The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1856-09-08
The Vigilance Committee of California.


1t is but few years since Americans made, with
truth the proud boast that, whilst Europe was per-
petuay the prey of revolutionary and civil strife
our own country had, from the first, presented the
proud spectacle of a people demonstrating their
capacity for self government by profound submits.
sion to the laws which ernanated from themselves;
and that civil war and rebellion were things un-
known in the United States. That is boast
which can no longer be made. The shout of pre-
mature exultation has scarcely died upon our lips
before it is drowned in the discordant clamor of
both civil war and rebellion At this moment, both
are raging in Kansas whilst in California there
is an organized usurpation of power by Wig lance
Committee, which has set itself in opposition to
the regularly cor sttuted authorities of the State
which has standing army of its own, and is at
this moment the supreme power in California, ex
hbiting the melancholy and disastrous spectacle
of the people, overriding the laws, the constitu
tioa the officers which themselves have made, and
glorying in their shame.
This is the ruinous and disgraceful feature of
an American rebellion. 1t is the people rising
against their own authority, impeaching their own
wisdom overturning their own sovereignty, and in
every conceivable way and shape stutifying them
selves. If Laws are inadequate to the protection
of society, if the administration of justice is in
efficient or perverted, better bear the ills you
have,' under republican constitution, which pro-
vdes a regular and legal mode of changing laws
and changing officers than fly to the measureless
abyss of anarchy. Free society suffer from
no crime like that which it commits against ITSELF
when it raises its hand against its own authority.
Lynch law in Republic is political suicide
which destroys both the form and the soul of
Liberty.
This Vigilance Committee of California is indeed
monstrous apparition in free government. Its
organization has the command of seven thousand
bayonots and from twenty to twenty-five pieces
of artillery. Among its troops are three orfour
hundred Frenchmen, formerly members of the
Garde Mobile OF France. The Freach Consul re-
monstrated against their joining the organization,
but they excused themselves the ground that
they had no other mode of earning subsistence
The Danish Consul at San Francisco a member of
an abolition society at Paris, is member of this
organization. 1t is to the honor of the South
which respects law and order, that but few South-
err men belong 10 this colossal tribunal of Lynch
And what are the mighty achievements which
required the creation of this anomalous tribunal
on stupendous scale, with an apparently un.
limited amount of men and means at its command,
They have hung four men, and banished some
fifty, who of course can return soon as the vi.
GLANCE Committee loses its hold of power!
"An into tempest tost,
To watt a feather or TO drown fly"
We cannot but believe that this Vigilance Com
mttee has some other design than that apparent
upon the surface We strongly suspect that
while the handful of Southern members are ut
tery unsuspicous of any Interior object 1t is part
and parcel of the grand scheme of rebellion and
revolution which resisted to the last the passage
OF the Army bill in Congress, which threatens to
deluge the plains of Kansas with fraternal blood,
and which is seeking TO substitute at Washington
sectional for a national Government and subju.
gate the South to freedom great many pur-
poses might be subservedI by the establishment of
such vast military organization besides the hang
ing of q handful of feons 1t might interrupt the
regular operations of law, to prevent the col
lection Of debts; it might overawe and obstruct
the exercise of the elective franchise so as to
throw the State into the hands of Black Repub-
hcan candidate for the Presidency IL might pre-.
pare the way for the establishment of an indie.
pendent Pacific Republic We do not charge that
these are It's objects; we are quite sure that the
lev Southern members of the organization have
none but honest and proper motives but we can.
not Danish the suspicion that this gigantic combi
naa'on and lavish outlay of treasure were never
saasa INTO existence for tho trifins purpose of
l'aaihg fne community sf few miserable felons
saa @'vins . backyard pugilist to commit sui.
suase Terry, high officer Of the law. arrest.
~ this armed mob for An act comrnitted IN
seq defence, e STILL or was .. the lass account.
priseasrs and would probably be banished from
'as state, though the man whom be had been com,
peAsa 70 wound had entirely recovered ftom -.
'''af'e'' and "ss walking the streets in perfect