The Lancaster gazette. (Lancaster, Ohio) 1846-1852, 1847-08-06
Political.
From the National LAteUigencer
The Latest Proclamation.


copied into our paper Of Saturday last
from theNew Orleans Picayune, seems
beyond question to be authentic. 1t is
copied from a journal published at Pue.
bla, where the main body of Gen SCOTS
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 re- production Of the previ.
GUS Sloat and Kearney proclamations,
long since disayowed by the Executive
here; but, as some time since we were
compelled 10 show, disavowed without
the slightest sincerity, The present pa
per is, we repeat substantially the same,
the chiefdifereUce being that the stretch
es Of our power assumed by Gen. Kesr-
ney, as bestowed upon him by the Presi
dent, are less plainly worded in some
points. It's therefore evident. we think.
that this instrument has been supplied to
the Executive Viccroy in Monterey at a
period subsequent to the murmurs of as
constituent with which the disclosure Of
the first Santa Fe aud California procla.
nations was received through the United
States at large. AS, then, both the ex-
%ternal and internal evidence Of authenti-
city satisfies US, it is our duty not TO let
pass, without a strong if brief exposure.
the fresh A~agrancy of such an executive
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 Decemberlast. l~fbestowed. how
ever subsequently to the assembling of
Congress, those extraordinary powers
we've bestowed, without consulting either
branch of it, out of the personal, not the
official power of Mr.. Polk alone; for the
President of The United States neither
has nor can delegate any such authority
and if these merely usurped. illegal, vol
untary, discretionary authorities were be-
slowed bef0re the meeting of Congress,
the President-or rather Mr.. Polk-has
not chosen ever to seek to obtain, BY a
Legislative sanction, such cure as Congress
could give, by its assent, to merely i'm
partial acts; nor even to do the Legisla-
ture and the country the grace to inform
them Of these astonishing assumptions.
Nay. the Executive has actively con-
Gel by denial of the fact, these mon.
strous violations of not only all that is
legitimate under domestic aud constitu-
%tional but even national law; and, dispen-
sing himself from these, has equally dis
pensed himself from even the poor de-
corum ofasking the Senate's concurrence
in the bare appointment of a Goveruort to
"a perpetual Territory of the United
States constituted such by his own single
and absolute individual pleasure alone
We have called the appointment itself
vice-regal; yet the name falls far short of
the sweeping and universal powers which
this proclamation now incontestably ex-
hibits Mr.. Polk mot the President for he
could not) as comforting upon Gen. Kear.
ney. Never did the absolute monarch oi
ESpain bestow upon any viceroy set ovel
Mexico such unlimited faculties; for ever
such royal deputies held under the law:
of Spain at least, and could not, at theil
will, declare in force (as Governor.G Gen,
eral Kearuey may do) whatever cede
liked them. Nor, indeed, did Spanish
despotever appoint y~iceroys without al
least consulting the Council of the Indies
The new office and the province, then
are more like those satrapies which, al
the height of the Persian power the po
%tentate whom the Greeks were accus
toned to call "the Great King" with un
limited command of life and death. Never
was Roman consul or pro. consul invested
with such rights until, all freedom having
ceased, an Emperor. like Domitian, nc
longer designed to assemble the Senate
except to mock them with idle and in.
sulting questions.
1t must be recollected that the ,onll
! possible excuse for this war, as made by
the President, is that tie Rio Bravo i
the rightful boundary of Texas. and tina
}. the act of annexation constituted all OF
> this side of legally and actually a terri
tory of the United States. lfso, we nee,
9 not say that Santa Fe and its populatio
9 were subject TO no law, and could hav
: no governor, except uch as are given b
6 the ordinary Legislative, Judicial, and ex
%ecutive authorities of the Union. B
y what has been done in Santa Fe. then
O, the President--or rather Mr.. Polk-ha
! involved himself in this inextricable di
lemma: that either he has invaded Mex
= leo, or that he has upon a United State
/ territory trampled upon every law an,
every right.
!. Nor. though different, is the case les
. monstrous which he has madei agains
= himself in California. Whether. previ
ously or subsequently to his taking pos
session there, a part of the United State:
a the Executive is a mere usurper, and tn
= wantonest of usurpers, when he under
takes to do any acts there which do nc
inure in the ordinary Executive powe
over a territory of this Union.
= If he would shelter himself las his ar
ologists say he -may) under the militar
power of commander rim, chief er o6fci
that does not better the matter: for, q
commander of the armies of the Uniol
hecan take no civil powers; or, fhe car
n he can equally take them over the entir
r Union, and has just as much right to sen
Gen. Kearuey to Virginia and Mort
i Carolina, there to take upon him all at
Y, thority, alter their laws, remove or abrt