Lewistown gazette. [volume] (Lewistown, Pa.) 1843-1944, 1849-05-26

$1,000
A white Crow has been captured in Mary
land.
MoBs.-We copy the following opportune az
tice from the Boston Journal:
No person can read the accounts of the dis
graceful and violent proceedings of the mob in
the city of New York, without entertaining
strong feelings of humiliation and sorrow
When frenzied mob, consisting of several
thousand persons, can be collected together IN
a few hours, by appeals of unprincipled men to
the preudces and passions OF the masses, and
bidding defiance to the civil authorities clothed
with the panoply of law, proceed to the COM
mission of outrages against the persons and
property of individuals, may well tremble
for the perpetuity of our institutions. hlobs
and riots to put down doctrines by brute force,
or punish individuals for their conduct or opn-
ions, admitting them to be highly objec
tionabls, are anti-republcau in every sense Of
the word-it is tyranny Of the most dangerous
kind--and such 4 course, or any movement
winch may lead TO such a coursc-should be
promptly condemned by every person who has
any claim 10 intelligence or virtue. If nohs
are allowed with impunity TO commit their in
famous outrages, 40 person advocating the
opinions Of any sect or party can be safe. 1t
Will not be sufficient that he keeps within the
pale OF the law, or even, as in the case Of Ma
cready, that he has gwen no Just cause Of Of
fence. but he must stand in awe of that hydra
headed monster the mob, and act according to
its dictaiion, under penalty Of destruction 10 his
property or his life
Where mob law prevails, there is little occa-
sion for any other kind of law. Punishment l.
inflicted without any investigation of the Of
fence, and the property or life Of good and eX-
cmplary citizen Is rs likely 10 be sacrificed By
q mob of infuriated rufiians as the property OF
IiFa Of Tho tazt INC t.1
society. 1t is the boasted advantage Of a Re
publican government, that wherever it exists,
the privileges Of every citizen, Of every midi
yidua shall be protected By the laws-and if he
is guilty Of offences, by the laws only shall he
be punished. But IL men are to be restricted
in the exercise of their rights, their property
destroyed, and themselves maltreated by assem-
blages Of ferociOus men-emulatng the conduct
of demons, because their conduct does not ex-
actly square with their erroneous or even Just
notions of propricty, what becomes of our boast
ed free institutions A military despotsm would
be better than such Republican government
whenever symptoms OF a mob and riot ap-
pear, the most prompt and active measures
should be adopted on the part of the magistracy
to quell it before it has strength and power to
perpetrate lawlcss ahd mschieyous acts 1t
should be crushed in the bud, at all hazards,
and at every cost. Delay and remonstrances,
supplicatIons and appeals TO reason only serve
to fortify the assemblage in their determination
to commit outrages, and TO give them confidence
IN their strength. The military should be cal
led out at once TO assist the police-and every
man, who has due regard for law and order
who IS an enemy to anarchy, should rally around
the constituted authorities, ready and eager TO
aid in breaking up and dispensing the mob, and
thus show his respect for the people-his regard
/ for the public good
/ In work published several years ago, and
| written by that truly good man, Rev. DR. Chan
! ming, occurs passage relating to mobs, and the
! dangerous tendency Of such assemblages, which
/ is highly appropriate at this time, and we can.
not resist the desire TO lay il before our readers.
Let every friend of freedom, let every good
| man hit up his voice against mObs. Through
/ these lies our road to tyranny. 1t is these
! which have spread the opinion, so common at
the South, that the free States cannot long sus-
! tain Republican institutions. No man seems
awake to their inconsistency with liberty. Our
whole phraseoogy is in fault. AIobs call them
selves, and are called the People, when in truth
! they assall Immediately the sovereignty Of the
| People, involve the guilt Of usurpation and re-
belllon against the People 1t is the fundamen-
tai principle of our institutions that the People
is Sovereign. But by the people we mean not
an individual here and there not q knot of
twenty, or hundred, or a thousand individuals
IN this or that spot, but the community formed
INTO body polite, and expressing and execut-
ing lis will through regularly appointed organs.
{ There IS but one expression OF the will of Sow
ereIgnty OF the People, and this is Law. Law
Is the voice, the living act of the People. 1t
/ has no other. When an individual suspends
the operation of Law, resists its established
ministers, and forcibly substitutes for it his own
VIII, he Is an usurpcr and rebel. The same
guilt attaches to combination Of individuals.
These, whether many or few, in forcibly super
sedlng public law and establishing their own,
rise up against the People, as truly as a single
'ha Ii "A 1
majesty, ITS menaced sovereignty, in one case,
as decidedly in the other. The difference
between the mob and the individual is that the
usurpatlon of the latter has permanencc not
easily given to the tumutuary movements of
the former. The distinction is a weiChty onc
Little Importance IS due TO sudden bursts Of the
populace, because they so soon pass away. But
when mobs are organized as in the French
revolution, or when they are deliberately re-
solved on and systematically resorted to, az the
/ means OF putting down an odious party Lbev
/ lose THIS apology. A conspiracy exists against
the Sovereignty of the People, and ought TO be
suppressed, as among the chief evils of the
State
:" In TINS part OF the country our abhorrencc
OF mobs is lessened by the fact, that they were
thought to do good service in the beinning of
the Revolution. They probably were useful
then; and why The work OF that day was
Revolution. TO subyert government was .
fearful task TO which our fathers thought them
selves summoned. Their duty they believed
was msurrection. In such a work mobs had
their places. The government of the State was
m the hands of its foes. The People could not
use the regular organs Of administration. for
these were held and employed by the power
which they wished to crush Violent, irregular
efforts belong to that day Of convulsion. To re-
sist and subvert institutions is the very work of
mobs ; and when these institutions are popular.
when their sole end is to express and execute
the viii Of the people, then mobs are rebellion
against the people, and as such should be UNDER
stood and suppressed. A people is never more
insuited than when mob takes its name -