The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1863-04-17


which some allow themselves to wish for
in the place of our present system. My
reason and my instincts both teach me
that that government will be an unchecked
and uncontrolled despotism; and we need
not look far for the signs of its approach.
Consciously or consciously, there are
many agencies at work to promote it's adj
vent one of the most potent of them is
the false doctrine of "loyalty," against
which l contend, and another is the peril
Gus idea that you can safely trifle with
fixed constitution. We have made such
vast strides towards system entirely I'M
known to the Federal Constitution, that
we can now see the nature of the only
power that will ever replace it. When
that power has fully come, the present Sc
curities of property will have been swept
away with the securities of person. Both
will disappear with the Federal Constitu-
ton; and we shall never extort them as
concessions from the new power, or place
them beyond reach, if we can extort them.
There are no barOns on this our American
earth to make new Magma Chd,ta; our
race will never see another Runnymede; ;
and zoe shall never see another Washing
ton, another Madison, another Hamilton,
anot er Jay, another Patrick Henry, an
other Samuel Adams. Even the States
with their separate constitutions, their bills
of rights, and ther present capacity to
protect their people, will fall beneath the
new and unchecked power to which the
nation will surrender itself, when it cuts
alOOf from the Federal Constitution and
if they should not, every intelligent man,
who has had much to do with accumula-
ton, knows, or should know, that proper
ty, deprived of the support which it deriv-
ed from the Federal Constitution system,
can maintain but feeble aud precarious
existence. We must remember that long,
long centuries ago-in state Of society in
one sense rude, but when the manly vir-
tues of our ancestors gave them historic
splendor that we can only reflect, it pro-
videntially happened that the rights OF
property and the rights of persons were
indisssolubly blended in one immortal
maxim, that was laid, for all time, at the
basis of the civilization of our race. What
ever may happen in other civilizations, or
in other climes, liberty and property for
US must flourish or perish together.
My friends, it is time that the warfare
upon opinion, and thought, and speech
should cease. It is time we had ascer-
tanned that our national difficulties can
never be cured without the action of the
people. 1t is time we had exploded the
fallacy that patriotism and party are in
compatible in any conceivable circum-
stances of our country. You, at any
rate, let me hope, reject this dogma as a
delusion; for in all the gloom of the pres
ent, in all the dark uncertainties of the
future, I put my hopes in the great De-
mocracy of the Union. see nothing else
to which we can look. l see you, it is
true, occasionally distracted by the tactics
of your opponents, occasionally disturbed
by the indiscretion of your friends. But
/ also see you animated by patriotism
which l fully believe will guide you Alright,
and which, in spite of all that men say of
you, commands my respect and conf
dence. Permit me then, with such free
dom as may be taken by one who neither
has nor seeks any special place in your
organization, to offer you word of
friendly counsel.
What you need, as it seems to me, is to
be fully impressed with a belief in your
mission and in your capacity to fulfill it.
That mission is to save the Constitution of
the United States. By saving it, l mean
of course that you are to save it for the
whole Union, for the South and the North,
for the East and the West, with every
right which it protects completely re-eStab-
lished. can see no other mode of saving
it; for it is to my mind apparent, that
war prosecuted against the South for the
acquisition of powers over their domestic
institutions which the Constitution express
ly withholds from the Federal Government,
can result in nothing but the establishment
of a system under which there can he no
local rights of self-gOvernment left for any
section or State This it is your mission
to prevent. You cannot prevent it by
uniting with those who proifer support to
the war without the slightest protest againt
the unconstitutional policy with which it
is prosecuted. In al! the late POPULAR pro
what are styled ''Loyal Leagues" have not
seen one word of indignant remonstrance
against the unconstitutional measures of the
Administration. You cannot expect, and
need not look for such remonstrance from
assemblies largely composed of those who
are the peculiar supporters OF the Admin
istration, and who areHlo-e or less respon-
sible for its measures. Public opinion, if
it is to make itself he0rd and fell against
all violations Of the Constitution, must
make its utterances through the action of
the voice Of those who have never failed
to protest against the policy that has Gre
ated for us so much peril If that public
opinion fails to recognize this necessary
channel of expression-if it yields itself to
fatal apathy, or acM not see how it can
at once save government and change an
Administratinn-t en- all will be lost. and
there will remain to US only the consola-
ton that we have individually done our
duty
You are, then, permit me to add, to
seek by every constitutional and upright
method, to obtain the control of all the
organisms of government. If in the mean
time you cannot induce the present Exec
utlve of the United States to change his
policy, then, remembering his position,
possess your souls in patience until you
can give him constitutional successor.
Let everything be prepared with one fixed