Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1847-07-24
THE LATEST PROCLAMATION.

1t is copied from journal published at Pueba,
where the main body of Gen. ScoTT's army was
then in possession, and was there copied from the
Government press of Mexico, the ,Diario.
This new manifesto is from beginning TO end, but
a reproduction of the previous SLoAT and KEAR-
NY proclamatons, long since disavowed by the
Executive here but, some time since we were
compelled to show, disavowed without the slightest
sincerity. The present paper is, we repeat, SUBJ
santialy the same, the chief difference being that
the stretches of power assumed by Gen. KEARNy,
as bestowed upon lAm by the President are less
plainly worded in some points. 1t is therefore evil
dent we think, that this instrument has been sup
piled 10 the Executive Viceroy in Monterey at
period subsequent to the murmurs Of astonishment
with which the disclosure of the first Santa Fe and
Californian proclamations was received through the
United States at large. AS then, both the external
and internal evidence of authenticity satisfies us,
it is our duty not to let pass, without strong If
brief exposure, the fresh fagrancy of such an Ex-
ecutive act.
This proclamation dates above four months back.
The authority, therefore, under which it is issued
must have been granted by the Executive probably
as early as December last. If bestowed, however,
subsequently, to the assembling of Congress, these
extraordinary powers were bestowed, without con-
sulng either branch of it, out of the personal, not
the official power of Mr.. Polk alone; for the Pre-
sident of the United States neither has nor can
delegate any such authority; and if these merely
usurped illegal, voluntary, discretionary authorities
were bestowed before the meeting of Congress, the
even to seek to obtain, by legislative sanction,
such cure as Congress could give by its assent to
merely imperial acts nor even to do the Legisla-
ture and the country the grace TO inform them of
these astonishing assumptions. Nay, the EXecu-
tive has actively concealed, by denial of the fact
these monstrous violations of not only all that is
legitimate under domestic and constitutional but
even national law and, dispensing himself from
these, has equally dispensed himself from even the
poor decorum OF asking the Senates concurrence
in the bare appointment of Governor to per-
petual Territory of the United States constituted
such by his own single and absolute individual
pleasure alone.
We have called the appointment itself vce-regal;
yet that name falls far short of the sweeping and
universal powers which this proclamation now in.
contestably exhibits Mr.. Polk mot the President,
for he could not as comforting upon Gen. kEAR-
NY. Never did the absolute monarch Of Spain
hestow upon any viceroy set over Mexico such un-
limited faculties for such royal deputies held
under the laws of Spain at least and could not, at
their will, declare in force las Governor-G eneral
KEARNY may do) whatever code liked them.
Nor, indeed, did Spanish despot appoint vice.
roys without at least consulting the Council of the
Indies. The new office and the new province then,
are more like those sarapics which, at the height
Of the Persian power, the potentate whom the
Greeks were accustomed to call the Great King"
sent out with unlimited command of life and death.
Never was Roman consul or pro-consu invested
with such rights until all freedom having ceased,
an Emperor, like Domtian, no longer degned to as
semble the Senate, exceptto mock them with idle
and insulting questions.
1t must be recolleced that the only possible en-
cuse for this war; made by the President, is that
the Rio Bravo is the rightful boundary of Texas,
and that the act of annexation constituted all on
this side of it legally and actually territory of the
United States. If so, we need not say that Santa
Fe and its population were subject to no law, and
could have no governor, except such as are given
by the ordinary legislative Judicial, and executive
authorities of the Union. BY what has been done
in Santa Fe, then, the President-or rather Mr.
PoLK-has involved himself in this inextricable
dilemma: that either he has invaded Mexico, or
that he has upon a United States territory tramplcd
upon every law and every right.
Nor though different is the case less monstrous
which he has made against himself in California
Whether, previously or subsequently to his taking
possession there, part of the United States, the
Executive is mere usurper, and the wanonest of
usurpers, when he undertakes to do any acts there
which do not nure in the ordinary Executive power
over a Territory of this Union.
If he would shelter himself las his apologists say
he may under the military power of commander
in-chef &c o6cio that does not better the matter:
for, as commander Of the armies of the Union, he
can take no civil powers; or, if he can, he can
equally take them over the entire Union, and has
just as much right to send Gen. KEARNY to Vir-
GINA and North Carolina, there to take upon him
all authority, alter their laws, remove or abrogate
their officers and their State funconaries, to do
this in California.
Il, II