The daily Green Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1861-1865, 1863-06-18
The Vallandigham Case.


HR. EDITOR In your comments on my hum
BE article, with which | was much pleased, you
say " We cannot allow our correspondent to put
tus 5n any false position in this matter" GER
sainiy did not intend to do so. l am not sure,
However, that fully understood your position {;
NOR su quite sure now fully understand it.
Perhaps it is owing to my mental OBJ; useness In
your comments you say, " Our objection was not
60 Vallandigham's punishment, but to the method
Through which he was punished" Here we should
not disagree essentially. | should much rather
he should have been arrested by civil law, if that
were competent to reach him ; but in your edito-
rial, In a preceding column, and in several of your
previous editorials you talk of the freedom of
sPeeck being infrnged upon. In your last edito-
rial you say, 1t is true enough that unlimited
freedom of speech may in some instances prove
mischievous. But if we are to have freedom of
speech at all, we must take the civil with the good
ADD for the sake of having lioerty to advocate
truth without let or hindrance, we must be content
TO let those who vii! advocate error. This is
strictly Democratic" If this be true,-if, as &
Democrat sad to me the other day, " a man can
not commit treason by talk" why should Vallan-
digham have been arrested 1t all? With what
propriety could you say, then, you object not to
The punishment, but to the methsd through which
he was punished?" Was it not precisely as much
aa infringement of the right of unlimited free
speech to have arrested him in one way as the
other ? If then, to sum up the matter, you are
only opposed to the manner of the arrest, then
the other hand, you are opposed to the arrest at
all then, of course, we are at issue on the main
question. My position is, that where rebellion
&sas reached such for midable dimensions as to JUS
tlfy the Government in resort to arms to put it
down, that Government is bound by the most
solemn obligations to do its utmost to cripple the
rebellion in every possible shape, and that what
evee or whoever places himself in opposition to
the Government in its efforts to put down the re.
be Ion, must stand from under and that the right
Of free speech is no more sacred than the right OF
lib rty and life and that it is no more violation
OF human rights to stop my talking against the
Government and the war, than to take me from
my family and march to the battle field, at the
psant of the bayonet, if necessary, and expose me
to the deadly shots of the enemy let my views
of. the aus tness of the war be what they may.
The Pre- sident, at the commencement OF the
war, called $4,000 into the battlefield on bis own
responsibility. Think you this was not as much
ara infringement of rights as the stopping of VAL
lxndigham's reasonable CAB Must our fathers
sad sons and brotht.s be torn from the fond EN-
brace of their mothers, wives, sisters and daugh
tess, almost frantic with grief, march to the scene
~ deadly conflict, undergo hardships and priva
tI0ne of the camp the deadly diseases of an un.
healthy climate and at last be made to purify tn
sIaVery-accursed soil of Virginia With their blood
and whiten it with their bones, and shall we ado
feathers weight to the intensity OF their suf r
iGg, or the sixtieth part of a second to its dura
toh, to give Vaandigham chance to belch hi
Maternal treason under the sacred garb of fire.
.1pseshP Stealing the livery of the court O
Heaven to serve the devil ia !, MethiDks th
answer comes from our boys in the field in tone