The spirit of democracy. [volume] (Woodsfield, Ohio) 1844-1994, 1862-11-19
WOODSFIElD MONROE COUNTY. OHIO NOVEMBER 49, 1862

templated in recent proclamations: 1t
will require million of men and pro-
portional supplies. Martial law over the
entire North is national necessity. If
the Governors of the Northern States
manifest factious spirit, the Provost
Marshals, it is presumed, will have the
power to keep them in order If State
Legislatures should undertake to interfere
with the action of the General Govern
ment, necessary to the prosecution of the
war, they will come under the action of
martial law, and if the action of any polit-
zeal party shall threaten to change or
paralyze the movements of the Govern
ment, it will doubtless be competent for
the Provost Marshal in any State to sus-
pend political meetings and postpone elec-
tions: If the Constitution of the United
States is to be construed according to the
necessities of civil war of vast proper
tions, the constitutions of individual
States can not be allowed to stand in the
way of its vigorous prosecution.
"Englishmen are in great trouble at
the illegality and unconstitutionality of
the acts of President Lincoln. They
have great tenderness for the Constitu-
ton and laws, and feel very badly that the
Northern people, while conauering the
South, should lose their own liberties.
They tell us that the President cannot do
this and that-that his proclamations are
only waste paper. They appear to have
very little idea of what the Commander
inchief of the army and navy of the
United States can do. A man of firm and
resolute will, with million of men in
arms to support him, can do pretty much
what he pleases. They have to learn that
paper constitutions, however convenient
they may be, can be amended when me-
cessary, suspended or laid aside altogeth-
er: and that it is no longer a question in
America what this or that constitution
authorizes, bat what is necessary to be
done to make of thirty-four States and a
vast territory one nation
The SPIRIT of the Times, edited by Geo.
Wilkes, which has recently entered the
party ring, and become as fancy in poll
tics as it was in, pugilism, lays down a
similar programme:
IF Horatio Seymour is elected, there
are but two desperate remedies left to
unite the North, and thereby save the
country One is an immediate war with
England; the other the seizure of author
ity by some bold military chieftain, whom
the soldiers truly love, and who will re-
turn the Republic to the people Ia dan
gerous chance] after he has snatched it
from its present perils. Both of these
alternatives are terrible to contemplate,
but both are better than the domination
of the South"
1t is dreadful thing to be an ass. A
creature would-if he could have it for
anything-have right of action against
Divine Providence for endowing him with
long cars, projecting snout, and tail
like paintbrush. And yet how much
more estimable are that branch of our
population descended from Maltese and
Spanish progenitors to things in coats and
pantaloons, with gold repeaters in their
pockets and diamond studs in their shirts,
who prate thus of what they do not un-
derstand, prescribe in order to save the
country the most direct means to insure
its destruction, and propose to conserve
our liberties by taking them away. Time
was that when his brains were out the
man would die; but that time is evidently
past, or the writer's of the Times and the
/ Spnit would long since have ceased to be
numbered with living things In the
paragraphs we have quoted the people
can see how little principles, constitutions
or conditions are regarded by party ir
power, and mad to elongate dominion
which it is conscious it has forfeited by it,
crimes. They need no commentary. !