Daily union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1865-1866, 1865-12-20

is radically changed. Power is always steal
ing from the many to the few. All history
teaches us the easy transition Of governments,
popular and protective, into those oligarchic'
and oppressive. No time is so propitious
for purloining the jewels of civil liberty, as
that Immediately succeeding civil war. And
such time il on US now.
There is but one mode in which republican
governments can be preserved from this dan
ger. The people must require strict adj
herence to the letter of the organic
law, and visit prompt and stern condemna-
ton upon those of their servants, who, in
their official conduct, violate this paramount
rule. Each single enlargement of power is
an encroachment ON personal liberties, and
should never be permitted to pass unchal-
lenged. One but payes the way for another,
and each succeeding one grasps at a greater
and dearer right, until government becomes
strong enough to seize with violence the
remainder, or by the sophistical plea of state
necessity, bewitch the people into surrender
ing it. There are two systems Of constru-
ing constitutions; one is known as the lati-
tudinarian, the other the strict. At all times
the latter is the safer, but now, it is the very
sheet-anchor Of our safety.
The powers Of free peoples constitution
only "slumber when they have passed into
the hands of those who have designs upon
the peoples liberties. They were placed
there for the protection of the people, and
not for the purpose Of erecting splendid
machine called government To correctly
construe the constitution, is not to torture
its spirit and letter, in order to ascertain
how much Of the personal rights of free
man may be taken to aggrandize the power
Of government; it is rather, to learn how
much of personal liberty may be vouch-
safed to him, consistently with the stability
of government This term "slumbering
powers" has recently played an important
part in an official argument, for the pur-
pose of maintaining the first Of these propo-
sitions. We protest against it as contrary
to the genius of free institutions, and be-
yond the legitimate scope of popular gov
ernment The true theory presupposes the
capacity of the people for selfgovernment;
and in constructing it, they have only dele
the preservation of society, and the bare
necessities Of government require. All else
they have reserved. The President of the
United States has very frequently, in his
addresses to the people, put this question in
a strong and homely light when he has de-
clared that the people are represented by
the foot, and that government is but the
shoe which should be made to fit it,
In this issue is involved, all the franchises
which fremen hold dear--the haJeas corpus
the right peaceably to assemble and pc
from unwarrantable
search and seizure-the right of represen-
tation to the degree they are lakeland all
the other privileges which are precious as the
blood which has been shed to buy them.
The power to deprive even the humblest
citizen Of any one Of them, or any other
right unforfeited by crime, Mr.. Speed can
not find "slumbering" in the constitution.
That power sleeps in the depths of the grave,
in which our fathers fondly hoped they had
buried the last vestige of monarchical prin-
ciple, which could dare to assert itself in
this country. 1t will be an evil day for
popular liberty, when a vitiated public SEN
timent shall permit it to be resurrected.