Washington telegraph., 1863-06-03

people of the United States. They have los
their liberty. Their government has been de.
stroyed. The labors of their revolutionary
sires are lost. They are the subjects of mill
tary despotism. Their rights of property, Of
lie, OF liberty, are subject to the arbitrary
VIII OF tyrant. They have been found un-
worthy of so great boon as freedom, and il
has been taken away.
We congratulate ourselves and our country
men upon the contrast which the South pre-
sents. Our judicial tribunals still take careful
cognizance of any and all cases affecting the
personal liberty of the citizens. Whilst they
sustain with patriotic purity the military au-
thority in all its legitimate powers, they con-
tinue to draw the lines more plainly betwe en-
the constitutional powers of the civil and mill
tary departments.
Our government, for which we sacrifice and
and laws. Whilst they are supreme the gov
| eminent exists. We have something to fig hit
for something to preserve and love. 1t is not
the President, nor the abinet, nor the Secre-
Generas-great or small-who constitute our
cause. To us they are only indi viduals, worthy
of atfectionate reverence or respectful regard.
only so far as they sustain truly our cause.
and are found faithful servants of that govern
ment built up by the will of the States, and
called the Southern Confederacy.
But they are not our government, nor is it
for their individual interest or aggrandizem ent
that we offer our lives and property The
Constitution is the embodiment of our Govern
ment. By that Congress is created as its
mouth-piece, under proper restrictions to de-
clare its laws, and the President is agent to
enforce them. But the Judiciary is crea ted as
its grand conservator, to take care that Con-
gress does not exceed the limits of its agency.
and that no other power shall transgre:s the
laws which may be rightfully enacted Under
the workings of this highest form of govern
ment, the judiciary sits serenely elevated above
the fierce contests of military and political
ambition; and whilst it calls to the support of
all rightful authority the combined force of
all the country;if by chance any arm should be
stretched beyond its legitimate sphere of power
it is withered in an instant.
Officers high and low, civil and military, are
but the creatures of the Constitution and laws
They owe their existence to the same superior
power which created the judiciary to control
them. They become false to our cause when
| they wilfully prostitute the powers conferred
upon them in sacred trust, to the purpose of
defying the laws, despising the courts, and
usurping authority, bounded only by their
own sense of propriety, or more or less honest
views of military necessity. They lay impious
hands upon the power which gave them birth
They are matricides The people dare not
trust their liberties to the will of mortal and
erring man, however just and rirtuous he may
be. Arbitrary power is tolerable by freemen
in the hands of Him only who cannot err.
The war powers exercised by Congress it
self, and conferred upon the President and
war department, are vast and ample. If not,
let the people through Congress, and in the
mode and limits prescribed by the Constitu-
ton. confer a still greater trust But we can
not admit the plea of necessity for any usurpa-
ton. We need not destroy our government to
defend it. The government is the very thing
itself for which we contend. For that alone
are Generals and armies permissible in a land
of freedom. Whenever power rises superior
to the constitutional laws of Congress to set
them aside, the government adopted by the
states of the South, and called the ''Confede-
rate States of America is at an end. new
government takes its place and usurps its ter
ritory. The government of military despot-
ism-if established by force and without the
will of the people No one owes any allegi-
ance to that. Should the evil day arise, every
true citizen of the Confederacy ewes his ale
glance to the Constitution, and is bound to as
sert its supremacy and strike down the usurpa-
ton.
Meanwhile, upon our courts devolve the
duty and the power of sustaining this govern
ment against domestic abuse. Upon Congress
devove the duty and the power of creating
and sustaining armies to defend it against
foreign assaults or dome. &c violence. Upon
the executive department devolve the duty and
the power of governing and directing those
armies. Over all is the Constitution.
Congress makes the laws. and the President
executes them; but the courts construe them.
They see to it that both the laws themselves,
and the actions of its ministers are within the
limits prescribed; and correct all abuses. This
it does by its writs. If personal liberty is
violated, by writ of Habeas Corpus. If pro-
perty is unjustly taken, by writ of Replevin.
If unavoidable injury is threatened, by writ of
Injunction. For every evil there is a writ.
These writs, ''robed me ssengers" of the law,
are the instruments of liberty the conserva-
tors of the Constitution. Silent as the sun
light and the dews of heaven, like them they
pervade the whole social organization. Be-
meath their genial influence the tree Of liberty
strikes root deeply with irresistible power, and
waves its sheltering branches wide on every
sile. The golden haIvests of industry are
surely ripened and garnered. In the calm and
shady retreats afforded by the luxuriance of
d teeming prosperity, the sciences which in
crease human power, and the arts which en-
noble mankind, are fostered by the gifted ones
of earth; whilst in the sacred precincts of the
domestic circle, aud beneath the domes, and
spires, and humber sanctuaries, consecrated