The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1863-05-29
The ValIandigham Case.

1t is healthy sign of the times that the
lie ading Administration journals have had
the good sense to condemn the arrest of
VALLANDIGTAM, as an illegal assumption
of military power, and fraught with ex-
IRENE danger to public liberty and the
peace of the country. The Erening Post
has well considered and manly article,
which we have printed on our second page,
and which we commend to all whose pre-
JUDGES against the accused may have led
them into momentary forgetfulness Of
the rights of American citizens and of
constitutional law, which have been so fla
GRAVITY violated. The New York Tribune,
the most ultra of the abolition papers,
takes this view:
Mr.. Clement L. Vallandigham is Pro-Sla-
very Democrat of an exceedingly coppery hue.
His politics are as bad rs bad can be; if there
were penalties for holding IRRATIONAL unpatri-
otto and inhuman views with regard to politi-
cal questions, he would be one of the most fla
grant offenders. But our Federal and State
Consultations do not recognize perrerse opinions,
nor mpatriotic speeches as grounds of infiction,
beyond tile infection Of the speeches themselves,
and then the bearer suffers the penalty, not the
speaker. So we don't exactly see how Mr. V.
is to be lawfully punished for making bad
speech, unless by compelling him to make it to
empty seats.
The best men of the country, are al
most unanimous in condemnation of BURN
SIDES course, and believe he has now
knocked his head against thicker wall
and precipitated himself into more dan
gerous collision than when he attempted
to storm the stronghold on the Rappahan-
mock.
The younm Of Commerce., in speaking
of the grave error which has been commit
ted in the arrest of Mr.. VALLANDIGHAM,
says:
The substitution of the military for the civil
arm of power in the loyal States, is not only
dangerous to the future liberties of the country
in establishing a precedent, but is just now
most unfortunate in increasing and embittering
the division of the people Of the North. While
no one can see any possible good to be derived
from this arrest, every one can see the great
evils which will flow from it. We earnestly
beseech the friends of the Administration to
bring the matter before them in its true light,
a light in which it assuredly appears offensive
to American principles, and subversive of the
constitutional rights of the people
Is it possible for the extreme men, who urge
on measures of this kind, to see how fatal they
are to the unity of the people, that unity which
is essential to our prosperity in the war? Can
not some one drive. with wedge and hammer,
into the minds of men the great truth. which
history will discover if we do not, that such
proceedings as this has been do initiate against
the best interests of the nation?
We have no more sympathy with the
course which Mr.. VALLANDIGHAM has pur-
sued than with the utterances of Mr.. WEN
DELL PHILLIPS. They are both impracti-
cable theorists, but this fact is no reason
why their mouths should be shut, in free,
loyal States by military power, and the
dearest rights of the people trampled I'M
der foot by an epauletted despot. We
trust the Administration may be counsel
led by its best friends not to attempt this
thing. There is danger in it.