The Mississippi Creole. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1841-1851, 1847-11-06
CANTON, MISSISSIPPI, FRED

v ust complaint; and, il it had been cause
\ war, would have bern thing which it belon
s ed tn Congress only, not the Exec utive, to al
: on as such.
~ Besides these acts of nsurping the war-mal
!, ing power, it has lately appeared, throug
: claims preferred before Congress, that Co
+. Fremont--doubtless under Executive order
! sent after him to California, but which, reacl
y ing there too late, were forwarded to him an
recalled him thlther from Oregon-took, at hi
: arrival, secret part in fomentng there what
J calledthe Bear Flag Revolution, which wa
gotten up among the American settlers in til
spring of 1885, with the view Of annexiDg tina
territory to the United States by the same pro
cess--of revolt first, and then Incorporation
by which Texas was acquired.
i But all these acts of daring contemp, Of tn
sconstitntion are greatly aggravated by the at
tcndaDt fact that, either
/ At one while, when he chose to conside
such acts of hostility expedent, the Presiden
did not convoke Congress and lay the case be
tfore them, that they might decide on the ques
ton; or that
All another while, Congress being in session
he did not condescend to refer the'malter te
| their decision, nor even inform them Of wha
heproposed or had done; or, lastly, that
| He set at naught their instructions embod
led in the Annexation Resolutions, and, when
they had ordered him to settle by negotiation
the disputed boundary of Texas, he not only
took it upon himself to assume tina. boundary
as legally existing, without the means of set
ting 1t prescribed by Congress-and therefore
accepted by the joint party, Texas-but he
complicated that question with others Cndem-
nifty and the acquisition of two new and far
remote territories, New Mexico and California;
Illegally brought as conditions to it. He even
setthese before it. Nav, made an idle matter
of form (the titular style of tho negotiator Ga
condition precedent to both his own assump-
tons and the legitimate matter of arrange
ment. And when, in consequence, with the
gravest suspicion Of design, all this crook ed
and unlawful conduct bore its natural 'fruit,'
and incumbered negotiation fell through, or,
more properly speaking, could be pretended to
have fallen through, instead of reporting the
matter back to the sole competency Of Con-
gress, he assumed most royalty to consider ev-
cry thing further as RENTED to his sovereign
discretion. the Congressional instruction to
treat as dissolved by thelttle (and all that lit
tie wrong) which be Ind ,da&Sz 1lin6Nlf inyest-
! ! : :: !. !; :: ! !
ed, at the first contrivez q Sres Of
negotiation (not ina{ =
m, r.,
open and secret, without ience
TO the lawful authority oIlC0Iz 81
Such are the vast, the boundless, the strict
ly despotc and discretionary powers which
the Preeident-who hasNfulfiled the hopes of
Democracy by his strict construction Of the
Constituton--has directly usurped, as to the
Of war, that highest and most aw-
full of all the acts which society can do.
These usurpations reach to nothing short of
the whole constitution of the Exc
culive power, as one dependant on the laws or
coordinate with other authorities, and leave
the Presdent-plainly to speak as our fore
fathers would have spoken, let their degener-
lite sons stop the car as they may-no longer a
egal Chief Magistrate, but a constituted tram
der on all law and right And now, Ater
hus selling, in all the cases we have enumer-
which it will be vain to dispute
he initiative and original power of war, what
lext? What but that, of course, he has pro-
seeded to exercise as he liked, and for what
'bjects suited him, and the subsequent power
4 oondu,.tinu uar1 adat bon
III the tights of a King, he has gone on to
ractice abroad all the claims of Conqueror.
Iere, he had arrogated to himself all political
ower over onr foreign relations: there he has
apped the column of that sovereign discre-
ion with the open and absolute assertion for
mself of all civil, all military, all municipal,
II religious, all pecuniary, and every other
ort of authority. this, enormous as it is,
'il abundantly appear under the following
peci6cations: ~ II
/. He has set up Civil Governments; he has
ontinued them in authority, seeking not even
legal sanction for them; Just as il these
lings had no need to flow from any other I
PURGE but himself Ii
2. lie has issued to them Constitutions, in c
hitch, by strange confusion Of the obliga- /
ons of that Of the United States with his c
Hn will, he has given or withheld as much or
tile Of either as seems to him good.
3. lie has, by his mere rescript, enacted for '
ew Mexico and California codes of law, in Q
hch civil or a military character, an Ame- n
can or Mexican, Catholic or a Protestant s
-evails, as pleases him; while in other quar- a
RS equally subducd (along the low Rio Bravo, v
10 at Tampico and Vera CRUZ he has, under c
Ne circumstances, granted no constitution a
I'd no code. =
d. He has in some Of these quarters abolish
and in others left untouched their native re- s.
Gus establishment of Catholicism, alleging, c
here he abolished it, that Constitution Of the Il
lted States Of which, in other patio ulars, !,
only granted them what he chose, but OF b
hicl the benefits must either cnurc 10 them O
tire, or not at all. s
5. In certain conquered regions he has ex P
ted allegiance; and, in others equally sub d
ed, he has not; thus making fidelity to the q
untTy Of ones choice into a thing from c,