Arkansas true Democrat., 1861-08-08


 .\a new and strong form of government IT States which might remain in the
 put vhatever may have been the pur- poa'' < tsrt here to-day, as representa- ;rata ito' ;l,a' sry principle act of the admin ,.t' "'lon Sine has been glaring usurpa- o llon vi d,ot;en poHer ,d palpable and danger oas violation that very constitution to ~sup suDport 'o1t 'lsli sr profsssodly Taged ton of the 18th of Ays,b AS by the proolama, 1a militia-not to defend tls on oan;4a1 os .Ssrs @ ;s not word about the capitssi in the procla. nation, and there was then no nrpsS;h1o danger to it from any quarter 1n[ p11''De to ra take and occupy forts and propert.s tbou. sand miles otf--summoning, ] s.. tho militia te suppress the so-called inso roo. ~ tion. 1 do not believe, indeed, no IT, i believed in Febuary last, when MT. Stanto1 of Ohio, introduced his bill to enlarge the act of 1795, that that act ever contempla- ted the case of general revolution and of resistance by an organized government But no matter The militia thus called out, with shadow, at least, of authority, and for period extending one month after the assembling of Congress, were amply sufficient to protect the capital against any force which was then likely to be sent against it-and the event has proved it. and ample enough also to suppress the out break in Maryland. Every other principle act of the administration might very well have been postponed, and ought to have been postponed, until the meeting of Con- gress, or, if the exigencies of the occasion demanded it, Congress should forthwith have been assembled. What if two or three States should not have been represen- ted, although even this need not have hap penned; but better this, thousand times, than that the constitution should be repeat edly and fagrantly violated, and public liberty and private right trampled under foot. As for Harper's Ferry and the Nor folk navy yard, they rather needed protec- tion against the administration, by whose orders millions of property were wantonly destroyed, which was not in the slightest danger from any quarter at the date ot the proclamation.
 But, sir, Congress was not assembled at once, as Congress should have been, and the great question of civil war submitted to their deliberations. The representatives of the States and fthe people were not allow ed the slightest voice in this the most mo- mentous question ever presented to any government. The entire responsibility of the whole work was boldly assumed by the executive, and all the powers required for the purposes in hand were boldly usurped from either the States or the people, or from the legislative department; while the voice of the judiciary, that last refuge of hope and liberty, was turned away from with contempt.
 Sir, the right of blockade-and begin with it-is belligerent right, incident to state of war, and 1t connot be exercised until war has been declared or recognized; j; and Congress alone can declare or recog nize war. But Congress has not declared or recognized war. On the contrary, it had but little while before expressly re- fused to declare it, or to arm the President in declaring blockade of certain ports in the South, and in applying to it the rules governing blockades as between indepen- dent powers, violated the constitution.
 But if, on the other hand, he meant to deal with these States as still in the Union, and subject to federal authority, then he usurped power which belongs to Congress alone-the power to abolish and close up ports of entry; a power, too, which Con- gress had also refused few weeks before to exercise. And yet, without the repeal or abolition of ports of entry, any attempt by either Congress or the president to blockade thes ports, is violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of that.clause of the constitution which declares that " no pre- ference shall be given by any regulation of commerce or revenue to the ports of one State over those of another.
 Sir, upon this point do not speak with out the highest authority. In the very midst of the South Carolina notification controversy, 1t was suggested that in the recess of Congress and without a law to govern him, the President, Andrew Jack son meant to send down a fleet to Charleston and blockade the port. But the bare sug- gestion called forth the indignant protest of Daniel Webster, himselfthe arch enemy of notification, and whose brightest laurels were won in the three years conflict ill the senate chamber with it's ablest champions. In an address, in October, 1882, at Wor- chester, Massachusetts, before a national republican conventional was before the birth, or christening at least, of the Whig party--the great expounder of the consti- tuition said;
 "We are told sir, that the President will immediately employ the military force, and at once blockade Charleston. A military remedy, remedy by direct belligerent op eration, has thus suggested ,and nothing else has been suggested and nothing else has been suggested, as the intended means of preserving the Union. Sir, there is no little reason to think that this suggestion is true We cannot be altogether unmind- ful of the past, and therefore we cannot be altogether comprehensive of the future. For one, sir, l raise my voice beforehand against the unauthorized employment of military power, and against superseeding the authority of the laws, by an armed force under pretense of putting down nullifica- tion. The President has no authority to Nockade Charleston.
 I Jackson! Jackson, sirl the great Jackson! did not dare to do it without authority of Congress-; but our Jackson of to-day, the little Jackson at the other end of the avenue, and the mimic Jacksons around him, do blockade not only Charleston harbOr. bnt