Weekly national intelligencer., 1848-07-22

doubtedy, but never till then, might Government
like ours, cancelng for the instant all Constitutions
and all laws but that supreme one, the salus PopuIi
assume the rods and axes of the Dictator, the en-
signs OF sudden right to scourge and behead, and
send to the whiPpingpost or the block any citizen
indiscreet enough to talk about The lavs, when il
was necessary there should be none but the will,
supreme and sole, Of one infinitely resoue and pru-
dent man. Nothing, in short, but that last necessi-
ty which justfes Dictatorship, and would justify
any thing could, in a Government flowing for all its
legitimate motions from the citizens right to be
heard, excuse the very slightest invasion Of mems
freedom to discuss any public measure, any public
danger. As, then, nothing but Dictatorship could
justify that which Mr.. Polk has assumed-that
which is now claimed in turn by and for Gen. CAss--
so the power itself is plainly and simply Dictator.
ship; and they who are willing to submit to it might
just as well at once adopt the old and comprehensive
Roman formula for the thing, which consisted only
In the Senate's saying, by vote,~ /" That the Con-
sui Tor Presdent must take care that no harm shall
happen to the Republic" brief but expressive
bill It would be, costing but little time for engross
ing It, adroit in the avoidance of any alarming name
OF despotism and probably but little likely to incur
a veto.
If then, there be but single exgency in which
power of this arbitrary sort might be vested in
the President we have to say, first, that the Mexi-
can war, in which not this country but our poor,
unfortunate, miserable neighbor, was in danger, Of
fered not the smallest pretext for his assumption
secondly, that he did not wait for the adoption by
Congress of the due dictatorial formulary and,
thirdly, that his assumption Of the power preceded
las we have shown) by a full year, the war out of
which has been drawn the main pretence of just-
flying him.
Such doctrines are thus, plainly, no part of the
Constitution or the law of this land, but in utter
violaton-nay, subversion-of all the principles Of
both. In this country, they stand without prece.
dent: for the authors of the old sedition law
held not that what they made an offence was a
crime which needed no statute nor any thing but
the Executive rcscrpi TO give it being nor did they
aim it at our National or at State Legislatures but
expressly excepted them; nor did they pretend to
erect freedom Of speech or Of the press into more
than sedilion-into that crime which it has been
ever the almost peculiar delight of bad Kings and
servile Ministers to create-the royal crime of trea-
son, for which RALEIGH and RUSSELL and SYDNEY
suffered-that illustrous offence which slaves, court
sycophants, and minions have so seldom commit
ted, and for which many brave spirits and lovers
of popular liberty have expiated their virtues upon
the scaffold.
1t is abroad, then, that we must look for parallels
to this arrogant claim nor, even then, shall we be
oh EpI ~
tasted of freedom. In no limited Monarchy that
exists-certainly not in Holland or Belgium-coud
the King set up such pretensions, without the sures
prospect Of being speedily shorter by his crown, if
not his head. In France, where, under that same
subtle and srongwilled ruler who has but the other
day been chased from his realm for attempting to
check popular discussion, we have seen an eighteen
years war in Algeria, requiring in the field an army
of full eighty thousand regular troops. Well has
the existence of this ever been, for one instant
held up to France, either by Kingly temerity or by
the subserviency of its satellites, as afordng the
slightest pretence for abridgng the liberty of Speech
or Printing! Never, even as to the causes or man.
agement the morals or the policy, of the war ITSELF
All, all has been canvassed, with the utmost free
dom, by the Legislative Chambers, by the Press,
and by the private citizen this, too, let ii be espe-
cially remembered, in country where there are
sedilion laws; where uttering words fit to excite
commotion or bring the Government into contempt
might be legally punished; and where the Press
pas all the while suffering seizures and prosecu-
tons for its violence of language. Nowhere was
there in France any stint of criticism upon every
plan in the war, every event; each failure was
dwelt upon, each mistake magnifed. What did
their King, when thus blamed and badeered at
every step that he took Like sensible and
good-tempered monarch, he listened to his people,
as not only having some concern in the affairs of
France, but really possessing, after ALL many of
them quite as much knowledge, quite as much judg-
ment and quite as much patriotism as he. Where
wise thing was said he had the brains to profit
by il; where foolish, or false, the sense not to
mind, or only to expose it; for which las he kept
many newspapers in his pay he had abundant
means at command Though seated on powerful
and hereditary throne, amid all the blaze of roy
atty and all the awe Of people accustomed to des-
potism, he was not so blown with the insolence of
power, and, though subsequently driven into exile
for silly effort Of authority, he not senseless
as to imagine that a national war--lhe greatest of