Weekly national intelligencer., 1847-04-10
THE LATE "oRDER IN COUNCIL"

We have pleasure In placing before our readers
(subioined two articles, confirming our own hastily
expressed opinion of the unconstitutional nature of
the Orders issued by the President of the United
States, and by the Treasury, War, and Navy De-
partments, decreeing and enacting Tariff of Du-
ties on Imports, TO be collected and disbursed, be-
yond the limits of the United States, by officers
constituted by his and their authority. OF the ar
tices to which we refer, one is an apparently we'll
advised argument, by the New York Courier & En-
quirer; the oheris from very respectable Connec-
tcut paper, for which, judging from the STAR at
the bottom of it, it has been communicated by some
gentleman of legal knowledge and political expe.
rience.
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 gov
ernment paper induce us to dwell for moment
longer on the question
In that paper of Thursday night all attempts on
the part Of the public press to discuss the authority
OF the Executive issue and enforce this Order in
Council are stigmatized reckless efforts to aid
and encourage our Mexican enemies !" and in
evitabe odium and reproach" are said to await all
such demonstrations. Precisely this used to be the
language of Sovereigns, and their courtiers and
sycophants, in the different countries Of Europe.
We have it upon the authority Of Blackstone, that
the prerogative Of the Monarch Of England was, in
former ages, thought too delicate and sacred to be
profaned by the pen of Subject. The "glo-
rious Queen Elizabeth herself, he says, made
no scruple to direct her Pallaments to abstain
from discoursing of matters Of State and it was
the constant language of this favorte Princess and
her Ministers, that even that august assembly
ought not to deal, to Judge, or to meddle with
her Maesty's prerogative royal" And her sue
cessor, King James the frst who had imbbed high
notions of the divinity of regal sway, more than
once laid it down in his speeches, that, Gas it is
atheism and blasphemy in Creature to dispute
what the Deity may do, SO it is presumption and
sediton IN a Subject 10 dispute What a King may
do in the height Of his pover, ), good Christians,
he adds, will be content with Gods will, revealed
in his word; and good subjects acW rest in THE
KING's WILL, revealed IN Ills iaac."
This is, as the reader cannot fail TO perceive, the
same Tory doctrine, in almost the identical Ian
guage 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 O
the doctrine of passive obedience, long since aban
doned in England, from the freest possible scrutiny
of all acts of the Government, Legislative or Exec
utive, and especially of such powers as the Presi
dent undertakes TO exercise prerogativey, as being
analogous to the Executive power in countries il
which the sovereign authority still resides in thu
Crown. "There cannot says Blackstone, speak
oc ~ l.yy IN the itch INV
"be greater proof Of that genuine freedom
'which is the boast Of this age and country, thar
the power of discussing and examining, with de
.cency and respect the limits Of the Kings pre-
'rogatives." Shame TO the manhood of our owl
age and generation, should we dastardy shrink
from the exercise of rights which belonged to on
ancestors, even when this country formed part o
the British Monarchy, and which belong to US, by
an unspeakably dearer right, ever since the Declara
ton of independence
We have not time now to go at large into the ar
gument by which it is attempted to sustain this ex
ercise Of Sovereign Power by the President Of tn
United States. Few words must, for the present
suffice.
The President expounds his own right to issu
this Order in Council thus:
81 It's the right of the Conqueror to levy contri
buttons upon the enemy in their seaports, towns
sor provinces, which may be in his military pos
session by conquest, and to apply the to de
'f fray the expenses of the war;"
II is not this doctrine to which we have raised al
objection, but to the assumption Of the President 4
exercise this right, instead Of leaving il to the war
making power, to which alone, if any where in thi
Government, it rightfully belongs. By this assump
ton the President considers himself, and not tn
United States, to be the Conqueror in this for
eign war; Here is his vital error. Were he Hin!
instead of President, and holding all the powers
War and Peace by his prerogative, he would be i
the right. Did the Constitution afford any grount
even constructively, for this pretension, he nigh
even then, perhaps, make out his case. But, in tn
enumeration OF the powers to be exercised by tn
President, no such power as that which he claim
as President is to be found in the Constitution
Though that enumeration includes many power
which were prerogative in the British Crown, sue
as that of receiving foreign Ministers, that of com
nanding.in-chief the army and navy, &C., it doe
not contain the right to raise fleets and armies,
make war and peace, to make treaties leagues, an
alliances with foreign Powers, or to do many othe