Burlington free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1827-1865, 1861-07-19

! HE PRESIDENTS s MESSAGE.-Ihe inacCu
racy with which the Presidents Message was
telegraphed was most remarkable. We do
not recollect another instance where 50 i'm
portant a document was SO mangled and dis
torted, in is transmission. We suppose it
OF the weather, and in part to a want of care
on the part of telegraphers and copyists.
After having corrected it as received here,
! by comparison with it as given in the New
York and Boston papers, there were vet left
! some sentences obscure and obviously differ
ent from what they were originally. \ fur
ther comparison with it as printed in the
! Washington papers shows that two or three
| hundred more corrections mostly, however.
slight ones, of punctuation-would be neces-
sary to present it as it originally was. We
detect nearly hundred instances
where words are left out, or enormously put
| in or altered Ia but few however is the
sense essentially altered by the change,
though in many it is expressed with less
neatness and force. Two or three passages
were given so inaccurately that we furnish
them here in a correct form.
Speaking of Virginia
a. The people of Virginia have thus allowed
| this giant insurrection to make its nest within
her borders, and this Government has no choice
left but to deal with it obre it nds it, and it has
the less regret as the loyal citizens have, Ia due
g. ~, mad SIC oval ri
/ zens this Government is bound to recognize and
! protect, as being Virginia.
Speaking of the status Of the States;
"And even Texas, in its temporary indcpend-
ence, was never designated a State. The new
ones only took the designation of States on COM
! ing into the Union, while that name was first
adopted for the old ones, in and by the Declara-
! tion Of Independence. Therein the /" United Col
| Onies'' were declared to be 4" free and independ-
ent States" but, even then, the object plainly
was not to declare their independence Of one an
otisr or of the Union, but directly the contrary,
as their mutual pledge, and their mutual action,
before at the time and afterwards abundantly show.
The express plghting of faith by each and all
of the original thirteen,i in the Articles of Coned-
eration two years later, that the Union shall be
| perpetual is most conclusive. Having never been
States, either in substance or IN name outs,9e Of
the Union, whence this magical omnipotence Of
State Rights, asserting a claim of power TO law
fully destroy the Union ITSELF
Much is said about the sovereignty of the States
but the word, even, is not in the National Con
stitution nor, as is believed in any of the State
! Constitutions, What is a q sovereignty" =" in the
political sense of the tcrml Would it be far from
wrong to define it " a political community with
out political superior ?" Tested by this, one
of our States, except Texas, a sovereign
| ty; and even Texas gave up the character on
coming into the Union; by which act she acknow-
lodged the Constitution of the United States, and
! the laws and treaties of the United States made
in pursuance thereof, to be- for her, the supreme
law of the land. The States have their status IN
the Union, and they have no other legal status-
If they break from this, they only do against
| law and by revolution. The Union and not them
selves separately, procured their independence
and their liberty. BY conquest by purchase,
the Union gave each of them whatever of indie
| pendence and liberty it has The Union is older
than any Of the States and in fact created them
| States. Originally some dependent colonies made
/ the Union, and in turn the Union threw off their
| old dependence for them, and made them States,
such as they are. Not one of them ever had a
State Constitution independent of the Union.
Speaking of the change in the bas,s of the
government, by the so-called " Confederate
| States
| This is essentially peoples contest On
the side Of the Union it is struggle for
mainta ming in the world, that form and substance
of government whose leading object is, to elevate
! the condition Of men--to lift artificial weights
from all shoulders; TO clear the paths Of laudable
pursuit for all; to afford all an unlettered start,
| and fair csance in the Of life. Yielding to
partial and temporary departures, frcm necessity,
this is the leading object of the Government tor
/ whose existence contend.
am most happy to believe that the plain peo-
/ ME understand and appreciate this.