The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1858-11-05

against these radical abuses of our political sys-
tenn, t'e AsSpcIATIoN has at heart the accomplish
ment of greater good than it seems to be within
the capacity of The American, either to appreciate
or to understand The vindication and re-estab-
lishment of the individual Rights and Liberties of
Its members, of which they, in common with their
ieliow-citizens, have been most treacherously and
ANONYMOUSLY defrauded and deprived, with the
passive and in some cases, active completely of the
public authorities and the restoration of the good
name of Baltimore, which has suffered such great
dishonor in the hands and through the fault of the
same unworthy servants of the people, are
but the beginning only and not the
half OF the good work which the Assoc
CITATION proposes to itself to perform. With
the continuing and increasing necessity for that
work, no amount of newborn zeal or tardy re-
pentance on the part of the authorities can posi-
Oily dispense. 1t is the declared purpose" of the
ASSOCIATION to unite Sin guarantying the purity
of the Baot-box," as well as !sfreedom of ac
''cess thereto, and in promoting and securing. by
''all lawful and fair means the election of honest
competent and faithful men, without distinction
OF party, to the various offices of Municipal Judi
cal and Executive trust in the city," From
such task the ASSOCIATION can not be so LIGHTLY
or so easily relieved, as our contemporary affects
to imagine, and so long as that task remains I'M
performed there is the highest and most honorable
Justihcation' to be found for every effort that
good men can make.
Nor is this all. The admission of The AMERICAN
that sit is clearly within the power of the public
authorities. with determination and efficiency TO
Establish peace and good order throughout
1.-THE city," and 'to prove that they are equal
"to the duty of enforcing the Iaws,'' convicts
those authorities of the grossest dereliction of
duty heretofore. What they can do now-they
could have done at any time, and at all times.
Since the election, Mr.. SWAMI has neither asked
nor received any additional grant of power,
nor any augmentation of the means at his DISPOSAL
for the preservation of peace and order
Whatever success may attend therefore
his efforts in that behalf now-will only serve to
make more apparent his faithless and inefficient
administration in the past. To the people who
have suffered personal wrong and outrage in con-
sequence of his aithlessnesS and inef1iciencv, it
can offer no reparaton or atonement whatever
The utmost zeal and vigilance that Mr.. SWAMI can
exhibit in the discharge of the duties of his office,
will make no amends to disfranchised people for
the indignity which he daily infcts upon them,
and not upon them only, but upon the cause of
free Institutions so long as he continues to hold
that office without the shadow of just title or
popular consent. Every hour of his usurped au-
thority is but an insulting repetition of the usurp-
alton. No lapse of time can wear away the
wrong-no persistence in it can be other than an
aggravation. The past cannot be dropped out of
mems memories, because he finds his convenience
in ignoring it; nor can the future be looked to
with confidence, because lie has been forced into
some show of respect for the present There can
be no extirpation of the evil, without an extirpa-
ton of the cause. Rights are no rights when
enjoyed only at sufferance, and free people will
never consider grievance redressed so long as
the aggressors have the power to repeat it, In
Mr.. SwANNs case the impossbity is rendered
doubly impossible, by the fact that, instead of
confessing the usurpation, and seeking to atone
for it, he has justified it from his own lips, and
from his own door, and that he claims and is
about to celebrate as "brilliant victory" what
he knows to have been but violence, and fraud.
and shame. How can justification" cease for
any lawful efforts at redress while of the things
to be redressed there is no cessation?