The Sun.
London, England, 1863-08-03 00:00:00

MR, VALLANDIGHAM'S ADDRESS.

The following address from Mr. Vallandigham to
,he people of Ohio was received by the last mail ;

"NIAGARA FALLS, CANADA WEST, July 15,
" At—mated and confined for three weeks in the United
States, a prisoner of State; banished thence to the Confede-
rate States, and there held as an alien enemy and prisoner
of war, though on parole ; fairly and honourably dealt with
and given leave to depart, an act possible only by running
the blockade at the hazard of being fired upon by ships fly-
ing the flag of my own country, I found myself first a free-
man when on British soil. And to-day, under protection

of the British flag, I am here to enjoy and in part to exercise
the privileges and rights which usurpers insolently deny me
at home. The shallow contrivance of the weak despots at
Washington and their advisers has been defeated. Nay, it
has been turned against them; and I, who for two years
was maligned as in secret league with the Confederates,
having refused when in their midst, under circumstances
the most favourable, either to identify myself with their
cause or even so much as to remain, preferring rather exile in
a foreign land, return now with allegiance to my own State
and Government, unbroken in word, thought, or deed, and
with every declaration and pledge to you while at home, and
before I was stolen away, made good in spirit and to the
very letter. Six weeks ago, when just going into banish-
ment, because an audacious but moat cowardly despotism
caused it, I addressed you as a fellow-citizen. To-day, and
from the very place then selected by me, but after wearisome
and most perilous journeyings for more than 4,000 miles by
land and upon the sea, still in exile, though almost in sight
of my native State, I greet you as your representative.
Grateful certainly I am for the confidence in my integrity
and patriotism implied by the unanimous nomination as
candidate for Governor of Ohio which you gave me while I
was yet in the Confederate States. It was not misplaced ;
it shall never be abused. But this is the last of all considera-
tions in times like these. I ask no personal sympathy for
the personal wrong. No; it is the cause of constitutional
liberty and private right, cruelly outraged beyond example
in a free country, by the President and his servants, which
gives public significancy to the action of your convention.
Yours was, indeed, an act of justice to a citizen who for
his devotion to the rights of the States and the liberties of
the people had been marked for destruction by the hand of
arbitrary power. But it was much more. It was an example
of courage worthy of the heroic ages of the world ; and it was
a spectacle and a rebuke to the usurping tyrants who, having
broken up the Union, would 'now strike down the Constitu-
tion, subvert your present Government and establish a for-

mal and proclaimed despotism in its stead. You are the
restorers and defenders of constitutional liberty, and by that

proud title history,will salute you. I congratulate you upon
your nominations. They whom you have placed upon the
ticket with me are gentlemen of character, ability, integrity,
and tried fidelity to the Constitution, the Union, and to
Liberty. Their moral and political courage—a quality
always rare, and now the most valuable of public virtues—.
is beyond question. Every way all these were nominations .
fit to be made. And even jealousy, lam sure, will now be
hushed, if I especially rejoice with you in the nomination
of Mr. Pugh as your candidate for lieutenant-governor
and President of the Senate. A scholar and a gentleman, a
soldier in a foreign war, and always a patriot; eminent as a
lawyer, and distinguished as an orator and a statesman, I hail
his acceptance as an omen of the return of the better and
more virtuous days of the Republic. I endorse your noble
platform—elegant in style—admirable in sentiment. You
present the true issue, and commit yourself to the great
mission just now of the Democratic party—to restore and
make sure first the rights and liberties declared yours by
your Constitutions. It is vain to invite the States and
people of the South to return to a Union without a Consti-
tution, and dishonoured and polluted by repeated and most
aggravated exactions of tyrannic power. It is base in your-
selves and treasonable to your posterity to surrender these
liberties and rights to the creatures whom your own breath
created and can destroy. Shall there be free speech, a free
press, peaceable assemblages of the people, and a free ballot
any longer in Ohio ? Shall the people hereafter, as hitherto,
have the right to discuss and condemn the principles and
policy of the party—the Ministry—the men who for the time
conduct the G overnmeat —to demand of their public servants
a reckoning of their stewardship, and to place other men and
another party in power at their supreme will and pleasure P
Shall order 38 or the Constitution be the supreme law of
the land ? And shall the citizen any more be arrested by an
armed soldiery at midnight, dragged from wife and child
and home to a military prison; thence to a mock military
trial; thence condemned, and then banished as a felon for
the exercise of his rights ? This is the issue, and nobly you
have met it. It is the very question of free, popular go-
vernment itself. It is the whole question—upon the one
side liberty, on the other despotism. The President, as the
recognised head of his party, accepts the issue. Whatever
be wills, that is law. Constitutions, State and Federal, are
nothing ; acts of legislation nothing, the judiciary less than
nothing. In time of war there is but one will supreme—his
will but one law, military necessity, and he the sole judge.
Military orders superesde the Constitution, and military
commissions usurp the place of the ordinary courts of justice
in the land. Nor are these mere idle claims. For two years
and more, by arms, they have been enforced. It was the

mission of the weak but presumptuous Burnside—a name
infamous for ever in the ears of all lovers of constitutional
liberty—to try the experiment in Ohio, aided by a Judge
whom I name not, because he has brought foul dishonour
upon the judiciary of my country. In your hands now, men
of Ohio, is the final issue of the experiment. The party of
the Administration have accepted it. By pledging support
to the President, they have justified nis outrages upon
liberty and the Constitution ; and whoever gives his vote
to the candidates of that party commits himself to every
act of violence and wrong on the part of the Administration
which he upholds ; and thus, by the law of retaliation,
which is the law of might, would forfeit his own right to
liberty, personal and political, whensoever other men and
another party shall hold the power. Much more do the
candidates themselves. Suffer them not, I entreat you, to
evade the issue ; and by the judgment of the people:we will
abide. And now, finally, let me ask, what is the pretext for
all the monstrous acts and claims of arbitrary power which
you have so nobly denounced ? ' Military necessity.' But
if, indeed, all these be demanded by military necessity,
then, believe me, your liberties are gone, and tyrannl Y y
perpetual. For if this civil war is to terminatefeorneeyenbd
the subjugation or submission of the Southetothe
end of
arms, the infant of to-day will not live to
through nearly
Travelling a thousand miles and more, .
ourning for a
one-half of the Confederate States, and
eahoej
men,
woman,
time at widely different points,
I meteiiii:th rather than yield
or child who was not resolvedetothpe
nmost desperate extre-
it. No, in another way only can it be broUpght to a close.
to the pressure of arms, even
and
when the
the hand of Providence
of the war, in all which I recognise
of this great trial of
the ultimate issue
pointing visibly to
America, they are better prepared
the States and people of
good their inexorable purpose than at
mity. And whatever may
now every way to make gioneing
of the struggle. These may
any period sinco the
beginning
but they are addressed only to
indeed be unwelctorumee.
Neither, however, let me add, did
candid and 11").4et;
one', whatever his opinions or his station, poli-
an must be the varying fortune
tical or private,
hall have ceased and invading armies been withdrawn)
war 5 the question of reunion
to consider and discuss . And who
who did not declare his readiness,
shall doubt the issue of the argument ? I return, there-
fore, with illy opinions and convictions as to war or peace,
and my faith as to the final results from sound policy and
I meet any --,
wise statesmanship, not only unchanged, but confirmed and
strengthened. And may the God of heaven and earth so