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

part OF the Legislature, II was apparent nc
little the peculiar rights and functions of
a Congress be permitted to stand in /
I road towards yet more fayorite and safer
J. sign. Having ourselves watched his way
creating 'unquestioRpble rights il one quartz
l. we knew full well that he would consider al
thing and every thing rightful in sanothe
u When, therefore, his successive proceedings
i the business with Mexico cameato be reveale
n we, as our readers know, scarcely wonders
: at them, astounding as they were. .
d If the extraordinary Presidential nsurpaiior
: in which the Mexican war originated, an
which have marked every step Of its progress
} have apparently shocked the people in it'll
{ proportion to their gravity or their extent, tn
: Of party habits, and especially of that most fl
tai Of ali-not to Sc cured, 1t seems, but-b
: the greatest public calamities--the habit {
, viewing all acts or doctrines only in partisa
light, and thus of so identifying oneself wit
whatever the visible head Of the party 9TH
:. Presidency has done, that every thing (wheth
er in your heart you approve it or noD must b
publicly sustained, publicly justified, and eve
public extolled. To donbt is to be denoun
ced; and even to be silent is to draw upon yo
suspicion as atrue 'Democratr'
Another cause, however, has kept down tn
expression, and in keeping down the expires
sion has checked the spreading sense, of pub
lie alarm at the Imperial Powers which tn,
/ H.. l. /. 4 L
of acquiring. Thut cause was his putting il
action, against the opponents Of his unwise ant
unconstitutional measures, system Of terror
Of opprobium, of denunciaion BY such charges
and epithets as are aptest TO kindle up popular
hate and violence. That system has beer
openly acted upon in the newspaper which the
Executive directly controls here. In concert
with him, this system of terrorism has been
followed up in those other presses which he
holds under his thumb throughout the land
it has been carried out in party harangues for
which the. official signal had thus been given
in partisan discourscs of Legislators themselves,
sllamefully striking at the freedom of speech
of the very bodies to which they belonged
and (far most intolerable Of alb in Executive
messages, where that very Congressional de-
bate which war unconstitutionally and wick
eddy begun renders inevitable, has been made
public crime, and the not betrayng the coun-
try and the laws BY submitting in silence 10
Executive schemes and acts SO daring, so dan
gerous, and so perfidious, has been nsolcntly
stigmatized as amounting, in effect and in in
tcnlion, to nothing short of 'treason'
But our purpose is TO display, within one sim
the new and fragrant Executive usur-s
pations, utterly unexamplcd in all the past his
tory OF Presidential assumption, which have
been the consequence of this war; which are
the fruits of the election Of 1914, and which
are now proclaimed, by these pretended dcvo-
tees to the Constitution, to have fulfilled the
hopes of the Democracy of the Union.' Let
us see how far, in his official conduct, this
President Of ours, so idolizcd by the Baltimore
Convention, has construed strictly The grants
of power in the Constitution, or has indeed
mantle ted one single trace, one suspicion of a
constitutional scruple.
1t is now well known that the Illicit form in
which union with Texas was carried, two days
before his accession to the Presidency, by a
mere Congressional Resolution, after having
been rejected in its first proper shape Of a |
Treaty, had his pre-ollical cooperation; that
ne was the candidate of those who re-originat-
I'd the measure in that guise; that, as Presi-
lent elect, on the eve of its passage, he came
o an understanding with the Administration
hen expiring to the choice and execution
If the alternative plans of action embraced by |
he resolution; and that in his Inaugural A d.
rcss he gave his entire adhesion to that viola
ion of the Constitution.
An American squadron was for some time
tationed off the chief seaport of Mexico, to
we or to constrain her into submission to the
Intended annexation of Texas. Such an ex-
ibtion of force was, under the circumstances,
n act of War; for there may be war before
loodshed; and the threatening peoples
oast for known purpose of c,nstraint just
es in return positive resort 10 arms, Just as
luch as a mans levelling a bludgenn or a pis-
81 at your head, when You are engaged in an
Iteration, warrants your striking or shooting
i'm, before yet his blow has lighted or his ball
ped to your brain. The step which author
les an adverse act of war is itself an act Of
'ar. In addition to this hostile station of
era Cruz, President Polk sent naval oxpcdi-
on that might, at the FIRST pretence, fall upon
nguarded California, take it, and then keep
Z, by the clever surprise of peace on the
'rms an ui pos,idetis; but Sin scarcely any !
ossibIe conjuncture to surrender it again.
The President marched an army to the Rio I
rande, Congress being in session, without Q
onsultlng or even reporting the fact to Con- !
ress This was PeremPtorily making war 'on q
is own hook The alleged reason for this
cp-the refusal Of Herrera's government to c
'ceive our envoy, Mr.. sIidcll, as umbassador,1 c
stead Of Commissoner--were it even not v
ross anachrcnism, Qor, as we have often |
Iown, Ged. Taylor was ordered to take post b
! the Rio Grande in June, 1916, which order v
as made positive on the 18th january follow e
g, before yet the A administration knew OF
e final rejection of MIR. slidell,) woold not a
end his conduct; for the refusal to receive d
II Minister was no cause Vi war, nor even Of C