Raftsman's journal. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1854-1948, 1861-07-10

the proposition that one who is sworn to take
care that the laws be faithfully executed
should not himself violate them. OF course
some consideration was given to the questions
of power and propriety before this matter was
acted upon. The whole of the laws which
were required to be faithfully executed were
being resisted and failing of execution in near
ly one third of the States. Must they be al
lowed to finally fail of execution, even had it
been perfectly clear that by the use OF the
means necessary to their execution some sim
gle law made in such extreme tenderness of
the citizens liberty that practically, it relieves
more of the guilty than of the innocent, should
to very limited extent be violated 70
state the question more directly, are all the
laws but one to go unexecuted and the gov
ernment itself go to pieces lest that one be
violated Even in such case wouldtnot the
official oath be broken if the government
should be overthrOwn when it was believed
that disregarding the single law would tend to
preserve it? But it was not believed that this
question was presented. 1t was not believed
that any law was violated. The provision of
the Constitution, that the privilege of the
writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended,
unless when, in cases of rebellion or invasion,
the public safety may require 1t, is equivalent
to such provision that such privilege may
be suspended when, in cases OF rebellion or
invasion, the public safety does require it. 1t
was decided that we have case of rebellion,
and that the public safety does require the
qualified suspension of the privilege of the
writ which was authorized to be made. Now
it is insisted that Congress, and not the Exc
cutiv, is vested with this power; but the Con-
stitution itself is silent as to which or who is
to exercise the power, and as the provision
was plainly made for dangerous emergency,
it cannot be believed that the trainers of the
instrument intended that, in every case, the
danger should run its course until Congress
could be called together, the very assemblage
of which might be prevented, as was intended
in this case by the rebellion. No more ex-
tended argument is now offered, as an opinion
at some length will probably be presented by
the Attorney General. Whether there shall
be any legislation on the subject, and II any:
what, is submitted entirely to the better Judg-
ment of Congress. The forbearance Of this
Government had been so extraordinary and so
long continued, as to lead some foreign ma
tions to shape their action as if they supposed
the early destruction of our National Union
was probable. While this, on discovery, gave
the Executive some concern, he is now happy
to say that the sovereignty and rights OF the
United States are now everywhere practically
respected by foreign powers, and general
sympathy with the country is manifested
throughout the world. The reports of the
Secretary of the Treasury, War and the Navy
will give the information in detail, deemed
necessary and convenient for your deliberation
and action, while the Executive and all the
Departments will stand ready to supply omis-
sionS to communicate new facts coEsdeIed ed
important for you to know. 1t is now recon-
mended that you give the legal means for
making this contest short and decisive one
that you place at the control of the govern
ment for the work at least four hundred thou
sand men and four hundred millions of dollars.
That number of men is about one tenth of
those of proper ages within the regions where
ly oil fn nd he
sum is less than twenty third part of the
money value owned by the men who seem
ready to devote the whole. A debt of six
hundred millions of dollars now is less sum
per head than was the debt of our Revolution
when we came ont of that struggle, and the
money value in the country now bears even
greater proportion to what it was then, than
does the population. Surely each man has as
strong motive now to preserve our liberties
as each man had then to establish them.
A right result at this time will be worth more
to the world than ten times the men and ten
times the money. The evidence reaching us
from the country leaves no doubt that the ma
teral for the work is abundant and that it
needs only the hand of legislation to give it
legal sanction, and the hand of the Executive
to give it practical shape and efficiency. One
of the greatest perpcxities of the Government
IS to avoid receiving troops faster thon provi-
ded for them. In a word, the people will save
will do its part only indiferently well. 1t
might seem, at first thought, to be of little
difference whether the present movement at
the South be called secession or rebellion.
The movers, however, we'll understood the diff
ference at the beginning; they knew. they
could never raise their treason to any respect
able magnitude by any name which implies
violation of law; they knew their people pos
sessed as much moral sense, as much of dcvo-
tion to law and order, and as much pride in
its reverence for the history and government
of their common country as any other civil
lied and patriotic people. They knew they
could make no advancement directly in the
teeth of these strong and noble sentiments
Accordingly they commenced by insidious
debauchery of the public mind. They invented
an ingenious sophism, which, If conceded, was
followed by perfectly logical steps through all
the incidents to the complete destruction of
the Union. The sophism itself is that any
State of the Union may, consistently with the
National Constitution, and therefore lawfully
and peacefully withdraw from the Union, with
out the consent of the Union, or of any other
State. The little disguise that the supposed
right is to be exercised only for a just cause,
because they themselves are to be sole judges
Of its Justice, is too thin to merit any notice.
With rebellion thus sugar coated, they have
been drugging the public mind of their Sec
tion for more than thirty years, and until at
length they have brought many good men to
a Willingness to take up arms against the Gov
ernment the day after some assemblage of men
have enacted the farcical pretence of taking
their State out of the Union. who could have
been brought to no such thing the day before.
This sophism derives much, perhaps the
whole, OF its currency from the assumption
that there is some omnipotent and sacred su-
premacy pertaining to a State-to each State
of our Federal Union. Our States have nei-
ther more nor less power than that reserved to
them in the Union by the Constitution, no