The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1863-03-06

powers "not granted" The Federal Gov
eminent is, strictly, not sovereignty
These propositions being conceded-and
they have never been dOubted-it is alb.
surd to claim that any State surrendered
the right of selfpreservation, its right tc
exist, the very right for the more etfectual
maintenance of which the States and the
people consented to surrender certain linn
tied elements of their own sovereignty.
The loyalty of the citizen to the State,
argued Mr.. BRIsBIN, and the allegiance OF
the State to the Federal Government, have
precisely the same conditions and reci-
procities. When the Federal Government
becomes inefficient or unable to fulfill its
obligations to protect the State, the con-
sideration of the compact in a certain sense
fails; and it is the right as well as duty OF
the State to protect itself That exigen-
cies must arise in the history of all consti-
tutional governments, which have not been
foreseen or guarded against in the organic
law, is proposition that no one can deny.
Governments are founded upon the theory
of perpetuity and it is not merely illogical,
but absurd, to look to the fundamental
law for provisions against emergencies in
consistent with the very foundation theory
upon which the Government is based
There are, then, as Mr.. BRIsBIN held,
occasions that arise in the necessity of
things, which cannot be controlled by, and
have no precedents in, written law, but
which find and execute their own law upon
the spot, and over the subject. This is in
the higher law; though emphatically not
in the higher law as vulgarly understood.
To illustrate these views, Mr.. BRIsBIN made
a discrimination between the civil, and the
war, power. Much of the apathy, not to
say disaffectiOn, which exists at the North
in connection with the rebellion, has arisen
out of a confusion of ideas as to where the
civil power ceases and the military power
begins. The country is distracted between
contending extremists, and the ship of
State, like the vessels we read of, passing
between the magnetic mountains, is in dam
ger Of destruction by the violence of dis
tracing forces.
One set of extremists aver that whatever
is done, or whatever happens, in the pro-
gress of the war, without literal authority
of the constitution, is subversive of that
instrument. The other class claim that the
war power is not only omnipotent, but
omnipresent over the whole country.
Hence, We find the one class opposing the
acts of the military power, even within the
very theatre and sphere of the war; and
the other assuming, by legislation, to sus-
pend the very existence of the civil power.
The truth is, that the civil and war powers
of the government are almost entirely in
dependent. The civil power is supreme
wherever its functions are not paralyzed
by the condition of things incident to the
scene of war. The war power, strictly, is
only rightfully exercised where the civil
power cannot act; and then within dis
tricts entirely under military jurisdiction
The war power does not act under, but in
spite of, law
1t was for these reasons, mainly, that
Mr.. BRIsBIN complained of the whole sys-
tenn of laws and proclamations as being
enacted and uttered remote from military
districts; and, therefore, an unwarrantable
interference with power which was of
right confined to the spot, and, in the
emergency, supreme, arbitrary, and nee
essarily lawless; claiming that the only
consequence of such legislation was to ex-
asperate the opposing parties, to remove
the prospect of peace, and prevent res
toration of the Union, by producing con-
ditions which would make the Union as it
was, impossible. He claimed to belong to
the class of conservative men which stood
as breakwater between the opposing
factions of both extremes; and to which
class the country is beginning to look for
it's ultimate rescue from the perils which
now environ and threaten to destroy it.
We have thus given fair, though
not full, abstract of Mr. BRIsBIN s speech,
to relieve him from the misconstructions
which have been put upon it; and, in
commencing bis views to our readers, for
their soundness, we may properly add, that
they were delivered and enforced with an
eloquence and ability which we have not
heard surpassed within the walls of the
Capitol, upon any occasion.
PrOha hi files of n War with France.