New-York daily tribune., 1857-04-18

The friends of Liberty and Human Rights in the
New-YOrk Assembly have met on the part of their
opponents the very same kind of attacks to which
the advocates of Liberty and Human Rights have
ever been exposed. They have been charged with
treason and denounced as rebels against lawful au-
thority This is the old story. 1t is the very same
charge which King John and his partisans brought
against the barons assembled at Runnymede. To
this day. in the volumes of the courtly historian,
and in the speeches of the ultratory orators that
great uprising against the usurpatons and despot-
ism of the Stuarts, on which the existing liberties
of Great Britain are based, is stigmatized as the
"Great Rebellion" and Pym and Hampden and
the other chiefs of the Long Parliament are set
down as traitors, and the beheading of Charles |.
as horrid murder. So it was attempted to silence
Patrick Henry by shouts of treason treason
when he dared to raise his voice against the stamp
act. So Hancock and the two Adamses were pro-
clamed by Governor Gage to be objectionable
traitors. So William Pitt, because in the House of
Commons he dared to yindisate the constitutional
rights of the coonists against the aggressions of
the ministry, and the obitr deta of Lord Mansfield
was set down as an instigatOr of rebellion, and
himself traitor. So in still more recent in.
stance, Mr.. Chief Justice Lecompte of Kansas or
dered bills of indictment for high treason to be
found against Governor Robinson and others, be-
cause they had presumed to take part in framing
a State Constitution for Kansas by which Slavery
was prohibited. In such good company the friends
of Freedom in the New York Legislature must not
be surprised to find themselves. Charges of trea-
son and rebellion are the habitual resort of the
practcers and defenders of despotism.
There is. however, species of treason much
more detestable and much more dangerous in our
opinion than any resistance TO unconstitutional
laws or TO injustice and usurpation attempted to
be concealed under the respectable garb of a
judicial decision. Let those persons 50 ready at
charging Others with treason, take care what they
do themselves. Let them beware how they fall
under the charge of treason to the principles of
Democracy treason TO the principles of Repub-
Gcanism. treason against humanity, treason to
the cause of justice truth and progress
Let those so anxious for the detection of traitors
and treason turn their attention to the Kansas
Nebraska bill, and to the history of the settlement
of Kansas. 1t will take but half an eye TO detect
in those proceedings, and in the attempt of the five
slave holding Judges to back up those proceedings
by extra judicial opinions reasonable conspiracy
to change this Government from free-labor demo.
cracy into slave breeding and slaye-driving aristo
cracy, an attempt to wrest the control of the des.
,iuies Of this Union from the hands of its millions of
voters and to place it in the hands of two or
three hundred thousand shareholders Here is
treason of most vital character Here is an at.
tempt not merely to defeat the operation of
single enactment or a single Judicial decision but
to transform the whole nature Of our Government.