The dollar weekly bulletin. [volume] (Maysville, Ky.) 1862-1864, 1863-04-02
For the Bulletin.
The Spirit and Duty of Freemen.

/ VI eAlS DullCblu-
The Spirit and Duty of Freemen. -,
AsAUGUsrA, 9th March 1853.
To THE EpIroRs CT THE B0LLET1N:
Dear Slrs: You have been kind enough
to open your seolumus for a short article
from my pen, and ask the privilege of an
other brief essay in your paper.
There seems to be almost dead calm
just new, in the Executive Departments of
the government. Just before the late Con-
gress adjourned Sthey clothed the President
with full and complete dictatorial. powers;
giving him unlimited control over both the
Ssoord and the Purse of the Nation; and the
people are silently and almost breathIessly
awaiting to hear the hoarse thunderines of
our modern aJove; and to see where the
storm will burst and whore the whitening
bolt viii fall; for all seem anxious to know
who will be hit and who will be hurt by, the
crushing tramp of his iron heel. s,as..
They also wish to know whether he will
have the temerity and the audacity to exer-
else all the powers which corrupt aud venal
Congress have attempted to confer upon him.
But be that as it may, one thing is quite GER
tain-that the people have taken the alarm,
they have at least become aroused from the
strange lethargy which has hung about them
for the last two years, and have determined
to take the Abolition bull by the horns, and
put stop to those monstrous encroachments
on their liberties and their constitutional
rights, which it is their duty-their i'm pera-
tive duty to maintain and defend. nd the
time has now arrived when every man in
the whole country, who wishes to protect
our sacred Constitution from total overthrow,
and preserve the glorious heritage which
our fathers have bequeathed us, to stand up
boldly and fearlessly, aud say to tn powers
that be, that this work of dissertation and
destruction must stop. and stop not0. And
if our voice is not needed and the work of
destruction is still pushed on and persisted
in; then must the President and his emissa-
ries be told that, they too must expect and
will deserve the fate that has overtakeu
many of the worst despots and most bloody
tyrants that have ever cursed the world.
1t is fundamental principle in our Con-
stitution and form of governm emit, that all
power emauates from the people, and that
all just power is derived from the consent of
the governed. But when the chief magis-
trate of the nation has usurped all authority
in all the departments of the government,
and has assumed and exercised unlimited
and dictatorial powers in open violation OF
his official oath and the plain letter of the
constitution, when the Treasury has been
plundered of millions upon millions, by the
favorites Of the President. and these things
have been winked at and even participated
in by his Cabinet and all his leading officials;
when State lines have been wiped out, and
State laws and institutions have been over
thrown, and military law established all
over the land; when all the great safeguards
for life, liberty and property, have been
broken down and swept away then, indeed,
has the government been oveEthrown by the
hands of the President and his venal Con-
gress, and the last vestige of civil liberty
been stricken down and trodden under foot
Talk not of National rights or State rights,
nor the sanctity of our homes and the safety
of our wives and helpless little ones; for all
these sacred rights have been swept away, !
and we are left at the mercy of a remorse-
less despot who has seized upon all our
Constitutional rights and every thing that
is sacred and dear to US; and we have
nothing left to us but tame submission, or
the exercise of those inherent prerogatives
which belong to freemen-"who know their
rights and knowing dare maintain them;"
and the time has now coma when those
rights should be asserted and maintained at
all hazards.
There is period in the history of alma
tons and all people, when submission to
alsurped authority, ceases to be a virtue, and
should no longer be practiced. And accord
ingly, When the people have been oppressed
with repeated wrongs, and all their legal
rights have been swept away; and when they
have borne call that should or can be borne;
then, resistance to tyrants becomes obedience
to God" and the people-the SOVEREIGN
people should rise in their might, and assert
heir rights-"peaceably ifthey can, forcibly
If they must" Do the work at the ballot
box if allowed to vote, but if that is not
allowed, then, resistance to tyranny is the
-ightful remedy, and the only remedy for
such wrongs. 50 ~ f-a BRAOKEN.
Gen. Burnside on the Surrender of MT.