Weekly hawk-eye and telegraph. [volume] (Burlington, Iowa) 1855-1857, 1856-10-29
acteh by the Southern DcmocracT.

The Alien and Sedition laws, which hurried
the administration the elder Adams and the
old federal party into public disgrace have re-
appeared and in a biacker shape are now. for
all practical purposes, the supreme law of the
South. They are mainly an imprinted set of
laws, executed by irresponsible and lawless in
struments: but they none the less, on that
account, the supreme democratic law of our
Southern States.
Our readers will remember what the Alien
and Sedition laws were The Alien law EN-.
powered the President to order all aliens out of
the country who were found, or supposed to be-
conspirng against the peace and authority of
the United States. This was directed against
a large body of European immigrants who were
known to sympathize with Jefferson and the
republican party of that day, in opposition to
Adams and the federalists The Sedition Law,
was law of pains and penalties, fines and i'm
prisonments, for a too free exercise of the liI-
erty of speech and the liberty of the press
against the administration and its measures
Such were the harsh despotc and insufferable
enactments which resulted, at the very first or
portunity, in the ignominious overthrow of the
Adams administration and the federal party
by free and indignant people.
incredible, however, as the infatuation NAV
appear which would drive a political party. at
this day, TO the re enactment of these odious
and despotc laws, it is fact, that by this rot
ten aud reckless Pierce Buchanan democracy Of
the South these laws are applied in full force in
that section, in the most infamous shape, and
executed by the most detcStable Instruments
Debauched and dcmoraliZed as the democratic
party has become under the malign influences
OF those plotting disunionists, Jeh. Davis Atch-
ison and others, this despotism of niger drv-
ers which lords it over the Cabinet and the Sem
ate at Washington, over Kansas and over the
South, is not so very surprising after all. 1t is
but the natural Development OF that rutfan pol
icy which resorts to the hludgeon against argu-
ment in the Senate, and to ballot stuiing the
bowie knife and the bayonet, against northern
emigration, Northern votes and northern SEN
timents in Kansas.
Thus, the most benefcent popular institutions
on the face of the earth are brought into mock
cry and contempt. One half of this great Rep
public is practically under the living despotsIn
of that democratic Kansas code of Alien and
Sedition laws. 1t is under this black code OF
irresponsible ruiianism that an honest and wor-
thy citizen of Virginia, for daring to take part
in the Fremont Nominating Convention at
Philadelphia, was denied the privilege Of re-
turning 10 his family, and compelled to sacri-
fee his estate and send for his wife and chill
dren to come to him i'll the free North, under
the protection OF a stranger. 1t was under
these modern Alien and Sediton laws that the
Governor Of Virginia arraigned one OF his fel-
low-citizcns as traitor, and threatened him
with the Grand Jury and the Prosecuting At
torncy OF Rchmond-thc crime OF the offender
being speech against Buchanan, calculated to
depreciate the price of niggers. Southern
Judges and Grand Jur;es elsewhere have actu-
ally proceeded, in due form of law, to The pros
ccution OF contumacious traitors opposed to Blu.
chanau; but with few exceptions OF this sort,
this Southern despotism Of the niger driving
aristocracy despises even the forms Of law, and
entorces its edcts through the agencies of mobs
and brutal yiolencc.=[N. Y ueralI