Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-11-18
STATE RIGHTS AND FREEDOM.


spoke as follows d believe most sincerely
and solemnly that the last hope of free, repre-
sentative, and responsible government, lin this
country rests upon the State Sovereignties,
and the fidelity of state officers to their double
allegiance to the state and federal govern
ments." He and a great many other persons
have come to this conclusion from careful
observation of those perpetual encroachments
of the federal government which tend to break
down the State Sovereignties and lay them
PROSTATE at the feet of a federal power. The
same belief in the States as the guardians and
supporters of freedom controlled the men who
framed the federal constitution and gave shape
to our national government. BY their wisdom,
and their zeal for liberty, it was settled that
the powers OF the general government should
be carefully specified and limited, and that it
should not claim to have anythsng more than
delegated powers.
There are too many persons who forget all
this,-too many who encourage the federal
government to usurp power to which it has no
right, and who denounce any movement to Sc
cure firm and effectual assertion of State
Rights. In the free states, where habitual rev.
erence for claw and order" is stronger than
anywhere else, and more Submissive to any,
thing that pretends to be law and legitimate
exercise of authority, this dangerous encour-
agement of federal usurpation is most common.
1t must be checked, or the federal government
will at length absorb everything and State
Sovereignty be impossible. In a republic like
ours, the natural tendency of central gov
eminent is to encroach on the rights
of the people; and under the happiest and
most favorable circumstances it would always
be necessary to remember that "eternal vigil
lance is the price of liberty" But, with chat
tel slavery in the country, seeking to national
ize itself, and urging the government to the
most depotic usurpations of power in its be-
half, bold and determined assertion of state
rights becomes one of the first duties of every
citizen and of every representative OF state
authority. There is no danger that any free
state will assert its rights with too much en-
phasis. The danger is that there will be
cowardly submission to the despotism that
usurns power,--a mean-spirited and dastardly
REIMBURSEMENT of rights which we should de-
fend Unnecessary with our blood.
Here in Massachusetts,, we have yielded so
far to that most unconstitutional and infamous
continuance of despotism, the fugitive slave
act, that some among us pretend to see fanati-
cal treason in the very mention of any measure
for the protection of personal liberty. Nobody
questions the fact that the constitution requires
the delivering up of fugitives from service,
just as it requires the delivering up of fugitves
from justice but these are purely matters of
compact between the states, with which Meth
er Congress nor the President have any right
to NEEDLE. And they do not NEEDLE with the
arrest of fugtives from justice 1t is only in
favor of slavery that the most atrocious meas
ures of usurpation are contrived. Therefore,
we have that fugitive slave bill which Con-
gress had no more right to enact than it had
to create monarchy, establish an order of no.
bility, suppress the state governments, or do
anything else against free institutions +; and be-
cause it is unconstitutional and dangerous to
freedom, the sovereignty of the state should
be used to make it imperative and void every.
where within our jurisdiction. In Wisconsin,
it has been met and driven back by the judici-
airy, 1t should not be tolerated anywhere.
Our constitutional obligations, whatever they
may be, should be discharged in constitution
al way, or not at all.
We are led to this topic by recent crcum-
stances, which have drawn public attention to
an act of Congress passed in 1876, to compel
the personal attendance of witnesses in cases
on trial in any court of the United States
Nowhere in the federal Constitution is there
any grant of power to Congress which gives
that body right to make such a law and it
can have no righs or authority whatever, which
that instrument does not confer. And if Con-
gress had no right to make that law, the fed
eral government has no right to execute it. If
forcibly executed, it might drag citizen of
Massachusetts to Texas, California, South
Carolina, or Virginia, without regard to cir
cumstanc9s or rights, and doom him to prison
as long as the convenience of the court might
require. No power on earth should be per.
mitted to drag a citizen beyond the limits of
the state, against his will, unless he has COM
mitted a crime in some other state and is to be
taken there for trial. If the testimony of cit
izen of Massachusetts is wanted in one of the
courts of South Carolina, the laws provide that
those in want of his evidence may take it in
the form of deposition. Nothing more is al.
lowed in such case, and nothing more should
be allowed under any circumstances No fed
eral court can have right to compel the per-
sonal attendance of witnesses which is denied
to state court; and it never can have such
right until it is specially granted by the federal
constitution.
An order OF inquiry in regard to this unwar-
ranted and despotic act of Congress has been
introduced in our Legislature, and we trust
that the matter will not be dropped until such
measures are taken as will give the personal
liberty of our citizens the most effective pro
lection. This is not a time to whine, and
sneak, and shiver, and be poltroons. 1t is a
time for manhood that dares to assert state
rights and the federal constitution against that
black and goddess power which would subvert
the foundations of our government If we
cannot show such manhood, we are unfit to
live on the soil of Massachusetts,.
FOURTH MONDAY ELEcTIoN.-An election
is to be held in the 4th and 9th wards of Law
renee on Monday the 2Sth, being the old
'fourth Monday" for a representative from
the 10th Essex district, the inspectors of the