided the use of Colt's revolvers revol-vers and Sharpo's rifles in Kansas. Men are being taught in this country coun-try not the sacredness of law, but the sacredmvs of lawlessness, and are put ting it into practice with a vengeance. And their sin? are not so great as the f in; of the men who taught them y precept and example. If the teachers teach-ers of the people inculcate riot, lawlessness, law-lessness, disregard for solemn oaths i-ncl constitutional obligations, what can we expect from the people? i The masses are slow to comprehend but they are logical and they invari- ' ably, sooner or later, reduce popular doctrine to practice. False principles and doctrines, like chickens, come home to roost. It is the solemn dutv, therefore, of every man who loves his country to maintain the inviolability of the law, to emphasize its saerednesw. to con- fnn to the decision of our courts of justice and to protest against the violation vio-lation of property or its confiscation without due process of law. Any system sys-tem that would curtail these varied rights and interests should be promptly prompt-ly repudiated, lest perchance, it faiten itself upon the body politic to its ultimate ulti-mate ruin. The inan.-?p of tie people in Kentucky Ken-tucky pre !rss to be blamed for the. contempt which they are manifesting f'r the law. than the men in high station sta-tion who set them the example. |