The Bedford gazette. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1805-current, 1863-05-29
LETTER FROM A. oAKEY HALL.

DISTRICT ATTORNEYS OFF,cE, !
May IL, 1863.
My DEAR SIR: With regret find an iinper-
alive and unexpected out-of-town engagement
preventing my active participation in the meet
ing 50 opportunely called.
Al the last state election Withdrew from the
Republican organization, not only because
could not accept its naw dogma of military e.
Emancipation, and its dangerous doctrine that
war crisis sanctioned departures from constitu-
tional landmarks whenever executive discretion
SO willed, but because the organization indorsed
gross outrages upon free press and free speech
found it more agreeable to consort with old
political foes who opposed these dogmas, de-
partures, and outrages, than to remain with old
friends, but new enemies to approved constitu-
;ionaI rights.
In sanctioning BY even silence the unm:liia.y
espionage, unmilitary rhetoric, and "Bonba".
site acts of Major General Burnside, President
Lincoln has practically confessed that the old
Republican cry for free speech and free press
was one simply of partisan abstraction; for
when that cry presented practical issue Pres
ident Lincoln was found first thrusting muskets
into the office of q Philadelphia editor and
next conveying private citizen of Ohio (wbere-
in no hostile foe had entered) into another ssatA,
by process of sword and bayonet to bs tried
by drum-head court-mrtial for the "otfense" of
making speech, which neither in zeal nor in
epithet approached the warmth and coatulnely
which Congressman Lincoln had employed in
his January QS48) speech against Presidsns
Polk and the Mexican war!
1t must ever be source of regret to tAA
members of the bar flew of whom are tinctured
with the fanaticism that blinds judgrnent) tha.
q city member of high position, and who in the
field had proved himself a gallant and chivar-
ric soldier, should have presided over the un-
constitutional court which passed upon the case
of Mr.. Vallandigham. What glory for tho
New-York bar it would have been had Brigsr
dier General Robert b. Potter said to his te,-
low-members of the court, in the menorab.e
language of Junius: ''If an honest, and mar
truly affirm q laborious zeal for the public SER
vice has given me any weight in your esteem,
let me exhort and conjure you never to suffer
an invasion of your political constitution (how-
ever minute the instance may appear) to pass By
without a determined, persevering resistance
One precedent creates another. They soon ac-
cumulate and constitute law. What yesterday
was fact to-day is doctrine. Examples are sup
posed to justify the most dangerous measures;
and where they do not suit exactly the defect
is supplied by analogy BE assured that the
laws which protect us in our civil rights grow
out of the Constitution, and thas they must
fall or flourish with it" And continuing the
quotation permit me to add las if nv own ex-
preston of feeling in respect to the Valandl.
CHAM precedent), ths IS not the cause Of facto,,,
o. Of party, or Of any indiU,duai, but the common
interest Of euery man IN Anerica]"
Your obedient servant
A. OAxEY HAIL
Hon. Gideon j. Tuckcr, Chairman Of Inv;-
tation Committee