The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1863-08-12


quired no proclamations before rendering obas
| dience to the LAWS. The Northwest is 40 de-
! linquent; she is NO criminal. d Yet the SEN
/ tence of outlawry has been pronounced against
her. Her proud and stately neck has beeh
selected for the yoks-the yoke more CALLING
than the Roman emblem iof bondage which
| doomed whole provinces. She has been rob-
bed of the protection of written laws, aud
placed in the custody of military Governors.
| The great State of Indiana has had q sucees-
| sion of these officers Her Constitution pro-.
vides for civil Governor who shall see that
| the laws are faithfully executed, and who Il
the chief Of her military organizations That
| official, however, can no longer be Regarded ~
/ the Executive of the State, inasmuch as the
duties of that position in al importanfs parti-
culars have been surrendered to the hands Of
another. Thus federal usurpation strikca
down the Consultation and Government Of tho
State, and the advocates of consolidated dess
potism abandon oath, dignity, and duty in or
der to forward the "ravishing strides which
it is making in our midst. BY some silent
process of the Presidential mind, the priv.
leges OF the writ ct habeas corpus have boz
come suspended in the West. We had not
thought that the subject had evcu engaged
the attention Of the Executive until after our
citizens had clamored in vain from their priss
ons for trial and justice. We we're not even
informed of the great revolution in gour riphts
and penalties, until We we're deprived of the
former and suffering tie latter To suspend
the privileges of this great popular writ il
given by the Constitution as one of the. onn-
merated powers OF Congress; but the Prcsi-
dent of the United States exercises tiat power.
as we at last discover, without condesceDdine
to inform the people that he has done 50.
| What home in this broad land had "a bean
secure from the parted and satanic hoof of
! bare, ma. ed suspicion !? Am working q
sketch from the colors Of fancy :; Let the
| screams of the wife and mother, emanstine
from hundred inward ,househo ds at the dead
hour Of, nj 3ht, answer, These facts shall NOT
escape history; they will constitute the stocks
| In which the present Administration will stand
| pilloried forever in open shame and infamy-
The angel of death respected the blood on the
door-posts of Egypt. The King Of EDxland
| could not enter the humblest tenement In h;a
realm ; but the meanest and sbasest Of mankind
in the employment oftthe present sAdministra-s
ton have had the power OF access over the in
suited body of the Consultation into every
chamber, beneath every root between the two
oceans. This 10 the necessary result of she ar
sument of the President that ha is the supreme
| Judge Of what is essential to the public safs-
ty. Before this baleful theory every head
bows to the earth, every mouth is silent, and
every door flies OPEN. Robespiefre, In the
delIrium of the French Revolution, when ,aths
| suns eye had glare, and the world grew
faint with hnrror. assumed
The responsibility of the doctrine and practicd
Of this phase of despot;sm was divided in his
day among the members of oommittee Of
public safety. No one man accepted s the ter
rible consequences 1t erected that fright
full, APPALLING spectacle of insatiate murder-
the Guiilotine--in France 1t may, do the
same here 10 morrow, if the President should
declare the public safety TO require liz Il
filed every prison, it desecrated syery home,
it spared no age, no sex, it pitied no condition;
it sacrificed whole hecatombs of victims 70 sps-
picion and private malice it eoyerted AL France
into a feld,of blood, All this may transpirs-
here before our eyes if the doctrine Of the Ex-
eoutiyc, lately announced, is to, receive cur
submission. Well might a leading Admins
tration journal (The n. Y Timssl,l excIaim q
few months ago; "Hithcrto President Lin
coin has given us no Constitutional Admins
tration. = ~ He has assumed himself
to be the sole Executive-to control In, his
own person the whole action and conduct Of
the Government, and that, too, avowedly With
out any fixed and stable policy, but according.
to the shifting drifts and currents OF public
sentiment and the changing judgments and
caprices of his own minds 4aFs No
monarch in Europe at this day, however, abso-
lutte, attempts or dreams of such an underta-
king, and Mr.. Lincoln must abandon it or tha
ruin of his country will be, the. price Of, bis
presumption bnlm $50 le s1g5tsaaa iasl
But let US indulge in some inspiring histor-
ical recollections The history of New Eng.
land is full of glor5 on this subject, g The
writs of assistance were the contrivance Of 8
servile Parliament in aid of the usurpations Of
a tyrannical king They gave the rghtih
mode, however, pointed out by Inv, to do that
which our present Executive authorizes his
officers to do, without color of legal enactment
The spirit of liberty took the alarm Tbs
flames of the Revolution blazed up under che
eloquent denuneiations of James Otis. Il quote
from the speech of that feryid apostle of Amer
ican freedom SIN the third place. q said he,
| ga person with this writ, in tho daytime, may