The people of Tennessee are called upon to decide on the 8th of June next, whether they will continue to live freemen or bow their necks to the yoke of bondage to choose, in other words, between liberty and slavery. This is the naked question, and we desire them to look it squarely in the face and meet it and decide it with all the responsibilities and consequences its decision involves in full view. There is now no escape from it. In whatever form it may be put and by whatever disguises it may be surrounded, it must come to this at last. The Constitution has been openly and violently subverted, and the Union which had no other foundation has passed away for the present, and in our sincere belief, forever. The invasion of equal and just right is followed by invasion of the constitution and laws. Yet we find men in the South going about and appealing to the Constitution, as a rule of political action, and invoking a free people to stand by and sustain a government which, in all the essentials of freedom, has been converted into an engine of unsupportable oppression. Such men profess to believe that the Union still exists and that the Constitution is still protecting them by all its original vigor. We cannot undertake to pass upon their motives, nor to define their point of observation and sources of information; but we are sure they are mistaken in both fact and opinion. They are pursuing a shadow and that shadow will lead them to destruction. We prefer to cling to the substance, and if in this pursuit we be cut off, our children will enjoy its benefits. We have been devotedly attached to the Constitution and the Union, and would be to-day as ever, if we had assurances that we could truthfully call either our own; but this is now impossible. They have been snatched from our grasp without our consent, by those who are inimical to us and our rights and institutions.
Some of those who are still for the Union tell us that we should stand as a neutral power in the conflict that is upon us. But how can we stand neutral in a contest which is to determine whether we are to be freemen or slaves? As to its practicability we have only to look at the wretched condition of Maryland. Neutrality is but the doorway to unconditional subjugation. An attempted neutrality would lead us to chains. We can not stand as neutrals. The whole idea is supremely absurd. No one has told us how it can be done. It Is utterly impossible. We are told in the same breath to sustain, up-hold and support the Northern government, and to refuse to do so. The administration has already called upon us to send troops for the subjugation of our Southern brothers. We have refused, and have thus repudiated the authority of the Union as administered at Washington. We are in rebellion to the powers that be, and while pretending to be true to the Union, are resisting its authority and its power. We are taking up arms against its despotic decrees, and by the Constitution which is held up for our reverence we are guilty of technical treason, the punishment of which by the terms of the same Constitution is death. We are denied the right of revolution, and haughtily told that we must submit to any measure of oppression and degradation, which the fanatical caprices of a despotic Northern majority may choose to impose upon us. We are asked to witness the murder and robbery of those who are near and dear to us in blood and interest, without lifting a hand to check the tide of injustice and death as it is rolled forward to their dishonor or extermination. This is the species of neutrality which we are asked to observe. It is not only infamous in itself but rank treason to liberty.
Analyze the subject as we may, cover up and disguise it as we may, enshroud it in as many shades as we may, the result is the same, and the substantial question is freedom or slavery. It is more momentous than life or death. We invoke the people to recognise this great fact, and permit nothing to becloud or obscure it. Decide the issue as becomes men and free men, who knowing their rights dare maintain them at any and all earthly hazards.
Daily Nashville Patriot, Nashville, TN