Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1847-08-07


new territory parce-wise and y detachment one
branch of it far ahead, and De others following
slow and humbly in the rear But were that SO,
and were it the Executive thahecessarily arrived
first, still what would that department. of govern
ment be but the Executive! Guild the President,
in the exercise of that power dlegate to other per-
sons authority to make laws, beause the talo-naak-
ing poaoer Of the Constitution had not get got
there? Gould he, in person by deputy, sit in
judgment there, tribunal as well $ Legislature? And
is he to be that worse than barbrian solecism, our
federal and constitutional Executive, where there is
nothing legal to execute?
The President being, then, colsttutonally inca
pable of every legislative function, such can vest in
him noachere: not at home, because the laws for
bid it; still less abroad, where ne Constitution is
not, and where his authority mist therefore neces-
sarily be (if that is possibe les than nothing. AT
| home the power of making laws has been refused
to him; abroad, it could not lave been granted.
| Nor is that all. Were il within the competency of
State thus to grant to its own fnctionary powers
which ITSELF did not possess-powers which belong
ed to another society-such powers, although given
only for exercise over aliens beyond its jurisdiction,
would inevitably be reflected back within it, and in
a thousand ways affect the citizen vitiate the do
nestle limitations upon such functonary, and gra-
dualy bring about domestic tyranny in reward
for having granted external one. 1t would be
habtuating the legal magistrate to illegal power
and your own citizens to see him enjoying it and
it would be furnishing him the irresistible means
already armed he is with the strongest, most ac-
tive, and most encroaching powers of your State
Of conquering from abroad liberty at home. This
is precisely what made the great Lord CHATHAM,
the friend of our colonial rights, as being those OF
citizens sharing all the freedom of the British laws
it was for this he said that to allow the King to
make as slaves, was to give him the inevitable in
struments of presently erecting despotism over
that very Parliament and People who had helped
him to arbitrary power over others.
/ We have shown, argumentatively, that all such
legislative power as is now claimed for the Execu-
tive in Mexico is void, because if existing for our
Government, it would inhere in another branch of
it: and now will clinch that reasoning by bring
ing Ii, too, to the test of demonstrative fact.
Laws imply the right of resort to tribunals their
administration carries With the privilege for those
to whom it applies of seeking remedy by suit.
Where is the relief to be found for any wrongful
administration of the Presidents enactments in
Mexico, commercial or criminal There is no
Court to 90 to there; and our Courts cannot think
of holding that they have. any jurisdiction beyond
the limits of the Union. Suppose the Executive s
Collector for the port of Vera Cruz to have receiv-
ed in his office million of dollars as Mr.. Polk IS
duties and then to come back to the United States,
walk into the Treasury, report to Secretary Walker
the amount of moneys he holds, and cooly inform
him that he intends TO keep them? What process
does Mr.. Secretary know what law can Mr. Attor-
ney General find in his books, for extracting Mr..
Folks million from master Collector What writ
will they serve upon him! By what Marshal or
Deputy will they serve it? To what Court will
they make it returnable! But perhaps they have
had the precaution to otake large bonds of master
! Collector? Alas where shall he be sued upon
them! Or how could thee be any recovery for a
delinquency in obligations which our laws know
nothing of! And, lastly take criminal case
Suppose either Mexican or one of our own citi-
Gems to be arrested and confined in Santa Fe for
treason? Can he sue olt his habeas corpus or
not? We should scarcely suppose it, inasmuch as
there is no Judge of the United States there. But
then, again, it is comfort to think that he can
not be tried for just the same reason-treason
against the United States being only cognzable by
the United States Courts for the district in which il
is committed. However, the comfort, now we re.
fleet is not great, after all for there has been
plenty of hanging, though there are no Courts
Some thirteen have been gibetted in Santa Fe; they
Mexcans their offence treason !; that treason COM
mtted without this realm, in endeavorng to rescue
their country from foreign yoke. For such trea.
son William Tell and Kosciusko would have been
as justly put to death!
We are not lawyers but we know how to ar
rive at law enough to upset all such poor pretences
as these for Presidents clothing himself with le
gslatve power abroad, though he has no right to il
at home. And, at any event, let some attorney for
the Executive answer, if he can these difficulties
Marvellous is the inspiration that flows at fee
but let us see what il can here produce!
There could, for those logicans whose trade il
is to furnish to Power premises for all conclusions
which it finds convenient, be but one system of fall
lacious Inference by which to give the slightes
color to these enormous Presidential pretensions
and this most constitutional strict-cbnstructve sys