The southern aegis, and Harford County intelligencer. (Bel Air, Md.) 1862-1864, 1862-12-06

ment Is the same; la the arrests there is
even less formaIity; there is no trial
the prisoner receives no utimatinn of the
nature of the offynse with which he is charg-
ed the seizure If the individual is accom-.
panied with the examination Of his papers,
under il preiense of seeking testimony; and
his discharSe-apparently as causeess as
his arrests made without word of ex-
PLANTATION.
The prisoner knows that he has been
punished; but he Knows not for what,
nor at whose instance nor What tribunal
passed sentence upon him. He stepped
from light into darkness, and from dark
ness into light from freedom to confne-
mcnt, and from confinement to freedom
and the silence Of the grave broods over
the causes for and the agencies through
which he suffered
We have travelled back, at single leap,
a great ways behind the French people of
the revolutionary period, and have INNER
sed ourselves in the political darkness of
the Middle Ages. We have done more.
We do not know that single French au-
thor over wrote in praise of the Bastile.-
No Frcnchman, So far as we have heard,
ever prostituted his pen in calling upon
his monarch to 90 on and multiply the
number of his arbitrary arrests and i'm
prisonments.
1t has been reserved for more than half
the intelligent and independent press Of
this free and enlightened country press
that has been holden up to the admiration
of the world as the defender of the right,
agis of liberty, the champion of freedom,
the fountain of new ideas and the grand
education of the people, not only to defend
the institution upon the ground of princi-
pie, but to applaud each official exercise of
irresponsible power, and keep up fero-
cious and continual clamor that the mum
Der OF victims should be greatly increas-
cd.
Looking back over our literature, we
the people Of the United States will need
an official index cGpuyutionas. From the
Fourth Of July oralions Of two-thirds Of a
century, We must carefully erase all allu-
sions tn the BastiIe, that emblem of tyran-
ny. Oul favorite national hymn needs Il
change to suit it to the progressive notions
Of the times and where it reads "the
land of the free and the home of the
brave,' a Boston poet might be proftably
employed to strike out the obsolete phra-
scology, and Introduce something about
the right of the President to suspend the
habeas corpus.
Itis we'll that the people have awakened
slowly and gradually to Il sense Of the in
jury that has been inflicted upon them.-
Had they done othcrwise-had they
sprung III once into full consciousness of
the wrongs to which they have bern ex-
posed, and under which 50 many have suf-
fercd, the country would have been dcluged
in blood. 1t is u thing for which there is
abundant ground for tbankfulness, that
the impotence Of some to resist and resent
has been met by the inertia Of the MAORI
ty. But it is Il mistake to suppose that all
these wrongs will not be resented and
avenged just as certainly as effect fol-
lows cause will the appropriate retrlbution
occur.
But, for all this, We do not suppose that
the United States arc yet in Il fit condition
to be enslaved. We do not suppose that
they will be in such condition. We do
not believe that they, or amy part of them,
will long submit to Il rule which is not of
themselves, and docs not reflect their wills
aud opinions. They have been taken by
surprise The very fact that they were
uuaccustomed to tyranny rendered them
incautious respecting its approaches
Surrounded by circumstances to them ex-
traordnary' and unprecedented, they rea-
Oily listened to the plea that extraordina-
ry measures were necessary, aud did not
at once see the fallacy of the pretcnse that
to preserve the liberties of the whole, it
was allowable to take away the Liberties Of
the individual. They listened to that ty-
rants plea, proper enough when properly
made, the plea of necessity, and conGding-
ly surrendered the guardianship of their
rights, in the belief that they were simply
making an Offering upon the altar Of their
country.
These American Basties will all come
down-not perhaps through being RACED
to the ground by the hands Of an iucensed
populacc, but by standing as dcspised and
dismantled monuments Of a tyranny shar-
pened by a sense of weakness, too blind to
discriminate between friends and enemies,
and too headstrvng to care for the differ
cnce, of which they have been the thea
tres and the administration that has en-
en- pl.yed them for uses so base, and the
party that has encouraged and applauded
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