The southern aegis, and Harford County intelligencer. (Bel Air, Md.) 1862-1864, 1862-11-22

SOhipiStO iScIOidolOh VI bhC
rights and privileges of the States and the
citizens, for the immediate release or trial
of every citizen Of a peaceful State, now
incarcerated in government dungeons, for
the dismissal of the provost marshals and
other obnoxious police officers not known
to our civil system, for the withdrawal of
all arbitrary restrictions upon the press,
and the full restoration of the United
States and State Courts in the employ
ment of their legitimate functions, in clud-
ing the ha6eas corpus and the right of
trial by jury of every man accused of
crime.
While we are confident that these de-
mands will be needed by the powers that
be, we cannot refrain from examining
briefly, with view to the future interests
of the country, some of the peculiar charac-
teristics of the reign of terror through
which we have just passed. Those who
have doubted the existence of an element
among US, radically hostile to the spirit
and genius of our free institutions and
form of government, will doubt no longer,
for the experience of the past few months
fully justifes the theory. It has been
seen that the so-called Republican party,
which came into power pledged to the
most unbounded liberty of all classes and
conditions of people, to the utmost free
dom of action, speech and conscience
within the limits of the Constitution, leap
ed at once into full-fedged despotism, re-
versing all the cherished usages and rights
of American citizenship, and striking
down at blow, the constitutional guaran.
ties designed for the protection of the in
vidual. Under the tyrant's plea of neces-
sity, the leaders of the new political dy-
nasty, through their President and his
ministers, proclaimed the abolition of those
great safeguards of free citizenship, the
writ of habeas corpus; trial by jury; the
right of the accused to be confronted with
his accusers freedom of speech and of
the press. The civil authority all over
the United States was made subservient
to military rule, and in peaceful, loyal
communities, provost marshals were ap-
pointed, invested with plenary authority
as spies, informers, judge and jury
! Peaceable citizens were arrested at the
! pleasure of these tools of the central au-
thority and conveyed to some inhospitable
government fortress, without the slightest
charge being brought against them, or
even the form of an examination gone
through with. Some of them have been
released at the convenience of the Gov
eminent, but only to fill up their cells with
fresh victims, hundreds Of whom are now
wasting their lives and laying foundation
for disease which will cling TO them as
long as the memory of their wrongs re-
mains. Free speech was absolutely for
hidden for months, and newspapers which
mildly rebuked the policy of the Govern
ment were either stopped or denied mail
privileges, their editors and publishers
frequently being arrested and imprisoned.
Worse even than this, the mob spirit was
frequently invoked and encouraged to acts
of lawless outrage and villainy and the
terrible spectacle was often witnessed Of a
mad, drunken mob breaking up peaceful
public assemblages, destroying printing
Offices, and committing indiginities upon
citizens in the name and in behalf of the
Government of the United States, and
with the approval of not few jealous Re-
publicans, who have been half their lives
whining about the evils of Southern socie-
ty.
How far these outrages might have
been carried we can only imagine. Had
the people at the late elections appeared
to indorse the Administration policy, not
unlikely the arbitrary practises of the
government would have been continued,
until forbearance ceasing to be virtue,
bloody resistance might be inaugurated,
in terrible revolution to regain the rights
which civilization, even in kingly govern
ments, grants to its subjects. Certain are
we that no administration will be able to
subject the people of this generation to ar
bitrary and irresponsible rule. The Re-
publican Abolition organization has been
termed fanatical one-idea party, yet
founded upon general principle OF JUS
tice which proclaims freedom to all man.
kind, but the history of this Administration
furnishes abundant proof of the falsity OF
the claim of the Abolition Republicans Of
the United States to the title of moral
benefactors, or even to Philanthropical
rank among the people. Since the war