Arkansas true Democrat., 1861-08-08

| cOlnnianCInS tue DOtiy Ol ehe dcCuocu lo bo
 brought before the court that justice might
 be done by due course of law, and without
 denial or delay: the gates of the fortress, 1 it's cannon turning towards, and in plain
 sight of the city where the court sat, anj l frowning from the ramparts, were closed
 against the officers of the law, and the an
 swer returned that the officer in command
 has, by the authority of the Presient, s"S-
 0ended the writ of hd6eaS corpus. And
 thus 1t is, sir, that the accused has ever
 since been held prisoner without due pro-
 cess of law; without bail; without present
 ment by grand jury; without speedy or
 public trial by a pettit jury of his own
 State or district, or any trial at all; with out informotion of the nature and cause ot
 the accusation; without being confronted
 with the witnesses against him; without
 compulsory process to obtain witnesses Tn
 his favor: and without the assistance of
 counsel for his defense. And this IS our
 boasted American liberty? And thus 1t Is,
 sir. that here, in America, in the seventy
 third year of the republic, that great writ
 and security of personal freedom winch It
 cost the patriots and freemen of England
 six hundred years of labor and toll and
 blood to extort and to hold fast from ven
 al judges and tyrant kings, written in the
 great charter at Runneymede by the iron l barons, who made the simple Latin and
 uncouth words of the times, nullus ts6er
 homo, in the language of Chatham, worth
 all the classics; recoverd and confirmed
 hundred times afterward, as often as vio-
 lated and stolen away, and finally and
 firmly secured at last by the great act ot
 Charles II, and transferred thence to our
 own constitution and laws, has been wan
 tonl'y and ruthlessly trampled in the dust.
 Av, sir, that great writ, bearing, by spe-
 cial command of Parliament, those other
 uncouth but magic words, per stotut@n1
 t,icessiapo primo CaroH Secundi regis, which
 no English judge, no English minister no Il king or queen of England, dare disobey; hat writ brought over by our fathers and cherished by them as a priceless inheritance of liberty, an American President has con- temptueusly set at defiance. Nay, more he has ordered his subordinate military chiefs to suspend it at their discretion! And yet, after sll this, he coolly comes be- fore this house and the Senate and the country, and pleads that he is only preserv- ing and protecting the constitution; and demands and expects of this house and of the Senate and the country their thanks for his usurpations of power; while out } side of this capitol, his myrmidens are clamoring for impeachment of the chief 3 justice, as engaged in a conspricy to break 5 down the federal government.
 l Sir however much necessity--the ty- l rants plea--may be urged in extenuation of the usurpations and infractions of the 5 President in regard to public liberty, there can be no such apology or defense for his invasions of private right: What over ruling necessity required the violation of the sanctity of private property and private
 confidence? What great public danger
 demanded the arrest and imprisonment,
 without trial by commonlaw, of one sin
 gle citizen, for an act done weeks before,
 openly, and by authority of his State? If
 guilty of treason, was not the judicial pow
 CT ample enough and strong enough for his
 conviction and punishment? What, then
 was needed in his case but the precedent
 under which other men, in other places, might become the victim of executive sus-
 plclOn ana ulSpleaSuIe.
 As to the pretense, sir, that the Presi-
 dent has the constitutional right to sus-
 pend the writ of Aabeas corpus, l will not waste time or breath in arguing 1t. The
 case is as plain as plain words can make it.
 It is legislative power, its found onl y in
 the legislative article; it belongs to Congress
 only to do it. Subordinate officers have dis
 but obeyed it, Gen. Wilkinson disobeyed it,
 he sent his prisoners on for judicial trial;
 Gen. Jackson disobeyed it, and was repri-
 manded by James Madison; but no Presi-
 dent, nobody but Congress ever before as sumed the right to suspend it. And, sir, that
 other pretense of necessity, 1 repeat cannot be allowed It had no existance in fact. The constitution cannot be preserved by viola ting it. It is an offense to the intelligence
 of this house and of the country, to pre- tend that all this, and the other gross and multiplied infractions of the constitution and usurpations of power were done by the President and his advisers out of pure love and devotion to the constitution. But If so, sir, then they have but one step farther , to take, and declare, in the language of Sir Boyle Roche in the Irish house of com-
 mons, that such is the depth of their attach nets to it, that they are prepared to give up, not merely part, but the whole of the 9 constitution, to. preserve Me ren'aander, And sir, if indeed this pretext of necessity be we'll founded, then let me say, that a
 cause which demands the sacrafice of the
 constitution and of the dearest securities of property, liberty, and life, cannot be just,
 or least it is not worth the sacrifice.
 Sir, I am obliged to pass by, for want of time, other grave and dangerous infractions and usurpations of the President since the first of April. l only allude casually to the quartering of soldiers in private houses without the consent of the owners, and with out any manner having been prescribed by ( law; to the censorship over the telegraph, { and the infringement repeatedly, in one or more of the States, of the right of the ! people to keep and bear arms for their de- fense. But if all these things, l ask, have been done in the first two months after the commencement of this war, and by men not military chieftains, and unused to ar bitrary power, what may we not expect
 to see done in three years, and by the
 successful heroes of the fight? Sir, the power and right of the States, and the peo- pie, and of their representatives, have been
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