The voice of freedom. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1839-1848, 1847-05-06
From the National Intelligencer
The Late Order in Council"

We have pleasure in placing before our
readers (subjoined) two articles, confirming
our own hastily expressed opinion of the I'M
constitutional nature of the Orders issued by
the President of the United States, and by
the Treasury, War, and Navy Departments,
decreeing and enacting Tariff Of Duties on
Imports, to be collected and disbursed, beyond
the limits of the United States, by officers
constituted by his and their authority OF
the articles to which We refer, one is an APP
parently well advised argument, by the New
York Courier and Enquirer; the other is
from very respectable Connecticut paper,
for which, Judging from the " star" at the
bottom Of it, it has been communicated by
some gentleman of legal knowledge and polit-
ical experience.
We might perhaps have let these articles
go to our readers without any comment of
ours, but that an article or two on the subject
in the official government paper induce us
to dwell for a moment longer on the question.
In that paper of Thursday nightall attempts
on the part Of the public press to discuss the
authority Of the Executive to issue and en-
force this Order in Council are stigmatized
as "reckleSs efforts to aid and encourage our
Mexican enemies !" and "inevitable odium
and reproach" arc said to await all such de-
monstratons. Precisely this uSed to be the
language Of Sovcreigns, and their courtiers
and sycophants, i'll the different countries OF
Europe We have itupon the authority Of
Blackstone, that the prerogatiye of the Mon
arch of England was, in former ages, thought
too delicate and sacred to be profaned by the
pen of Subject. The " glorious Queen
Elizabeth" herself, he says, made no scruplc
to direct her Parllaments to abstain from dis
coursing matters of State land it was the con-
slant language of this favorite Princess and
her Minister'S that even that august assembly
ought not to deal, to judge, or to NEEDLE
with her Majesty's prerogativc royal" And
her successor, King james the first, who had
imbibed high notions of the divinity of regal
sway, more than once laid it down in his
speeches, that, Gas it is atheism and blasphe-
my in a Creature to dispute what the Deity
may do, so it is presumption and sediti0n IN q
Subject to dispute what King mag no in tie
SteisAt of his p0wer; COOL Christians" he adds
J" will be content with Gods will, revealed in
lis word; and good suIjccts wM rest in THE
KINGS WILL, rereaici in HIS lam"
This is, as the reader cannot fail to perceive
the same Tory doctrine, in almost the identi-
cal language, now preached in the papers
which especially reflect the Executive will
and sentiment.
We trust that no citizen of the United
States will be deferred, by the revival in this
country of the doctrine of passive obedience,
long since abandoned in England, from the
freest possible scrutiny of all acts of the Gov
ernmont, Legislative or Executive, and cs-
pecialy of such powers as the President I'M
dertakes to exercise prerogatively, as being
analogous to the Executive power in coun-
tries in which the sovereign authority stillrc-
sides in the Crown. "There cannot" says
Blackstone, speaking Of the modern law in the
British Monarchy, be a greater proof of
that genuine freedom ecbich IS the boast Of tits
age and country, than the power of discussing
and examining, with dccency and respect,
tue limits Of the Kings prerogatives" Shame
to thcmanhood Of our own age and generation
should we dastardly shrink from the exercise
of rights which belonged to our ancestors,
even when this country formed part of the
British Monarchy, and which belong to us,
by an unspeakably dearor right, ever since
the Declaration of Independence