Indiana State sentinel. (Indianapolis, Ind.) 1861-1865, 1864-03-14
INDIANAPOLIS, ND, MONDAY,

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that the lands of the Southern States shall be-
come free soil, that is soil whereof white men
and negroes shall share in common ownership.
CO equals in all rights political and social
The constitutional rights of States and persons,
the canons of property, State laws. the principles
of public law, the spirit of Christianity and that
unconquerable instinct of nature which binds
men of the same race to each other as brother to
brother, may and Go stand in the the way of the
negro Utopia which philanthropy run mad sees
rising up on the sunny plains Of the South. But
what of thatf An oracle has said: This Union
cannot permanently endure half slave and half
Free" and the rights oil States guaranteed by the
Federal Constitution to make their own constitu-
tions OF local government, and their Own laws to
form and control their domestic institutions, are
no other than national wrongs before the higher
law of negro emancipation and elevation The
law of nations. Christianity, the natural instincts
OF kindred and race must yield to it: and it leaps
over or breaks down with impunity constitutional
limitations plainly written and made sacred by
time and the expositions of the most eminent ju-
risprudents. How much Of the partizan or ianat-
icai spirit of revenge. or of mean cupidity and
greed OF personal gain, or OF low political ambi-
ton meaner than averace, may mingle in the
motives of some of the ''loyal" men who are
urging forward this giant schemes TO subjugate,
impoy erish, expatriate, or exterminate millions
of kindred race Of white men, inheritors of the
names and homes of patriots and sages whose
names and deeds illuminate our history, for the
assumed benefit of race of black men and their
white CO equals. i am not now prepared TO say,
but the history of this war thus far in the details
of ts expressions and devastaiions in its reckless
expenditures and official frauds its army and
navy contracts, its cotton and sugar specuations,
and kindred schemes f"loyal" enterprise, afford
heart sickening revelations to men who love
their country, and watch with care tie progress
of events.
As | have already remarked, there are two
leading ideas In the minds of Administration
menas to the ways and means of accomplishing
the schemes of the party in power. The one is
the idea of men who from temperament or con
seryative political education, other causes,
are timid men, and by strategy and indirection
would achieve destructive and revolutionary OBJ
jects through the use of constitutional forms
To this class, which may be styled the conser-
vative party in the Administration, the President
himself naturally belongs. The other idea is
that of the radicals Of the Administration party;
men vino originate and lead and shape revolu-
ton; men of more robust intellect. clearer men
tai vision. more energy of will and directness of
purpose than the President and his conservative
adherents; men of the stamp-ifi il may so say
of the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr.. Ste
vens.l whose amendment would sweep away at
once all the cobwebs of constitutional technical
tiles by which more timid and less clear sighted
men ofhis parry would stop the onward progress
of juggernaut of confscation, whereon the negro
idol sits elthroned. The tmd men want alb
solute confscation. 1t opens before them wide
field where revenge. philanthropy. and " loyalty"
can all get profit and substantial reward. The
Constitution is lion in their path; wall in
their way; a fortress and a rock of defense to
rights of States and rights of person aud proper
ty. A bold man, a revolutionist, like the gentle
man from Pennsylvania. would, if need be, at
once strike the ramparts of the Constitution, or
push it aside as an unwritten parchment if it lay
in his pathway. The gentleman from Ohio, Mr..
Garfeld,l with the elasticity of youth. but the
discretion of age. would not rush deliriously
against the Constitution. but would overleap il
at bound. Conservative legislators here, less
bold than the gentleman from PENNSYLVANIA, and
less elastic than the gentleman from Ohio, while
protesting desire to do nothing contrary to it,
would crawl over, under, or around the Consti-
tuition, into the elysium Of national salvation and
universal freedom which they see beyond it,
Herein is the cardinal difference between the
two wings or divisions Of the Administration
party, aud the President seems neither by nature
nor in fact to be the leader of either but to take
his color and his cue from ore side the other,
as the pressure or need Of support from either
may from time to to time be greatest. Barring
my utter adherence of the revolutionary pur-
for their methods, is with the radicals. With
them, we, whose duty it is to stand IN defense of
the Constitution, krow we viii have an open field
and fair battle From man who openly curses
the Constitution we know what to expect. Not
SO as TO him who would betray it with kiss.
The war power, the mail clad, slaughter
breathing, remorseless Mars, is the divinity the
gentleman from Pennsylvania Mr.. Stevens] calls
to his aid. This war power. which, in the form it
now assumes, was unseen and unsuspected i'm the
placid, beautiful features of the Federal Consti-
iuten, has suddenly sprang from il, full armed.
like Pallas from the brain OF Jove; or l might
better say thatlike the little cloud larger than
a mans hand, which Elisha saw from the top of
Carmel coming up from the horizon Of the sea,
the war power has grown and spread from a
misty, dimly seen nebula, until its deep dark
shadow covers the land like pail, and men gaze
on it
"As men who watch the thunder cloud in fear,
Les. it should break above them
This war power as it is now sought to be ap-
piled to our jurisprudence is not constitutional
instrument, but revolutionary invention of rad
ieal minds. 1t is no legitimate child ofthe Con-
stitution it does not bear its lineamehts. Nor is
il the child of the President; it has in it nothing
of his intellectual or physical conformation. Il
has been brought to him as an ally and helper;
something whereon he might lean, and to some
extent he has used il. He has used it to effect
the radical end of the emancipation of the slaves
He used it f-st for this purpose with hesitation,
with repugnance aud great misgvDg He
! thought procia of emancipation under the
war power would be thunder without the
bolt or the electric shock, or like the Pope's
bull against the comet. But the Pres-
| dents mind is changeful What he thinks or
declares to-day he may not think or declare
or abide by tomorrow What the President
used doubtingly aud timidy at first, but now
with use is growing enamored, boys grow in
love with their first firearms, be il gun or pistol,
and men grow pleased with power by using 1t,
the gentlemen from Pennsylvania has no fear
| nor doubt in using He marches boldly up to
the issue Of confiscation. and claims it, not a
! punishment for treason under the Constitution
but as beiligerent right of the conqueror over
the conquered, outside of the Constitution.
Against the theory of the inviolability of the
| constitutional Federal Union, State rights the
rights OF property and person under Federal and
State constitutions, placed in one scale. he
boldly throws into the opposing claim what Will
! liam Pincknev once aptiy termed "the ponderous
claim OF war" By secession and revolution. in
the view of the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
the Southern people have become alien enemies.
\ We have invaded and conquered their territories,
and bysathe power of war emancipated their
slaves within our reach. Their lands are our
property. and they and their slaves our subjects.
/ The Federal Government is sovereign over both
by the laws of war. and all that remains is to le-
gisate as 20 the division of the conquered lands.
| and TO organize and protect the new order of
freedmen and freedmen's socesy to be established
there. This is the theory and plan of the gentle
man from Pennsylvania, and in il the conhscation
law pure and unlimited is to play its part. 1t is
| a bold plan, claiming the EXTREMIST principles
1 of The law Of nations for its base, and not the