The Portland daily press., 1862-11-04
| For the Press.I
What is the Government?

The semi-traitors and secession sympathsers
among us are great sticklers for the Consttu-
tuition which rebels in arms are trying to de-
stroy and trampe under foot The Pro Slav-
| cry party at the North are doing all they can
| to cripple the efforts of the Government to
| maintain itself against the traitorous hosts la
! boring for its destruction, but they mask their
unholy designs under the specious pretense of
| loyalty to the Constitution. They profess to
desire the prosperity OF the Union and the
maintenance of the Constitution while their
sympathies are given to those rebelious lead
ers who are plotting the destruction of that
Union--who are striving with all their energies
to overthrow that Constitution. When the
history of this internecine war shall have been
written, the history of these men will be writ
ten upon the same page with Judas Iscariot
and Benedict Arnold.
But short time since we heard one of these
pro-slavery partizans say that he was loyal to
the Government-that he loved his country,
but he would not sustain the administration,
7" because the administration is not the Gov
| ernment." "The Constitution is the Govern
ernment," he said sand support the Consti-
tuition" This is the position OF the pro-slav
cry party to-day. Protesting all loyalty to
the Constitution as being "t the Government"
they sympathise with the efforts of the slave
| oligarchy to destroy it. Protesting to love
their country, they join hands with traitors in
arms against it. Protesting to support the
Government, all their energies are directed to
=, H..
tain it.
Let us see whether their doctrine be correct
Is it true that the Constitution is" the Gov
ernment" par excellence, and that men may
| seek to overthrow an administration elected
in accordance with its provisions by armed
force, or by sympathy with such treason and
! still be loyal TO the Government? We do not
| think so. 1t is simply impossible to separ-
ate the Constitution from the administration
| of it.
| The Constitution of the United States is the
supreme law of the land. 1t is the chart by
which the nation is to be guided; but this Su-
preme Law, this chart alone, is not the Gov
ernment which consists simply in the admins
! tration of the Constitution by officers elected
| in accordance with its provisions. The ad-
mnistration is the Government, then, for the
term for which it is constitutionally chosen.
| The people have entrusted the direction of
their affairs to a legally elected President and
his constitutional advisers, and until his time
expires and the people elect another, no other
can assume his place. His administration con-
| stitutes the representative Government Of the
| people, and is not to be changed except in the
form and manner prescribed in the constitu-
tion. In ordinary times-in all times past
during the period of our existence as nation
| it has been held as a right of the people to
change, not the form, but the administrator of
their Government once in four years, because
that is the term prescribed by tbs Constitu-
tion, and the Government must always come to
| Judgment before the people who created it,
at every quadrennial election. The supreme
law provides the way of changing the Govern
ment peacefully at the ballot box. And the
people in their sovereign power have the right
SO to do
But when civil war lights its lurid torch, and
attempts the destruction of this fair fabric
erected by our fathers when traitors, unwill-
ing to submit to the constitutionally expressed
will of the people, fly to arms to overthrow
the Government, and nullty the Constitution,
all is changed In times of peace men may
oppose an administration, and use all their ef-
forts to supplant it at the hallot-box; but in
this time OF war and strife the administration
as being the government for the time, must be
sustained. There can be but two sides; eth
| er we must sustain the Government as it is ad-
ministered by our present administration, in
all its efforts to vindicate itself against armed
rebellion, or We oppose the continuation of the
power of the Constitution. There is no such
thing as being loyal to the Constitution, and
at the same time using all our efforts to Grip
| pie the ADMINISTRATION placed in power under its
provisions, and expressing our sympathy in
any way in favor of the slave oligarchy at the
South, who threaten the utter destruction, not
only of the administration, but of the Consti-
tuition and the Union, and erect upon the ruins
of the republic a military despotism, under
which the people shall have no rights which
tyrants are bound to respect.
The Administration is the Government DUR
ance with the Constitution. There is but one
way provided for its change At this time,
when the slave power is attempting by force
to drive the President from his seat, can there
be anything more absurd than the position as
sumed by the pro-slavery partzans in the free
States, that they can oppose the Administra-
ton, and the Government, when it is fighting
for continued existence and at the same time
be loyal to the Constitution Is it not a self
evident truth if the Administration is driven
from the power given to it by the Constitu-
ton, by the rebels, before its constitutional
term expires, that the Constitution is de-
stroyed, and the Union becomes known only
in history?
We are fighting for our national existence; :;
we are struggling against an armed attempt to
destroy our Government; and it is worse than
folly TO pretend loyalty to that Government
while opposing the President in his efforts to
maintain it. 1t is, in our opinion, treason to
| give aid and comfort to the enemies of our
country, in any way. 1t is as much treason
| to cripple the Government by words at the
| North, at with bayonets at the South and we
can see no pratical difference between the two
modes of expression. H.
| g- Here is a specimen from democratic
| paper-the Franklin Patriot.