The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1861-08-01
BALTIMORE.
THURSDAY, AUGUST /, 1861.

Mr.. TRUMBULL's amended bill ''to suppress in
surrection and sedition, and for other purposes,
proposes TO give legislative sanction to the most
atrocous system of despotism that ever disgraced
the annals Of nation. 1t comedies TO the COM
mander Of each military department, and also of
each military district which the President
may, by proclamation, at any time arbi-
trarily declare TO be in a state of rebellion,
the right to make such police rules and reg
ulatons as he may deem necessary, and to cause
them to be executed by the forces under his COM
mand. 1t authorizes either of them to suspend the
habeas corpus at his own will and pleasure to seize
and hold as prisoners all persons engaged in arms
against the United States or otherwise aiding and
abetting their enemies or opposers to bring them
to trial before court martial, and to deal with
them according to the rules of war, subject only,
upon sentence of death being passed, to the deci-
sion of the commander of the military department.
in which the conviction has taken place.
1t further enacts, that any military commander
within any of the departments or districts en-
braced within the proclamation of the Executive,
'tmay cause any person suspected of disloyalty to
'tthe Government to be brought before him, and
may obee him to take a newly connected oath of
allegiance; and on his refusal to take such oath,
may detain him as prisoner for any length of
time-for months, or years, or for life, as it may
so happen.
This bill of denominations, in the indignant lam
guage of Mr.. BRECKENRIDGE, ''appears 10 combine
SIN eleven sections everything atrocious that has
"been perpetrated upon any flee people within
"the last five hundred years" Most justly, too,
J,a C,rtb hot its ptro
the Senate ''was the most gloomy commentary on
'its degenerate character that could be offered"
The several sections of the bill, superseding the
civil or military rule; sentencing to death those
who break their parole, and imprisoning, for an
indefinite period of time, all suspected persons
who refuse to take the new oath of allegiance were
denounced by Mr. CowAN as unconstitutional
Sand unjust to those who had right, as citizens
ITO claim protection from the civil process'
Even that degenerate Virginian, CARLILE, opposed
the administering of the oath-not because of its
uncOnstitutionality, he cared nothing for that
but on the ground that retaliation would be
''the. result of its adoption" and that at
'would injure, rather than aid the Union
'cause III the South" The motion to lay
the bill upon the table, though made by the
Senator from New Hampshire Mr. CLARK, and
supported by Mr.. FEssENDEN, of Maine, who had
previously moved to postpone it Indefinitely, was
rejected by clear majority of twelve. We may
conclude therefore, that when the time comes for
taking final action upon the BILL it will receive the
sanction Of the Senate. That it will pass the House
also we see no reason to doubt; for nothing would
surprise us more than to find in the members of the
dominant faction which controls that body the
smallest evidence Of respect for the Constitution
whose peculiar defenders they profess to be-or
for those popular rights they are sworn to protect
and maintain. The most malignant JAcoBINs of
the Constituent Assembly, the RoBEsPHRREs, ST..
JUsTs, BARREREs CoTTHoNs, and their fol overs,
have their prototypes in the present Congress of
the United States. In that mad Carnival of radical
republicans, when a harlot was adored as the God
dess of Reason, and every law, whether human or
divine, was set at defance-al the blood that was
shed and all the wickedness that was perpetrated
was done-in the name of the people. MARAT
invoked the people, when he demanded the heads
of ten thousand arstocrats. The cold, malignant
RoBEsPIERRE canted Of "Liberty, Equality, and
"Fraternity." The sanguinary FoUoUIER TIN
WILLIE doomed his innumerable victims to the gull
lotine, that the land might be purged of traitors
to the Republic, Zone and indivisible" The
ferocous CARRIER choked the waters of The Loire
with corpses, on the plea that it was necessary
to "sustain the government" The Anglo
Saxon writ of ha5eas corpus was unknown
to France, or it would have been laughed to
scorn, as it Is, in these days, with US. 'tThe
Fright of the people to be secure in their per-
''sons, houses, papers and Effects was as sys-
tematically violated then as now. The gendar-
merle of Paris no more permitted the circulation
OF petitions to government for redress of griev-
ances than do the police authorities of New York;
and innocent persons were denounced as Spies or
arrested on suspicion of giving aid and comfort
to the enemy at the instance of the Dictator, and
with the sanction of his plant tools in the Con-
Fention precisely as such things have been done at
much later day and much nearer home Is it ne
cessary that We should point out any further the al
most perfect correspondence between the acts of the
French Republicans nearly three quarters of CEN
fury ago, and those of the American Republicans
of to-day? We might compare the laws passed
by both, and show their similarity in all essential
particulars; and we might cite Mr.. TRUMBuLL' s bill
as the browning infamy of long series of outrages
but we forbear 1t is sufficient for us to
note the accuracy with which history some
times repeats itself, and to warn every man
who loves liberty and hates oppression to
take heed, lest he lose the former, and fall
victim 10 the latter, through the sanction
which he may have given, or the liberation he
may have extended, to the despotic measures of
the Administration.