The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1863-02-20

The pulpit is joining with the press in its
attempt to stife the freedom of discussion,
and to deprive the people Of the rights Of
their constitutional torn of government.
Last Sunday, Rev. DR.. BELLOWS of New
York, declared in favor of making the
President "the State" and subjecting all
government to his individual control. In
his sermon, which is published in full, he
maintains that the government OF this
country is on the shoulder of the
President that he can truly say,
with LOUIS Fourteenth, The State,
IT IS l." This doctrine, which clothes the
President at once with the name and the
power of an unlimited despot, which sets
aside the Congress and the Supreme Court
as no part of the government, which sup
presses the liberty of discussion, and sub
ordinates the wisdom and will of twenty
three millions of people to the will of one
man-whose oath of office to support the
Constitution is made the pretext for cloth
ing him with an official right to overthrow
it-this doctrine is elaborated by DR.. BEL
LOWS in the following very pregnant SEN
fences:
IT, at this moment we all felt as we ought
to feel that the authority Of the President OF
the United States was sufficient rallying cry
1,~f1,
or constitutional and the reserved rights of the
people; that his oath of office was solemnly
binding, not only on him, but also on us, for
whom he took it; that his will, in time of
civil war and universal public danger, was a
will having an official right to our reverence
and obedience, we should escape the only ut
terly irremediable danger by which we are
threatened. To rally round the President
without question or Disputes the first and
most sacred duty of loyal citizens, when he
announces, not that the Constitution merely,
but that the national life and existence are in
peril. He is the official Judge of this, and if
we do not accept his testimony, we have moth
ing to trust to. Remember that his opinions
| are not personal, but official; not matters OF
individual judgment, or taste, or party, but re-
sultants of the knowledge and counsel, and
wisdom of his constitutional advisers; that he
speaks as the government and for the govern
ment, with all the wisdom and capacity the
government has.
This novel and revolutionary doctrine,
which suddenly converts all government
into the Zone man power, and makes the
President the Dictator, above all laws, is
only carrying out the ideas which DR.. BEL
LOWS is reported in a former discourse as
enunciating in such solemn and tremen-
dous words as these:
1t is no longer war in defence of the Union,
the Constitution and the enforcement of the
laws. 1t is a war to be carried on no longer
with the aim of re-establishing the Union and
| the Constitution with all their old compro-
misses. God means not to let us off with any
halfway work. l am now convinced, and
consider it the most humane, the most econom-
ical, and the most statesmanlike policy, now to
take the most radical ground possible, to as
| sumo that this is a war for the subjugatiOn, or
the determination, of all persons who wish to
maintain the slave pOwer-a war to get rid OF
slavery and of shareholders, whether it be con-
stitutiOnal Or not