The Placer herald., 1864-08-20

yourself whether you can spare the liberty
of conscience also. But 90 farther, and
assert that it is a violation of conscience
to consent to an iniracIion of the Constitu.
| ton while it remains the supreme law Of the
land. | appeal to every naturalized citizen
within the sound Of my voice, if he has not
taken solemn oath before his Maker to
support the Constitution of the United States!
But do you call it supporting the Con
stitution if you assist in or assent to its vio
lation! and surely the supporting Of the
Constitution and laws is not less obligatory
upon native born than upon naturalized
citizen. But you will inquire what concIu,
sion | intended to deduce from these argu
ments will tell you; and would to God
that every citizen Of ;his State, to whatsoever
party he may belong, would ponder wei
what am going to say.
There are tens Of thousands Of citizens o
this State who firmly believe that they have
the constitutional right to discuss and freely
criticisa the official acts of all their public
servants from the President down to the
city policeman, holding themselves amenable,
not to the military but to the civil tribunals,
for any understandable abuse of that right.
They believe farther, that if charged with
an otfense when not in the military or naval
service of the United States Government
they have right TO be tried in tho civil
courts according to the ordinary forms Of
law.
They believe that all these rights among
others are clearly guaranteed to them by
the Federal Constitution, and that an inva-
sion of any Of these rights, either by the
President of the United States, or by any o>
his officers, is an inraction of the Constitu
tion itself, to which they cannot, without 4
violation Of conscience, voluntarily submit
The practical question then arises: Wha,
is Major General Mcdowell to do with all
these people2 Will he arrest and send them
all to Alcatraz prison as he did by the un
fortunate Weller, for the purpose Of dieting
them into change Of opioon9
tell you that there are not prisons
enough in California to hold them; and not
only that, but for every freeman who is i'm.
prsoned in violation Of law, there will arise
in the land one hundred enemies of military
despotsm.
Why, sir, the sight of weeping widows,
robbed of their husbands, and of children
left destitute aud fatIerless. would do more
for the cause of constitutional liberty than
could the matchless eoqnence of a Burke or
a Patrick Henry. The very prison walls
would raise their voice against the despotic
deed. There is no eloquence like the eIo
quence which comes from the dark dungeon,
whose deep and awful silence is only broken
by the dismal canking of the patriots
chains. &.
| concede that by the unbrided use of
military power you may for time hush the
audible murnurinss Of complaining peo
pie, but the lyrant has never yet learned the
art Of forging tetlers for the immortal spirit
Of liberty.
The fiery spirit Of discontenled and
downlrodden people. burning with a hidden
but constantly increasing fury, all the more
terrible for being clrcumscrIbed and fed with
additional fuel in the shape of new wrongs,
will sooner or later burst forth with power
which nothing can withstand
Why sirs, nearly three years ago, the
military authorities inaugurated throughout
the North and Northwest the odious and
tyrannca policy of arresting, mprisoning
and exiting citizens for exercising their con-
stitutionaI rights of free speech, and for
time the voice of patriotism was hushed
into silence And what has been the fruit
Of that policy!
Why, sir, more than twelve months ago,
it required General Dix with 10000 troops
from the regular army to check the uprising
of the people in the single city of New York,
and now that the telegraph brings US the
startling news that in tho Northwest there
are five hundred thousand men banded to-
ge'her for the purpose Of overhrowing the
Federal authorities; that Vallandigllam has
refused to remain in exile-has returned to
his Old home, where he stands shaking his
fists defianlly in the very teeth of the Presi
dent. Whether it is through returning
sense of justice, or through sense of fear
which actuates the President in allowing
VaIlandigham that liberty which was once
denied him, | shall not now undertake to
decide But if it is a sense of fear, then |
submit in all candor, il it would not have
been better, far better, never to have placed
himself in 50 Lumilialing a position before
the country and to the world, as to have
inaugurated a policy towards its own citizens
which he dare not now attempt to carry out.
But on the other hand, if as | would gladly
believe, it is a returning sense of justice
which has induced the President to allow
VaIIandgham and others the liberty of speech
and of locomolion, let him extend the same
privileges to us in California They are
privileges most dear and sacred to US, "and
dangerous to tyrants only"
l read a few days ago in an Eastern corr
respondence of the most loyal of all news
papers, the San Francisco Flag, a statement
to the effect that California was Gy far the
most loyal State in the Union. Well, why
is it 500 will tell you. Here we have felt
less the crushing weight of arbitrary military
power than they have elsewhere. General
Wright having been long in the country
understood and appreciated the spirit and
temper of our people, and with few eXcep
lions he ljsDlaved the GOOD sense and manly