Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1848-06-03

| III
visible head OF the party 1.-THE Presidency has done
that every thing whether in your heart YOU al
prove It or mott must be publicly sustained. public
ly justified, and even publicly extolIed. To dout
is TO be denounced and even to be silen, is
draw Apon you suspicion as true Democrat.
Another cause, however, has kept down the ex
preston, and in keeping down the expression Ia
checked the spreading sense, of public alarm al III
IMPERIAL Powers which the President has mad
this war OF his the means OF acquiring. That caus
was his putting in action, against the opponents
his unwse and unconstitutional measures. a svsten
OF terror, of opprobrium, of denuncaton by sue
charges and epithets aptest to kndle IN popu
lar hate and violence. That system has been omen
~ acted upon in the newspaper which the Execu
tive directly controls here. In concert with him
this system of terrorism has been followed up ii
those other presses which he holds under his
thumb throughout the land; it has been carried gu
in party harangues for which the official signal had
thus been given-in partisan dscourses of legislaI
tors themselves. shamefuy striking at the freedom
OF speech of the very bodies to which they belong
ed-and (far most ntolerable of ally in Executive
which war unconstitutionay and wickedly begun
renders inevitable, has been made public crime,
and the not berayng the country and the laws, by|
submitting in silence to Executive schemes and acts
so daring SO dangerous, and perfdous, has BEEN
insolendy stigmatzed as amounting, in effect and
in intention, to nothing short of " treason -
But our purpose is to display, within one single
view, the new and fragrant Executive usurpations,|
utterly ,unexampled in all the past history 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 devotees to the Con-
stintion, to have fulfilled the hopes of the Demo-
cracy Of the Union" Let us see how far, in hs|
official conduct, this President of ours, so idozed
by the Baltimore Convention, has construed strict
ly the grants of power in the Constitution, or has
indeed manifested one single trace, one suspicion.
of 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 mere Congress
sonal Resolution after having been rejected in ts
first proper shape of Treaty, had his pre-oficial|
that he was the candidate Of those who
re-originaed the measure in that guise; that, as|
President elect on the of its passage, he came|
to an understanding with the Administration them
expiring as to the choice and execution of the alter
native plans of action embraced by the resolution i
and that in his Inaugural Address he gave his en-
tire adhesion to that violation of the Constitution.
An American squadron was for some time sta
toned off the chief seaport of Mexico, to awe or|
constrain her into submission to the intended
nexation of Texas. Such an exhibition of force|
was, under the circumstances, an act of War; for|
there may be war before boodshed and the threat
enng peoples coast for known purpose of con-
sran justifes in return positive resort to arms,
just as much as a mans levelling bludgeon or al
pistol at your head, when you are engaged in an
warrants your striking shooting him.
before yet his blow has lighted his ball sped to
your brain. The step which authorizes an adverse|
act of war is Itself an act Of war. In addition to|
this hostile station off Vera Cruz, President Polk
sent naval expedition that might, at the first pre-
tence fall upon unguarded California, take it, and
then keep it, by the clever surprise of peace on
the terms Of an ui possidetiS but in SCARCELY
any possible conjuncture to surrender it again"
The President marched an army to the RioI
Grande, Congress being IN session, without con-
sulting or even reporting the fact to Congress.
This was peremptorily making war " on his own
hook" The alleged reason for this step-the re-
fusal Of Herrera's government to receive our en-
yoy, Mr.. Slidell, as ambassador, instead Of Com
it even not gross anachronlsm,
for, as we have often shown, Gen. Taylor was or
dered to take post on the Rio Grande in June,
ls45, which order was made positive on the 18th
January following, before yet the Administration
knew Of the final rejection OF Mr.. SlideD,) would
not mend his conducts for the refusal to receive our
Minister was no cause Of Uar, nor even OF just
complaint; and, If IL had been cause Of ,oar,
would have been thing ,chicha belonged 10 Con-
gress only, not the Executive, 10 act on as such.
Besides these acts of usurpiHg the war-makng
power, it has lately appeared, through claims pre-
Terred before Congress, that Col. Fremont-doubt-
less under Executive orders sent after him to Cali
orna, but which, reaching there too late, were for
warded to him and recalled him thither from Ore
at his arrival secret part in fomenting
here what is called the " Bear Flag Revolution,
which was gotten up among the American settlers
IN the spring of 1916, with the view Of annexing
t Il