Columbia Democrat and Bloomsburg general advertiser. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1850-1866, 1864-07-02

MEN OF Quo :-To-day am again
10 your midst, and upou the soil OF my
native State. To-day l am once more
within the district which for ten years ex-
tended to me the highest confidence, and
three times honored me as its Rcpresen-
tative in the Congress of the United States.
| was accused of no crime. against the
Constitution or laws, and guilty of none.
| But whenever and wherever thus charged
upon me by due process of law, | am now
here ready to answer before any civil court
oil competent jurisdiction, to jury of my
coun,rymcn and in the meantime, 10 give
bail in any sum which any judge or court
State or Federal, may afix; and you,
the hundred and eighto-siX thousand Dem
ocrats of Ohio offer as my surelies -
Never for one tour have remained in ex.
lie because ! recognized any obligation of
obedience to the unconstitutional and ar.
bitrary cdict. Neither didper sonal fear
ever restrain me. And to-day l return Of
my own act and pleasure, bccaase it is my
constitutional and legal right to reiurn.-
Only by an exercise of arbitrary power,
itself against the Constitution and law, and
consummaed by military force, l was alb
ducted from my home and forced into
Punishment. The assertion or insinuatiou
OF the President that was arrested ''be.
cause laboring with some effect to prevent
the raising of troops and to encourage
desertions from the army" and was re-
sponsible for the numerous acts Of resis
tance to the draf. and to the arrest of de.
serters, causing assassination, manning
and murder !" or that at any time, iu any
way, had disobeyed or failed to counsel
obedience 10 the lawful authority, or even
10 the semblance of law,is absolutely false.
| appeal for the proof to every speech
ever made upon those questions, ard to the
very record of the Mock Military Com
mission, by the trial and sentence of which
was outraged. No the sole otfense
then laid to my charge was words of crit
icsm of tho public policy of the admins
rta'ion, addressed to open and public po-
Utica meetings Of my fellow citizens of
Ohio, lawfully and peacefully assembled
And to-day my only "crime" Us, that in
the way which they call treason, worship
the Constitution Of my fathers. But now
for more than one year, no public man
has been arrested, and no newspaper sup.
pressed within the States adhering still to
the Union, for the expression of political
opinion; while hundreds, in public Assem-
oily and through the press, have, with a
license and violence in which | never an
dulged, criticised and condemned the acts
aud policies of the administration. and de-
bounced the war, maintaining even the
proprieIy and necessity of the recognition
of Southern independence.
Endorsed by nearly two hundred thous-
aud ireeIheu oil the Democratic party OF
my native State, at the late election, and
still with the sympathy and support OF
millions more, do not mean any longer
TO be the only man of that party who is to
be the victim of arbitrary power. If Abra-
ham lincoln seeks my life, let him so de-
clare but he shall not again restrain me
of my personal liberty, except upon "due
process of law" The unconstitutional
and monstrous "Order of Thirty-eight'
under which alone I was arrestrd thirteen
mouths ago, was defined and spit upon at
your State Convention at 1868, by the
gallant gentleman who bore the stand ard
as your candidate for Lieutenant Govern.
or, and by every Democratic press aud